Juveniles short term confinement facilities essay

Juveniles Short Term Confinement Facilities

When juvenile offenders are arrested, adjudicated or sentenced to imprisonment, they are usually confined. These places confinement of are set aside specially for the restriction of young offenders in order to help them reform. They are correctional centre institutions for juvenile criminals. Over the past three decades, the juvenile restriction centers have evolved from poor hostile environments to advanced correctional facilities. In the 1980s, the juvenile confinement facilities were very human unfriendly. Juveniles who were sent to these facilities gained nothing to help them reform apart from the suffering. At that time, there were no different forms of juvenile confinement centers. All juvenile criminals were put in one place regardless of the kind of crime or offence they have committed.

There are several types of confinement centers currently. There are detention centers, jails, shelter care facilities and attention centers. These centers are classified based on the kind of juveniles they host. The detention centers are the commonest of them all. These are centers where juveniles who have been arrested on suspicion of committing an offence. These centers are usually managed by police since the suspects are under police custody. However, the police should be well trained to handle juveniles. Earlier on in the 1990s, the detention centers were not set aside for juveniles. As time moved on, human rights activists pushed for children to be put aside from adult criminals during detentions.

Attention centers are confinement areas without fences. They are areas where criminal youths are taken to and given attention in terms of proper moral, mental and psychological guidance. In these areas, the juveniles are guided on how to be law abiding citizens, how to relate with other people and other moral lessons. Previously, these centers never existed because the judicial system did not provide for guidance but punishment. This is a major step towards eradicating juvenile crime.

Jails are areas where criminals who have imprisonment sentences are confined. In these areas, juveniles get proper moral lessons as well as technical skills that could help them earn a living. Previously, there were no juvenile jails. All criminals were confined in the same jail, young and adult. This was not helpful to the juveniles because most of them ended up learning to be hardcore criminals. The creation of juvenile jails with good living conditions is an improvement on the correctional facilities of juveniles.

Reference

Champion, D. J. (2002). Probation, parole, and community corrections (4 ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.