Juvenile Justice System of the Future

Juvenile Justice System of the Future

Introduction

The landscape of the juvenile system in the US has seen a drastic shift owing to the sweeping policy changes enacted by state governments. Many of these changes are a replica of the changes that have been made to the adult system of justice (Willison & Brooks, 2010)). The primary objective of these changes at the state level was to reduce the gap in the justice system for adults and that for juveniles, modify the guidelines on sentencing and bring consistency in juvenile dispositions. The paper discusses the Juvenile Justice System of the Future in terms of the juvenile and juvenile delinquency today.

Juvenile of today

The juvenile of today now represent a high degree of high risk youth. This youth is also trouble for the family. Most juvenile cases have shown a common trend on the age of the youth. The age under 125 years old is particularly dangerous. The juvenile of today represent a pool perpetrators as well as victims. The perpetrators include juvenile involved in crimes such as drug possession and drug dealing, while the juvenile victims include victims of abuse and negligence and others (Dawson, 2000). The juvenile justice system suggests that juvenile cannot be arrested on the basis of suspicion alone. There must be strong evidence against the juvenile to prove the crime committed by him for an officer to be able to arrest him. Notification to either the parents of the child or the probation officer is required in most cases. There are also laws to highlight the screening policy for juvenile (Champion, 2004).

Challenges of juvenile delinquency today

Juvenile delinquency refers to the crimes committed by youth. In other words, juvenile delinquency may be understood as the illegal behavior of minors. Anyone who is below the age of 18 years is considered a minor as per the legal system. The evaluation of the current juvenile system revealed that it does not meet the changing requirements of the juvenile of today. It does not take into account the fact that the juvenile of today are nothing like the juvenile from the 1950s. Hence, changes need to be made to the American juvenile system to address the issues on ground and in accordance with the current scenario.

One of the major challenges faced in the context of juvenile delinquency relates to the incorporation of different types of juvenile ...