Juvenile Case To Adult Court example essay topic

The question should juveniles go to adult prison is discussed in society and in media. Margaret Talbot article published in The New York Times magazine on rising number of adolescents and teenagers who are being imprisoned alongside adults and impact change may have on American society shows how important is this topic. Over the last ten years, the number of crimes committed by juveniles has substantially increased. By the time teenagers reach the juvenile justice system a lot of time had been lost, because approximately 50 percent of young criminals usually go to adult offending. A Florida study published in 1996 matched 2,738 juvenile delinquents transferred to adult courts with a control group that remained in the juvenile system. "By every measure of recidivism employed, re-offending was greater among transfers than among the matched controls", the researchers stated.

A 1991 study compared juveniles tried in New York adult courts with New Jersey youngsters whose cases remained in juvenile court. It found higher recidivism rates and prompter new arrests for the New York youngsters. A significant, disproportionate, and increasing share of America's crime problem is made up of juveniles. In addition, many of the adults in prison today began their criminal careers as youths and teenagers.

Thus, any systematic attempt to reduce crime and the societal costs associated with it needs to place a high priority on addressing youths. The root causes of crime are many and diverse. Therefore, any hope of addressing those causes successfully requires multi-faceted strategies; neighborhoods, communities, and various levels of government can implement bits and pieces, which can be implemented by neighborhoods, communities, and various levels of government. However, this cannot change the situation and there is no simple, expedient answer that can be imposed from above.

There are several reasons for placing juveniles to adult prisons. First, juveniles are not likely to change their antisocial behavior while being in different institutions, which are aimed at that. Besides, the cost of placement into juvenile institutions is very high$40,000 a year, but still it this system does not bring any positive results. While America's latest crime wave appears to be subsiding, the legitimate fears it aroused in urban America leave a powerful political legacy. Along with new police strategies and more prisons, legislators continue to call for harsher treatment of juvenile offenders long granted special status because of a historic belief in the diminished culpability of children and adolescents. Nearly all states now permit the "waiver" of youngsters charged with serious crimes to adult courts.

In more than half, legislatures have specifically excluded those charged with certain crimes from juvenile court jurisdiction. In some cases the exclusions apply to children as young as 13. Legislation moving forward in the current Congress would expand adult federal court jurisdiction over offenders as young as 14 and give prosecutors, rather than judges, the power to transfer a juvenile case to adult court. For example, if a twelve-year-old child murdered a person, what should be done with punishment?

If a thirty-year-old adult murdered a person, what will be the punishment? Should there be a difference in punishment? Should one be more strict then the other? Should one be more lenient then the other? These are all questions that most people have thought about. With all the youth crime talk in the media, these questions have been asked many times, and we always get the same outcome debate..