Juvenile Justice In Australia Essay

Youth detention is designed to house Juvenile crime offenders rather than placing juveniles most commonly aged 10-17 in prison they are sent to Juvenile Detention centres. These Juveniles commit more property crime then violent crimes, and generally will commit less serious crimes like graffiti, shoplifting, vandalism, motor vehicle theft, fare evasion, road traffic offences and unlawful entry. However in early years in Australia children as young as six years old were once incarcerated for these crimes. However in today’s society the approach to young offenders is quite different. Prison is now seen as last resort solution for most juveniles. Juvenile Detention centres are managed by Youth Justices Services, they follow the belief that young

people should only go into detention as a last resort or when the offence they have committed is highly serious. Youths held in detention and their parents can often be very upsetting for them. Youth justice services help people and their families in understanding what causes them to offend and also help find out what they can do to support the young person to change their behaviour.
The main objective of Juvenile custodial facilities are to provide a humane, safe and secure environment, this assists young people to address their offending behaviour and it also helps to make positive choices about their lives, both in custody and upon their offending behaviour and to make positive choices about their lives, both in custody and upon their return to the community. The quality of these services that are provided is fundamental to the achievement of this objective.
The main ability that is focused on in the current detention system is to rehabilitate young offenders however a number of submissions into this has acknowledged its limitations. As detention seems to criminalise young people further. The Law Society of NSW referred to the anecdotal evidence that states detainees learn to ‘play the game’ so they can make themselves eligible for early realise then then they go out and re-offend.
However the importance of rehabilitation in these systems is recognised to a high extent on legislation within most states and territories. Although, a number of these legislative provisions convey the importance of re-integrating young detainees into the community, without making rehabilitation the explicit, primary aim of detention.
With most governments attempting to bring the rehabilitative focus more into the spotlight of their detention centres.

As rehabilitation is emphasised as a goal of detention in a number of different detention policies documents and procedure manuals. In New South Wales juvenile justice is commonly used to refer to a state’s criminal justice response to children who have committed an offence or allegedly committed an offence. In NSW the age criminal responsibility is at 10 year. And under criminal law, a child under the age of 18 years. In some jurisdictions, the function of juvenile justice resides within human services agencies and is not viewed purely within a criminal justice context. In New South Wales, the Department of Juvenile Justice is considered both a justice and human services agency.

The police state the detection and investigation of crime is the responsibility of New South Wales police. For eligible and entitled young offenders, the police may use the alternatives to court of warnings, cautions or referrals to youth justice conferences that are set out in the Young Offenders Act 1997. In court proceedings, the majority of juvenile charges brought by the police are dealt with by the Children’s Court under the provisions of the Young Offenders Act 1997 and the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act

1987.
Another piece of legislation relating to youth detention is the Youth Justice Act 1992 which commenced operation on 1 September 1993 (as the Juvenile Justice Act 1992) with major amendments occurring in 1996, 2002 and 2010. The Youth Justice Act 1992 provides laws for young people aged 10-16 years old who commit, or who are alleged to have committed, offences. The Youth Justice Act 1992 provides a code for dealing with young people who come in contact with the youth justice system including procedures for police to respond to young people, providing diversionary options such as cautioning and youth justice conferencing, providing a range of sentencing option, outlining how courts deal with young people, the operation of youth detention centres, recognising the importance of families and communities in the rehabilitation and reintegration of young people, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and establishing the Youth Justice Principles.
Also The Community Services Act 2007 has relevance to the youth justice system. This Act governs the administration of funding to organisations in receipt of government funding where a declaration is made for it to apply. Youth justice funding was recently declared to apply to a range of programs and services to young offenders and their families.
There are issues surrounding youth’s abilities to participate in the legal processes that affect all children because almost every youth will have some involvement with legal processes in the formal education system and in transactions as consumers of goods and services. Although, participation is a certain issue for select youths who have extensive contact with legal and administrative systems, they depend on these systems to protect and provide them with assistance in dealing with legal processors. This group of youths may include the ones involved with care and protection systems, they may be excluded from school or in some recept of income support or housing assistance or in the juvenile justice system.
Some limitations included with youth detention include youths becoming vulnerable and find issues with family breakdowns, socio-economic and educational disadvantages, system abuse and disabilities. Youth involvement in these process may be extent and they don’t always have the support of their families. These factors can lead to their disadvantage and certain limitations amongst youth detention. Contact with legal processes may affect these children's lives in many ways. For many of these children the contact produces a satisfactory result. For example, a child may receive income support that allows him or her to complete school or a child may enter foster care and receive the support his or her parents were not able to provide. (Children in the legal process. 2010)
(-------------------------------------crhis cunnenn textbook info---------------------------------------)
Based on this evidence the Youth Detention intervention amongst society is a rapid growing intervention that is successful in many ways but has its limitations.