Juvenile Injustice : The Effectiveness Of The Juvenile Justice System Within America

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).

Today’s heated debate regarding the decision to try juveniles as adults has prompted individuals to construct opinionated and informational articles on the topic. The nation’s troubled youth are protected by groups that believe these offenders deserve rehabilitation and a chance to develop into a productive member of society. However, others believe that those committing certain heinous crimes should be tried as adults as a means to protect public safety, prevent second offenders, and “dispense justice in the form of punishment” (Aliprandini & Michael, 2016). Because these perspectives offer a reasonable and valid argument, juveniles responsible for major crimes

Approximately two million adolescents a year are arrested and out of that two million, 60,000 of them are incarcerated according to the American Journal of Public Health. The 60,000 incarcerated adolescents each year are being tried as adults in court because of the serious crimes they have committed. The crimes they have committed are anything from armed robbery to murder. Some juveniles might be first time offenders and others might be repeat offenders. Crimes have always been a major issue in the United States and can cause controversy in the criminal justice system. Charging a minor as an adult in criminal court varies from state to state based on each state’s jurisdiction. Some states consider anyone up to the age of 18 still a juvenile and would not be charged as an adult in criminal court, but other states may charge a juvenile as an adult at the age of 16 or 17. Jordan (2014) states, “Although states already had methods for transferring youth to the adult system, as a result of the growing fear of juvenile violence, most states implemented new laws to increase the number of youth entering the adult criminal system’ (Bernard & Kurlychek, 2010; Torbet et al., 1996)” (p. 315). While it sounds beneficial to incarcerate more adolescents in the adult criminal justice system to avoid juveniles from committing crimes in the future, that is not always the case. Incarcerating these juveniles can be life changing in a negative

Some juvenile delinquents are being treated like adults and being sent to adult prisons instead of juvenile prisons. In an article called “ADULT PRISONS: No Place for Kids,” by Steven J. Smith, Smith presents an argument against treating juveniles like adults. His argument states that minors shouldn’t be trialed and placed into adult prisons because instead of being rehabilitated, they typically come out worse because of the daily exposure to already hardened criminals. Smith provides reasons why juveniles are convicted as adults, the drawbacks of placing adolescents in prisons with adults, and an alternative punishment for juvenile criminals.

Even though the justice system knows perfectly well that most juveniles offenders are too young to truly understand the consequences of their actions, many juveniles are still transferred to adult courts for case hearing. A juvenile offender is someone who is too young to be tried as an adult. For instance, if a eighteen year old boy is charged as an adult with a killing of

The juvenile justice system was founded on the belief that juveniles should be rehabilitated from committing crime. It was the belief of the government that juveniles do not posses the cognitive reasoning of adults, therefore should not be punished as adults. The juvenile court was formed in 1899 with the belief that the government needs to play a more active role in the rehabilitation of juveniles. This belief held strong up until the 1980's when President Ronald Reagan took office. The beliefs in juvenile rehabilitation were fading and an alternative was rapidly being put into motion, juvenile incarceration. Juveniles being incarcerated was not

“I think it's important for us as a society to remember that the youth within juvenile justice systems are, most of the time, youths who simply haven't had the right mentors and supporters around them because of circumstances beyond their control,” (qtd. in Brainy Quotes) are wise words from Q'orianka Kilcher, a human rights activist. Many Americans feel adolescents should be held accountable for their behavior; however, trying them as if they are adults is not always the optimum course of action. Because the teenage brain matures from back to front, the prefrontal cortex is not established until mid-twenties. Ordinarily adolescents can be rehabilitated in order to avert future offending; yet when tried as an adult, all hope for rehabilitation is lost. A one time mistake will follow an adolescent around for the rest of his/her life, dramatically decreasing the opportunities for success. Trying adolescents as adults is an injustice due to their lack of rationality and potential for rehabilitation.

Juvenile delinquency has become a controversial issue within the Criminal Justice system. In the United States, juvenile delinquency refers to disruptive and criminal behavior committed by an individual under the age of 18. In many states, a minor at the age of 16 to 17 ½ can be tried as an adult. Once the individual reaches adulthood, the disruptive and criminal behavior is recognized as a crime. However, the criminal justice system has divided juvenile delinquency into two general types of categories that has brought upon controversial issues of inequality and corruption. Yet, putting young individuals in juvenile detentions facilities seems to open the door for them to commit more crimes in the future. Therefore, under certain circumstances juveniles should be tried as an adult.

Over the past 50 years the Juvenile Justice system has seen many changes to their philosophy and how they handle juvenile matter. Supreme Court cases like In re Gualt, In re Winship, New Jersey v. TLO, Roper v. Simmon have helped shaped the juvenile justice system. Juvenile courts can no longer ignore the constitutional rights of juveniles. Tennessee has 98 juvenile courts, 109 juvenile court judges and 45 magistrates. In 1982, The Juvenile Court Restructure Act amended Tennessee Code Annotated §§37-1-201 through 37-1-214. The purpose of this act is to provide adequate juvenile court services in every county in Tennessee. The Tennessee Code Annotated §37-1-203 states, “general sessions courts shall exercise juvenile court jurisdiction except

The juvenile system was developed in the United States about two hundred years ago, with the first court build in Illinois in 1899. Juvenile Justice System was established to reform youth were found guilty of a minor crime. Today, crimes of violence increase even more due to the cause on most cases youth are not interested in obtaining an education and decide to skip school and decide to steal and replace school with violent crimes, such as harassment, reckless endangerment, and burglary. The American Juvenile Justice System is main objective is to work with youth offenders who had been arrested and convicted of a crime.

“The juvenile justice system was first created in the late 1800s to reform United States policies on how to handle youth offenders. Since that time, a number of reforms - aimed at both protecting the "due process of law" rights of youth, and creating an aversion toward jail among the young - have made the juvenile justice system more comparable to the adult system, which is a shift from the United States’ original intent (2008,Lawyer Shop.com).” The

The Juvenile Justice System was created as a separate network from the Criminal Justice System so that juveniles could be treated differently from adults but still be held accountable for their crimes. This system takes more of a rehabilitative approach to help the juvenile offenders rather than to simply punish them because the goal is to keep the youth on the right path and prevent them from becoming lifelong criminals. While the goal remains the same, different states have different laws in place and other methods when it comes to rehabilitation as well as punishment. Punishment for juveniles always sparks debate because many people argue that punishments such as the death penalty and life in prison should not apply to the youth because of their age. Others argue that without this kind of punishment there would be no fear for juveniles in committing serious crimes which would lead to an unfair practice of justice. An unfair practice of justice occurs across the juvenile justice system already in which race, gender, and ethnicity plays a huge role in determining how far into the system a youth goes. Changes have to be made to this system in order for improvement to be seen but it has to start from the beginning where the juveniles first come into contact with the system.

The juvenile justice system was founded with the goal to serve the best interests of the child, with an understanding that youth possessed different needs than adults. Over the course of our semester we have come across various research studies that proves that the adult system is not well equipped to house and rehabilitate the delinquents. These studies have shown that more juveniles that are transferred to the criminal justice system ends up back in the system, which means the recidivism rate is higher for those who are treated in the juvenile facility compared to those who are transferred to the adult. Researchers and academics overwhelmingly agree that the transfer policies disproportionately affect youth of color. Youth in the adult system are convicted and incarcerated at higher rates compared to their counterparts in the juvenile justice system and they also tend to receive harsher sentences. Transferred juveniles experience high rates of pretrial detention are often detained or incarcerated in adult facilities, where they have no access to resources vital to their development, and are at an unacceptably high risk for assault and abuse.

In recent decades, juvenile crime has become somewhat of a controversy due to the young age and immaturity of these criminals. Incidences of juvenile crime skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s, and policymakers pushed for laws that sent children as young as thirteen years old to trial, and even made them eligible for prison sentences. The general public has expressed a common desire to reduce the incidence of juvenile crime and find effective legislation to discipline these youths, but there are questions about these methods. What is more effective, incarceration or rehabilitation? Does criminal punishment intimidate more youths away from a life of crime, and would productive rehabilitation efforts influence these youths to becoming more valuable members of society?

Throughout the United States juveniles have been repeatedly tried, and punished for their crimes committed as young adolescents. In the juvenile system, they are rehabilitated for their offenses rather than being punished in adult prisons. To other people it may seem like America is a great place to come to be free, and valued by our peers but in reality, children are placed in unsafe, unregulated facilities with adult criminals, where adults stay because of the crimes they committed. Their actions influence the lives of these young juveniles. Juveniles should not be tried as adults because it violates the 8th Amendment, the adolescent’ brain is undeveloped, and lastly, it empowers them to commit more crimes.