Solving Juvenile Crime

The problem of how to deal with juvenile offenders constitutes one of our countries biggest challenges. There were 13.9 million reported offenses in 1995 according to the FBI's uniform crime report. That same year over three million juveniles were arrested, 800,000 of those arrests were index crimes, which are crimes of a serious nature. In 1995 there were 69million juveniles. It is predicted that by the year 2010 the juvenile population will reach 74 million (Bureau of the Census 1995). The increase in the juvenile arrest rate during the last ten years is expected to continue at a steady increase until something can be done to reduce the offending rates.

The statistics are staggering. The rate for juvenile homicide more than doubled from 1985-1992 (Blumstein, 1995). In this paper I will discuss the juvenile justice system from the first establishment of juvenile court in 1899, to the current responses of the juvenile justice system in reducing the amount of offenders. Finally I will address some alternative methods to the current policies regarding the juvenile justice system beginning with arrest through rehabilitation.

The first juvenile court in the United States was established in Cook County, Illinois in 1899. Delinquent juveniles were dealt harsh punishments from the adult courts before that development. Every state was with a separate juvenile court by 1945. The original intent was to focus on offenders and not offenses, rehabilitating and protecting the youth was the courts philosophy. Placing juvenile offenders in reformatories , training schools, and institutions was thought to support the theory of rehabilitation, contrary to the nice thought, these places were dangerous and unhealthy and believed to have done more harm than good. During the 1940's and 1950's reformers worked hard to improve the conditions found in most juvenile institutions. Probation camps emerged providing a structured setting for juveniles as an alternative to incarceration. Extensive use of probation was also another alternative to incarceration. The vast majority were coming to question the ability of the juvenile courts system in succeeding, or even making visible or tangible progress in the rehabilitation process. In 1967, the recommendation that alternatives to the incarceration of juveniles be developed. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act passed in 1974 provided funding to communities from federal grants that encouraged these alternatives to incarceration, creating more foster care, group homes and formal diversion programs. During the 1970's, supervision and electronic monitoring were also introduced. By the 1980's the public perceived serious juvenile crime increasing and the system was failing due to its lenient attitude in the juvenile courts. Laws were passed making the 1980's a transitional period that led the juvenile justice system away from its original philosophy of rehabilitation, focusing now on punishment and the safety of the public. Juvenile crime had increased , faith in treatment was on a downward spiral, the courts were becoming more and more inept to realistically address and remedy social ills and political ideology rushing towards conservative trends caused a distinct change in the policies surrounding juvenile criminals. By the 1990's legislation enacted by many states put juvenile offenders that were violent, serious, or repeat offenders accountable for their actions. Five areas of change concentrated on by state legislature include: 1. Sentencing 2. Transfer provisions 3. Confidentiality 4. Victims rights 5. Correctional programming. As a result of the many changes made by legislation, the building of more secure facilities and the development of more adequate solutions for rehabilitation.

The real problem of our juvenile justice system is the manor in which it address' our nations troubled youth. The institutions that we have currently in place prove to serve as nothing more than an enormous meat grinder, turning out a sort of ground gangster patee.

We are taking youths whom have been charged with non-violent, and non-index offenses, and housing or placing them in group treatment situations with individuals who have committed, often repeatedly, crimes of an extremely violent nature, including aggravated assault, rape, child molestation, and even homicide.

This is putting two very different classifications of juvenile offender into the same pond, so to speak. By doing this we are not only institutionalizing them, but doing the incarcerating in a fashion which produces really only one thing: ground gangster pвtй.

We can look at this from a few different angles. The first of which is we must be having some kind of a problem, just look at our steadily growing infrastructure systems whose soul mission is to deal with these young offenders. According to a Gallup poll, Americans believe juvenile criminals are responsible for forty-three percent of violent crimes. However, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention youths are only responsible for twelve percent of our nations violent crimes. Another issue in and of itself is that of official data relating to juveniles and delinquency. Curt and Anne Bartol state in our text that comprehensive national data on youth crime and its control of do not exist (Krisberg & Schwart, 1983). Despite attempts from a spectrum of different sources to collect and make use of data, the whole picture has yet to be put together. So please keep this in mind when statistical data is mentioned throughout my paper, I used several different sources and some conflicted with one another, so I used the data that was represented by the majority of the different sources I sought out.

Another problem with the current policies which seem so quick to incarcerate offenders of the non-index type is that these youths become institutionalized at an early age. By "institutionalized" I mean the process that occurs when individuals are incarcerated( especially long term), they become dependent upon such an institution or institutional environment to survive and feel some form of safety or security.

Some of the ill affects of this "institutionalization" is shown in the re-arrest rates of juveniles who are sent to rehabilitation facilities. All it seems to be doing is place various kinds of criminals into a ,well, let's just say, a sort of "meet and greet" with all of these other criminals. Placing America's troubled youth into environments where they can make new and better criminal contacts is far from pragmatic, and clearly not the answer.

Some suggest that more serious criminals should be housed with adult criminals as an answer to the problem. However, this is