Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Treatment Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Treatment
Name
Institution
Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Treatment
One of the things that have been witnessed lately is the fact that many young children disregard the authority of elders and do not accord them the much-needed respect while interacting with them. Some of these children often harass and bully weaker children under the pretense of normal. The teenagers also engage in wrongful acts regardless of the authority of their teachers or parents. Most of them cause havoc to their neighborhoods and do not consider other people when undertaking any actions. One of the scenes that can be recalled in 2010 is where one student referred to as Phoebe Prince decided to hang herself after she had enough bullying while in school (Sigel & Welsh, 2012). With as much as the perpetrators who pushed Phoebe were apprehended by the relevant authorities that did not bring back the young life that was prematurely cut short. Unfortunately, bullying is a common occurrence in most schools and the various stakeholders are not doing enough to avert it. The prevalence of this vice in our institutions of learning goes contrary to some of the inherent values of the schools which are to shape a young person to become a better person in the society and not a criminal. The government nonetheless has taken note of some of the vices that are being manifested by the young people and in a bid to curtail them; it has put up juvenile prevention and treatment programs. The sole purpose of these programs is to mitigate the number of teenagers who end up being delinquents in their adult life.
Prevention of delinquents is intended to ameliorate the lives of the juveniles whereas the goal of treatment is to deter the prevalence of criminals in the future. For the purpose of this paper, the youths refer to anyone who is below the age of 18 years. Delinquency nowadays is regardless of the gender due to the fact that the males and females alike perpetuate the vice. Treatment and the prevention are equally important and intertwined due to the fact that they both intend to mitigate the level of crimes among juveniles. This paper seeks to highlight the comparison and draw some contrasts between juvenile delinquency treatment and prevention. In doing so, the underlying principles and examples that describe the two processes will be adduced. The paper will also describe why the differences and similarities of both concepts are vital in any juvenile justice system.
Juvenile Delinquency Prevention
One of the main reasons why juvenile delinquency programs are put in place is to ensure that the young people within the society are persuaded to refrain from engaging in vices that will taint their image within the society. Prevention of juvenile delinquency is necessary in order to ensure that the youths become more productive individuals within the society. Juvenile crimes often stagnate the economic growth of a given country and usually affect the vast majority of the population. The juvenile prevention programs that have been put in place tend to improve the general welfare of a delinquent at the same time is to mitigate the number of young people who are likely to become criminals in their adult lives. There are various ways in which juvenile delinquency can be prevented within a given society. These include pre-schooling, home visitation, job training, mentoring and child skill training (Siegel & Welsh, 2012). The youths also need to be encouraged to undertake productive leisure activities in order to make use of their free time and finally, there should be interactive sessions either between the youths and their parents or any other adult who is able to guide them (Siegel & Welsh, 2012). This will ensure that the young people feel a sense of belonging and will be really occupied to think about committing crimes. Often the delinquent crimes occur due to idleness and having the wrong company of friends. These preventive activities tend not to subject the juvenile, who has some criminal tendencies, to some punitive actions but serves to accord them with appropriate methods of deterring from the criminal behavior (Gorgen et al, 2013). The activities further promote the manifestation of the fundamental rights of the young people and ensure that they are given the much-needed attention.
The fundamental principles of prevention and examples
The basic principles of juvenile delinquency prevention are to rehabilitate the life of a young person and also to mitigate the preponderance of crime among the youths. America, for example, has a number of cases of adolescent boys and girls who engage in violent crimes such as rape, manslaughter, murder, arson or assault. This prevalence of such crimes has led to the formation of The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (Miller, Hess & Orthmann, 2011). This office provides the framework for the implementation of preventive methods of deterring crime among the juveniles. After thorough research, the OJJDP came to the conclusion that juveniles who had guardians or parents who supervised them at school were unlikely to engage in violent crimes compared to their counterparts who either did not have guardians or their guardians did not involve themselves in their affairs. Some of the programs that the office held in a bid to prevent violent crimes among the youth include the Chicago Area Project. It was tailored to enhance the change in the behavior of the youths that were exposed to gang activity and delinquency (Siegel & Welsh, 2011).The project was designed to ensure that youths in the area were able to interact in constructive ways in order to derogate the gang affiliation that was prevalent in Chicago. Cambridge-Somerville Youth was another preventive program that was set out in Massachusetts with a vision of not only influencing the locals within the state but to have a global impact. This program was premised on some randomized controlled tests which were designed to improve the life of individuals would be beneficial to personalities and the community as a whole (Siegel & Welsh, 2011).
An Analysis of the Effectiveness of the Prevention
In order to discern the effectiveness of the prevention programs, one needs to look at the ramifications of the programs. Thus, the results of the prevention strategies would prove the effectiveness of the prevention. Some of the programs that are created to prevent juvenile delinquency are still on some question of whether they are had a positive influence on the youth or not. Various experts hold divergent views on the effectiveness of the programs. Some believe that they yield positive results whereas the rest believe that the programs had no effect on deterring delinquent behavior among the youth. For instance, “Scared Straight” is a program mainly to scare the juveniles while taking them to visit high-security penitentiaries to walk around and see individuals serving life sentences. However, research indicates that it is not effective; rather worsen the behavior of the youth. Inversely, Public Health Approach and Developmental view are the preventive approaches that better for the children. Public health approach is to prevent diseases and injuries. It focuses on improving the overall well-being of the young ones like getting access to health care services and general prevention education. It also focuses on the young children who are potentially at risk for becoming offenders and to reducing repeat criminal or recidivism. Thus, developmental perspective allows assessing the success of programs at different life-course stages; that is childhood and adolescent. That is, if parents and family member supported child training, it would reduce the cause of juvenile delinquency because parents play a very significant role in the upbringing of children. It is the first training institution that helps to build children experience. The family institution has a greater impact on the character of every child than any other institute. This account for the reason it is expected to be a perfect institution, an institution to imbibe moral in the children in order that they can face both their present and future challenges. In sum, one could not specify the most effective way to prevent the juvenile from delinquents.
Juvenile Delinquency Treatment
Juvenile delinquency treatment is an approach to deal with a juvenile who shown persistent destructive behavior and, or who commit serious and violent offenses in their early childhood. These offenses include a number of adult crimes such as assault, murder, rape, manslaughter and robbery with violence. Therefore, a juvenile involved in any of aforementioned crimes would be placed in correctional treatments. Thus, correctional treatments for the juveniles are subdivided into two groups: the institutional and the communal treatment (Siegel & Welsh, 2011). Institutional treatment is where a juvenile is taken to a facility where they can be corrected. Most often these facilities are managed by the government. The communal treatment, on the other hand, is where the family members and other close members of the society provide a juvenile with the much-needed support, treatment, and protection (Siegel & Welsh, 2011). The seriousness of the crime will determine the treatment imposed on a juvenile offender. Take for example; treatment within the community that only makes use of the available resources within the society. This treatment method utilizes unsecured premises that are not specially designed to accommodate juvenile delinquents. With as much as there are various setbacks, the treatment often manages to meet its objective since the adolescents are able to be counseled and subsequently treated.Siegel & Welsh, (2011) stated that a juvenile is a person who is involved in the use of some substances and c...