A Letter to the Governor about the Process of Juvenile Transfer

Placing a juvenile in a detention center early in the court process increases the risk that youths will be found to be delinquent and damage their prospects for future success. A majority of the youths that are placed in these facilities pose little or no threat to the public and essentially do not need to be there. This portion of the juvenile court process is detrimental to the future and mental aspects of a youth’s life. We desperately need to change the way that we handle the juvenile court system because we are only reinforcing the delinquent behavior that these youths have been exposed to. We need to focus on the rehabilitation and prevention efforts for these youths not the punishment aspect and until then (insert a better ending).

With the escalation of murders and rapes committed by minors as seen in recent years the people are looking for the right answer. Public concern over the effectiveness of the juvenile courts when dealing with these offenders has brought about change in the justice system. (Stolba, 2001). The courts now, are quicker to transfer a juveniles’ case to adult court than when the juvenile system was first formed. There stands a conflict of interests within the two court systems. Juvenile courts are to protect the rights of youths determined incapable of adult decisions. The primary concern is that the youth be rehabilitated and not become a repeat offender. Thus, protecting the child from incarceration with adult criminals and any possible future victims. The concerns of the adult court is to make sure the convicted offender pays for their crime and that the victim gets justice. Rehabilitation is not a primary concer of the adult justice system.

Juveniles should not receive severe adult sentences for the murders they commit due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex not allowing them to fully process decisions and consequences at a young age. In fact, the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain where decision making originates and does not fully develop until the age of 25. Furthermore, sentencing a juvenile as an adult while they are at an impulsive age and subject to peer pressure is resulting to cruel and unusual punishment as defined in the eighth amendment of the United States Bill of Rights. Eventually, imposing an adult verdict over a juvenile would inhibit a proper rehabilitation for the convicted juvenile. Hence, it is recommended that states that currently have life without parole or the death penalty laws, ratify a new law for juvenile convicts for proper sentencing and rehabilitation.

The reason I say this is because there are numerous cases of where juveniles were sent to adult state prisons, and in most cases

The juvenile justice system has long been in debate over whether its focus should be rehabilitation or punishment. From its birth in the early 20th century, the juvenile justice system has changed its focus from punishment to rehabilitation and back many times. Some say the juvenile justice system should be abolished and juveniles tried as adults, yet studies indicate punishment and imprisonment do not rehabilitate juvenile offenders; therefore, the juvenile justice system should remain

The juvenile justice system varies from the adult justice system in many ways. For more than a century, the states have believed that the juvenile justice system was a means to ensuring public safety, by establishing and implementing a system that responds to children as they are maturing into adulthood. Today’s youths, however, are increasingly committing more serious crimes that in turn are raising the public’s criticism concerning the modern juvenile justice system. There are those who are in support of keeping every juvenile I juvenile court system and then there are the others who argue if juveniles were held to stricter standards they would not become repeat offender in the system and eventual end up in the adult corrections system.

Florida is an excellent example of a state that continually convicts more and more juveniles despite the facts that sending juvenile's to prison does not work. A 1996 study showed that youth transferred to adult court in Florida were a third more likely to re-offend than those sent to the juvenile justice system for the same crime (Florida 8). Statistics show that teen-agers tried as adults committed serious crimes upon release at a rate double those tried as juveniles (Juveniles 32). Florida state should revaluate how they want Florida citizens to help society.

By law adolescents are not able to vote, purchase tobacco or alcohol, join the armed forces, or sign a legal contract. Children are not permitted the same rights and responsibilities as adults because the law recognizes their inability to make adult decisions. The law acknowledges that children are unable to handle the consequences that come along with the rights that adults have. By allowing them to be charged as adults is holding them to a double standard. Telling them that they are not old enough to enjoy the same luxuries as adults, but they can experience the same punishment as adults if they commit a crime. The law acknowledged the inability of children to make decisions but still allows them to suffer the same consequences as adults. Research demonstrates that transferring children from juvenile court to adult court does not decrease recidivism, and in fact actually increases crime. Instead of the child learning their mistake they are more likely to repeat it. Juvenile detention centers have programs that help reconstruct young minds and help them realize where they went wrong. Prison does not offer this same opportunity. (Estudillo, Mary Onelia)

One of the most extreme responses to serious juvenile offenses involves the transfer of juveniles to adult court. Transfer laws and statutes vary significantly from state to state, particularly in terms of flexibility and extent of coverage. There are three methods in which juvenile cases can be transferred to adult court: judicial waiver, concurrent jurisdiction, and statutory exclusion.

Why is transferring a juvenile to an adult criminal court so complex? Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court is an article that was written by Jeffrey J. Shook for the purpose of illustrating a review of policy and practice changes in the transfer of juveniles. This article mainly discusses social and political discourses which include seven principles that serve as an analytical framework for rethinking transfer policy. This article also explains how it is unfair that children can be treated as adults in court, yet as children in the society.

Many young adolescents who have committed horrendous crimes have been a huge topic amongst the Supreme Court. Whether young adolescents are viewed as innocent, naive children to the public, this not changed the fact they can commit brutal crimes. In spite of the fact that adolescents have committed brutal crimes such as murder, one needs to understand that their brains are not as fully developed as an adult brain would be. Adolescents should not be trialed to a life sentence or attend adult prisons; however, they should be punished for their actions and undergo rehabilitation programs to help them be prepared to fit in with the rest of society.

A comparison of young offenders charged in New Jersey’s juvenile court and in New York’s criminal court shows that youths convicted for serious crimes in criminal courts repeated crimes at a higher rate after their release than the ones tried in juvenile courts. From the many research conducted, the following is evident; transferred juveniles are more likely to offend, and there is a greater likelihood of re-arrest of offenders. In fact, a hundred-percentage likelihood of re-arrest of violent offense criminals, and these transfers increase recidivisms among the offenders (Lonn, page 82).

Juvenile justice has proved to be as imprudent as it is practical. Snyder and Sickmund (1999) found that as early as 1825, there was a significant push to establish a separate juvenile justice system focused on rehabilitation and treatment. The procedure continued to stay focused on the rehabilitation of a person, even though financial support and assets sustained to hold back its achievement. In reaction to rising juvenile crime rates in the 1980s’, more corrective laws were approved (Snyder and Sickmund 1999). In the 1990s, the United States legal system took further steps regarding transfer provisions that lowered the threshold at which juveniles could be tried in criminal court and sentenced to adult prison (Snyder and Sickmund 1999). Furthermore, laws were enacted that allowed prosecutors and judges more discretion in their sentencing options; and confidentiality standards, which made juvenile court proceedings and records more available to the public (Snyder and Sickmund 1999), were reduced.

On the other hand, the advocates of the juvenile system believe that because children are not fully mentally or physically developed, they are not therefore accountable for their actions in the same way as adults (Ainsworth, 1995, p.932-933). Juvenile criminality for them is “youthful illness” brought about by external forces like environment or impoverished living conditions. Donna Bishop, an advocate of the juvenile justice system, encourages states to give these juveniles “room to reform.” She believes that a policy that is designed to discard youth in the middle of the transition to adulthood is uncharacteristic of a fair government (Bishop, 2000, p. 159). Supporters of this kind of reform program for juveniles are not amenable to the transfer to adult court

The nation’s first juvenile court was established in 1899 as a part of the Juvenile Court Act. It was founded on three principles: juveniles are not ready to be held accountable for their actions, are not yet fully developed, and can rehabilitate easier than adults. In all but three states, anyone charged with committing a criminal act before his or her eighteenth birthday is considered a juvenile offender. Now more than ever, states and countries have begun to question the reliability of the juvenile court. Some believe the juvenile court system should be abolished because of its insufficient gain to the community. Others believe children are not fully capable to understand the degree of their actions and the consequences that come from them and believe that juvenile courts are a necessity in the court system.