Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan: A Critical Appraisal

This study examined the relationship of age and gender with risk of arrest among adolescents and young adults who were intensive adolescent users of public mental health services. Data were obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) and juvenile and criminal courts. Participants were youths receiving DMH adolescent case management services sometime in 1994-1996 who were born between 1976 and 1979 (781 males and 738 females). They were cross-matched to document arrests between age seven and 25. The study examined age at first arrest, age-specific risk, and the relationship between arrest history and arrest risk by gender and age. Most males (69%) and almost half the females (46%) were arrested by age 25. First arrest was most common before age 18. As in the general population, males' arrest patterns were more concerning than those of females, although patterns were of concern in both groups. Most female arrestees had multiple arrests, many as adults. No gender differences were observed for several factors, including risk of first arrest over age 18. Risk was far greater for those arrested in the previous year than for those never arrested. Findings justify concerns of public mental health systems regarding justice system involvement of adolescent clients. Risk of first arrest was significant from early adolescence through age 24, indicating a need for arrest prevention into young adulthood. The heightened arrest risk at all ages among those who were recently arrested demarcates a population in need of immediate intervention.

PROTOCOL: The impact of juvenile system processing on delinquency

Mental Health and the Juvenile Justice System: Where Has History Taken Us?

The juvenile justice system was developed in the late 19th century as a separate justice system for juvenile offenders. Although the juvenile justice system was initially distinct from the criminal justice system and firmly focused on rehabilitation, a series of court cases over the past 50+ years gradually reduced some of the differences between the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The result was a more adversarial context for the disposition of juvenile cases. In recent years, however, several cases from the Supreme Court of the United States and some state courts have acknowledged key differences between adolescent and adults, which has led to a dramatic shift in how juvenile offenders are handled in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Although studies reveal substantial mental health treatment needs among youths in the juvenile justice system, far less is known about young offenders transferred to adult criminal court. This statewide study examined the mental health needs of young offenders who committed serious crimes and were transferred to adult court and subsequently incarcerated in a prison for adults. Sixty-four boys aged 16 and 17 years who were incarcerated in the Texas adult correctional system completed the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2), a mental health screening measure widely used in the juvenile justice system. Scores from the youths in adult prison were compared with those of a matched sample of youths in juvenile correctional facilities, drawn from the MAYSI-2 normative data. Youths in adult prison reported substantial symptoms of mental health problems. Most youths surveyed (51%) scored above the highest clinical cutoff (the "warning" range) on at least one MAYSI-2 subscale. For every clinical subscale except suicide ideation, the majority of youths (54% to 70%, depending on the subscale) scored above the "caution" range. Juveniles in adult prison reported higher rates of symptoms than did those in juvenile correctional facilities (effect sizes ranged from d=.18 to d=.65, depending on the subscale). Although the mental health needs of youths in the juvenile justice system are well documented, this study reveals that mental health treatment needs appear to be even more pronounced in the small subgroup of youths transferred to the adult criminal justice system and incarcerated in adult prison.

Youth with involvement in foster care and the juvenile justice system, often called dual-status youth, are at increased risk for negative outcomes as they transition into adulthood, including homelessness, and involvement in the adult criminal justice system. Increase of interest in the phenomenon of youth dual involvement within the last decade, reveals focus on challenges associated with the dual-status population, the importance of multi-system collaboration, and foster care factors contributing to juvenile delinquency. This study aims to build on the current literature, through exploration of how dually-involved youth make sense of their experiences in the juvenile justice and foster care systems; and what youth believe are their unique challenges of being in two systems? This phenomenological study engaged ten individuals in Houston, Texas, between the ages of 18 and 24 years old, and previously involved in the juvenile justice and foster care systems. Research subjects participated in-depth, semi-structured, and audio-recorded interviews, disclosing their experiences in two systems. Interviews were transcribed and entered in the qualitative analytical program, Atlas.ti, where common themes of participant responses were extracted. Accounts from participants highlighted three key experiences: (1) experiences of and leading to dual involvement, (2) traumatic experiences, and (3) absence of normalcy. Study results are categorized based on their pathways to dual-involvement. This current study offers rich insights into how dually-involved youth make sense of their experiences in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Implications for enhanced service provision among child welfare and juvenile justice professionals are offered.

The exploration of the overrepresentation of the poor and poor minorities in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems has been the center of several experimental and empirical investigations. Researchers, policy makers, criminologists, and advocates are well aware of the implications that differential offending, bureaucratic bias, and the various social disparities depicted among social control policies and ecological settings have on impoverished minority populations. These disparities have various disadvantaging effects on future life outcomes, life trajectories, and involvement in criminal activity. Although much is known about the overrepresentation of impoverished minorities in both the criminal and juvenile justice systems, little has been done to address the many concerns. Rather, numerous efforts in the forms of both legal and extralegal factors have been enacted to concentrate segmented populations. These effects further disadvantage minority and poverty‐stricken populations, making any upward mobilization almost impossible. The key issues surrounding the overrepresentation of poor and poor minorities in crime statistics include the importance of understanding community‐level perspectives, which entrench the disadvantaged. Also, it is necessary to identify theoretical approaches that outline bias within the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Furthermore, the information will collaboratively exemplify differences in increased social control policies among poor minorities.

State Mental Health Policy: Mental Health Transformation: Moving Toward a Public Health, Early-Intervention Approach in Texas

Klitih has become a negative label of the last few years in the area DIY. Lebel is pinned to the perpetrators of criminal acts of persecution accompanied by vandalism committed by children, the widespread and massive occur within this period and led to loss of life and property. Act No. 11 of 2012 on the Criminal Justice System of Children who are formally to be done by the Regional Police of Yogyakarta in the treatment of perpetrators of maltreatment ( klitih ), has not given the benefit and sense of justice to the people. This happens because the concept of juvenile criminal justice system does not provide a deterrent effect to the child as a criminal offender. The pattern of interaction of children is also one of the causes of delinquency, In the juvenile criminal justice system, there is the concept of restorative justice should be applied at the beginning of the judicial system (investigation), in order to provide protection (special treatment) for children in conflict with the law so as not to disturb or shut off the child's development. It is true that the protection obtained by children in conflict with the law (especially actors), but it is different for the victim and the community, not necessarily the effect of juvenile criminal justice system can provide substantial protection and justice for him. Keywords: Children, Kliti h , Juvenile Justice System, Substantial Justice.

This research utilised a range of deterministic and stochastic analyses to establish whether Queensland's juvenile justice system processes Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young male offenders differently. The impetus for this research stemmed from the continued high rates of Aboriginal over-representation within Australia's criminal justice system, despite diversionary measures to reduce such over-representation, and a commitment by the Queensland Government to reduce by 50% the number of Aboriginal peoples in custody by the year 2011. There are two competing hypotheses concerning the cause of this over-representation, (i) external factors such as socioeconomic disadvantage, unemployment or substance abuse, or (ii) systemic disparity within the criminal justice system. For this research, disparity is defined as the unacceptable use of discrimination; discrimination can be appropriate if it is used to define or enhance a situation, such as discriminating between offenders who are recidivists and those who are first time offenders. The inappropriate use of discrimination occurs for example, when harsher sentences are issued to offenders based on non-legal factors such as race or gender. Systemic disparity is therefore used here to represent the inappropriate use of discrimination against an offender by the criminal justice system. The second hypothesis, one of systemic disparity, provided the framework for this research, which posed the following primary question: Is there quantifiable evidence to support the existence of disparity acting against young male Aboriginal offenders within Queensland's juvenile justice system? Two separate but complementary studies were designed to address this issue: the pathways study and the trajectory study. The pathways study utilised 20,648 finalised appearances for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young male offenders in Queensland's juvenile courts, during 1999 to 2003. Three custodial decision-making stages (police custody, remand, and sentencing) were examined and two questions initially posed: Does the custodial decision made at one stage of the juvenile justice system impact on a subsequent custodial decision-making stage? Does criminal history, Aboriginal status, offence type or an interaction of these factors significantly influence the probability of (i) detention in police custody (ii) court remand (iii) a custodial order at sentencing? It was recognised that other legally relevant factors such as family structure and stability, school attendance and community ties might also influence these custodial decisions; however, for the purposes of this research it was not possible to include these variables in the analyses. Controlling for criminal history, findings from logistic regression analyses indicated that being detained in police custody increased the odds of being remanded into custody, and being remanded into custody increased the odds of a custodial order. Whilst Aboriginal status was not a consistent factor at any of these three custodial stages, there was clear evidence of disparity acting against the young male Aboriginal offender, particularly early in their criminal career. To examine these disparities further, these three custodial stages were modeled as eight processing pathways: four of which resulted in a custodial order and four in a noncustodial order. Using this processing model, a third question was posed: Do young Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal male offenders have different custodial pathways? Findings indicated that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young male offenders were in general, processed along similar custodial pathways that did not include police custody, remand or a custodial order. However, young male Aboriginal offenders were less likely than equivalent non-Aboriginal offenders to have been processed along this pathway and more likely to be processed along the pathways that included remand. It was found that young offenders with a chronic criminal history were more likely to be processed along these remand pathways, and Aboriginal offenders were more likely to have a chronic criminal history than non-Aboriginal offenders; there was clear evidence of disparity at specific custodial stages of the system. In addition, as young male Aboriginal offenders progressed deeper into the system there was evidence of cumulative disparity, particularly along the remand pathways, meaning that the probability of being in custody increases as the offender progresses from one custodial stage to the next custodial stage. Given the existence of disparity, acting within the juvenile justice system and against the young male Aboriginal offender, it was important to formulate viable solutions to such disparity, particularly in light of the Queensland government's commitment to reduce Aboriginal offenders in custody by 50%. Deterministic analyses and computer simulations were used to test the viability of various reduction scenarios suggested by the data. Despite in some instances, different results from the deterministic analyses and the computer simulations, overall findings indicated that to reduce custodial disparity whether at the remand stage, the custodial order stage, or in custody overall (the summation of police custody, remand and custodial orders) that reducing remand, regardless of whether the young offender had been in police custody or not, was the best overall solution. The trajectory study built on the findings of the pathways study, which had identified criminal history as an important factor in the processing pathways of young male Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders. Using the semi-parametric group based method, the criminal trajectories of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young male offenders in Queensland were modeled. These trajectories were based on the finalised appearances of two cohorts of young offenders aged 10 to 17 years of age: those born in 1983 and 1984 and who had turned 18 years of age in 2001 and 2002 respectively. All of these young male offenders had entered the adult system when they turned 17 years of age, and this data provided their complete juvenile history in Queensland. Prior analyses using this method had not considered Aboriginal status or race as a determining factor in these trajectory models, nor had these models been validated either internally or externally in published works. For this research, internal validity was considered as the correct classification of offenders into trajectory groups, and external validity as the ability to reproduce these results in a second or subsequent sample of juvenile offenders. Two questions were therefore posed in the trajectory study: Do young Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal male offenders have different criminal trajectories? Can the predicted model(s) be validated, both internally and externally? Initial findings indicated that the optimal trajectory models selected on prior knowledge and the Bayesian Information Criterion did not validate internally. This finding brought into question the trajectory results of other published works that had not internally validated their models. The models finally selected as optimal indicated that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young male offenders did not have a common criminal trajectory and could not be modeled as one population. Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young offenders were modeled by a low-frequency group, a late-onset group, and a chronic trajectory group. However, the young male Aboriginal offender was more likely than the non-Aboriginal to have been in the chronic or the late onset group and less likely to have been in the lowfrequency group. External validation utilised an innovative but simple method that utilised all of the data in the modeling process along with a sample of this same data for validation purposes: 10% of the criminal profiles, which were characteristic of the trajectory groups, and a further 5% of randomly selected profiles were chosen for validation. All of the characteristic profiles, but only 50% of the randomly selected profiles were validated, and of the latter, the majority not validated was in the late-onset group. In total, 79.2% of the Aboriginal trajectories and 85.6% of the non-Aboriginal criminal trajectories were correctly externally validated. Overall, there are two important implications from this research for government. First, even though young male Aboriginal offenders are more likely to have a chronic criminal history than non-Aboriginal offenders, this factor does not account for all of the observed disparity acting against the young Aboriginal offender within Queensland's juvenile justice system: there is evidence of disparity within the system that is unaccounted for by either offence type or criminal history. Second, given this chronic criminal history, systemic solutions to systemic disparity whilst viable, will not ultimately resolve this problem: they are only short-term measures at the end of a very long justice system. Longer-term solutions are needed to address external factors such as socio-economic disadvantage, unemployment and substance abuse in Aboriginal communities, before these young people are exposed to the system. Continuing to concentrate on systemic solutions, to such an entrenched problem as Aboriginal overrepresentation and disparity, is a misdirection of system resources and is inconsistent with social justice.

In this paper, we discuss a tool for eliciting domain knowledge (specification) of a decision support system. In particular, we focus on a decision support software system (DSS) which employs domain knowledge of recidivism in the juvenile justice system. Using the elicited domain knowledge, the DSS tool uses deductive reasoning techniques to make inferences and provide suggestive courses of action to support the investigatory functions of police, attorneys, or probation officials. The motivation for developing the system is manifold: (1) the activities of the officials are repetitive and their procedures mostly manual; (2) investigations usually result in large volume of biographical data; (3) the need to link several, related case files; (4) officials seldom have concurrent access to case files — causing delays in resolving cases in the court system; among others. Developing a software system to support the investigation and decision making of criminal cases is in itself a daunting task, which makes the system specification a critical input to the development process. Hence, the correctness of the resultant domain knowledgebase and the underlying deductive/support system depends on logically consistent and sound methods. In the paper, we describe the rationale for developing the DSS system, why we focus on the criminal (juvenile) justice system, the methodology for eliciting DSS domain knowledge, and a scenario of what we are implementing as a proof-of-concept system. A series of elicitation sessions which epitomize the DSS system are discussed in the article.

This research analyzes the comparative implementation of child protection law between Indonesia and the Netherlands with a focus on the juvenile justice system. Both countries have different approaches in handling children in conflict with the law, although both are based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Indonesia implements the juvenile criminal justice system as stipulated in Law Number 11 of 2012 with a restorative justice approach through diversion, while the Netherlands uses a system that emphasizes rehabilitative and preventive approaches with well-established diversion programs since the early 20th century. This study employs a normative juridical method with a comparative approach to analyze the legal framework, implementation, and effectiveness of both systems. The findings indicate that although Indonesia has adopted a restorative justice approach, its implementation still faces various challenges including inconsistent application of diversion, limited resources, and a legal culture still oriented toward punishment. The Netherlands, with longer experience, demonstrates success in reducing the number of children in the formal justice system through diversion programs such as Bureau Halt and integrated youth care approaches. This research recommends strengthening institutional capacity, harmonizing regulations, enhancing alternative sentencing programs, and learning from Dutch best practices to improve the effectiveness of child protection in Indonesia's justice system.

Within the past three decades, social and legal changes have transformed the juvenile court from a nominally rehabilitative welfare agency into a second-class criminal court for young offenders. Recent efforts to toughen juvenile justice policies have resulted in increasingly harsh sanctions that fall disproportionately on minority youths. In this provocative new book, Barry Feld examines what went wrong with the juvenile court and proposes an alternative model for youth crime control and child welfare. The Progressive reformers who created the juvenile court a century ago saw children as relatively blameless and innocent. But recent decades of rising crime rates associated with urban decay have strained this tolerant view of young offenders. Feld relates the 1967 Supreme Court decision In re Gault to the broader social and legal changes associated with the civil rights movement and the Warren Court's Due Process Revolution. Although gault mandated more elaborate procedural safeguards in delinquency hearings, ironically, those protections legitimated the imposition of more punitive sanctions. Since Gault, Feld argues, three decades of judicial, legislative, and administrative reforms have conducted a form of triage. At the soft end, reforms have shifted noncriminal status offenders, primarily female and white, out of the juvenile justice into a hidden system made up of private sector mental health and chemical dependency facilities. At the hard end, states transfer increasing numbers of young offenders, disproportionately minorities, to criminal court for prosecution as adults. Meanwhile, juvenile courts punish more severely those delinquents-again disproportionately minorities-who remain within the increasingly criminalized juvenile justice system. Feld attributes the current state of affairs to a conceptual flaw inherent in the juvenile court. The juvenile justice attempts to combine social welfare and social control functions in one organization, but inevitably fulfills both missions badly because of the inherent and irreconcilable contradictions between them. Progressive reformers situated the juvenile court on a number of cultural, legal, and criminological fault lines, where the ideas of child and adult, determinism and free will, immature and responsible, treatment and punishment collide. The past three decades have witnessed a shift from the former to the latter of these binary pairs in response to the racial transformation of cities, the increase in serious youth crime, and the erosion of the rehabilitative assumptions of the juvenile court. The solution, Feld argues, is to uncouple social welfare from criminal social control. States could try all offenders in one integrated criminal justice with appropriate modifications to accommodate the youthfulness of younger defendants: a graduated, age-culpability sentencing system, separate youth correctional facilities, and the like. Formally recognizing youthfulness as a mitigating factor would provide youths with greater protections and justice than they currently receive in either the juvenile or criminal justice systems. At the same time such a strategy would enable public policies to address directly the social welfare needs of all young people.

This normative juridical research, utilizing statutory and conceptual approaches, aims to explore future policy models for the legal protection of children within the juvenile criminal justice system in Indonesia. Acknowledging various challenges in the current system, the study emphasizes the necessity of reforming policies to ensure legal certainty and justice for minors in conflict with the law. The proposed model advocates for a 'pure decriminalization' approach, which involves removing the punishable nature of certain criminal elements committed by juvenile legal subjects. This model is complemented by a protection policy that underscores preventative measures to decrease the involvement of children in the criminal justice system. A significant emphasis is placed on integrating technology into the system to enhance efficiency and security, thereby safeguarding children's rights more effectively. Additionally, the research highlights the need for increased inter-agency and cross-sectoral cooperation within the legal structure (police, prosecutors, and courts) to create a more coordinated and holistic approach in addressing juvenile justice issues. The findings suggest that these strategic efforts can contribute significantly to the improvement of procedural law applications for children, ensuring their human rights are not violated in future legal encounters.Highlights:
 
 Pure Decriminalization Model: Emphasizes removing the punitive aspects for certain juvenile offenses, focusing on rehabilitation over punishment.
 Technological Advancements: Integration of technology in the juvenile justice system to enhance efficiency, security, and protection of children's rights.
 Enhanced Inter-agency Collaboration: Advocates for improved cooperation between legal entities for a holistic and coordinated approach to juvenile justice issues.
 
 Keywords: Juvenile Justice, Decriminalization, Legal Protection, Technology Integration, Inter-agency Cooperation

Chapter 21 - The Human–Animal Relationship in Context of the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems