Ethical Issues In Juvenile Justice

Juveniles being tried as adults in the justice system face the same penalties as adults, including life without parole, will receive little or no education, mental health treatment, or rehabilitative programming. Transferring adolescents to the adult system is counterproductive and even harmful because adult facilities cannot meet the special needs of the juvenile offender. Trying juveniles as adults they will obtain an adult criminal record that may significantly limit their future education and employment opportunities. This choice to try juveniles as adults put them at greater risk of assault and death in adult jails and prisons with adult inmates. The ultimate outcome of transferring juvenile offenders to adult prisons is overwhelmingly

In America’s society, there are an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes committed every year. Adults are not the only individuals that are committing violent crimes. Juveniles are estimated to be involved in twenty-five percent of all violent crimes. Along with these crimes comes the decision on whether these juveniles should be tried as minors or adults, which has created an immense controversy around the United States. Certain juveniles are tried as adults because they must be held accountable for their actions, it brings justice to their victims, and because those individuals have a moral sense.

Crimes are happening around us whether we pay attention to them or not. Those crimes as dangerous as murder are committed by all ages but should younger criminal in their juvenile age received the same punishment as older criminals. On June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles committed murder could not be sentenced to life in prison because it violates the Eighth Amendment.(On-Demand Writing Assignment Juvenile Justice) Advocates on the concurring side believes that mandatory life in prison is wrong and should be abolish. However, the dissenting side believe that keeping the there should be a life in prison punishment for juvenile who commit heinous crime regardless of their age. I agree that abolishing the mandatory part but not abolishing the whole Juvenile Life Without Parole sentence because I believed that there are cases when a juveniles should get Juvenile Life Without Parole while there are juveniles who should not deserve it. Some deserve it because they non-repentance killers or to be serial killers while other should not deserve it because of the circumstances required them.

The face of American crime has evolved from adults to the not so innocent faces of adolescence. In today’s society, it is not uncommon for people to fear just walking into public places because they don’t know what horrendous actions may occur due to the indifferent, disrespectful actions of some of America’s youth. Parents are often hesitant to send their children to school because they feel that they cannot trust their child’s fellow classmates. This lack of trust and apprehension was evident in Wisconsin, where two thirteen year old girls attempted to murder one of their fellow classmates. Their reasoning was that they were trying to imitate a fictional character that they saw on the internet. These two young girls were tried as adults

The juvenile court system is a fixture of the justice system with many moving parts. Each component and member of the court system are essential in carrying out their common goal. By helping operate a complex system built to rehabilitate juveniles, these people, and the programs they run, prevent juveniles from reoffending, benefit them, and help them towards the path of becoming a productive member of society.

The article “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” argues that children in prison need to be given a chance to mature and be rehabilitated (Garinger 9). Because these killers likely committed these crimes on impulse, they would often realize after the fact that they were wrong to do such an action. Therefore, when they are released, they will be more careful and think about their actions before committing. If they are given a life sentence, they will never be given this chance to fix their life. Older people who commit murders are less likely to learn from their mistakes since they put more thought into the killing than adolescents

The juvenile justice system has made numerous of ethical issues when managing juvenile offenders. The issue with the juvenile justice system is the laws and rules that govern it. It has led to years of controversial debate over the ethical dilemmas of the juvenile corrections system, and how they work with youth offenders. The number of minors entering the juvenile justice system is increasing every month. The reasons why the juvenile justice system faces ethical dilemmas is important and needs to be addressed: (1) a vast proportion of juveniles are being tried and prosecuted as adults; (2) the psychological maturation of the juvenile to fully comprehend the justice system; and (3) the factors that contribute to minorities being adjudicated in the juvenile justice system are more likely than White offenders. These three ethical issues that are rising in the juvenile justice system will be further examined.

Many people have disregarded the fact that children too can commit despicable crimes; crimes that not even adults would think about committing. Juveniles have had their era in in being able to manipulating courts to give them a lighter sentences for their so-called “mistakes”. These juveniles have made puerile excuses to try and exonerate their actions by blaming their impulses, rather than taking accountability for them. Juveniles should be tried as adults due to being aware of their crimes and having an intention to kill, however, brain development and maturity can play a role into the reason why teens kill. With being tried as an adult juveniles should be granted the opportunity of freedom pending on their rehabilitation status and if requirements

Lundstrom’s article has the strongest ethos. She uses different trials of juvenile crime in order to strengthen her argument. For example, she mentions Lionel Tate, who beat a six year old girl to death, and states that “Tate supposedly was imitating his World Wrestling Federation heros when he pummeled his playmate, less than a third of his size.”(11) She uses examples such as Tate to indicate that these adolescents are yet to be mature. This puts it into the reader’s minds that these juveniles are indeed not yet adults, and therefore should not be tried as such. Lundstrom also uses statistics that prove that juvenile crime is down, that “the nation’s juvenile arrest for murder fell 68 percent from 1993 to 1999, hitting its lowest level since 1966, according to the Justice Department. The juvenile arrest rate for violent crime overall fell 36 percent from 1994 to 1999.”(19) The reason why she adds this is because, in a previous paragraph, Dan Macallair from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco stated that “We’ve created this image tht teenagerrs are something to be feared,”(16) proving that the crime rate for these teens have dropped dramatically, showing that adolescents are not as violent as they once were. Marie Lundstrom states that all minors be

Childress, S. (2016, June 2). More States Consider Raising the Age for Juvenile Crime. Retrieved from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/more-states-consider-raising-the-age-for-juvenile-crime/

Those in favor of trying juveniles as adults believe that it deters and minimizes crimes being committing by all minors. That trying juveniles as adults will bring the greatest good to the most amount of people. According to an article posted by the American Bar Association by Nicole Scialabba, “the increase in laws that allow more juveniles to be prosecuted in adult court rather than juvenile court was intended to serve as a deterrent for rising youth violent crime.” It is no secret that youth commit crimes in our society. In 2014, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made an estimated 1 million arrests of persons under age 18 (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention). It is debated that juveniles are committing more serious and violent crimes because the youth think they can get off easy and take advantage of the system put in place. Those in favor of youth offenders being tried as adults believe that as juveniles are punished to the full extent of the law, future youth offender will think twice before committing a criminal act. In support of this, seventy-five percent of the transferred juveniles interviewed by Redding and Fuller (2004) felt that their experiences in the adult criminal justice system had taught them the serious consequences of committing crimes. As one juvenile explained, “[Being tried as an adult] showed me it’s not a game anymore. Before, I thought that since I’m a juvenile I could do just about anything and just get 6 months if I got

Should juveniles get treated as adults that’s one of the biggest controversy in our nation now days, with many juveniles committing crimes that are inconceivable according to their age. Judges have the last word on how to treat this young people. Many people argue that “the teens that are under eighteen are only kids, they won’t count them as young adults, not until they commit crimes. And the bigger the crime, the more eager this people are to call them adults” (Lundstrom 87). This is why people can’t come to a decision as how these young people should be treated like. As adults or as juveniles, according to how serious is the crime they committed.

In an age where juvenile crime has escalated from simple truancy to more serious crimes such as mass school shootings some would agree it is time to abolish juvenile courts or modify the system at the very least. Because of the seriousness of juvenile crime in this day and age, most states have already lowered the age limit for juvenile court jurisdiction from 17 years and are prosecuting more children as adults depending of the seriousness of the crime. Some criminal justice and child welfare scholars argue that younger children do not have the mental capability or experience to weigh the consequence of committing a crime and much less understand the implications of a criminal record in their future. Furthermore, they note that most juveniles grow out of criminal behavior as they mature out of the system and in

Can you imagine waking up behind closed walls and bars? Waking up to see your inmate who is a 45-year-old bank robber and you are a 14-year-old minor who made a big mistake. This is why minors who have committed crimes should not be treated the same as adults. Some reasons are because the consequences given to minors in adult court would impact a minor’s life in a negative way. If a minor is tried through a juvenile court, they have a greater chance of rehabilitation.

Adults push young people towards responsibility and fairness; trust in put upon adolescents to raise the economy and continue living with society’s morals for the sake of past and future generations. But then why does America lean towards harsh punishment without question when a minor commits a mistake? In the 1980s the U.S. experienced an increasing rate of adolescent committed crimes which led the justices on the Supreme Court to formulate difficult decisions on how to charge juvenile felons. The results was an increase in punishment, which led figures to see minors as adults in court and be sentenced with life without parole for heinous crimes like the taking of a human life-a crime that was punished with life without parole. However,