The Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) approach introduced first in 1993 through a grant to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) began as a national initiative of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). It seeks to serve juvenile offenders with a perspective to achieve restoration or a guaranteed favorable return to reverse their once delinquent behavior. It serves juvenile offenders providing them with a rehabilitation role instead of retribution role. BARJ addresses the risk and protective factors and/or special needs of juvenile offenders by instructing them to be accountable for their actions; they must develop a level of competency, so they can be more responsible and realize the destructibility of their behavior, and how the balance of the two makes them a conducive representative in society. Some risk factors often experienced by juvenile offenders are substance abuse, antisocial behavior, family dysfunction or family conflicts, poor school performance, and/or poor choice of community involvement. Protective factors are sparse in some families and communities, but protective factors overshadow risk factors. Having a low tolerance towards negativity, loving and devoted parents or family interaction, outstanding school performance, being socially inclined are protective factors, thus cutting a juvenile’s chance of becoming an offender. Juvenile offenders, victims, and the community are the primary members involved in the BARJ treatment, but Juvenile justice professionals play a vital role as well. The juvenile justice professionals ensure offenders complete the restorative requirements as outlined by BARJ treatment. The main and most influential restorative requirement of the offender is to build ... ... middle of paper ... ... to make the change happen most effectively and immediately. Cooperation defined as an act or instance of working or acting together for a common purpose or benefit; joint action is an integral part of improvement for all three participants. In conclusion, 1995 initiated the future of balanced and restorative justice when 24 states adopted and examined juvenile codes or administrative procedures that included the balanced approach or restorative justice concept. Works Cited About the Balanced and Restorative Justice Project. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/implementing/about.html cooperation. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 16, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cooperation Restorative Justice / FrontPage. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://restorativejustice.pbworks.com/f/40+cases+word.doc
One of the fasting growing juvenile treatment and interventions programs are known as teen courts. Teen courts serve as an alternative juvenile justice, to young offenders. Non-violent, and mostly first time offenders are sentenced by their peers’ in teen courts. Teen courts also serve as juvenile justice diversion programs. Teen courts vary from state to state, and sometimes within the same state. With this program, all parties of the judicial setting are juveniles with the exception of the judge. Each teen court, is designed specifically to meet the needs of the community it serves. Teen courts were created to re-educate offenders throughout the judicial process, create a program with sanctions that will allow the youth not to have a juvenile record, and to also instil a sense of responsibility.
Roach, K. (2000). Changing punishment at the turn of the century: Restorative justice on the rise. Canadian Journal of Criminology. 42, (2), 249-280.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act has many concerns creating inequalities in the restorative justice approach. For instance, juvenile delinquents who develop from a background that is impoverished may lack the ability to satisfy the reparative objectives of punishment and may not be ready to be reintegrated back into socie...
Restorative Justice is a new way of thinking about and responding to crime, especially in relation to youth offending. For the past decade, especially, there has been an increasing interest in new approaches towards criminal justice in general but more so in terms of juvenile delinquency and finding an appropriate form of punishment to escape the labelling of youth delinquency, which involve the community and focus much more on the victim.
...ing beckoned in with the 21st century. While U.S.’s JLWOP laws are inconsistent with many human rights treatises and with international law, it is more important for our policies to be based on a thorough understanding of the issue- the most essential being a separation of the processes for juvenile and adult criminal offenders. With an emphasis on rehabilitation for juvenile offenders, and the goal of encouraging maturity and personal development after wayward actions, the futures of many teens in the criminal justice system can become much more hopeful.
Henggeler, S. & Schoenwald, S. J. (2011). Evidence-based interventions for juvenile offenders and juvenile justice policies that support them. Social policy report, 25 (1), pp. 1--20.
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz states how schools that claim they are following restorative approaches through their policies in discipline are not necessarily restorative, but have enough flexibility to allow a restorative response.
The concept of restorative justice became a game-changer in juvenile justice system. Through the course of time, professionals explored every possible methods and approaches that could positively affect the children without the expense of harming their future and wellbeing. The idea of restorative justice is “administer justice that focuses or repairing the harm done to the victim and the community. (Save the Children-UK, 2005)” The four guiding principles are to: (1) Repair and restore the balance within the community. (2) restitution for the victim. (3) Ensure that the offender understand and take responsibility. (4) Help the offender to change and improve. In South Africa, this is practiced in their community throughout
The focus of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, rather than to imprison and punish like the systems adult counterpart. According to Caldwell (1961) the juvenile justice system is based on the principle that youth are developmentally and fundamentally different from adults. This has lead to the development of a separate justice system for juveniles that was initially designed to assist troubled juveniles providing them with protection, treatment, and guidance. When performing as it is designed and up to the initial intentions, the juvenile court balances rehabilitation (treatment) of the offender with suitable sanctions when necessary such as incarceration. According to Mack (1909) the focus of the juvenile justice system has shifted from “how can we help the child”, “why did the child commit the crime” to “was the crime committed”. According to Griffin (2008) in some cases juveniles may be required to be “transferred” to adult court. The prerequisites for transfer to adult court are the duty to protect the public from violent youths, serious crime, and the lack of rehabilitation chance from the juvenile court. According to Flesch (2004) many jurisdictions handle the issue of serious juvenile crime by charging juveniles as adults. Charging a juvenile as an adult is done by a method which is called waiver to adult court. This waiver allows adult criminal court to have the power to exercise jurisdiction over juveniles and handle the juvenile’s case as an adult’s case would be tried. According to Flesch (2004) a juvenile is both tried and if convicted of the crime the juvenile will be sentenced as an adult when his or her case is waived from the juvenile court. Waiver to adult court initially was viewe...
“Restorative justice is an approach to crime and other wrongdoings that focuses on repairing harm and encouraging responsibility and involvement of the parties impacted by the wrong.” This quote comes from a leading restorative justice scholar named Howard Zehr. The process of restorative justice necessitates a shift in responsibility for addressing crime. In a restorative justice process, the citizens who have been affected by a crime must take an active role in addressing that crime. Although law professionals may have secondary roles in facilitating the restorative justice process, it is the citizens who must take up the majority of the responsibility in healing the pains caused by crime. Restorative justice is a very broad subject and has many other topics inside of it. The main goal of the restorative justice system is to focus on the needs of the victims, the offenders, and the community, and focus
Introduction: Recidivism or, habitual relapses into crime, has time and time again proven to be an issue among delinquents, which thereby increases the overall juvenile prison population. This issue has become more prevalent than what we realize. Unless a unit for measuring a juvenile’s risk of recidivism is enacted and used to determine a system to promote effective prevention, than the juvenile prison population will continue to increase. Our court system should not only focus on punishing the said juvenile but also enforce a program or policy that will allow for prevention of recidivism. So the question remains, how can recidivism in the juvenile prison population be prevented so that it is no longer the central cause for increased juvenile delinquency? Simply put, we must create a means of measuring juvenile’s level of risk and in turn, form an effective rehabilitation program that will decrease their risk level for future recidivism.
Restorative justice is defined as “using humanistic, no punitive strategies to right wrongs and restore social harmony” (Siegel, 2008, p. 189). Instead of imposing harsh penalties on offenders like long prison sentences or even the death penalty, restorative justice calls for a more rehabilitative approach, such as reconciliation and offender assistance.
Walgrave, Lode. Restorative justice for juveniles: potentialities, risks and problms for research : a selection of papers presented at the international conference Leuven, May 12-14, 1997. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1998.
A common focus of rehabilitation states that “criminality is a disease that can be cured”. The theory states that many offenders who are let into rehabilitation are usually treated with medical or drug treatments. The rehabilitation sentencing theory is mainly only given to children and or first-time offenders and not repeat offenders because they obviously have not learned from their past mistakes and have no hope left. The mentality is to find people who are capable of being cured and are able to get another chance in life. Finally, restorative justice is the theory of rehabilitating the victims and not the offenders. While rehabilitation mainly focuses on the offender, restorative justice focuses on getting the offender and victim together to be able to change and address the damage that was done. The goal is to remove the harm done to the victim by having them work together in the hope of
...tes of recidivism, mandations undoubtedly need to be made. That legislative push should be discontinuing the regarding juvenile offenders as criminals and grouping them in the same mindset as their adult counter parts. Their efforts should provide programs, unified and universal in all facilities to increase education. The United States must not be driven by a remedial punitive approach with regards to the dealing with juvenile offenders. They are the future; the potential and the legislative bodies and governments need to implement a comprehensive policy to stimulate the positive cognitive development of all school-age offenders. The goal should be to encourage legislators to appropriate better resources and enable community members to develop and implement plans to meet the educational needs of the forgotten division of the offending population; the juveniles.