What Is Juvenile Justice?

It has been one hundred years since the creation of the juvenile court in the United States. The court and the juvenile justice system has made some positive changes in the lives of millions of young people lives over the course or those years, within the last thirteen years there has been some daunting challenges in the system.

There are many similarities and differences between the adult and juvenile justice systems. Although juvenile crimes have increased in violence and intensity in the last decade, there is still enough difference between the two legal proceedings, and the behaviors themselves, to keep the systems separated. There is room for changes in each structure. However, we cannot treat/punish juvenile offenders the way we do adult offenders, and vice versa. This much we know. So we have to find a way to merge between the two. And, let’s face it; our juveniles are more important to us in the justice system. They are the group at they

The juvenile justice system was founded on the belief that juveniles should be rehabilitated from committing crime. It was the belief of the government that juveniles do not posses the cognitive reasoning of adults, therefore should not be punished as adults. The juvenile court was formed in 1899 with the belief that the government needs to play a more active role in the rehabilitation of juveniles. This belief held strong up until the 1980's when President Ronald Reagan took office. The beliefs in juvenile rehabilitation were fading and an alternative was rapidly being put into motion, juvenile incarceration. Juveniles being incarcerated was not

Early in U.S. history, children who broke the law were treated the same as adult criminals. If you are a young person under the age of 18 and you commit a crime, you will have your case heard in the juvenile justice system. The thing is that, it hasn’t always gone that way. The idea of a separate justice system for juveniles is just over one hundred years old (American Bar). Where did juvenile justice come from? The law was in the image of the common law of England. William Blackstone, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in the late 1760s, was admired by the United States founders.

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.

Like a small crime such as stealing or vandalism would have a child sent to either a community home or asylums. If a child were to commit something more serious they could be put to death which is extreme incase of a child. The beginning of the juvenile justice system began in 1841 when Massachusetts decided to put kids on probation to help kids avoid imprisonment and make the system more humane for kids.

“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

The juvenile justice system is a complex web of people and agencies that process about billions of funds on a yearly basis. To understand the system requires that you have some sort of baseline knowledge of the trends that have shaped the system’s ability to function and the roles played by the various components of the system. This policy paper provides information on changes in the juvenile justice system and analyzes why the increased prosecution sentences of juveniles in adult court is another failed “get tough “policy and does nothing to focus on the best interest for the juvenile. Before the modern era, it appeared that children who committed crimes received no type of preferential treatment. They were adjudicated, punished, and imprisoned

This paper takes a brief look at the history and evolution of the juvenile justice system in the United States. In recent years there has been an increase of juvenile cases being transferred into the adult court system. This paper will also look at that process and the consequences of that trend.

The start of the juvenile justice system was a lengthy process dating back to the 18th century. Brooks and Roush (2014) explained that in earlier times "the juvenile justice was at a crossroads'' recognizing that there was cracks in the system which hindered the reform process of juveniles (p.45). The reason for the change was that juveniles as young as 7 years old, were being imprisoned with adult male and female inmates and sentenced to harsh sentences including life and executions. This created havoc within and out of the system because juvenile were being seasoned and tortured instead of being helped properly. The transition of the juvenile justice system changed many aspects of how the courts began to handle juveniles; for example, the courts started to realize that juveniles can be rehabilitated, which led to the first juvenile court was established by Jane Addams in Cook County, Illinois in 1899.

This paper will discuss the history of the juvenile justice system and how it has come to be what it is today. When a juvenile offender commits a crime and is sentenced to jail or reform school, the offender goes to a separate jail or reforming place than an adult. It hasn’t always been this way. Until the early 1800’s juveniles were tried just like everyone else. Today, that is not the case. This paper will explain the reforms that have taken place within the criminal justice system that developed the juvenile justice system.

For over an era of time, states have thought that the juvenile system was a way to protect the community by producing a method that reacts to children who are growing into adulthood. States know that children who are young offenders and commit crimes are not the same as adults. The children are less responsible, and they have a bigger ability for transformation. To react to these changes, states have recognized that a detached court for juveniles from adults. They have formed a separate, children constructed service provision system that is dissimilar than what is delivered to adults. In history there were three types of juvenile organizations started to appear in the USA throughout the progressive time. Communities of protection, new penitentiaries,

The juvenile corrections system dates back to the Greek and Roman times where children were treated as adults when they committed offenses. In fact, children in trouble had no rights would receive very harsh sentences. Moving forward, Europe also treated children as adult when it came to criminal offenses. It wasn’t until the 19th century that reforms began to be considered and used on the behalf of children. In the US, just before this time in Boston, individuals began advocate for children who were troubled. After this the movement had grown to what we have today which are juvenile courts and numerous options for youth who are trouble (Chapter 2, 2000).

Juvenile delinquency has been a problem in the United States ever since it has been able to be documented. From 100 years ago to now, the process of juvenile delinquency has changed dramatically; from the way juveniles are tried, to the way that they are released back into society, so that they do not return back to the justice system (Scott and Steinberg, 2008). Saying this, juveniles tend to

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,