Juvenile Delinquency And The Court System

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.

Juvenile delinquency has become a controversial issue within the Criminal Justice system. In the United States, juvenile delinquency refers to disruptive and criminal behavior committed by an individual under the age of 18. In many states, a minor at the age of 16 to 17 ½ can be tried as an adult. Once the individual reaches adulthood, the disruptive and criminal behavior is recognized as a crime. However, the criminal justice system has divided juvenile delinquency into two general types of categories that has brought upon controversial issues of inequality and corruption. Yet, putting young individuals in juvenile detentions facilities seems to open the door for them to commit more crimes in the future. Therefore, under certain circumstances juveniles should be tried as an adult.

The juvenile court system in the state of Tennessee has transformed their approach to rehabilitate juvenile offenders and reduce juvenile recidivism by establishing evidence-based treatment services (Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, 2017). Furthermore, these evidence-based treatment services include a myriad of intervention treatments services from Functional Family Therapy, to Aggression Replacement Training, and Teen Outreach Program plus numerous other programs (TN DCS, 2017).

There is much debate over whether or not juveniles should ever be tried as adults. Juveniles are defined as children under the age of 18. In the past, juveniles have been tried in a separate juvenile court because of their age. However, trying juveniles as adults for violent crimes is a trend that is on the rise. Age is supposed to be a deterrent for placing those under 18 on trial and giving them stiffer punishments that are often reserved for adults. Many debate whether or not juveniles really should have less severe punishments or if trying some juveniles as adults will lower juvenile crime rates.

del Carmen, R. V., & Trulson, C. R. (2006). Juvenile Justice, The System, Process, And Law. Belmont: Thomson Wadsorth.

Juvenile crime is a very serious issue the reason for this is because juveniles are the next generation and allowing them to continue making mistakes without getting any punishment is the problem. So for this reason the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ has created ways to show an overview of juvenile’s behavior that have acted in a criminal way. There are three major methods of calculating juvenile’s delinquent and criminal behavior/acts. One of these methods is the self-report technique which is to ask an individual if they have been involved in any criminal activities and how often has this occurred. The other is the victimization survey method. This method focuses on gathering data on different types of crime for example, assault, burglary, rape and robbery. The surveys report and the self-report is put together to explain and show side by side and official measure of delinquent juveniles.

How would you feel if the police arrested kids all over our country to jail for just crossing the street the wrong way or pushing another kid on the playground? That is what is happening to many underage juvenile all over the United States; they are being sent to adult prisons for crimes that do not deserve such severe punishments. Why they were tried as adults is an enigma and we will explain why this is a terrible injustice. In 1899 children in between the ages of 7-14 were believed they were incapable of committing criminal intent. The court system back then believed that if enough evidence could be gathered to convince a jury, the underage person would be convicted and sent to an adult prison. Currently in our state, persons as

“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

Millions of juveniles are processed through the juvenile court system, and the number has been growing for years. Judges and court officials have been looking for many ways to come up with alternatives to incarceration. There are several different alternatives to incarceration for juveniles currently that will be discussed. Incarceration has an impact on the society as well, even for those who have not been in trouble with the law before which is one of the reasons why alternatives have been evolved. Tensions between the established principals and the proposed methods determined the way in which early incarceration alternatives were introduced into legislation.

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.

This article discussed diversion programs, which helps adolescents who have been arrested for first-time misdemeanors. These diversion programs use group counseling as a mandatory component of sentencing demonstrates initial success in reducing recidivism rates in national outcome studies. The goal of these diversion programs is to keep adolescents out of the juvenile justice system whenever possible (Lipsey, Howell, Kelly, Chapman, & Carver, 2010). These diversion programs divert adolescents from entering the juvenile justice system and offer alternatives to formal disciplinary action (Chantoe & Manton, 2014).

The juvenile justice system was founded with the goal to serve the best interests of the child, with an understanding that youth possessed different needs than adults. Over the course of our semester we have come across various research studies that proves that the adult system is not well equipped to house and rehabilitate the delinquents. These studies have shown that more juveniles that are transferred to the criminal justice system ends up back in the system, which means the recidivism rate is higher for those who are treated in the juvenile facility compared to those who are transferred to the adult. Researchers and academics overwhelmingly agree that the transfer policies disproportionately affect youth of color. Youth in the adult system are convicted and incarcerated at higher rates compared to their counterparts in the juvenile justice system and they also tend to receive harsher sentences. Transferred juveniles experience high rates of pretrial detention are often detained or incarcerated in adult facilities, where they have no access to resources vital to their development, and are at an unacceptably high risk for assault and abuse.

This article discussed diversion programs that are used to help adolescents who have been arrested for first-time misdemeanors. These diversion programs use group counseling as a mandatory component of sentencing demonstrate initial success in reducing recidivism rates in national outcome studies. The goal of these diversion programs are to keep adolescents out of the juvenile justice system whenever possible (Lipsey, Howell, Kelly, Chapman, & Carver, 2010). These diversion programs divert adolescents from entering the juvenile justice system and offer alternatives to formal disciplinary action.

The juvenile justice system is similar to the criminal justice system. This system is where juveniles are processed, and may be arrested after referrals for juvenile delinquency. Juvenile justice is very different in every state and can be very similar as well because every system has limited jurisdiction and that most focus on the offenders and not their offenses. Therefore, there are 51 juvenile justice systems in the United States. The United States has the juvenile justice system because children are very different than adults – in that they can be better receptive for change and also being easier to rehabilitate. Moreover, the main goal of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation (Juvenile Law Center). The juvenile justice system is made up of police, courts, corrections, probation and parole services, as well as community-based programs to name a few (book).

Criminal Justice is such a broad subject and workforce. At this point in time criminal justice is needed more than ever in America and the world as we know it today. The criminal justice system has improved more and more throughout history by changing something as simple as law enforcement officer’s purpose and who they are taking orders from. The objective of this analysis is to break down these three criminal justice subjects: the juvenile justice system, prison life and the different policing eras.