1
Juvenile Detention Facility
Matthew Marin
Juvenile Justice Systems
Prof. Watson
The Criminal justice system is the headline in every country in today’s age. We notice a trend of when we used to do certain things up till today where we continue to do it or we have simply changed it and disregarded it. As years go by, people evolutionize, technology is at its peak moment. But one thing remains mostly the same, simply because we still have not figured out what is it that we want to do with our criminal justice system. But more specifically we see how we haven’t made any progress in our juvenile system. with all these changes, juveniles are committing more crime and more serious ones as well. We the people are very confused in what we should do and how we look upon a juvenile and sentence him life in jail with no parole. We still don’t know if we want the death penalty or not. There are many things we still have to change and improve in our juvenile system. But I believe that in order to change anything, we have to start from the inside. When I say inside I mean detention centers where most of the juveniles are awaiting trial or have been convicted. Juvenile detention facilities are jails for juveniles just like an adult jail but the wording is more professional. The real question I ask you the reader and myself is, once a juvenile is put in the system what is the juvenile detention facility doing in order to reintegrate the juvenile back to society? Because that is the main goal, we don’t want to lock them up forever and we also don’t want to release and have them commit another crime but as an adult and then get locked up. What are the right moves and which ones should we avoid?
In the state of Florida, there 21 facilities within 3 regions of the state. They hold juveniles awaiting trial or placement in a residential facility. These detention centers are for youths who are detained under specific circumstances set by Florida statue. So, every state has different laws so it depends on what the law is within a state and it depends if what the juvenile did breaks the law. These facilities are often very big in size and they hold both girls and boys. In a recent study the number of juveniles currently in a detention center in the united states is 50,821 juveniles. Also within all of them the most common age for a juvenile to be in a detention facility is 16 and 17 years old. We know that these ages are usually the time in a teens life where life begins to pick up in school and in society you are becoming more of an adult and so on. Many question, the theory that if they stay a long time, they are less likely to reoffend. However, it is not true, time is not a factor. What is a factor, is what the teens get as punishment and what types of help the teens receive? Which then leads to whether a detention center is really the solution or is it effective. Many believe that juvenile boot camps are highly effective at rehabilitating offenders and reduc...
