The Juvenile Justice system should focus on rehabilitation because it addresses more of the needs of Juveniles and helps them become better members of society. The article Public Willing to Pay More for Rehabilitation of Juvenile Offenders states “nine out of ten people surveyed believe that ‘almost all you who commit crimes have the potential to change. (Public Willing to Pay More for Rehabilitation of Juvenile Offenders, 2009), Rehabilitation gives evenings the chance to learn that they have the potential to change as well. They educate Juveniles about how their behavior affects not only them, but society as well. They learn that their actions will hurt other people. They also teach ways to help juveniles change their behavior and find other ways of coping with things. They learn that If they keep acting this way, when they are older, life will not be as easy on them and they will only land themselves in Jail.
Without rehabilitation, Juveniles most likely will not learn how to change their ways, therefore lead them an adulthood filled with instant visits to Jail cells. Rehabilitation also gives juveniles the attention they need. They learn why the Juvenile has committed a crime. A lot of Juvenile delinquents have come from a broken past. A lot of them have homes that are not suitable. Rehabilitation can help them get away from that so they can start over. Some juveniles act out because they do not do well in school e ability .
R n taxation can tint t someone who can tutor them and help them get where they are supposed to be. Some Juveniles have gone through experiences that normal youth do not go through. Rehabilitation can help them learn to deal with those emotion from the experiences. To understand why we should focus on rehabilitation, we must know how it impacts law enforcement, court processes, probation, corrections, community services and intervention programs. If rehabilitation is completed correctly can reduce the workload of these programs.
Juveniles who complete rehabilitation are less likely to re-offend, law enforcement can focus on other Juveniles. Those who have completed rehabilitation or is on their way to completion are less likely to add to the court’s Rockford. Those who complete it can have a shorten probation, therefore letting the probation officer move on to the next Juvenile. It can decrease the number of juveniles incarcerated in the corrections system. Community services and intervention programs may gain an increase of Juveniles in their programs because juveniles are doing what their rehabilitation program commands.
The community will benefit from having more Juveniles work in the community service program and intervention programs. To understand why we should focus on rehabilitation, we also deed to understand why punishment should not be the focus of the Juvenile Justice system. The definition of punishment, on Google. Com, is the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. In the case of a Juvenile, punishment addresses that they have done an unacceptable act. Punishment are made to be unpleasant; by being unpleasant, it is supposed to act as a deterrent to unacceptable acts.
Punishments does not address any type of social or mental processes that many contribute to a Juvenile delinquency. It does not address why a Juvenile might have omitted an unacceptable act. Rehabilitation will address these issues. According to Day et al, in North America 96 percent of Juveniles re-offend after being released from custody. Most offend the reason released youths re-offend is because the reason why they offended were not addressed. They also state that those that receive rehabilitation have a significantly lower rate of recidivism. Day et al, 2004) Punishment also have a very large price associated with it. Facilities that are for punishment must provide food, clothing, shelter, and educational serves to each venial that is incarcerated. According to the American Civil Liberties, the cost to incarcerate one child for one year can be between $35,000 and $64,000. (The American civil liberties union, 1996) If they were to incarcerate one hundred juveniles, at the most it would cost $6,400,000. Rehabilitation is considered to cost way less than that amount.
According the Juvenile Justice article, focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation is “leading to more repeat offenders, and ultimately, depriving both society and the offenders themselves of their full potential. ” (The League of Young Voters. 009) The reasoning behind this is that juveniles are being punished for their Juvenile delinquent acts but are not necessarily learning how to reenter society as productive members. Also punishment has been said to increase Juvenile delinquency slightly more than it has decreased it.
Rehabilitation has many advantages, but it also has disadvantages. The advantages of rehabilitations are that it addresses the need of the Juvenile and can be customized to their needs. If a Juvenile needs more services, then services can be given. Also rehabilitation will nave experience in dealing Witt certain type to evenings after having had taken cared of a previous Juvenile, so they will understand the situation more clearly in order to help the Juvenile deal with problems and issues.
It also costs a lot less than it would if we focused on punishment. As I stated in the paragraph above, if they were incarcerate one hundred Juveniles, at the most it would cost $6,400,000. Rehabilitation averages an amount of $10,000 per child per year. If they were to pay for one hundred Juveniles to have rehabilitation, at the most it would cost $1,000,000. That is $5,400,000 dollars less than what it would cost to pay or incarceration. Another advantage is it is more likely to work than punishment would. Also many people favor rehabilitation.
A disadvantage of rehabilitation is that the programs must be in very good shape to produce the most favorable results. If the program does offer the right kind of help, the rehabilitation will not work for the juvenile. Also adequate staffing and funding can be a disadvantage if they come in short supply. The advantages of rehabilitation outweighs the disadvantages. To give an example of how rehabilitation can work, we can look at the example of different orgasm rehabilitation can offer. Group therapy is one example.
According to a research Journal called Advantages of Group Therapy in Relation to Individual Therapy for Juvenile Delinquents”, a main reason why group therapy works more so than individual therapy because it allows the therapist to take a moderate role and allow the Juvenile delinquents to challenge themselves to figure out issues they deal with and overcome. (Young, 1971). This means during the session, Juvenile delinquents have to take an active role over the therapist. Also this research showed positive effects of group therapy.
It can help reduce the Juvenile delinquents from reactivating because they are able to draw on each other experiences. Group Housing is also an example of rehabilitation. Group housing offers a strong advantage for Juvenile while going through the rehabilitation process. A lot of articles have said sometimes during the time of rehabilitation, going back to the same environment is not good when trying to make a change in one’s life. Group housing offers a lot of services that Juvenile delinquents need, they can get that and have a safe environment to help with the transition back into society as a proper person.
Another example for rehabilitation is family therapy. Family therapy is an import part of the rehabilitation process for all Juvenile delinquents. Some research has shown that for many Juveniles, they come from families where there are a lot of kids so time is not always available and not each child gets adequate attention. Also some parents are not involved because they have issues themselves with things such as substance abuse, incarceration, and or poverty. Supportive families are needed to help Juveniles overcome difficult program experiences while going through the rehabilitation recess. Minced et al, 2008) Family therapy also allows the whole family to experience rehabilitation because the family gets the opportunity to process the situation of their Juvenile. Rehabilitation must be the focus of the Juvenile Justice system. Not being able to provide services to the Juvenile delinquent hurts not only the youth, but the community as well. Our message to the youth must always be that we have faith that they can be something better in life. We must always show them that we believe that they can change. This is where rehabilitation comes into play.
Rehabilitation decreases the chance that Juveniles will re-offend. Rehabilitation also reduces the overall coos TTS that the Juvenile Justice system would nave to pay tort the juveniles. A good quality rehabilitation can reduce the numbers of Juveniles in the system. Our future of a Juvenile is in rehabilitation, not punishment. Punishment can do but only so much during the time it is happening, it does not give the full affect as rehabilitation. This is why rehabilitation needs to be the focus of the Juvenile Justice system. Reference The League of Young Voters. (2009).
