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Juvenile Delinquency Is Committed By A Minor Under The Age Of 18

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Juvenile delinquency refers to a status offense that is committed by a minor under the age of 18. Status offenses include crimes against property, for example, vandalism or stealing, physical violence against others for example, aggravated assault, murder, other crimes such as drug abuse violations, curfew and loitering, and driving under the influence; and sexual crimes for example sexual assault or rape (Enginurt, Ozer, Demir, Yildirim, & Cankaya, 2014; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, n.d.). Statistics of crimes committed by juveniles include the following: 225 arrests for violent Crime Index offenses for every 100,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 17 years-old, juveniles were known to be involved in 8% of all homicides, and violent crimes committed by juveniles peaked during the after school hours (National Institute of Justice, n.d.).
Juvenile Courts deal with minors who have been accused of committing a delinquent act and are considered juvenile delinquency cases. When a case is heard is juvenile court the prosecutor typically looks at the following things according to lawyer Kathleen Michon (2015): the severity of the offense, the juvenile 's age, the juvenile 's past record, the strength of the evidence in the case, the juvenile 's gender (boys are more likely to be charged than girls), the juvenile 's social history, and the ability of the minor 's parents to control his or her behavior (p.1). Two options are seen in juvenile court, they are

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