Juvenile Delinquency in the States
explanatory Essay
1783 words
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.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that juvenile justice is in a state of flux in the united states. the early 1990s saw the most substantial rise in violent crime committed by juveniles.
- Explains that many "experts" think the juvenile justice system simply needs renovations. different states treat offenders differently, and some states are role models in the way they are managed and executed.
- Opines that juvenile justice is a worthwhile topic because of its relevance to every member of american society.
- Explains that researching juvenile justice is difficult because juvenile court records are sealed, and juveniles only become media-accessible when transferred to adult criminal court, which may explain the rise in violent juvenile crime today.
- Explains that crime statistics are divided into many different categories, which makes compilation difficult. correctional facilities are the sole exception to this rule, as they keep data on the state level.
- Explains that the literature on juvenile justice is cyclical. it becomes a "hot topic" for some years, then dwindles and another hot topic comes to the forefront.
- Explains that they decided to analyze ten state characteristics with dr. renner's assistance. they chose population, income, and percent white because they are common control variables.
- Explains that head start enrollment is a wild-card variable in cd's state fact finder. its supporters claim it can influence the rest of the child’s life by stressing the importance of education early-on.
- Explains that the violent crime index measures the number of arrests per 100,000 juveniles, including murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
- Opines that the correlation between head start and dependent variables was indirect, and that states with a high percentage of children enrolled in the program stress education more than those with lower percentages.
- Opines that head start enrollment is statistically significant for the violent crime index. the question is whether this significance is caused strictly by the programs or by states doing something else.
- Explains that head start is more popular in the cities than in rural areas, and that it may also have possible links to crime.
- Opines that research can be extremely difficult and time-consuming, and that a researcher must be flexible and willing to modify their opinions to fit the previous research.
- Analyzes the violent crime indexanalysis of variancedfr square.66247 regression 10standard error 131.2801 residual 39f = 7.65438 significant f =.0000variable b beta t sig
- Describes the demographics of the population, including head start, ch. pov, and fem hh.
- Describes the books by martin forst, susan guarino-ghezzi, and edward j. loughran, balancing juvenile justice.
- Cites renner, tari, snyder, howard n., and melissa sickmund. juvenile offenders and victims: a national report.
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- America's Juvenile Justice Systemanalytical essayThe 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.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that the juvenile justice system, since its conception over a century ago, has been one at conflict with itself.
- Opines that our modern approach is ill-equipped to reduce crime or deal with chronic delinquents while at the same time protecting their due liberties.
- Analyzes the different theoretical issues pertaining to the modern juvenile court, determines their origin, and suggests a course of action for resolving these issues.
- Explains that colonial american children were perceived to be small adults, able to interact with grown-ups and participate in mature society. they were placed in the homes of others or, as technology enabled the industrial revolution, in factories and other locations of modern industry.
- Analyzes how the 'child saving' movement worked to segregate children from society both directly and indirectly based on middle class, protestant, white, rural idealists who viewed childhood as a stage of moral immaturity and impressionability.
- Analyzes how the progressives formed the first juvenile court in chicago in 1899, creating a formal age-based distinction between juvenile and adult offenders and their institutional separation.
- Explains that the progressives' concept, known as parens patriae, gave the court broad authority to substitute its own control over children for that of the natural parents when the latter appeared unable or unwilling to meet their responsibilities.
- Explains that hearings were closed and juvenile records were sealed. euphemisms are used for every step of the process, such as juvenile offenders being referred to as 'delinquents'
- Explains that early juvenile court, by its very nature, was a highly informal system of paternal justice. due process was unnecessary because the interests of the child and the judge were seen as mutual.
- Explains that a lack of due process made some punishments wildly inappropriate. in re gault, the supreme court mandated that all juveniles have the right to most forms
- Analyzes how gault, along with a series of related decisions, formed the warren court revolution that afforded numerous protections and forms of due process to juveniles.
- Analyzes humes' book on the need for an adversarial system. both the defense and the prosecution are obliged to take extreme positions.
- Analyzes how judge dorn is presented with a kid who hit the school bully over the head for tormenting him repeatedly. the child's public defender refuses to let him plead guilty.
- Analyzes how the situation is exacerbated when lawyers are lazy or incompetent or the juvenile decides to waive counsel altogether — something that is possible even without parental consent.
- Explains that in mckeiver v. pennsylvania, the rehabilitative nature of courts allowed this portion of a juvenile's due process to be waived because children were not subject to punishment for their offenses but rather treatment.
- Analyzes how judges, as feld demonstrates, are more likely to find suspects guilty, whereas substantive criminal guilt represents a complex social assessment of moral culpability and legal guilt.
- Explains that two short years after the creation of the first juvenile court, its jurisdiction was expanded to include youth who were?incorrigible? or growing up in 'idleness.
- Argues that allowing for status offense statutes creates numerous problems, including inconsistencies and discrimination.
- Explains that three post-gault reforms changed status offenses in america during the 1970?s. diversion conserved valuable resources and skirted the due process problem by allowing nuisance cases to be handled informally through alternative means.
- Analyzes how judge dorn terrorizes the public defender's office by opening his court to parents of status offender youth. he calls these meetings the juvenile system?s best chance to help families.
- Analyzes how the court operated on a pretense of rehabilitation that rationalized its lack of due process in the gault decision.
- Explains that many states have changed their juvenile codes' statement of legislative purpose from suggestions of rehabilitation to those of accountability and punishment. this overt change stems from a complex?get tough? social movement that has been at work since the 1980s.
- Explains that in order to mollify public fears of older, dangerous juveniles, policy makers brought retributive, adult punishment into the purview of the juvenile court. mandatory sentencing laws are one such manifestation.
- Opines that stricter sentencing guidelines lead to racial and class-based discrimination. rehabilitation is difficult without considering the structural condition of a juvenile's situation.
- Explains that juvenile justice waiver laws were changed to decrease judges' discretion and pull more youth into the adult criminal system based on retribution and tough sentencing.
- Analyzes humes' case of john sloan before judge dorn, where a good middle-class kid with no prior criminal record is caught in an inept attempt to rob the man at gunpoint
- Analyzes how george trevino, abandoned at age six by his parents, commits crime after crime without serious punishment until he is caught in a botched home robbery attempt where the only person hurt is an accomplice.
- Argues that stopping juvenile crime early through preventative programming is important when reforming the juvenile justice system.
- Proposes that individual communities develop concise statutes to identify chronic truancy or curfew violators as?at-risk? youth.
- Opines that if a judge determines youth to be at-risk, he could place them into programs similar to the children at risk program to encourage school attendance, provide familial crisis relief and other services.
- Argues that the approach based on objective measurements related to the risk youth pose to a community would pass the strict scrutiny found in other areas such as curfew regulations.
- Analyzes hirschi and gottfredson's ridiculous assertion that if people can be excused from the penalties of the law because they have low self-control, we would be forced by the same logic to excuse adult offenders.
- Suggests that the focus should shift from rehabilitation and preventative programming to deterrence and retribution after growing up as a chronic offender.
- Analyzes dawson's argument that a wholesale merger of the adult and juvenile systems would result in net decrease in the resources now devoted to the two systems combined.
- Opines that removing older youth from the system would further concentrate our thin resources and focus them on those who may still be malleable to reformation.
- Argues that if only 1% of older offenders are waived, this problem will be mitigated.
- Argues that drawing one line is the only way to avoid the problems associated with waiver laws that provide too much discretion that lends itself to discrimination and to provide consistency.
3741 wordsRead More - raceanalytical essayKnoll, C. and Sickmund, M. (2010). Delinquency cases in juvenile court, 2007. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that racial inequality in the criminal justice system is ignored because it doesn't affect most people. the arrest rate of white youth has continued to decrease while black youth continue to increase.
- Argues that the disparities are due to the way police officers enforce laws, in the manner that laws are written and prosecuted, and more.
- Explains that the juvenile justice system gives a huge amount of discretion to system stakeholders when it comes to dealing with juvenile delinquents.
- Explains the disparity between white and minority youths in policing may be due to the imaged being portrait by movies and media coverage.
- Explains that poverty plays a role in disparity of minority youths in the juvenile justice system. crime controls are focus in cities where there is more poverty which result to more arrest of minorities.
- Explains that minorities are often charged with serious crimes or prosecuted as adults. the decision to charge them as an adult is left to judicial waivers, prosecutor’s discretion, or statutory exclusion.
- Opines that society needs to look at the way law enforcement stereotypes minorities and help them prevent bias from influencing their behavior when dealing with youth.
- Cites armour, j. and hammond, s. (2009). minority youth in the juvenile justice system: disproportionate minority contact.
735 wordsRead More - Effective Communication in Criminal Justice Settingsopinionated essaySiegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. (2012). Juvenile delinquency : theory, practice, and law. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how verbal and non-verbal interaction impacts juvenile delinquent officers when approaching the public through the press, and its impact in court proceedings when the officers testify under direct or oblique evaluation.
- Explains that the juvenile detention officer supervises young offenders housed in a prison or correctional facility. they state that they are accountable for providing safety, self-discipline, managing actions, escorting or moving juveniles to needed sessions.
- Opines that the juvenile detention officer must have effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills.
- Explains that verbal and non-verbal interaction can impact community reports to media in different ways. the announcement officer, paper, radio, and television are separate stages of liability.
- Explains that non-verbal and verbal devices can impact court docket options in various ways. interaction will impact the procedure of testifying.
- Explains that spoken interaction impacts correctional features. it impacts employees, colleagues, and prisoners. verbal interaction helps law enforcement offer guidelines to thieves.
- Opines that effective communication skills will be beneficial to all parties involved in the field.
- Explains allen, sawhney, and lawrence, r., & hesse, m. (2010). juvenile justice : the essentials. thousand oaks, california: sage publications.
1685 wordsRead More - Current Views on Juvenile Probationanalytical essayWhitehead, J. T., & Lab, S. P. (2013). Juvenile justice: An introduction (7th ed.). Waltham, MA: Anderson Publishing.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that juvenile probation is not a new practice, but one that is always getting refined. there are some trends, both past and present, that point in the direction society as whole wants the programs to go.
- Explains that juvenile probation is a balanced approach that combines restorative justice, rehabilitation, and classical criminology.
- Explains that at least one state is joining the forces of the juvenile justice department and the child welfare departments to reduce truancy and further crimes by catching on to high risk juveniles early before they turn criminal.
- Opines that studies have been conducted on reentry programs and other interventions but have not found a clear cut or simple answer. the unfortunate issue is rehabilitation over incarceration.
- Analyzes probation departments' view of attack probation, which is getting away from the social service model of helping juveniles and moving towards finding a reason to charge them with more crimes.
- Explains that juvenile probation handles on average over 50 percent of all juvenile cases adjudicated delinquent, not to mention the cases that aren't.
- Cites peters, c. m. and urban, l. (2008). issues in juvenile program implementation: a case study.
570 wordsRead More - Arguments For and against Waiveranalytical essayJuvenile Justice Reforms in the United States. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2011, from Juvenile Transfer to Criminal Courts: http://www.ojjdp.gov
In this essay, the author
- Explains that racial disparity has become a huge concern especially with studies which have shown prejudice facts.
- Explains the process of transferring juveniles to adult courts has shown no effects on decreasing recidivism or a deterrent outcome.
- Argues that there are doubts in the effectiveness of the waiver process, citing studies that show youth transferred to adult prisons had a 30% higher recidivism rate than youth who stayed in juvenile system.
- Cites elizabeth w. mcnulty, p., and d. macallair, 'the color of justice: an analysis of juvenile justice
- Cites olson, j. k. (2005, may). waiver of juvniles to criminal courts.
928 wordsRead More - Delinquency In Juvenile Court Casesexplanatory essayThis 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,
In this essay, the author
- Explains that the national report series on 2013 delinquency cases in juvenile court compares previous years of data with current trends.
219 wordsRead More - What Is The Role Of The Juvenile Justice Systemexplanatory essayWithin this annotated bibliography, I will be discussing how important the juvenile justice system is to the criminal justice system. The juvenile justice system is the part of criminal justice that pertains to offenders who are not old enough to be held criminally responsible for their actions. This system includes all of the roles of the criminal justice system, but makes it applicable for persons typically under the age of 18. The intentions of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate, rather than punish the offender. The point of having a juvenile justice system is to try the offenders who are not being tried as adults for their crimes. Juvenile crimes can be anything from status offenses to any crime that could be committed by an
In this essay, the author
- Explains the importance of juvenile justice in the criminal justice system. juvenile crimes can be anything from status offenses to crimes committed by adults.
127 wordsRead More - No Matter How Loud I Shout Summaryopinionated essayWithin 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
In this essay, the author
- Opines that edward humes' "no matter how loud i shout" is an extremely well-written and powerful book.
- Analyzes how humes reveals an in-depth view of the children's life, their treatment within the system, how they think and feel, and all the factors that influence their fate upon the decision of courts.
- Opines that the juveniles courts focus less on the children in danger, and focus more on dangerous children. this is the underlying reasoning behind juveniles being tried as adults.
- Opines that humes' book is important because it displays the voices of many that you normally wouldn't listen to. they felt that things were simply not right and that something needed to change or be implemented within the system.
- Opines that juvenile delinquency and crime needs to be addressed and funds should be allocated to research in order to control the increased rates of juvenile crime and provide more programs for rehabilitation. the voice of the juvenile is important when considering a grant proposal.
- Opines that humes' book displays the honest truth of how the juvenile justice system works and an eye-opening, experience-oriented view of the system.
651 wordsRead More - Crime Busters Task Force Case Studyanalytical essayThe juvenile court is arguably the core of the juvenile justice system. Here is where juvenile offenders meet their fate of either being sent to a detention center, being transferred to adult court, or receiving an alternative disposition (i.e., electronic monitoring, intensive supervision, home detention, etc.). In this respect, the juvenile judge plays an integral role in the lives of youth. This is my role in the Crime Busters Task Force and is what I intend to delve into further after discussing the extensive crime problem in Baltimore, Maryland.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that juvenile court is the core of the juvenile justice system, where juvenile offenders are sent to a detention center, transferred to adult court, or received an alternative disposition.
- Explains that the united states is considered the most punitive country in the world, with 2.2 million people currently in prison and jail. baltimore's murder rate is 7 times higher than the national average for several years.
- Explains that the juvenile judge is responsible for deciding the legal issues in a case, resolves disputes, and intervenes in the lives of at-risk children and their families.
- Compares baltimore city's crime rate with the state of maryland and the united states as a whole. the data for juvenile arrest rates is not much better.
- Explains that incarceration is an ineffective way to curb crime and may contribute to more crime occurring.
- Argues that incarceration, the most costly alternative for taxpayers, does little to prevent recidivism and often has the opposite effect, driving juveniles deeper into criminal behavior.
- Argues that many judges ignore and/or are unaware of these findings and believe that incarceration is still the best option for controlling youth offenders.
1223 wordsRead More - Juvenile Facilities Impact On Teenagersanalytical essayThe United States has long suffered from a broken criminal justice system, there is an estimate of about 2.2 million people in the American criminal justice system, including a shocking number of 30,000 juveniles incarcerated. More and more kids are being put in juvenile retention centers even though, “we have to recognize that incarceration of youth per se is toxic.” (Mendel 4)
In this essay, the author
- Estimates that 2.2 million people are in the american criminal justice system, including 30,000 juveniles incarcerated. more and more kids are being put in juvenile retention centers, even though it is toxic.
- Explains that the us relies heavily on juvenile incarceration to keep its youth from committing crimes. two of every five teenagers are african-american, and a fifth of these are hispanic.
- Explains that the youth incarceration rate in the united states is 5 times higher than the next country. juvenile and other federal correctional centers have failed to provide safety and mental well-being for confined youth.
- Analyzes how the juvenile system is ineffective and dangerous, citing richard a. mendel's article no place for kids.
- Explains that the first national study on sexual abuse on youth correction facilities was released in 2010, which surveyed more than 25,000 kids.
- Opines that there is a clear path to reform in the federal youth correctional system.
- Opines that the juvenile system is unsafe for kids, but how effective is it in lowering youth crime and helping these kids relocate themselves in the real world?
- Analyzes how the high rates of rearrests give us a mental picture of how ineffective the youth criminal justice system is.
- Analyzes how training schools in new york are not improving any of these kids' lives. correctional placements exacerbate criminality by putting young boys and girls on a track to getting arrested in the future.
- Analyzes how a study conducted in montreal shows how juvenile centers negatively affect many teenagers' lives. involvement in the juvenile system is the strongest predictor of adult criminality.
- Analyzes how juvenile incarceration damages young people's future success by putting them on a track of more criminal offenses rather than finishing school.
- Explains that incarceration at age 16 or earlier led to a 26 percent lower chance of graduating high school by the age of 19 — these facilities work with more than 60,000 kids, yet rearrest rates are still at the same level.
- Explains that youth correctional facilities are inefficient because of the lack of safety they provide to adolescents and staff, and how damaging they can be to young teenagers by making them more prone to becoming offenders.
1976 wordsRead More