Essay about Juvenile Offenders with Mental Health Issues

The Juvenile Justice System Improvement Project (JJSIP) is designed to help states improve outcomes for juvenile offenders by better translating knowledge on “what works” into everyday practice and policy. Ultimately, the goal of the JJSIP is to reduce crime and delinquency and improve outcomes for youth in the juvenile

Within a century ago, juveniles justice system were created because of the unspeakable acts of kids learned in adult jails when placed in that interment. when juveniles are placed with adult prisoners , the juveniles return to the community as a more knowledgable criminal.

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) is the principal federal program through which the federal government sets standards for juvenile justice systems at the state and local levels. It provides direct funding for states, research, training, and technical assistance, and evaluation. The JJDPA was originally enacted in 1974 and even though the JJDPA has been revised several times over the past 30 years, its basic composition has remained the same. Since the act was passed in 1974, the JJDPA focused solitary on preventing juvenile delinquency and on rehabilitating juvenile offenders.

The correlation of mental health and substance use in adolescence is very problematic. Many believe that the relationship between the two are so strong that it plays a causative role in the development of adolescents. It places adolescents at risk for problems within their families, communities, and as an individual. This disease can be severe enough that it impairs the adolescent 's ability to function as a person. Both mental health and substance abuse are entangled within one another, that it makes it difficult to decipher which condition is causing each symptom. However, several research studies concluded that adolescents who suffer from mental illness may self-medicate their symptoms by using drugs. The juvenile justice systems suffer from adolescents with mental health disorders, substance abuse or even both.

Unfortunately, juvenile delinquency continued to increase, spiking in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While news headlines touted the juvenile delinquency epidemic, the public became fascinated with the rise of the “juvenile super-predator.” In 1992, frustrated lawmakers, who were determined to end the rise in juvenile delinquency, amended the JJDPA to include USC §5667f. This subsection provided funding for state-operated

A group of seven juvenile delinquents sit at a table sporting jumpsuits that’s draped over their street clothes, not knowing what’s expected to happen next during their jail visit at the Douglas County prison in Georgia. The cameras, that are rolling for Beyond Scared Straight, a reality television series that takes at risk teenagers to different state run prisons across the United States to give them a glance of where they 'll end up if they continue making wrong choices, show the confused look on the delinquents’ faces when they see the next prisoner walking through the door. Instead of a pair of six foot, 300 pounder monsters that were charged for two counts of aggravated assault and attempted murder like some of the inmates that the

As mentioned within the paper, there are benefits to having services provided by both public and private entities; however, there are also concerns. The public sector, which was portrayed by services offered by TJJD, are required to provide yearly reports. In many ways these reports keep the system accountable for the money they are spending and the services they provide or require for juvenile offenders. The reports are open to the public and are easily accessible. As it relates to research, these reports allow people to critically assess juvenile programs, while challenging the government to refine or create programs superior to the ones offered in the past. Reports like these are harder to find regarding services offered by private entities and is a concern. Programs in which juvenile offenders are required to successfully complete, should never be determined by trial and error; however, this is often the case. On a positive note, private entities and community resources typically target the specific needs of a juvenile and include mental health components. Programs which do not offer mental health services should be critically assessed, as they are less likely to succeed. It is important that continued research is applied to the programs offered by both the public and private sectors. As it stands today, treatment services offered

The Texas juvenile justice system is comprised of 166 juvenile probation departments serving all 254 Texas counties. Approximately 98% of youth in the Texas juvenile justice system are provided services through their local probation departments. On an annual basis the Texas juvenile justice system receive over 60,000 youth referrals. One juvenile could have multiple referrals within that time. Question is how many of these juveniles are classified as mentally ill. The number is unknown due to adolescents not being diagnosed until they are in their later teens. Departments, agencies and residential facilities provide numerous services, but only a small number of facilities offer programs and housing

It was created to encourage development at the community level to decrease juvenile delinquency. The states would receive federal funding for these programs. This act was replaced in 1974 with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act gained strong momentum in preventing juvenile delinquency, it allow youth in the system to be deinstitutionalized and maintained the separation of juvenile and adult offenders. Several programs were created from this act, including The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Run Away Youth Program, and the National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency.

Introduction: Recidivism or, habitual relapses into crime, has time and time again proven to be an issue among delinquents, which thereby increases the overall juvenile prison population. This issue has become more prevalent than what we realize. Unless a unit for measuring a juvenile’s risk of recidivism is enacted and used to determine a system to promote effective prevention, than the juvenile prison population will continue to increase. Our court system should not only focus on punishing the said juvenile but also enforce a program or policy that will allow for prevention of recidivism. So the question remains, how can recidivism in the juvenile prison population be prevented so that it is no longer the central cause for increased

The number of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system is one of the most pressing problems facing law enforcement and corrections today (Cuellar, McReynolds, & Wasserman, 2006). The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health estimated that about 20% of children and adolescents in the general population have mental disorders with some degree of at least mild functional impairment (USPH, 1999). Subsequent research has found much higher rates of serious mental health problems among youth in the juvenile justice system. Among youth who have been arrested, one study found that 31% of youth had received services from the mental health system (Rosenblatt, Rosenblatt, & Biggs, 2000). Two studies of youth in juvenile detention found that between 60% and 68% met the diagnostic criteria for a mental health disorder (Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; Wasserman, Ko, & McReynolds, 2004). Once youth with emotional disturbances enter the justice system, repeated arrests are common through the remainder of childhood and into adulthood. Recidivism rates for individuals with a serious mental illness are nearly double those in the general population (Baillargeon, Binswanger, Penn, Williams, & Murray, 2009; Constantine, Petrila, Andel, Givens, Becker et al., 2010). In an analysis of juvenile trajectories, youth with emotional disturbances in their late adolescent years were more likely to fall into the high arrest trajectory class and much

The data for this project was collected by administering an anonymous survey to incarcerated juveniles at (name of facility), the (name) receiving center and at the NAACP office in Sacramento, California. The survey asked for gender and parental status (incarcerated versus not incarcerated). Participants were given a paper survey and a pencil to complete the survey. See Appendix for a copy of the survey.

A deep look into juveniles in adult prisons. Touch bases on several smaller issues that contribute to juveniles being in and effects of adult prisons. The United States Bureau of Prisons handles two hundred and thirty-nine juveniles and their average age is seventeen. Execution of juveniles, The United States is one of only six countries to execute juveniles. There are sixty-eight juveniles sitting on death row for crimes committed as juveniles. Forty-three of those inmates are minorities. People, who are too young to vote, drink alcohol, or drive are held to the same standard of responsibility as adults. In prisons, they argue that the juveniles become targets of older, more hardened criminals. Brian

In addition, chronic drug abuse by teenagers during a time of development it is a particular concern because, it can interfere with normal socialization and cognitive development and thus frequently contributes to the development of mental disorders. Violence has become more prevalent among the diagnosed population of drugs and mental disorders. Domestic violence and suicide attempts are more common of the mentally ill who end up incarcerated; there is

Children have been described as our future, our greatest resource, and our hope for a better tomorrow. For many Americans, though, children invoke fear. They represent violence, a segment of society lacking in self-control and devoid of ethics and morals, and the failure of the family to instill traditional values, top among them being the value of human life and respect for others.