Juvenile Delinquency And Modern Society

Living in poverty when I was a child, made me realize now that I am older how my life could have been completely different. I had family and friends who lived in a single parent household and others who lived with both of their parents; it made a tremendous impact on how they would behave, their morals, and values. Many of the other children who used to live in the same neighborhood as I did not appreciate the same values I would. Some of us continue going to school which was a small percentage while others become dropouts and started harming other people, and got involved in gangs. Living in property as a kid is extremely difficult because of all the negative activities occurring around you. Family structure is a big factor of juvenile

People feel that the American justice system constructs upon holding perpetrators accountable for their actions. Most states in America believe by setting harsh sentences that this will act as a deterrent to other juveniles who are considering committing crimes. There may be some veracity to trying juveniles as adults. The juvenile arrest rate reported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention shows that, “The juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate increased in the mid-2000s, and then declined through 2012 to its lowest level since at least 1980. The rate in 2012 was 38% below its 1980 level and 63% below the peak year of 1994. In 2012, there were 182 arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses for every 100,000 youth between 10 and 17 years of age. If each of these arrests involved a different juvenile, which is unlikely, then no more than 1 in every 544 person’s ages 10-17 was arrested for a Violent Crime Index offense in 2012, or less than one-fifth of 1% of all juveniles ages 10 to 17 living in the states.” This rating shows that by trying juveniles as adults has coincided considerably with the lowering rate of juvenile

Juvenile Delinquency seems to always find itself on the front pages of newspapers. The juvenile delinquency rate is very high in America, today. According to Seigel and Welsh (2014) juvenile delinquency is defined as the participation in illegal behavior by a minor who falls under the statutory age limit (p. 648). The statutory age limit varies in different states. For example, a juvenile might be considered an adult in different state for various crimes. Statistics show that each year, juvenile commits about 9.8 percent of almost 12,000 homicides (Zagar, Grove, & Busch, 2013).

When a juvenile faces the court system in the United States it is much different than when an adult faces the court system. The main concern for a juvenile is not to get the punishment they may deserve but rather the court system focuses on treatment. They do this by using rehabilitation as a major tool, not to try and get them healthy per say, but rather to create better choices for the juvenile in the future. This includes the court system looking into the juvenile’s past history along with a psychological approach in order to meet his or her needs. The juvenile then faces a hearing which involves looking into not only the juvenile’s history, but also social needs in order to better accommodate them for their “healing” process. On the other

Juvenile justice is compared in chapter thirteen. In the nineteenth century, there was an increased number of children at risk and chronic poverty. This overall was a general concern because there was an increase of people in the “dangerous classes”. There was a child saving movement, in which the poor children represented a threat to the moral fabric of society. The nineteenth century was a time where they had a house of refuge. In this house of refuge, they had a society for the prevention of pauperism and they privately managed, but publicly funded. The development in the nineteenth century for juveniles was reform schools, work, basic education and they were segregated. Juvenile justice in the nineteenth century had a society for the prevention of cruelty to children in New York. In this society they were granted the authority to remove children from where ever they were being mistreated and they assisted the courts in making placement decisions. When it came to reforming the system back then the process was slow. From the beginning children were denied due process because the juvenile system is made for rehabilitation and not for punishment. The 1960’s was a time where the reform system was changed and that’s when family courts and U.S. Supreme Court decisions came into play.

Earlier in the year, around 50 teenagers stormed into a Wal-Mart in Macon, Georgia determined to destroy merchandise just to see how much damage they could cause. A month after that in Nebraska a twelve year old boy was arrested as a suspect in a fatal shooting (“Juvenile Crime”, 2015). Headlines like these are becoming more frequent in today’s news media. In 2010, juvenile courts disposed of more than 1.3 million delinquency cases. In addition, juveniles were involved in 8% of all homicides committed that year (Sickmund and Puzzanchera, 2014.). With the juvenile population projected with steady growth throughout the 21st century, increasing juvenile crime continues to challenge the criminal justice system. Among the many challenges are criminal

About 200,000 Men go to prison every year. One in three Black/ African American Men will be incarcerated. One in seventeen White, and one in six Latino. However five percent are innocent. About 20,000 men are in jail on a false conviction. Being proven not guilty can still however hurt chances of finding decent jobs once released from such punishment. My personal belief is all felons deserve second chances regardless of conviction. Yes, we can argue many places do hire felons regardless of their record. However, a minimum wage job doesn't cover much. For example, John Doe was convicted of sexual offenses at the age of 18 while having sexual relations with a 16 year old high school student. Only two years separated them, however being that mr. Doe is considered an adult, he was sentenced to five years in prison, because of believed racial discrimination hate the young girl's father had towards Mr. Doe. In texas alone, there has already been over 80,000 convicted sex offenders up until the month of April. Not even half way into the 2015 year. Did all those people actually commit assault, or could it by chance be another case of “turn up” going too far?

Juvenile delinquency has a domino effect in communities; it has increased healthcare costs, decreased property values, and disrupted social services (Huma 2). Public opinion has led to a legislation that has made it easier to try juveniles as adults, each state has its own distinct juvenile justice system with its own laws and practices (PBS, 2012). Opponents of these laws believe that juveniles receive harsher sentences when they are tried as adults. While research suggests that

During the late 1800s and early 1900s cities up north were growing because of the industrial changes as well as the influx of immigrants and African Americans migrating from the southern states. Due to the Industrial revolution in major U.S. cities like Chicago were eager to hire new workers since the economy was running on all four cylinders “So we saw some of the largest waves of immigration the U.S. has ever seen, mostly from European countries like Germany, Ireland, Poland, and then Italy, Eastern Europe, and in-migration of African Americans from the rural south up to the north and northeast for these manufacturing jobs.”(Cullen 2014). Since the change in industry brought new jobs to Chicago, it also brought a new generation of crime.

I am taking Criminology class this semester. Therefore I have to write a paper. The topic is relating to the criminal justice system and the impact of juvenile delinquents joining youth gangs in Australia. I would like both perspectives, the Australian First Nations and Non-First Nations to compare and contrast. I have used google for articles I was able to find a few criminology articles. The articles have to be criminology peer reviewed articles.

James Lehman, an author who dedicated his life to troubled juveniles once said, “I believe that the kids who are labeled “good” are children who know how to solve their problems and manage their behavior and social life, and the kids who are labeled “bad” are kids who don’t know how to solve those problems.” Every day, kids are committing illegal acts of varying severity. Some are involved in petty robberies, others involved in murders and rape. These juveniles become the responsibility of the juvenile justice system which is tasked with the duty of properly helping and punishing these kids. However, this is precisely the issue, do we punish these juvenile offenders? Or do we help rehabilitate them into law abiding citizens?

Statistics show that in the United States, there were more than 4,000 arrests “for every 100,000 youths” between the ages of 10 and 17 in 2011 (USDOJJDP, 2011a). Juvenile delinquency is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “conduct by a juvenile characterized by antisocial behavior that is beyond parental control and therefore subject to legal action” (“Juvenile delinquency,” n.d.). A number of jurisdictions have been exerting effort to prevent minor offenders from involvement in the juvenile delinquency system (USDOJJDP, 2011b). Efforts have been made due to the emphasis on detrimental effects of juvenile delinquency and confinement on youth put forward by research. The following paper will describe the a number of social factors as well as the cooperative cognitive and biological factors that contribute to the development of juvenile delinquency and promote understanding of the psychological process.

The information in this article gives statistics of juvenile crime in America ranging from the late 1980’s to 2008. Its purpose is to take the information provided in these studies over the past 20 years or so to guide efforts and address the disparities among the youth to combat and prevent juvenile delinquency to better the lives of our children and for the future of our nation.

Juvenile repeat offenders receive little to no punishment for the crimes that they commit. The disposition that juvenile repeat offenders receive in some states at the highest are community service, detention centers, or probation. What makes a juvenile crime is status offenses. A juvenile status offense consist of crimes that would not under law be considered as crimes by an adult but crimes by juvenile youths. Status offenses consist of truancy, running away, violating curfew, underage possession of alcohol, and tobacco. The problem with the juvenile justice system is the fact that they receive little to no punishment for the crimes they commit. The reason for this being is because by law being a minor the activity they are committing is not a crime.

Once they turn into the adult age they begin to commit more serious offenses and end up in prison for longer prison sentence and foster homes are consider as home for them.