While the main purpose of the adult criminal justice system is to punish the criminal according to the level of his or crime, the aim of the juvenile justice system is to apply rehabilitation or mentoring to juvenile offenders in order to prevent further crimes and to change their delinquent behavior. The core motivating principle of the juvenile system is rehabilitation. This is because juveniles are not fully mentally or physically developed; they cannot be accountable for their actions in the same way as adults. Additionally, many juvenile offenders come from broken homes or bad neighborhoods and many have been abused. They need a second chance because many have not received even a first chance. Additionally, rehabilitation is by far the best option for them because of the way they would almost certainly be exploited and turned into hardened criminals if sent to prison. This paper will provide further background to the issue of rehabilitating juvenile offenders, and strongly argue that it is the right approach.

             The justice system fulfills an important symbolic function by establishing standards of conduct. It formally defines right and wrong for citizens and frees them from the responsibility of taking vengeance, thus preventing the escalation of feuds within communities. The system protects the rights of free citizens by honoring the principle that individual freedom should not be denied without good reason. Rehabilitation has as its objective the return of offenders to the community as cured and viable members of society. .

             The rehabilitation efforts of the 1980's and 1990's were to a large extent unsuccessful. No program appeared to be any more effective in changing criminals than any other program, so a sizable portion of the people released from prison continued to return (Murphy 49). This led many to conclude that the best, and possibly only, alternative was simply to remove offenders from the community, precluding any further vexation and exploitation by them.