Much of mainstream thinking concerning juvenile delinquency in Canada and the United States is based on the assumption that if uncorrected it automatically leads to adult crime and should thus be severely punished, usually by some form of incarceration, before it becomes an ingrained behavior pattern. While there is some connection between its extreme their research suggests that the best form of law enforcement intervention might be none.
The criminologists' unwillingness to attempt to articulate a policy also stems from their failure—perhaps mirroring that of law enforcement—to distinguish sufficiently between what the young adults themselves think of as criminal behavior and what they consider merely "fun" even while acknowledging that it is illegal. Many of the subjects of the criminologists' rather than routinely imposing incarceration, may be the most effective form of rehabilitation for young offenders.
The problem of juvenile delinquency certainly ought to be dealt with, but the question is one of approach. The conventional wisdom has held that it is essential to make youthful offenders understand that their actions are absolutely impermissible, even if this requires incarceration. However, we do not need to remove delinquents from and it can be achieved without either inflicting incarceration or allowing young offenders to escape penalty.
What this question is testing
Topic
The author is asking: what should we do with kids who break the law? Lock them up, ignore them, or something else?
Framework
Problem-Solution. The author lays out two extreme positions and argues for a middle path.
Main Point
The simpler version: locking up young offenders may actually make things worse, but ignoring them entirely is also no good. The author thinks there's a third option — make them face real consequences (return what they stole, apologize) without sending them to jail. That can work as rehabilitation.
P1: Two extremes
The conventional view says lock kids up before they become career criminals. But research suggests jail might actually keep them on the criminal track. Taken all the way, that research even hints we should do nothing — which the criminologists won't say out loud.
P2: Why most kids stop on their own
Young people don't even think of themselves as criminals — they call their delinquency "fun." When the system labels them as criminals, they may start to see themselves that way. Most kids who escape detection just stop misbehaving by 18 anyway, and almost none of them say it's because they were scared of getting caught. So letting kids grow up without the criminal label is itself a form of rehabilitation.
P3: The author's middle path
Don't incarcerate, but don't let them off either. The shoplifter returns the merchandise and apologizes. The goal is to get kids to internalize society's values by the time they're grown — and you can do that without locking them up.
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