Juvenile court is a special court that deals with under age defendants that are charged with crimes, who are neglected, or out of their parent’s control. The average age of the Defendants are younger than 18, but juvenile court doesn’t have jurisdiction in cases in which a minor is charged as an adult. The procedure of juvenile court is to involve parents or social workers and probation officers in order to achieve positive results and prevent minors from future crimes. However, serious crimes and repeated offenses can result in the juvenile offender being sentenced to a prison, with a transfer to a state prison when they reach adulthood. According to the film “Prison States”, Christel Tribble’s was a 15-year-old from Kentucky who was diagnosed …show more content…
Demetria suffers from ADHD and anxiety/depression so instead of her going to a rehabilitation center she was sent to a juvenile shelter. She later then ran away from then shelter but was found by the police and they locked her up. In juvenile court they will determine what actions should be taken if the juvenile is deemed a delinquent. This stage differs from the adult system in the purpose of the action. In the adult system, the goal is to punish. In the juvenile system, on the other hand, the goal is to rehabilitate and serve the minor 's best interest. But sometimes they still treat the juveniles as if they were criminals by calling them by their inmate numbers instead of their names. The only difference between Juvenile court and Criminal court is that in the juvenile justice system, the main aim is to rehabilitate and reform the juvenile offender so that they can resume functioning normally in society. Thus, the focus is more on alternative sentences that keep the juvenile out of jail, such as probation, parole, and diversionary …show more content…
I believe that instead of incarcerating them they should be put in facilities that will help them get treatment for their disabilities, disorders, and drug addictions. If they are being rehabilitated the right way it will help prevent further crimes and also will help the offender go back into society and live a crime free lifestyle. For Christel Tribble being locked up actually helped her out to realize that she doesn’t want to be a delinquent. She was motivated by her mother to continue her education and to realize that it’s not worth being in the court system at such a young age because it will be a never ending cycle. For Keith Huff, he went to Kentucky State prison five times serving a total of 27 years in the criminal justice system. He was incarcerated for drug problems, which in the long run won’t help him. It would be more beneficial for him to receive help to prevent him from using drugs. If they sent him to a rehabilitation center where he can receive the appropriate help he need it would prevent him from future imprisonment. As for Charles McDuffie he was an addict and a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD. He was sentenced to prison, which was no help for him in his situation dealing with PTSD. He needed mental health treatment to help him deal with the tragedies that he was remembering from the Vietnam War. Luckily when McDuffie got out of prison his friends, who
Soulier, Matthew F. and Scott L. Charles. "Juveniles in Court." Harvard Review of Psychiatry (Nov 2010): 317-325.
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.
The Juvenile Justice System in the State of Texas celebrated its 100 Birthday in 1999. Many people believe that the Juvenile Justice system is equal to the adult system and that juveniles are punished as adults are but that is not always the truth. The Texas Juvenile System is made up of a mixture of the Criminal Law and the Civil Law. It is governed by The Juvenile Justice Code which is called the Title 3 of Texas Family Code. The only similarities that are shared with the Adult system are that it also refers to the Texas Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedures for rules. The steps of The Court Procedures are: If a child is arrested, they are detained in a child facility, a child is not bonded out but most go before a judge. Once before the judge, it is decided if a petition will be filed depending upon the severity of the offense. The child can then make his or her pleading if the child wishes to plead not guilty a jury child can be requested. Even if there is a jury trial, only the judge can determine the punishment. The judge is also limited to the punishment that he or she can sentence because of the Juvenile Code’s Progressive Sanction Levels. This is the method which the Juvenile system uses to rank crimes.
...ecause they had to pay for their education and receive a high SAT score and other qualifications to be accepted at a college, I think it is important not to let these lives slip away. It would not be of any use to lock them up for many years and then release them into the world with nothing on their hands. It is more expensive for a state to pay for a second imprisonment than to pay for a college education and everyone should have a right to learn. This right is infringed by the college system in itself as it does not give everyone a chance to earn a degree, not by Prison Education. And secondly, the “pains of imprisonment” are hard enough and I think any inmate would trade places with us. Education does not reduce this pain; it should be a matter of course to help these people have a chance at a successful life. It should after all be a rehabilitative punishment.
This paper will discuss the history of the juvenile justice system and how it has come to be what it is today. When a juvenile offender commits a crime and is sentenced to jail or reform school, the offender goes to a separate jail or reforming place than an adult. It hasn’t always been this way. Until the early 1800’s juveniles were tried just like everyone else. Today, that is not the case. This paper will explain the reforms that have taken place within the criminal justice system that developed the juvenile justice system.
In chapter 10 the book talks about Juvenile courts. Juvenile court is a court of law that has jurisdiction over minors. The purpose for juvenile courts is to offer juveniles justice and treatment. In most states, juvenile court purpose clauses fall into one or more of five categories (Synder and Sickmund 2006, 98). The five categories are balance and restorative justice clauses, standard juvenile court act clause, legislative guide clause, clauses that emphasize punishment and traditional child welfare. In all states the courts puts children under three classification. The first one is those who are neglected or abused. The second is status offenders. The third is those who broke the law. There has been several issues on deciding if a child can tried in an adult court. What’s the appropriate age? The nature of the crime depends on if the child will be tried in adult court or not.
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?
The Juvenile Court System was established in 1899. The goal of the system was to act as parens patriae (the State as parent), which was the rationale for the right of the State to intervene in the lives of children in a manner different from the way it intervenes in the lives of adults. As stated by the U.S. Department of Justice, “The doctrine was interpreted to mean that, because children were not of full legal capacity, the State had the inherent power and responsibility to provide protection for children whose natural parents were not providing appropriate care or supervision,” (1999). A key element of the juvenile justice system is to focus on the welfare of the child and to rehabilitate them so that they do not make similar mistakes as
Have you ever wondered what the process is for a juvenile? How it is different than adult court? What is the process of getting waived to adult court? The first Juvenile court was started in Cook county in 1899. You are a juvenile in till you reach the age of eighteen. After that you are considered an adult. In till you reach the adult age you go to juvenile court in less waived into adult court. After you reach the age of eighteen and you get in trouble with the law you attend adult court.
The focus of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, rather than to imprison and punish like the systems adult counterpart. According to Caldwell (1961) the juvenile justice system is based on the principle that youth are developmentally and fundamentally different from adults. This has lead to the development of a separate justice system for juveniles that was initially designed to assist troubled juveniles providing them with protection, treatment, and guidance. When performing as it is designed and up to the initial intentions, the juvenile court balances rehabilitation (treatment) of the offender with suitable sanctions when necessary such as incarceration. According to Mack (1909) the focus of the juvenile justice system has shifted from “how can we help the child”, “why did the child commit the crime” to “was the crime committed”. According to Griffin (2008) in some cases juveniles may be required to be “transferred” to adult court. The prerequisites for transfer to adult court are the duty to protect the public from violent youths, serious crime, and the lack of rehabilitation chance from the juvenile court. According to Flesch (2004) many jurisdictions handle the issue of serious juvenile crime by charging juveniles as adults. Charging a juvenile as an adult is done by a method which is called waiver to adult court. This waiver allows adult criminal court to have the power to exercise jurisdiction over juveniles and handle the juvenile’s case as an adult’s case would be tried. According to Flesch (2004) a juvenile is both tried and if convicted of the crime the juvenile will be sentenced as an adult when his or her case is waived from the juvenile court. Waiver to adult court initially was viewe...
The U.S made legal history in 1989 when the world’s first juvenile court opened in Chicago (Rank, J.) Since 1990 many states have also adopted the “get tough” approach to juvenile justice as a response to the increasingly violent crimes committed by children. Juvenile crime escalated to an all time high, and then started to decrease in 1995 when images on television, such as the Springfield, Oregon, rampage of 15-year-old Kip Kinkel who shot both of his parents and then two of his classmates. The impression of citizens in the United States was that juvenile crime is out of control. (Levinson) Now Juveniles are being prosecuted a lot more than adults in adult courts.
Imagine sitting in the courtroom watching your sibling’s killer look you straight in the eye. Imagine hearing that final bang of the judge’s gaval saying that this case will stay in the juvenile court and that your siblings killer will only get two years in jail. You want to scream so bad but you can’t, all you can do is cry. When a teenager commits a serious crime,such as murder, the attorneys and the judge will decide if the case should be moved to the adult court or should stay in the juvenile court. The difference between juvenile court and the adult court is juvenile court doesn’t focus so much on the crime as much as rehabilitating the juvenile, on the other hand the adult court focuses more on the punishment side. So when a teen gets
The cycle of prison and drug use is not the right way to deal with drug addicts. They need to instead get help to get past their problem.
We need to stop treating inmate like children, and treat them more like the adults that they are, and in the juvenile justice system, the repeat offenders need to be treated more like their adult counterparts, because otherwise they will be in the system for a very long time, because they will not learn that crime does not pay, but that being a good citizen does. Isn’t it the goal of the justice system to try to keep people from committing crime, and if they do that those people should be punished? Is it not the goal to have those in the system get rehabilitated so that they are not repeat offenders, and if they are repeat offenders, that we should make it harder on those that are repeat offenders so that they learn to stay out of
Juvenile delinquency is a serious problem and leads to negative outcomes for youth, families, and society as a whole. Adolescents under the age of 18 who are arrested for committing a criminal act are processed through a juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system is grounded on the principle that the youth have different needs than adults. During adolescence, youth are forming their identities and still developing mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally. Due to their early stages of development, juveniles who violate the law should be treated differently than adults.