...Juvenile Crimes and Social Deviance Juvenile crimes have been decreasing since their all-time high in 1994 however the nature of their crimes had been drastically changing for the worse. Social deviance is defined as actions and/or behaviors that violated social norms. Over the past few decades many children have desired to be deviant while others have been forced into it. Petty crimes are becoming more common in today’s society, which is causing kids to have to go to more extremes to be deviant and thus resulting in more severe reactions to this behavior. The cause of juvenile violence is frequently related to one of two things; the child was exposed to violence when they were young or they are trying to fit into a deviant crowd. In 2008 approximately 10% of the children under 18 had been injured in an assault, 46% had been assaulted and 60% had been exposed to violence and/or crime. (Crime Solutions) Children who have been exposed to violence when they were young are more likely to commit crime when they are older. Children who were younger than 12 when they were exposed to the violence or crime are the most likely to commit crimes later in life. (United States Department of Justice) Children who face violence at home are also more likely to become a runaway, which makes it much easier to run into the wrong crowd. There is an increasing amount of children in abusive homes who end up trying to become vigilantes towards the abuser in order to make the abuse stop...
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...Should Youths be treated as Adults in the Canadian Justice System? Varun Thapar Due Date: March 1, 2011 Mr. Roberts The Youth Justice System was originally created in 1908; and was brought about because the government considered facilitating the youth so they wouldn’t be given the same sentence as adults. This early incarnation of youth legislation was called the Juvenile Delinquents Act This act was for young offenders with a guiding philosophy that juveniles are not criminals but children who need direction. An offender was classified to be between the ages of 7-18 could be tried in this system. The accused does not have a right to a lawyer, hearings were closed; and the charter did not apply. Examples of sentencing options were light and included fines and placements in foster care home. In 1984, the Young Offenders Act was changed to the idea that youths are less responsible for crimes than adults. Some of the amendments of this new act were a narrower range of age, 12-17 year olds and the accused must be advised of right to a lawyer, the Charter rights apply, and the accused could be sentenced to open or closed custody, and could be sentenced to 5 years for murder. In 2002, harsher punishments were introduced to the Act along with a change of name to the, Youth Criminal Justice Act. The driving idea for this act is that tougher sentences prevent crimes but rehabilitation is vital. It has been is debated as to whether or not youth should be given the same sentences...
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...October 21, 2015 Adult Crime Doesn’t Mean Adult Time In “Adult Crime, Adult Time” published in the Washington Post on March 29, 1998, Linda J. Collier argues that there should be a less lenient juvenile system. She reasons that as of 1998, since 1965 the number of 12-14 year olds arrested for committing violent crimes has tripled and that the juvenile system was “developed with truants, vandals, and petty thieves in mind, but not appropriate for the violent juvenile offenders of today”(qtd. Collier). She proceeds to argue that detaining a rapist or murderer in a juvenile facility until the age of 18 or 21 isn’t at all enough of a severe punishment. Collier demands that children under the age...
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...Juveniles convicted as adults: Unconstitutional How does placing a child in an adult prison, where they risk sexual abuse that eventually leads to suicide, teach them a lesson? Juveniles, who commit serious crimes, are usually seen as convicts or criminals who should pay the price of what they committed even if that means sentenced as an adult and occasionally with no parole. Some of these juveniles who are being tried as adults suffered from psychological traumas caused at home by their parents or own family members. People need to know what can be done to prevent these crimes. Placing a juvenile in an adult trial is unconstitutional and is abusing their rights. Many of the juveniles prosecuted as adults are placed in adult jails pretrial, where they are at risk of harm, abuse and suicide. People need to understand the importance and dangers of incarcerating a child in an adult correctional facility. The administration of justice should implement meaningful juvenile justice reforms such as, rehabilitation centers, counseling, and they should correspondingly perform psychological test before being prosecuted in an adult trial so the U.S can uphold the dignity and human rights of our children and ensure that no child in our nation is considered a throwaway person. Juvenile crime rates soared in the mid- 1990s, and that is why every state initiated strict laws against juveniles and began incarcerating minors as adults. That high rates of juvenile delinquency dropped quickly...
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...Minors Tried as Adults Toni Lowery Strayer University ENG 215 February 1, 2015 Minors Tried as Adults The topic chosen for further research is should the minors who commit crime be tried as adults? The topic is interesting and current, and affect our society every day. A fourteen years old commits a crime, depending on the seriousness of the offence, that child should be tried as an adult. People need to be responsible for their actions. Youths who commit crimes is grown enough to do the crime, so they are grown enough to take the responsibility for their actions. It is unfair, not only to adults, but also to society, to be punished for having minors commit crimes and get away with it. If child want to start acting like adults, they should be treated as one. This paper will discuss the fact that minors who commit crimes should be punished the same way as adults. We see on the news how often minors who have committed horrible crimes are given leniency because of their age. The action of the minors today will affect our future, and if our society, schools, courts, justice system allow anyone, no matter of the age to get away with criminal activity, then the same crimes will be repeated over and over again. There are different crimes, a different people and different intention for committing crimes. Minors needed to be protected by laws, changes, and sentenced accordingly, but, also they need to be punished by the same reasons. Before...
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...The History of Juvenile Justice system: The juvenile justice system began in the 18th Century, when children as young as 7, could stand trial in criminal court and is found guilty they could be sentenced to prison. Around 1825 the separation of juveniles and adult offenders were in effect and soon after, facilities for juvenile were established. In 1899 the first juvenile court was established in Illinois. The British doctrine of parens patriae, where the state would intervene in the lives of children and act as the parent and focus on the welfare of the children. By 1910 many states established juvenile courts services and by 1925 the juvenile courts were trying to figure out a way to merely help children through treatment rather than punishing...
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...for adults and juveniles differs in many significant ways. An adult system is for eighteen and older who have committed a crime. The juvenile system is for young offenders who commit serious crimes. Adult offenders have to get a lawyer in order to meet a judge, and juvenile that is under eighteen needs to have their parents present to meet the judge. There are more crimes committed by juveniles. Some examples are school shootings, and murders. Sometimes kids commit a serious crime and are sent to adult prison. Two young girls who lured another twelve year old girl in to the woods, and stabbed her 19 times to please slender man. The two girls are being charged with first degree intentional attempted homicide. They are likely to be tried as adults and long prison sentences. These girls were only trying to please a fictional character who they thought was real and lived in the woods. They thought if they pleased slender man he would not come after them. The girls did not do this intentionally, they were doing it for their safety. Some people think we should treat them as adults and others think they are still kids whose brains are not yet fully developed. Adult courts tend to be more punishing, while juvenile courts tend to be more rehabilitative. Every state has their own laws and rules they make and follow. Each state is left up to their own devices on what to do. The district attorney has the power to charge a young defendant as an adult. Juveniles are not considered adults, crime...
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...Juveniles being tried as adults Student’s name University affiliation Juveniles being tried as adults Introduction The first juvenile court started in the United States of America in 1899. The two basic principles on which the court juvenile court were founded are one, and juveniles were not mature enough to take responsibility of their actions compared to adults and two, it was easier to rehabilitate juveniles as compared to adult criminals (Grisso & Schwartz, 2000). In more than a century, these principles remained the benchmarks of the juvenile courts as they expanded from Chicago, their original birthplace, into other states and eventually in other parts of the world. However, in the recent year rising incidences of juvenile criminals being tried as adults has increased as it was before the advent of the first juvenile court. Much of this stems from the public outrage against the children who, in high numbers, are engaging in violent crimes. Many countries have adopted legislation that permits them to juveniles to be tried as adults. In some countries, there are provisions that allow prosecutors to try children as young as 14 years under certain circumstances (Grisso & Schwartz, 2000). Juvenile courts establishment aimed at separating the youthful offenders from the adult criminals and thereafter processing and rehabilitating them in forgiving and less punitive manner compared to the adult criminal system (Redding & Fuller, 2004)...
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...Two states allow children sixteen and up to be sentenced to this, all other states have a eighteen limit (Pros and Cons Part Two). It should be legal to have the death penalty for juveniles, because dangerous criminal juveniles deserve the same punishment as adults. Juveniles are equal to a grow adult when they break these severe laws. Dangerous criminal minors deserve the same punishment as anyone else. Countries that support these executions include the United States, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen(History of the Death Penalty, Linn). Ninety Seven children have been executed since the year 1900 (HIstory of the Death Penalty, Linn). These children are dangerous people and we cannot trust them again in a public setting. The counties that allow this penalty see them as criminals , there is no age limit for committing crimes. Another reason for juvenile death penalty would include how they would live the rest of their lives out....
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...The Age and Time for the Crime in Juvenile Justice Natasha Yancey Strayer University March 16, 2014 The Age and Time for the Crime The adult criminal system is designed for the prosecution of adults not children. Both state and federal legislative have responded to juvenile crime by focusing on sending more and younger children to adult criminal court. How and where do we draw the line between adults and children? Where do we draw the line between justice and malice? Juveniles that commit crimes should be punished for the crimes that they commit, but they should not be tried as an adult. This paper will offer information on why there needs to be changes in the juvenile justice system, and it will analyze why the increased prosecution of juveniles in adult court is disastrous and nothing but a threatening policy. This policy is unjust, harmful to children and does nothing to increase public safety; consequently punishing adolescents as adults does more harm than good. Thomas J Bernard a professor of criminal justice and sociology at Pennsylvania State University explained how psychologists and sociologists saw young offenders. Bernard’s (2010) book The Cycle of Juvenile Justice recognized that minors are children and not adults. (p. 45) Bernard (2010) further explains that during the 18th century children were tried as adults. Juveniles as young as the age of seven could be tried and sentenced in criminal courts. (Bernard 2010) His research expounds on the Society...
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...There have been many arguments about whether or not juveniles should be sentenced to mandatory life without parole. The execution of juveniles for the crimes they committed when they were under the age of eighteen is a huge issue that the Supreme Court has had to deal with. It all started out in 1972 with Furman vs Georgia when the Court ruled that life without parole did not violate the eighth amendment of the constitution. Throughout the years there have been many different opinions about the situation. The majority of supreme court justices believes that it should not be mandatory to sentence a juvenile to mandatory life without parole for committing crimes but the other minority argues to retain it. I agree with the majority of justices who argue that sentencing a juvenile to life mandatory life without...
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...Should people less than eighteen years old (minors/juveniles/adolescents) ever be tried and sentenced as adults? The legislation of trying and sentencing youth criminals under adult justice system has been a hot topic of debate. Supporters of tough laws on insist the need to enforce harsh penalties to uphold justice. The practice of treating youth criminals as adults since the 1990s is a result of the steep rise in youth crimes. However, youth advocates argue that tough laws should not be applied to youth offenders anymore. The core issue of the controversy is whether, because adolescents are biologically and mentally different from adults, they should be treated differently. For minor offenses such as property crime in which nobody is killed, it is understandable that harsh punishments are not necessary. But there need to be tougher penalties for severe crimes that threaten and take others’ lives. Hence, juveniles under eighteen years old who commit violent crimes such as murder and rape should be tried and sentenced as adults in order to punish them for their mistakes, to lower the crime rates and to protect the society. Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor from Temple University, describes the adolescent brain as “a car with powerful gas pedal and weak brakes” (cited in Hansen, 2010, p.123). This is a good illustration of the fact that humans’ psychosocial abilities do not develop fully before reaching adulthood as cognitive abilities do. A series of experiments studying...
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...Juvenile Delinquency and the Adult Court System Soc. 321 Juvenile Delinquency February 21, 2013 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Social Norms in Society 4 The founding father 4 Gangs 4 Juvenile Delinquent 5 Juvenile Justice 5 Juvenile Prosecution 6 Waivers 7 Factors for Waivers ...
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...Should Youthful Offenders Be Tried As Adults? Ervin Franklin March 28, 2012 SWK 501: Policy II History of Juvenile Justice System: “Many people believe juvenile courts were invented to "go easy" on young criminals. The actual reasons are more complicated. The 19th Century reformers who advocated the establishment of juvenile courts were just as interested in crime control as they were in social work. Admittedly, some reformers were motivated by a desire to save growing numbers of poor and homeless children from the streets of America’s cities. Others, however, were mainly interested in removing the legal obstacles that prevented criminal courts from dealing effectively with young hoodlums” http://www.urban.org/publications/307452.html The Juvenile Justice System was founded on the principle that “children are fundamentally different from adults, and that the justice system that deals with them should reflect these differences” (Setting the stage). Two themes make the system: the welfare of young offenders and the protection of public safety. “State legislatures are responsible for establishing juvenile courts and for framing their legal responsibilities. Thus, state lawmakers have the power to decide who falls under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and who remains under the jurisdiction of the criminal court. At one time, the issue was relatively simple. States merely decided at what age an individual was to be fully responsible for...
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...Among the harmless cartoons and educational entertainment lies violent humor and use of weaponry for excitement. While many may argue that simple television shows or explicit song lyrics could never drive a minor to commit a crime or even murder, it has been linked to many violent cases involving children. According to Jalongo (2013), research on the human brain has shown that powerful images tend to stay in our memories and are easier for the brain to recall. Grand Theft Auto IV raked in $500 billion its first week on sale (USA Today, 2013). Grand Theft Auto is a series of video games in which the “fun” of the game is to kill, car-jack, and sleep with prostitutes while completing missions with story lines that involve drugs, violence, and gang activity. It has since been the object of controversy since the first game of series entitled Grand Theft Auto, released in 1997(Stout, 2013). One problem that exists in crime is the lack of known reported crimes due to inconsistent reporting. Many crimes go unreported due to fear of retribution from criminals and as well as concern of profiling past criminals and their creditably. Internal issues exist within the law enforcement, the consent question how serious is juvenile crime and is it just normal behavior issues or is it a sign of a future adult criminal. Once a minor has committed a crime, the argument of which punishments are appropriate for both the crime and the age of the offenders arises. Many court officials and...
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