Achieving Real Juvenile Justice in the United States Today
When young people commit especially heinous criminal acts, there is a natural temptation to treat them as little adults who deserve the same types of punishments that are meted out to adult offenders, and this has been the case far too often in the United States even in recent years. Indeed, 19 states currently have laws on their books that allow for the execution of juveniles aged 16 and 17 years for capital offenses, and hundreds of juveniles have been sentenced to death since 1973. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of adjudicating and punishing juveniles as adult offenders, as well as what methods have been most effective in addressing juvenile crime in the past. Finally, a discussion concerning optimal strategies for addressing juveniles who commit capital crimes is followed by a summary of the research and key findings concerning these issues in the papers conclusion.
Review and Analysis
1. Many states allow juvenile offenders to be tried and subsequently punished as adults. Do you believe that this is an appropriate and effective method of addressing juvenile offenses and offenders? Why or why not?
According to the definitions provided by Blacks Law Dictionary (1990), an adult is, One who has attained the legal age of majority; generally, 18 years (p. 51), while a juvenile is, A young person who has not yet attained the age at which he or she should be treated as an adult for the purposes of criminal law; in some states, this age is 17 year (p. 867). Therefore, the appropriateness of treating juvenile offenders as adults depends on the crime and circumstances, but this approach also depends on state-level laws for non-federal crimes. This type of situationally based approach to punishing juvenile offenders is consistent with the guidance provided by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which points out, As a society, we recognize that children, those under 18 years old, cannot and do not function as adults. That is why the law takes special steps to protect children from the consequences of their actions and often seeks to ameliorate the harm cause when children make wrong choices by giving them a second chance.
Notwithstanding these fundamental differences between juvenile and adult offenders, though, it is reasonable to suggest that nothing magically transformational occurs in individuals makeup during the 24-hour period between their 17 year and 364-day anniversary and their 18th birthday, meaning that the laws on the age of majority are strict demarcations for legal purposes only rather than as concrete guide to effecting real justice for juvenile offenders. On the one hand, this also means that juveniles who are near their 18th birthday will likely possess the same basic level of maturity that they will have when they reach their majority so treating these individuals as adult offenders just makes sense. On the other hand, though, adjudicating many youths as adults will invariably have lifelong negative implications for the juvenile offenders who could have been treated in a far more enlightened fashion (Ventrell, 2005). Taken together, it is clear that justice cannot be served by treating all juveniles as adults, even for the same criminal offenses, and that the unique circumstances of the youth and the crime must be taken into account.
2. What method is beneficial in addressing juvenile crime?
In reality, the search for the optimal strategy for addressing...
…often intimidated by adults and authority figures, and are therefore more likely to be the victims of coerced confessions, which are often false.
Juveniles are less likely to invoke their Miranda Rights, including their right to legal representation.
Finally, the goals of the death penalty do not apply to juveniles. Retribution aims to give the harshest punishment to the worst offender. Juveniles are the most likely to be capable of rehabilitation. Given their emotional immaturity and lessened culpability, they are not among the worst of the worst (Juveniles and the death penalty, 2021, para. 6).
Therefore, given the finality of the death penalty and their potential for rehabilitation over time, juvenile offenders that are convicted of capital offenses should be incarcerated in an appropriate youth facility until they reach their majority at which time their offense and sentence should be reevaluated for continuance in an adult correctional facility or in a community-based, court-ordered and supervised rehabilitative setting until they are judged fit to rejoin America society.
Conclusion
Although the United States continues to incarcerate more of its citizens than any other industrialized nation today, the research was consistent in showing that attitudes about effecting real justice for juvenile offenders are changing, albeit painfully slowly, for the better. Indeed, in sharp contrast to the state-level juvenile justice systems that were in place as recently as a few years ago, a growing number of jurisdictions are implementing evidence-based approaches to rehabilitating juvenile offenders which hold the promise of helping these young people change their lives for the better on a permanent, lifelong basis. In the final analysis, juvenile offenders are not little adults and deserve special consideration due to the profound psychophysiological changes they are experiencing and their status…
