Young Offenders Program Analysis

In past years the treatment of young offenders has evolved in favour of minors, as rehabilitation has become a major aspect in the heeling and learning process for youths. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has been created for young offenders aged twelve to seventeen. This Act was made in order to allow offenders mentoring and rehabilitation, in order to prevent further criminal actions that may occur. This enforces the idea that mentoring offenders is indeed a motivating factor; in which aids the young offenders effectively in a positive manner. This is beneficial to any youth offender, as they have not developed fully mentally and or physically, this is the deciding factor in regards to why they have more leniency than an adult committing a criminal action. In addition to the lack of full development; young offenders are more prone to act on their behalf due to the fact they may have come from a disjointed family, they may have been raised in a bad neighbourhood, as well as being abused within their household. Young offenders should receive a second chance to learn and grow on the behalf of their actions, therefore rehabilitation is necessary in this process. The right approach in regards to criminal acts committed by young offenders; is that they need to be given an opportunity to learn from their mistakes in order to prevent future re-offences.

Since the origination of drug treatment courts, there has been countless numbers of offenders who have successfully completed the program and fought their way past drug abuse. There are also a handful of offenders who may have struggled to change their drug abuse or addiction, and fell short of completing the program. In this second part of my report, I will be determining whether drug treatment court programs actually work. To accomplish this task, I will be reviewing three empirical studies to evaluate how effective the program truly is.

Last Thursday, Cristi Beaumont spoke to our class about Drug Court and her experience with the grant writing process. The drug court program sounds like an amazing program for individuals who utilize it. Drug court integrates substance abusers into society by helping them find employment and housing. Something Cristi said about the program I found especially interesting was the progressive punishments. The people who run this program understand that addiction is a disease and the clients are going to have slip ups and make mistakes. Progressive punishments are utilized instead of handing out the harshest punishment for a very first offense.

What else does drug court do, reduce drug use, reduce crime, save money, (which think about the cost in housing them as inmates), restores lives, both theirs and their family.

Juvenile Justice System are beneficial to troubled teens. The idea of a teen that is committing crimes is an idea that should be dealt with instead of ignoring and taking the teens to jail for a crime that maybe had some emotional story behind it. The DMC helps the male teens to build their character. Not only does it build character but it also rehabilitates and treats the teens. Specialist are stunned when they found out about this program. Only a few of these programs exist around the country.

One of the organizations in the England and Wales juvenile justice system is the Youth Offender Team (YOT) which was established to aid in the prevention of juveniles before they offend. The system is designed to issue the juvenile with “reprimands and warnings” that is “referred to as the Final Warning Scheme” (Evans & Ragonese, 2007, p. 1). One of the primary purposes of the Youth Offender Team is to review the juvenile’s history and examine any offences that the juvenile has committed. Additionally the team will then identify any behavioral issues that may have contributed to the juvenile’s actions and then recommend a course of action to the court system (Paylor, 2011, p. 222). These recommendations involve various approaches which are

“A drug court is a special court given responsibility to handle cases involving substance-abusing offenders through comprehensive supervision, drug testing, treatment services and immediate sanctions and incentives” (“what are drug courts?”). “These offenders have alcohol, drug addiction, and depending problems. Drug courts keep individuals in treatment long enough for it to work, while supervising them closely” (“what are drug courts?”). “In 1989, the first drug court was built in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The Miami-Dade drug court sparked a national revolution that has forever changed our justice system” (“what are drug courts?”). “Circuit court Judge Herbert M. Klein had become troubled by the negative effects of drug offenses on Dade County. He became determined to address the problem caused by widespread drug use. This first drug court became a model program for the nation” (“Drug Courts”, 2005). The main purpose of the drug court system is mainly to utilize the programs set in place to help serve the community better, and to deal with drug offenders in the local community. Each offender, whether they are a drug user or another offense, have drug courts that specifically tailor to the needs and certain interventions needed. Drug courts aim to monitor drug addicted criminal offenders and provide them treatment. It also helps these individuals from obtaining any more drugs, committing crimes due to drug use, helps them to complete their education, and helps them to

The purpose of this paper is to make others aware of the vast inequalities in our justice system, Memphis & Shelby County conclusively. I pose the question, are the current programs effective, or are the politicians and judicial system talking loud, but doing nothing? I gathered this information from Shelby County, TN. After closely reading it, I still was not convinced that the system treats/punishes black youths the same as white.

Within the first half of the twentieth century the Criminal Justice System’s main objective was to rehabilitate offenders by implementing programs to deter offenders from drug abuse and crimes in America. In the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a decline in rehabilitation programs, but later it gains its momentum by introducing more programs. The traditional courts offered alternative sentences for guilty pleas that are within the sentencing guidelines. Problems defendants had prior to committing criminal activities were never address while they were incarcerated. Therefore, in the United States of America, the first drug court was established in 1989, at the Miami-Dade County, Florida courthouse. This specialty court address defendants who suffered from substance abuse issues. This court demonstrates how defendants can be rehabilitated as well as having their sentence reduced and receive other benefits that drug court will offer them after completion of the program. Drug court is known to decrease the recidivism rate by 50% or more.

This program approach is essential to most and target groups of medium to high-risk offenders that display signs of antisocial behavior or have committed violent crimes. On the other hand, an offender with a mastered cognitive skill set in this area will be less effective in the program. The program aims to restructure the thought process that leads the criminal acts or intentions initially. You stated, " juveniles are embarrassed to ask for help" which in my opinion is a valid statement but, there are also adults in the same predicament. While working in an adult male setting, more than half of them where hesitant to ask for assistant or classification on questions. They didn't want to be judged or frowned upon by the staff or fellow peers.

Drug treatment courts represent the nation’s efforts to design an alternative method of endorsing treatment and community supervision. Despite the inconsistencies of drug court evaluations, support for drug treatment courts for drug dependent offenders has been widespread (Stinchcomb, 2010).

Another query needs to be resolved is whether drug courts are positive reforms to the criminal justice system. According to Sasha Abramsky, a journalist and a senior fellow at Demos, problem-solving court has the ability to attract defendant to incarceration. She indicates, “mentally ill offenders who completed treatment through the city’s Behavioral Health Court were 55 percent less likely to be charged with a new violent offense than were their peers who had not been through the program” (Abramsky 33) which proves that problem­ solving courts' treatment and rehabilitation tend to improve defendant's mental and physical. Since the system is effective and works really well by reducing people entering the jail and prison, there are more and

Your statement, “Having experience in both adult and juvenile probation, I honestly have to say that sentencing guidelines and mandatory sentencing is not effective deterring crime. In my opinion, your statement is correct and accurate pertaining to offenders that re-offend. In addition, crime is deterred long enough until the sentenced term is satisfied. Furthermore, depending on the support system one may or may not have might determine the factors in committing future crimes. There are cases where individuals that come from stable backgrounds and household are responsible for committing crimes. Although these are important factors to consider, it’s safe to say that most individuals from stable backgrounds and homes commit crimes for attention.

According to www.ojjdp.gov, over one million juveniles (under age 18) were arrested. The crimes that were committed range from rape, assault, robbery, arson, and more. In most states, at the age of sixteen, youth are charged as an adult. The sentence that is given to a juvenile determines how the rest his or her life will go. Instead of incarcerating the youth, society should focus on understanding the facts of youth incarceration and why children act out in the first place, and then communities should move on to providing better options that will help children become better citizens rather than being menaces to society.

There are a number of juvenile justice agencies set up to help and carry out punishment for young juvenile offenders. The first being the Office of Juvenile and delinquency prevention or OJJDP for short. As part of the Department of Justice OJJDP main functions is to help states, local law enforcement, and communities come up with programs for juveniles that can effective help lower the crime rate and recidivism rate for Juvenile offenders. So for example OJJDP the might consult with the local law enforcement setup more community based programs, like picking up trash along locate roadways. Another agency includes juvenile probation officers; probation is the most widely used model of corrections when talking about first time juvenile offenders.