Juvenile Crimes (Essay Sample)

Juvenile Crimes
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Introduction
Juvenile crimes have seriously dominated a number of debatable topics because they are numerous as depicted in over-crowded courts, cells and jails. However, various nations are developing legislation for young criminals while the public continue to escalate what to do with the juveniles who are increasingly terrorizing the local societies with their poor choices and reasoning. It has a greater effect on the society and legislation system since societies fail to make decisions on what should be done to the young people who engage in criminal activities.
A juvenile (in the context of human beings) can be defined as a young person, a minor, who has not attained the required age to be called an adult. Most probably, different countries have an age limit for minors. Many nations have placed it at eighteen years (18yrs) whereas others have made it sixteen years (16yrs). On the other hand, a juvenile crime refers to a social phenomenon that focuses on younger children getting involved in various criminal and felonious activities in the society. Moreover, a term juvenile delinquency is used in this context to refer to an antisocial behavior and a criminal character that involve persons below the age of eighteen year (Snyder, 1999).
This research paper is meant to study various effects that are accompanied with juvenile crimes to the society, the effects of juveniles being tried in adult criminal justice systems, societal policies meant to combat juvenile crimes and a review of the previous policies (in the 19th century) meant to curb juvenile crimes in communities. Furthermore, this paper will study various long-term effects of juvenile crime to the society.
Causes of Juvenile Crimes in the Society
Every society has set values and specific mode of behavior that is acceptable by the authorities. However, any defiant act is categorized as a violation of the societal system. There are various causes of juvenile crimes in communities.
To start with, family structures play greater roles in shaping the children behavior and character. Norms, model of behaviors and values emanating from family creates an internalized blueprint for kids’ personality, attitudes and believes. Thus, families can make or teach their children to become violent, antisocial or aggressive whenever they grow up. Moreover, family conflicts such as parental conflicts obviously predict violence that can easily be taken in by children whereas insufficient maternal affection and paternal criminal nature predicts full involvement in crimes. Thus children are more susceptible to violence if the relationship that exists in their families is violent (Snyder, 1999).
Peer pressure influences the child’s behavior just the same way a family structure is capable of impacting on a kid’s character. Whenever young people face lack of response from their families and social support, they definitely turn to the peer groups for guidance and support. In adolescence, the peer groups are the major source of interactions thus, juveniles tend to substitute their peer groups for parents immediately they notice that their parents are uncaring. Therefore, when children spend a lot of time with defiant peers, much pressure is exerted on them to also become defiant.
Education is a major instrument in shaping children behavior. A high level of education is responsible for significant changes in crime rates. Thus, there is a strong or rather an established relationship between deviance and failure at school. The school environment can shape a child’s self-worth and sense of opportunity whereas difficulty in school often contributes to truancy and serious offences. Therefore, those young people who drop out of school, or rather poor academic performers are more likely to get involved with criminal activities.
The gap between social classes is widening day by day; the rich and poor in the society. Thus, children from poor backgrounds or families lack the means to achieve or obtain their needs, attain a particular status or get employment. This makes them to turn into criminals or rather engage in criminal activities so as they can comfortably obtain some of the things they need. In addition, unemployment rates among younger people increases the possibility of involvement in crimes for survival. Precisely, juvenile crimes are generally affected by the negative impacts of economic and social development.
In the modern societies, younger people are traumatized and abused every day. Whatever, the nature of the abuse is, it would probably have a profound and long-term impact on the lives of these people. There is a strong relationship between the problems the youth face later in life and the kind of victimization they normally go through. These include mental problems, abuse of substance, suicide, impaired relationships and crimes. Therefore, traumatization is one of the key aspects that lead to crimes or criminal activities in the society.
Effects of Juvenile Offenders being handled in Adult Criminal Justice Systems
Juvenile crime is a consistent problem in the United States of America. In the recent past, agencies that deal with law enforcement estimate the number of arrests for minors to be two million yearly. The juveniles who are arrested are either placed under court supervision or confinements.
Just like any other criminals, juveniles who commit crimes and charged in courts if law meant for adult criminals are subjected to punishment that equates the weight of the crimes they committed. For instance, when a juvenile commits murder, he or she will be punished the same way an adult is punished. If the law says that punishment for murder is life imprisonment, the juvenile will receive similar punishment. Think of life imprisonment for a fifteen year old child. He or she will end up losing or missing so many things. To start with, the juvenile will miss interacting with his or her social group, quality education, parental care and guidance, childhood games and the freedom a child should have during growth. This child will be affected psychologically since the treatment he or she is receiving is past his or her age. Consequentially, the child will be affected to an extent of becoming antisocial, violent and brutal when placed in the company of other children (Snyder & Melissa, 1995).
In addition, children who have gone to jail because of juvenile crimes fail to transform completely. Instead of them growing into responsible beings, they end up becoming worse and dangerous citizens when left or let to enter into the free world. If a child is jailed because of theft, when he or she leaves the prison after the sentence is over, the prison would have created a new thief in the society. The child would go back to previous ways of stealing.
Imprisonment of juveniles has a negative impact on the family. For instance, the family will be subjected to psychological trauma since their child is too young to be isolated in such places. Furthermore, the family will lose touch with one of its member thus creating a gap that is hard to fill. The worry of most families is that their children will come out of prisons more dangerous persons who will later become a threat to the community and also the members of the family themselves.
A Review of Early Policies on Juvenile Crimes (19th Century Policies)
The first separate juvenile court was created one hundred years ago in Illinois, USA. The policy debated whether the court would prevail or not. To place this debate into an appropriate historical perspective, it is useful to review the ancient policies or rather the evolution of the juvenile court (Margery, 1978).
Early in 19th century, young children were tried alongside adults under the adult criminal justice systems. During those times, the common law demanded that children who were under the age of seven years be exempted from prosecution in courts of law since they lacked moral responsibilities. Children who were between the age of seven (7) and fourteen (14) years were said not to be criminal responsible and court prosecutors had to provide sufficient evidence if a juvenile is culpable. On the other hand, the youth aged fourteen years and above is presumed to be responsible for any criminal act just like adults. Despite the fact that there were laws in place that tried to temper with children trials in adult criminal justice systems, juveniles were still tried and sometimes others were sentenced to prisons. In addition some were occasionally sentenced to death.
Before the start of 19th century, more than ten juveniles were executed in USA for crimes committed before they attained the age of fourteen while a number of them died in adult prisons because of poor living conditions.
In the middle of the 19th century, a number of reforms were established so as to protect young children from executions and other sentences such as imprisonment in adult jails. These reforms included minimizing the court proceedings, provision indeterminate sentences that can last until the juvenile is reformed, help the youth in the society to avoid idleness through supervision and physical exercises and enabling children to focus on vocational and religious education (Soler, 1993).
Policies used by the Modern Society to Combat Juvenile Crime
A wider scope of prevention programs have been attempted to get rid of juvenile crimes. These strategies range from those policies that focus on an individual to the ones that focus on the whole family or society. Various techniques appear to be promising and effective: early childhood support and intervention, parent training and management of children, family therapy, lessons on skills about solving problems, community-based strategies, social-perspective trainings and broad-based involvements. Th...