Kourtney Pierce
2/18/14
CRJ 201
Addressing the Issues of Juvenile Justice and Crime in the City
Washington, DC is one of the most beautiful cities in the nation. Known as the nation’s capital, it is home to the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Monument, and many other historical attractions. While DC brings tourist from near and far to visit its natural and manmade wonders, there are some not so great aspects to the city. DC is known for its high crime rates, with its murder rate ranked being 8th among popular cites in 2012 ( Natividad, 2013) , violent crimes spiking from one year to the next, and according to an article from the Washington Post, by the end of 2013 there were 104 homicides. Juvenile crime in DC factors in to those high numbers. Juvenile crimes seem to continuously rise and the juvenile justice system seems to be failing them. Many are not receiving the proper treatment they may need, and repeat offenders are being returned to the streets. Gangs, access to guns, and youth crime are running the DC streets and too many of our youth are being caught in crossfire. We as a community and along with the government need to come up with a better solution to deter the youth from living a life of crime and try to save them from the streets before it is too late.
To begin the mayor should first focus on the increase in juvenile related crimes, pinpointing the most extreme, to avoid the problems that those increases will create. Addressing the fact that there is a serious issue in the community will help everyone involved get a better understanding of the problem and how to solve it. Using community oriented policing he can get officers out to listen and pay attention to the people in the communities. Each neighborhood ...
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...rmed when playing outside, and that the will not be stereotyped and profiled for being who they are. It will be a slow and steady process but once the first step is made everyone from the Mayor to the people in the communities need to make the intuitive to do better. Take the focus off the so called “bad kids” in the area because it starts with the area surroundings and what is or is not being offered to the kids. The parents need to take more responsibility as well and stop letting the streets raise their children. Once everyone takes accountability for their own actions and stops putting the blame on someone else, then a solution can be found and everyone can work together to enforce it. Pinpoint the problem areas little by little and work on one thing at a time. Everyone expects change to happen right away without working for it and that’s where the problem lies.
Being a cop is one of the hardest jobs you can get. Now facing the public and everyone seems to be against you makes it worse. Dealing with murders, suicides, and even mass shootings. But still to go home and be the father, mother, daughter, brother, son, or daughter and have a smile on your face when you see your loved ones is the important aspect. To get home safely is his number one goal every night when the cops put off their badge. The officers in Cop in the Hood have many ideas how to make Baltimore a family oriented as it once was. Some say a fire to wipe everything out or a flood to wash away the filth in the city. But, the only way to clear the war on drugs in that city is supply and demand. You cut
Recently, there has been a rise in criminal activity amongst the youth in Columbus Georgia. The percentage of juvenile criminals increased by almost 9.5% in the year 2012-2013(Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Many of the crimes committed involved adolescents as young as fifteen, and have become increasingly more violent. In 2012 a sixteen year old woman was shot and killed by her eighteen year old boyfriend, a few months later a nineteen year old boy was shot while walking to his home. (Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Due to the overwhelmin...
Many theories, at both the macro and micro level, have been proposed to explain juvenile crime. Some prominent theories include Social Disorganization theory, Differential Social Organization theory, Social Control theory, and Differential Association theory. When determining which theories are more valid, the question must be explored whether people deviate because of what they learn or from how they are controlled? Mercer L. Sullivan’s book, “Getting Paid” Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City clearly suggests that the learning theories both at the macro level, Differential social organization, and micro level, Differential association theory, are the more accurate of the two types of theory.
Jenson, Jeffrey and Howard, Matthew. "Youth Crime, Public Policy, and Practice in the Juvenile Justice System: Recent Trends and Needed Reforms." Social Work 43 (1998): 324-32
The streets of Philadelphia are rapidly becoming a home to violent acts and random homicides. Innocent lives are taken every day due to the strong presence of gangs, and the streets are run by unruly groups of fearless young adults. Gang violence in Philadelphia is a major issue, and the citizens will never be safe until gang prevention occurs. Gang prevention is not a simple task, but with the right resources available, it is possible. Gang violence is a problem that will contribute to the collapse of Philadelphia, and it has yet to be solved throughout many generations. With gang violence on the rise, the best solution to gang violence is to educate the youth and parents about gangs and use family support to prevent the creation of gang members from the problem’s core.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines Probation as a period of time given to someone who commits a crime and instead of being incarcerated are allowed to spend their sentence in the community based on conditions set aside by the courts. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/probation) The task was given to me to build the ultimate model of Probation Services. After careful consideration and great thought this is the route I decided to take. I believe that parents play a great role in some of the decisions their children make. The decisions children make today are a reflection of their parents. My focus on this probation model is to place both child and parent in an institution were they would undergo a period of restoration of family values, rehabilitation, parenting courses, academia and counselling. The ages of these juveniles will range between the ages of ten (10) to seventeen (17) years old.Therefore I stand for institutionalized probation and how this probation will assist in instilling family values.
In earlier years young children were tried for crimes the same way an adult would be, juvenile delinquency wasn’t a thing. For example in the 1700’s girls as young at thirteen were burned at stake for their crimes same as adults. Now a day children under the age of 18 who commit a crime are not tried the same as a person over 18, this is called juvenile delinquency. There are some crimes that only juveniles can commit such as underage drinking, running away from home, or violating curfew. These are not the crimes that bother people about juveniles, the most common crime committed by juveniles is theft, then drugs, and after that is disorderly conduct. Most juveniles commit a crime are not repeat offenders. Some juvenile’s come from a community where committing crimes is the norm. Juveniles that graduated high school are less likely to commit crimes than those who don’t.
There are many different ways of policing in the 21st century and all address and apply different theories and ideas to try and control the crime this day in age. One of these methods is called community policing and many law enforcement agencies around our country and the world use it as a model for policing and interacting with communities. Community policing is based on the belief that policing agencies should partner with communities with the goals to prevent or reduce the amount of crime in those areas (Pollock, 2012 p. 99). There are 3 main aspects of community policing that I will talk about in this paper and they are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. After hearing about the
Tashea argues, “By investing in recreation centers, we can provide alternatives to delinquency. By providing reception centers, Baltimore could create access to services for our most vulnerable youth” (1). Community centers are safe places for afterschool programs as Wilson and Philip, state, “For many youth, the recreation/drop-in center is a nonthreatening, relatively unstructured place to play sports and hang out in an otherwise high-risk urban area” (73). In Baltimore where the community leaders and stakeholders have brought the at-risk youth problem to the surface, they can start to see some positive outcomes. In positive data about a Baltimore Police Athletic League center Chung, et al., notes, “A study of the Goodnow Police Athletic League (PAL) center in northeast Baltimore, the first center to open in May 1995, also indicated that juvenile arrests dropped nearly 10 percent, the number of armed robberies dropped from 14 to 7, assaults with handguns were eliminated, and common assaults decreased from 32 to 20.3” (16). These statistics further prove that prevention options work effectively, and can greatly improve our American
Community oriented policing has been around for over 30 years, and promotes and supports organizational strategies to address the causes, and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem solving tactics. The way community policing works is it requires the police and citizens to work together to increase safety for the public. Each community policing program is different depending on the needs of the community. There have been five consistent key elements of an effective community oriented policing program: Adopting community service as the overarching philosophy of the organization, making an institutional commitment to community policing that is internalized throughout the command structure, emphasizing geographically decentralized models of policing that stress services tailored to the needs of individual communities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire jurisdiction, empowering citizens to act in partnership with the police on issues of crime and more broadly defined social problems, for example, quality-of-life issues, and using problem-oriented or problem-solving approaches involving police personnel working with community members. Community oriented policing has improved the public’s perception of the police in a huge way. Community policing builds more relationships with the
People nowadays believe that crime has reached its peak among young generations. ''A recent study by Cambridge University identifies intense fears in communities across the UK about the decline in mutual respect and social cohesion, the dominance of anti-social behaviour, materialism and cult of celebrity
To conclude, Community policing represents a major development in the history of American law enforcement, but the extent to which this approach is a success and dominates contemporary policing remains a source of debate. In my point of view, community policing is good for communities. It has challenged the traditional concept of the police as crime-fighters by drawing attention to the complexities of the police role and function. In addition to the police officer hard work; citizens can also make a difference and contribute to make neighborhoods a better place to live. For instance, citizens can hold community meetings to talk about concerns and agree on solutions help organize healthy activities for children in your neighborhood, join or starting a neighborhood crime watch program, and talk to your community police officers and share information and concerns.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as being “a human being under the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.” CRC encourages the establishment of systems, authorities, actions and laws distinctively appropriate to children who are accused of, suspected of, or recognized as having infringed any laws. In the Caribbean, the law relating to child offenders is recognized by names such as Juvenile Act, Juvenile Ordinance, Juvenile Offenders Act, Children Act, Children and Young Persons Act or Criminal Code. In Grenada, under the Criminal Code, children who come within the relevant justice classifications are referred to as juveniles. Over the years, there has been an increase in juvenile crimes amidst the absence of an appropriate facility to house and aid rehabilitation in Grenada. As a result, offenders under the age of eighteen are placed into the adult prison system which consequently results in the prevalence of repeat offenders and a negative impact on the socioeconomic and multi-sector environment. It is with this in mind that the introduction of a juvenile rehabilitation centre will counteract the negative effects and offer a restorative environment, separate from adult offenders.
The biggest lie kids tell themselves is that they are indestructible. They can fly free from pain and consequence; that they can not be bothered with the rules and regulations of life. However, all too often this juvenile mentality comes to a screeching halt when they have done something that their quick, witty minds can not get them out of, a crime. As a young adult, the punishment may not be as serious, but it is still all too real. Juvenile crime is an epidemic that the American society needs to prevent through the utilization of youth programs that focus on instilling good habits before delinquency sets in.
In today’s generation there are many children and teens that commit crimes to satisfy their self being. Every day we see in the news about the reasons why children or teens commit crimes like murder or homicide. Sentencing juveniles to life in prison is not a right response to prevent homicide and serious murder, because their brains are not fully develop and the bad environment they live in. Teenagers or children need to be remain unformed of preventing crimes in today’s society. With this said, juvenile’s mental brains, backgrounds and growth are the reasons why they are not proficient to maintain themselves in a prison cell.