Transfering Juveniles to Adult Court

Transferring Juveniles to Adult Court

The Juvenile Justice System has been around for centuries . The underlying reason for separating juveniles from adult criminals is simple the system believes that children are less guilty or culpable for their criminal acts and they are easier to rehabilitate and reform as compared to adult offenders . Thus , the system 's goal is to investigate , diagnose and prescribed treatments for the juveniles rather than imputing guilt to the latter . However , because of the increasing number of juvenile arrest for crimes committed by persons considered as a

kid , the attention that the media gives to a crime involving juveniles , the decreasing trust to the juvenile system itself and the lauder roar of the society for a safer place to live in , the juvenile justice system began to change . A transition from the classic objective of reform brought by juvenile justice system to a more tough policy that focus more on public safety and on idea of punishment to juvenile offenders came to effect

The trend is to be more amenable to the get-tough ' principle allowing a juvenile to be prosecuted and tried as an adult in criminal court . The most basic reason for allowing this shift is for public safety and deterrent of crimes involving juveniles . The arguments provide that there is a need to incapacitate these juveniles for some period of time in for them to realize the seriousness of the offense that they committed and the adult criminal court system is the closest way of achieving this goal . The advocates of the transfer of the juveniles to adult court believe that since the same crime was committed , the same act was done , thus , there is a need to impose the same harsh punishment . In this way , the advocates of this shift believe that they are maintaining the and safety of the community by ignoring age gaps or differences . In some states the transfer of juveniles to adult court is done through lowering the minimum age at which juveniles may be waived to adult court . For example , in 1996 the legislature in the state of Missouri lowered the minimum age for transfer from fourteen to twelve (Zierdt , 1999 ,

.419 . States in favor of this kind of shift justify the transfer because chronic juvenile offenders in rehabilitation centers will likely disrupt the reformation of other juvenile offenders as they are considered as a bad influence on them . It is thus , considered that in not transferring the juveniles in adult prisons , these chronic juvenile offenders disrupts the growth and development of other teens undergoing rehabilitation

On the other hand , the advocates of the juvenile system believe that because children are not fully mentally or physically developed , they are not therefore accountable for their actions in the same way as adults (Ainsworth , 1995 ,

.932-933 . Juvenile criminality for them is youthful illness ' brought about by external forces like environment or impoverished living conditions . Donna Bishop , an advocate of the juvenile justice system , encourages states to...