Many children and teenagers’ lives have been improved thanks to the efforts of the courts and the juvenile justice system throughout that time, but the system has also faced some terrifying obstacles (Feld, 2017). Problems and abuses in the juvenile justice system are all too widespread. The juvenile justice system is based only on punishment rather than rehabilitation, which has far-reaching social and political implications. Nearly 80,000 juveniles and 12,000 minors are incarcerated in facilities designed for adults.
Existing juvenile justice rules and practices often contradict our long-held tenets about equal fairness under the law and the role of the juvenile justice system, as they assume young age and receptivity to rehabilitation, cause permanent collateral implications, waste taxpayer money, and have a negative impact on youth. Most state systems are unfair to people of different races, have inadequate mental health and addiction management programs, and issue disproportionately harsh authorizations for minor offences committed by nonviolent adolescents. Public safety is put at risk when governments and municipalities adopt costly, excessive correctional methods that have repeatedly been shown to have the poorest outcomes for juveniles, their families, and the public, including higher recidivism rates and criminal violence. Even though the United States Supreme Court has ruled three times that minors are legally treated differently from adults, these laws and practices continue to be enforced.
More than three million kids, teens, and young adults are formally involved in the juvenile justice system every year, as shown by research by Zhang & He (2018). Twenty to thirty percent of these kids, teens and young adults are dealing with severe emotional difficulties. More than three-quarters of juvenile delinquents have mental health problems. The vast majority of these cases would be better served outside the juvenile justice system, where they can be treated in a more private and less intrusive setting (Zhang & He,2018). The prevalent view now is that more young people are affected than ever before and that the rise of firearms, illegal substances and gangs will remain a severe societal problem. Minority adolescent teams are becoming more common, and this trend is only expected to accelerate in the years ahead. In contrast, adolescents’ drug options may expand in the future, and methamphetamine and cocaine remain the most popular among this age group. Children’s alcohol consumption will continue to be a problem, and there is no indication that this will change in the foreseeable future.
Additionally, there is a demographic of young people known as crossover. These are the young people who are currently or have previously been involved with both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Youths of colour, especially young women, are overrepresented among crossover participants. Adolescents who have been neglected or abandoned are likelier to start on the path to criminality. There is a high probability that these young people may experience mental health issues, academic difficulties, occupational difficulties, and threats to public safety (Flores, Hawes, et al., 2018). Synchronized, multi-system integration is more effective in addressing this issue for dually involved kids in several jurisdictions. For instance, the Arizona Supreme Court researched and found that drug-addicted children older than eight are likely to become involved with the court in criminal proceedings. Children aged 14 and up have a much higher risk (Elrod & Ryder,2020). Additionally, juvenile offenders with a history of court involvement due to addiction concerns are twice as likely to re-offend as those without such a history.
Another Challenge is that most young people under eighteen get into legal issues due to their illegal conduct or behaviours. Therefore, the actions or behaviours cause problems in the lives of the adults involved. Status offences include things like running away, skipping school, abusing restrictions, and drinking while underage. In 2009, it was predicted that 143,000 cases involving status offences would be heard in juvenile court. For 83.5 percent of these situations, the adolescents were either arbitrated or found guilty of their offence. About 6,700 cases mentioned above involved the permanent separation of a child from his or her family and the placement of the child in a residential facility with functions comparable to those of an adult jail (Amani, Milburn, et al., 2018). Family courts and jail facilities are never adequately prepared to prevent or solve status crimes since they invariably point to personal, household, community, and organizational problems. Prompt, family-centred alternatives to court involvement should be implemented nationwide. They effectively reduce court backlogs, save money for governments, and help youth and their families in the long term.
In addition, juvenile defenders have an essential role in protecting their client’s rights throughout the entire process, from the time of arrest and detention to the final disposition of the case. In order to be effective, juvenile advocates need to demonstrate a specialized set of skills, such as familiarity with adolescent psychology, familiarity with community-based resources, and the ability to enroll a parent or guardian without interfering with the attorney-client relationship. However, public defenders have difficulty representing minors since they lack expertise in adolescent development and are therefore restricted to working as juvenile professionals. They do not comprehend how to employ public safety claims or keep juveniles \ in children’s courts. Because youthful defence attorneys provide critical protection against unfair and function as a necessary counterbalance in a system that might result in unfavourable outcomes for juveniles, these problems can be solved. We can guarantee that juvenile court defendants receive competent representation by establishing new standards for the defence of juveniles and providing adequate training to current defence attorneys.
Judicial report from the National Research Council at the National Academies should be judicial responses to juvenile offenders grounded on the growing body of research on adolescent brain development and tailored to each offender’s unique needs and context. The National Research Council (2013) provides data showing that teenagers lack the cognitive maturity to make decisions that require long-term planning and forethought, and they are more susceptible to external variables such as rapid reinforcement and peer influence. Juvenile courts are not an appropriate venue for transferring responsibility procedures from adult criminal courts. According to Savage, Reese et al. (2017), the present juvenile justice system, which depends mainly on imprisonment similar to the criminal justice system, regularly denies young adults of three primary conditions that are fundamentally critical to healthy childhood development that is active participation by a foster parent, friends that embrace positive interaction and academic accomplishment, and activities that enhance critical thinking skills and decision-making capabilities. Imprisonment, in particular, should be used only in exceptional cases, such as when a kid poses a genuine threat to the safety of others.
In conclusion, Reforms are required if the juvenile justice system is to achieve its goals of holding adolescents accountable, avoiding recidivism, and treating them fairly. A specific state and ethnic administration should establish task forces to assess the current juvenile justice systems and align policies, laws, and developing knowledge of adolescent development with scientifically-based plans. At each stage of the juvenile justice system, these parties should increase their efforts and relax any regulations that target or exclude minorities and marginalized overrepresented populations.
References
Amani, B., Milburn, N. G., Lopez, S., Young-Brinn, A., Castro, L., Lee, A., & Bath, E. (2018). Families and the juvenile justice system: Considerations for family-based interventions. Family & community health, 41(1), 55.
Elrod, P., & Ryder, R. S. (2020). Juvenile justice: A social, historical, and legal perspective. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Feld, B. C. (2017). The evolution of the juvenile court. New York University Press
National Research Council. (2013). Reforming juvenile justice: A developmental approach. National Academies Press
Savage, R. J., Reese, J. M., Wallace, S., Wang, T., Jester, T., Lowe, R., … & Durant, N. (2017). Overcoming challenges to care in the juvenile justice system: A case study and commentary. Pediatrics in Review, 38(1), 35-43.
Zhang, H., & He, N. P. (2018). Status, Issues, and Challenges of Chinese Juvenile Justice. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 34(2), 219-229.
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