Juvenile Justice Process and Correction

The juvenile justice system is a foundation in society that is granted certain powers and responsibilities. It faces several different tasks, among the most important is maintaining order and preserving constitutional rights. When a juvenile is arrested and charged with committing a crime there are many different factors that will come in to play during the course of his arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing, and rehabilitation process. This paper examines the Juvenile Justice System’s court process in the State of New Jersey and the State of California.

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.

One of the most debatable topics in today’s justice system is whether or not juveniles should receive waivers to adult court. There are three methods that are used to transfer a juvenile to adult court. Juvenile waiver, statutory exclusion, and Concurrent Jurisdiction are the three different methods used to transfer a juvenile to adult court. Statutory exclusion is when the juvenile is transferred immediately to the adult court. Concurrent Jurisdiction is when the juvenile may be tried as an adult and a juvenile at once. Throughout all three methods juvenile waiver is the most common one that is used throughout juvenile courts and used in mostly all states. The only states that do not provide judicial waivers are Nebraska, New York, and New Mexico. When a judge transfers a juvenile to adult court, he or she is denying the protections that the juveniles receive. The judge makes the decision of whether or not the juvenile is tried as an adult. Double Jeapordy laws protect the juvenile from being tried in juvenile court and then adult court because of the fact that a juvenile would be tried twice. Most times 17 or 18 year olds are the youngest age limits that can be waived to adult court, but in some states ages low as 13 or 14 can be waived. It depends on the crime that a juvenile commits on whether or not he or she is transferred to adult court. Once the juvenile is tried as an adult, he or she will be affect in the community for a lifetime versus having his or her records

(2017). Title 37 Juveniles Chapter 1 Juvenile Courts and Proceedings Part 1 General Provisions. Retrieved from

I chose to write about the process of the pretrial or “intake” phase because it has not been determined by the Supreme Court as critical in juvenile proceedings. Consequently juveniles do not have the right to be represented by counsel during this meeting and if they chose to participate, any statements made to the probation officer during the conference are to be solely admissible for a placement decision, not for prosecution or adult criminal court. In this paper I will reflect and analyze some of the cases detailed in the chapter that discuss whether or not statements made during intake can be used against a juvenile who has no right to counsel during this time.

According to Fagan (2008) judicial waiver is primary process in the juvenile court in which the judge has the authority to waive juvenile court jurisdiction and transfer the offender’s case to adult (criminal) court. According to Griffin, et al., (2011) the waiver laws allow the juvenile to be prosecuted in criminal court. In these cases a formal hearing is conducted while the case is still in the juvenile court. During this hearing based off of the evidence and the charges a judge can approve the waiver for transfer to adult court. Fagan (2008) stated that judicial waiver is a common transfer law that is used by forty-seven states in American. In my opinion this system works similarly to how the juvenile system was designed. The judicial waiver process begins in the juvenile justice system which operates in an informal manner to decide if the juvenile offenders will be waived into the adult criminal justice system. According Fagan (2008) following Kent v. United States all waiver statutes that were designated must be met prior to the judge consideration of a waiver to adult court. Conditions that must be met prior to wavier consideration of the judge are generally a minimum age requirement, a specific type offense, and a prior record of delinquency.

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP) (n.d.), there are three ways juveniles are transferred to the adult criminal court; judicial waiver (which is most common), statutory exclusion, and direct file. Through judicial waver a juvenile court judge transfers the juvenile to the adult court and at that time the juvenile is denied the protection that juvenile jurisdictions provide. The crime committed must be egregious or there must be an extensive criminal history (Findlaw, n.d.). Juveniles transferred through statutory exclusion refer to those offenses excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction such as first-degree murder. According to Huguelet (2016) “notwithstanding the fact that three mechanisms are available, in Florida about 98% of juvenile transfers to adult court are via direct file.” With direct file, the prosecutor chooses whether a

“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

There are three different ways where juvenile courts can be transferred to criminal courts. Judicial wavier, legislative wavier, prosecutor wavier, and rarely demand wavier are the three different ways. Judicial court is where the judge makes a decision. Legislative wavier is juveniles at specific ages, charged with specific crimes, are automatically sent to criminal court. If a sixteen year old killed someone, his case could be tried in a criminal court. Prosecutor wavier is where prosecutors are given the choice of filing the case in juvenile or adult court. The decision would come based on the interactions of both parties and the seriousness of the crime. The extremely rare transfer request is the demand wavier. The demand wavier is where the defense lawyer will ask that a juvenile’s case be transferred to criminal court. The reason demand wavier is rare, is because the defense usually is looking for the easiest punishment. By asking to go to a criminal court, the defendant could be receiving a harsher punishment. Psychologists have an important role when deciding about transferring from juvenile court to adult court. The three psychological constructs are amenability to treatment in the juvenile system, risk of dangerousness, and the juvenile’s own sophistication-maturity.

Some jurisdictions require the child to be over a certain age and charged with a felony, while others permit waiver if the child is over a certain age regardless of offense. Still yet, others have no conditions. Juveniles can be tried in all stated in one of three ways: 1. Concurrent Jurisdiction: the prosecutor has the discretion of filing charge offenses in either juvenile or criminal court. 2. Excluded offenses: the legislature excludes from juvenile court jurisdiction certain offenses that are either very minor, such as traffic or fishing violations, or very serious, such as murder or rape. 3. Judicial waiver: the juvenile court waives its jurisdiction and transfers the case to criminal court. Barry Feld, Juvenile Law Scholar, suggests that waivers to adult court be mandatory for serious crimes. Those espousing the crime control model believe that the overriding purpose is protection of the public, deterrence or violent juvenile behavior, and the incarceration of serious youthful offenders in the adult criminal justice system. The rehabilitative justice model view this as an attack on the juvenile justice system, but crime control advocates consider such steps a necessary response to a rising juvenile violence rate. Life in Adult Prison The Southwest Multi County Corrections Center, a two-story adult jail is the largest maximum-security program for juveniles under federal authority. The BOP pays

First, if a juvenile is stopped by a police officer for a crime the officer will determine what to do with the juvenile. The officer can either release the juvenile with a warning or go as far as arresting the juvenile and referring them to the District Attorney’s office. Once the juvenile is in custody they go through a process called intake. It is at the intake stage that the prosecutor (DA) determines whether to refer the case to juvenile court; similar to what is known in the adult criminal justice system as prosecution. It is at this stage that several factors are evaluated. The evidence is reviewed and the seriousness of the offense is considered along with whether or not the juvenile has a previous history with the juvenile court. After the evaluation and review of these factors a case may be dismissed, handled informally or the juvenile may be held in detention pending a formal hearing before a juvenile court judge. The prosecutor must file a petition to the courts

In the case of In re Gault, Gault was fifteen-year-old boy who was arrested for making lewd phone calls to neighbor, and he was transported by the Sheriff to the Children’s Detention Home (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Furthermore, no written notice was left at the Gault’s home to notify his parents of his confinement, and Gault’s mother eventually learned his was being housed at the Children’s Detention Home (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Gault’s mother was advised of his pending hearing by Deputy Probation Officer Flagg, and Gault was detained until the next day (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Subsequently, the initial petition filed provided no factual basis for the judicial action, and only stated than the juvenile was under the age of eighteen requiring the protection of the Honorable Court, citing Gault as a delinquent minor (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Officer Flagg executed a formal affidavit in support of the petition before the hearing was conducted. Now that we possess a general understanding of the case, let us analyze the issues and the court’s holding beginning with the initial hearing.

courts lose jurisdiction over a person. Generally, a juvenile is between the ages of seven

Section 5-810 subsection 6 of the Juvenile Court Act “after a hearing, if the court finds preponderance of the evidence that the minor committed a violation of his or her sentence other than by a knew offense, the court may order execution of the previously imposed adult criminal sentence or may continue him or

Differences between juvenile cases that are petitioned and those that aren’t are based upon the type of accusation/crime the juvenile is facing. If prosecutor decides to proceed with the juvenile's case informally, without petitioning the case, usually the minor must appear to a probation officer or judge. Although no formal charge is entered against the child, he or she usually will have to attend counseling or after-school classes repay damages done, pay a fine, community service work, or is sent into probation. If the child appears to be a victim of abuse, the juvenile court judge may remove the minor from parental custody. Cases that are preceded Formally/Petitioned Cases the prosecutor will decide to proceed formally, he will file a petition