Junenile Justice System Should Focus on Rehabilitation Essay Example
Juvenile Justice System Should Focus on Rehabilitation
University of Phoenix
Juvenile Justice System Should Focus on Rehabilitation Rehabilitation over Punishment, why one is better or more effective than the other, in order to answer this questions one must understand what each means. Punishment is a consequence of doing something that is unacceptable, it is meant to be unpleasant, the problem with punishment is it does nothing to address the social or mental processes that maybe contributing to delinquency, nor does it address why an individual commits the unacceptable act(assosiated content, n.d.). The juvenile justice system should focus on rehabilitation because while punishment may be unpleasant we need to focus on mental health assessment and services for youth (modelsforchange, n.d.). Most youth who are only punished reoffend because the reason for the initial offence was never addressed. Youth Outreach Services (YOS) focuses on mental health assessment and services for youths because upon identifying mental, emotional or ongoing problems caused by trauma the youth can receive follow-up testing or immediate assistance. The identifying of these problems can help family members understand and also better help the juvenile. In the last two years 95% of the juveniles that went to the rehabilitation program and screening of YOS avoided re-arrest (modelsforchange, n.d.). If we do not focus on rehabilitation we are depriving both society and the offenders of their full potential (the league of young voters, n.d.). Law enforcement and rehabilitation meet in programs such as DARE where police officers go to schools and help educate the youth on the dangers of drug use and gang involvement. While police officers are there to protect and keep the peace they are not always trained to be able to communicate with the youth on a level that the youth can respond too. Sometimes the police and used to scare teens straight and let them know that if
University of Phoenix
Juvenile Justice System Should Focus on Rehabilitation Rehabilitation over Punishment, why one is better or more effective than the other, in order to answer this questions one must understand what each means. Punishment is a consequence of doing something that is unacceptable, it is meant to be unpleasant, the problem with punishment is it does nothing to address the social or mental processes that maybe contributing to delinquency, nor does it address why an individual commits the unacceptable act(assosiated content, n.d.). The juvenile justice system should focus on rehabilitation because while punishment may be unpleasant we need to focus on mental health assessment and services for youth (modelsforchange, n.d.). Most youth who are only punished reoffend because the reason for the initial offence was never addressed. Youth Outreach Services (YOS) focuses on mental health assessment and services for youths because upon identifying mental, emotional or ongoing problems caused by trauma the youth can receive follow-up testing or immediate assistance. The identifying of these problems can help family members understand and also better help the juvenile. In the last two years 95% of the juveniles that went to the rehabilitation program and screening of YOS avoided re-arrest (modelsforchange, n.d.). If we do not focus on rehabilitation we are depriving both society and the offenders of their full potential (the league of young voters, n.d.). Law enforcement and rehabilitation meet in programs such as DARE where police officers go to schools and help educate the youth on the dangers of drug use and gang involvement. While police officers are there to protect and keep the peace they are not always trained to be able to communicate with the youth on a level that the youth can respond too. Sometimes the police and used to scare teens straight and let them know that if