The person, who is going to develop a restorative justice program for juvenile offenders, must first consider the key elements of this plan. It is possible to single out such components as deinstitutionalization, continuous education of the underage person, communication with parents or legal guardians (Urban et al, 2003; Whitehead & Lab, 2010). Under the circumstances, the most important element is deinstitutionalization which means that the judicial officials should avoid putting an underage person into custody because such imprisonment will prevent him/her from acquiring social skills. Certainly, there are some exceptions to this rule, especially if a juvenile has committed an aggravated crime and can pose threat to the community. Continuous education is another important point: the juvenile must study all the subjects that are included in the school curriculum; otherwise, it is quite likely that this person will remain delinquent even after serving his/her sentence (Urban et al, 2003). The ability to keep in contact with parents or legal guardians is another indispensable component of a restorative justice program as a juvenile will find it hard to recover without the support of these people.
The developer of such a program must also consider some cautionary issues, for example, monitoring of the delinquent juvenile, especially he has been released on probation. It is crucial that he/she does not return to his former lifestyle. This is why it is necessary to map out strategies for supervising this person without violating his privacy. Yet, the most important issue is to ensure that he/she is no longer of danger to the community. The assessment of this program should be based predominantly on the quantitative metric. In particular, one should estimate the number of juveniles who have committed a repeated crime. Additionally, one should first on such measurements as average employment rates among the former convicts and income level of this population.
Reference List
Whitehead J. & Lab. S. (2010). Juvenile Justice, Sixth Edition. NY: Anderson.
Urban L. Cyr J. & Decker S. (2003) Goal Conflict in the Juvenile Court: The Evolution of Sentencing Practices in the United States. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice; 19; 454.