What Is Juvenile Delinquents

One of the most controversial questions in the juvenile justice system today is, "Should the death penalty be applied to juveniles?”. A lot of people think that the death penalty for juveniles is cruel and unusual punishment and should only be used for adults. The crimes that juveniles commit are as dangerous and as violent as adult crimes. People argue that the adolescent brain does not mature until the late teens or early twenties, and that death penalty should not be the resolution. Some studies show that childhood abuse or neglect can causes the child to commit crimes when they grow to adulthood. Debate about the use of the death penalty for juveniles has grown more intense because of the crimes they are

As in any controversial issue, there are people that support the juvenile death penalty. One of the reasons they are pro death is because it could possibly discourage other juveniles from committing crimes (“Death Penalty for Juveniles Pros and Cons” 3). The idea is that if other juveniles have the knowledge that they could possibly be sentenced to death for committing a very serious crime, then it might stop the others from actually committing a serious crime (3). Between the years 1642 to 2000, there have been around 361 people sentenced and killed because of the crimes that they have committed when they

In 1997 28 states had already put into exclusion the offense of murder from the juvenile system. This meaning that a youth would be sent directly into the adult system if he or she was facing such a charge. This number is most likely going to increase that has put more emphasis on the debate of juveniles sent into the adult system. According to

Capital punishment for juveniles is one of the most controversial topics to ever be explored in society and in the criminal justice system. The death penalty is a rare occurrence amongst juveniles since it is so arguable as to whether they should be tried as adults. Lynn Cothern from the Juvenile Justice Resource Center suggests that “the primary purpose of the juvenile justice system is to hold juvenile offenders accountable for delinquent acts while providing treatment, rehabilitative services, and programs designed to prevent future involvement in law-violating behavior” (Cothern). The juvenile death penalty has been argued over for centuries and has stirred enough people to still be around today. While juveniles have been known to commit heinous crimes, sentencing a juvenile to death is an inhumane and cruel fate to serve someone who is incapable of making rational lifelong decisions, and should not be allowed in the juvenile justice system.

In August of 2004, Robert Acuna was sentenced to the death penalty. His crime? Shooting his two elderly neighbors, James and Joyce Carroll, "execution style" and then proceeding to steal their car (Liptak). This heinous crime only adds to the current debate: should juveniles be sentenced as adults? The answer is yes, there should be no leniency displayed towards minors who commit the same serious crimes as adults. Although young, juveniles should be capable of understanding the serious extent of the crime they commit. Sentencing juveniles as adults will prevent perpetrators of major crimes, such as mass murder, from walking free. Furthermore, judges have enough experience to know whether to try a minor as an adult or not. Juvenile sentencing as adults is not a wrong but rather a form of justice in the face of rising teen violence.

Almost all juvenile offenders (ninety-eight percent) sentenced to death were males. The four cases involving female juveniles were in the deep south (Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia) and in Indiana. The thirteen very young offenders (age fifteen at crime) were scattered across ten different states. All sixty-nine juvenile offenders on death row were male and had been convicted and sentenced to death for murder. More than three-quarters of these cases involved seventeen-year-old offenders, and two-thirds of them were minority offenders. In contrast, eighty-three percent of the victims were adults. Two-thirds of the victims were white, and nearly half were females. The paradigm case of the juvenile offender on death row is that of the seventeen-year-old African-American or Latino male whose victim is a white adult. (Streib).

Picture a mother receiving a phone call from the local police station that her ten-year-old son is being held in a jail cell for stealing school supplies and is facing charges of five years in prison; his mother weeps as she knows it is her fault for not being able to afford them. This has been an issue in the juvenile system since the early 1800s. The juvenile justice system has not been strong enough to find an appropriate sentence for small crimes committed by children who are not living stable lives. In the 1800s, they believed that the death sentence was one of the only ways to teach people that crime is not permissible, and even if children committed a very low-level crime, they could be put to death. Since then, the justice system has gone through phases of accepting the death sentence for children, to banning the death sentence for children under 18, and then banning the death sentence and life without parole for children completely. Many of these children have not had a fair chance in the system and have been punished for crimes that others may have done, so this problem must be fixed. Although most people would say that juveniles should be punished for their crimes, the community should be better involved in helping these children to know that these crimes are not allowed, and if they are committed, the community should be there to help these children learn from their mistakes.

There are approximately 1,200 people that are currently serving a life sentence for crimes they committed as children (“Sentenced Young”). More than 25% of those people “were convicted of felony murder or accomplice liability”, as in they were not the person who killed the individual and may have not even been there when the killing took place (“Facts and Inforgraphics”). The majority of the juveniles sentenced to life-without-parole come from states where that is the mandatory sentence regardless of their age or circumstances (“Facts and Inforgraphics”). California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have the greater part of the juveniles sentenced to life-without-parole (“Facts and Inforgraphics”). Fourteen states have banned

In the United Sates, the first juvenile death penalty recorded occurred in 1642 of a minor under the age of 18 and the youngest person ever given the death penalty was ten-year old James Arcene in 1885 for robbery and murder (Strater, 1994-1995). By 1994 there were only 9 states, among which were New Jersey, Kansas, and Maryland, that prohibited the death penalties for juveniles. In 2003 the number of states permitting capital punishment declined to 21, a number of them allowing this punishment to those as young as 16 (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). Since the days of the first juvenile execution approximately 362 more juveniles have been

A deep look into juveniles in adult prisons. Touch bases on several smaller issues that contribute to juveniles being in and effects of adult prisons. The United States Bureau of Prisons handles two hundred and thirty-nine juveniles and their average age is seventeen. Execution of juveniles, The United States is one of only six countries to execute juveniles. There are sixty-eight juveniles sitting on death row for crimes committed as juveniles. Forty-three of those inmates are minorities. People, who are too young to vote, drink alcohol, or drive are held to the same standard of responsibility as adults. In prisons, they argue that the juveniles become targets of older, more hardened criminals. Brian

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.

Today, we live in a society faced with many problems, including crime and the fear that it creates. In the modern era, juveniles have become a part of society to be feared, not rehabilitated. The basis of the early juvenile justice system was to rehabilitate and create safe havens for wayward youth. This is not the current philosophy, although the U.S. is one of the few remaining countries to execute juveniles. Presently, our nation is under a presidential administration that strongly advocates the death penalty, including the execution of juveniles. The media and supporters of capital punishment warn of the "superpredator," the juvenile with no fear, remorse, or conscience. Opponents of this view encourage

Despite the dropping of rate of executions, not all states seem to be benefiting from it. Indeed, the decision was made in 2005 the same year in which four executions took place in the State of Ohio. So based on the DPIC database, five people were executed in 2006, five executions in 2009, and eight during 2010 (1). On the state level, these numbers show that although the United States Supreme Court cancelled the death row for juvenile and mentally handicapped, the number of executions seems hard to be stabilized at lower rates.

Regardless of age, a killer is a killer. A killer can be the daily customer you have at your job or the child you’re babysitting. “The Supreme Court justices would be wise as well as compassionate to strike a balance: Make juvenile offenders responsible for their actions but don't completely rob them of hope. And this should apply not only to the inmates who were 14 at the time of their crimes but to the remaining 2,497 who were 15 to 18 years old,” (Ellison 19). Kids make mistakes all the time, that doesn’t mean we should take their life away from them. With overlooking the listed factors in court when sentencing a juvenile, this will improve the number of children in prisons. Not all of these children partake in the act because of evil, but merely because of

The juvenile delinquent or (JD) films, as which they have came to be better known as, started as a movie cycle and was very characteristic of hollywood in its prime. Looking back at another cycle which can be seen as similar and a precursor, both in the approach of the overall approach and the themes of the films would be the gangster films of the 1930s. These movies saw successful breakthrough in the box office and from this box office success saw a increase and spawn in countless