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Teen Court System

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Method Participants Participants in this study were selected via volunteers from the Longview Teen Court System (LTCS) and the Gregg County Texas Juvenile Detention Center (GCJDC), the parent, legal guardian, or otherwise of each participant yet to reach his 18th birthday, and volunteers from the Billy Moore Correctional Center (BMCC). The LTCS and GCJDC are located in Gregg County, Longview, Texas; a major hub city for East Texas with an estimated population of 80,000 as of 2015. The LTCS is a non-profit organization which advocates for adolescents charged with Class C Misdemeanor offenses or less the opportunity to circumvent the Longview Municipal Court judicial system. Although it is presided over by a real Judge, if adolescents successfully …show more content…

Participants from the GCJDC (n = 44) ranged in age from 10–16 (M = 14.2, SD = 1.16). The identified ethnicities were: Caucasian (14%), African American (66%), Hispanic (16%), and “Other” (3%). Prior to incarceration, none reported living with two parents, 30% reported living with one parent, 45% reported living with an extended family member, 21% reported living with a non-relative, and 4% reported being homeless. Age, ethnicity, religiosity, political affiliation, and socioeconomic status (SES) data is located in Table I. Per the Gregg County Court, participants were compensated $5 deposited into his commissary account for volunteering contingent upon completing the study. Inclusionary measures included the clinical diagnosis of ODD, CD, ADHD, or any combination thereof, and a minimum of one sexually related conviction on one’s record. However, this sexually related conviction did not have to be the reason for one’s current …show more content…

Participants were asked to complete the Attitudes Toward Sexual Offenders scale (ATS); a 36-item self-report measure designed by Hogue (1993) which he adapted from the Attitudes to Prisoners scale (ATP; Melvin, Gramling, & Gardner, 1985). The phrase ‘sex offenders’ replaces the word ‘prisoners’ in modified form. A sex offender is defined broadly as any person convicted of a sexual offense varying from lewd and lascivious acts (e.g., exhibitionism and voyeurism) to molestation and rape. On a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’, each item measures the range of positive from to negative perceptions and attitudes held by an individual. Sample stems include: “Sex offenders are immoral”; “Most sex offenders can be rehabilitated”; and “Sex offenders never change”. Scores range from 0 – 144; wherein higher scores are associated with positive attitudes toward sex offenders. That is, higher scores correlate to more liberal attitudes in regards to tolerance and acceptance of sex offenders. Scores were obtained using

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n 1984, Leroy Hendricks was convicted of having indecent liberties with two 13-year old boys. As punishment for his action, Mr. Hendricks was remanded to the penal institutional system to serve his prison sentence. After serving ten years in prison, Mr. Hendricks was going to be stepped down to a halfway house. In the state of Kansas, they implemented the Sexually Violent Predator Act in 1994. This act “establishes procedures for the civil commitment of persons who, due to a mental abnormality or a personality disorder, are likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence (Brody & Acker, 2010, p.4).

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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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A final criticism is that it subjects sex offenders to indefinite punishments (Levenson,

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Chapter Eight of the book Flawed Criminal Justice Policies, authors take the closer look at the laws and faulty policy regarding the sex offenders. According to the book policy makers started the myriad laws to protect the public from the sex offenders with increased prison sentences, and restricting the residences to the violators. Today we have very similar situation when it comes to treatment of sexual offenders. The process starts with the sex offender being committed to the prison sentence, and lastly to being registered as a sex offender on many public websites, so that the people could distinguish who the sex offender is and where he/she lives. In this chapter we can learn about a lot of different statues that were made to protect people from the sex offenders.

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The notification system is based on the sex offenders risk to reoffend and the danger they may pose to the community. Many states adopted a three-tier notification system for the sex offender registry; tier one is for offenders evaluated to be low risk for reoffending, tier two is for those offenders assessed at a medium risk and tier three are for those offender that meet criteria for the highest risk of reoffending (National Institute of Justice, 2009a). Megan’s Law is a federal law with subsequent state laws, states have discretion in developing criteria for reporting Megan’s Law however; private and personal information related to the registered sex offender must be available to the public (National Institute of Justice, 2009b). Under Megan’s Law, the tracking database is monitored by states and involves community notification when a sex offender moves into a

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Megan’s Law is a federal law that has changed the course of the criminal justice system in the United States of America. Prior to Megan’s law, convicted sex offenders were able to easily re-offend due to lack of public notification. In the year 2000, it is estimated that there were more than 248,000 sexual victimizations and over an 8-year period in the United States there were 366,460 attempted or completed rapes and sexual assaults (Welchans, 2005). The prevalence of sexual assault, rape, and pedophilia in the United States has sparked a large conversation over the last decade, which has led to the creation of several laws, including Megan’s Law. This analysis of Megan’s Law will focus on the positive aspects that implementing this law has

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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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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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“Teenager’s Jailing Brings a Call to Fix Sex Offender Registries,” is an article written by Julie Bosman, and published by the New York Times Newspaper. The article is written about a 19-year-old named Zachery Anderson who is listed on a sex offender registry for life. The cause of this was talking to an under aged female through a dating app called “Hot or Not.” Although, Zachary Anderson did not know that the girl who had lied about her being 17, was actually 14, he later plead guilty to what had happened. Reading this newspaper article had me thinking about all sorts of things, whether it was about the fact that Zachary had sex with a female who was under the age of consent in Michigan or the fact that he was put on the sex offender registry.

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The benefits of creating typologies for sexual offenders, is to show how each category of offenders differ and how they are alike since it is such a diverse group. Typologies also show their motivation, how they specialize and will they be a recidivist. This helps the law enforcement to know what to look for as well as the doctor if they are put into treatment it tells the doctor how to treat

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America has a strict law, which protects our citizens from predators; sex offender registries are exemplifications. In the article “Protect Yourself, Family From Sex Offenders,” Rick Schneider argues that sex offender’s name should not be taken off even after they had served their time. Many can argue that registries are a good way for the government authorities to keep track, and to protect the community from any violence caused by sex offenders. For example, many people may believe the registry protects people from predators because it allows others to know where the predators are and how likely they are to strike again. On the other hand, some people consider that it is “horribly unfair” to release the names and addresses of offenders

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Written Paper 3: Laws and Order Sex offender legislation is the most important factor to try and keep neighborhoods safe from sexual offenders. Sex offender legislation is a form of prevention or punishment for sex offenders by enforcing different policies and laws that address sexual offending. This type of legislation is created to try and keep the public safe from sexual offenses by regulating the behavior of sexual offenders and by providing resources and support to victims of such crimes.

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Furthermore, when information sharing is increased it allows greater access to data on sex offenders. This would help law enforcement to promote justice by having equal access to information. However, at this stage there is not enough research to show to what extent this will impact the justice system’s efficiency. Members of the public can protect themselves Proponents for sex offender registers claim that they provide an effective preventative tool because, if people know where offenders reside, those in the community can protect themselves from the risk that sex offender pose.

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Y. (2010). Sex Offender Registries: Fear without Function? SAEN, Inc. Retrieved April 3, 2018, from https://www.saeninc.org/registry_effectiveness Bonnar-Kidd, K. K. (2010). Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism. American Journal of Public Health, 100(3), 412–419.

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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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