Endangerment Of Juveniles

When thinking about the criminal justice system, most people have forgotten the millions of juveniles stuck in the system. The juveniles have gone through so much, much more than the general public could imagine, in the few yeas they have been a part of society. During their short lives, they have drastically high traumatic experience rates, which lead to more violent offenses, therefore, trapping those juveniles in the system for longer and longer. These traumatic experiences have been known to come from the environment they grew up in, making it almost impossible for these young members of society to “break the mold” and change their lives. These traumatic experiences could include seeing their close family members using and abusing illegal …show more content…
By witnessing their close family members engage in drug use, the children have learned that drug use was considered “okay” in their social circle, therefore positively reinforcing the idea that they too should indulge in drugs. This reinforcement has led to an increase in juvenile drug charges, which subconsciously makes the child believe they could not become something better later in life. Also, the child endangerment and molestation have led to an increase juvenile sexual and violent assault charges, especially from younger boys, who have either been molested and beaten or have seen their siblings molested and beaten. By witnessing these acts, the young boys have begun to believe that it has been socially acceptable to take advantage of nonconsenting people (Maschi, Stimmel, Morgen, Gibson, and O’Mary, …show more content…
These children thrive on what popular people in society say, making this idea a feasible one. By doing this, the children of today would realize that even famous people do not think that people engaging in drug use or violent behaviors are cool, therefore positively enforcing the idea not to engage in drug use and violent offenses. It would be possible to limit the amount of which juveniles have to experience trauma by opening up more extracurricular activities for the children to participate in after school. These activities would take up more of the child’s free time, therefore reducing the amount of time spent in those destructive environments, and increase the time spent in positive learning areas. The activities would not have to be anything drastic, but perhaps a few more funded sports for them to try, or other funded programs in public