Ken Stier's Article: Getting The Juvenile-Justice System To Grow Up?

1252 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Intervention strategies for juvenile delinquency

Life is precious and we live it only once, however, what we do with it is to our own discretion. It is a shame that many people at young ages decide to live a life of misdeeds and become what we call juvenile criminals, but, every action has a consequence and to deal with these unlawful adolescent we have the Juvenile Justice Department. The juvenile justice system is a network of agencies that deal with juveniles whose conduct has come in conflict with the law. These agencies include police, prosecutor, detention, court, probation, and the Department of Juvenile Corrections. However, when young offenders commit a series of crimes, constantly being in trouble with the law, they are waivered into Adult court where they will be subject to any …show more content…

He also discusses how many advocates and academics argue that juveniles are not being given enough of a chance to turn their lives around after committing minor offenses. In agreement with Stier, I consider that juveniles have greater possibility than adults to make a change in their lives with the right help, counseling and rehabilitation. Stier also states; there is new brain research showing that the full development of the frontal lobe, where rational judgments are made, does not occur until the early to mid …show more content…

Tommy G Thompson in his article “Juvenile law needs to come in to ’90s” argues; “Children who rob and murder should be punished in accordance with the severity of their crimes, not the “tenderness” of their age. Youths who run with gangs, terrorizing their neighborhoods, are as frightening as adults; more so, in fact, because they are corrupted so early”. He also states; “gangs are able to use those youths to commit crimes, knowing the punishment won’t be as severe”. In agreement with Thompson, most juvenile delinquents are “run by” gang members and criminal master minds but instead of punishing these young people with adult prosecution and sentencing why don’t we capture the true perpetrators behind it all and clean up our streets from drug dealers and gang

Show More
Related

  • The Pros And Cons Of The Adult Criminal Justice System

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    The adult system’s shifts leaked into the juvenile system, causing an increase in incarcerations even when delinquency rates were declining at the time. Juvenile reform legislations prompted more compulsory sentencing and more determinate sentences for juveniles, lowering of the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction, considerable ease in obtaining waivers to adult court for juvenile prosecution, and made it easier to gain access to juvenile records as well. Furthermore, it led to greater preoccupation with chronic, violent offenders, which in turn led to a redirection of resources for their confinement. Thereby, the absence of reliable criteria for identifying such offenders tends to stereotype all delinquents and is more likely to raise the level of precautionary confinements. These three major shifts in juvenile justice policy demonstrate the power and depth of traditional beliefs about the causes and cures of crimes in U.S. society. It also shows how the system can bend for a time in the direction of new approaches to prevention and control. Today, we are presently in a time of conservative responses where the prevailing views about crime express beliefs about prevention, retribution, and incapacitation that are profoundly rooted in our

    Read More

  • Examples Of Police Discretion

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    The majority of the juvenile research concludes that serious harm can be done to juveniles simply being referred into the formal juvenile justice process. Police officers should really take into consideration that who they send for the formal process (Kaufman, I. 1979).At times these juveniles are just playing around and doing things that they are not supposed too and when processed they are being mixed with real delinquents and are being influenced by the wrong people which may cause them to tern deviant and later delinquents. A way to stop this police should only take into consideration serious criminal or repeated criminal

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Multisystemic Therapy

    1152 Words  | 3 Pages

    Similarly, going along with the prior rebuttal of the importance of differentiating juvenile’s characteristics and actions of that of an adult, science is compiling more evidence of its vitality. Many adults can look back and reminisce about an action he or she did when younger and say, “Wow I cannot believe I did that.” Science has proven the reason behind that is because an adolescent’s brain has not yet fully matured. Tsui states “Studies conclusively established that the brain of an adolescent is not fully developed, particularly in the area of the prefrontal cortex, which is critical to higher order cognitive functioning and impulse control” (645). The facts of scientific research need to be taken into consideration when distinguishing

    Read More

  • Life Without Parole for Juveniles

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ing beckoned in with the 21st century. While U.S.’s JLWOP laws are inconsistent with many human rights treatises and with international law, it is more important for our policies to be based on a thorough understanding of the issue- the most essential being a separation of the processes for juvenile and adult criminal offenders. With an emphasis on rehabilitation for juvenile offenders, and the goal of encouraging maturity and personal development after wayward actions, the futures of many teens in the criminal justice system can become much more hopeful.

    Read More

  • Juvenile Crime In Chicago

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    Crime rates across the U.S. for juveniles is at all time high. Juveniles across all demographic have been punished more severely than those of the past. Contributing factors including lower socioeconomic areas such as the Detroit Metropolitan Areas & Chicago. This paper will discuss the apparent issue within the system focusing on juveniles in urban areas.

    Read More

  • America's Juvenile Justice System

    3741 Words  | 8 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Vandergoot's Justice For Young Offenders

    1372 Words  | 3 Pages

    Vandergoot determines that the reasoning capacity of an adolescent, the ability to make legal decisions, and filter unnecessary information is unclear to a juvenile in the justice system; the vagueness of youth stepping into the courts prevents them from fully participating in the justice system. ( Vandergoot, 2006). As a result of this impreciseness youth encounter Vandergoot concludes a separate justice system allocated for youth to adhere to adolescent needs. Vandergoot discusses the Youth Criminal Justice Act a justice system devised to adhere to youth needs. She summarizes the system that benefits young offenders in contrast to adult offenders.

    Read More

  • History of the Juvenile Justice System

    2654 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay On Teen Courts

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the fasting growing juvenile treatment and interventions programs are known as teen courts. Teen courts serve as an alternative juvenile justice, to young offenders. Non-violent, and mostly first time offenders are sentenced by their peers’ in teen courts. Teen courts also serve as juvenile justice diversion programs. Teen courts vary from state to state, and sometimes within the same state. With this program, all parties of the judicial setting are juveniles with the exception of the judge. Each teen court, is designed specifically to meet the needs of the community it serves. Teen courts were created to re-educate offenders throughout the judicial process, create a program with sanctions that will allow the youth not to have a juvenile record, and to also instil a sense of responsibility.

    Read More

  • The Juvenile Justice System

    1966 Words  | 4 Pages

    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?

    Read More

  • Juvenile Criminals Should Not Be Tried as Adults

    1463 Words  | 3 Pages

    Today?s court system is left with many difficult decisions. One of the most controversial being whether to try juveniles as adults or not. With the number of children in adult prisons and jails rising rapidly, questions are being asked as to why children have been committing such heinous crimes and how will they be stopped. The fact of the matter is that it is not always the children's fault for their poor choices and actions; they are merely a victim of their environment or their parents. Another question asked is how young is too young. Children who are too young to see an R rated film unaccompanied are being sent to adult prisons. The only boundaries that seem to matter when it comes to being an adult are laws that restrain kids from things such as alcohol, pornography, and other materials seen as unethical. Children that are sent to adult prison are going to be subjected to even more unprincipled ideas and scenes. When children can be sent to jail for something as minor as a smash and grab burglary, the judicial system has errors. The laws that send juveniles to adult prisons are inhumane, immoral, and unjust. Kids are often incompetent, which leads to unfair trials. Adult prisons are also very dangerous for minors, and in many cases this leads to more juvenile crimes.

    Read More

  • The Consequences Of Juvenile Crimes

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    Juveniles are not mature enough or developed psychologically, and, therefore, do not consider the consequences of their actions. In the article, “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains” by Thompson,

    Read More

  • Juvenile Delinquency Essay

    2107 Words  | 5 Pages

    ... even willing to die for money, so in order to truly address this juvenile delinquency problem we cannot just address the surface level social issues,but must also, and perhaps more importantly, focus on the economic foundation that motivates juveniles to continue a path of crime. Economic problems are the only factors that contribute to social issues, but the resources being wasted on these corrections facilities and other ineffective socially addressing programs should be better spent on improving the economic situation of communities. About one-quarter of juveniles who offended at ages 16-17 also offended as adults at ages 18-19, therefore the growing urgency and importance to address juvenile justice is undeniable, because by addressing juvenile delinquency you are addressing crime in general (“Child Maltreatment & Juvenile Delinquency: Facts and Figures").

    Read More

  • Juvenile Delinquency: Is there a solution?

    1566 Words  | 4 Pages

    Juvenile delinquency is one of the major social issues in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is when “a violation of the law committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Merriam-webster.com). Although we have one justice system in America, the juvenile system differs from the adult juvenile system. Most juvenile delinquents range from as low as the age of seven to the age of seventeen. Once the delinquent or anyone turns the age of eighteen, they are considered an adult. Therefore, they are tried as an adult, in the justice system. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. In addition, there are a variety of effects that juvenile justice systems can either bad effects or good effects. Finally there are many different solutions that can reduce juvenile delinquency. As a result, juvenile delinquency is a major issue and the likeliness of it can be reduced. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency there has to be an understanding of the causes and the effects.

    Read More

  • Why Teens Commit Crime Essay

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    Juveniles mental issues and brain behavior is the full picture of their everyday lifestyles. In “Juveniles don’t

    Read More

More about Ken Stier's Article: Getting The Juvenile-Justice System To Grow Up?

Open Document