Does the Criminal Justice System Do Enough to Deter Adolescents from Further Illegal Juvenile Acts?

What more can the juvenile justice system do to veer youths from participating in illegal behavior? Children are valuable in more sense than just one. They have a growing mind and are easily influenced by their surroundings due to such little intelligence. When children are presented in situations of abuse, gangs, substance abuse, neglect, and troubling surroundings they are confused, stressed and even depressed. Many ways that children express these feelings are through violent crimes or some sort of abuse. These problems then become the problems of the juvenile justice system. This is a system designed to deal and help with at risk youths. At risk youths are young people who are extremely vulnerable to the negative consequences of school failure, substance abuse, and early sexuality (Siegel, Walsh 2015). To veer these children away from this is the job of not only the parents, but the school and the criminal justice system. The family life is just as important as the social and academic life of children. Children spend a majority of their time either at school or in their neighborhood.

The criminal justice system did not always realize how children were special and easily influenced. The creation of the juvenile justice system is still a fairly new and ongoing process. During the Middle Ages children were not treated as they should be. Children who disobeyed rules and regulations were subject to extreme physical punishment and even sometimes death. Children during this time were treated like adults and once they became of age they were expected to take on adult roles. Especially in the western culture, children were expected to grow up quickly and treated as adults at a young age.

As time went on, things still were not changing. Adults looked at children as punishable and did not take into account they're growing minds and immature actions. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century children were punished in courts and held in jails with adult offenders and mentally ill patients. These court systems were even incarcerating children who did not commit crimes but were on a path to delinquency. It was not until two reformers by the name of Thomas Eddy and John Griscom that recognition of this was made. In 1825 the creation of the country’s first example of juvenile justice system was created and called the New York House of Refuge.

Less than twenty years later the creation of these types of institutions were placed throughout the country. These Refuge houses later became youth correctional institutions. Due to the ongoing study of youths, they changed some of their institutional rules. In the refuge housing, they focused more on just punishing the youths separately from the adults. Now in the correctional institutions, they focus more on the education of the child to reform to society’s norms.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the juvenile justice system had many other parts and organizations added. This helped to address the problems of juveniles to commit further acts, but there was still not a specific court for juveniles. By 1899, they established the first juvenile specific courtroom. With the creations of juvenile courts throughout the country, there was also the creation of a new concept in the legal system. Parens Patria is a concept that allows the power of the state to act on behalf of the child and provide care and protection equivalent to that of the parent (Siegel, Walsh 2015).

By the 1960s, the Supreme Court took up the subject of the juvenile justice system and introduced rules that were to be followed within it. When a juvenile is transferred to adult court there is to be a formal hearing on the matter. This was also the case when a juvenile committed a serious crime and required a large amount of time served. During this time juvenile crime was rising enormously and the criminal justice system felt a need to make sentencing more extreme to deter youths from further illegal activity. By 1980s many states passed strict laws including mandatory sentencing and depending on the crime and violence the juvenile was transferred to adult court. Since these laws became more punitive, the problem of overcrowding occurred throughout the country in juvenile institutions.

However, should youths be transferred to adult court? The transferring of the child to adult court instead of juvenile court focuses more on the punishment and not the rehabilitation of the child. Yes, the crimes being committed are more serious, however, the criminal is still a child. Children need specific rehabilitation, and by transferring them to adult court it leaves them unable to achieve that. Another main concern is if the child is even competent to stand trial as an adult. Children who commit serious enough crimes to be held in adult court are the children who need the most help. Allowing them to be placed with adult offenders who may or may not have spent a majority of their adult life committing crimes is not a positive rehabilitation for a child of any condition. The skills that a child contains cognitively to understand fully the trial proceeding and charges are not at the level of full understanding. Not only is this a main factor but the idea of future occupations and education is now limited for their futures.

Since children have such growing minds and fragile minds, it is important to see the dilemmas that are often faced by adolescents. It is not always the blame of the child as much as it is the blame on community, family, school and financial status. Adolescents not only have the external factors that influence them, but they also grow through physical and psychological factors as well. During this time they are extremely vulnerable and outside factors can influence their actions and thinking.

Children in today’s world are put through more severe learning situations. Girls today are said to hit puberty by twelve years old and capable of having children by the age of fourteen. Adolescents are physically growing up at a much faster rate than previous centuries but their train of thought and psychology is not at the same pace. This can seem incredibly overwhelming to children and many deal with it in the wrong way.

Many children do not usually react to this stimuli in a delinquent way but some most definitely do. An extreme factor that influences this behavior is social media, television, and other forms of cyberspace. Children are constantly watching television and on their phones seeing the constant crimes being committed throughout the country. They are influenced by rappers and music that portrays a life of criminality. Children who partake in this type of behavior and act out because of it, usually have more than one factor triggering it. Family life is an important factor influencing at risk youths. Living in single parent, low economic or socially unacceptable families usually contains inadequate parental discipline and monitoring.

Poverty is an extremely important subject when it comes to adolescent delinquency. According to the US Census Bureau, 48 million people, or one in seven residences, live in poverty in the United States, the highest rate since 1994 (Siegel, Walsh 2015). The poverty rate is at 23,000 a year for a family of four. Since this is the rate many families are called the “working poor” and many of these families consist of one or more children. Twenty percent of all children are living in poverty from recent studies done in May of 2013. Since these results are not recent, it is possible that this number could have increased.

Children living in poverty is a struggle both financially and emotionally and it effects other aspects of the child's life. Since they are living in poverty many times the areas in which they grow up are in high crime areas. Education can come as a struggle to them due to a lack of funding for schools in high poverty areas. The chances of adolescents from a poor family with weak academic skills obtaining a bachelor's degree by his or her mid-20s is now close to zero (Siegel, Walsh 2015). Nutritional and social problems are also common results from financial struggles.

Studies have found it is much more likely for minorities to struggle from poverty than white children. Although an old subject matter, racial inequality still exists today in education and discipline. An interesting fact however, is that they are less likely to take their own lives due to their existing struggles then white adolescents. Minorities are more likely to be victims of lethal violence than white youths.

Children often do not commit violent crimes. Adolescents are usually in trouble for committing status offenses. A status offense is conduct that is illegal only because the child is underage (Siegel, Walsh 2015). If an adult were to commit the crime it would not be illegal for them. An example of this would be purchasing tobacco under the age of 18 or consuming alcohol under the age of 21.

However, throughout history it has been interesting to see the relation in status offenses to the specific gender of the youth. Girls are surprisingly convicted more for status offenses then boys are. Why is this? Law enforcement officers who see the child commit the crime usually are unaware that they are more serious towards girls. The common mentality is “boys will be boys.” However, for girls there is more of a protectiveness to help them. Therefore, girls are charged with status offenses more commonly then boys are because they are seen as more damaging and at risk then boys. This idea is not helpful to the child and especially the boys. Boys need to be punished as much as girls. This could deter boys from committing further crimes and see the criminal justice system in a new light. Letting boys go unpunished from status offenses shows the child nothing more than just getting away with the crime.

Although many juveniles who commit status offenses are just scared straight in the juvenile system, there is that small percent that continue their criminal acts. The youths are usually detained a short period of time until their parents come to pick them up, given a small fine or community service act to do. With the ongoing criminal acts that a small percent commit, it is better to make the punishment more severe. The child is not learning the lesson the first time and further actions should be taken at this point. Society needs to have status offenses because youth that participate in that kind of activity need to be punished. Children have growing minds and immature actions. If youths start at a young age trying marijuana or drinking it will become a norm when they are older which may subject them to be more willing to experiment with stronger and more damaging things.

Social control is also a main factor when it comes to juvenile delinquency. Many jurisdictions have different ways of social control over youths but a main and important one is curfews. This is important because children should not be allowed out on the streets past certain hours of the night. It is a main impact on crime rates when children and youths are allowed to be out on the streets passed certain hours. When police enforce this rule it allows the criminal justice system to decrease juvenile crime rates while also analyzing the child’s home life. When children have little monitoring they are more likely to make their own rules and wander the streets late at night.

When a child continuously breaks curfew, even after speaking to the parents, there are laws which both the child and parent can be punished. The child could be punished by getting scared straight and the parents could be punished with visits from Child Protective Services to make sure their parenting is good. There are different laws in each jurisdiction that punish parents for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not monitoring and disciplining the youth.

Families have an extremely large influence on delinquency from broken homes, blended families, interfamily violence, inconsistent discipline, abuse, and neglect. Although all important factors, the main problem with childhood delinquency lies with child abuse and neglect. This is not a new or modern problem. This has constantly occurred throughout history. Abuse is not defined as only physical either, Abuse but any physical, emotional, or sexual trauma to a child, including neglecting to give proper care and attention, for which no reasonable explanation can be found (Siegel, Walsh 2015). Many children suffer just as badly from emotional abuse as physical. This type of abuse results in extremely low self-esteem, especially in girls. The effects of abuse are beyond devastating to the child. The child can become confused, depressed, injured, mistrusting and hostile.

Studies have shown that youths who are exposed to such abuse struggle with mental and social problems throughout their life. Youths that suffer from maltreatment in the home have a mistrust in others and perceive hostility in situations where there is not and become very defensive. Problems in the home are more to a child’s mentality then is presumed. This is why the creation of Child Protective Services stemmed to help those children who cannot help themselves. From a study in 2011, there was about 3.7 million children who received a Child Protective Service investigation (Siegel, Walsh 2015).

These social service agencies are scattered throughout the country and go by different names. In the Lehigh County, it is called Children and Youth. Hope Sabbath explains the direct function of her job there and the adjustments from a professional and experienced point of view that should be taken in the Juvenile justice system regarding family life of the child:

“Insight with the work I do, I communicate with stakeholders to provide them with necessary information for families stability and to come up with a more stable plan for a better quality of life. We provide resources to families in order to keep them together or reunify. I think criminal justice should provide more rehabilitative services and programs within the jail system because many offenders, juveniles, and criminals come from a broken home, low poverty areas, and don't know what love is. Maybe it will help recidivism rates and help the overpopulated jails in the future. There is a huge misconception with Child Protective Services. Many families I deal with suffer through thoughts of past Child Protective Services experiences of them taking their children and portray them to be monsters who are not helping, but harming, their family. From working within my social agency through Child Protective Services, I have seen first-hand the kind of things Child Protective Services does for families before the extent of having children placed is even an option. Bus passes are given, referrals to mental health treatment all the way up to referrals to nonprofit organizations to extent heating and electricity on homes. Child Protective Services’ main concern is the kids but also they provide service for the families, and often times, the pressure that comes from them and the fear people have of them, many times do make parents actually have to grow up. Child Protective Services saved many children's lives, but also try to help save the lives of their parents, by providing families with service agencies, like justice works youth care to help with resources and necessities for a quality of life.”

There are various efforts to help troubled and at risk children. Not only is the child the number one concern but the parents are, as well. Child Protective Services go through numerous efforts to do all they can to help the parent grow and be a better parent from home based programming to psychological based programming. Child Protective Services do all that they can but many times the agents that are involved are either too strict or too lenient. There needs to be a steady middle ground. By having agents that are too lenient, it allows for the parent to get away with what they are doing and leaves the child in danger. However, by having an agent that is too strict tears a family apart. This leaves the child being taken out of a household that had potential of being fixed and placed into foster care where the youth is surrounded by strangers. There is always the problem of parents tricking the system and fooling the agents into allowing their child to stay there under false conditions. There are not many ways to get around this other than possibly having surprised visits where the parent is caught off guard and unable to hide the problem. This is the main way that the criminal justice takes care of children who are struggling with an unsteady or neglectful family life.

Not all the problems of adolescents stem from their home life, however. A majority of the time children spend are either in school or in the community. Not only is this helpful to children that come from broken or damaged home lives to escape, but it is helpful to the community that can help deter children from criminal acts. The role of the school is helpful in delinquency prevention. It is difficult for a child to succeed if they go to a school where academic excellence is not a priority. The situation is made worse when the students who attend the school are involved in serious crimes. In 2001 the Bush administrator came up with a program called No Child Left Behind. This is a great opportunity for the school systems to improve in accountability while also allowing parents to have more freedom in choosing the school their child should attend. This helps the child to not go to school in a troubled area and possibly attend a better one in the next district instead.

However, this idea is not as helpful as they figured it would be. This program requires students to be high achievers when not all students are capable of the expectations that they are required to meet. This causes the students, as well as the teachers to become frustrated. When a student becomes frustrated they often give up because they are thinking immaturely. Having them give up on school has an effect of them reaching out to other places such as gangs or criminal activity. The teachers being frustrated is for a different level. The teacher is evaluated by the grades of their students. If the students do not perform to the expectations that they are required by this program their grades reflect that. The teacher is left with the burden of having bad evaluations and when there is a school in high poverty area with low teacher evaluations, they are not given the grants that they need to better the academic environment for the students.

Children who attend these schools in poor communities are faced with more problems in the community then they do within the classroom. School based prevention programs need to be set in place to help the child understand certain actions and things are wrong. When a child is brought up seeing and experiencing criminal acts, it is hard to tell them it is not right because they are constantly surrounded by it. Prevention programs in schools teach cognitive, affective, behavioral, environmental, and therapeutic ways to help the child veer away from criminal acts. However, to understand that a child needs this help is in the eyes of the teachers and law enforcement. It is the job of these specific people to come up with educational strategies as well as psychology strategies to help children at risk.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) is a huge program throughout almost every school. This is where law enforcement is brought into the classroom to teach and show the students the outcome of drug abuse. The problem that is arising from this program is the influence that media has on children. A police officer can talk about how marijuana is a gateway drug and extremely bad for an individual yet a student can see it is legal just one state away. The programs that law enforcement use need to be updated to the ongoing and current problems that are taking place throughout this country. Schools need to be teaching the influence that drugs prescribed are just as dangerous as the ones being bought on the corner. Children may seem immature and not fully psychologically developed but are not in any way dumb. Children who grow in these high poverty areas sees drugs all their life and the affects that they have on people. It is better to teach them how to be strong and not weak individuals who give in to the norms they see every day and rise above expectations.

The amount of effort that communities can take to deter children away from crimes is endless from focusing one psychological issues in school to a more comforting view of police. Law enforcement can do more by patrolling schools and school areas more. Drug dealers and criminal activity are geared around children because they are gullible and easily influenced. By having drug free school zones and more patrol around our children allows them to feel safe. Not everything that the criminal justice system does is just patrolling neighborhoods looking for criminals and crime. Building a friendly relationship among law enforcement and the community, allows for the citizens to reach out more and feel comfortable asking for help. In today’s world it is hard to find this but when it is exists it is extremely helpful.

Officer Tommy Norman is based out of Little Rock, Arkansas. He works towards positive community policing. He has an extremely close relationship to the children who grow up in the area and make sure that they have what they need and do what they are capable of. He helps children in poverty by making sure they get to the bus and handing out goodies. These children have terrible home lives where their parents are in and out of jail as well as high drug use and abuse. The influence that Officer Norman shows throughout the community allows people to see the abilities that law enforcement can have. Having this close and personal relationship with the people in areas of poverty allows children to grow up with jobs and a positive outlook on the world, instead of the ongoing struggles that are constantly around them.

An important form of prevention is the ability to form personal relationships where the child can trust you. Children who are in troubling situations where criminal activity is often a common problem need to be able to put their trust and love into something or someone. Some other prevention efforts of the criminal justice system of children who are at high risk and not yet a problem are efforts such as interventions. Intervention programs, such as scared straight, allow children to see the outcome of continued criminal activities. Criminal justice also came up with a type of Big Brother intervention where they take adults to mentor high risk children. Not only are there programs like this, but there is also alternative courts and institutional programs.

Although all of these areas are extremely important for helping children deter from crime, the main problem the criminal justice system faces is how to keep delinquency from occurring into adulthood. There is many sentencing and rehabilitation efforts to help youths that are involved in criminal acts. The recent climb in drug use in our citizens between the ages of 16-25 has dramatically sky rocketed. The families of these individuals can only do so much before they begin to give up and allow the criminal justice system to take over.

A program that the juvenile justice system has, called Harm Reductions, uses multiple efforts to minimize the harmful effect cause by drug use (Siegel, Walsh 2015). Some things that this programs offers are very helpful. Harm reduction has a large amount of drug treatment facilities, health professions to give drugs to patients who are detoxifying, needle exchange programs, and specific drug courts that deal with addicts. What does the future hold for addicts and individuals who are given the alternative opportunity instead of jail? Absolutely nothing. This program fails to help the specific needs of the addict, and instead is an alternative option for drug abusers to be given a get out of jail free card. Yes, these individuals are told they have to go to rehab for a specific amount of days and then sober living.

This does not necessarily take care of the problem with drugs. Allowing a facility to give out clean needles to drug addicts to stop HIV instead of the actual problem that is spreading the HIV is alarming. Individuals, especially youths, who are becoming addicted to drugs and participating in criminal activity involving drugs need to be taken more seriously than the criminal justice system is dealing with them. Individuals who have this type of problem many times participate in more than just drug abuse. They participate in stealing, violence, and even prostitution. By putting more effort into helping and fixing the actual underlying problem it would help to decrease juveniles committing more crime in the future. The programs that the criminal justice system has is a short term goal and effect of reducing drug use in teens.

These short term effects, and the programs that are of actual use to addicts, are completely unaffordable. There will also be an issue within the criminal justice system of having enough money to genuinely help these people. Money has become more of a priority in the criminal justice system then the actual long term effects of society. The juvenile justice system, as well as the criminal justice system as a whole, focuses on violence as a main priority when sending someone to jail because of the ongoing problem of over population. There needs to be more options out there for youths who are involved in drugs. Many argue that by legalizing the drug there will be less criminals in the world. This is just taking a criminal and taking the label of “criminal” away from them. Legalizing harmful and destructive drugs will do nothing but cause more deaths.

The last main issue is the problem of mental health and the needs being met within the criminal justice system. The saying “kids will be kids” is used on more of a regular basis then it should be. Some of these children are being pushed aside for this and not taken as seriously as they should be. They are not receiving the proper treatment in the area of mental health as well as they should be. Criminal justice systems looks more towards punishment to end recidivism. Punishment is necessary but adolescents who portray aspects of mental illness need to have a punishment that fits helping them from further criminal activity.

Females have higher rates of mental health problems than do males. However, males have bigger institutions for sentencing and rehabilitation so they are given the opportunity to receive more mental health help then females. Although the institutions for females may be much smaller, they should be required to have just as much mental health programs. They also are more susceptible to being self-conscious and looking for love in the wrong places. Compared to boys who look for street credits and many times joins gangs as a way of looking for love.

In conclusion, there are many areas within the criminal justice system that can help juveniles from further criminal activity. However, there is always room for improvement within all areas of the juvenile justice system that include family life, school life, and community life. Areas within the system that require the most amount of work would be the sentencing and rehabilitation of these youths. Many times these youths just need to be shown that they are loved by someone at a young age. When they have grown past that point and are still committing criminal activities in their late teens, it is the job of not only themselves but also the criminal justice system. They need to see drug abuse is not a way of life. Rehabilitation is extremely helpful and responsible for helping these youths grow and prosper. There needs to be more areas within the criminal justice system that help these young offenders mentally and emotionally instead of physical detention. Children are growing minds that need the insight to succeed.