Criminals are getting younger and victims are getting younger. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, males fifteen to nineteen years old, are being killed six times more often that in 1963. (Elikann 242) Homicide is the number two killer for young men, second only to accidental deaths. The FBI reports that the number of murder victims between the ages of ten and fourteen rose between 1985 and 1992, a 62 percent. (Elkiman 242) Young people turning to crime is result of a combination a bravado, hopelessness, access to firepower, and the allures of the drug market."
(Elikann 241) What are the actions that society, and or the government, should take to keep our country's young from turning to crime or being victims of crime themselves? In the past few years there has been many Americans who have come to believe that juveniles who commit terrible crimes should be tried as adults and sentenced accordingly. That swift and prompt punishment is the solution to turning young people from a life of crime. Previously, society thought we could rehabilitate juveniles and turn them away from a life of crime. What is the best answer for society, the juveniles and their victims?
People in America began to get very worried and upset about the news reports they were seeing almost daily in the paper and on the television about juveniles
committing serious crimes. There was a movement that began to demand governments do something about this increase in crime by juveniles. In 1988, about 1.6 million juveniles were arrested, 69,000 for violent crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Of these arrest 18,000 of the juveniles were between the ages of 10 and 14. (Lauder 111- Lang 37) The age most like to do violence is between 15 and 25, which about 15 percent of the population, are about two-thirds of those arrested for
violent crimes in America. ("Teen Homicides Reflect Society's Violence," USA Today, April 1988, 5 -- Lang 29) The "get tough' movement that the country saw in 1970s and early 1980s led to a large number of youths being confined. (Schwartz 58)
"The Supreme Court in 1967, handed down a decision that said that children should not be convicted of crimes without evidence of their guilt, without fair
Recently, there has been a rise in criminal activity amongst the youth in Columbus Georgia. The percentage of juvenile criminals increased by almost 9.5% in the year 2012-2013(Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Many of the crimes committed involved adolescents as young as fifteen, and have become increasingly more violent. In 2012 a sixteen year old woman was shot and killed by her eighteen year old boyfriend, a few months later a nineteen year old boy was shot while walking to his home. (Chattahoochee Valley Struggles with Black on Black Crime). Due to the overwhelmin...
Over the years many violent crimes have been committed more by teenagers. The more serious crime the teenager did with psychology recommends that juveniles aren’t full responsible for what happen. In Anna Quindlen’s essay, The C Word in the Hallway, is about psychological autopsy with many peoples examples and how if health insurances provided coverage, then not many teens would have committed crimes. In Charlie Spence’s essay, Sixteen, talked about his locked up experience. There are crimes that aren’t that bad, but if a crime was committed so badly then the perpetrators should be locked away and be trialed as an adult.
There are many issues with crime and violence in the United States, but very few are more controversial than the issue of juveniles in crime. How are juveniles getting involved in crime? What is causing America’s youth to do things that their parents should’ve instilled as morally wrong? What are ways to control and possibly eliminate these issues that affect the way we live? For the past century, criminologists have been studying juvenile related crime and a few theories have come up. These theories have, in the mid to late 20th century, been shaped into models. There are three main models dealing with juvenile crime and violence that will be gone over in pages to follow of this paper: Noninterventionist Model, Rehabilitation Model, and Crime Control Model. In this paper, the reader will see what each model discusses, and how they apply to today’s youth. At the end each model’s description, the reader will learn what I personally think about how the specific model would work. Being a recently turned 20 year-old, I feel I can give an accurate view of how, or if, the crime model would work. Living in both extremely rural(Mokane Missouri), and very urban(St Louis) has taught me a great deal about what really goes on in a juvenile’s head, and what sorts of actions would truly help to decrease crime rates among juveniles. I will give examples from the readings of chapter 13 of Making Sense of Criminal Justice: Policies and Practices, and I’ll conclude with my opinion of which model I believe works best to cope with juvenile crime.
There are many crimes committed by teenagers every year. Crimes that are committed by teens each year are mainly assault, bullying, gang violence, and physical fights. According to National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, about 1 and 9 murders are from kids that are under 18 (Center, 2001). In 1998, there were approximately 2,570 among youth aged 10-19. Every day there are at least 7 children murdered in the United States (Center, 2001). Statistics say that between 16%-32% female teenagers have committed a crime before the age of 17. Also 30%-40% male teenagers have committed a violent crime before they turned 17 (Center, 2001). Teenagers that commit crimes are the ones who were abused or bullied as a...
All this sounds like an abstract from some of today's action movies, but sadly enough, all these events are true and have plagued our nation for the past eighteen months. Not only have juvenile crime rates gone up in the past few years, but a heightened awareness of these crimes exists because of how violent natured these crimes have become. "Homicides committed by juveniles with firearms have tripled in number since 1983" (Jenson and Howard 324).
"Anybody living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin... The culprit was crime. It had been rising relentlessly - a graph plotting the crime rate in any American city over recent decades looked like a ski slope in profile... Death by gunfire, intentional and otherwise, had become commonplace, So too had carjacking and crack dealing, robbery, and rape. Violent crime was a gruesome and constant companion...
Torbet, Patricia, et. al. State Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1996.
Violence is defined as the intentional use of force to harm a human being. Its outcome is injury (whether physical or psychological, fatal or nonfatal). Violence among teenagers is on the rise, and has been since the early 1980's. In my opinion this is due to the increase of violence in the media, the astounding availability of firearms and the lack of proper guidance in the home. Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice reports that from 1985 to 1993 murders committed by people over the age of 25 dropped an impressive 20%; meanwhile they increased 65% for people between the ages of 18-24 and an astounding 165% growth for teenagers 14 to 17. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in 1996, 6548 young people 15-24 years old were victims of homicides. This amounts to an average of 18 youth homicides per day in the US. It also states that homicide is the second leading cause of death for persons 15-24 and is the leading cause of death for African-American and Hispanic youths in this age group. There are a few things that we as Americans can do to stunt this problem, and it starts with the home. By focusing on the home first, we as Americans can drastically reduce the amount of violent crime committed in the US.
...oving lawmakers to rethink policies that treat them like adults” by Sarah Alice Brown . “Between 1994 and 2010, violent crime arrest rates decreased for all age groups, but more for juveniles than for adults”, were Sarah Alice words. In addition she said; more specifically, the rates dropped an average of 54 percent for teenagers 15 to 17, compared to 38 percent for those between 18 and 39. And while arrest rates for violent crimes were higher in 2010 than in 1980 for all ages over 24, the rates for juveniles ages 15 to 17 were down from 1980.
Everyday we read in the newspaper or watch T.V and hear news of crimes committed by Juveniles. With all of the crime being reported by the media about juveniles, one can’t help but wonder if all of our nation’s youth are juvenile delinquents. Although there are many cases where the juvenile did not commit a serious crime, there are others where the crime is so bad the juvenile court system tries the juvenile as an adult. Instead of seeking help for the individual, our justice system places them in adult facilities to “teach them a lesson.” The justice system fails to see what the cause of this outbreak is in a child whether it was abuse, neglect, or where they grew up. The juvenile justice system needs to see that by simply teaching the juvenile a lesson, it does nothing to deter crime.
The United States has been affected by a number of crimes committed by juveniles. The juvenile crime rate has been increasing in recent years. Everyday more juveniles commit crimes for various reasons. They act as adults when they are not officially adults. There is a discussion about how juveniles should be punished if they commit heinous crimes. While many argue that juveniles who commit serious crimes, such as murder, should be treated as adults, the fact is, juveniles under the age of eighteen, are not adults, and should not be treated as such.
During those years, the group most likely to commit violent crimes - 18 to 24 years- olds- were declining as a percentage of the population, and, consequently violent crimes declined. Demographics alone are not a reliable factor for the decline in violent crime though, because the crime surge of the late 1980s and early 1990s occurred while the size of the group most likely most likely to commit those types of crimes was decreasing. The demographic analysis did not take into account the role that crack, guns and gangs would have on the youth offenders beginning in the
Youth crime is generally thought as being a very recent and modern day phenomenon, however this is widely untrue. Juvenile crime has been recorded ever since the early 17th Century and yet it has only been within the last 100 years that it has become such a significant issue with the general public (Goldson and Muncie, 2006). It is widely known that the present population are much more aware of youth crime and the implications it causes than ever before. There are endless theories as to why crime occurs and about the correct approach to combat it, the main conflict being over whether to treat young people as a threat or as a victim, which is a debate that still continues to this day (Omaji,
Children commit adult crimes. The problem is how do we punish them? Should they be treated in juvenile facilities, or punished with adult criminals? In some states, you are considered to be an adult at 17 years old, therefore, as criminals get placed “in adult prisons for more sophisticated training in violent crimes and victimization.”(Pg. 637)
Crime is a plague that has haunted American citizens for centuries. The severity of crime has ranged from running a red light to cold blooded murder. Statistics indicate that crime rates have been on the rise in the previous decades, especially juvenile crime. Statistics show that, ‘the number of youths aged 14 and younger who have been charged with homicide has jumped by 43 percent in the past twenty years’ (Kids With No Hope, No Fear, No Rules, And No Life, 2). This increase in juvenile crime has struck a chord of fear in many people . Motivated by this fear our society has to come up with a solution to this impending problem. While several suggestions have been offered, crime prevention is the most logical, effective and beneficial solution.