MEMORANDUM
TO: District Judge
FROM: Assistant Prosecutor
RE: Drug Use and Juvenile Crime
DATE: August 2, 2017
Issue Presented
To what extent do we solve the issue of drug use and juvenile crime in the society by sentencing them to serve jail sentences or involving in community probation? The available enacted departmental policy for dealing with drug use and juvenile crime is to apprehend the offenders to be presented in the law courts. “While these settings offer correctional and therapeutic treatment, there is currently no Federal law or standard definition that defines residential treatment programs (Acoca et al., 2014, p.2).” As such, there is a need to improve the available policies to address this issue.
Short Answer
A policy that oversees complete rectifying of drug use and juvenile crime should be enacted. The policy should entail a therapeutic facility that offers services of counselling youths and ensuring they do not engage in the activities they were previously engaging in before their arrest.
Statement of Facts
Although the crime rate among youths has generally declined, a new trend has been established among girls. The statistics of girls involved in juvenile arrests has risen from 19% in 1985 to 28% in 2009 (Acoca et al., 2014). This depicts that there is a need to enact a better policy change that will oversee rise in juvenile crime and drug abuse is alleviated. Although most of the youths is juvenile residential placements are 87% of males, girls make up a growing percentage of this population. Half of youths (56%) in 2010 were aged between 16 to 17 years (Acoca et al., 2014). In essence, the issue of drug use and juvenile crime can be addressed by solving this issue through social disorganization theory. In the proposed therapeutic facilities to be enacted in the juvenile crime residential placement, the causes of engaging in crime can be assessed and tackled. Based on the social disorganization theory, people engage in crime because of their societal setup or situation they are in. A child in a family that upholds crime and drug abuse is likely to engage in these activities. A youth in a situation leading to emotion breakdown can also engage in drug use and crime. By identifying the causes, the juvenile justice system can extend solving the issues not only among the arrested juveniles, but also address the causal issue. The increased number of girls’ juvenile arrests must be triggered by some element. By assessing such an issue, an overall solution for decreasing juvenile crime and drug abuse can be reached.
Discussion
The Medicaid Act in most correctional facilities in the US is one of the revised policies that has so far shaped correctional programs. This act focuses on improving coverage, access to needed services post, and continuity of care among youths in the juvenile residential facilities (Acoca et al., 2014). Since some of the offenders arrested do not have the financial capability of paying for services that can help them in recovery from drug use, the act provides affordable care. Youths can be incorporated in rehabilitation units at affordable expenses based on the Medicaid Act.
Conclusion
Based on the social disorganization theory, an ultimate solution to juvenile crime and drug use is solving the issues that trigger juveniles to engage in these vices. Therefore, coming up with a policy that oversee a good environmental setup for raising youths can be an ideal way of solving the issue as a long term measure.
Recommendations
Enacting a therapeutic facility in every juvenile correction facilities will ease the financial expenses that were previously utilized in the Medicaid Act (Acoca et al., 2014). A possible resistance can come from the authorities that may argue on the basis of lack of sufficient funds to build such facilities and employ professionals to oversee the recovery process of juveniles. It would be necessary to come up with a report that will project the long term importance of enacting therapeutic facilities. Finances spent in juvenile correction facilities will be reduced in future since the program will lead to reduced cases of juvenile crime and drug use; hence, it is an ideal project to venture in.
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).
