Community and social services that are currently used in juvenile cases are those aimed at eliminating criminal gang membership. They include substance abuse counseling, management of anger, community service projects, recreational activities access, leadership development among others. These concerted efforts are aimed at ensuring that juvenile offenders are monitored to ensure public safety, that they develop skills and competence required to become productive members of the public and can be held liable for any criminal activity they indulge themselves into.

A Chicago based report indicates that efforts to reduce juvenile offense are more likely to be effective when such interventions are applied during the first arrest. The report reveals that approximately 10 percent of youth offenders are rearrested more than twice in a year with most of them having characters that were identified during the first apprehension. Generally, the percentage of the repeat juvenile offenders are believed to have started their criminal activities at an early age and have a variety of crime profile such as; family and background settings like neglect, illegal family membership, lack of parental supervision, truancy, expulsion from school, gang involvement and drugs and substance abuse.

Community policing must focus on a station adjusted program on juveniles, community workers are assigned as case managers and carry out critical functions to juveniles that have been diverted from court to intervention services, they help in coordinating investigation between parents and the youthful offenders, they prepare individual service plans to each offender, community policing also assist in regular monitoring and follow-ups in ensuring that participation in the identified intervention services are bestowed (Gale, Bailey Harris, & Wundersitz) . These interventions have been effective in breaking the pattern of misconduct and create long-term crime prevention by decreasing the emergence of career criminals.

Community-oriented police programs can implement their policies in several ways to address juvenile delinquency and substance abuse in many ways. First, they can effectively gang-related crime and violence by developing an immature crime prevention model. Juveniles are the lifeblood that catalyzes criminal gang enterprises, and they are the critical resources that are used to run narcotics operations and realize acts of violence and intimidations (Chappell, 2018). It’s unfortunate that many youths are too much willing to compromise and succumb to radicalization with the hope of reaping from the benefits they receive due to gang involvement. Therefore, a community-based crime prevention model is vital and very critical in fighting and thwarting criminal organizations that lobby the youth to crime.

Another aspect is the introduction of social workers that assist the youth in handling a court case, the presence of such a mediator also improves parental involvement and make them aware that the arrest of their child is a severe life event, the increased parental awareness and regularly participate with the social worker, raises the possibility of the juvenile offender to cooperate as needed in intervention program (Semenza, 2017). Teenage participation is a complete prerequisite for these services to bear any fruit. Increasing awareness and parental involvement will improve juvenile obligation to obey law and order and drastically reduce young offense.

The creation of specialized juvenile centers also enhances the establishment of a multidisciplinary partnership. This is necessary to create an impact on juvenile recidivism. The arrest of a juvenile due to a felony offense establishes the need for an immediate follow-up, the specialized, therefore, enhances juvenile arrestee processing and creation of a redesigned case management approach, that calls for a collaborative approach between law and organizational agencies. Station adjustments remain the most significant platform of juvenile cases handled outside of court.

Reference

Semenza, D. C. (2017). Health Behaviors and Juvenile Delinquency. Crime & Delinquency, 64(11), 1394-1416. doi:10.1177/0011128717719427

Chappell, A. T. (2018). Predicting the Behavior of Law in the Juvenile Court: A Focus on Noncompliance Cases. Crime & Delinquency, 001112871878715. doi:10.1177/0011128718787156

Gale, F., Bailey-Harris, R., & Wundersitz, J. (n.d.). Notes. Aboriginal Youth and the Criminal Justice System, 143-144. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139084949.012