Juvenile Justice: Should Juveniles be tried as Adults (Essay Sample)

Juvenile Justice: Should Juveniles be tried as Adults
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Institution
Juvenile Justice: Should Juveniles be tried as Adults
Introduction
Presently, two divergent views exist on the subject of the plight of juveniles in the legal realm. On one hand, the dolescent-as-child point of view holds that juveniles are naturally significantly dissimilar to adults and, therefore, a separate set of legal privileges, responsibilities, and standards ought to be applied when addressing the distinctive differences of young offenders. On the other hand, the "adolescents-as-adults" view asserts that juveniles are developmentally similar to the adult population and should, therefore, be subjected to the same legal measures and standards that adults undergo.
However, there are few things that are further from the truth than this latter view. Clearly, adults who were once children and teenagers, and who are likely to be raising youngster(s), understand that adolescents are fundamentally different from adults. People conversant with the unique circumstances during adolescent development cannot purport that juveniles have the same cognitive abilities as adults. Youngsters hardly differentiate between what is good and what is ghastly and they should not be tried in the adult legal system as is avowed by the adolescents-as-adults proponents.
On the contrary, youngsters ought to be kept out-of-the-way of the adult justice system and have to be prosecuted strictly in juvenile courts. Children barely form a culpable mind. They are, thus, incapable of committing offenses under legislation (Becroft, 2006). Efforts to formalize laws aimed at protecting teenagers against transferring adolescent cases from juvenile courts to adult courts are laudable. Children are definitely a vulnerable population and need a separate set of privileges. Teenage years are tumultuous with adolescents constantly undergoing various transformations. Trying and sentencing youths like adults is excessively harsh, especially when one considers that their brains are not yet developed fully. This paper asserts that children are not fundamentally different from adults and aims to show that it is in society’s best interest that they should be accorded trial in juvenile justice system.
Presentation
Twenty-five years ago, in August 1990, Cameron Kocher, then aged nine years, killed his seven-year-old neighbor when he fired a rifle through his home’s window in northern Pennsylvania. The prosecutor opted to try the child like an adult. Pennsylvania is among the few states that do not have a minimum age for prosecuting minors as adults when offenders are accused of murder. The prosecuting attorney contended that Cameron lied when probed about the firing – and adults lie. As a result, the trial justice decided that the case proceeds in an adult court. The judge said that the boy appeared normal; hence, the juvenile court would treat nothing. Besides, Cameron dozed off in pretrial hearings, of which the prosecution claimed that he lacked remorse. Like adults, the youngster remained at home on bail as his case was being heard in court. Eventually, Cameron was put on probation after pleading guilty to a reduced charge. No treatment was accorded to him and he has not been involved with the criminal justice system ever since (Streib & Schrempp, 2006).
Fast forward to February 2009, eleven-year-old Jordan Brown was subjected to the adult justice system for the murder of his father’s expectant fiancée by gunfire in western Pennsylvania. The defendant’s attorneys pleaded for the case to be remanded to juvenile justice system. The judge took the matter under advisement. It ought to have been an unproblematic decision, but it was not easy. Eventually, common sense prevailed and Jordan faced a juvenile court bench, which adjudicated him as delinquent, meaning that the boy was found guilty as charged. The judge observed that he needed treatment, rehabilitation, as well as supervision, and ordered Jordan to live in a juvenile treatment facility until he turned twenty-one years old. It is a really long decade for the 11-year-old. A time long enough to rehabilitate him fully, and ensured that the public is protected. In fact, studies have consistently shown that the juvenile system offers better protection to the public than the adult criminal justice system (Bechtold & Cauffman, 2014).
When common sense is insufficient, recent scientific research results on adolescent development would suffice. The MacArthur Foundation researchers have found that youths are less culpable to crime than adults are. Also, teenagers’ culpability changes considerably as adolescence progresses (Cauffman & Steinberg, 2000). The researchers established what many people were saying years earlier regarding the Cameron Kocher case: that at nine years of age, he just could not process information as well as a plan to execute an offense as an adult. The foundation further observed that legal sanctions on misconduct ought to be based, not only on the level of harm caused by the youth but also on the youngster's blameworthiness. A majority of people would not disagree.
Each day, various defendants get dissimilar sentences, even when the harm caused is the same. Brink (2014) asserts that this happens due to a difference in blameworthiness or culpability by the different defendants. These differences in blameworthiness are most pronounced in cases involving minors when young people are struggling with their ingenuousness, immaturity, impulsiveness, vulnerability to bad peer pressure, unripe decision-making and an absence of future orientation.
Latest technology on brain imaging has reinforced the literature on adolescent development. All through during adolescence, a teenager’s brain undergoes dramatic transformations in ways which impact on the teen’s capability to reason, to consider the repercussions of their decisions and actions, as well as to delay indulgence for a sufficiently long time so as to make cautious short-term and long-term decisions (Bonnie & Scott, 2013).
In Children’s Health in a Legal Framework, Scott and Huntington (2008) determined that young persons below 15 years of age should never face prosecution as adults. The researchers are clear that mitigation due to young age – the fact that children are less culpable compared to adults – is not equivalent to an excuse. In other words, charging youths in a juvenile justice system is not similar to pardoning or excusing them from responsibility.
Any parent would concur that their small boy is never a small adult. Ten years residing with juvenile supervision is an extremely long time for an 11-year-old. Although children and adolescents ought to be reprimanded for their offenses, it should as well be done systematically and in a manner, that is developmentally appropriate (Bechtold & Cauffman, 2014). It is arguable that it is not so clever to discipline an eleven-year-old like a seventeen-year-old.
Feld (2014) has made a finding that juveniles cannot be competent defenders. Teenagers neither have the skills to form a trial strategy nor consult with their attorneys. Consider Cameron Kocher, the boy could not even remain awake during his pretrial hearings. One cannot even start to imagine the young Jordan Brown advising his attorney on tactics and methodologies for witness cross-examination, or even discussing how to go about pleading not guilty. The society ought to maintain young boys and girls in their rightful juvenile justice system. This way, adolescent offenders would be held responsible as well as be rehabilitated, and the public’s safety concerns addressed.
Discussion
Research has established that children tried in adult courts are more probable to reoffend than the youths prosecuted in juvenile courts (Bechtold & Cauffman, 2014). A recent Human Rights Watch report has some youths opining that adult courts exist so they can lock up offenders, while juvenile justice system exists to help young persons make informed choices (Feld, 2014). When a teenager is locked up together with adults, he is bound to become accustomed to stabbings, and he will learn some survival lessons. He will know that failing to give his belongings when an inmate demands them is risking to be stabbed. The same applies to snubbing sexual overture. These thoughts constantly hover over the teenager, and he is ever on guard and set to battle for his continued existence (Bechtold & Cauffman, 2014).
Research has also indicated that youths tried under adult justice system are 34% more probable to be rearrested than children accused of comparable crimes in juvenile justice system. In addition, youths charged in adult courts are 36 times likely to take their own lives compared to young persons who are rehabilitated in juvenile facilities (Becroft, 2006). Young persons locked up in adult prisons usually suffer sexual victimization and usually witness fierce violence between inmates. The majority of young inmates just yield to the grownup inmates’ demands as the guards hardly provide any help.
According to consistent research, (Bradley et al., 2012; Brink, 2014) youngsters have a distinctive predisposition to rehabilitation. The brain is not developed fully until a person hits twenty-five years, and the area of the brain that dictates rational decision-making develops last. As such, children can indulge in dangerous habits or practices without fully comprehending the perils and repercussions of their actions. Most adults would agree that they no longer behave the same way as when they were teenagers. Now they cautiously consider things before doing them.
Unfortunately, the adult criminal justice system does not recognize the great possibility of chi...