In the early 1960s, community organization models were used to foster local responsibility for juvenile misbehavior, but they were generally not successful. A second shift came as a result of a number of presidential commissions studying crime and violence. In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice recommended the decriminalization of status offenses, the diversion of juvenile offenders from official court processing, and the deinstitutionalization of juvenile offenders. The culmination of this policy shift was the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974. A third major shift occurred in the mid 1970s, with a new “law and order” philosophy gaining momentum, partly as a spillover from a similar change in attitude about adult offenders.
The youths that are being tried in the adult courts should be offered to better themselves as for they are not fully developed at the ages under eighteen. Punishing a teen by taking away their rights for life is not helping the betterment of society. Another person in prison means more local taxes for another set of clothing, more food, and occasionally, more space to be built. A psychologist could benefit from these children who caused trouble, especially if the trouble was un intentional. Juveniles have greater possibility than adults to make a change in their lives with the right help with counseling and rehabilitation.
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
Future of the Juvenile Justice System Courts: Many changes need to happen to allow a better future of the juvenile justice system. “The elimination of some of the court’s delinquency function as more and more jurisdiction over youth criminality is transferred to the adult criminal system. Another possibility is the removal or reduction from juvenile court jurisdiction of status offenses, including truancy, beyond control of parents, running away from home, and other noncriminal conduct. Instead of utilizing the juvenile court, this type of behavior would be addressed increasingly by community-based services. A third possibility is the juvenile court’s expanding jurisdiction over abuse and neglect cases.Oversight of abuse and neglect cases and of the social service agencies whichdeliver services to families has become a major portion of the work of the juvenile court” (Hanson, 1996) .
Juvenile justice can be defined as the sector of the law applicable to persons not of legal age. Complying with the United Nations Conventions of the Rights of the Child, the juvenile justice system aims to combine the welfare and justice approaches to youth crime, in order to keep the best interests of the child as the most prominent of priorities. However, there remains a considerable list of aims to be addressed when the issue of responding to juvenile justice arises. These include decreasing rates of recidivism, providing rehabilitation into society, and ultimately recognizing that due to mental immaturity and lack of legal knowledge, young offenders require a degree of protection. The extent to which our legal system is able to adequately provide this is at times, questionable.
2 Juveniles Should Be Tried as Adults in Certain Circumstances Mary Onelia Estudillo Mary Onelia Estudillo has written several articles for The Guardian, the student newspaper of the University of California at San Diego. The juvenile justice system was originally created to provide individualized rehabilitation to offenders of minor crimes such as truancy, shoplifting, and vandalism. But youth today are taking advantage of this lenient and outdated system and are committing violent crimes because they believe they will get off easy. In order to provide justice to victims and their families and to prevent more and more juveniles from committing violent crimes, the United States must hold criminals accountable—regardless of their age—and impose
I will explain why I believe my ways of revamping the Justice system will help and possibly drop the levels of crimes committed by the youth. Immediate Discipline I believe that there needs to be a sterner court system for the juveniles. I have noticed and seen many times something such as theft is just looked at as a petty crime. In the long run the juveniles need to be disciplined for anything that may seem petty because those petty crimes can become bigger and worse crimes. Without immediate discipline we are giving the impression that if they commit a crime only once they can continue to commit other crimes as well because, hey, they will just receive a slap on the wrist if they have never committed it before.
These statistics reflect the “tough on crime” policy being imposed in the United States. The lawmakers who enacted laws designed to make it easier for juveniles to be tried and punished as adults see that the only solution to juvenile crime is to detain more children to make the society safer. It
The Juvenile Justice System Rehabilitation vs. Punishment Rehabilitation vs. Punishment The dilemma of what to do with juvenile offenders has plagued America since the inception of the modern criminal justice system. The two options criminal justice officials and law makers must decide between is to rehabilitate the juvenile offender or to punish them. Both options have their own benefits and risks, but rehabilitation is the only choice that we can make as a civilized nation to cope with this problem.
This study will also try to offer suggestions as to how further studies can be improved and how to solve the problem of juvenile delinquency. It will also present some of the limitations that can be faced when conducting studies on this topic of juvenile delinquency. Definition of terms Juvenile delinquency- this is the broad-based term given to juveniles who commit crimes. Juveniles are defined as individuals who haven’t reached adulthood or the age of majority. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-juvenile-delinquency.htm) Delinquency- this is defined as, failure or omission of duty; a fault; a misdeed; an offense; a misdemeanor; a crime.