Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act

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).

This paper will look at the importance of Preventing Juvenile Delinquency and what different ideas, concepts and methods are available to those adolescents that are either at-risk already or those that can be in the future. Early prevention is the best method of slowing down the statistics of crimes among adolescents, by keeping them off of the streets and out of the justice system by providing the means to teach them to be productive rather than destructive.

Juvenile delinquency is a controversial topic that this country has been trying to improve on for many years. In the YouTube video “America’s Juvenile Injustice System” Marsha Levick discusses the exact injustices that are occurring in our justice system. She provides examples of those who have gone through the system and did not receive their justice. This video is a Ted Talk done in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was created with the intent to inform its intended audience about how the juvenile justice system came to be and how much further it still needs to go in order to give justice to all the juveniles who go through it.

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) is the principal federal program through which the federal government sets standards for juvenile justice systems at the state and local levels. It provides direct funding for states, research, training, and technical assistance, and evaluation. The JJDPA was originally enacted in 1974 and even though the JJDPA has been revised several times over the past 30 years, its basic composition has remained the same. Since the act was passed in 1974, the JJDPA focused solitary on preventing juvenile delinquency and on rehabilitating juvenile offenders.

A juvenile or “youthful inmate” as defined by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) is any person under the age of eighteen who is under adult-court supervision and incarcerated or detained in a prison or jail. While PREA defines a juvenile as under the age of eighteen the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (JJDPA) allows the states to set their own definition of a juvenile (Lahey). This discrepancy in the definition of a juvenile has caused problems and slow progress with states coming towards compliance with PREA. States, such as North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Missouri, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and Louisiana have set the upper limit for a juvenile at sixteen. Texas, recently has agreed to comply with the terms of PREA. Louisiana automatically prosecutes seventeen year olds as adults, even for minor offenses (Neustrom). Sentencing juveniles to adult prison is risking the juvenile’s safety by putting them in a situation where they are vulnerable and more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted, commit suicide and it also causes an increase in the recidivism.

There are many similarities and differences between the adult and juvenile justice systems. Although juvenile crimes have increased in violence and intensity in the last decade, there is still enough difference between the two legal proceedings, and the behaviors themselves, to keep the systems separated. There is room for changes in each structure. However, we cannot treat/punish juvenile offenders the way we do adult offenders, and vice versa. This much we know. So we have to find a way to merge between the two. And, let’s face it; our juveniles are more important to us in the justice system. They are the group at they

The Juvenile Justice system, since its conception over a century ago, has been one at conflict with itself. Originally conceived as a fatherly entity intervening into the lives of the troubled urban youths, it has since been transformed into a rigid and adversarial arena restrained by the demands of personal liberty and due process. The nature of a juvenile's experience within the juvenile justice system has come almost full circle from being treated as an adult, then as an unaccountable child, now almost as an adult once more.

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

Poor or not, no one is above the law. Giving children the image that they can get whatever they want, harm whomever, do anything, will psychologically plant a new seed of mischief. Children can commit crime and not be imprisoned if we do not repeal the Juvenile Delinquent Act. In fact, juvenile crimes rose in 2008 despite the implementation of the Act in 2006. This shows that the most effective way to combat crime is to promise just punishment. It may seem harsh but crimes should be dealt with justice. Should the offense of a child and an adult be of the same degree, their age should not matter and justice should be served for the security of the nation. Any crime poses a threat to society and the offenders, whatever their age, should experience the true consequences of their actions.

Tens of thousands of children are put into detention centers for reasons that contradict the purpose of juvenile detention centers. Not having enough resources isn’t an excuse to put a child through the system and worsen his current life and increase the odds of the youth continuing to grow into delinquency as they transition into adulthood. Cook County in Illinois, Multnomah County in Portland, and Santa Cruz County in California are exemplary leaders in our country that have begun a reform movement known as the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). The Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative in order to reduce pre-adjudicatory detention, reduce racial disparities in the juvenile justice system and increase public safety they:

Within this paper the writer will be discuss the public policy on Juvenile Justice Reform. Within the paper the writer will describe the issue, tell if the policy a regulatory or legislative-initiated policy, and who initiated the issue or policy. Also the writer will discuss is there a constitutional issue, and how will the issue or policy affect the community, the accused, and the victims and a conclusion at the end of the paper.

This paper will discuss the history of the juvenile justice system and how it has come to be what it is today. When a juvenile offender commits a crime and is sentenced to jail or reform school, the offender goes to a separate jail or reforming place than an adult. It hasn’t always been this way. Until the early 1800’s juveniles were tried just like everyone else. Today, that is not the case. This paper will explain the reforms that have taken place within the criminal justice system that developed the juvenile justice system.

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.

Juvenile delinquency has been a problem in the United States ever since it has been able to be documented. From 100 years ago to now, the process of juvenile delinquency has changed dramatically; from the way juveniles are tried, to the way that they are released back into society, so that they do not return back to the justice system (Scott and Steinberg, 2008). Saying this, juveniles tend to

It is a common believe that adolescents require a special system thru which be processed because they are “youth who are in a transitional stage of development…young offenders that are neither innocent children nor mature adults…” (Nelson, 2012). Because juveniles are in a process of constant development sociologically, psychologically and physiologically, the juvenile court system focuses on alternative sentences and the creation of programs that will offer them rehabilitation instead of incarceration. However, in cases of extraordinary circumstances, the juvenile system shifts from looking at rehabilitation as a first choice to accountability and punishment (Read, n.d). All levels of society are collectively involved in delinquency