The Juvenile Justice System

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Harassment, reckless endangerment, and burglary are all juvenile offenses. These juvenile offenses almost always stay on the juvenile’s criminal record, and the offenses displayed on a juvenile’s criminal record may cause employers, educators, and other authority figures to think less of the juvenile offender. As a viewer can see, this one mistake or lapse in judgment can ruin the juvenile offenders chance to further their success in life. For example, juvenile offenders may not obtain the dream job that they have always wanted, get into the college that they have always wanted to, or be eligible for a scholarship whether athletic or academic. However, there is a loophole in the juvenile justice system called teen courts. Teen courts give first-time offenders and some re-offenders a second chance because the offense (s) do not go on their criminal record, and their peers get to decide what sanctions the juvenile offender receives or performs. The big question that I am going to discuss throughout this essay is do juvenile offenders who appear before teen courts recidivate? Based on my research, the assumption that teen courts help juvenile offenders recidivate less appears to be true; recidivate refers to the tendency to re-offend. The first part of my research consisted of interviewing my dad who is a juvenile probation officer, and my dad truly believes that teen courts help offenders stay away from crime. He told me a memorable story that relates to this topic about a girl name Sarah who had been caught with marijuana. About a month after Sarah was caught with marijuana, she appeared before a teen court and plead guilty to the charge of possession of marijuana. A girl named Jessica who disliked Sarah was one of the jurors on t... ... middle of paper ... ...rom the juveniles criminal record after they admit that they committed the crime, and offenders get to learn about the juvenile justice system. Works Cited Butts Jeffrey A. and Jennifer Ortiz. Teen Courts- Do They Work and Why? NYSBA Journal. January 2011. PP 18-21. Dick, Andrew J, Randall M. Jones, and Reed Geersten. Self-Reported Delinquency Among Teen Court Participants. Journal for Juvenile Justice and Detention Services. Volume 18. No. 1. Spring 2013. PP 33-49. Essig, Chris. Participants say Teen Court produces positive results. www.galesburg.com. Web. 24 April 2014. Forgays, Deborah K. Three Years of Teen Court Offender Outcomes. Adolsecence. Vol. 43. No. 171, Fall 2008. PP 474-489. Voss, Brenda and Kelly Vannan. A Jury of Your Peers: Recidivism Among Teen Court Participants. Journal of Juvenile Justice. Vol 3. Issue 1. Fall 2013.

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