The Pros and Cons of Juvenile Confinement

The Pros and Cons of Juvenile Confinement

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Abstract

The American juvenile justice system was designed to ensure that youth offenders are not treated the same way as adults. However, there are pros and cons associated with juvenile confinement. A few pros come to mind and they include; treating and rehabilitating delinquent children, preventing children from graduating into hardcore adult offenders and protecting the public from harm associated with the delinquents. Conversely, there are cons associated with juvenile confinement. These include; self-harm by the juvenile offenders, development of mental health problems, suffering from trauma and stresses and violent outbursts that often leads to solitary confinement which is one of the most serious ways of punishing inmates who fight.

The American juvenile justice system is designed to deal with youths who have been arrested and convicted of crimes. The juvenile justice system, which is largely punitive, intervenes in delinquent behavior through the police, court system and correctional facilities. The juvenile justice system believes that early detection and intervention can dissuade juvenile delinquents from graduating into adult criminal offenders. Juvenile delinquency has been on a steady rise and as thus it is desirable that systems be instituted to discourage criminality among the youth in America. The present essay will highlight and discuss the pros and cons of juvenile confinement.

History of the Juvenile Justice System

The American Juvenile Justice System can trace its genesis or origin as far back as the pre-1900 period. During this period, punishment to different types of crimes were severely meted by the church. Throughout the 18th Century, there were few legal distinctions between adults and minors. Children as young as seven were tried as adults and could very easily be sentenced to death or life penalty. The early debates and criticisms around this model questioned if it was possible to come up with a system which could be used to punish juveniles (). Around this period, the courts allowed for the application of the principle of parens patrea to detain young people for non-criminal acts and subjected these young people to what it widely termed as rehabilitation ().

A clear distinction between adult justice system and juvenile justice system was birthed in the early 1900s. Around the 1980s, the American Juvenile Justice System had been fully formed and it meted harsh punishments to youths. The 1990s to present marked a period when the juvenile system adopted stringent regulations aiming at rehabilitating youths and preventing them from graduating into hardcore adult criminals. The “three strikes laws” which were enacted in 1993, were similarly applied on juvenile offenders and this led to an explosion in the number of young offenders incarcerated in juvenile prisons.