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ENG 215

Part I: A Problem Exists.

Introduction

There are several reasons that cause most youths to commit crimes. The most dominant ones include increase and availability of drugs, accessibility to firearms, lack of education and poverty. For example at age of sixteen years Cameroon Williams life was removed from the world of the other juveniles. William is considered to have celebrated his sixteenth birthday in the jail for his second attempt murder. He shot at the police officer during the time he was being chased after being pulled in a car with the other two men (Guttman, 1995). The laws governing minors need to be subjected to scrutiny, because some minors commit crimes that do not need pardon. The minor who commit crimes should not be tried as adults because the adults and staffs oppress the minors while at the prison in different ways, such as rape, suicide and assaults.

History and facts

The tendency commenced in the year 1990’s, when every nation developed the laws under which minor criminals could be charged as the adults. The minor judicial structure has been reinvented in the symbol of adult criminal justice system. Robert Schwartz who was among the founder Juvenile court wrote in summary the book Youth on trial. In one of the get tough advocate, there are many juvenile kids who happen to be criminal. In May the year 1990, the Supreme Court handed down the decision that will reduce the sentences against some of the juveniles. The state’s highest court ruled that minors who have not been convicted of the killing cannot be sentenced to life in the prison without any bail. The United States of America was the only nation before the ruling that did not have that specific law.

The opposition of the trying minors in the adult courts say more is required to be done for the states young criminals and the law should take into account their emotional growth as well as maturity. The present system states that kids have no particular ability to know the difference between 10 or 15 or 20 years (Beresford, 2000). It is the same as passing judgment to an individual to die in the prison. It is making some irreversible decisions about children’s under the situation where the study does not support some of the decisions. However, the prosecutors state that they only consider those circumstances if the kid is deemed too risk for the community. The court does consider all the alternatives for minor court if they lack a record. Based on the kind of crime, the court system automatically sends them to juvenile. There layers a kid go through before he or she is tried as an adult. In the year 2007, the juvenile courts had an approximation of 1.6 million juvenile cases which is estimated at 44% (Guttman, 1995).

Suicide

Most of the studies indicate that minor suicide in adult organizations and youth facilities was done in the year 1980. The study of juvenile prevention program found that the rate of suicide in adult jails was about 7 times higher that of minor detention centers. The survey discovered that juvenile institution rate was a bit low than that of overall population. The most recent survey on prison suicide completed by British prison support some of the findings. Examining the data gathered by prison service, the trust discovered while people aged 15 years to 21 years made up about 14 percent of the prison, they comprised about 21 percent of all the suicide deaths. Some of these statistics indicate that law enforcement representatives have been telling the congress that kids are abused more frequently and driven to desperation in prison facilities faster (Pimentel, 2013).

Rape

A team of researchers compared how youth indicated being treated at several minor training schools with the ones serving life sentence in adult prisons. 6 times as many youths were kept in prisons responded to the question, ‘has any individual tried to sexually rape or attack you? Than the ones held in minor institutions, about 10 percent of the youths interviewed answered sexual attack or rape. Several set studies indicate that the system is likely to result to intimate rape. The other group’s studies indicate that system is likely to lead to the prisoner being raped. In the year 1984, the investigators found out that among some residents of six minors, about 8% of the young prisoners were being victims of sexual attack (Pimentel, 2013).

Assaults and the effects of persecution

The same statistics that found the disturbing statistics on youth rape in the prison also discovered that children put together with adults were twice being beaten up by the workers: close to 1/9 minors reported being beaten by the workers. The minors in the adult prison were also 40 percent more likely to report being attacked with weapons. Whatever kind that was chosen be it assault or rape by the staff or suicide, a jail is considered to be the risk place for young criminals, however, the scary features of the statistic raise a bigger issue on how effectual the law will be from crime control perspective (Guttman, 1995).

Conclusion

It is very dangerous to try minors as adults in the court because it subjects them to various forms of abuses. The court should divide the prison into juvenile and adults to guarantee safety to young offenders.

Part 2: Solution to Problem and Advantages

Introduction

Currently, there are larger numbers of young people who are sentenced, tried as adults each year. In any day, about 10000 thousand youths are confined in prisons and jails. The studies indicate that some of the youths held in the adult prisons are 34 times more likely to commit suicide and hence they are at greater risk of sexual victimization (Loeber & Farrington, 1994). There are various solutions proposed which may decrease juvenile offense. The youths must be diverted from the justice system. Unnecessary exposing young kids to the juvenile justice system can embolden future unlawful activity instead of deterring it. For several youths joining the justice system, the outcome of single lapse in judgment can haunt them for a longer time. Some of the youths can be held responsible as well as supported in the framework of community and family support through the processes like restorative social and justice service involvements.

Solution to Problem

The youths can be diverted from justice system by the creation of the range of communal based programs. The programs can positively change the routes of youth’s lives. Jurisdictions are constructing different ranges of options to placement programs with graduated supervision levels as well as services to ensure that the youths are placed in the programs that help them to desist from progress and delinquency individually (Loeber & Farrington, 1994). Having variety of communal programs available to the young men and women offer an alternative for decision makers and hence for the youths. Some of the community based programs range from wraparound services with rigorous supervision. They can comprise mentoring, home detention, alternative form of learning, family preservation, restitution; counseling and recreational facilities as well as respite care (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013). The programs can stand on their own, or be contained in the existing societies serving a wider range of youths. Some of the evidence based programs like efficient family therapy; multi universal therapy and dimensional treatment foster care serve for those with utmost threat of criminal (Elsea, 1995).

The juvenile system is most used as a dumping ground for some youths with mental health issues. In this case the community must work hard to reduce institutionalization. Institutionalization of the youths should be used as a last resort and reserved from the youths with serious threats that no other solution would safeguard public safety (Elsea, 1995). Imprisoning the youths interferes with their positive communal development and exposes them to adverse behaviors. The youths must never be placed in the facility for the reason of their family circumstance or communal service needs. A lot of people who are involved in justice youth system can be served and the community kept safe, by the society based services and needs that support the appropriate practices in the field. Jurisdictions can help to differentiate between the youth who pose danger to the community safety as well as those who can be placed in less preventive background by using legal risk and needs evaluations that helps to measure the risk to communal safety and provide guidance on placement decisions expedited case processing as well as sentencing guidelines (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013).

The Advantages

It provides fairness to the youths as well as their loved ones. There could be some crimes that are forgivable; however, the extreme ones such as murder, rape and assault, fair punishment should be given to the criminal. It is the appropriate way for victims’ family to gain reconciliation or peace specifically since they cannot gain their loved ones who were taken from them back (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013).

It demonstrates that a criminality is an offense no matter the age of people. Apart from providing community based programs, giving a lighter verdict to the youths who commit risky offence just due to the fact that they are not adults can send a wrong message that they can get away with particular things, even killing other person. No matter the age of an individual, they must learn to take responsibility of their own activities, and be made to comprehend the results of the bad decisions. If the youths are not educated from wrong before they mature to adults, they have high propensity to commit more offences (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013).

It lowers the number of juvenile offenders. The youths who know that they will be penalized for offenses committed will avoid committing them. They can be discouraged to try to commit any crime if they find out how their peers were disciplined. In that case it allows just trial by judges. Youth court cases are decided only by a judge. However if the teenagers are tried as adults, there will be judges that will decide if they are guilty or not (Loeber & Farrington, 1994).

Conclusion

Community based programs are most suitable in dealing with youth crimes. Therefore, putting youths in larger group detention facilities is not right from treatment perception of therapy efficiency or the deterrence of future reoffending. In some of those occasional incidents in which the youths must be removed from their community as well as their family, that removal must be of short period and act as a last resort. The facilities in which they are detained must be humane, home like orientation, culturally competent and developmental appropriate. The advantages of community based programs include providing fairness to the youths as well as their loved ones, demonstration that a criminality is an offense no matter the age of people and finally, it lowers the number of juvenile offenders in the community.

References

Beresford, L. S. (2000). Is Lowering the Age at Which Juveniles Can Be Transferred to Adult Criminal Court the Answer to Juvenile Crime A State-by-State Assessment. San Diego L. Rev., 37, 783.

Elsea, K. K. (1995). Juvenile Crime Debate: Rehabilitation, Punishment, or Prevention, The. Kan. JL & Pub. Pol'y, 5, 135.

Gingerich, W. J., & Peterson, L. T. (2013). Effectiveness of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy A Systematic Qualitative Review of Controlled Outcome Studies. Research on Social Work Practice, 23(3), 266-283.

Guttman, C. R. (1995). Listen to the Children: The Decision to Transfer Juveniles to Adult Court. Harv. CR-CLL Rev., 30, 507.

Loeber, R., & Farrington, D. P. (1994). Problems and solutions in longitudinal and experimental treatment studies of child psychopathology and delinquency. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 62(5), 887.

Pimentel, D. (2013). Widening Maturity Gap: Trying and Punishing Juveniles as Adults in an Era of Extended Adolescence, The. Tex. Tech L. Rev., 46, 71.