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Separate Justice System

1307 Words6 Pages

For over a century, states have recognized adults and children, whom have committed crimes, separate from each other. Children are referred to as their own “class” that are less blameworthy and have a greater capacity to change, contrary to adults. To acknowledge these differences, states have established a separate court system for juveniles enclosing a separate, youth-based delivery system. The idea of a separate justice system for the youth is just over a 100 years old. Early in United States history, the law was principally influenced by the common law of England. William Blackstone, one of the most important English lawyers wrote Commentaries on the Laws of England, a widely read book that would start to change the outlook on the youth. …show more content…

A child under the age of seven (infant) can not be trialed for a felony. Children, above the age of 14, could conceivably be charged as an adult if found guilty. The ages of seven-fourteen could fall either way for a child. If a child had the ability to prove the difference between right and wrong, the child may be looking at facing full consequences. During the progressive era, which occurred between 1800-1920, social conditions in the United States were distinguished by mass amounts of immigration and striking amount of urbanization . A Lavish amount of penniless children were left on the streets, becoming involved in criminal activity. In 1899, the first juvenile court was established in Cook County, Illinois. The goals are described as followed by Judge Julian Mack, one of the judges that oversaw the nation’s first juvenile …show more content…

A substantial part of this was to target treatment for the adolescents rather than punishment. One of the first court cases ruled by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Commonwealth V. Fischer in 1905, backed up this primary goal. This case resulted in the long discussion of whether the judge of the trial should have conducted a jury about if the defendant had only made a mistake about knowing if he had consent, or if he indeed raped a girl . In a consequential victory, the Supreme Court upheld Fischer’s conviction and decline to make a special punishment as to

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1622 Words | 7 Pages

There are indication that most criminals have a juvenile records in the US, indicating that crime manifests from a tender age. Therefore, to reverse the incidence of crime, it follows that the best strategy is to reduce the criminal orientation in the juvenile offenders as opposed to hardening them and preparing them for criminal careers. The case of the Crossroads Juvenile Center demonstrates the willingness of the juvenile justice systems to make these changes on the children. References Day, S. (2014). Runaway Man: A Journey Back to Hope.

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693 Words | 3 Pages

If You Can’t Do The Time Don’t Do The Crime Nathaniel Abraham is 11 years old and got the world questioning. Nathaniel had acted with murder. The action was displayed in Michigan of 1997. By then, a law in Michigan was created explaining, “a child of any age may be tried as an adult for severe crimes.” This law shows the fair, just process of criminal action towards all, not just the older.

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1082 Words | 5 Pages

Minnesota, the Court reiterated its earlier assertions about adolescent decisionmaking capacities, concluding that “The State has a strong and legitimate interest in the welfare of its young citizens, whose immaturity, inexperience, and lack of judgment may sometimes impair their ability to exercise their rights wisely” and that the state has a legitimate interest in “ensuring that the minor’s decision is knowing and intelligent.” The Hodgson Court did have access to ample social scientific literature supporting the claim that pregnant minors are no less competent than adults in their ability to make informed decisions about their medical care, including decisions about abortion. But the Court only cited the APA’s amicus brief twice—and only to support striking down the law’s two-parent consent requirement. The Court declined to question whether its assumptions about minors’ decision-making competencies were unfounded, even though the APA’s amicus brief provided evidence to suggest as

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863 Words | 4 Pages

“The court consistently held that children are entitled to the same due process as adults. With that understood, however, the Court has also consistently held that, from a developmental standpoint, youth are different from adults, which greatly impacts how courts should treat them in a whole host of areas, such as waiver of rights, culpability, and punishment” (National Juvenile Defender Center). This shows that the juvenile delinquent cases before In Re Gault were not highly regulated. The Court believed that handling juveniles needed to be very different from the way the courts handle adult cases. In Re Gault changed that.

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

The Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention and Protection Act (JJDPA) was established in 1974 and was the first federal law that dealt comprehensively with juvenile delinquency to improve the juvenile justice system and support state and local efforts at delinquency prevention. This paper will assess the JJDPA and summarize its purpose and implementation and enforcement. Next, there will be a discussion of the historical context of the policy; followed by a focus of the latent consequences. Finally there will be a vignette as to how this Act has affected a person or family as well as personal reflection toward the policy.

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1038 Words | 5 Pages

Supreme Court established in Miller that adolescent offenders’ immaturity requires special consideration in sentencing. The Court’s decisions were influenced in part by the convergence of recent normative research on brain development and on behavioral functioning of adolescents (Grisso and Kavanaugh, 2016). There were two cases that were considered at the same time when the Supreme Court was making their decision. Those were Miller v State and Jackson v State. Both cases involved fourteen year old juveniles murdering another individual.

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344 Words | 2 Pages

The origins of child protection can be the late 1800s, when the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was established in the city of New York. This was at the onset of an incidence in which the treatment of a young child captured the attention of the public in 1875, resulted in the formation of this organization to fight for the rights of the children in the state of New York (Horwath, 2007). Subsequently, other states in the U.S. followed suit, with the notable creation of the very first juvenile court in 1899 to address issues relating to delinquency, neglect and dependence in the state of Chicago (CWLA, 2012). Throughout the subsequent decades, other federal and state regulations and laws were drafted to encompass the protection

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677 Words | 3 Pages

The first major court case to influence our treatment of juveniles today was the Kent v. United States. The case overall, made an impact on the treatment of juveniles today because now juveniles have a right to an attorney, the parents must be notified and either parents or a lawyer must be present during an interrogation, and juveniles must be reminded of his or her right to silence. The main thing that this case influenced was that courts must allow juveniles the right to defend themselves and to be heard when transferring a juvenile over to the adult system. A second major court case was In re Gault.

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Within the urban communities, negative perceptions are magnified. Adolescents are more prone to be a product of their environment, especially those whose parents are incarcerated. Because of this trend adolescents are being incarcerated at an alarming rate and sentenced to adult facilities. Lambie & Randall (2013) states, the United States have imposed harsher penalties on serious young offenders, and have consequently increased rates of incarcerated youth and made it easier for youth to be treated and incarcerated as adults within the justice

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1678 Words | 7 Pages

There are many children in the world who are being put behind bars and detained for alleged wrongdoing without protections they are entitled to. Throughout the world, children are charged and sentenced for actions that should not be considered as adult crimes. Here in the United States, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is age 12. Law enforcement officials and those in the juvenile justice system nationwide tend to mistreat underage individuals by trying cases while working through the lens of an adult. Unfair punishments are still handed down domestically, which is in violation of Supreme Court law.

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636 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine being a child imprisoned for committing a crime for which you did not understand the consequences. Alone and afraid, with only hardened criminals and psychopaths as adult role models, you live in fear. Through a vicious combination of physical, sexual, emotional, and mental abuse, there is no option but to turn back to crime as an adult, and continue the cycle. This is a daily reality for thousands of American juveniles. Yet, we continue to call it the juvenile justice system.

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849 Words | 4 Pages

There are differences between a juvenile court and criminal court in the United States. The focus of the juvenile justice system is on rehabilitation, in hope of deterring the minor away from a life of crime so they will not commit a crime again as an adult. In contrast, the criminal justice system focuses on the punishment and often bases the sentencing outcome on the criminal history of the youth. In a study conducted, Butler (2011) showed that the participants’ experience with adult jails and prisons show that those facilities may instill fear but are otherwise emotionally—and often physically—dangerous for youth. Many of the adult prisoners, who were minors when they enter the adult institution, felt they were forced to “grow

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716 Words | 3 Pages

Juvenile Justice Issues In today’s society the youth generation seems to be facing some problems that there is no solution for. Juveniles are participating in many wrongdoing activities that they are not being held accountable for. I see many gray areas when it comes to the juveniles justice system and I strongly believe there should be changes made in order to help these juveniles be deterred from such behavior so they do not continue down a path that can affect the rest of their lives.

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1043 Words | 5 Pages

Annotated bibliography 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/ More states are considering to raising the age for juvenile crimes before being tried as adult because young offender's mental capacity. The idea is to cut the cost of incarcerate young offender in adult prison and ensure offenders to receive proper education and specialized care to change their behavior. Putting children in adult prison does not deter crime.

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760 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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