The juvenile justice system, as intended during the inception, was to be a reprieve for underage offenders. As many young people may not be completely aware of the consequences of their own actions, or they can easily be influenced to do those tasks, it was believed that they should not be punished in the same measure as adults. However, given the trend of harsh punishments for today’s juveniles, it can not be said that they are receiving appropriate justice.
With the underage offenders often lost in the juvenile justice system, it is not justice for their families either. Many of the juveniles are kept in either the same facility, or in close proximity with the serious adult offenders, which increases their chance to relapse and be stuck in the cycle of crime and incarceration. As a result, the families lose out on their brothers, sisters, and children, people who could have been reformed and rectified under a better system.
Taking into account a different point of view, the juvenile justice system is not providing justice for the communities either. To begin with, by locking up the young people of the community, it is only depriving them of various social and educational opportunities, and thus keeping them from being active members of the society. On the other hand, due to overcrowding in juvenile detention centres and various other political factors, the trend right now is to provide harsher punishments towards the offenders. It is also a waste of the community’s resources to detain and punish the young offenders, who could have been reformed at a reform facility with less amount of constraints.