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JUDICIAL SYSTEM
An Examination into the Current Juvenile Judicial System
Chris Usher
09.11.2018
UCSB, WRIT 109ST
ABSTRACT 2
INTRODUCTION 2
CRIME RATES 3
SURVEY 4
METHODS 4
RESULTS 5
DISCUSSION 5
JUDICIAL FLAWS 7
ADOLESCENT FACTORS 9
CONCLUSION 9
REFERENCES 10
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ABSTRACT
The juvenile judicial system has been representing the youth of this country incorrectly
for a few years now. It has recently become apparent that the juvenile crime rates are
increasing with no signs of slowing down and with this brings the need to reform our
judicial system because it is the best way of reaching out troubled youth. Through the
Uniform Crime Reports, National Crime Victimization Survey and Self-report data, we
can see how and where juvenile crime is rising and why change should be sought. The
juvenile judicial system would be the best place to enact change because while schools
and other outreach programs do play a part, it is solely the judicial system that is
involved with those who need help and guidance the most. But our current juvenile
judicial system no longer benefits the youth it serves and in some cases even fuels their
at-risk behavior. Juvenile courts now process juveniles in a general way instead of
approaching them individualistically, handing out ineffective sentences in the process.
They have strayed away from the effective community based sanctions used in previous
year due to the increase in crime when in reality it is doing the exact opposite of helping.
The youth are at critical ages, finally being able to interpret the world for what it is while
trying to figure out who they are. This plus all the pressure of school and social life, the
youth are vulnerable to at-risk lifestyles. And with the juvenile judicial system playing a
role in their lives as well, if you are living the at-risk lifestyle, letting the weight of an
unjust system rest on the youth as well is unacceptable and could lead to even more
spontaneity of character. Thats is why reform from either generalistic to individualistic
approaches, more community based sanctions, or limiting the juvenile court’s
jurisdiction.
INTRODUCTION
The concept of justice has been engraved in the rise of the United States of America. It is
now on of the main branches of the United States Government, playing the role of
balancing power between the other two branches, the executive and legislative branches
and interpreting the law impartially and fairly, guaranteeing the rule of law and
ensuring the punishment fits the crime. In the judicial branch fall the supreme court and
other federal courts. Now these are all connected through a judicial system, which sets
guidelines for both the supreme court and federal courts to function within in order to
keep the judicial branch true to its nature. “The judicial system is the most expensive
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machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it,” Irving R.
Kaufman. Which it is. The judicial system, whether evident or not, is depended on
everyday, and plays a crucial part in present day society. It protects the people’s freedom
and rights.
Knowing this, it should be a well oiled and efficient machine. However, in recent
studies and investigations, while almost sound, it in fact does fail in certain areas. Just
because something still generally works doesn’t mean it cannot be improved. As many
have claimed, the current judicial system has a way of not serving out the youth
correctly. It picks them up and spits them out as if they were an average criminal when
that is far from the case. The fact is that there is a need to address this inconsistency in
our judicial system and solve the problem to how the youth of this country are being
prosecuted, sentenced and processed. Reevaluation and reform is needed.
“The strength of the juvenile justice system lies in its ability to balance policies of
prevention, rehabilitation, and punishment” (Jenson and Howard 2005). The juvenile
judicial system should be reconstructed on a basis that it is dealing with the youth who
are, generally, first time offenders at most. Its should take a more individualistic
approach when it comes to the youth and truly handout sentencing that would actually
prove effective, instead of allowing them to fall into set and presentenced categories.
Only after this will there be a change in the trending juvenile crime rates.
CRIME RATES
During the 1970s and 80s, juvenile crime wasn’t a big concern. While still prevalent and
process in a serious matter, it never was a of the utmost importance for society. However
since those times the juvenile crime rates have increased. With the introduction of
harder drugs, rebellious culture and more violence and being at such a young age,
juvenile crime rates were able to flourish to new heights. This brought researchers to the
conclusion that there are “well-documented [fact] in criminology that (1) individuals are
most likely to commit crimes during adolescence and young adulthood” (Huizinga et al.,
2003; Sampson & Laub, 1992).
With this new apparent problem a solution began to be sought after to try and
decrease the juvenile crime rates to what they once were. “Policy change was swift
during the early 1990s, when several states held special legislative sessions to address
youth crime” (Jenson and Howard 1998). Most of the changes brought about were a way
of speeding up the whole judicial process for the youth, taking away from the
effectiveness of the sentencing. Juveniles were going in and coming out unaffected, and
occasionally more resentful and prone to criminal activities than before, other times
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simply staying incarcerated. As shown in the figure above, the number of state jail
inmates under the age of 18 skyrocketed from 1990 to 2004.
In some cultures now it’s practically glorified to spend time ‘locked up’ or ‘in the
pen’ because of how commonly the youth are sentenced to harsh punishments. With
advancements in social networking, the music industry, etc. the youth have been
exposed to practically everything and most of it isn’t ideal, making it easy to see that the
crime rates have no intention on stopping their current rise.
To present day there is not any one sole cause to the increase in juvenile crime
rates, many factors attribute to the increase. Poverty, young mothers, family disruption,
social environment and even abortion rates have all been brought into question when
discussing the topic of juvenile crime rates. While all having reason to why they attribute
to the increase, there is no definite way of testing to find the true cause. And even if it
were, there would be no theoretical way to truly affect any of those causes. United States
poverty cannot simply be influenced and solved because money has its on monetary
value that can be changed, i.e. inflation. Planned Parenthood and other safe sex
organizations are currently trying to attack the problem of young/teen pregnancies, and
without even considering their success rates they have already come to be victims of
defunding thanks to the Trump administration. Family disruption cannot be corrected in
anyway due to the fact that there are various ways a family can be separated, i.e.
divorce, deportation, etc.. Social environments are occasionally tailored to a person’s
financial situation, for example a person would less likely partake in criminal activities if
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they grew up in Beverly Hills compared to Chicago. And abortion rates have even came
into discussion simply for that the fact of more abortions, less children to care for, but
that brings up a whole nother ethical argument that strays away from actually solving
anything.
SURVEY
METHODS
Since the 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been collecting data from
police agencies around the country called the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The UCR are
compiled data on crimes known to the police and on arrests. Being collected since 1930,
its allows a study of crime and arrest trends to be conducted relative to time. The UCR
can provide data ranging from a national level to a city level scale upon request,
including information varying from crimes cleared by arrest to characteristics of a
person’s arrests. “However, UCR reporting is voluntary, and the total number of
reporting police agencies varies from year to year. The accuracy and completeness of the
data are affected by the voluntary nature of UCR reporting” (Maltz, 1999)
Additionally, further information about crimes committed is also available from
surveys of crime victims. Starting in 1973, the National Crime Victimization Survey
(NCVS) collects data on crime victimization from a nationally representative sample of
approximately 43,000 households, ranging from people ages 12 and up. “The NCVS
includes crimes whether or not they were reported to the police. Detailed information is
collected on the frequency and nature of the crimes of rape, sexual assault, personal
robbery, aggravated and simple assault, household burglary, theft, and motor vehicle
theft” including the victim's perception of the age of the offender (Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 2000). However because of the difficulty to estimates a person’s age, caution
must be exercised in using NCVS to estimate juvenile crime.
The final way to collect data is through self-report. Self-report data is based off of
surveys of young people and is data on the commission of delinquent acts and crimes,
including crimes not known by the police. This type of data collection is frequently used
for examining juvenile crimes and is usually conducted in schools. Flaws of this type of
data collection include students who did not participate in the survey, i.e. absent
students, dropouts, etc. in particular with the school dropouts since they have higher
rates of delinquency than those who remained in school.
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RESULTS
The table above shows the means and standard deviations of juvenile arrest rates per
100,000 Juveniles from 12 City-Counties from 1985 to 1996.
Of the most recent survey, and on a more national level, it reported about 27% of
juveniles had illegally entered a residence or building and 9% had taken something
worth more than $50. Between 18-22% of juveniles reported fighting in the previous
year. In all adolescents had accounted for roughly 14.2% of violent crimes committed
annually in the United States. Violent crime arrest rates did not change significantly
between 1973 and 1983 but increase by 57% since 1983, and approximately 500 arrests
were made for every 100,000 juveniles in the United States since 1995.
DISCUSSION
This shows that juvenile crime is trending, leading to the predicament society faces
today. Evidence has proven that the youth must be dealt with in a way that positively
affects them, bettering their future and steering them clear of a life a crime. However,
just as mentioned in the methods, we cannot affect the youth in any which way. There
will always be factors in a young child’s life that are incapable of being changed or
controlled.
Now while there are factors that fall into that category there are somethings that
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society does control, i.e. school systems, community recreations, and the judicial systems.
All are present during adolescence but the juvenile judicial system stand above the
others because unlike the rest it generally deals with at-risk youth, the ones causing the
increase in crime and needing of them most help.
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paper can receive fair punishments, because the youth are still at the tender enough age
to still need a proper sentencing to not traumatize them in any way. One must “recognize
the multiple aims of the system, rather than sweep them under the carpet. Once these
aims are acknowledged, it becomes clear that they do not have to be expressed in the
same way everywhere” (Smith 2005). Take the time to full assess why a juvenile is there
that day, and come to a solution that would actually prove effective at preventing the
juvenile from doing the wrongs committed again and learning from them. For example it
is shown the simple interventions held by the community of said juvenile yields greater
effects than those with offenders in institutions. Reverting back to the community based
punishments our juvenile judicial system once revolved around would be ideal because
“communities can prevent delinquency by designing programs that address known risk
factors for antisocial behavior” and other influences (Jenson and Howard 1998).
JUDICIAL FLAWS
There is more that enough evidence to prove that the juvenile judicial system should be
reformed. This dilemma has been allowed to go on for to long and it is time that it be
addressed because not only will this help solve our increasing juvenile crime rate, but
also help discover how to effectively divert a person from their at-risk lifestyles.
The major concern that should be addressed in the juvenile judicial system is the
fact that its gone from an individualistic based system to a generalized one. The youth
are being categorized by their charges and nothing else, no longer looking in depth to the
why and how of their original situation. It now relies on policies stressing “punishment
and control of young offenders,” even policies lowering “the age at which juveniles can
be tried as adults [enacting] stricter punishments for drug- and gang-related offenses,
and [introducing] stringent treatments such as boot camps for all juvenile offenders”
(OJJDP, 1996; Jenson and Howard 1998). Previously the judicial system would try and
assess each case as one in its own, and lean away from severity and more to efficiency,
efficiency in helping the juvenile in particular to better themselves by implementing
community-based program sentencings including workshops and classes that were made
specifically for the adolescence. Now, “community-based programs have been eliminated
in many jurisdictions, and institutions combining different types of juvenile offenders
have been reintroduced” (Jenson and Howard 1998) showing that the juvenile judicial
system are no longer looking individualistically but more generally.
They are beginning to look at the youth as adult prisoners, trying to base a
juvenile judicial system off a adult prison system. As Will Singer stated, “comparisons
with the adult system are inevitable, and the reemergence of the notion that serious
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offenders should be punished severely no matter their age has returned with profound
effects on juvenile justice” (2012). Now first time juvenile offenders are being sentenced
harshly, putting them through systems and situation they’d never thought of facing
before. The juvenile justice system has gone from trying to rehabilitate delinquent
juveniles to punishing them as if they were hardened criminals, molding them into the
exact opposite of the intended. For example, “From analysis of a cohort of 411 boys who
grew up in a working-class [area]… Farrington (1977) found that those first convicted
between the ages of 14 and 18 increased their self-reported delinquency compared with
a matched group of unconvicted boys. The same result was obtained in studying the
effect of first convictions between the ages of 18 and 21 (Farrington et al., 1978)” (Smith
2005) proving that and the current flawed judicial system can not only be ineffective, but
also harmful to the youth. Leading to the question of deterrence.
Deterrence, being on of the “most used and most abused terms in the law and
practice of sentencing in criminal cases,” is that idea that because of the consequences
following a certain activity a person partook in, said person would no longer wish to
undertake in said activity (Renke 2001). This means that judicial system would have to
“engage in calculations of the anticipated costs and benefits of the conduct” of an
individual after their criminal sentencing (Renke 2001). Deterrence can be broken up
into two main parts, the certainty of the punishment and the severity of the punishment.
As explained best by Wayne N. Renke, “certainty of punishment concerns the likelihood
that an offender will be caught, arrested, convicted, and punished by the sanction in
question. Severity concerns the degree or type of sanction in question” (2001). Seeing the
importance of both, it can be recognized that either the certainty or severity of a
punishment, or both, can be modified to suit a certain case for best effects on future
behaviors. So there is no excuse for why a system cannot be tailored to the needs of the
youth. The juvenile judicial system should be able to process each case and give the
adequate punishment, fitting the offender’s situation in certainty, severity, and
effectivity.
Counterintuitively, “many states have introduced policy reforms based only on
the characteristics of violent juveniles,” meaning most delinquent youths who are mostly
comprised of property offenders “who never commit crimes against persons” must deal
with “strict punishment [meant] for violent offenders” (Jenson and Howard 1998). This
then ignores the needs of most adolescents referred to the juvenile justice system,
leaving the judicial system in the exact same place, if not a worse place, that it is
currently at.
Multiple different researcher have also came down to the same conclusion that
the juvenile judicial system needs to be changed. As stated best by Will Singer “after
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extensive discovery and briefing” approaching the same problem discussed and coming
up with a type of reform to implement, “the parties agreed to a consent decree based on
three general principles: (1) youths should be housed in the least restrictive setting
consistent with public safety, their individual needs, and constitutional and statutory
requirements; (2) youths should not be held in secure confinement when a
community-based placement is suitable; and (3) detained youths placed in secure
confinement while awaiting trial should remain there for the shortest possible time”
(Singer 2012).
ADOLESCENT FACTORS
Community based punishments would be more effective because they are more hands
on, they deal with the juvenile one on one, and that is essential to helping them
understand and correct their wrong, especially at that age. As Skip said “these boys are at
a tender age, they tense easily” (Lords of Dogtown 2005). While at the age they begin to
enter the judicial system they may not be at the most critical part of brain development
in their lifetimes, but they are still experiencing brain maturation. They are finally
getting to an age where they can have a personal opinion on life and the real world begin
to forge their own personalities and identities. This time, spanning from the onset of
puberty to the end of physiological and psychological maturity, is sometimes referred to
as a three phase life stage; preadolescence (ages 19 - 13), middle adolescence (ages 14
-16), and the late adolescence (ages 17 - 20) (The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology).
Regularly, the traditional problems of teenage years used to affect 15 and 16 year olds
however, over the past few decades, 11 12 and 13 year olds have been been facing these
problems. Peer interactions, sexual awakenings, being popular, etc. now affect the youth
earlier than ever before leaving them very susceptible to influence.
Social media and technological advancements as well put the youth in a more
vulnerable position. Social media use has skyrocketed in the past decade, with more than
100’s of new platforms to connect through the world wide web. This has allowed social
media and the internet to develop a new persuasive characteristic that hasn’t been seen
before. A study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that about “17
million youth ages 12 through 17” use the internet (www.pewinternet.org). That is an
astounding 73% of teens who fall into that age group.
Other circumstances, such as the sky rocket in sexual freedom and the
normalization of violence in everyday life, have too played a part in leaving the youth in
the state of mind they are in now. So it would make a considerable amount of sense to
make sure that any other factor of the youth’s adolescent life, the judicial system
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specifically, be sound and beneficial to the youth, as not to add to the turmoil cause by
the other factors stated above.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, based on the study results and the topics discussed it is easy to see that
some type of reform is needed in the juvenile judicial system. The youth have been
unjustly represented and served by this system for too long, to a point were it not only is
proving ineffective in making offenders learn from their mistakes, but also showing
signs of pushing the offenders to a path that the juvenile judicial system was suppose to
divert them from.
To prevent the youth from getting involved with the juvenile judicial system in the
first place, implementing more community based outlets such as after school programs
or sports leagues and possible scheduling interventions for at-risk families would present
themselves as solution including many similar outreach programs. However, while doing
all these things would help, with the increase in crime and how long it’s been able to
grow we have far to many youth passed the reach of these programs, leaving only one
plausible way to affect them, the juvenile judicial system.
In research and study, it has been accepted that there is not only a single answer
to the situation we are in. Many researchers and people argue different way to approach
this problem, different solutions to the problem, and what the problem is itself.
However, no matter what a person may argue, state or defend, it is clear that reform is
needed. Whether it be implementing more community based punishments, approaching
each case in a more individualistic manner, or limiting the juvenile courts jurisdiction
something has to change.
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I’d definitely say this is the most I have ever invested into a single paper. It was
super cool though, I’ve never really felt this satisfied with finishing a paper ever beside
maybe once but that way in middle school. What I think helped me most with my paper
was honestly the feedback of my group. Both Marco and Lindsey had a good grasp of all
the reading so they were really able to catch on to little things wrong with my paper like
my first person sneaking in or how I’d kind of go off on a tangent or just the layout of my
paper so it was a blessing to have a smart group. From markel I mostly use the chapter
on writing research papers. I didn’t really stick to his guidelines word for word because
it was a bit hard to do that while also trying to really get into writing the paper. The
biggest challenge I’d say I face was trying to find a good study to use. It was insanely
hard, especially since I was trying to find one I could use legally. Thankfully I found a
few that were very similar and kind of summed them all up into just what I needed. The
easiest thing, surprisingly was the word count. Before I even knew it I was breaking 4500
words, and especially since I did feel the word count for the first draft it was nice not
feeling obligated to meet the 5000 because no matter what I was going to reach it, even
without a super long author’s note. On a side not thank you for your teaching Dr. Frank,
your a super dope teacher and I hella like your style. It feels more like your one of us
than compared to like an old professor or something and that definitely not easy to say
about most professors here at ucsb.
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