JUVENILE JUSTICE

Juvenile Justice

[Name of the Institute]

Juvenile Justice

Introduction

Juvenile justice is a structured system designed to defend and assist juvenile delinquents and offenders. The system, incorporated in 1868 in order to protect children from the leverages of adult prisoners. To divert youthful lawbreakers from unlawful enclosures and to enhance rehabilitation founded on the juvenile's needs. This system acts as a protection for juveniles who are involved in mature criminal actions or rank infringement actions that are illegal when performed by a juvenile. These actions may include truancy, being beyond parental or guardian control, deliberate flees and knowingly associating with criminals (Corriero, 2008).

The concept developed as a byproduct of Progressive Era in Chicago, 1868. Before this, any person under the age of seventeen, committed an offense or crime, placed in matching scheme as adults. However, as the society experienced modernity and change in collective perception, juveniles were considered to be as youth, who have surely gone astray or lost their way. The concept suggested that children are not hardened criminals, and there should be proper education and counseling to rehabilitate them and revitalize them as productive members of the society. In this paper, we will discuss, compare and contrast two models for juvenile justice that are, developmental psychology and utilitarian approach. We will while further discuss the case of a juvenile offender Jack and implications of both approaches to the case in hand (Myers, 2005).

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology deals with the scientific analysis of the behavioral changes that occur in people throughout their lifespan. Initially, this field was centralized around the study of how infants and children portrayed behavioral changes, though now it has diversified into finding out circumstantial causes and effects of childhood on adults, as well. People behave in different situations differently, and some people just appear excessively responsive to apparently normal incidences. The reason is that all individuals are keyed according to their personal experiences, observation and turmoil, that have a direct effect on their perceptions, which shape their lives. That is why this psychology tries to examine and extract hints that might have had a decisive role in affecting the way some people behave. This field tries to help them improve their lives for the better. Let us find out exactly what is developmental psychology.

Focus of Developmental Psychology

The basic concern of developmental psychology is to gather information about human development, through observation. It focuses on studying the progression as well as the factors that determine people's personalities, genealogy, morality, intelligence and the way they approach and handle circumstances. This field has existed for centuries in some form or the other, wherein various theories of developmental psychology have been conceptualized by a variety of psychologists. One of the most popularly accepted theoretical perspectives of psychology was 'Childhood and Society', which was put forth by Erik Erikson in 1963. His work involved the study of human behavior in relation to themselves and their society, in a few basic stages of developmental psychology. He presented 4 stages deal with children, which go on to ...