CCJS 350 Juvenile Delinquency

1.Examine the underlying historical and economic reasons behind the quest for alternatives to incarcerating offenders in jails and prisons.

 

2.Describe three (3) alternatives to incarceration that juvenile courts currently use. Provide examples of such alternatives in practice to support the response.

 

3.Discuss the significant societal and individual benefits of imposing sanctions or punishments that do not involve removing an offender from his / her family or community.

1.The interest that is vested in analyzing the historical development of non- custodial penalties is limited to contraposition of custodial punishment. It actually seems biased to recommend that a comprehensive historical analysis from the perspective of comparison on the theme. There are two reasons which tend to be both feasible as well as important. First of all, in total the conceptualization of alternatives to prison is very much similar to its basic form. As a result of that, a historical analysis of the search for alternatives and the legislative adoptions would be able to facilitate a better comprehensive modern location of the sanctions. And secondly, another important point is that the transformation which the punishment has gone through at both the philosophical and practical levels might indicate specific future directions of non- custodial consent. Official records of delinquency and arrests are mainly based on the children of poor economic background. Juvenile delinquency parts are correlated with poverty and low income (Bartollas & Miller, 2014).  

2.Alternatives to detention and confinement are the methods used for preventing juveniles from being placed in a secure detention or the facilities of confinement when there are more appropriate options for treatment like community based sanctions or residential placements. The types of alternatives to detention are- home confinement, day or evening treatment and shelter care. House arrest or home confinement prohibits the offender from participating in any kind of activities outside their home. Day treatment provides strong supervision to the offender, for example, the AMIkids Community- based day treatment services. Shelter care is an alternative provided to the non- secure residential care for the juvenile who requires short term placement out of their home. There are other types of alternatives too to provide detention and confinement which leads to mixed outcome. Although there is an increase in the utilization of alternatives for detention and confinement, they are still prevalent in variation across the states and judiciaries. The ultimate goal is to plan and implement a justice for the juvenile with the best appropriate and least restrictive sanction (Lacey, 2013).

3.The tradition goes like this that the juvenile crime and delinquency will be treated differently than the adults. The sanctions are created with the seriousness of behavior and the number of times the juvenile has appeared in the court. Gradually the juvenile will be able to institutionalize themselves for a shorter period of time than the adults. Sometimes when the juvenile shows emotional or mental instability, are ordered for counseling or treatment programs. The court arranges for a routine probation sentence for the juveniles. The most commonly used is informal probation requires an initial meeting between the juvenile and the guardian with the support of a probation officer. To gain a better outcome, restorative justice is reversed with the traditional justice to achieve the goals. But restorative justice do not seek sanction or give penalty, the crime is seen as harm caused to one person by another (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014).