Youth Justice Sytem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Youth Justice Sytem - Essay Example Surely the aberrant youths cannot be prosecuted the same way as adults as there is a different degree of criminality. The young criminal is always considered as a troubled youth whose parents, the church, the state and its institutions must partake of the blame. He is deemed as a victim of circumstances, of the weakening and destruction of the family and the family values, of fads such as drug use, cults, gangs and even heavy metal music as well as a product of violence in the newspapers, TV and the cinema. On the other hand, youth crimes cannot just be handled with kid gloves or reacted to by a mere slap of the wrist as these are potent symptoms of the debilitation of the moral fabric of society and thus, the weakening of the bonds that hold tight the dam that preserves society. Surely, if youthful criminals are detained for a while and released prematurely to society, they will be back to wreak more and deadlier havoc. At first, most societies dealt with youth crime control by subscribing to the environmental theory of crime which believes that youthful crimes are caused by external and environmental factors that are mostly beyond the control of the youthful offender. When this proved to be a failure, most societies shifted to the classical theory of crime which holds that the individual's crime is a result of his exercise of his free will and thus he must be deterred from commission 2 of crimes by severe punishment (Olivo et al 52). Today, UK has decided to meet halfway and has come up with a legislation called Youth Criminal Justice Act 2003, which holds that the youthful offender must be punished but he must undergo rehabilitation, pre-emptive intervention, education and a host of other services like the concept of restorative justice offered by the Youth Justice System (Stephenson xvii). The above was triggered by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of which UK is a signatory. In 1990, UK has agreed to accede to the UN provision respecting "special protection measures covering the rights of children in the juvenile justice system" and the provision granting to each child offender the right to "family environment and family care" as well as the "right not to be subjected to torture" (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child). The UN Riyadh Guidelines 1990 also provided for early intervention which is a shared responsibility between state and the parents. Concomitant to the provisions of the Youth Justice System was the establishment of Youth Justice Board (YJB) by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Its role is to oversee and provide leadership for the improvement of the performance of the youth justice system (Smith 83). Its main responsibility is to prevent the commission of offenses by young persons (Ghate 1). Other responsibilities are the securing of facilities for the juvenile offenders, the development of models of restorative justice and the development of parenting programmes (Smith 86). The Act declared that its main objective is the reinforcement of the responsibilities of parents to exercise control over their offsprings.