Special Populations: A Challenge to Juvenile Justice

The special population I would like to focus on in this discussion is the

early starters. This is a group of juvenile offenders whose first contact in the

juvenile justice system occurs before the age of 17 (Listwan, 2013). I support

the shifting of early starters to treatment options other than the normal

juvenile delinquency programs. The first option which is effectively used

outside the typical juvenile delinquency programs is getting the kid away

from the setting in which he or she is presently living. This involves getting

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the child out of the place where he or she starts to learn how to commit a

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crime and other behavioral traits. Other than this approach, parents and

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guardians have other seven intervention options for early starters. These
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comprise broad-based mediation, community-centered programs, social

perspective-taking training, teaching problem-solving skills, and functional

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family therapy. The commonly used option is functional family therapy.

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Collectively, these interventions are formulated to assist parents and

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guardians rehabilitate juvenile perpetrators as opposed to strictly

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concentrating on punishment (Sexton, 2017). Usually, when a parent

punishes a juvenile offender for a particular offense, that kid will most likely
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repeat the act. For early starters, punishment is not the ideal solution to
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deterring them from undertaking offenses.

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There are various drawbacks to the seven intervention options for

early starters. For instance, when the functional family therapy (FFT) is

adopted, juvenile offenders might feel overwhelmed by the intervention

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 methods and hence become unenthusiastic to speak out on the matters that

are bothering them (Sexton, 2017). FFT can cause kids and adolescents to

become more closed up than before. Such a scenario can have an adverse

impact on the outcomes of the intervention sessions. The outcomes of an

FFT are identified and measured by the use of an outcome evaluation

method. This is because FFT provides clear identification of precise stages

that logically organizes the mediation, and as a result enabling clinicians to

concentrate on the setting of considerable individual and family disruption.

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References

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Listwan, S. J. (2013). Introduction to Juvenile Justice (2nd ed.). Retrieved from

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https://content.ashford.edu/
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Sexton, T. L. (2017). Functional family therapy. The Encyclopedia of Juvenile

Delinquency and Justice, 1-7.

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