Pros And Cons Of The Juvenile Justice System

The Juvenile Justice System: Disabilities and the System

On April 20th, 1999, two teenagers, one 17 and one 18, walked into Columbine High School in Colorado and killed 13 people. On February 14th, 2018, 19-year-old Nicholas Cruz walks in to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and killed 17 people. Societies reaction is how do we prevent it? How do we stop it from being our child’s school? The answer may not be as clear cut as extra gun control or police presence. There may not even be a real answer. Even with talking to our kids, it can still be tough to home in on individual issues. But what kinds of things do juveniles deal with? Bullying, divorce, fitting-in and relationships are just a few issues facing todays teen. Not to

To look more closely at the impact of disabilities, let’s look at just a few. Right off the bat, there are conduct disorders (CD’s) which can impact criminal acts in children. CD’s can vary from individual to individual, but it is essentially when behavior violates rights of others or basic rules such as: bullying, not doing homework, not coming home when you’re supposed to or even running away. This goes beyond what could be considered normal teenage behavior. They can lead to poor grades, poor social and family functioning and much more. In a CD it may start genetically, or it could be impacted by the environment. The disorder is more prevalent in boys, though it does occur in girls too. Crimes affected by CD’s can also vary but could include: assault, arson, rape, theft and murder. Those with CD’s are not lost causes however. With the right training administrators and teachers can effectively diagnose and/or refer individuals for treatment. On the other side of the coin, there are learning disabilities. In a study by C.M. Fink, it was discovered “between 28% and 43% of incarcerated juveniles have special education needs, and many of them have learning disabilities” (as cited in Zheng, 2013). If we were to think about dyslexia, a disorder where kids cannot read, write, spell or do math as well as their peers, we can assume that as they get older it will be harder to get a good

On October 1, 1993, a man named Richard Allen Davis, kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl from Petaluma, California. During his 1996 sentencing, a family dynamics expert was brought in to testify to his childhood. During her time with Davis, she discovered several risk factors for what would later become behavior disorders. Dougan (1996) cites the factors of “rejection, degradation, terror, isolation and exploitation he experienced at the hands of parents who fought physically in front of him, belittled and abused him and ultimately abandoned him.”. He is currently awaiting the death sentence at San Quentin State Prison. If we jump to an even more prolific criminal, we can further explore the impact of behavior disorders. Between 1978 and 1991, a man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin named Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people. He dismembered their bodies and kept body parts as souvenirs. In a recent biography (“Jeffrey Dahmer,” 2017) it was noted that:

He became increasingly withdrawn following the birth of his younger brother and the family's frequent moves. Dahmer claims that his compulsions toward necrophilia and murder began around the age of 14, but it appears that the breakdown of his parents' marriage and their acrimonious divorce a few years later may have been the catalyst for turning these