Reflection
I selected Youth Incarceration and Juvenile Detention Reform as my research paper topic. I learned a great deal about how many juveniles are incarcerated for non-violent crimes, which race is most likely to be incarcerated, and what the alternatives are to fix this on-going issue of mass incarceration. For my sources, I mostly used journal articles. I found the article “The impact of incarceration of juvenile offenders” to be very helpful because it gave information on the effects of mass incarceration and how mass incarceration among juveniles can affect them physically and mentally. Incarceration often results in negative behavioral and mental health consequences, including ongoing engagement in offending behaviors and contact with the justice system. It included helpful statistics and percentages stating that juveniles between the ages of 13-18 are being incarcerated because of the crimes they have committed. This article also went in depth to provide information on which gender group is more likely to be imprisoned and the long-term effects of this cruel punishment. The article also broke down into gender, long-term effects, mental issues, and alternatives. This source was very informative. It explained how incarceration can affect a juvenile short-term as well as long-term, as well as which gender group is more likely to be incarcerated because of their actions. This journal article supported my claim that the best outcomes for youth offenders will be community-based supported intervention practices that address their developmental and criminogenic needs.
English 211 taught me a lot as a writer in this project. I learned how fallacies add structure to my paper. The fallacies helped me go in depth to explain the myths and misconceptions of youth incarceration, which added a different meaning to my paper. I learned how to avoid having run-on sentences and how to add punctuation in the correct places to enhance my writing. This class also helped me transition from paragraph to paragraph with transition words. Using the transition words helped structure my sentences and paragraphs effectively. I believe these skills I learned while in class helped me tremendously to gather information for my topic. I gathered various statistics to determine if the incarceration rate was increasing or decreasing. Sadly, the youth incarceration rate is increasing drastically. I learned from my final project how passionate I am to be a voice of change in the criminal justice system and to help those affected negatively by it.
The research that was beneficial for my final project was the journal articles and the statistics, which gave me a visual of how the youth incarceration numbers are either increasing or decreasing. I concluded that the statistics and visuals helped the best while composing my final research paper. The visuals I added while presenting my final product to the class helped as well. I am very passionate about helping people get the justice they need to move forward with their lives. As an aspiring criminal defense lawyer, I want to be the voice for those that have been silenced by the criminal justice system. I love being a criminal justice major as well as helping those in desperate need of justice. If I could change my approach to this paper, I would have added real cases of youth that were charged as an adult without the chance of parole. I would have gone more in depth of what offenses that youth commit to be sentenced by the courts to life without parole. Lastly, I would have listed attorneys that represented youth cases and shared the outcome of them. Despite the changes I would have made to my research paper, I have learned a lot from English 211 class and enjoyed this project, along with the in-class assignments and group work for the different readings.
Here are some hyperlinks that I found useful to my project:
https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/youth-incarceration
https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/youth-incarceration/juvenile-life-without-parole
https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/youth-incarceration/alternatives-youth-incarceration