Juvenile Justice System of USA Essay

Introduction

As per study conducted by Uniform Crime Report in 2001, law enforcement agencies in USA made about 1.3 million arrests of youths under the age of eighteen. According to FBI, of all arrests made, juvenile accounted more than seventeen percent and comprise about twenty eight percent of all index crime arrests.

Under the directive doctrine namely “parens patriae “judges were supposed to act as “loving and kind parents” and to exercise whatever they could to direct juvenile offenders toward socially acknowledged demeanor. This approach was mainly intended to spare adolescents from the stigma and punishment of criminality. (Murdo, 1997, p.19).

Starting in the late 18^th century, various states in U.S.A ventured on establishing a separate and new system of laws, agencies, courts and programs especially meant for youth and children. The main reasons for this separate system are as follows:

• The same legal standard should not be applicable to children with that of adult due to immaturity of mind for children or adolescence.
• There is general public feeling that it is immoral to extend analogues punishment to children and adult.
• It serves as a correction, treatment and rehabilitation and the stopping of their further involvement in crimes in their adulthood.

“The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act ,1974 “ together with its 1980 and 1996 modifications philosophically modified juvenile practices and laws in USA. (Snyder and Sickmund 1999). The above legislation demands that states that receives federal funds to adhere the following four mandates.

1. The first directive demands for the “deinstitutionalization of status offenders “expressing that status criminals should not be institutionalized as though they had perpetrated crimes.
2. The second directive demands that “sight and sound division of juveniles and adult prisoners and demands that juvenile offenders should not be allowed to have contact with adult prisoners.
3. The third directive demands “jail and lock up removal” which needs that all juvenile delinquents should not be kept in adult criminal facilities.
4. The fourth and final directive demands that “out of proportion imprisonment of minority youth “ needs that states in US should make efforts to minimize the out of proportion representation of minority youth in juvenile facilities.

Though, these reforms have been regarded as major milestone in the struggle for rights of juvenile, children and girls of color in general have not enjoyed the aimed advantages.

Historical Perspective

Juvenile justice system in USA is dealing with three types of cases namely

• Status offenses like truancy and running away
• dependency case like neglect and abuse and
• delinquency cases.

In USA, Juvenile justice system (JJS) is multifaceted and large and its components and processes vary from state to state. However, the process is almost uniform and they included

• avoidance
• capture
• trial
• correction and rehabilitation.

Under prevention, strategies include family –strengthening and support from community institutions. Under correction, non-residential services and programs, probation, and residential programs like ranches, group homes, institutions and camps.

Some novel kinds of corrections programs like day treatment programs and boot camps have been developed. Further, parole and additional aftercare programs may be employed to supervise and help youth with reintegration with community immediately after a residential placement. (Murphy & Morris, 2003, p.439).

Statement of the Problem

A fourteen year old boy from Florida, Lionel Tate, was awarded life sentence during March 2001 for killing Tiffany Eunick, a six- year boy during a wrestling match which took place in 1999. Thus, he was pronounced of first degree murder as the murder was due to provoked child abuse and he was sentenced to life without parole. His sentence was condemned by many critics and many wonder how the justice system permits to send a just fourteen year old boy to prison for life. The underlying question in the ongoing debate was that how a juvenile or adolescent can be awarded punishment similar to their adult offenders. (Scott ,2003).

Adolescent can be defined as the stage of life cycle from puberty to maturity ends at the age of majority. Adolescent thus refers to the change in physical system of a human leading to sexual maturity. Many adolescent teenagers without proper support factors can end in the ‘cracks’ and may land in hostile world. Juvenile delinquency means antisocial attitude beyond the control of parents and result in crimes that is punishable with imprisonment. In other words, it is a criminal offense committed by a minor.

Rolf Loeber has conducted research on delinquent paths or trajectories and recognized three discrete paths to a criminal career such as 1) the authority conflict pathway 2) The convert pathway 3) The overt pathway; He also recognise that disruptive behavior that starts from in early childhood with truancy ,lying , threat to animals. There were more than 600 murders reported that were committed by young people aged 12. (The Evening Standard, 2005, p.16).

Thus in the case of Lionel, it starts from early age of 12 and corroborates with Loeber finding under the overt pathway which escalated to aggressive acts beginning with aggression leading to violence i.e. murder. The Lionel may be of suffering from Problem behavior syndrome (PBS). People with these syndromes will resort to physical abuse, sensation seeking and arrogance. Researches reveal that delinquent possessed this inherent behavior from very early young age. Some had resorted to drug abuse and heavy drinking as early as at age of 10 or still younger. Thus the Rolf Loeber and David Farrington study reveals that early-onset offenders had a disruptive behavior with truancy, lying, cruelty to animals and theft.

Thus, the attitude of young offenders can be attributed when there is no adequate parental care, the environment of their brought up, inherent characteristics at birth and may also due to Problem behavior syndrome (PBS)

During the past forty years, three chief advancements have changed the course of USA’s juvenile system. They include

• U.S Supreme court rulings defending the privileges of juveniles during proceedings of the court
• The enactment of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act
• The recent shift in social and public policy from rehabilitation and treatment toward punishment and deterrence. (Schwartz 1992).

These transformations have resulted in changing the original outlook of the court and establishing a system with two competing motives and orientations. The original motif of social service, treatment and advocacy are being considered by a new focus on outcomes and punishment. (Krisberg and Austin 1993).

The following Supreme Court milestone judgments reformed the legal structure that decides the quality of justice for delinquent youth.

In Kent v United States (1966), court held that a juvenile had a right to a hearing before reassign to a criminal court and right to have counsel especially during a police questioning.

In re Gault (1967), court held that juveniles have the right to engage an attorney, the right to face up and cross-examine witnesses, the right to receive the notice of charges leveled and the right against self-incrimination. Supreme Court held that Fourteenth Amendment due process of law is applicable to children and no state could strip their liberty of their due process of law. (Lerner et al, 2005, p356).

In re Winship, the U.S Supreme Court held that a juvenile is having the privilege to the have the criminal court norm that charges should be established beyond a reasonable doubt.

In Breed v.Jones, it was held by the court that the juvenile is having safeguard against double jeopardy. Thus, if a juvenile court finds that a juvenile has not committed an offense, for the same offense, he cannot be tried by an adult court.

I wish to emphasis that U.S.A Supreme Court has given these rights to juveniles which can be considered as a minimum of due process during their adjudicatory proceedings. (Krisberg and Austin 1993).

There exists ethnic profiling in juvenile justice in USA as evidenced by the study done by Villarruel & Walker in 2002. There are less numbers of white young offenders who are sent to criminal courts as compared to African American adolescents who are overrepresented in the cited population. About 46% of African Americans are referred or sent to criminal courts. The racial inequality is significantly present in the style in which the American juvenile courts administer crimes against young persons and drug crimes as evidenced by the study done by Poe-Yamagata & Jones in 2000.

One another study made by Pretrial Services Resources Center revealed that minority adolescents who were referred to criminal courts witnessed a snowballing difficulty as compared to those tried in the juvenile court. During the first half of 1998, about 83% of these adolescents who were referred to adult courts were of minority youths only. For example, in Alabama, Jefferson County, African American youths comprised about thirty percent of those who are reprimanded for felonies but they made up about eighty percent of those who tried in criminal courts.

According to study made by Juszkiewiz in 2000, that of those who sentenced to imprisonment, African American youths were given longer sentences than compared to other adolescents especially Whites. (Krisberg, 2005, p.89-90).

As per study made by National Council on Crime and Delinquency in 2001, African American youth who faces trial before a juvenile court for a drug crime is twice as liable to be imprisoned in pretrial as compared to his White counterpart. These racial disparities exist to color youths even if they do not have any past crime record and even if they are a first time offender. (Krisberg, 2005, p.88).

Similar to African American youngsters, Latino youths receive harsher treatment as compared to white youths despite of the fact that the alleged offense is the same. The study also reveals that Latino youths are imprisoned in adult jails and prisons than compared to White youth prisoners. This study also reveals that colored adolescent prisoners are likely to be apprehended, prosecuted as adults and sent to state prisons more than twice as compared to White youths. (Krisberg, 2005, p.97).

Proposed Future Directions

As compared to rights available to juveniles some four decades ago , now they are entitled to more rights as enshrined by the above mentioned Supreme Court verdicts , however , they are not still given the same rights as enjoyed by adults in criminal court. (Schwartz 1992). For instance, though some states have granted by statue the right to trial by a jury which is not constitutionally needed as held in McKeiver v. Pennsylvannia. Though the right to counsel as held in re Gault is constitutionally granted, the same may be waived.

Instead of assigning counsel, many states authorise juvenile to select whether to have the services of a counsel or not. Further, there is considerable discussion whether juvenile have the poignant or cognitive capability to comprehend fully the outcomes of their conclusion when they waive their privilege to have a counsel.

Of late, issues of social class, gender and race intensely impact the quality of juvenile justice. Though legal features like rigor of offense and past history mostly determine the decision making process of a court, it is evident that gender and race also play a vital and significant parts in these judicial verdicts. For instance, it is corroborated by statistical evidence that minority adolescents are detained to public correctional facilities not proportionally to their ratios in the overall population.

Further, with respect to gender, adolescent girls continue to be apprehended and imprisoned for offenses like prostitution and status offenses that normally would not cause analogues response from males. (Schwartz 1992).

Despite of the fact that many reforms have attempted to increase the privileges of juveniles, public apprehension over compassionate approaches for life-threatening juveniles has ended in more serious prosecution of violent adolescent offenders. For instance, starting from 1976, about half of the states have made rules to transfer juveniles to adult courts. (Champion 1992). This new significance, mirroring social concerns, is in contradiction with the original reconstructive object of the courts.

Thus, juvenile courts in USA currently are fighting to balance the two opposing policies, thus making courts that are significantly in an identity issue, dragged in opposing directions between punishment and rehabilitation.

It is to be observed that juvenile authority’s main duty is not only to book the young offenders but also to protect them from social injustice and to fulfill their most fundamental needs. Family or juvenile court always looks sympathetically the dependent children who are orphans or cannot receive enough support from their parents. There are cases where children are to be isolated from their parents or relatives who have failed to take care of the child’s fundamental needs. Abused or battered children are those who are subjected to physical or sexual abuse. (Murdo, 1997, p.19).

US government should take tough stand on juvenile offending mainly to minimize such offenses in future as there is real escalation in delinquency especially violence and drug offense. A more punitive juvenile system is the need of the hour for future and US government should make concerted efforts to reserve punitive sanctions exclusively for the most violent and serious juvenile offenders and to offer more effective education , reentry , treatment and aftercare services.

Researcher Feld suggest that juvenile delinquency courts should be abolished on outright basis. However, juvenile researcher Barry Krisberg offers a diverse strategy. According to Krisberg and Austin (1993), the following four key elements are to be perused for reinvention of juvenile court system.

• To make the juvenile delinquency as a public health issue. If such outlook is taken, it would focus on prevention. Thus, juveniles could be appreciated in larger view of becoming victimizers as well as being victimized. In public health approach, environmental aspect should also be considered as well as self-help and community organizing approach.
• Development perspective should be implemented to know how youth development impacts their outlook and behavior.
• Better legal protection is needed for adolescents like improving eminence of juvenile judges, access to justice, making the juvenile proceedings as public and to obtain more funds for proper legal representation of youths.
• Proper medical treatment should be given for mental health disorders, learning disabilities, extreme poverty and substance abuses. ( Roberts , 2004,p.255)

Summary and Conclusions

Juvenile delinquency poses a grave issue not only to USA but all nations of the world. For instance, violent hate crimes are daunting many European nations and Juvenile crime is on the increase in China and Japan. Gang violence is widely prevalent in the America and is matter of serious concerns in parts of African continent.

No doubt, familiarity about the nature of juvenile crimes and how juvenile justice structures function across the world will offer an insight to policy makers, social scientists and for gullible citizens. Thus, a comparative analysis will throw light on how well or how poorly one nation is exercising relative to other nations. Thus, comparative research can help to learn some significant findings like more funding needed for issue-solving policing strategies like to minimize juvenile gun violence.

Some critics argue that juvenile justice system is rather unequipped to deal with the ever mounting numbers of juveniles who indulge in grave felony offences like robbery ,rape ,murder , arson and aggravated assault and argue that juvenile court system is no longer relevant to today’s juvenile offenders particularly those who has been booked for violent crimes and drug offenses.

There is an upward increase in juvenile crime in Europe from the mid -1990’s to the beginning of 2000 while this drift was seen overturned in North America with crime ratios prolonging to decline into the mid-2000s.

Recent findings for teenage drug abuse expose that American students are more vulnerable to use other illicit drugs and marijuana over their life span. Further, recent studies on the subject reveal that the reasons for increase in juvenile offense are mainly due to poverty, racial tension, drug abuse, envy, unemployment, broken families and estrangement.

American juvenile system is witnessing some vital issues like age of criminal responsibility, juvenile policing, transfers to adult court, presence of juvenile court, and treatment of incarcerated juveniles, sentencing and aftercare programs. (Siegel & Welsh 2008, p600).

If litigations remain in the juvenile court system through adjudication, there is no doubt, the well-known prototype of racial disparity is likely to prolong. For every major offences committed, African American or color youths are likely to be placed out of their homes than compared to White youths. In majority cases, White youths receive preferential treatment like to remain on probation. The main reason cited for this attitude of judiciary is the drug offenses which seem to make the visible difference in judicial outcomes among the racial groups. For instance, White youths held as offenders for drug offenses about 60% are given probation whereas about 48% of color youths or African Americans receive probation for such offense. (Krisberg, 2005, p.90).

Thus, juvenile courts in USA currently are fighting to balance the two opposing policies, thus making courts that are significantly in an identity issue, dragged in opposing directions between punishment and rehabilitation.

I strongly suggest that US government should initiate more reforms in juvenile justice system to avoid racial overtures otherwise the confidence in the judiciary will be at stake. Further, like open jail system, young adolescents should be imparted online education through phoenix university to make them as educated as education will give wisdom what is morale and what is not and to have good career when they attain majority.

Further, all juvenile offenders should be given ethical education especially from courses on bible to practice ethical norms in their life when they released from their probation.

References

Champion, Dean (1992). The Juvenile Justice System. New York: Macmillan.

Krisberg, Barry. (2005). Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children. New York: Sage Publications.

Murdo, L. (1997). Teaching Youth about the Law. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, p.19.

Murphy, Jennifer A & Morris, Jodi E. (2003). Encyclopedia of Human Psychology. New York: ABC-CLIO.

Roberts, Albert R. (2004). Juvenile Justice: Sourcebook, Past, Present and Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Scott, Elizabeth S. (2003). Blaming Youth. Texas Law Review, 2(1).

Siegel, Larry J & Welsh, Brandon C. (2008). Juvenile Delinquency. Theory, Practice and Law. London : Cengage Learning.

The Evening Standard. (2005).Children Committing First Crime at Just 11. The Evening Standard (London, England), p. 16.