Juvenile Delinquency in the States Presently, juvenile justice is widely acknowledged as being in a state of flux in the United States. The early 1990s saw the most substantial rise in violent crime committed by juveniles ever experienced in this country. On the heels of decades of skepticism about the effectiveness of parens patriae (the state as parent), this rise was the "proof" for many "experts" who believe that the juvenile justice system should be abolished. These skeptics reason that one criminal court could still have some latitude when sentencing younger offenders, but that kids are now committing adult crimes, so it is time to treat them as adults. Fortunately, this is not the prevailing view. While it is a force in the field, many more "experts" think the juvenile justice system simply needs renovations. Different states treat offenders differently, and some states are role models in the way their juvenile justice systems are managed and executed. Generally, state juvenile delinquency prevention systems were overhauled as a result of the high crime rates in the early 1990s. For my political science Senior Seminar research project, I wanted to look at what factors affected state delinquency rates. I was looking for what effects the reforming (or lack thereof) of these systems has had on the crime committed by juveniles in the states. Working for the Washington, D.C. Public Defender’s Office in the fall of 1995, I witnessed first hand the inadequacies of our legal system with respect to juvenile offenders. I believe that juvenile justice is a worthwhile topic because of its relevance to every member of American society. If we do not help children in trouble today, they will not have the capacity to be functi... ... middle of paper ... ...ick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996. Krisberg, Barry and James F. Austin. Reinventing Juvenile Justice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1993. McGarrell, Edmund F. Juvenile Correctional Reform: Two Decades of Policy and Procedural Change. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988. Renner, Tari. Statistics Unraveled. Washington, DC: International City Management Association, 1988. Snyder, Howard N. and Melissa Sickmund. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1996. Torbet, Patricia, et. al. State Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1996. Van Son, Victoria. CQ’s State Fact Finder: Rankings Across America. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1993.
The Juvenile Justice system, since its conception over a century ago, has been one at conflict with itself. Originally conceived as a fatherly entity intervening into the lives of the troubled urban youths, it has since been transformed into a rigid and adversarial arena restrained by the demands of personal liberty and due process. The nature of a juvenile's experience within the juvenile justice system has come almost full circle from being treated as an adult, then as an unaccountable child, now almost as an adult once more.
Bartollas, Clemens and Miller, Stuart J. (2014). Juvenile justice in america (7 ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, 58-60.
Juvenile Justice Reforms in the United States. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2011, from Juvenile Transfer to Criminal Courts: http://www.ojjdp.gov
When our thoughts turn to the criminal justice system it is only a natural instinct to assume everyone associated with policing, courts, and corrections will have to deal with juveniles sometime in their career. Young people in today’s society can be so easily influenced by social situations, peer pressure, and family members. The courts in the United States are faced with difficult decisions on a daily basis. Sentencing juveniles to adult facilities for their crimes is becoming a common trend in the justice system today; however it is not a deterrent whatsoever. “The current policies of juvenile bind over to adult criminal court and severe sentencing have been unsuccessful
Within the last five years, violent offenses by children have increased 68 percent, crimes such as: murder, rape, assault, and robbery. Honestly, with these figures, it is not surprising at all that the Juveniles Courts focus less on the children in danger, and focus more on dangerous children. This in fact is most likely the underlying reasoning behind juveniles being tried as adults by imposing harsher and stiffer sentences. However, these policies fail to recognize the developmental differences between young people and
With increased media coverage of violent juvenile behavior, legislators began to pass laws to toughen up on juvenile crime. Many laws made it easier to waive juveniles into adult courts, or even exclude juveniles who had committed serious crimes from juvenile court jurisdiction. Furthermore, the sentences to be handed out for offenders were lengthened and made much more severe. As a result, the juvenile courts began to resemble the adult courts. Yet, this movement’s influence began to fade, and by the turn of the century, another shift had occurred. In the current juvenile courts, a balanced approach is emphasized. While the court deals with chronic and dangerous offenders with a heavy hand, needy youth who need help to get back on track are still assisted under the parens patriae philosophy. Restorative justice has come to be the preferred method of today’s juvenile courts. In an overall sense, the modern juvenile court has taken on a paternalistic view similar to parens patriae towards youths who are in need of guidance, while punitively punishing offenders who do not respond to the helping hand extended to
Ting walked the line to where Coal Train 6476 stood counting down the seconds until a local train, a train without passengers or crew idled from Astringham Vale on track 12. Both trains oblivious of the monster train Allegro Middleseton blowing smoke rings of rage racing to catch up with its usually impeccable timetable.
Jenson, Jeffrey and Howard, Matthew. "Youth Crime, Public Policy, and Practice in the Juvenile Justice System: Recent Trends and Needed Reforms." Social Work 43 (1998): 324-32
Vito, Gennaro F., and Clifford E. Simonsen. Juvenile justice today. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.
This National Report Series on 2013 delinquency cases in juvenile court compares previous years of data with current trends. It is a way to layout years of cases and see the changes over the decades. Data such as this requires information from over a thousand courts and can take a long time to collect and analyze. Even though media is filled with horror stories about severe crimes, the rates of delinquency are continuously decreasing each year. The current juvenile court cases have not declined this much since 1960. The results were even broken down into different categories to get more detail on other factors such as gender, age, and race. There was a significant difference in gender delinquents with males making up almost 75% of it. In addition,
Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. (2012). Juvenile delinquency : theory, practice, and law. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Elrod, P. PhD, & Ryder, R. S., JD. (2014). Juvenile Justice: A Social, Historical, and Legal Perspective (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Individuals, specifically adolescents who are involved in the justice system may very well be the “most vulnerable and oppressed individuals in the United States today.” (Peters, 2011, p. 355). The juvenile justice system was established in Chicago, Illinois in 1899 “on the premise that youths’ characters are not yet fully formed, and that rehabilitation is therefore more appropriate than retribution.” (Cauffman & Steinberg, 2012, p. 430). Unlike adults in the justice
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. "Muhammad (prophet of Islam)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Ed. J. E. Luebering, John M. Cunningham, et al. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. .
Jim Anderson developed a 6 week training program on listening and communication skills to improve management at a large pharmaceutical company (Northouse, 2013). Jim decided to train the middle level managers from research and development first. The managers are highly skilled, but skeptical of the value of the seminar. After the third week, Jim begins to notice problems. Attendance has dropped and the attendees are frequently late or leave early. Jim is unsure how to turn the problem around.