Simply placing juveniles in a prison-like setting and putting the facts of a substance dependence problem on the back burner is obviously not working. With a recidivism rate as high as 35%, jail time alone does not seem to be helping the juvenile drug offender. The program that I am proposing would give the individuals that were incarcerated a place to go after their school day, where constructive activities and counseling will take place, thus removing them from the violence and negativity of the streets, and replacing them with a healthy environment centered around keeping juveniles out of trouble and subsequently, jail. Substance use inevitably leads to reoffending (Chassin 3), and allowing drug offenders who have already been through the system to receive treatment and counseling for their possible drug addiction may decrease the number of individuals who will be brought back into the justice
Youth that hang around people their age that are making bad choices and not abiding the law will involve in crimes with friends who are doing the same. Their environment can cause them to act out in negative ways, the lack of positive adults, abuse and neglect, and too much idle time and not enough planned activities. Children should not be tried as adults. “The United States Supreme Court has ruled that there are limitations on the punishment juveniles can receive even when they are tried in adult court. The law considers youth crimes to be less culpable than adult, therefore juvenile punishment should not be as severe as those available for adults, even for the exact same crime.” The punishment of a 14 year old, Arkansas teenager who wasn’t the triggerman at a video rental store that he and his robbed was fair.
An initial descriptive analysis then was applied to estimate the statistical influence of various demographic, offense and risk/need factors on recidivism. Data analyses were performed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software. This study had numerous great suggestions to who are the youths recidivating and what are they doing to be a recidivist. The study found that of Missouri's 648,648 youth aged 10-17, 15,910 of them juvenile offenders in the calender year of 2007. Of those 15,910 around 26 percent re-offended with a new law violation within one year.
President Mark Soler of the Washington, D.C., Youth Law Center points out that adolescents/children are required by law to be incarcerated separately from adults. However, the overwhelmed juvenile justice system lets the adult criminal justice system handle many youth offenders. This causes numerous negative effects for convicted juveniles. The law recognizes that adolescents/children are less equipped to make important decisions than adults are. Yet the law fails to distinguish between adolescents/children and adults when it comes to spending the rest of their lives in prison for crimes they have committed before their 18th birthday.
The law does recognize these differences, but, a Juvenile, like an adult, makes the choice to commit a crime or not. Therefore, like an adult, they must be held accountable. A Juvenile Delinquent is defined as an individual under the age of 18 who commit acts which would be unlawful if committed by an adult. More juveniles are growing up now without cooperating peacefully with the law than ever before. Many of them often pay a low price even when caught.
A minor in general is someone under the age of 18. So the question at hand is should minors be tried as adults for crimes that they have committed? The answer is no (excluding murders)because in most cases minors are peer pressured into doing things that are not acceptable, and in some cases, can change as they grow and mature into adults. How about rehabilitation in a suitable facility can be a start, and then education and special activities can follow. According to (Zimring,1978) “The view is that young offenders deserved less severe punishment than adults justified the separate juvenile justice system and persisted, seemingly with broad public support, throughout most of the last century”.
Minors should not be tried as adults because they have not experienced the world like adults have, and they are not competent enough to go through or understand a trial. Many argue that minors should be tried as adults because they know what they are doing, and since society is changing and it’s not how it used to be 10 years ago, minors should be tried as adults for the reason that they need to learn their lesson and realize the crime they did was wrong. But in a recent study examining the mental health of minors after being tried as adults says, “66% of youth processed in adult criminal court had at least one psychiatric disorder and 43% had two or more types of disorders”. Another study was done for adults and it said, “less than 35% of adult males have a psychiatric disorder compared to 64% of transferred Youth”. I compared the two studies, and you can see that minors being tried as an adult have more of a chance to at least one psychiatric disorder.
More than a decade ago, with the intent of being tough on crime, Virginia lawmakers made it relatively easy to try a juvenile as an adult. In many instances, prosecutors can take a teen's case to adult court even if a juvenile judge rules that the case doesn't belong there. But as report after report have concluded that trying teens as adults does nothing to deter crime -- and that sending teens to adult prison makes them more likely to become repeat offenders -- a state commission is evaluating whether Virginia's approach needs to change. Roanoke lawyer Chris Kowalczuk, who has defended teenagers in high-profile murder cases, said the problem with putting teens in adult prison is obvious: "All you've succeeded in doing is permanently and irrevocably scarring them for life." It's difficult to judge how effective Virginia's system is when it comes to juveniles punished as adults, because no state agency keeps track of how these cases turn out.
I truly believe if the age requirements were to be lowered than most of the young people that go to jail for underage drinking will be reduced by allot. If you look at the past 10 years and look at the charts you would notice that the US have the most underage drinkers arrested than any other crime that is committed which is ridiculous. Why is it that an adult of the age 18 can go to war but then yet can’t purchase and drink alcohol? If law makers can only use this
YCJA Essay By Sophia Kim 9V In February 2002, the House of Commons passed the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) and proclaimed law in April 2003. The law governs youths ages 12-17 although an adult sentence may be tried starting from the age of 14 if the crime is serious. The objectives of the YCJA are to encourage young persons to acknowledge and repair the harm caused to the victim/community and to respect the freedoms of young persons while ensuring meaningful consequences are given. Some citizens believe that the Act is not harsh enough on youths who commit crimes saying that they should be held responsible for their actions. Others believe that the Act is appropriate saying that youths do not fully understand the concepts of their