Conflicting Trends in Juvenile Justice Sanctioning - Divergent Strategies in the Handling of the Serious Juvenile Offender

• NCJ Number: 87076
• Journal: Juvenile and Family Court Journal Volume: 33 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1982) Pages: 15-30
• Author(s): T L Armstrong; D M Altschuler
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An earlier version presented at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Association of Criminal Justice Educators, St Louis, Missouri

Annotation

This article identifies the community-based approach and the 'get tough' approach as the conflicting trends for dealing with the serious juvenile offender, and support is given to a community-based approach that uses enlightened social control.

Abstract

The community-based approach for dealing with serious juvenile crime arose as part of more broadly-based reform efforts designed to overcome the shortcomings of the rehabilitative model practiced by the traditional juvenile court movement. These changes represented a refinement of the rehabilitative ideal, emphasizing the advantages of community linkages, individual accountability, responsibility, and social control. The 'get tough' approach was, in part, also a reaction to the excesses and failures of the traditional juvenile court movement but also represented an attack on the supposed overpermissiveness of the subsequent reform measures. This approach has borrowed heavily from the control/punishment model of justice which has long operated in the adult system. This approach involves a commitment to the theoretical precepts of retribution, incapacitation, and deterrence. An analysis of the assumptions and precepts of the 'get tough' approach suggests a number of distortions, basic fallacies, and oversimplifications in this approach. These problems suggest moving away from a purely punishment/control model toward a more effective rehabilitative model, one which will be informed by the rational and humane use of control and supervision in the rehabilitative process. Such an approach would include graduated consequences for specified behavior, supportive intervention, and preparation for reintegration. Which ever approach is used for dealing with the serious juvenile offender, neither punishment eschewing decency nor rehabilitation lacking reasoned control will resolve this complex problem. Forty notes are listed.