Juvenile And The Juvenile Justice System

Juveniles are the most impressionable beings within society because they are still learning and evolving as they mature. Those that continue along the right path are able to see the fruits of their labor by continuing to go to school and progressing in the right path. However, there are those that choose to enter other areas such as criminal activities and gangs. Prosecuting these individuals only to see them back in the same position some time later is not the ultimate goal of the juvenile justice system. Delinquency prevention and intervention programs are able to mold the juvenile so that they conform to the norms of society and go on to lead productive lives.

Placing a juvenile in a detention center early in the court process increases the risk that youths will be found to be delinquent and damage their prospects for future success. A majority of the youths that are placed in these facilities pose little or no threat to the public and essentially do not need to be there. This portion of the juvenile court process is detrimental to the future and mental aspects of a youth’s life. We desperately need to change the way that we handle the juvenile court system because we are only reinforcing the delinquent behavior that these youths have been exposed to. We need to focus on the rehabilitation and prevention efforts for these youths not the punishment aspect and until then (insert a better ending).

The criminal justice system has been proven to play a very important role in society. The criminal justice system is used to keep the citizens in check and to make sure that the laws that are made are being followed. It also is there to penalize anyone who disobeys the laws. In the criminal justice system, there are 3 main parts, law enforcement, adjudication, and corrections. Law enforcement is self-explainable. It consists of the law enforcers such as police officers and sheriffs. Adjudication is made up of people in the court house such as judges and lawyers. Corrections is made up of jailhouse matters such as prison officials. In these many components of the criminal justice system, there are all put in place to help correct people to do the right thing. There are punitive efforts and rehabilitative efforts. At time, the system may lean towards one category or more, which can be dangerous in terms of disciplinary action. The criminal justice system is more punitive than rehabilitative which makes the system ineffective.

It has been one hundred years since the creation of the juvenile court in the United States. The court and the juvenile justice system has made some positive changes in the lives of millions of young people lives over the course or those years, within the last thirteen years there has been some daunting challenges in the system.

The juvenile justice system was fashioned in the late 1800s; restructuring policies in the United States concerning adolescent offenders was a part of a progressive era in are history. Thereafter, many modifications designed at both safeguarding the "due process of law" rights of adolescence, and generating an antipathy to jail amongst minor. This dislike has made juvenile justice system more equivalent to the adult structure, a significant change from what it was intended for in the

There have been many studies conducted that examine ways in which the juvenile justice system responds to female offenders. Historically juvenile female offenders have been treated under status offense jurisdiction (Zahn et al., 2010, p. 10). United States Courts would exercise the principle of “parens patriae” to place the female in detention as a form of punishment for misbehavior (Sherman, 2012, pp. 1589-1590). This principle also remains prevalent as it pertains to how the juvenile justice system currently responds to juvenile female offenders.

Over 1/3 of the 11,000 index crime arrests were juveniles under the age of 16.

The juvenile justice system was founded on the belief that juveniles should be rehabilitated from committing crime. It was the belief of the government that juveniles do not posses the cognitive reasoning of adults, therefore should not be punished as adults. The juvenile court was formed in 1899 with the belief that the government needs to play a more active role in the rehabilitation of juveniles. This belief held strong up until the 1980's when President Ronald Reagan took office. The beliefs in juvenile rehabilitation were fading and an alternative was rapidly being put into motion, juvenile incarceration. Juveniles being incarcerated was not

Juveniles committing crimes is not a new issued being introduced to society; actually, it has been an issue for centuries. However, the big question is, should juveniles be tried in adult courts? Before answering, take into consideration every possible scenario that could have led them to commit the crime. For instance, were they the leader in the act? Did they participate in the crime? Was the juvenile even aware of what was taking place? Were they peer pressured? Did they have any other choice at the time? There are so many other questions we could consider when making a decision here.

“The juvenile justice system was first created in the late 1800s to reform United States policies on how to handle youth offenders. Since that time, a number of reforms - aimed at both protecting the "due process of law" rights of youth, and creating an aversion toward jail among the young - have made the juvenile justice system more comparable to the adult system, which is a shift from the United States’ original intent (2008,Lawyer Shop.com).” The

Not all states think that the juvenile justice system is persistent in rehabilitation into changing the child’s behavior. In a nationwide height of delinquent behavior in late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some states adopted a “get tough” policy on crime. Considering the fact that juveniles needed to experience the dangers and probable abuses ascribed to incarceration with adult offenders in the criminal justice system. However, when this is being regulated into the youth all they are seeing is negative aspects that may not even fear them. They are so use to crime and looking at more crime within itself in the criminal justice system is just another reality of what is set into their future.

Rehabilitation efforts- When a juvenile gets into trouble the justice system makes it a point to try and rehabilitate the juvenile rather than punishing him/her. Sometimes the child is put into a diversion programs rather than being sent to a detention center or jail, but there are situations where a teenager may be tried as an adult depending on how serious the crime is. Juveniles will be tried in juvenile courts, whereas if an adult commits a crime he/she will be tried

The strength of our juvenile justice system are teach minor to take responsibility of their actions, have good resources to rehabilitate the minor while they are in detention by provide counseling, guidance and education, give them the opportunity to fix their life by requiring them to change their behavior, take responsibility and keep attending school. The shortcoming of our juvenile justice system are the system does not give credit for the time the minor serve while she or he was detained in the juvenile, depends on the crime the minor commit can transfer their case to criminal justice court where they can be treaded has an adult and serve their time in adult prison which they are more likely to become victim in prison. According to Zastrow

In the current society today, it is very common for young people to take part in criminal activities. However, the role of the Juvenile system is to make sure they are convicted as a ‘young offenders’ where courts will looks to provide them with the most appropriate sentencing for young people (applies for young people under the age of 18). This is due to young people lack maturity hence their thinking process differ from adults, as a result, they are more likely to commit in risky and anti social behaviors influenced by their peers (Aic.gov.au, 2015). In Australia, both welfare and justice model is used in the criminal justice system where the welfare model argues for the need for rehabilitation for young offenders whereas, the justice model adopts the concept that it’s within the young offender’s choice to commit crime. The models above is what shapes the juvenile systems where in the past 10 years many alterations has been made by key players such as the police, court and government/the state in order to protect youth offenders from harsh punishments and to implement the idea of a law conformity society. To further improve the Juvenile Justice the key players also looked into its major weakness which is the over representation of Indigenous youth and to develop strategist to overcome this predominant issue.

Every process has room for improvement, but the juvenile justice system can be altered by adding in possible solutions of what can be done to help this problem in American society. About 100 years ago, juveniles were always tried as adults. Now, that the government has altered the system for the better, the government knows that trying juveniles as adults is not always justified. It depends on the crime, but the majority of the time, juveniles are often always tried as juveniles, based solely on their age. Not only that has changed; the process of juvenile justice has changed as well to better help the juveniles in the system. The rights of juveniles in the system have changed so that the children can improve their lives once they are out of the system. Even though the process has changed and the rights have improved for the juveniles, there are still many improvements to be made. Studies show that recidivism rates are in fact going down, but the rate can always be better so that juveniles do not return to a life of crime.