Juvenile Court System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Juvenile Court System - Essay Example Most of them have mental health and substance abuse problems and have not committed violent offenses. Historically, the key function of the juvenile court system was to act in the best interests of the child. In particular, young offenders were entitled to counsel, to be silent in interrogations and to face their accusers. However, the recent research indicates that the effectiveness of the juvenile court system has significantly decreased due to its continual transformation into adult court system. The juvenile court is more than a court. In addition to judges, probation officers, social workers, mental health professionals, parents and educators are involved into process. The process of maturity is not easy for children and they should be provides with intervention and protections from society. The mission of the juvenile courts is to become the center of rehabilitation and protection for young offenders (Jacob 2003). Most of the young offenders do not commit the serious crimes, but they still violate the state of federal law which if committed by the adult would constitute the crime (Rubin 1996). For many years, the society is struggling to decrease the level of juvenile criminal activities and is trying to identify what motivates the youth to commit crimes. The juvenile court system was intended to address the underlining causes of criminal activity and take the corrective actions. Advantages of Juvenile Court System The effective intervention strategies have developed and integrated into Juvenile Court System despite of the significant problems presented by the young offenders. From the personal perspective, young offenders experience numerous educational and psychological problems. The emotional and economic factors have the significant impact on their criminal involvement. From the epidemiological perspective, young offenders have high percentage of arrests for serious crimes (especially boys). From social perspective, antisocial juveniles as the participants of the child mental and education programs cause enormous governmental resources. In overall, the existing corrective programs for young individuals are effective. Traditional approaches of Juvenile Court System include psychodynamic, humanistic and behavioral (Borduin 1994). In some judicial districts, antisocial young people are referred to the mental health centers for individual psychotherapy where they can receive the individual counseling from the juvenile court representatives. In the middle 1990s, juvenile courts referred an increasing number of delinquent youth for outpatient family therapy as the part of their probation and this tendency has remained today. Peer and family interventions have proved to be high effective in reducing delinquent behavior as well. The so-called multisystemic therapy is the home-based treatment approach including the commitment to maintaining children at home, time-limiting and goal-orienting treatment plans. Unlike pure family intervention approach of juvenile courts, multisystemic therapy is more effective in addressing and reducing the causal models of delinquent behavior (Borduin 1994). The therapy's purpose is to understand the relation between the identified problems and broader systemic context.