Juvenile courts deal with crimes committed by underage people. It deals with detention and conviction of underage offenders commonly regarded as children in most constitutions ion the world. There are many officers involved in ensuring that the offender undergoes the right type of correction without necessarily convicting them to being behind the bars. (Miller 2011). One of such officers is the aftercare officer who is one of the last people that the accused meets before being absorbed back into the society. His roles and responsibilities include:
- Visiting the offenders in the juvenile schools.
- Ensuring that the young convicts are well taken care of in the juvenile schools.
- Advising the convicts of the need to change behaviour and the essence of complying with the law.
- Monitoring the progress of the recently released youths who were in juvenile institutions.
- Helping the recently released to secure some form of employment or activities to keep them busy.
- Monitoring the rehabilitation programmes if the juvenile convicts were addicts to drugs. (Miller 2011).
Closely working with the aftercare officer is the prohibition officer. Generally, the prohibition officer deals with already convicted children who have been taken to juvenile schools. The roles and responsibilities of a prohibition officer are similar to those of the aftercare officer since he/ she is also one of the end persons to interact with the convict during the last days of the sentence or follow up days after the sentence. Some of his roles and responsibilities include:
- Being a positive role model to the youth.
- Take care of cases of children who have been placed under probation.
- Maintain and update the files of the children under probation.
- Ensure that the obligations of those under probation are met. (Miller 2011).
- Closely examining the roles of each, it is clear that probation officer is more inclined to law enforcement on the convicts and ensuring that they are treated fairly by the court while the aftercare officer is more inclined to the welfare of the convict without much inclination to strict adherence to the law. By their roles, the aftercare officer can be said to be much closer to the children in terms of change of behaviour is concerned while the probation officer is closer to them in terms of ensuring fair law treatment on the juvenile convicts.
References
Miller, Bartollas, C.” Juvenile justice in America” Prentice Hall. 2011.
