The Law And The Criminal Justice System

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

Courts are established social, political, and judicial institutions necessary for the manifestation of justice and the maintenance of law and order. The courts are part of the judicial branch of government, as outlined in Article III of the United States Constitution. Courts are the arenas in which the law is tried and applied. Judges are the presiding officers of the court. The United States Supreme Court is the most fundamental court because has "the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over them," (United States Courts, 2012). This is true even though even though the court does not expressly enforce that law; enforcement is the province of the executive branch.

The juvenile justice system of the 1800’s is much improved in today’s society and it's still undergoing lots of changes in order to develop a better strategy of dealing with juveniles. Moreover, drastic changes made such as young offenders being tried different from adults in all states depending on the crime. These changes can be seen under the English common Law, the colonial America era, and the industrial revolution era. Today’s juvenile systems, changes made during the late 1800s were to protect the right of young offenders from harsh punishment but rehabilitate them back into the society.

Did you know, that in the United States alone, Over 200,000 children are charged and imprisoned every year as adults? Early in the 20th century, most states established juvenile courts to rehabilitate and not just punish youthful offenders. The system was designed for children to have a second chance at their lives. “A separate juvenile-justice system, which sought to rehabilitate and not just punish children, was part of a movement by progressives to create a legally defined adolescence through the passage of child-labor and compulsory education laws and the creation of parks and open spaces.”(How to reduce crime Pg 1) Although the view on juveniles committing brutal crimes is nearly inconceivable, it is not a solution to give juveniles adult consequences because the effects of the adult system on juveniles are not effective.

When it comes to discussing the criminal justice system and juveniles, there have been many landmark cases that have made a significant impact on the juvenile justice system. The cases arise from dealing with certain aspects that comes from handling juveniles entering the system. Since juveniles are very different from adults they have to deal with them a certain way and a case by case basis. The court cases concerning juveniles and the decisions that have come from them is what has made what the juvenile justice system is today. Juveniles are not treated the same as adults since juveniles are not ad developed as adults common sense wise. They don’t always know what is right from wrong and sometimes they do not have guidance or good influences around them helping them in the right direction. In class we have learned that instead of punishing them, the goal of the juvenile justice system is based on rehabilitation. For instance, juveniles cannot be sentenced to death if under the age of 18 and also can not be given the sentences of life without parole because they consider these punishments cruel and unusual for juveniles. If the system is able to rehabilitate them and give them the tools they need, they have a second chance at changing their lives for the better and getting away from all of the crimes. They rather try to send them to programs or to complete community service to better themselves instead of giving them hard time. The court cases that I will discuss is what

The juvenile justice system was created as a way to intervene constructively in juveniles’ lives to steer them away from the adult criminal justice system. With the idea in mind that children are different as adults and should be trialed differently, juvenile courts were established throughout the country. For example, while children may violate the law, it is often believed by many that they still have room for rehabilitation and growth for change. For quite some time it has been recognized as counterproductive to label children as criminals because this

At the end of the 19th Century, the U.S. made legal history when the world's first juvenile court opened in Chicago(Horwitz-Prisco). The court was founded on two basic principles. First, juveniles lacked the maturity to take responsibility for their actions the way adults could. Second, because their character was not yet fully developed, they could be rehabilitated more successfully than adult criminals. More than a century later, these principles remain the benchmarks of juvenile justice in the United States(Horowitz-Prisco).In recent years, however, a growing number of juvenile criminals are being tried as adults. In part this stems from public outrage against children who are committing violent crimes. Many young children in America are

“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

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.

Juveniles and adults have been segregated in just about every aspect of life for most of this country’s history. Juveniles are equal to adults, obviously, but they are not entitled to the same privileges and are not subjected to the same responsibility as adults are. But for some reason, juveniles must be considered as adults when it comes to the court system. Adolescents should definitely be punished for their inexcusable actions, but they still have lots of years of maturation ahead of them before they are fully developed mentally.

Lawmakers and criminal justice personnel are meant to be guarded against prejudiced laws, policies and practices and to enforce equal and effective protection of the law to everyone (Findlay, Odgers and Yeo, 1994). However, if justice is indeed blind, why is it that police are relentlessly targeting Aboriginal people and why are they severely overrepresented in the criminal justice system of Australia? The disconcerting truth is that racial policing does happen in our criminal justice system. This paper accentuates how certain groups in society such as the Aboriginals or indigenous people have been discriminated against somehow or another by the police or by the criminal justice system itself; particularly directed towards the issues of overrepresentation, over-policing, and under-policing.

In this course we have taken several field trips in order to get an understanding of the places and operations we have learned of in our previous courses in this degree program. From the patrol officers making arrests, to the courthouses where judges give sentencing, to the prisons where guilty parties serve their sentence, the Law Enforcement and Justice System is a complex yet straightforward system. Meant to grant justice to the community and prevent further atrocities to justice and peace from occurring. But for whatever reason, if these duties are broken, then the gears of justice begin to turn, and in so, the many cogs and belts that run this machine to make it one of the most efficient machines there is. Here we are to discuss my thoughts of the trip I had taken with the class to the State of Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Institution or ACI for short.

Today’s society calls on law enforcement and the judicial system to punish people who have violated the law. Often times people commit crimes that carry jail or prison sentences. This requires governments at the federal, state, and local level to establish facilities to house these individuals. In 2013 the total number of adults in some phase of the correctional system was around seven million, whether it be jail, prison, or probation and parole (BJS, 2015). Being incarcerated is the punishment; being locked away, separated from loved ones, and removed from society is the price convicts pay for their crimes. They are sent to jail or prison not to be further punished, especially not in inhumane ways. While this institution is a necessary part of United States society, and people should pay their debts to society, inmates are human beings with constitutional rights to a safe, inhabitable living environment with access to at least the most basic medical care. There are two different kinds of Correctional facilities – public ones owned and operated by the government and private ones that are run by for-profit corporations with a responsibility to stock holders. Private prisons, while they may be necessary, need to be more closely monitored and regulated in the same ways that government prisons are, because when the main goal is centered on turning a profit, it is easy to forget about the health and safety of the human beings they control.

The nation’s first juvenile court was established in 1899 as a part of the Juvenile Court Act. It was founded on three principles: juveniles are not ready to be held accountable for their actions, are not yet fully developed, and can rehabilitate easier than adults. In all but three states, anyone charged with committing a criminal act before his or her eighteenth birthday is considered a juvenile offender. Now more than ever, states and countries have begun to question the reliability of the juvenile court. Some believe the juvenile court system should be abolished because of its insufficient gain to the community. Others believe children are not fully capable to understand the degree of their actions and the consequences that come from them and believe that juvenile courts are a necessity in the court system.

The juvenile justice system was founded on the belief that children are different from adults; therefore, the justice system and corrections sanctions for juveniles should acknowledge the differences. “Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court” (Fagan, 2008). The acknowledgement of these differences should be the bases for a proper juvenile justice system. The examination of the juvenile justice’s systems history, trends, and causation theories will provide an insight into the future of the juvenile justice system.