According to statistics, approximately two million juveniles under the age of 18 in the United States are arrested each year. Over 600,000 of them are placed in detention centers annually and approximately 95,000 reside in secure juvenile correctional settings on any given day. Further numbers suggest that the United States leads all industrialized nations worldwide in juvenile incarcerations. With criminal records also come detrimental consequences including: difficulty of finding employment, loss of public housing, immigration concerns, increased drop-out rates and the potential of recidivism. Research on the development of the juvenile brain and the negative consequences that come with focusing solely on commitment into a facility make
When juveniles commit serious crimes they often only receive a minor slap on the wrist, possibly probation. These juveniles then continue to commit worse crimes as well as damage countless lives until they are put away for life as adults. The juvenile system is a place for minors who commit crimes, it has less harsh punishments and is easy going. In this system, there is a multitude of programs for minors to receive help, such as rehabilitation, psychiatric hospitals, in addition to counseling. Minors who have gone through this system come through multiple times due to the fact that they do not learn their lesson or receive the help they need.
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. There are many court cases that involve teens that are thirteen and fourteen being charged as adults for heinous crimes they have committed.
They also did a study on active delinquents and the characteristics of them. They looked for delinquents who had three or more court charges in Hennepin and Ramsey. They also stated that certain crimes could be associated with multiple offenders. Usually violent crimes, burglary, theft, and vandalism. The study also showed that locking the juvenile up will not help and will not
Juveniles this age don’t even have a fully developed brain and also can’t fully understand the circumstances they’re in. Juveniles can be good kids inside and out, but if they somehow manage to be involved in a heinous crime, they suffer the chance of being incarcerated for up to life. With that being said, courts should not be given the power to grant juveniles with adult sentences because the environment around adult prisons are far too violent for people under the age of 18, therefore, proposition 21 of 2000 and other sentence enhancements should be abolished to lessen the severity of juveniles’ punishments and instead give them a bigger chance at rehabilitation. When juveniles receive such harsh sentences, such as sentences adding up to the majority of their life in prison or their life as a whole, more often than not they tend to lose hope. They really don’t have much to look forward to.
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.
For this reason, the underdeveloped brain cannot take the credit for why juveniles commit crimes. Author Gail Garinger says, “Today, few believe that criminal genes are inherited, except in the sense that parental abuse and negative home lives can leave children with little hope and limited choices” (Garinger 93). This is meaning that most juveniles commit the serious crimes because they see family members doing the same thing and follow in their footsteps. Others may also commit these serious crimes because they feel neglected at home and this is there way of calling for attention. The lack of maturity in the brain should not be a reason why juveniles can go into their community and take others lives away.
America, the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, has its fair share of issues with in the system made to rehabilitate its prisoners. The issues involved within this system run deep and are often found to be a direct issue with how the system is formed. Although it wasn’t always this way, juveniles are treated separate in the eyes of the court and receive separate services from the rest of the jail and prison population. This new system often referred to as the Juvenile system has faced a series of hardships and has become just as dangerous and tedious as the regular court systems. This paper will look at how groups have formed within these institutions, how detention for juveniles can affect their future and their
One report found that the number of children who have experienced parental incarceration at least once in their childhood may range from 1.7 million to 2.7 million. If this estimate is on target, that means 11% of all children may be at risk” (p. 17). Moreover, the important fact is that children with incarcerated children are more at risk than those children that have their parents because according to Martin (2017), Purpose: Why Should We Care With the increasing growth of
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. There are many court cases that involve teens that are thirteen and fourteen being charged as adults for heinous crimes they have