Juvenile Justice Reform Case Study

1290 Words6 Pages

To evaluate reform, let us first evaluate the different trends and themes that were used to provide justice among juveniles; along with their policies and procedures. Understanding some of the policies and ideas will help pave the runway for understanding why reform was and still is necessary in juvenile justice. Different means of punishment can be discussed and evaluated; juvenile boot camps, group homes, and juvenile detention centers. All of these have one main thing in common, out-of-home placement. The problem with home removal is that the family’s and/or environment are not able to utilize the resources for rehabilitation and sometimes the environment is the explanation from crime; but that can be discussed further on. A first program in review is juvenile boot camps. These programs were developed to mimic adult like boot camps; some offered treatment and skill building, while others implemented military-like discipline (Chambliss, 2011). These types of facilities are showing little to no positive outcome and even more links to higher recidivism in juveniles. While the boot camps brought about new issues within the system, they have also acted as a trial and error piece …show more content…

With this being said, all of the negative factors that make up the above mentioned methods of punishment, neglect to provide what the children really need from rehabilitation; treatment. Juveniles with alcohol and drug related offenses go untreated, mental health problems are ignored, and learning disabilities are overlooked. Rehabilitative options are becoming vaster within our communities. The reform has led many to developing new programs based off of research findings and pros and cons from the attempted rehabilitative methods mentioned above. The ideal was rehabilitating, but the methods were all wrong. Resources were not being implemented to provide the baseline for development in these