Juvenile Justice Policy Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Juvenile Justice Policy - Research Paper Example The juvenile system deals with youth who have broken the law and are at risk of turning into a problematic issue for the justice system in the future. Unlike the established judicial system that has been designed to punish and rehabilitate wrongdoers within the society, the juvenile system mainly focuses on the aspect of rehabilitation rather than punishment for the mistakes of those who have been committed to the system (Barbaree & Marshall, 2008). The idea behind this is that those who are still in the youthful stages of their lives have a higher chance of correcting their ways and becoming assets to their communities, and this is what the system has been made to help them achieve. The juvenile system aims at trying to redirect young delinquents back to the right path before it is too late. There are several policies that have been setup as a result with a view to achieving this aim and one of these was focused on the Native American population and their education. This policy focu sed on finding Native American youth who were not receiving the required level of care and attention with regard to issues such as the development of their education and stepping into the parental roles to provide these needs (Woolard & Scott, 2009). At one time, the policy functioned by identifying these youthful individuals and removing them from their homes when deemed necessary and placing them in residential schools. This policy emerged after it was discovered that many Native Americans did hold much weight in the western education system and thus did not insist on their children acquiring this education from the school systems that were at their disposal (Bartol & Bartol, 2009). As a result, a large number of these youth resorted to juvenile crimes that got them in trouble with law enforcement and set precedence for them in terms of their future. It was figured that if this was to continue, many of these youth delinquents would grow up to be serious criminals unless something was to be done about the situation. The system worked with the collaboration of the members of society who would report instances where they felt that their neighbors were neglecting their children and thus intervention was needed. The government would then send an official to investigate the claims, and if the accusations were found to be justified the minor was removed from the home and taken to foster care where they would be enrolled into a residential school that was near the vicinity (Siegel& Welsh, 2011). The children would also be identified according to files that were developed on those who had been found culpable of a number of crimes and thus had a record with the juvenile system. If an individual was a repeat offender then concern would be raised within the department, and an official would be sent to the individual’s home to determine whether their domestic environment was a reason behind their delinquent behavior (Barbaree & Marshall, 2008). These methods of id entification seemed to be successful at the beginning, but as time wore on there were a number of issues that were found with such arrangements. Some of the disadvantages or flaws that were identified within the system included issues such as greed whereby foster parents would attempt