The Pros And Cons Of Juvenile Corrections

In the United States of America today when a person has been committed of a crime they are trialed through a system to conclude if they are guilty as well as determine their best fit punishment of due to the crime. From what most people know when an adult is put through this process they have the right to a quick and speedy trial with a jury to determine if they are guilty and they are given their punishment. However, within our system the process of punishment and sentencing is significantly different if the defendant of the crime is under the age of 18, if they are under 18 they are legally considered a child and are not put through the same system and punishment with which adult are. They are but through what we call a juvenile court system.

In order to properly address mandatory incarceration for chronic juvenile offender’s criminal activities, it is important to begin with psychological assessments and evaluations. Half of our youths have experienced some type of psychological trauma such as depression, PTSD, personality disorders, anxiety, anger issues, or dissociation, just to name a few (Moroz, K. 2009). In order to determine mandatory incarceration, all of these factors must be considered. I will agree with most of our society that is , if they are a danger to society and serious of the crime, they need to be put into detention, where they cannot cause harm but where they can received the right intervention program and mental health treatment for them, it’s the law. The juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate not punish young offenders. Punishment is not the answer in solving their delinquent behavioral patterns.

Humans all make mistakes, it is a part of life that no one can avoid. However, young adults are more likely than the older generations to make bad decisions and take part in things that they may someday regret. Some people say that making mistakes is just a part of growing up. But what if just one wrong decision could mean the difference between a normal childhood and spending the rest of adolesence behind cold steel bars with cruel and vicious adult criminals? Unfortunately for a growing number of young teenagers, their reality is never being given a second chance to change or correct their mistakes. Why? Some may ask, because instead of attending school, learning the difference

Ethos is a rhetorical device authors use to establish their credibility to speak authoritatively on a topic. To strengthen their arguments, they also use logos, or logical arguments and scientific data, and pathos to create an emotional reaction in the audience. In the ERWC Juvenile Justice unit, four different authors, with four different levels of ethos, discuss whether or not juveniles who have been charged with murder should be tried as adults in the adult court system. Most argue that minors should be tried in the juvenile court system, while one demands that adolescents who massacre innocent victims spend the rest of their lives in prison. After closely reading each author’s opinion, it is clear that Paul Thompson has the most ethos in this unresolved debate while Jennifer Jenkins has the least. (132)

In America thousands of children have been sentenced as adults and transferred to adult prisons. Children as young as eight have been prosecuted as adults. Reports from the Equal Justice Initiative (2017), found that depending on the state, the minimum age can vary between 8 -16 years. Thirteen states in the United States have no minimum age for trying children as adults: Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia (EJI, 2017). According to Michon (2017), the factors that could cause a court to grant a waiver petition and transfer a juvenile case to adult court include:

I have a son, who is defenseless to becoming part of the justice system because his disadvantage is his ethnic group. Our children fail in life because our United States representatives particularly in North Carolina have endorsed classification of our children established by those we as their parents believed protected them in the juvenile justice system. The North Carolina "control system" continues to use the classic conservative approach to juvenile justice rather than the traditional liberal approach. I am an anger parent with the juvenile justice balance. I petition juvenile justice to stay in its place, Juvenile Justice. I apologize in advance to any victim and his or her family before today and after today for any heinous offense any

The United States leads the world in the incarceration of young people, there are over 100,000 youth placed in jail each year. Locking up youth has shown very little positive impact on reducing crime. Incarcerating youth have posed greater problems such as expenses, limited education, lack of employment, and effect on juveniles’ mental and physical well-being.

In the 1960s, several imperative cases opposed the behavior of youths in the court system (Koroknay-Palicz, 2016). In re Gault a landmark decision acknowledged that juveniles should be guaranteed a fair trial like adults. In the case of Gault, in 1967, the court concluded that if Gault would have been 18 years of age, at the time he was apprehended, he would have received the same due process rights as an adult (Koroknay-Palicz, 2016). The court also determined that there were legitimate reasons for considering juveniles and adults differently (Koroknay-Palicz, 2016). This 15-year-old juvenile delinquent made a dramatic stain on the juvenile justice system of today. Juveniles who were facing an adjudication of incarceration and delinquency were granted the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause (Koroknay-Palicz, 2016).

Children must learn that they will be punished for their bad behavior in the adult world (Tan). Therefore, it is imperative that they learn as a child that bad behaviors come with consequences. “Juvenile detention centers can help adolescents, even those who are repeat offenders, turn their lives around before they commit crimes as adults and wind up in prison” (Smith). The hope is to deter children from re-committing crimes in their adult life by showing them the consequences which come with them. In addition, Juvenile Detention Centers are supposed to offer services and rehabilitation opportunities for the children.

The Adult Correctional system in the United States is growing at an alarming rate due to the increase in recidivism among adults. How do we combat the problem? The answer is quite simple. We start at the very beginning when the adults are involved in the Juvenile Justice System, under the age of eighteen. Juvenile delinquency is an ongoing issue within the United States that presents a challenge, not only to the respective court, but to the correctional system. It is often thought that the Juvenile System is separate from the criminal justice system due to the age of the youth. However, a lot of the same laws apply in Juvenile Court. A delinquent can be adjudicated with an offense and given a determinate or indeterminate sentence should the court feel that the youth should enter into the legal custody of the respective State. There is a strong correlation

VJuvenile housed in Adult Prisons and Jails since 1992 and 45 States have passed on amended legislation making it easier to prosecute juveniles as andults(Nancy E. Gist Director Bureau of Justice Assistance)pg4. The trend of juveniles confinement can be measured by the number of offenders admitted into the facility or system. The most recent data and information provided was 14,500 juveniles were estimated aged to be housed in adult corrections. Some where still housed in public and private facilities and that made it a total of 107,000 youth incarcerated at Adult Corrections. Due to them being young they are at a much greater risk of harm than those housed in a juvenile facility. The idea that juveniles within the criminal justice system is itself flawed.Due to the fact that to act as though a juvenile delinquent is in the same mind as a adult offender, is to say they share in mind and matureness. The youth must be treated fairly , not punished, and the judge should act as a wise and kind parent. That can express that youth may commit crimes, but they are still in the growth and development stages in their lives for molding and changes to take place. In the process of sending juveniles offender into an adult facility leave the notion that the justice system has the best interest of the community, for where, the juvenile would be cared for and the issue of criminal activity would be addressed and treated. The juvenile is now an adult system surrounded by criminals who have

Blended sentencing laws—which give courts discretion in some cases to impose juvenile and/or adult sentences on young offenders—became popular during the 1990s as a means of broadening the spectrum of available sanctions. These laws variously allow courts to impose:

By law adolescents are not able to vote, purchase tobacco or alcohol, join the armed forces, or sign a legal contract. Children are not permitted the same rights and responsibilities as adults because the law recognizes their inability to make adult decisions. The law acknowledges that children are unable to handle the consequences that come along with the rights that adults have. By allowing them to be charged as adults is holding them to a double standard. Telling them that they are not old enough to enjoy the same luxuries as adults, but they can experience the same punishment as adults if they commit a crime. The law acknowledged the inability of children to make decisions but still allows them to suffer the same consequences as adults. Research demonstrates that transferring children from juvenile court to adult court does not decrease recidivism, and in fact actually increases crime. Instead of the child learning their mistake they are more likely to repeat it. Juvenile detention centers have programs that help reconstruct young minds and help them realize where they went wrong. Prison does not offer this same opportunity. (Estudillo, Mary Onelia)

Young teenagers receiving cruel and unfair treatment that adults received in prison due to there not being a separation between the two. A prison for juveniles or young adults wasn't such an idea that came to mind to those before 1899. Young adults that committed a crime and deserved punishment were sent to a regular prison with adults. Before 1899 people didn't believe that it was necessary to separate the young adults and the adults in prison. Due to the improvements of the juvenile prison system, the treatment of teens have prevailed since it first started in 1899; because of these improvements there has been developed higher quality laws to serve juveniles in the court system, teens have had different rehabilitation opportunities after being released, and have encountered less cruel treatment.

Some of your basic crimes a normal juvenile will commit speeding traffic offenses ,undersange drinking vandlaism, curfew violations, truancy and theft compare to the ones that are considered to be serious crime murder, rape, and attempted murder..Juvenile offending are categorised in 3 categories delinquency crimes,crimes that are inputted by minors which are dealt by the juvenile a court,criminal behavior crimes dealt with the criminal system and statu offenses that deals with minors illegal absences. The number of juvenile arrests estimated over the year of 2015-2016 is a total of 921,600. Laws created against juveniles was set for small crimes such as shoplifting and vandalism.These laws aren't powerful enough to handle the murder charge and proper actions towards today's conflict such as murder. Since the system is created to help with the improve ment of a murder mind the child tends to be released and proceeds back into a criminal. Without responding to the crimes and allow the juveniles get off with a slap on the wrist will only show an another problem of teens committing murders and getting time that isn’t worth the justice toward the victim.