As of this moment there are many juveniles being sentenced to detention facilities as harsh punishments. The juveniles that are sent to these detention centers are mostly first time crime committers so they should be given the chance of rehabilitation. There might be some mistakes in which the juvenile was following their friends because of peer pressure and have been arrested without the consequences of the crime. Many situations come where the juvenile justice system should consider community based treatment like rehabilitation for the juveniles but instead the justice system would just incarcerate the juvenile. Rehabilitation should be the focus of the juvenile justice system and not just throwing kids in jails. The juvenile justice system needs to focus more on rehabilitation because it will lessen the time juveniles spend incarcerated. This will allow for more time to address the problems that made the juveniles become delinquents in the first place. The juvenile justice system was first set in place to provide rehabilitation for the juveniles seeing that there were more issues other than them just being a bad apple. Juvenile courts were designed to be flexible, informal, and they were also focusing on the rehabilitation of the delinquents. The intent of juvenile justice is that children should be treated differently from adults with less punishment because their brain and morality is not fully developed.
The juvenile justice system has shifted from what actually needs to be done, which is to help the juveniles to understand the reasons that they are becoming delinquents or are in criminal activities. The juvenile justice system was first created to reform the youth by helping them see what is causing their problematic behavior. Through the years society has loss patience with the youth and has decided that to punish them for their defiant behavior by incarcerating them and not letting them see the sunlight.