Positive Reinforcement Is More Effective Than Punishment Essay

A difficult challenge to the juvenile justice system and child welfare system is working with adolescents with comorbid difficulties, causing these adolescents to becoming at risk for incarceration and involvement with the juvenile and adult justice system. The juvenile justice system appears to be having a challenging time in determining how to respond and treat adolescents with mental health and substance use. "Many

Drug courts are for nonviolent drug offenders. The offender’s can have misdemeanors or felonies, but they have to agree to participate. An initial substance abuse assessment will determine the eligibility someone has for the program participation (Alarid, Montemayor, & Dannhaus, 2012). Drug court treatment lasts one year and is based on a levels system. Phase one will begin with the most hours, a full time inpatient or 12 hours of outpatient per week. Treatment includes detoxifying in different ways including acupuncture, counseling, drug testing, and retina testing. Phase two begins when the offender is ready and progressing. As the patient progresses through and hits marks of success, the number of levels usually go down to less intensive outpatient treatment. And phase four is the final phase that needs to be completed before the person can graduate. With juvenile drug courts, parents are required to be there for the hearings and weekly family treatment sessions. Parents are needed to help with sobriety in the home through being good role models and helping their child (Alarid et

There is also the argument between behaviourists to whether behaviour is learnt better through positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when someone does something correctly and we reward them with a sweet or chocolate. A strength of this is that the individual will repeat the action again, but a limitation is that the individual will expect the reward every time.

When a juvenile commits a crime, it is not considered a crime, however it is considered juvenile delinquency. A massive problem throughout the US is juvenile delinquent acts. Juveniles acting out in a delinquent manner can be caused by many things. However, there is not just one reason why a juvenile may commit these acts. Instead there are many reasons that could lead up to delinquency. In this essay, I will be discussing a few theories as well as ways juveniles may receive treatment.

Positive reinforcement involves strengthening or fostering desired behavior through the addition or increase of a pleasant incentive. Positive reinforcement tends to be a more effective means of behavior modification that the two types of punishment. The addition or increase of incentive when using positive reinforcement is geared towards encouraging the occurrence of the behavior in the future. For instance, positive reinforcement is used by an

The sixth key component requires that sanctions and rewards be coordinated into the programs to govern responses to participant’s compliance and non-compliance (NADCP, 1997). Some rewards could be praise from the judge, reduced supervision, reduced fines and etc. while some sanctions could be fines, community service, or even jail confinement. The seventh key component focuses on the importance of judicial interaction throughout the program, which can sometimes occur on a weekly basis. Key component number eight explains how imperative monitoring and evaluation is to measure the achievement of program goals and measure effectiveness. It is imperative for drug courts to display some sort of positive outcome by “gathering and managing information due to them monitoring daily activities, evaluating the quality of services provided, and producing longitudinal evaluations” (Mackin et al., 2012). The ninth and tenth components promote the importance of interdisciplinary education and forging partnerships with other agencies and community-based organizations. Education and training are important to maintain a specific level of professionalism and expanding collaborations would be helpful to provide a continuum of services for drug court participants.

Terry, VanderWaal, McBride, and Holly, discussed the impact of substance abuse within the juvenile justice system. They discussed treatment programs and services that are currently available. Improved substance abuse interventions have the potential to reduce recidivism amongst juveniles. Funding is needed to improve substance abuse treatment centers. Funding for program development requiring collaborative applications may provide valuable incentives for the development of successful juvenile justice collaborations. (Terry, VanderWaal, McBride, & Holly, 2000). Tsui discusses the shortcomings of utilizing detention as the primary method of dealing with the juvenile justice system. Tsui focused on the city of Chicago, and examined the present state of the juvenile justice system by identifying possible barriers and solutions to integrating restorative justice practices in a system primarily focused on detention. (Tsui, 2014).

There are separate drug courts for adults and juveniles. An adult court is designed to reduce recidivism and substance abuse among drug-involved offenders in the community. It also seeks to increase an offender’s success in recovery through continuous treatment, mandatory random drug testing, community supervision and use of other rehabilitation services. In juvenile treatment court, offenders meet frequently (often weekly) to determine how to address the substance abuse and other related problems of the youth and his or her family that brought him or her to the justice system (Treatment Court

As with adults, many nonviolent, substance-abusing juvenile offenders repeatedly cycle through the system due to a lack of intervention measures that would provide sanctions and services necessary to change their deviant behavior. In an attempt to resolve this problem, many communities have established juvenile drug courts. Determining the target population and eligibility is centered on making use of limited available resources. Because of this, most juvenile drug courts focus on non-violent juveniles with moderate to heavy substance abuse problems. The offender must sign the drug court agreement and a release of information, which states they admit to committing the crime.

With the seemingly rising numbers in juveniles with drug problems there is a need more than ever to specialize programs to help our nations youth. They are needed to help these children overcome their addiction and clean up their act and move on to bigger and better things. Mostly, first time drug offenders are sent to these courts to help before it is too late.

While evaluating the drug court programs several types of dependencies were discovered. One dependency was created because of multiple measures of criminal behavior during the same time of the follow-ups. Each evaluation had to utilize a particular research sample so that statistical independence could be maintained. An odds-ratio effect size was used because this type of format is most appropriate effect size for the outcomes referring to recidivism. The coding of the effect size was done in such a way that positive effect sizes indicated the treatment group had more of a favorable outcome than the comparison group. The researchers coded an effect size that quantified each court's effects on recidivism. There was also the coding of drug court programs, research methodology, and samples (Mitchell et al., 2012). The results of the study showed that participants in the drug court programs have lower recidivism rate than nonparticipants. These rates show to be less following their removal from the drug court programs. These findings express the need for continuous funding, development, and operation of drug court programs as they prove a reduction in recidivism. However, when it comes to drug courts in the juvenile judicial system, the finding are considerably less than adult drug

Juvenile institutions and programs have changed over time. There are also juvenile programs that necessarily do not punish juvenile’s delinquents but instead help modify their behavior to avoid recidivism. Certain treatments and methods regarding how to deal with these dangerous young offenders were fixed and improved to make these institutions and programs more effective in changing the lives of these young

Despite the growing popularity of drug treatment courts in the United States, challenges and inconsistences surround the quintessential alternative to incarceration. As noted by Lindquist et al. (2006), there are vast inconsistencies in the clarification and implementation of graduated sanctions and rewards. The definitions and interpretation of graduated sanctions varies immensely on jurisdiction, which results in inconsistent application of sanctions. Rather than applying the graduated sanctions in a fair and standardized manner, some drug treatment courts are known to tailor the sanctions to the individual participant. This aberrant approach to the sanctions model results in ineffective treatment because participants may not know which sanction to expect to receive for committing a particular infraction (Lindquist, et al., 2006).

Finally, literature on the juvenile justice system often focuses on program implementation and effectiveness at addressing rehabilitation, as well as diversion techniques within the system (Greenwood, 2008). This review audits these problems in detail and establishes them within the bigger struggle in the juvenile justice system to rehabilitate youth offenders.

From a very early age, children begin to learn about the association between behaviors and consequences. They realize that there is always going to be a consequence whether it’d be positive or negative, that would follow the behavior. Sometimes children behave very well and most of the time, children tend to give parents and others around them a hard time. When it comes to behavior modification, some basic steps include identifying the behavior, setting expectations, monitoring progress, and reinforcing correct behaviors. Positive reinforcement has a lot of effect on children when it comes to modifying a targeted behavior. A reinforcer,