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Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults In Criminal Court?

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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. If a juvenile is defined as a person under the age of eighteen can we justify trying them in as an adult? Is convicting juveniles as adults a better solution? The first juvenile …show more content…

There are five ways in which a juvenile can be prosecuted in adult court. One way is through a judicial wavier, this is allowed in most states, where judges have the discretion to have a youth’s case tried in the adult criminal court. The second way is through statutory exclusion, twenty-nine states automatically require a juveniles’ case to be tried in the adult court based on the age of the youth and/or the alleged crime. The other three ways are allowed in fewer states and include direct file or “prosecutorial discretion” where juvenile court judges the decision to have a youth 's case tried in the adult criminal court. There also mandatory waivers in few states which require juvenile court judges to automatically transfer a youth 's case to adult criminal court for certain offenses or because of the age or prior record of the offender. Lastly, in some states; there are age of majority statutes which automatically prosecute sixteen and/or seventeen years old depending on the state as adults (Campaign for Youth …show more content…

Those in favor of trying juveniles as adults believe that it deters and minimizes crimes being committing by all minors. That trying juveniles as adults will bring the greatest good to the most amount of people. According to an article posted by the American Bar Association by Nicole Scialabba, “the increase in laws that allow more juveniles to be prosecuted in adult court rather than juvenile court was intended to serve as a deterrent for rising youth violent crime.” It is no secret that youth commit crimes in our society. In 2014, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made an estimated 1 million arrests of persons under age 18 (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention). It is debated that juveniles are committing more serious and violent crimes because the youth think they can get off easy and take advantage of the system put in place. Those in favor of youth offenders being tried as adults believe that as juveniles are punished to the full extent of the law, future youth offender will think twice before committing a criminal act. In support of this, seventy-five percent of the transferred juveniles interviewed by Redding and Fuller (2004) felt that their experiences in the adult criminal justice system had taught them the serious consequences of committing crimes. As one juvenile explained, “[Being tried as an adult] showed me it’s not a game anymore. Before, I thought that since I’m a juvenile I could do just about anything and just get 6 months if I got

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1. Do children/juvenile have the capacity to understand the consequences of their crimes? Are the children/ juveniles able to be rehabilitated? Answer: Juveniles are between the ages of fifteen years and seventeen years of age. So, no they should not be tried as an adult because they are not eighteen years of age.

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1031 Words | 5 Pages

A writer for The Economist by the name of Estudillo Mary Onelia had a very strong opinion on this topic. Onella stated, “Trying minors as adults will toughen the system and hold someone responsible. Minors must be fully culpable for their behavior if we are to deter future delinquents from committing violent crimes,” however; this is not the case. Placing a juvenile in prison is not teaching them how to be lawful adults it is locking them up in a building where they are exposed to older criminals whom will not set them on a successful

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696 Words | 3 Pages

a. States are being urged to increase the age required to be tried as an adult, more laws could be made to assist in decreasing youth indictment rates. b. But I do believe that the most important form of action would be to fully separate the juvenile and adult correctional facilities entirely. Conclusion I. In summary, children being tried as adults is becoming a growing problem in modern day America, it’s successfully corrupting our children into believing that the place they belong is the same place where 48 percent of them are sexually assaulted within the first forty-eight

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816 Words | 4 Pages

Research has shown that transferring adolescents from juvenile court to criminal court increases the recidivism rate. Thus, exposing minors to adult treatment increases crime. Generally, juvenile detention facilities are equip for rehabilitation, offering programs to aid reformation. Society does not hold youth to the same maturity level of an adult. Furthermore, juveniles are not afforded the same rights as adults (e.g. smoking, drinking, voting) because we understand their inability to make responsible decisions.

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1198 Words | 5 Pages

Juveniles should not be tried and condemned as adults because they do not have the capacity to perceive what is good and bad. There has been a lot of controversy towards the subject of juveniles in the Court Justice System because many feel that juveniles are to young to be entangled with the law. People need to consider the possibilities of what the Juvenile Justice system can do to help and rehabilitate these delinquents instead of sending them off to an adult court to be tried as an adult, even though they are minors. When Juveniles are tried as adults, people do not know what type of person is being sent to jail and what type of person they are going to release into society later on. In the end Juveniles should not be charged as adults.

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344 Words | 2 Pages

When kids that are only 16 and 17 are tried in adult court, studies have shown that these teens are more likely to commit crimes and serious offenses. For this reason some kids get into a cycle of trials, Juvy, and release because that is all they know how to do, because when they are released they don’t know how to live a normal life.

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818 Words | 4 Pages

A juvenile is an adolescent under age for specific benefits, for example, voting, consuming alcoholic refreshments, or consenting to sexual acts. If accused of a criminal or juvenile offense, usually an adolescent is not tried in an adult criminal court, but the case is handled in the juvenile court. However, when severe law violations are affirmed in numerous purviews, adolescents may be transferred to adult criminal courts. A few jurisdictions have statutory necessities that adolescents be tried in adult criminal courts in the event that they are accused for capital wrongdoing. Adolescents have their own particular court system.

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1096 Words | 5 Pages

There have been several courts in many states that have lowered the ages at which youths could be tried in adult criminal courts and expanded the ranges of young offenders that are subject to adult adjudication and punishment; at the same time, the severity of the penalties available to the juvenile court increased (Grisso, 2003). With the current legal developments have raised an important issue of developmental capacities needed to participate effectively in their trials (Grisso, 2003). Although courts and legislatures in some states have determined that youths adjudicated in juvenile and criminal courts must be competent, but there has been little recognition that youths in criminal court may not meet these standards due to developmental

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I. Thesis For generations, the argument whether juveniles should be waived to adult courts or not has been a prevalent one in our society. Some agree that waiving the juveniles to adult courts will reduce their recidivism rate, due to the harsh sentences and a lifelong record next to their name. However, in light of the argument these individuals fail to consider that the level of maturity of the juvenile is not the same as an adult. The cognitive development of the juvenile is still in process when they are underage, causing them to act impulsively without thinking about the consequences of their actions.

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Young people should be given the opportunity of rehabilitation and redemption. The theory of deterrence is “predicated on the assumption that individuals weigh the costs and rewards associated with alternative actions, and select behaviors that maximize gains and minimize the cost” (Vago). The judgment and the ability to weigh the risks of a crime are not of an adult stage; therefore, there is an injustice present in the way the justice system prosecutes the youth of America. There is no reform proposed as “incarceration is used as the primary response to social problems” (NAACP). Instead of being offered treatment, “some of 10,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons on any given day in America” (Children).

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624 Words | 3 Pages

From an administrative and monetary perspective, there are very little differences between the juvenile and adult justice systems thus, combining the two would allow for the pooling of resources, streamlining of procedures and elimination of redundancies. In addition, assuming that some of the practice carries over from the juvenile system to that of the adult, offenders from both could benefit from the sealing of records and the use of closed proceedings; we could eliminate stigmas. Nevertheless, combining the two does nothing more than feed the criminality of the young. There is a distinct difference between the adult offender and the juvenile offender; the developing mind. The young may be impulsive and reckless which contributes to

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INTRODUCTION In the United States, juveniles are incarcerated or otherwise held in custody at an extraordinaryrate.1 InSeptemberof2002,theUnitedStateshoused104,413juvenilesinavariety of facilities including training schools, treatment centers, jails, and prisons.2 This number, when viewed per capita, reveals the rate of juvenile custody in the United States—336 juveniles are incarceratedforevery100,000.3 Thisnumbertowersovereveryothercountrystudied,withSouth Africa the next closest country at 69 juveniles per 100,000.4 Predictably, many more juveniles come into contact with the criminal justice system but do not ultimately experience custody.5 Many juveniles, especially those accused of more serious crimes, find themselves in adult court, rather

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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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598 Words | 3 Pages

Juveniles who commit a crime, should they be sentenced and punished the same as adults? I believe they should not receive the same punishment and sentence. In order to provide my opinion and prove it’s a valid point, I shall back it up with my own ideas, and ideas from this article and hope the details from the article support my opinion. In order to support my opinion on why Juveniles should not be treated as the same as adults, we need to look at the Positive side of Juveniles NOT being treated the same as adults.

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