62% of local jail inmates are awaiting trial. The cost of medical care for inmates grows by 10% annually. High rates of incarceration are due to sentence length. The United States incarcerates a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders. 50% of all prisoners are non-violent offenders, and 20% are drug related offenders.
Decrease in Juvenile Crime In 2001, according to the FBI, juveniles accounted for 17% of all arrests and 15% of all violent crime arrests (Snyder, 2003). In the late 1980s, juvenile violent crime arrest had a substantial growth then peaked in 1994. However, between 1994 and 2001, the juvenile arrest rate for Violent Crime Index fell 44% and as a result, the juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate was the lowest since 1983 (Snyder, 2003). Furthermore, in 2001, the rate of juvenile arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses that included forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and murder declined for the seventh consecutive year. The juvenile arrest rate for each of these offenses has been declining steadily since the mid-1990s; for murder, the rate fell 70% and manslaughter arrest rate fell 40% from its 1993 peak through 2001.
For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it. Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying This is one reason, one out of many on why you should not bully. These people are depressed and from personal experience you are always down and you do not care about anything. Some people don’t care about other people’s feelings.
Homicide is still the number one cause of death of youths from ten to twenty four years of age within the United States. Youth violence is mainly the number one cause within non-fatal injuries of youths. In 2011, there were over 700,000 youths aged from ten to twenty four, that had to be treated in emergency facilities because of non-life threatening injuries that occurred from assaults. “No state is immune to the devastating impact of youth violence” (Youth Violence National and State at a Glance, n.d., para. 1).
Another example would be that the United States gives an average burglary sentence around sixteen months, but Canada gives a sentence of five months, and in England people get about seven months. This is a rather large difference, and can explain why the United States as of 2009 holds the highest incarceration rate throughout the world at 754 inmates per 100,000 people. The war on drugs in the United States has seriously impacted the criminal justice system. There have been a lot more people arrested and sentenced for non violent crimes. This has also had a big part in the current overcrowding of the United States prisons.
16 Year Old Thief The United States spends billions of dollars preventing drug use, treating addicts and fighting drug related crimes. Drug use causes multiple problems in many communities. Problems stemming from drug abuse can lead to burglaries, robberies, murders and other illegal activities in the United States. According to Drug War Facts for 2008 an estimated 117,325,000 Americas aged 12 or over (47% of the U.S. population aged 12 and over) report having used illicit drug at least once in their lifetime. More than half of America’s youth are drug users.
Do the courts take into effect the juvenile’s history and home life? There are approximately 2,600 inmates serving life without parole for committing crimes as juveniles (JLC, 2012). Statistics state that this large number of inmates it makes me think about what type of crimes they committed to receive such a punishment. Do these juvenile’s now adults think that because they have no possibility of parole means they should be rehabilitated since they are never getting out of prison? It’s sad to think that these juveniles could turn their life around and possibly be model citizens once back out in the population.
Sure a middle-aged man convicted of murder will be tried as an adult, but there are those who commit the same crime that are still juveniles. When the criminal justice system was set-up, it only covered adults who committed such crimes, with no mention of juvenile offenders. Maybe those who created it never thought
She then brings up a statistic that 25 percent of the children under 15 represent total court cases. With this statistic we begin to ask ourselves as the audience what percent actually accounts for tweens alone. To go along behavioral changes she brings up topics of suicide, sex, eating disorders, drugs, and alcohol. Sex among tweens is increasing and Hymowitz again brings up before the age of 15. Hymowitz explains that even though numbers of suicide remain small, it has more than doubled in the last thirty years.
In 2006, law enforcement agencies reported 1,337,365 arrests of persons under age 18. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, youth who are transferred from the juvenile court system to the adult criminal system are approximately 34% more likely than youth retained in the juvenile court system to be re-arrested for violent or other crime. Many youth who are held in adult jails have not even been convicted. On any given day, nearly 7,500 young people are locked up in adult jails. On any given