Diversion In The Juvenile Justice System

This chapter examines the juvenile justice diversion as an alternative to formal adjudication of juvenile justice and the placement of children, particularly residential placement. Juvenile Diversion is based on the premise that youth exposure to justice may be more harmful than beneficial (Shelden, 1999).

It has been argued that the diversion of low risk, non-violent offenders of minor crimes justice system in the treatment and community-based interventions to reduce the likelihood of future criminal behavior (Whitehead and Lab, 2001).

The idea of deviation as a process in which problems are solved in the context of crime and official action are defined and managed by other means, with "minimal penetration" in the juvenile justice system.

Forwarding services and referral means implies that young people are removed from the justice system and placed in alternative programs. Lemert (1981) has also argued that the deviation corrects a number of shortcomings in juvenile justice. These include (a) the denial of juveniles of civil rights or fair dealing, (b) delays in the courts, so for inefficiency, (c) the labeling and stigmatization of young people, (d) the failure of the juvenile justice system to reduce recidivism and (e) the failure of communities to take responsibility for solving the problems of

Since the establishment of the first juvenile court in Chicago Illinois for over 100 years (Grisso, 199,813) ago, psychologists have continued to show a strong presence in juvenile proceedings and assist the juvenile justice system, as well as young people involved in it. a special court and the justice system for minors, partly in response to the recognition that adolescents, while clearly shows greater cognitive, emotional and behavioral capacities were established than their younger counterparts, do not have many of the skills that adults and relevant to the legal decision making and criminal responsibility (Otto and Borum, 2004) demonstrators. As a result, the juvenile court was to consider the criminal behavior of minors in context of development, with a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and decreased attention on the punishment (Zimring, 2000). Since the juvenile court was to focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, the dramatic changes in the landscape of juvenile justice in 1966 and 1967, changing forever the denial of constitutional guarantees for minors. In its decisions in Kent v. United States (1966) and In re Gault (1967), the Supreme Court of the United States asked if the ideal rehabilitation of the