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RUNNING HEAD: Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal
Problems
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 2
Outline
Introduction
Purpose of Study
Literature Review
Case Studies
Methodology
Conclusion
References List
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 3
Introduction
There has been a lot of controversy in trying to understand the reason the
spirit in which juvenile courts were created since a lot of people are currently
arguing that children should be tried as adults when it comes to crime. Generally the
essence of creating the juvenile courts more than a century ago was to ensure that
children would not face the same trial as adults in the normal criminal courts. Some
scholars argue that the juvenile courts usually concentrate on the fact that the junior
offenders are naïve or could commit the crimes without motive rather that basing
justice on the type of the crimes that are committed. This could be true in most cases
since the establishment of the courts also focused on the fact that juniors could be
corrected, guided and counseled and hence focused on correction rather than on
taking punitive measures. However with the current changes in the societal norms,
many people want the rules to be toughened for the teens and charge them as
adults because the crime rates and seriousness of the offenses among the youths
have been increasing drastically. Many states of the United States of America have
been working on this subject and some have established regulations that allow
particular youthful felons to be tried as adults; some states are even considering the
Purpose of Study
The main objective of establishing special courts for children and young adults
was to pay attention on their rehabilitation rather than on the offenses and
punishments. This paper seeks to distinguish juvenile justice for young offenders as
fundamentally different from the present justice system for adult offenders and
capable of offering the best solution to juvenile justice. Minors’ basic human right to
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 4
be treated as minors is violated when they are taken to adult courts (Snyder &
Sickmund, 2006, p. 5). These children should not be given the same kind of justice
treatment as adults in the current society because this does not help in curbing
crime. Bad quick fixes that propose minors should be referred to the adult court do
not offer valid solution but they just send the society a step back in justice progress.
Literature Review
Charging the youths differently from the way adults are tried in the court
means that the youth are tried in different court system which is an alternative to the
usual adult system. In this system, the youthful felons are heard and charged by
peers. The guidelines in most state systems provide that the others youths have to
volunteers to take part in the process of passing a sentence (Snyder & Sickmund,
2006, p. 5). The participants are trained, examined, mentored and are certified after
having complied with the code of conduct. Real cases are handled here just like in
the normal adult courts and as a result, the participants usually take oaths of
confidentiality with regards to any of the information they may get to know about in
the process of doing their duty in case presentation (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006, p.
5).
committed by a youth person considered to be a minor. The exact age to act as the
cutting point is usually debatable. The difference in the age is therefore set up by the
state regulation and each state in the US has its own age limit which determines
whether and individual is charged in an adult court or the youth court (Snyder &
Sickmund, 2006, p. 7). The states also approve the courts that would work to restore
justice and to try to reintegrate the young person who committed the crime back to
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 5
the society and also conveying relevant message to the young felon regarding the
The main principle that is behind the formation of the juvenile courts was to
protect the community having observed the crime rates in the young people as well
as enhance competence and responsibility. Actually the way the youths are charged
in the youths courts is different from the way are tried in the adult criminal courts
(Snyder & Sickmund, 2006, p. 9). This brings in the questions “do children instantly
become adults when they commit an offense? How can young people be singled out
as adults? Were they regarded as adults before they committed the criminal act? Or
should they be treated are juniors in spite of the intensity of their crimes?”
In 1899, a different court was created in Chicago to try young people for
committing criminal offenses before a court termed the juvenile court. In some odd
cases the judges could decide that the young person involved was “not acquiescent
to the juvenile court’s treatment”. This meant that the youths were to be referred to
the adult criminal court as the jurisdiction of their courts was relinquished (Snyder &
Sickmund, 2006, p. 9). In the recent past, most states have implemented their rules
and regulations to increase the number of incidences when the youths would be
There are several ways in which the youths are referred to adults courts in the
Judicial waiver - this allows the judge’s diplomacy to take the youth’s case to be
Prosecutorial discretion of the direct file which allows the prosecutor of the case
to refer it to the adult criminal courts for trial (Bartollas & Miller, 2005, p. 202)
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 6
The mandatory waiver - the youth court judges decide to automatically refer the
juvenile criminal case to the adult courts for some crime due to nature, age of the
offender or the previous criminal record (Bartollas & Miller, 2005, p. 202)
Statutory exclusion - this demands that the juvenile case be tried at the adult
criminal court depending on the age of the alleged criminal or the intensity of the
An analysis of the re-arrest rates for the youthful offenders tried in the adults
criminal courts in Florida, 2001 indicated that even after regulating, initial changes,
race, and age, the youths who received adult sentencing had a probability of 4.90 for
repeating the same crime and this included technical violations and had a probability
of 2.26 for repeating the crime without inclusion of technical violations (implying that
the new crime was tried against the youth) (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006, p. 12).
In the 2002 juvenile transfers study for criminal cases to the adult courts, final
report indicated that the youths who received juvenile trial had lower rates of
of the 315 best matched pairs, the report discovered that about 49 percent of the
youthful felons transferred to the adult courts recidivated while only 37 percent of the
one charged in the juvenile courts recidivated (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006, p. 12).
Case Studies
Nathaniel Brazill was charged with a second degree murder case for allegedly
killing his English teacher. In the adult law courts, the crime usually bears a sentence
of up to 30 years imprisonment. However the defense team behind Brazill begged for
leniency for charging him as an adult since he was only 14 years old and not a
young adult (Greathouse et al, 2008, p. 23). The court ruling was to be made with
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 7
some sensitivity due to the age of the criminal and not the intensity of the crime. In
another case, a jury in the Florida passed a sentence against Lionel Tate for life
imprisonment without parole; she was also 14 years old and was accused of killing a
younger girl as they were trying out wrestling moves (Greathouse et al, 2008, p.
24). The concurrent of these two comparable cases served as an eye opener to the
public misunderstanding that the youthful aggressive offenses are on the increase; in
fact the latest statistics indicate a drastic decline over the recent years.
Could the drop be attributed to the fact that the children are thinking carefully
about the type of crimes they commit, bearing in mind that they would receive adult
sentencing. Another case that involved sentencing a minor in an adult court is that
Abraham was the youngest child ever to be tried as an adult after psychiatrists
affirmed that the frail boy could receive a sentence similar to an adult for a murder
These are not the only cases, it’s been found out that over the last 20 year,
over 150 children have received a death sentence in the United States of America
and every year, more than 750,000 delinquency cases are heard by judges and tens
of thousands receive an adult kind of trial (Greathouse et al, 2008, p. 26). Of all the
nations that allow children to be executed when they commit serious crimes, the US
has carried out the most number of executions and over the past years the number
of cases that have been referred to the adult cases have increased by an
Methodology
juveniles in a court set for minors. It will as assess the effectiveness of adult courts in
charging the young offenders. It’s been realized that in some extreme cases, young
people with varying ages have committed very brutal crimes that the justice system
deem it appropriate to charge these persons in adult courts. The reason for this is
that such kinds of crimes are not acceptable in the normal frame of minds of young
search. The researcher will review published literature material on juvenile justice
and related topics. The research will have entail five steps. Step 1 is the specification
of the research problems and the objectives of the study. Step 2 will entail describing
inclusion and exclusion criteria of the materials to be searched. Step 3 will be the
formulation of the plan for conducting the search. Step 4 will be the actual search
and retrieval of the literature works. The final step will be interpretation of the
evidence and integration of the findings into the paper this will also help in final
refining and formulation of the thesis depending on the quality of evidence obtained.
because the research intends to use papers that were published from 1995 to 2010.
The search design will be set to identify as much relevant information as possible
offers extensive literature on juvenile criminal justice will over 195,000 articles
and hence will form the larger source of this search. The research will also use
other databases like Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical System (JCPSS),
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 9
the Model Program Guide database for information on juvenile court and
researcher will use the abstracts and summaries of the articles picked for
of data presentation.
Conclusion
Most of the researches in this area have found out that the youthful felons
who are transferred for trials and sentencing in the adult law courts are more likely to
commit same crimes again than those who are tried in the juvenile courts for the
similar type of crime and with comparable previous records. Similar researches also
indicate that out of the youthful felons charged in court for committing new crimes,
counterparts charged in the juvenile court. It’s evident that there are juvenile crimes
and these youth commit violent and heinous crime. Nonetheless, it’s not at the rate
or the violent level that it’s depicted to the public. In fact, statistic indicate that crimes
among minors in falling. As matter of fact, finding a solution to this issue may not be
requires a rehabilitator program to try and correct behavior of these young adults.
Charging Children as Adults Does Not Solve Juvenile Criminal Problems 10
References List
Bartollas, C & Miller, S.J (2005). Juvenile justice in America, (4th Ed) Upper Saddle
Greathouse, S.M., Sothmann, F.C., & Levett, L.M., & Kovera, M. B. (2008). The
Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006
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