Mears’ findings indicate that by focusing polls solely on ‘rehabilitation’ or ‘punishment’ strategies
without giving people the option to choose between both, researchers have oversimplified the public’s
opinion, as well as, the solution to juvenile recidivism (et al., 2014).
By focusing more on “balanced justice”, researchers will find [as Mears has], that the public’s view
is just as nuanced as it was at the inception of the juvenile justice system (et al., 2014). Mears believes
that these views are, “driven by idealism (e.g. the belief that young offenders can be reformed) and a
moral view that young offenders deserve rehabilitative intervention” (et al., 2014).
Mears emphasizes that these are two distinct concepts, stating that although someone may view
governmental efforts at youth rehabilitation as a moral imperative, they don’t necessarily view the youth
as likely to actually rehabilitate themselves (Mears et al., 2014). On the other hand, someone may view
youth rehabilitation as possible, but don’t view delinquent youth as deserving of such rehabilitative
opportunities (Mears et al., 2014).
Early JJS views led to child reformation efforts, that focused on education, moral reform, and
instilling the knowledge and value of prosocial habits (Mears et al., 2014). However, Mears states that the
early JJS was equally as interested in using punishment as a means of crime control (Mears et al., 2014).
To the first two concepts-of youth being capable of reform and deserving, Mears also adds, that youth
must be willing and that there must be effective rehabilitation programs presently available to them
[program availability] (et al., 2019). This is where the JJS is at risk of over-penalizing children. As Mears
states, it is one thing to view youth as capable of change, but interventions must be made available to
youth in order to facilitate that change (et al., 2014). Mears argues that it is in times of rehabilitative
program unavailability, that punishment-oriented approaches are leaned on most, despite beliefs in
youth’s willingness and ability to change and the notion that youth deserve that opportunity (et al., 2014).
Mears believes that tough on crime juvenile justice reforms have led researchers to focus efforts
on criminalization trends of juvenile court systems, which in turn, has led public opinion polls to focus
on criminalization efforts as well, including blended sentencing practices, juvenile capital punishment,
and ‘get tough’ sentencing laws (et al., 2014). The “central theme” Mears has seen arise from this is that
the public supports tough punishment on young [especially violent] offenders, but also supports
rehabilitation even when these practices would result in an increase in taxes, proving that public opinion
toward juvenile offenders is nuanced (et al., 2014). Unfortunately, despite the public’s balanced approach
to juvenile justice policy, recent studies show that politicians’ claims that the public demands harsh
punishment easily distorts actual public perception, showing the need for, “accurate understanding of
public opinion…given the potential role it plays in policymaker decisions and legislation” (Mears et al.,
2014).
In order to understand the confusion, Mears clarifies the issue – most studies focus primarily
on support for punitive sanctioning or primarily on rehabilitation-oriented sanctioning support (et al.,
2014). Measuring support for these sanctions separately creates the risk of acquiescence bias, where
respondents respond positively to questions regardless of the actual content of the question (Mears et al.,
2014). Mears suggests that to avoid this bias, researchers should rely on “questions that force
respondents to choose directly from among different sanctioning approaches” (et al., 2014).
Mears postulates that the philosophical foundation of the juvenile court at its inception that,
“guided its formation and its justification in contemporary times, leads to specific expectations about
public preferences for juvenile court sanctioning and the dimensions that shape them” (et al., 2014). At
the start of the JJS, youth were viewed as “deserving of rehabilitative services, likely to change, willing
to change, and likely to benefit from available interventions to reform youth” (Mears et al., 2014). Mears
conducted a survey on a representative sample of 866 college students [controlling for factors like
political conservatism and religiosity] across two major southeastern universities in fall of 2011 and
found the majority of respondents (54%) to be supportive of a balanced justice approach (Mears et al.,
2014). An additional 31% of respondents supported a primarily rehabilitation-oriented approach to
sanctioning youth and only 15% of respondents endorsed a primarily punishment-oriented approach to
sanctioning (Mears et al., 2014).
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