Did you ever learn about the tragedy known as the Great Chicago Fire?There are many important facts, theories of causes, and differentlifestyles back in the 1800 's than today. First of all, life in the 1800 's was very different than life today. Back then kids had a lot more responsibilities than we do today. Boysbetween the age of 8-10 worked on farms while boys age 8-10 today playthe game farms. Girls age 8-10 made candles, and wove clothes while girlsage 8-10 today smell candles and put clothes on toy dolls.
In an article about juvenile justice, it states, “Legislators have finally started to realize that treating juveniles just like adults does more harm than good,” says David DeMatteo, a professor of law at Drexel University in Philadelphia,” (“Juvenile Justice”). This supports Bryan’s claim of how juveniles were misunderstood in the past. This misunderstanding had caused most juveniles to end up in adult jails where they were mistreated and suffered from assault and abuse. Stevenson also stated that, “Many states had changed their laws to make it easier to prosecute children... Alabama had more juveniles sentenced to death per capita than any other state or any other country in the world,” (Stevenson, 93).
In 1830 a law passed that determined that youth should be separated from adults. “An Act to Establish a House of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents” was also passed by legislature which allowed the states to provide delinquent youth with homes, education, and job training. (Department of Juvenile Service,
The federal government’s “War on Crime” by the Johnson administration in the 60s made way for tougher law enforcement and surveillance (Hinton, 2015). However, with this came the separation of children and adults in the criminal justice system; then the separation of juvenile delinquents from status offenders. As mentioned, status offenders are different from juvenile delinquents because they had broken rules which apply to only children. Meanwhile, juvenile delinquents are youths under the age of 18, who committed offenses that would be punishable to adults as well. By the late 1960s, there became a growing concern that juveniles involved in the court-based status-offense system, were not getting their best interests met (Shubik & Kendall, 2007).
The Juvenile system was first established around 1899 during the Progressives Era Reforms. The progressive era reform was the first system to actually try to reform juveniles due to the fact that they were being trialed as adults. Psychologist made developments with research on the psyche of the juveniles being trialed as adults not beneficial to the state of mind that some minors can’t comprehend at the adult level. The findings from the research that were conducted, made society change their views on the juvenile delinquency.
The juvenile justice system of the 1800’s is much improved in today’s society and still undergoing changes to improve the system. Henceforth, it can be noticed that the juvenile justice system of the 1800’s until today has undergone drastic changes in such a way that offenders be it youth or minor are tried differently from the adults in all states These changes can be seen when the Juvenile Justice System was under the English Common Law, the colonial era, the industrial revolution era, and the Victorian era. There are more programs developed in today’s Juvenile Justice System, as well as young offenders with regards to age are processed separately, and are not necessarily referred to as chattel due to how profound the juvenile system has
Juvenile justice policies have determined how juveniles are handled in the criminal justice system. During the colonial period, juveniles were treated like adults and were prosecuted accordingly. Children were arrested, tried and held in institutions with adult criminals and many of them were mistreated. Reformers saw a need to separate juvenile offenders from the adults and rehabilitate them. Reformers campaigned for the focus of punishment to be shifted to rehabilitation by changing the juvenile’s behavior.
In 1925, the United States Congress passed the Federal Probation Act. This bill gave the U.S. courts system the power to appoint federal probation officers and the power to sentence defendants to probation instead of sending them to prison. The main function of these new officers was to supervise individuals that have been sentenced to probation, as well as those who were granted supervised release from prison. This new supervision system needed to classify their offenders, because not all of these individuals needed the same level of supervision.
Juveniles should be charged as adults in the criminal justice system because it protects the public from any future harm and can lessen the amount of crime among adolescents. Juveniles should be charged as adults in the criminal justice system. Yet while juveniles' actions might not be the same as adults, there is a lack of court members trying to define “juvenile”. The Criminal Justice System struggled to determine whether to take the path of “leading a juvenile in the right direction” or “destroying the child”. This struggle is nothing new and will keep happening throughout the Criminal Justice System.
I believe the development of juvenile justice to have had a creditable change because of the cases included, re Gault 1967, Kent v. United States 1966 and Schall v. Martin 1984. Gerald Gault age 15 already on probation for stealing and his friend Ronald Lewis was taken in to custody on June 8,1964, after Allegedly making a prank phone call. When Gault was taken into custody his parents weren’t contacted, and not even a notice was left at home. Gault was never given the chance to contact a lawyer, along with his parents not even knowing that he was taken to the juvenile detention center. According to (Margot Adler, 2007, para.
The current state of the juvenile justice system is one which has created an immense debate between a variety of people in the United States. The main question in this debate boils down to the issue of whether children should be able to be tried as an adult with no regard to their age. The juvenile court system is a separate entity from adult court which is used to handle the criminal cases of the youth in America. In the present, some children have their ability to fall under the jurisdiction of the adult courts revoked due to the gravity of their crimes. This should not be the case as the juvenile court should be given the ability to treat juveniles the way they should be.
Discussion 1: Juvenile justice court vs. adult criminal court During the early 19th century, the United States government sought a solution to prevent mixing young and child offenders from adults and hardened criminals, thus introducing the juvenile delinquency system (Redlich &Bonventre, 2015). Juvenile courts are specifically designed to deal with offences involving minors aged between 10 and 18 years, whereas adult criminal courts prosecute adults who have attained the minimum age of 18. The system varies in different states because some allow 16 and 17 year old juveniles to be tried as adults depending on the nature of the act or crime committed. The two courts are similar on the account of rights provided to the offenders.
Juveniles Transferred to Adult Facilities ** It wasn’t until the 19th century that specific laws and systems of justice were made especially for juvenile offenders. Starting in Illinos in 1899, states started changing the court systems for adolescents, stressing the welfare and restorationof the young over discipline. ** The following century, the juvenile court system remained focused on ensuring the welfare of young offenders and society by giving rehabilitation services. Florida’s Get-Tough Laws Reforms for juvenile offenders have become a common place in the Unites States.
We have seen today in society of how crime rates have been rampant and how statistics show that most of the crimes were being made by minors. I believe that when most of them look at the bottom of these young offenders come disproportionately from impoverished single-parent homes that are located in the neighbourhoods desinvertido and have high rates of learning disabilities, mental health, and substance abuse and problems with the help of the system of juvenile justice that can make a great return on a successful transition to adulthood. Their ages ranged from 20 and under, most are under fifteen years of age. Juveniles tried as adults must assume the same consequences as any other criminal and are subject to state prisons with inmates much higher and that have probably committed crimes much more tortuous then you could ever have. These minors between the ages of nine to twenty according to the offence committed or of the number of times that are prosecuted and believe that it is immutable.
In today’s world there are countless crimes committed every single day. “In 2015, there were 1.42 million total arrests, at a rate of 3,641 arrests per 100,000 residents” (State of California, Department of Justice). Grown adults are not the only people being arrested every year, there are also juveniles, children, being arrested every day. One topic of controversy today is whether or not juveniles who commit these crimes should be tried as adults in criminal court. There are many differences between the justice system for adults and the justice system for juveniles.
