juvenile crime

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Recommended: The impact of juvenile delinquency

To many Americans today, the country is a hostage-but not from oversea terrorism as one might expect to think. No today, we live in fear from our own children; and these are the same young people who we are entrusting the future of this great country with. According to the Department of Justice report released in November, thirty-eight percent of those arrested for weapons offenses in 1995 were under the age of eighteen (Curriden). In the same report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics stated that in 1995, 3 out of every 100 eighteen-year-olds were arrested for weapons offenses. A rate three times higher than for males twenty-five to twenty-nine and five times higher than for males thirty to thirty-four (Curriden).
Just weeks later the FBI released a report indicating that arrests for youths under eighteen increased by seven percent in 1996 (Curriden). In light of these disturbing statistics, it may not be surprising that the general public is starting to believe its children are getting meaner and more violent. The media, politicians and the American public want something done, and they want it done now. Right now we are beginning to realize that if the situation looks bleak now, it could deteriorate even more in the future. The U.S. Census projects that the juvenile population reported to be 27.1 million in 1994 will rise to 33.8 million by the year 2004 (Curriden). At the heart of this controversy: the juvenile justice system.
For the past several years the system has been under attack by every one from state legislatures to parent-teen groups. Our solution to the rising juvenile crime problem to get tougher. According to a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, 60 percent of Americans believe that a teenager convicted of murder should get the death penalty (Ollson). In response to this “get-tough” mood, more and more states are passing legislation to try youths as adults for more types of crime at younger ages. Colorado for example has a brand new type of tough love for their juvenile threats to society, this new “love,” so it is termed consists of lowering the age so that juveniles as young as fourteen can be sentenced as adults (Hetter). This recently instated law, I feel should be Federal law as opposed to state law. The youth these days have no direction, no ambition, and no feelings. As John Fi...

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...ng to have ignore the media and the general publics whining and start making decisions based on fact and merit; not on others opinion. Capitol Punishment, like abortion or gun control, is an emotional issue that often crowds out rational debate. Truckloads of evidence purporting to “prove” the death penalty either works or doesn’t work have been dumped into the public debate, which is not where it belongs. The Supreme Court Judges are the only ones qualified to make the decision to whether or not a younger or older man should be put to death. Of course other issues such as whether or not there is enough money in the federal budget to allow for execution, are still issues that are to be evaluated be the Supreme Court Judges. Furthermore, Juvenile justice clearly stands at a crossroad for many. Particularly, conservative politicians tend to point to escalating crime rates and argue that punishment deters crime (which it does) whether or not they actually believe this or not is another issue. Bottom line, I believe a tougher stance will translate into fewer violent, crime prone juveniles on the streets. At the same time other juveniles will think twice before committing more crimes.

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