Unique Juvenile Situations Faced by Correctional Officers

In the United States, “an estimated 7,100 juvenile defendants were charged with felonies in adult criminal court in 1998” ("Juvenile Defendants"). These numbers portray how there were a lot of juveniles being charged. In addition to a large increase in the amount of crime, there was a change in the severity of the crimes that were committed, “the number of violent crimes committed by young people declined substantially from the 1990s to 2003, but then surged again that year, with the estimated number of juvenile murder offenders increasing 30 percent” (Kahn). These numbers show how juveniles were committing more crimes that were serious in the face of the law. These numbers are a brief snippet of

The juvenile justice system varies from the adult justice system in many ways. For more than a century, the states have believed that the juvenile justice system was a means to ensuring public safety, by establishing and implementing a system that responds to children as they are maturing into adulthood. Today’s youths, however, are increasingly committing more serious crimes that in turn are raising the public’s criticism concerning the modern juvenile justice system. There are those who are in support of keeping every juvenile I juvenile court system and then there are the others who argue if juveniles were held to stricter standards they would not become repeat offender in the system and eventual end up in the adult corrections system.

The American Juvenile justice system is where youth, who are caught in a criminal act, are convicted of their crimes. The juvenile justice system also intervenes using the police, court and correctional facility for delinquent behavior. The juvenile justice system was not always around. There was only criminal court or adult court, there are many differences between juvenile court and adult court. And also, there are some exceptions on which youth could be charged as adults.

Juvenile crime has mushroomed into an enormous dilemma for the legal system. The juvenile court system needs to devote more time to backing up what the judicial system stands for. “The courts allow the majority of juveniles off of the hook for committing crimes instead of arraigning them as adults like they should” (Stapleton 117). Due to the overflow of cases in lower circuit courts, the courts cannot handle the cases with the diligence necessary (Snyder 3). Moreover, a boom in juvenile crime poses a threat to the way that the judicial system conducts itself. Crimes that need to transfer to adult criminal courts are instead dealt with in the misdemeanor court (Snyder 3). Howard Snyder, Director of the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, in his report, demands that the courts must not continue letting minors leave the courtroom with minimal sentences for dangerous crimes. Most importantly, juvenile crime forces the courts to neglect time from the adult criminal courts. Juvenile crime has done nothing but increase in the past, and because of the increase in crime by minors courts have been forced to place less emphasis on lower criminal cases (McPolin 26). Increasing crime amongst minors will be the primary cause for the “downfall of the American judicial system” (Stapleton 119).

The information in this article gives statistics of juvenile crime in America ranging from the late 1980’s to 2008. Its purpose is to take the information provided in these studies over the past 20 years or so to guide efforts and address the disparities among the youth to combat and prevent juvenile delinquency to better the lives of our children and for the future of our nation.

The juvenile justice system is important because, it helps to rehabilitation the juvenile. Each juvenile has committed many different crimes and the system recognize that children who commit crimes are different from adults. The juvenile system has increased with inmates because the juvenile crime has increased since 1899. There have been a number of changes in the recent years. Since, the juvenile, has access education for the youth as well as developing appropriate treatment needed to treat each individual. The courts have created a probation system and used a separate service-delivery system to provide minors with supervision. In the 1990’s states adopted “get tough” policies for crime. This action caused concerns with the youth department.

About 100 years ago the Juvenile Justice system was formed in the United States. It used to be that children as young as seven years old, who were accused of an offense, were imprisoned with adults. It was not until the nineteenth century that the suggestion of reforming youth offenders took place. In 1824, in New York, the first juvenile house of reform, also known as the House of Refuge, opened. During 1899, Cook County in the state of Illinois established the first juvenile court and within 30 years, all of the states had established juvenile courts. Juvenile Justice is a term that pertains to the laws and procedures that concern criminal offenders who

Juvenile offenses in the past decade have shown reductions in all aspects of crime. Previously there were higher rates of violent crimes and all around arrests. The numbers from previous years have almost been cut in half. For example in the article Juvenile Delinquency and Trends in the United States it reports that in 2009 1,170 Juvenile were arrested for murder; opposed to that from previous years. In 1994 there were 2,800 Juvenile murder arrests made. This data shows that in almost 20 years the arrests for murder have drastically decreased by over 1,000.

The reality, fear, and consequences of juvenile violence continue to plague this Nation and drive legislative and political agendas at every level of government. More and more States are lowering the age at which juveniles can be waived or transferred to criminal court and enacting other measures to "get tough" with violent juvenile offenders. Meanwhile, prognosticators warn of a coming tide of juvenile violence, driven primarily by increased arrests of juveniles for serious and violent crime over the past 10 years and shifting demographics of age and race. These forecasts are based to some extent on the assumption that current trends are likely to continue.

The purpose of "juvenile justice” has change in the past century. Juvenile justice systems were originally meant to protect the youth from adult systems of justice and to allow discrete decision making involving youth so that juvenile justice representatives could make decisions that are in the best interest of the child or teen. The ideas behind the formation of the juvenile court, for

Juvenile crime is a serious and growing epidemic. The figures of young people committing crimes that are serious, heterogeneous, or non-serious mirror those of offenders between the ages of eighteen and twenty.

In researching this material, there appears to be substantial evidence that continues to rise (and extremely much higher rates in the 2000’s) that portions of juvenile offenders commit most of the chronic, and violent, crimes of juvenile offenders. In a study conducted by Philadelphia birth cohort (Figlio, Wolfgang, Sellin, 1972) found that these “chronic offenders” (including having five or more police contact activities) in whole, constituted six percent of the cohort, and a rising figure of 18 percent of all delinquents. The juvenile offenders were again responsible for the rising of 64 percent of all offenses in about two-thirds of all of the violent offenses. Other studies have also concluded very similar results, (Shannon, 1988;

Since the mid 1990s there has been a significant and continued reduction in the nation 's rate of violent crime. Not long ago, the picture was not so positive. The use of illicit drugs began to be more widespread, and governments at all levels responded by strengthening enforcement forces against drug law violators, attempting to block illegal drugs at the borders, working with other countries to take down the criminal organizations that produce and distribute drugs, and increasing efforts to reduce demand for drugs (Dept. of Justice, 2005). In addition, serious crimes, including violent ones, committed by juveniles began to increase at a fast pace. By the late 1980s, violent crime committed by juveniles had reached epidemic proportions. This was tied in part to an increasing market for cocaine and especially its offshoot, crack, in the 1980s and by the easy access to weapons. As crime worsened, the police made more arrests; lawmakers began passing harsher laws; the number of cases prosecuted by the courts increased; and the number of people in prisons or jails, or under probation and parole supervision, reached new highs. Over time, there were changes in policies concerning crime and criminals, the resources invested in fighting crime, and the bodies that we rely upon to prevent crime and carry out the law.

The Juvenile System has been around for a long time. The primary reason behind separating Juvenile from adult criminals is quite simple; the judicial system believes that the children are less culpable for their irresponsive behavior and they could easily be reformed as compared to adult offenders. The crucial role of the judicial system is to critically investigate, diagnose, and recommend treatments for the Juveniles rather than accrediting them. However, because of the increasing number of juvenile arrest for crimes committed by persons considered as a child, the attention that the given to a crime involving juveniles, the decreasing trust to the juvenile system itself and the lauder roar of the society for a safer place to live in,

It may seem shocking that America has one of the highest crime rates per capita compared to other similar industrialized nations. Over the years, there have been many discussions and efforts in order to reduce this problem. Perhaps one of the more sensitive issues when discussing crime in America is the problem of juvenile crime. Recently, juveniles make up 3% of all felonies committed each year and 6% of all violent crimes (criminamerica.net). These statistics have troubled politicians for decades as they have worked to find a solution. Starting in 1994 the Clinton administration started putting stricter punishment on juvenile offenders, but it was quickly realized that this harsh punishment may not be the best solution. Various studies and programs put into action have shown that early prevention in a child’s life is much more effective and more cost efficient in reducing crime. Because of these efforts, juvenile crime has reduced 68% since the violent boom of the 1990s. In light of these discoveries, it is important for states to focus on these results in order to reduce crime.