Youth Justice. Compare & contrast the two main responses to youth crime during the 20th century.

YOUTH JUSTICE
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Youth Justice
Addressing youth crime has always been a core issue in society and the responses to youth crimes have varied through different periods. During the 20th century, there were two main responses to youth crime, especially in the United Kingdom (UK) and other developed countries. These responses took different approaches to ensure that there was justice among young people who committed crimes. The first response was rehabilitation, which focused more on treatment and lenient sentences for young criminals. The second response was punishment, which focused on harsher prison sentences to teach the youth a lesson. The first response was utilised more during the first half of the 20th century while the second was utilised towards the end of the century (Weiss-Dagan & Cnaan 2019, p.13). Even though the two responses utilised different approaches, views, and established different confinement institutions, they both had the same effects on the rates of re-offenders.
First, the two responses utilised different approaches. On one hand, the rehabilitation response was preferred as the best response to youth crimes for the better part of the 20th century. This response utilised a child-centred welfare approach that focused on the needs of children and ensured that they were moulded into better citizens (Weiss-Dagan & Cnaan 2019, p.13). This welfare approach was aimed at ensuring that youths involved in crimes were not given the same treatment as adults. Part of this approach involved the establishment of the juvenile courts through the enactment of the Children Act, 1908 (Case & Haines 2020, 2). These courts ensured that youths were given a special trial in courts where more compassionate sentencing was given. On the other hand, the punishment response was less preferred in the better part of the century and only came to be accepted towards the end of the century. This response utilised a more punitive approach, also referred to as the justice-based approach, that focused more on offense-based means in addressing youth crime (Weiss-Dagan & Cnaan 2019, p.13). More severe punishments were adopted, threatening the welfare-based approach that had been incorporated in youth justice during the first half of the 20th century. These punishments focused on incapacitation and retribution, among others, and saw a rise in the number of incarcerated youths towards the end of the 20th century (Hamilton et al., 2016). This trend continues to date.
Second, the rehabilitation response viewed youths differently than the punishment response. The first response viewed youths as children who needed protection and care since they were yet to develop into adults (Case & Haines 2020, 2). Adults understand the repercussions of their actions because they are fully developed human beings while adolescents and youths are still grasping certain concepts of life and consequences. There was a realisation that adolescents went through development stages that varied from those of children and adults and as such, should be treated differently. In fact, this view is what led to the adoption of the welfare-based approach that was utilised in rehabilitation. The idea was to ensure that even as the youths were dealing with the repercussion of their crimes, they still received guidance, protection, and care so that they could become better citizens. However, the punishment response viewed youths as dangerous individuals who threatened peace and the well-being of other citizens (Case & Haines 2020, 2). As such, rather than protection, this response focused more on punishing the youth as a way of serving justice to the community. The transition from seeing youths as vulnerable individuals who need support to dangerous individuals who need to be kept away from the world shows how opinions about crime and more so, youth crime, shift dramatically.
Third, different institutions were established to deal with youth crime during the time the two responses were implemented. On one hand, Borstals were utilised as the primary institutions for confining young offenders during the first half of the 20th century. The first Borstal was established in 1902, just around the time that people had embraced rehabilitation over punishment in addressing youth crimes (National Archives, n.d.). The idea behind the establishment of Borstals was to p...