Around 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced or incarcerated as adults in the United States every year. On any given day around 10,000 juveniles are housed in adult jails and prisons. Of the juveniles held in adult jails, most of them are awaiting trial, as 39 states are required that youth charged as adults be held in an adult jail before they are tried. Though as many as a half of them will not be convicted or will be sent back to juvenile justice systems, most will have spent at least one month in adult jail, and one in five of them will have spent over six months there. The juveniles held in adult prisons have been convicted as adults; the laws and standards of this practice vary widely by state. In correctional facilities, youth juveniles …show more content…
Many of these juveniles lack the maturity to handle situations such as adult prisons. Most of the children who are tried as adults lose hope for their future and no hope for them to ever become anything but a criminal. Judges in juvenile courts have the power to impose curfews, house arrest and counseling to offenders rather than send them straight to jail. Juveniles are impressionable and likely to end up becoming involved in a gang or other crime activities when they are locked up with …show more content…
In adult prisons, children who are underage are more likely to be sexually harassed and be raped and beat by not only the other cell mates but the staff members too. Children who are underage are more likely to follow the crowd and to be tempted to do the stuff that other people are doing. If children who are underage are placed in adult jails they lack education and also have a hard time learning the right way out and the right way to do things in life. Children who are under a certain age do not fully understand their consequences for their actions. Children who are under a certain age also are more vulnerable to peer pressure. Some children don't have anything to do at home so they think it's okay if they go out and commit crimes because they don't think that the consequences will affect them. If children who are tried as juveniles instead of adults, they will be a lot safer and have a lot more life-related opportunities. The juvenile jails allow the children to get their GED and they always help them get a job and teach them how to work in the environment. Children who commit violent crimes sometimes think that their parents should be responsible for their actions. Children who have never been taught about the law or the right way to act they think
By putting a child in jail, it prevents harm to the community and to others, Scialabba, Nicole. “Should Juveniles Be Charged as Adults in the Criminal Justice System?”American Bar Association, Justice, 3 Oct. 2016. When that child is in jail, they’ll learn their lesson by being terrified of the people around them. Sometimes the child doesn’t learn their lesson and will continue to do worse things later on when they are released back into society. To add on, children ages 16 and older who are accused of serious crimes will be prosecuted in adult courts.
There are times juveniles should not be convicted as adults because sometimes the “crimes” may not harsh enough to be charged as an adult. For example, if a 8 year old saw a gun in their mother's purse and thought it was a toy and grabbed it and began to shoot who would be at fault ? Plus children in adult prisons are 10 times more likely to be taken advantage of in their time. Research shows that children prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system are more likely to reoffend than those held in the juvenile justice
For the juvenile court system is less than an adult court. The judge decides if the child will be tried as an adult do to the crime. Adult prison is a lot different. If the child is placed in prison, they may not be able to cope well in a correctional facility. Some teen or children cannot manage the challenges. They fall into depression because they feel like is no hope. This puts them a risk to do anything negative to themselves or others. Being in prison for a long time, they may pick up even worse behavior. One crime committed and now people think they are going to do it again. The crimes commit are serious and because of them, people think they should be in prison to reduce the crimes. To punishment or teach the child or teen to learn but it a serious way. People to not get the life the child will have when they are tried as an adult and in the
Within a century ago, juveniles justice system were created because of the unspeakable acts of kids learned in adult jails when placed in that interment. when juveniles are placed with adult prisoners , the juveniles return to the community as a more knowledgable criminal.
In America on any give day, approximately ten thousand juveniles are housed in adult prisons and jails. Approximately two hundred thousand juveniles enter the adult criminal justice system each year and most have non-violent crimes. Juveniles in the adult jails lose out on the educational and psychological benefits offered by juvenile detention facilities and
Juveniles can be sentenced for periods of time so long it usually prohibits them from many things they could or hoped to accomplish in their lifetime, such as getting married, having children , possibly joining the military, etc. “The determination whether a young person is prosecuted in juvenile court or in the adult criminal court is at its core a question about punishment” ( Vaughan 1 ). Young juveniles could have possibly just been in the wrong place at the wrong time when a crime is committed so therefore they could end up being punished as an adult if the court decides that. Kids that are associated to a crime and put in jail sometimes should maybe be given a second chance or have their part in the case looked at differently depending on the role they played in the crime that was
However if we take a step back and look at how incarcerating youth is hurting them. According to the risks juveniles face when they are incarcerated with adults written by Jason Zeidenberg "juveniles are more likely to be targeted for rape five times more than the adult prisoner and suicide rates among juveniles are 7.7 times higher than those that are in juvenile detention centers." Those two statistics alone explains the reason juveniles should not be placed in prison with adults. Another reason juveniles should not be locked up with adults is because "juveniles are twice as likely to be beaten up by staff." This statistic is very sickening because in the prison the people the juveniles should trust are also bringing them
If judges and prosecutors didn’t care to learn how adult prisons affect juveniles, our juvenile crime rates would be very different than they are today. If juveniles were tried and put into adult prisons, we would be creating more criminals rather than trying to prevent them. According to U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, they said “If the point of juvenile courts is to deter and rehabilitate juveniles so that they can succeed as adults, then it is important to evaluate the success of that mission when a juvenile is charged as an adult in the criminal justice system” (Scialabba). Some judges and prosecutors believe putting juveniles in adult prisons will deter them from delinquency rather than the
It is not uncommon for some juveniles to be housed in adult detention centers, however, do you believe juveniles should be housed with adults in prisons and jails? No, I absolutely do not believe that juveniles should be housed with adults in prison and jails. Consequently, I feel that this type of injunction can cause many risk factors including academic diminution, and cause mental risk factors as well. Nevertheless, housing juveniles with adults can cause not only mental risk factors but physical and sexual assault risk factors also. According to the read section in unit four” the crowding, violence, and exploitative relationships found in adult prisons make this disposition extremely questionable, furthermore, although some states have
If we simply send juveniles through the adult justice system it might make them worse individuals. For instance, since their minds are still growing, by being around worse criminals they may pick on their criminal traits.
Imagine sitting in a courtroom, hoping the the judge will not give a harsh sentence. Unfortunately, that’s the case for many juveniles, some as young as 13! A juvenile is subject to a more severe sentence with the limited sentencing available. It is estimated that 250,000 youth are prosecuted as adults, each year. This number should change, as juveniles are not adults, both mentally and physically. Juveniles need an environment surrounded with guiding adults, education and the resources to help them. A juvenile is not an adult, and should not be tried as one.
As more minors are committing violent crimes, the question of whether they should be tried as adults has arisen. Children as young as 13 or 14 are committing violent crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. Some of these children are being tried as adults while others are being tried as juveniles and receiving milder punishments. A juvenile offender may receive a few years in a juvenile detention facility and possibly probation following his release at age eighteen. An adult committing the same violent crime will receive a much harsher penalty, often years in jail, possibly a life sentence, with little or no chance of parole. The only difference between the two offenders is the age at which they committed the crime. Juveniles over
I do not think it is a good idea to lock juveniles up in prisons with adults. For a child to set down and plan a murder for instance, there would have to be some kind of deep emotional problem. On the other side of this, if the child knows right from wrong and he can sit down and plan a murder, then you could say if he is old enough to kill someone then he is old enough to die. The juvenile criminal is rooted much deeper than right from wrong. It starts back from when they are small children. Most of them are usually outsiders or outcasts. Who can you hold fault for that other than society? If juveniles don't fit in with the popular kids in school they are considered an
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)
Most of the time, the system has proven itself to be unsuccessful in dealing with juvenile crimeMost often, the system is unsuccessful. “There are kids who are five times more likely to be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in adult prisons than in juvenile facilities. The risk of suicide is likewise much higher for juveniles in adult jails.”(How to reduce crime Pg 3). When juveniles are sent to jail, they are still relatively impressionable from people in the prison, and may go back into crime after they’re released, hindering rehabilitation and just creating another violent criminal in the world. The court sentencing the criminal is also at