The Juvenile Justice System Article Review

Overview

The juvenile justice and welfare system entails developing a plan of handling children who pose the risk of conflicting with the law. The system provides diversion, rehabilitation, reintegration, and after-care programs to ensure that the children receive child-appropriate proceedings. The juvenile justice and welfare act of 2006 gives children in conflict with the law the right to be treated with humanity, not subjected to torture or deprived of their liberty (Lipsey et al., 2010). Despite the efforts to subject the children who have been accused or alleged to have committed an offense to home detention, diversion programs, community-based programs, and rehabilitation, children continue to engage in unlawful acts. Therefore, the general statistics of children repeatedly offending raises the question of whether the juvenile justice and welfare system program is entirely practical or whether it needs to be supplemented with other ways to achieve early prevention and intervention of delinquency and related-problem behavior.

Research in conjunction with the American Society of criminology, data collected from the National institute of justice records showed a sense of urgency generated by public cry due to the swiftly changing policy response to conduct policy-relevant research to convert the research findings into recommendations for the well-being of children. The juvenile justice and welfare policy aim to protect the best interests of the children in conflict with the law. The policy recognizes the critical role of children and the youth in the process of building the nation. Hence, it intends to help children to reform and become better adults. Reliable evidence connects early problem behavior to emerging adolescent delinquency and consequent adult criminality. Therefore, the Juvenile justice system carefully chooses how to deal with children to help them reform to save them from future jail terms as adults (Nation et al., 2003). Unfortunately, children seem to snap back to their old habits and end up being arrested for similar crimes. It is evident that the juvenile justice system requires updating, and the researchers chose an exciting problem on whether the system needs the help of other effective childhood programs.

How the Researcher Applied the Steps in Policy Experiment

The research systematically followed the steps of policy experiments, choosing an interesting problem and critically thinking to elude any possible ethical issues in the study. The study used case studies from the national institute of justice records to establish that most children are legally entitled to shelter, adequate food and healthcare, but have no access. The interviews conducted on social workers assigned children to supervise during community work established that the absence of these vital resources contributed to increased criminality among children. Also, surveys methods in the experiment showed that children with criminal parents had a higher probability of becoming criminals. To avoid any ethical issues when researching the influence of criminal parents on their children, the researchers avoided using methods such as interviews to gather information. The records used in the survey showed that children who were identified in court as neglected and abused were likely to become delinquent. Similarly, children with parents who are offenders seemed to follow the example of their parents to become delinquent. On the other hand, the survey showed that children whose parents had no criminal records were unlikely to turn to crime.

Maintaining the random assignment of cases, persons, and control groups throughout the experiment required the study to use specific issues for the survey. The cases chosen to research how lack of resources such as safe shelter and food influenced children differed from those used to investigate how the parents' negligence influenced the children's behavior. The case studies used to determine whether criminal parents influenced their children into being offenders differed from those used to compare the children whose parents had criminal parents to those whose parents had no criminal records. Therefore, the research ensured to maintain the random assignment of persons into control groups and treatment, and the case studies were randomly chosen despite the participants' race, age, or origin. The design and methodology of the research were carefully tailored to answer the research question on whether the juvenile justice system needed assistance from other childhood programs using the available data. Choosing survey as a research methodology meant that the research team would comb through the available data from the American Society of criminology and choose the information relevant to the research. Experiments as a research method were also practical since the data gathered for the survey included case studies that could be useful to conduct experiments to respond to the research questions.

Team-approach between researchers and practitioners is evident through seeking insight from social workers who have dealt with children in rehabilitation, community service, and shelters. The social workers provided helpful information on the trends of children and their behaviors, siding the researchers to conclude on factors affecting criminal behavior in children. Also, the information provided by social workers pointed the researchers towards the best direction regarding how best to support neglected children and the best childhood programs based on the age and specific developmental stages of the children (Park, 2019). Data obtained from workers in rehabilitation centers showed that the best programs to support children must involve investigating to identify multiple problem behaviors and long-term efforts to support the children instead of a few months of counseling. Also, the research invested heavily in long hours of going through big data to choose what effectively fits to answer the research question. To understand children better, researchers read widely on the psychology of children and their various stages of development. Therefore, the research effectively adopted a team approach between practitioners and researchers and invested adequately into the research to obtain relatively accurate outcomes.

After obtaining the findings, the research provided recommendations on how best to inform the already existing policy. The study did not intend to develop a new policy. Instead, it offered proven methods that can effectively update the policy in place to make it better. Based on the experiment on the most effective childhood programs, the study established that the approach could be more beneficial to prevent and intervene in delinquent behavior. The department of juvenile justice can organize a frequent program for visitations to parents at a high risk of abusing or neglecting and educational day-care to cater for infants at the risk of being ignored (Park, 2019). The study based its recommendations on existing aspects of the policy such as community programs, improving it by suggesting sustaining participation for older children when they are not in school. The research also understood political risks that may face the recommendations, such as sabotage, and confronted the threats by avoiding the need for strategies requiring vast sums of money. The suggestions are simple and easy to implement, and their main aim is to achieve the well-being of children. The experiment recommended various strategies for both criminal parents and juvenile offenders to practice and encouraged the department of justice to develop and implement evaluations before approving the recommendations. Therefore, the study advocates for testing the proposals on various settings before allowing total adoption. For instance, criminal parents can begin receiving prenatal counseling during pregnancy to reduce the chances of neglecting their children. Instead of stopping counseling at birth, hands-on counseling can start with the infants' presence to assess whether counseling is effective.

I believe the juvenile justice policy is worth continuing as a program because; children receive counseling, rehabilitation, and guidance to become better adults. Young offenders can assess free mental health assessment, substance addiction treatment, and help, and neglected or abused victims receive protection by being kept away from their offenders.