A Juvenile Court System

Special populations within jails and prisons has been the most interesting topic I have learned about throughout the duration of this course. Special populations within correctional facilities feres to those populations that require special treatment in contrast to regular inmates. The three primary special populations I learned about were juvenile and female inmates as well as individuals with mental or physical disabilities. within correctional facilities. Juveniles are classified as offenders of seventeen years of age or younger. Due to the fact that the majority juvenile delinquents do not commit heinous crimes, most juvenile offenders are treated with civil cases rather than criminal cases.

The division of corrections that handles juveniles is a separate division of those that deal with adults, yet the same officers that deal with juvenile offenders also deal with adults(CT2 Learn, 2017).

A few other aspects that are separate from adult offenders are the courts and the prosecutors. Many prosecutor's offices have a separate section dedicated to juveniles.

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When a juvenile is alleged of a crime they would be sentenced to a juvenile court system, consisting of a parent, neighbor, teacher, social worker, and law enforcement agents. Juvenile courts are often said to be less formal than adult criminal cases, and only thirty-nine states entitle juveniles to trial by jury. During a juvenile court case, preliminary hearings are used to determine what the the juvenile did, how serious the committed offense was, how society should properly respond, and decide on an outcome that is in the best interest of both the juvenile and society.

Convicted juveniles may be placed on non-secure detention or probation while juveniles convicted of more heinous offences will be placed in a secure detention facility which is similar to an adult prison. If a convicted juvenile is violent and not willing to be cooperational, they may be placed in a padded cell in order to prevent them from hurting themselves or others(Clallam, 2012).

There are also programs to rehabilitate troubled youth suchs as camps, ranches, and community service projects to build self-esteem and respect for others. Half-way homes are also used for juveniles as well as adult offenders to get them back on their feet as a trouble free member of society. Incarcerated female offenders raise issues as well. One common issue is if a female offender who had children gets incarcerated, her children will have no caregivers unless friends of family can take them in. As a result, this will force the female inmate’s children to be thrown into the foster care system. To add to this, the Sentencing Project states, “ In 1999, one of every 14 black children had a parent in prison, compared with one in every one-hundred twenty-five white children. Black children are almost nine times more likely than white children to have a parent in prison and Hispanic children are three times more likely” (Sentencing Projecting, 2006). During this same time, nearly forty-four percent of incarcerated women had not completed high school. Another statistic I learned was that roughly sixty percent of women incarcerated did not work full time jobs before their incarceration. These statistics suggest that the better work ethic and higher educated women are, the less likely they are to become incarcerated.

Physical and mental health issues are also extremely common among incarcerated women. Incarcerated women during the late 90s were reported to be more likely to be using drugs before their conviction. Also reported was that over half of incarcerated women claimed to being sexually and or physically abused prior to incarceraton. In correlation to this, during the year 2005, almost three-quarters of incarcerated women were reported to have mental health issues. Male inmates on the other hand, were reported to have only fifty-five percent mental health issues. Incarcerated women’s physical health was an additional issue. It has been said that up to forty-two percent of female inmates have HIV. These physical and mental health issues call for special treatment of female inmates in correctional facilities. Specialty needs for incarcerated women are not only expensive to correctional facilities, but can pose security issues.

Individuals with mental and physical health issues make up the majority of all inmates that are classified in the special populations category. Society's failure to provide effective options for those with mental and physical health issues contributes to unfortunately high numbers of these individuals finding themselves under criminal justice supervision or incarcerated. Many offenders classified in this category, primarily the mentally ill, find themselves going through the criminal justice and social services systems repeatedly due to their problems not being fully taken into account for by various systems. For example, once individuals with mental illness are incarcerated, short-term goals of controlling undesirable behavior and a reliance on drugs often take precedence over more case specific approaches to treatment. Once those with mental or health problems are released from correctional facilities, many will suffer from additional issues such as communities lacking the proper skills needed to help with their issues. A common example of this is when providers fail to recognize mental illness and wrongly classify them as dangerous. These are all reasons why juveniles and women are considered specialty groups within the corrections system.