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JUVENILES IN ADULT JUSTICE SYSTEM.
Term Paper ID:26816
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Essay Subject:
Pros & cons on diverting juvenile offenders to adult court & jails.... More...
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7 Pages / 1575 Words
7 sources, 10 Citations,
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Paper Abstract:
Pros & cons on diverting juvenile offenders to adult court & jails.
Paper Introduction:
INTRODUCTION
Children today represent a dichotomy for many people, one that instills both hope and fear, as is indicated in the following statement by Michael P. Brown:
Children have been described as our future, our greatest resource, and our hope for a better tomorrow. For many Americans, though, children invoke fear. They represent violence, a segment of society lacking in self control and devoid of ethics and morals, and the failure of the family to instill traditional values: chief among them being the value of human life and respect for others (Brown).
Such views have led to calls for a change in the criminal justice system in order to increase the punishment possible for certain young offenders, es
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It is more and more common for young peopleto kill each other, and 55 percent of juvenile homicides in 1995 involvedfriends and acquaintances (Webber). CON Brown points out that there are two reasons for the current shift inmoving juveniles to adult court. Winfield of the Family Division of the Washington,D.C. And if we know a child is depressed or alienated, we need to take emergency action and stay involved with the problem. Young people placed in adult systems are not only more likely tocommit more crimes; they also tend to receive lesser sentences. Younger kids are increasingly involved in deadliercrime, as Judge Susan R. Superior Court states: There is far more gratuitous violence and far more anger, more shooting . "The Wrong Answer to Littleton." Washington Monthly (June 1, 1999).Webber, Jo. "Juvenile Offenders: Should They Be Tried in Adult Courts?" USA Today Magazine (January 1, 1998).Gore, Tipper. He says that contrary towhat people believe, juveniles frequently do not receive harsher punishmentwhen their cases are moved to adult courts, and this revelation alsosurprised judges, district attorneys, and defense lawyers. Now they shoot each other in the face (Lacayo 6 ). In some cases, the state legislatures did so by lowering thejuvenile cut-off age, in some cases to age 16 or 17, and in others to age14. "Penetrating Juvenile Courts." Editor & Publisher (July 12, 1997), 8.Twohey, Megan. Brown: Children have been described as our future, our greatest resource, and our hope for a better tomorrow. Edward Humes recently wrote a book about the juvenile justice systemthat suggests that many of the reasons given for diverting juveniles to theadult system do not lead to the desired outcomes. Simplylocking people up and throwing away the key is an admission of our ownfailure, and we need more creative thinking and better intervention methodsif we are to change this situation. Studies conducted in New York, Florida, and Minnesota compared thecases of young defendants who entered juvenile court systems to those whoentered adult criminal courts, and in all three studies, youths who enteredadult systems had higher recidivism rates than their juvenile systemcounterparts (Twohey). The first is that the definitions ofchildhood and age-appropriate behavior are in a state of flux as youngpeople are said to be more predisposed toward violence today than they werein the past. Because of such incidents, Congressis considering sweeping new legislation that threatens to put thousands ofkids into adult jails, and this follows a trend that is already wellunderway at the state level. During this same period, asthe National Center for Juvenile Justice, a Pittsburgh-based research andpublic policy organization, reports, 41 states changed their laws between1992 and 1995 to make it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults. If weare seeking to reduce crime, we may actually be increasing it. Humes said healso found that the trouble with the juvenile justice system is not in theway it treats violent offenders, but in how it deals with minor ones.Those juveniles finally ordered to criminal court have had years of arrestsfor minor offenses and are often given probation with no supervision. "Comprehending Youth Violence: A Practicable Perspective." Remedial & Special Education (March 1, 1997)."Youth Crime, Adult Time." Emerge (October 31, 1998), 48. Inaddition, 21 of those states no longer have a minimum age for adultcriminal offenses. . This has drawn attention to how society's response to juvenile offenders is changing from primarily being oriented toward rehabilitation to increasingly becoming prone to subjecting juveniles to conservative criminal court practices (Brown). CONCLUSION The development of a more violent youth population involves manyforces and pressures and cannot be answered simply by shifting young peopleto adult courts. An analysis of the arguments onboth sides is in order and shows that this trend is counterproductive. Works CitedBrown, Michael P. Traditionally, judges have decided which juvenile caseswere transferred to adult court, but legislatures have been removing thispower from judges so that such decisions are increasingly based on statelaw or on the prosecutor's discretion ("Youth Crime, Adult Time" 48). One of the reasons for the issue being raised in recent months hasbeen the number of school shootings, and especially the shooting atColumbine High in Littleton, Colorado. The approach followsthe view of Gil Garcetti, the District Attorney of Los Angeles, who states, We need to throw out our entire juvenile-justice system . INTRODUCTION Children today represent a dichotomy for many people, one thatinstills both hope and fear, as is indicated in the following statement byMichael P. The second is that the "get tough" approach to dealing withlaw violators is being applied to juvenile offenders as well: Although a conservative approach to juvenile crime is not new, it is in sharp contrast to the predominant way in which the juvenile justice system has responded to youthful offenders in the U.S. Then in the head. Ohio andIllinois studies found that juveniles serving "adult time for adult crime"were released earlier in non-murder cases than those in juvenile systems,showing that the current effort to "get tough" by treating teenagers likeadults has only made things worse (Twohey). Youngsters used to shoot each other in the body. Calls for juveniles to be sent to adult court are based on fearsabout youth crime, concerns that the juvenile system does not punish, thefact that certain offenses require punishment not merely rehabilitation,and that only the adult system will provide such punishment. While we seem very willing to place children in adult courts andprisons, we fail to do what is necessary to prevent them from committingcrimes in the first place. For many Americans, though, children invoke fear. Other statistics are even more frightening. Therefore, many youths are now automaticallytransferred to adult court for prosecution for violent crimes and drugoffenses, and this is true in spite of the fact that federal studies showthat older inmates tend to beat and rape teens serving in adult facilities. Because of these laws, an estimated 18 , cases involving 16- or 17-year-olds were tried in criminal court as adults under state law in 1994.States also added to the list of crimes that would exclude a young offenderfrom the juvenile system. . If we knew a child had a broken arm, we would take that child to an emergency room. If society is simply being vindictive, this iscounter to our stated principles and ineffective at crime control. . "Drop the Stigma." Time (May 1 , 1999), 32.Lacayo, Richard. Department of Justice. While the juvenile population increased between1995 and 1996, the juvenile proportion of violent crimes fell in everycategory. . The public, however, has more readily accepted the idea ofincarcerating juveniles in adult jails than to providing mental healthfacilities for offenders or those in danger of becoming offenders.However, the public's rush to "do something" about juvenile crime comes ata time when teen crimes have actually declined as a percentage of theoverall crime problem. Critics claim that this has been done because thejuvenile justice system has failed; however, statistics show that shiftingjuveniles to adult court is also a policy that fails, so it is hardly areasonable substitute. "When Kids Go Bad." Time (September 19, 1994), 6 .Stein, M.L. Some argue that this is simply the price society must pay to be safe, butin fact, statistics suggest that these policies are making the streets lesssafe. One of the young killers in Colorado is reported to have once been prescribed an antidepressant, but we don't know if he had stopped taking it or what other kind of treatment he might have been receiving (Gore 32). The juvenile murder arrestrate peaked in 1993, then fell by 31 percent over the next three years,according to the U.S. PRO The American juvenile-justice system was designed a century ago toreform kids found guilty of minor crimes, but more and more, the system hasto cope with the increase in violent crimes committed by younger people.The response on the part of lawmakers has been largely to siphon the worstof these young people out of the juvenile system by lowering the age atwhich juveniles charged with serious crimes can be tried in adult courts, atrend that seems to increase around election time. Homicide arrests of young people ages 1 through 14rose from 194 in 1988 to 3 1 in 1992. We should replace it with one that both protects society from violent juvenile criminals and efficiently rehabilitates youths who can be saved -- and can differentiate between the two (Lacayo 6 ).Over the past six years, there has been a significant increase in juvenilecrime in the most serious categories, including murder, rape, robbery, andaggravated assault. From 1992 to 1995, 4 states and the Districtof Columbia passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be tried asadults. In 1986, a majority of cases in NewYork City's Family Court were misdemeanors, while today more than 9 percent are felonies. Tipper Gore wrote about this issue after theshootings in Littleton and noted the need to be more proactive and toremove the stigma we now ascribe to the mental health profession: If we are serious about stopping the violence and helping our children, we as adults need to erase the stigma that prevents our kids from getting the help they need for their mental health. Webber cites theChildren's Defense Fund, which estimates that an American child is arrestedfor a violent crime every 5 minutes and is killed by guns every 2 hours.Nine in 1 young murder victims in the industrialized world are Americans.Between 1979 and 1991, nearly 5 , American children were killed by guns,which is more than the number of Americans killed in Vietnam in 25 years.An American child is 15 times more likely to be killed by gunfire in theUnited States than is a child living in Northern Ireland. More than halfthe people arrested for murder in the United States in 1991 were under age25, and juvenile arrests for murder and non-negligent manslaughter rose 93percent between 1982 and 1991. Hesays that only about 25 percent of juvenile arrests lead to any meaningfulconsequences for those arrested. The largest increases for this group from 1993 and 1996 were indrug abuse violations, which were up more than 7 percent, and curfew andloitering law offenses, which nearly doubled. for nearly 1 years . . They represent violence, a segment of society lacking in self-control and devoid of ethics and morals, and the failure of the family to instill traditional values: chief among them being the value of human life and respect for others (Brown).Such views have led to calls for a change in the criminal justice system inorder to increase the punishment possible for certain young offenders,especially those involved in violence. . It is therefore not surprising that manyof these young people offend again and again until they commit an offensethat leads them to adult court (Stein 8).
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