Juvenile Crime and Justice

Question: Discuss about the Juvenile Crime and Justice. Answer: Young Peoples Place in Public Space: Young people use the public place as much as anyone else in the society does. The young people and young adults are between the ages of 12 to 25. Young people are often seen loitering around public places and most of the time people frown about the fact that young people are seen loitering around the public place. This creates a negative effect on young people and contributes to the stigma surrounding them, especially those children who are at risk. As part of the society, we should know how to treat with young children and how to manage children if they are seen loitering around and doing acts that are prohibited by their age (Anderson 2014). Parks and public spaces are meant for young people so that they may go out after school and play. There are many amenities available for young people such as swings and slides for them. However, there are parks that are devoid of amenities and it is because of such lack that induces children to go to malls, shopping centres and hang out in such places. Young people are very resourceful part of the society and we as part of the society should ensure that young people do not feel left out and alone. It was seen in most cases, that young people often fall a prey of crimes and that is how they tend to become a criminal gradually (Zehr 2015). We must ensure that young people feel that they are part of the community too and that their involvement in our community can influence others in the community. The young people should feel that their involvement in the public space has created a sense of ownership and respect in other members of the public space. This makes the children feel wanted, happy, and contended. Some of the steps that we may take for making the young people feel as part of the public space is by allowing them to be part of the community consultation, planning and design process. This will allow the local council workers build a good rapport with the young people and make them feel part of the council meetings. Such steps may prove to be very effective, as it will distract the youth from committing crimes, as they will stay busy in other work (Benekos and Merlo 2014). However, young people can sometimes be very difficult to engage depending on the way to approach them. The reason behind this is that young people maintain their own forum and they often do not want other people to be part of their forum. Hence, we should make them part of the place making projects. As part of the public space we should make an effort to connect and consult with the youth in the community. By getting more and more people involved in the community making process they may become more alert and busy with the decision making process of the community (Taylor 2014). References: Anderson, D.M., 2014. In school and out of trouble? The minimum dropout age and juvenile crime.Review of Economics and Statistics,96(2), pp.318-331. Benekos, P.J. and Merlo, A.V., 2014.Controversies in juvenile justice and delinquency. Routledge. Taylor, R., 2014.Juvenile justice: Policies, programs, and practices. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Zehr, H., 2015.The little book of restorative justice: revised and updated. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc..