Juvenile Crime Paper Karl R. Bosman CJS/200 September 23, 2012 Reid Bagley Juvenile Crime Paper Introduction This essay states some of the differences between juvenile and adult courts. Juveniles eighteen and under have their punishment different than that of an adult unless the juvenile commits a serious crime such as murder, than the juvenile may be tried as an adult. The juvenile system looks at the punishment as a means to rehabilitate the youth. In a juvenile court, there is no jury and is closed to the public. The judge hears the case and sets forth the punishment.
I do think that courts should consider other factors, like the severity of the crime, the juvenile's previous criminal record and their upbringing, before determining if they should be tried as an adult. But, it should still be the goal of the court system to attempt to educate juveniles, rather than throwing in the towel at the first sign of violence, and sending them to prison with even more violent, hardened criminals. Some say that children who commit adult crimes such as murder should be tried as adults. Then you should be tried as an adult no matter your age. If you take a life from one you should suffer the same punishment if your 15 or if your 43.
Glanced At Life should be valued because we only get to live it once. However, what we do with our lives is at our own discretion. Many people in their youth decide to live a life of misdeeds and become juvenile criminals. North America does have a Juvenile Justice Department, but some of these young offenders are waivered into the adults’ courts where juveniles can be subjected to any punishment available. In most juvenile homicide cases, they are automatically put into the adult justice system for committing the adult-like crime.
Although politicians claim that the public demands tough policies, moral panics tend to dissipate when the crisis passes. Many around the country would argue because of more serious crimes committed by adults has fashioned an umbrella on the juvenile system which imposes robust crimes for the juvenile themselves. Now when a juvenile has committed a crime, the next step is the procedures of handling the juvenile physically and mental status. Following the arrest of a juvenile offender, a law enforcement officer has the discretion to release the juvenile to his or her parents, or take the offender to juvenile
The first one is the judicial waiver. A judicial waiver “occurs when a juvenile court judge transfers ca case from juvenile court to adult court in order to deny the juvenile the protections that juvenile jurisdictions provide” http://criminal.findlaw.com/juvenile-justice/juvenile-waiver-transfer-to-adult-court.html. Next is statutory exclusion which is “provisions in the law to exclude some offenses” http://criminal.findlaw.com/juvenile-justice/juvenile-waiver-transfer-to-adult-court.html. The final mechanism is concurrent jurisdiction which “allows the prosecutor to file a juvenile case in both juvenile and adult court because the offense and the age of the accused meet certain criteria” http://criminal.findlaw.com/juvenile-justice/juvenile-waiver-transfer-to-adult-court.html. 46 states use the judicial waiver, 29 states use statutory exclusion and 15 states use concurrent jurisdiction.
The Juvenile Justice System has the bases of the Adult Justice System but the goals are much different. In the juvenile courts a child’s privacy is protected from the public. They focus on the needs of the child, trying to identify problems they are having and find solutions, treatments and support systems, to help them to stay out of the court system rather than punishment. Juvenile systems also believe that there shouldn’t be any long term confinement and that no matter what offense that you committed as a child you should be released by the age of twenty-one. The court process for the juvenile can last from a couple hours to a couple days long and are informal in nature without a jury.
Juveniles form their opinion of police officers by their first encounter with them. Officers have a certain amount of discretion to use when deciding how much discretion they will use, this is even more so with juveniles. Discretion is the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation. Just like with adults, officers may ask juveniles general questions and may ask additional information to clarify the situation, to make sure that the juvenile is not in violation of a status offense. A status offense may include but is not limited to truancy, running away, and curfew violations.
Under such sentencing, the juvenile court imposes a sentence that blends a juvenile disposition and an adult sentence for certain serious youthful offenders. Only some states in the U.S. follow Juvenile Blended Sentencing. In states that allow their juvenile courts to impose blended sentences, detailed descriptions of procedures, standards, burdens of proof, and threshold offense and minimum age requirements are provided.” (USLegal.com, 2013) As with any new type of endeavor or the new installation of a new law, there will be successes and failures because we are human and we make mistakes. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss examples of successes and failures in the juvenile justice system involving blended juvenile sentencing. Up first we have the
Nevertheless, when the wholesale transfer to criminal court of various classes of juvenile offenders that are defined solely by the charged offense starts to become the rule rather than the exception, we need to stop and take stock of what we are doing. I say this because this represents a fundamental challenge to the developmental premise on which the juvenile court was founded that adolescents and adults are different in ways that warrant their differential treatment under the law. Even though juveniles have different psychological thoughts they should still be trialed as adults because they are considered delinquents and I believe if they commit the crimes they should be trialed as any other adult would be. Juveniles sometimes
The legal term juvenile delinquent was generated so that young offenders could steer clear of the humiliation of being labeled in officially authorized court documents as criminals. In the United States, all states have separate systems for dealing with juvenile and adult criminals. A juvenile delinquent is a minor that is usually under the age of 18, who have committed an offense in states which have confirmed by law that a minor does not encompass responsibility and therefore may not be punished as an adult. Though, the legislatures of a number of states have decreased the age of unlawful accountability for severe crimes or for persistent habitual offenders to as low