The Department Of Juvenile Services

Finally, the Department of Juvenile Justice is gunned in a formal organizational structure because it utilizes specific rules and regulations. These rules and regulations are DJJ’s policies on what to follow. For example, the Department keeps a Probation and Community Intervention Handbook at every desk. This handbook outlines the rules, responsibilities, and regulations that each Officer must follow for Juvenile Probation. Every Probation Officer has certain daily operational guidelines on what needs to be done. Both on duty and off duty, it is up to all of the staff of the Department to work under the handbook’s specific regulations.

This may lead to police resources becoming strained dealing with certain types of crimes and they are unable to engage in preventive patrol or respond to calls about suspicious groups of youth, which in turn leads to the number of youth arrested for minor types of property crimes and antisocial behavior declining although the number of crimes haven’t

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Office of Prevention and Victim Services provides voluntary youth crime prevention programs through the state of Florida. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice mission is to increase public safety by reducing juvenile delinquency through operative prevention, intervention and treatment services that builds up families for a turn around of a brighter future of a troubled youth. The main functions of these programs as will be indicated in this paper are designed to reduce juvenile crime and protect public safety. These programs that will be stated main focused is to help those high-risk juveniles and those who display problem behaviors such as ungovernability, truancy, running away from home and other pre-delinquent behaviors. The state of Florida addresses these problems by contracting this delinquency programs prevention services and awarding grants to this local providers throughout the state of Florida.

This paper will address the functionality of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. First, it will examine the Agency as a whole and then it will explore the individuality of sectors within the agency. Second, the paper will discuss the different ways that the agency survives and serves the community. The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice plays a vital role in the success of at risk youth and maintaining a secure structure to assist youth that end up in troublesome situations.

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) began in 1992 by the Annie C. Casey Foundation with the purpose of providing alternatives to low-risk teens being placed in detention centers. Detention decisions are based on criteria standards for possible alternatives to incarceration. Data is collected to provide accurate numbers to help diagnose and provide alternative solutions to system issues. The JDAI is also actively involved in collaborating between government agencies, and policies regarding these system issues and youth reform. Incarceration options also reduce teens being placed in detention for warrants, awaiting placement and violations.

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 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, established in 1974 and most recently reauthorized in 2002, created a partnership between the federal government and the states to protect youth in the juvenile and criminal justice system, address delinquent behavior, and improve community safety by preventing juvenile crime and delinquency. The JJDPA is responsible for the operation of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency prevention, provides a juvenile justice planning and advisory system in each state, and provides federal funding for delinquency prevention and improvements in state and local juvenile justice programs. Under the JJDPA there are four major streams of funding for the Federal-State partnership: (JJDPA, 2007)

The Juvenile Services Department is a centralized processing, referral and evaluation center for all youths arrested in Miami-Dade County. While at the JSD, all youths are provided with juvenile screening and substance abuse/mental health assessment. (http://www.miami-dadeclerk.com/families_juvenile_arrested.asp)

Even thought this program is not based on empirical research maybe in the future it will be. I recommend that empirical evidence be implemented into the program because mental health treatments can reduce crime rates. It can reduce detention rates among a majority of individuals from teens to adults. Having empirical evidence as assistance in preventing inmate’s recidivism rates are beneficial not only to the mentally ill patient, but the community as well.

The juvenile justice system is always changing and developing new ideas. The first example of a change or development can be the status offense reform. The basis of this are they are trying to keep the non-delinquent kids form the juvenile justice system. Some examples of status offenses are skipping school, or running away – offenses that are not illegal for adults. These offenses can lead to possibly detention, which might do very little to rehabilitate or change the issues that juvenile has. How this can all change is to bring these troubled kids to community based services to make them learn that it is possible to change and become a better person. Some other examples of changes or developments in our juvenile justice system (that I won’t go into detail about) are the quality of aftercare and how the system is trying to reduce racial-ethnic discrepancies and making it fairer for everyone (models for change).

One of the main goals of the program is to engage the youth in the community which they live by holding them accountable for their behavior. Public safety is also a main goal which is achieved through monitoring youth activities in the community and in the home. Youth learn various decision-making techniques through cognitive behavioral therapy. Aggression Replacement Training (ART) has been incorporated in the youth’s individual program to help address anger and social skills.

For starters, contact with a police officer often is a young person 's introduction to the juvenile justice system police account for most referrals to juvenile court. Law enforcement 's role with boys and girls under the age of eighteen is challenging because there are laws that federally protect youth that commit serious crimes and attempts to aid them in a road to recovery to return to their communities. Police officers generally summon young offenders to the police department 's juvenile division to question them and if necessary, confine them. At the time of an arrest, officers decide whether to refer young offenders to juvenile court or to send the case to the justice system.

After reviewing some of the programs offered by Hamilton County, I believe I can now place certain programs with the three levels delinquency prevention. Most programs fall onto one of three types of programs which include Group Homes, Day treatment programs, and Wilderness Programs. While there are various types of delinquency programs, most of the programs could be considered Day Treatment Programs. The three programs I found were Linking Early Adolescent Prevention Programs (L.E.A.P.P.) for primary prevention, Lighthouse Functional Family Therapy (FFT) for secondary prevention, and Motivational Aftercare & Reentry Support (M.A.R.S) for tertiary prevention. The L.E.A.P.P. is an early intervention, and prevention program for juveniles from

From the aforementioned research the strength of the Department of Juvenile Services is that it is in a central location of Baltimore City where services and personnel are easily accessible to community. Additionally the Department has done evaluations and monitoring of its program and services that they are providing to determine where their weakness are and where they can improve. With this information, the Department has implemented SafeMeasures a tracking system to monitor where their non-compliant

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