Youths who engage in crime not only waste their capability of investing their skills in building the economy of a nation, but also often participate in the destruction of the economy. According to Pardini (2016, p.257), “Juvenile crime is a serious public health problem that exacts a significant financial and emotional toll on society”. Getting away with resources of monetary value and destruction of property also contributes to a significant burden on the community. On the other hand, Saloner, McGinty, and Barry (2015) assert that engaging in abuse of hard drugs is often associated with crime. Therefore, the two offenses go hand in hand. There is a need for addressing substance abuse and juvenile crime given their adverse effects in society. As a way of mitigating such financial loss, specific laws dealing with the behavior of youths should be enacted to safeguard the welfare of citizens.
Pardini (2016, p.257) notes that “Adolescents who engage in significant delinquent behavior are also at high risk for experiencing multiple deleterious outcomes in adulthood, including mental and physical health problems.” As such, drug abuse among youths exerts an emotion toll to the society. Such youths grow to become adults who suffer from different problems in their relationships and relating to the community. Moreover, drug abuse has been associated with various mental illnesses (Pardini, 2016). “The majority of youth entering the juvenile justice system are placed on community probation, depending on the seriousness of their offense (Acoca, Stephens& Van Vleet, 2014, p.1).” Therefore, the juvenile criminal justice system should establish more policies that not only correct the behavior of youths who engage in juvenile crime, but also rehabilitate youths who engage in drug abuse.
The juvenile justice system, which is expected to regulate juvenile crime and drug abuse, has so far developed various measures to oversee alleviation of these situations in the society. In addition to community probation, other alternatives are available based on the seriousness of offenses (Saloner et al., 2015). Juveniles who do not respond to immediate sanctions are in most cases detained based on the court’s ruling. There are many resources based on this branch of justice system responsible for overseeing that juveniles do not engage in the corrected activities once again. Therefore, the justice system has so far enacted departmental policies, which strive to regulate offenses committed by youths. Although juvenile crime has been declining since 1997, there is a need to improve on the available policies or else enact more policies since the issue of juvenile crime and drug abuse has the potential to rise. “The proportion of juvenile arrests for girls has climbed steadily in recent decades, from 19% in 1985 to 28% in 2009 (Acoca, Stephens& Van Vleet, 2014, p.2)”.
Some of the recommended departmental policies that can improve service delivery in the juvenile justice system include health care coverage for youths in juvenile justice care and policies to reduce drug abuse. There is a need to rehabilitate youths who engage in substance abuse as a way of ensuring they do not reengage in this vice once they are out of the correctional facility. Saloner et al. (2015) posit that most youths who engage in drug abuse do it as a result of peer pressure or based on desperation based on situations faced in life. Therefore, there is a need for assessing why the offender engages in drug abuse or crime and help them avoid them by solving causal aspects. On the other hand, there is a need for a succinct departmental policy that addresses drug abuse. As already mentioned, drug abuse is one of the major factors that cause juvenile crime. Therefore, coming up with strict policies on governing drug abuse among youths can help reduce crime and drug abuse.
Moreover, as Acoca et al. (2014, p.2) records, “While juvenile correction settings offer correctional and therapeutic treatment, there is currently no Federal law or standard definition that defines residential treatment programs.” As such, there is a need for a departmental policy that would oversee all offenders are not only engaged in correctional processes, but are also incorporated in therapeutic treatment. All offenders reported to engage in drug abuse would be expected by this policy to be presented in a facility where they would be helped to pull out of their behavior. By assessing their situations that may have triggered crime or drug abuse and tackling them, future criminal activities can be alleviated. “The cultivation, sale, and possession of marijuana remain illegal under federal law, but the U.S. Department of Justice stated in 2013 that it is unlikely to aggressively enforce federal marijuana laws in states with legal markets, provided that legalization is accompanied by state-level regulatory” Saloner, McGinty & Barry, 2015, p.955). Although some of these policies such as legalization of Marijuana are stated based on economic interest, there is a need to oversee safeguarding of youths. Moreover, serious legal measures should be taken on offenders who engage in any drug abuse, trafficking, or peddling.
These recommendations will help in tackling drug use and juvenile crime since the departmental policy will have a clear treatment program drug abuse that can be solved. On the other hand, formulating of policies that weigh economic gains and welfare of youths will help in reducing crime and drug abuse (Saloner et al., 2015). Based on the social disorganization theory, solving the situation that triggers crime and drug abuse is the ultimate way of seeing a decline in crime. The potential impact of these recommendations is to establish ways of addressing juvenile crime and drug abuse. However, law makers might go against the intent of shaping policies addressing drug abuse such as legalization of Marijuana. In case of such a challenge, dialogue would be necessary to settle on a common measure. It would be vital to engage law makers by creating a report that shows the negative impact of making policies for only economic reasons (Saloner et al., 2015). As such, legalization of Marijuana may lead to economic gains, but when abused, can lead to significant financial and emotional toll on the society.
References
Acoca, L., Stephens, J., & Van Vleet, A. (2014). Health coverage and care for youth in the juvenile justice system: The role of Medicaid and CHIP. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Menlo Park (CA).
Saloner, B., McGinty, E. E., & Barry, C. L. (2015). Policy strategies to reduce youth recreational marijuana use. Pediatrics, 135(6), 955-957.
Pardini, D. (2016). Empirically based strategies for preventing juvenile delinquency. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 25(2), 257-268.
