Juvenile Justice: What's best?
Every state in our nation has laws restricting children from voting, serving on juries, and buying alcohol. All of these laws recognize that children do not have the emotional or mental maturity adults have to make certain decisions. Over incarcerating juveniles in the justice system is costly without producing the desired benefits.
The majority of America's incarcerated children are behind bars, not because they are violent, but because they committed property, drug and public order offenses (Stuart). Locking juveniles up will only expose youth to more violent behavior. Since these are youth, they fear being victimized and assaulted. This accompanies a need for security, so they eventually rely on gangs and weapons for survival. Youngsters in custody are routinely assaulted by staffers, sometimes even older inmates. The beatings were so severe that teeth were knocked out, bones were broken, and some kids were rendered unconscious (Cose). The Bureau of Justice statistics reported that some 13% of juveniles in confinement suffered from sexual victimization, the majority 80% from the people charged to look after them. The incarceration of a troubled kid with more troubled kids only causes more harm (McCollum). Many people speculate that incarcerating youth enhances public safety, but it doesn't.
The cost of incarceration is really expensive. Locking up one child is more than $200,000 annually, wasting tax payer dollars (Stuart). Nationwide, states continue to spend the bulk of their juvenile justice budgets $5 billion in the year 2008 to confine and house young offenders in incarceration facilities. This is too much money being wasted on youngsters who are not even threats to society. Other methods seem more reasonable; the state should treat and rehabilitate these young people instead of punishing them. The juvenile justice system does work: a 1996 Florida study found that youth transferred to adult prisons had approximately a 30% higher recidivism rate than youth who stayed in the juvenile system.
The rates of youth incarceration has dropped drastically. In her article, New Study Finds Dramatic Drop In Youth Incarceration Rates, Hing goes on to describe just how much the rates of youth have gone down. In 2010, there were 70,792 young people behind bars, compared to 107,637 in 95'. The nation's juvenile incarceration rate had dropped 41% from its peak in 1995. Similar reports showing a huge decrease in youth incarceration rates come from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:
Locking up young people has lifelong consequences, as incarcerated youth experience lower educational achievement, more unemployment, higher alcohol and substance abuse rates, and greater chances of run-ins with the law as adults...Our decreasing reliance on incarceration presents an exceptional opportunity to respond to juvenile delinquency in a more cost-effective and humane way - and to give these youth a real chance to turn themselves around.
The Casey Foundation, along with Julianne Hing point out that the state should instead dig down deeper and find out what caused these youth to become delinquents, instead these youth should be placed in community based programs as an alternative to being placed in prison.
Rehabilitation gives kids a second chance at being able to make it into society. In her article "The High Cost and Harm of Juvenile Detention Centers", McCollum goes on to talk about how surrounding children with strong community role models, instead of
other troubled kids can prevent the increase of violent behavior that seems to occur in prison. Rehabilitation is better for society in the long run than releasing someone who spent their entire young adult life in general population. The focusing on the certain issues that are associated with specific minority groups, rehabilitative strategies for criminal youth could become more beneficial. Individualized treatment inside integrated facilities represents progress in the right direction, reducing the potential for stigmatization of minority groups and preventing the labeling of certain individuals because of their racial backgrounds. (Humanity In Action)
The Department of Social and Health Services reported that in 2008, 3,452 youth received the services described: behavioral therapy, family integrated therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, as an innovative approach used to teach juvenile offenders behavioral skills to manage and control their behavior. The average cost per youth was $22,552, a lot cheaper than the cost of incarcerating a youth offender. Also, by working with these youth to help them become better citizens, we are no longer wasting tax payer dollars to punish children.
A lot of people argue that kids today are more sophisticated at a young age and that they understand the implications of violence and how to use violent weapons (Reaves). In Borkar's article, "Should Juveniles Be Tried as Adults", Borkar states a crime is a crime, no matter what age, and just because a kid commits a crime that does not mean that the crime was not committed and that the victim didn't suffer. So, according to Borkar harsh sentencing acts as a deterrent to kids who are considering committing crimes because light sentences don't teach kids the lesson they need to learn: If you commit a crime, you will spend a considerable part of your life in jail. Borkar's argument completely goes against the entire point of the juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system has a purpose, and that purpose is not to punish; it's to rehabilitate and help these children realize that they can change their lives despite of the crimes they committed.
The evidence supporting juveniles being rehabilitated is very factual and provides many statistics to support that claim. Unfortunately, the evidence that supports locking juveniles up as adults in prison is injustice and it lacks any persuasive reasons to prove why juveniles should be incarcerated. Juveniles shouldn't have to undergo the ordinary criminal process like the adults because their young age acts as a deterrent for placing them in any trials that adults would be in (Borkar). Psychologically speaking, they still have to mature, and the juvenile justice system realizes this and that is why juvenile delinquency punishments are less harsh than adults.
** You see, the parentheses are my sources, my English teacher told me to type in all of my sources. I just would love some feedback on what I should fix or If I need to remove anything. this is my FINAL and I just want to do an excellent job! Thanks to anyone who gives me feedback, it's gladly appreciated. :) **
-Jana
