The prevalence of juvenile crime continues to increase and remains widespread as legislators continue to consider methods in preventing and combating juvenile delinquency. Numerous state mandates have been put into action in effort to reducing and preventing the occurrence of juvenile crime. Crime prevention procedures are being emphasized, beginning at the elementary school age.  For example, juveniles who come from homes of lower socioeconomic status are given fewer opportunities for success and may be disadvantaged for their probability in participating in criminal activities in comparison to juveniles who come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and statuses.  These youths are targeted by prevention programs, in addition to those who display early signs of delinquency.  The issue of whether or not it is ethical to incarcerate juvenile offenders is heavily debated.  Youth detention centers serve the purpose of isolating the offender from the rest of society by keeping juveniles off of the streets and preventing them from committing more crimes.  Incapacitation also serves as general and specific deterrence, as well as providing retribution.  
Once a youth has been institutionalized, they often become isolated from the rest of society and they gain the stigma of the criminal upon release.  This victimizes the juvenile offender and puts them in a situation that makes it difficult to succeed, therefore increasing the likelihood of recidivism.  The experience of shame and empathy have been shown to be significant factors in juvenile delinquency and in a juvenile’s likelihood in engaging in criminal behavior.  Shame includes an individual’s assessment of personal behavior and analysis of the self.  Empathy occurs when an individual is capable of understanding and experiencing the emotions of others. In a research study conducted by Tamsin Owen and Simone Fox in order to expose dissimilarities between violent and non violent youth offenders, a noteworthy difference was discovered between violent and non-violent juvenile offenders, particularly in their levels of empathy.  Nonviolent offenders were found to experience higher levels of empathy than non violent offenders.  This distinction in the area of empathy could be essential in the development of juvenile treatment programs, particularly for nonviolent juvenile offenders who were shown to experience higher levels of empathy.  This is because the presence of empathy is believed to prevent or stop certain offenses from being committed, thus increasing the likelihood that an offender can be rehabilitated or treated if empathy is deemed present. In the case of juvenile drug offenders, rehabilitative sentencing is often utilized rather than the incarceration of these young offenders in order to decrease victimization and prevent recidivism.  Incarceration versus rehabilitation of nonviolent juvenile offenders continues to be a heavily debated topic.  A shift from reactive measures regarding juvenile delinquency to preventative actions is occurring, with state mandates enacting pre-emptive programs in schools and communities.  However, the success of these preventative programs has been deemed questionable, as the rate of juvenile crime continues to increase at a steady rate.
