Juvenile Courts

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Juvenile Courts in United States Persons aged below 18 years are regarded as underage and when they break the law they are not charged in the adult courts. They are charged in the young offender courts which are also called Juvenile courts. For an offender to be eligible for juvenile court, he or she must be under the state’s laws categorized as a juvenile. The age of 18 years is the maximum age at which an offender can use juvenile courts. The applicable age in a few states is 16 or 17 years, while Wyoming State has 19 years as the maximum age. In that regard people aged above 18 years are not eligible to undergo trial in juvenile courts. Apart from the maximum age limit, the states have also set the minimum age that a child is eligible for juvenile courts. In most of the states those under the age of 7 are not eligible for the courts since they cannot make a difference between what is wrong and what is right. Ritter (2010) claims that persons under the age of seven years may not be capable of forming guilt mind. The decision whether children aged between 7 and 14 years has the ability of forming a guilty mind is done by the judges. If the judge believes that the child had a capability of forming a criminal intent he can send him to the juvenile court. In juvenile courts, judges have an obligation of determining the fate of the juvenile offender: circumstances under which the juveniles are detained; when they are to be released; and how long their sentence is to take. In most of the states, children aged 14 years and above are believed to be having a capability of forming criminal intent. Hence most of the cases that involve those aged between 14 and 18 years are resolved in the juvenile courts. According to the federal st... ... middle of paper ... ... Fall97, Vol. 88 Issue 1, p190, 51p Kristin, H., (2009). What's Wrong with Victims' Rights in Juvenile Court?: Retributive Versus Rehabilitative Systems of Justice. California Law Review; Aug2009, Vol. 97 Issue 4, p1107-1170, 64p Packel, A. K., (2002). Juvenile Justice and the Punishment of Recidivists Under California's Three Strikes Law. California Law Review; Jul2002, Vol. 90 Issue 4, p1157, 46p Ritter, M. J., (2010). Just (Juvenile Justice) Jargon: An Argument for Terminological Uniformity Between the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems. American Journal of Criminal Law; Spring2010, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p221-240, 20p Sellers, B. G., & Arrigo, B. A., (2009). Adolescent transfer, developmental maturity, and adjudicative competence: an ethical and justice policy inquiry. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology; Spring2009, Vol. 99 Issue 2, p435-487, 53p

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