Juveniles & Their Delinquency

Raven Jackson

Juveniles & Their Delinquency

Abstract
Juveniles from troubled homes have a reason behind their delinquency. Theres two
groups: one group gets in trouble for the sake of getting in trouble, the needed attention, and the
other group doesnt get in serious trouble without any type of reason like life factors. Most who
are traveling down a road that leads to adult imprisonment are delinquents because they have to
be due to life factors such as needing to steal or sell drugs at a young age for money, they have
simply fallen into the wrong crowd and want a sense of family or attention when there isnt one
back at home, or the kid happen to be a part of an endless cycle. Handling the juveniles in a
broken system is another set of problems ranging from the debate of whether to charge select
groups as adults to not knowing how to handle special need juveniles. Their delinquency isnt
always understand by others. The problem is the system sometimes doesnt understand or know
how to handle juveniles. The purpose of this report is to tell people more about the system and
how juveniles are handled.
Juveniles as Adults
For years, the juvenile justice system struggled with how to deal with juvenile
delinquency, how to respond to it, and how to deal with it varies a lot. When the juvenile crime
rates and the increase in violence started rising in the 1980s, the idea of dealing with the youth
was the use of punishment, deterrence, and incapacitation. Its a get tough approach to the
problem which made assumptions about crime. Legislative reforms were based on rational
choice principles, which focused on individual decisions to commit crime and on using more
severe sanctions to deter criminal behaviors (Cavanaugh & McShane 2016). Rational choice

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principles is a principle that assumes that a person always makes prudent and logical decisions
that provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and that are in their highest selfinterest. Things kept getting flipped flop, most now refer to the system as broken because of
how certain kids and teenagers are handled, those who commit more serious crimes such as
murder. The Legislative reforms (national) didnt help too much in that area.
With the change in policies that related to the get tough approach that revolved around
the reform when 2010 rolled around, the new approach was to raise the age of juvenile
jurisdiction as well as remove juveniles who were in the adult criminal justice system. Along
with these moves, reducing the time of incarceration and finding ways to identify things that
correlates with juvenile delinquency became one of the tops factors in trying to change the
approach on dealing with juveniles. Its not often, but things are severely conflicted when a child
is tried as an adult. It defies logic one would say. If the crime is serious enough, the child can
be tried as an adult. Todays system is much different from the early 1900s where children were
put to death for serious crimes. In most cases, kids under the age of eighteen are dealt with by the
juvenile system, but the district attorney can petition the court to request a transfer to adult court,
this is called a certification process or waiver process.
An example on how the system dealt with serious crimes committed by kids is the case of
a ten year old kid who murdered a ninety year old women under the care of his grandfather. On
Monday, prosecutors there charged a ten-year old boy as an adult for the murder of an elderly
woman under the care of his grandfathermaking him one of the youngest Americans ever to
face a criminal homicide conviction. (Moraff 2014). The child admitted to choking the lady to
death with her cane, she died shortly after the assault. People were divided over this case for two

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reasons: his age and the crime. Advocates had stated that the details of his crime is secondary to
what it says about the length the country will go to in its treatment of juveniles. Robert
Schwartz, co-founder and executive director of the Juvenile Law Center stated that no other
country in the world that will treats kids like adults.
Pushing kids toward adult courts falls under the get tough approach that started in the
1980s-90s. It wasnt approved until 1998 from Congress, which required juveniles to be over the
age of 14 with serious charges. At least two dozen states have statutory exemptions requiring all
homicide cases to begin in adult court, but almost all of them include age thresholds (typically
between 13 and 15) on criminal prosecution. Only in three statesPennsylvania, Nevada and
Wisconsincan a ten-year old be tried as an adult. (Moraff 2014) When it comes to situations
like these, everyone, even those who work within the system are divided. The debate on whether
to try kids as adults in these situations falls under one of the reason of why the juvenile justice
system is broken. There are kids who have committed these type of acts who were never tried as
adults. For example, a young girl at age fourteen stabbed another girl to death in a fight and she
remains in the care of the juvenile justice system.
Another example is two twelve year old girls who led another girl into the woods and
stabbed her nineteen times and left her there. They claim they were trying to appease the
Slenderman, a fictional bogeyman who preys on children. In Wisconsin, all killers over the age
of ten must begin their cases in criminal court, and on March 13th, a Waukesha judge decided to
try them as adults. If they are convicted, these two girls could be in prison for up to 65 years.
(Economist 2015). The Economist stated that between 1990 and 2010, the number of juveniles in
adult jails went up by nearly 230%. In Pennsylvania any child accused of homicide must begin

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in adult court. In Mississippi, a 13-year-old accused of a felony will be sent to adult court, but in
Alabama, offenders remain juveniles until they are 16 (though judges can choose to send those as
young as 14 to criminal court). In North Carolina and New York, 16-year-olds always face adult
courts. (Economist 2015). The Law varies all over the country when it comes to kids being
tried as adults.
Juveniles, Trust, and Community
Building trust is an issue with police and the criminal justice system as more problems
arises with the treatment people have getting has been rising over the years from the police. The
same things can be said about juveniles and the juvenile justice system. Our most contact in the
criminal justice system is with the police more than anything whether you are a child or an adult.
Police are associated with fear now than anything else. To help kids from getting on the path of a
juvenile, some form of trust in their community needs to be built. The effect of positive school
community on reducing problem behaviors and promoting responsible behavior is also well
documented through longitudinal and intervention studies. In fact, as cited in a study by Clea
McNeely and colleagues. (Tyler 2015). When a child is surrounded by positive factors like a
positive community, activities, and positive social situations, it has a good effect on their wellbeing.
Kids who are doing poorly, arent engaging in activities, or positive social interactions
has a high chance of falling victim to the wrong crowd. Associating in negative behavior can
come from peer pressure in school or the neighborhood, especially if said neighborhood has a
decent gang influence then its easy to have a child fall into that group. It helps children to have

Juveniles & Their Delinquency

some type of positive community whether it's within their school or neighborhood when their
family falls flat. Building trust somewhere within some type of community can lower the

chances of a child getting off track. A child feeling supported by teachers and their peers can put
a child on the right path. With trust and academic success, the child can do better than another
who doesnt have trust and academic success.
Race and Delinquency
Race and the criminal justice system has their own set of issues such as racial disparities.
Minorities are overrepresented in the system, both adult and juvenile. Racial youth minorities
such as black are twice as likely to be arrested as their white peers. Under the current JJDPA,
states are required to address this "disproportionate minority contact" at each level of the system,
from arrests to incarceration. However, there is no clear mandate for how to actually reduce that
disproportionate contact (Knefel 2015). Reducing the racial disparities isnt an easy task, but
advocates goal is to reduce the contact the youth has with the system. Breaking down of the
youth groups varies state by state. Theres a growing rate of Hispanics in the juvenile justice
system with a high amount of females. Analysis of data from the Gang Resistance Education
and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program indicates that female Hispanic gang members were
persuaded by their peers to join gangs, a phenomenon more common when there was less or no
parental supervision (Cavanaugh & McShane 2016).
A high amount of minorities tend to live in high crime, poverty stricken areas. Areas
where its easy to become a part of the problem or become the victim. In some cases, these are
choices, but in other cases, they are not. Some may need to engage in crime because they dont

Juveniles & Their Delinquency

have much of a choice. Some kids are left at home to fend for themselves and their siblings by
any means necessary so the choice of not engaging in the negative activities isnt an option to
them. Kids who seek gangs are seeking belonging and a replacement family. In cases with black
youth, gangs in a few black areas are not uncommon. Some have killed when kids rejected the
invitation to join. A person named Sheldon stated race indirectly impacts the scenarios of time
and place where there may be more visibility of a crime or more emphasis on a certain type of

crime response (Cavanaugh & McShane 2016). Because of high crime areas and police activity
around those areas, most likely juveniles who are in those areas will be drawn into the system.
Addressing the gang issues in these areas has done very little to help high crime areas, just
because people believe harsh punishments can deter people from committing further crimes
doesnt always make it so.
Recommendations
Bringing juveniles back into the communities is one of the important things for the
juvenile justice system. Dr. Miller shutdown juvenile detention centers in his state. He release
ninety five percent of those who were held in those centers by 1972, this lead to his experiment
in youth corrections beginning. Nevada in 2015 did something similar to Dr. Miller, they only
closed their maximum security center, but they werent too committed to rehabilitation. They
had a private community to treat and house the juveniles, but they didnt really meet the standard
to do so. Nevada is one of the most expensive states to incarcerate juveniles, they spend
$195,406 per youth per year on incarceration.

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Getting treatment for juveniles and to reintroduce them back into society is important for
them. Treatment can address multiple issues ranging from drug treatment to emotional issues.
Rehabilitation is what usually takes the back burner in the criminal justice system because of
costs, funding gets cut. Rehabilitation is important to aid the juvenile in fixing or learning how to
deal with issues they werent able to deal with properly before they were arrested. They learn a
new set skill of dealing with outside influences, peer pressure, and trouble at home. These
programs also try to help shy juveniles away from drugs and the influences of gangs, they also
get them back into education during their stay. Treatment lowers their chances of returning to
juvenile detention, this can also be said about some adults in prison. This is why treatment is
important.
The Systems Problems
The juvenile justice system has their fair share of problem like the adult system, these
problems arent easily fixed and they may never be fixed. Trying kids as adults already has
people split on different sides, most of the time the court isnt sure what to do. This is one way
on seeing how the system is flawed, but its flawed from all corners for multiple reasons. Racial
minorities are overrepresented in both systems, thats a problem that wont be going away for a
very long time, and its a problem that may take years and years to fix. Problems in this system
may get fixed in the future, but a lot of them are here to stay. This research is a way of pointing
some of the problems with the juvenile justice system, these problems cant be fixed anytime
soon, it would take a lot power thats already not being used correctly.

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Work Cited
Cavanaugh, Michael R., and Marilyn D. Mcshane. Understanding Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2016. EBook Collection. Web. 9 Mar.
2016. Accession Number: 1083097; Language: English
"Children in Adult Jails." The Economist. The Economist, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647347-treating-young-offendersgrown-ups-makes-little-sense-children-adult-jails>.

Knefel, Molly. "Trying to Fix America's Broken Juvenile Justice System."Rolling Stone. Rolling
Stone, 22 Jan. 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trying-to-fix-americas-broken-juvenilejustice-system-20150122>.
Moraff, Christopher. "10-Year-Old Murder Defendant Shows Failure of U.S. Juvenile Justice
System." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 18 Oct. 2014. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/18/10-year-old-murder-defendant-showsfailure-of-u-s-juvenile-justice-system.html
Tyler, Tom R. "Why Trust Matters with Juveniles." American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry Finding Meaning in Community: Trust in and by Young People 85.6,
Suppl (2015): S93-99. PsycARTICLES. Web. 9 Mar. 2016. Accession Number: 201552376-005. Partial author list: First Author & Affiliation: Tyler, Tom R.; Yale
University, New Haven, CT, US. Other Publishers: American Orthopsychiatric

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Association, Inc.; Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Page Count: 7. Issue Publication
Date: Nov, 2015. Copyright Statement: American Orthopsychiatric Association. 2015.