Criminal Justice juveniles final

Solutions to the Problem of the Youth in the Criminal Justice System

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Solutions to the Youth in the Criminal Justice System

The system of criminal justice has major challenges as it tries to develop solutions against crime and terrorism. One of the challenges includes the several youth in the criminal justice system. Various programs and policies can be initiated to ensure justice is developed in the community and the juveniles are safe (Schmalleger, 2012).

A fund for the programs that will be used by state, local and tribal communities to enact and implement effective and coordinated prevention and intervention juvenile programs is important, guided by the objectives intended to be achieved. The objective of the programs are to reduce excessive use of courts and incarceration for less serious cases; reduce juvenile delinquency; reduce disparity and unfairness in sentencing; provide treatment and rehabilitative services that take into account the interests of the juvenile victims; ensure serious interventions and offenders held accountable; address development challenges for the young people and ensure public safety. In order to fund the programs a budget has to be created. The key programs include: Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention program, Youth Mentoring program, Juvenile prevention incentive program, Juvenile accountability fund, Community Based Violence Prevention Programs, Missing and Exploited Children program (Cassese, Acqaviva & Akande, 2009).

Juvenile and Delinquency Program, is the major program that will enable the developing and implementation of state juvenile efforts. It also involves training of experts to deal with the juveniles in the court system and consultancy. It funds non-governmental institutions that help in juvenile programs and ensure correct legal channels. The objective achieved is to ensure increased accountability and fairness in the juvenile justice system. It also involves adjusting of the justice system to reduce the use of courts and incarceration in less serious cases. This involves humongous funding (Schmalleger, 2012).

Youth mentoring program involves supporting mentoring activities by first time and recurrent youth involved in crime. The program helps in creating partnership with mentorship institutions, train on mentorship and incentive for volunteer mentors. The objectives met include addressing the development challenges of the youths and cause rehabilitative services. The funding would be directed to the mentors (Gaines & Miller, 2014).

Juvenile incentive prevention program supports local groups and governments to benefit the youths who are likely to fall into crime and hence into the hands of justice. It is best handled by local advisory groups. It helps to reach out to the youths before they are involved in crime. The objective is to rehabilitate the juveniles and prevent them from being involved in crime. The funding would be directed to the local organizations to support their activities (Schmalleger, 2012).

Juvenile accountability program ensure that the juvenile offender and juvenile justice system are held accountable for every step in the system. For the juvenile offender, accountability means the offender is made aware and held responsible for the loss, damage or injury that the victim experienced. It involves the offender facing the consequences. The funding would involve the legal counsels and prosecutors targeted to help the juveniles to appreciate the magnitude of their actions and hence appreciate the correction system (Cole & Smith, 2007).

Community based violence prevention programs involves using the best practices in various areas in the world and public health research for violence reduction. It requires public participation and public education to ensure behavior change, mind-set changes and attitude changes towards crime and violence. It involves research; selecting a target group, recruiting the target group, monitoring their activities and monitoring the changes. This involves applying the best strategies and evaluating their effectiveness. This involves partners and organizations- federal, state and local authorities. The objective of the program is to find sustainable approaches to reduce crime and violence. The fund would be directed to the various activities to ensure the community is able to find long term solutions to crime prevention (Gaines &Miller, 2014).

Missing and Exploited Children Program ensures that the children are not exploited and abducted. Exploitation involves engaging the children in hard labor, denying them going to school and social activities, subjecting the children to be accomplice to crime and violating children’s rights. Abduction of children leads to the breaking of federal law, and taking the children away from their parents, guardian and legal custodian. Funding for the program is directed to toll free services to ensure that the cases are quickly and well reported, followed up and correct channels of justice are sort. It involves forming a task force dedicated to juvenile cases both in the police department and in the justice department (Cole & Smith, 2007).

Budget for juvenile programs

(Dollars in Thousands)

References

Cassese A., Acqaviva G., and Akande D., 2009, The Oxford Companion to International

Criminal Justice. Oxford: OVP Oxford.

Cole G., Smith C., 2007, Criminal Justice in America, Cengage learning

Gaines K.L., Miller R.L., 2014, Criminal Justice in Action, Cengage Learning

Schmalleger F. J., 2012, Criminal Justice; A Brief Introduction, Prentice Hall.