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On any given day you can not open up a newspaper or turn on a television

and not find an article or a broadcast about juveniles committing crimes, but the

question is who is to blame for the juvenile delinquency of our society and how does

the criminal justice system punish these crimes committed by our nation’s youth?

Juvenile delinquency is a violation of the law by a juvenile not punishable by death

or life imprisonment. The government follows a policy that no crime goes

unpunished. The controversy that surrounds courtrooms today is whether or not a

juvenile should stand trial as an adult and be punished like an adult for committing

serious offenses. One side believes that juveniles should be punished according to the

severity of the crime in which they committed. The opposition believes that juveniles

are too young and immature to understand the consequences of what he or she had

did wrong. So the question is should juveniles be punished as children or punished

as adults?

There are many theories as to the cause of juvenile delinquency, including

one’s economic background, substance abuse, delinquent peer groups, exposure to

violence, availability of firearms and media violence, and lack of parental control

over children (Kortege). “It is ironic in America, today, one must have a driver’s

license to operate a vehicle, a permit to own a gun and even a license to own a dog,

but one does not have to have parent training or a license in order to become a

parent” (Kortege). Problems that occur within the families of juvenile delinquents

include: divorce, women in the workplace which reduces the number of adults who

provide interaction, single parent families, step-parent...