the juvenile justice system prevention of delinquency by jeremy ray

The juvenile justice system 1

The juvenile justice system: Prevention of delinquency

Jeremy Ray

South University

6/5/2013

Juvenile Justice Administration

MCJ6002

Dr. John F. Waldron

&

John Davis


I. Introduction

By definition, a juvenile is recognized to be an

individual who has not reached the capacity of full adulthood

whom is accountable for criminal acts committed. While most

states, on a federal level, have based the point of departure

from ascending adolescents to an adult is reached by the age of

18; however, some states have adopted different age ranges to

determine whether an individual is to be held inside the

criminal justice court system or the juvenile justice system.

(Juvenile Law, 2013) Inside of the juvenile justice system,

fundamentally, there are three basic divisions of juvenile

offending. The determination of offenses of delinquency are:

(1) crimes by minors that are handled in the juvenile court

system and the regular justice system courts, (2) criminal

affiliated crimes handled by the criminal justice system and

(3) offenses that are known as “status offenses”, such as

truancy, which are handled by juvenile courts. (Woolard &

Scott, 2009)


Because of the specific time period in an individual’s

life, it has become a normal attribute to associate irregular

behavior between an adolescent and the rational thinking adult.

This kind of behavior has been termed as “emotionally charged”;

adolescents are often psychologically deemed to lack cognitive

thoughts and in modern society exposed to copious amounts of

stress filled environments. (Moffitt, 2006) In situations as

stated above, adolescents are in disadvantage of comp rending

consequences. With circumstances as those of the mind of

adolescents, it is necessary for the discretion of authority

figures to account the act committed along with the mind frame

of individuals that lack the ability to understand the

violation of laws. (Flynn & McDonough, 2004) Placing groups of

adolescents together furthers the possible prevention of

deterring the typical behavior associated with at-risk youths

among society. The indication of this behavior is directly

consistent with social groups, majority of these groups are

documented to inhabit anti-social traits, to prevent the

forgoing acts of criminalistics activity is to place the more

anti-social groups in with pro-social groups to deter the


negative environment of delinquency. (Dishion & McCord, 1999)

The juvenile justice system has undergone several periods of

reform to adjudicate youths with rehabilitation and deterrence.

Although the use of discretion in the system has played its own

role to intervene and prevent delinquency, more state governed

programs should be established to further the decline of

juvenile delinquency in the United States.

II. Juvenile Delinquency

Types of Juvenile Delinquency

Congruently, juvenile delinquency types are categorized

in contexts of social patterns that conforms around suggested

behavior of what and where a “delinquent” is present at the

given time a criminal act is committed. Although the main types

of juvenile delinquency correspond and come together in the

end, modes of different techniques are used in the regimen for

understanding each type of juvenile delinquency for the future

deterrence and possible prevention. (Bura, 2012)

The president of the American Sociological Association in

1960, Howard Becker, constructed several breakthrough theories

explaining deviance behavior among delinquents in society. In


his studies, he concluded that there were four major types of

juvenile delinquency. Within these forms of behavior, the

suggestive explanation of the styles is described as:

Individual delinquency, group-supported delinquency, organized

delinquency, and situational delinquency. Individual

delinquencies are argued to be originated by psychological

problems derived from family interaction patterns, such as

pathological and defective situations at home. This type of

delinquency infers that one person is connected to committing

an act of delinquency that is solely caused by the mindset, or

emotional state, of the individual because of the infractions

the individual suffers at home. Group-supported delinquency

acts are committed with more than one delinquent, with the

companionship of others when committing such acts are not

imbedded within the individual’s personality or in the family

of the individual. The description of this type of delinquency

is structured with the exposure an individual is subjected to

at home and the region of which the individual resides.

Organized delinquency is a concept inhabited in the 1950’s

known as “delinquent sub-culture”. These groups remain on the outside


of deviant norms. The organized delinquency concept explains

the development of organized groups committing delinquent acts

referring to the guidance of values and norms in sets where

behavior as such is encouraged in a group aspect. Individuals

in this type of delinquency are praised for their actions.

Situational delinquency, unlike the types mentioned above have

a subjective common factor of the everlasting problem of being

“deep rooted”. Individual delinquency establishes that

delinquent behavior is fixed inside of an individual while

group-supported delinquency and organized delinquency’s

description is rooted in the residing area of region an

individual lives and the social structure among society. The

different aspect of the situational delinquency theory is that

delinquency is not deeply rooted because a delinquent lacks

societal obedience compared to an adult. The commitment of a

delinquent act does not require conductive reasoning and

because of the lack of understanding a delinquent might not

have binding enforcements and results in caring less if caught.

(Becker, 1963, pp. 226-238)

Juvenile Court


In its most basic form, the juvenile court is “a special court

or division of a trial court which deals with underage defendants who violate any

federal, state, or municipal law and any child who is abused, neglected or dependent”.

(Juvenile court law & legal definition, 2013) The juvenile

court is granted special authority to produce judicial remedies

when an act of crime is committed by an individual, usually,

under the age of 18. Depending on the circumstances and facts

of the committed offense, states determine the severity of the

crime and apply the necessary treatment to individual cases.

The juvenile Court Act of 1899 featured the separation of

juveniles detained in the same facilities as adults,

prohibiting the detention of children under the age of 12 in

jail or police stations. Along with this act, special rules of

informal procedures were also applied that relinquished legal

remedies for adults and not be applicable for juveniles.

(National Research Council, 2001, p. 157)

Since the separation of the juvenile court system and the

proclaimed procedural rights, the majority of states handle

juvenile delinquent cases as civil, or family law matters,

rather than criminal matters under penal codes for adults. The


juvenile court hears assorted cases arraying from truancy to

drugs offenses, also a counterpart feature from the Juvenile

Court Act of 1899, the adoption of probation officers was set

in place to suffice as an authority figure to aid in

rehabilitation with hopes of guiding children from delinquency

before they reach adulthood. Although juvenile cases are most

often heard in the aspect of civil or family law concepts,

juvenile judges do impose the authority to administer criminal

type adjudication, such as contempt, confinement, and fines.

(What is juvenile court?, 2013) .

Between 1960 and 1980 it was determined that juvenile

offenders differentiate from adult offenders because the

emotional and biological transitions from a childhood to

adulthood. In this period of juvenile rights, the adoption of

new public policies were introduced, as well as old doctrines

expanded such as the Parens Patriae Doctrine, in Latin

translates to “parent of the nation” and defined as “the granted, inherent

power and authority of the state to protect persons who are legally unable to act on

their own behalf”. (The Doctrine of Parens Patriae, 2013)


Landmark case- Kent v. United States

Once it was established that juveniles should not be tried

in adult courts, the issue of what constitutional rights a

child offender was granted was determined in various landmark

cases that stipulated from the juvenile rights period. In Kent

v. United States , 383 U.S. 54 1966, the main focal point that

the Supreme Court was faced with the issue whether a child had

the right to due process protection under the U.S.

Constitution. Morris Kent, a minor was charged with rape and

robbery. Upon filing a motion requesting a hearing on the issue

of jurisdiction by Kent’s counsel, the judge did not rule on

the motion and entered judgement that the court was waving

jurisdiction without conducting an investigation for the

waiver’s grounds for a full investigation that subsquentally

convicted Kent and sentenced him to 30 to 90 years in prison.

Kent then appealed and filed a writ of habeas courpus to

contend his detainment. The appeal and writ were deniedto

which Kent’s attorney argued that the judge did not

appropiately conduct the investigation and such actions

violated Kent’s constitutional rights. The Supreme Court agreed


to Kent’s argument and contested that in the matter of waiver

of jurisdiction a hearing must be conducted; the aid of

representation also must be present in the hearing of a waiver

of jurisdiction; and it is imperative that counsel for the

plaintiff have necessary admittance to all social records.

(Kent v. United States, 1966)

Landmark case- In Re Gault

In the case of In Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 1961, Gerald Gault,

age 15, was placed in custody for making an obscene telephone

call, alledgedly. The arresting officers gave no notice to the

parents of the aressted minor and placed him under arrest.

Gault was admitted to a training school for a time period of

his youth, yet the victim did not attend the adjudication

hearing to testify whether Gault had made the alledged obscene

remarks. The counsel for Gault filed a writ of habeas corpus

and later heard by the Supreme Court. The issue of violated

consitutuional rights were argued, Gault’s attorney contended a

violation of rights arraying from the lack to be noticed of

charges brought against Gault; Gault’s right to counsel; the

right of the questioning of witnesses, the protection against


self-incrimination; the transcripts of the proceedings, and the

right to apellate review. The Supreme Court concluded and

ruled with the agrument of issue except it did not rule on a

juvenile’s right to appealte review or transcripts. It was

evident of the violation of the due process clause of the 14th

Amendment and that the previous ruling was punishing Gault and

not helping him. (In Re Gault, 1967)

III. Discretion

Prosecution Discretion

As concluded in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 54 1966,

the juvenile justice system intended purpose is known as “the 4

D’s of juvenile justice”, the goal for the juvenile justice system is

to deinstitutionalize, diversion, due process, and

decriminalize delinquents. (Kent v. United States, 1966) The

concept that children are not adults suffice to the same

reasoning that they should not be treated as adults either. The

reason for separating the two justice systems in blatant in

terms that children, in most offenses, should be rehabilitated

into society rather than punishing them for occurrences that

ascertains the principles of deterrence and intervention. It is


plausible for courts to inherently believe that every child is

worth saving from a life of deviance, this has been the

intention of courts since the first juvenile court in 1899. (In

Re Gault, 1967)

A juvenile may be detained for time frame of forty-eight

hours before the district attorney makes the decision to file a

petition or initiate a criminal offense charge. Once a

decision is made to file said petition or charge, it must be

determined if a juvenile’s act of committing an offense should

be held in adult or juvenile court proceedings. Once

determined, a review by a judge to conclude the destination of

the juvenile’s offense and jurisdiction is obtained the

adjudication commences in either court. It is solely based on

the discretion set forth by the district attorney to determine

evidence and facts of the offense. (Neitz, 2011, pp. 97,99)

Policing Discretion

Understanding that a juvenile’s introduction to the

juvenile justice system is more than likely a police officer,

the initial discretion of adjudication begins here. With their


discretion, an officer of the law determines whether the

offense committed is informal and calls for justification or

results with a slap of the wrist, or a verbal warning. Such

circumstances are weighed, the complexity of rigorous amounts

of paperwork and usually the duty to appear before the court is

evident, as well as necessary. Also considering the method of

handling various cases, such action are time consuming, overall

the officers have the inducing choice to start adjudication. In

2003, data collected suggested that twenty percent of juvenile

arrest were conducted and placed into the juvenile justice

system by police officers. (Lawrence & Hemmens, 2008, pp. 117-

122)

Judge’s Discretion

The role of a juvenile judge is detrimental to relate in

regards of discretion. A judge’s discretion in a juvenile

proceeding can result in several outcomes like probation and

juvenile hall. Upon considering testimonies from officers and

interpreting the stipulated facts of the committed offense or

offenses, a juvenile judge holds the weight of prescribing the

necessary regimen to determine what actions must be taken


judicially. (Michon, 2013) Like in the case of Gault, the

judicial remedies for the juvenile court maintain its purpose

is to rehabilitate and not so much punish the juvenile. When

articulating the needed response, a juvenile judge will take in

consideration the age of the offender, prior delinquent history

and the magnitude of the offense committed by the juvenile;

however, it is a judge’s duty to fully examine the relevant and

material evidence presented, as well as if it counts as

relevant and material evidence within his or her discretion.

The removal of any bias assumptions that may open a conflict of

interest, such as the gender or race of the individual are

evident and empirical to the decision-making in the judge’s

process. (Nanda, 2012, p. 1502)

IV. Objectives- Prevention & Intervention

As society changes, so will the United States justice

system. More so ever the juvenile justice system, while the

rates of crime are on a steady path declining nationwide, it is

an exceptional gain in society. Not only does a decline in

incarceration of juveniles, as well as adults, result in a more

civil and productive society, the extra room for the government


to fund other necessities, such as education, instead of

funding the confinement of juveniles grants a greater freedom

for lawmakers to reform judicial improvements for keeping

youths out of prison. In 2011, Texas officials concluded that

community-based programs had a well-founded effect on

juveniles; this particular program dropped more than sixty-

percent of juvenile inmates since 2006. It has often been

debated whether juvenile inmate facilities actually live up to

their expectation of creating a retribution-filled environment,

alongside with creating less offenders among society. Studies

have shown this to be grammatically incorrect, and in fact it

showed quite the opposite, an adverse effect of maturation

within facilities. No evidence has been provided that shows

improvement in societal changes in juveniles. By sticking to

the original purpose, the juvenile justice system still

believes in the rehabilitation of juveniles, yet the youths

that are confined are not introduced to these types of

procedure while incarcerated in youth facilities. (Butts &

Evans, 2011)


Over the course of the past few decades, several studies

have been conducted to attempt to collect data to strategically

improve and intervene in the lives of juvenile delinquents. The

prevention of delinquency is not perceived as a viable option

to some, yet to expand from the collected data from studies do

inhabit an increasing amount of acts of prevention in youths.

For instance the program that Texas created in the 2006. Not

only are the findings of prevention and intervention conclusive

to keep juveniles from embarking on the path of future

incarceration, the lives saved are among the greatest

accomplishments the generation needed. Peter Greenwood said

[the prevention of delinquency.] “Not only saves young lives from being

wasted, but also prevents the onset of adult criminal careers and thus reduces the

burden of crime on its victims and on society. It costs states billions of dollars a year

to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate, and treat juvenile offenders. Investing in successful

delinquency-prevention programs can save taxpayers seven to ten dollars for every

dollar invested, primarily in the form of reduced spending on prisons”. Greenwood

states that the most successful programs involve the prevention

of delinquency, tested through behavioral theories and the

collected data from studies have expanded youth programs into


an onslaught of conductive reasoning, with foregoing issues

like cost-benefit analysis and determining that issues on the

level as such exist, but can be prevented with these programs,

evaluation standards could excel beyond desired expectations.

(Greenwood, 2008)

V. Conclusion

The juvenile justice system has undergone several periods

of reform to adjudicate youths with rehabilitation and

deterrence. Although the use of discretion in the system has

played its own role to intervene and prevent delinquency, more

state governed programs should be established to further the

decline of juvenile delinquency in the United States. The

circumstance that surrounds the mindset of a delinquent is

uncertain at any given moment. Because of the lack of rational

thoughts a youth is subjected to compare to a rational thinking

adult is anything but the same. Juvenile theories suggest that

individuals in their adolescents are emotionally charged with

often changing demeanors. The juvenile justice system is


fundamentally made up of three basic divisions: (1) crimes by

minors that are handled in the juvenile court system and the

regular justice system courts, (2) criminal affiliated crimes

handled by the criminal justice system and (3) offenses that

are known as “status offenses”, such as truancy, which are

handled by juvenile courts. (Woolard & Scott, 2009)

Those three divisions also construct in context of types

of juvenile delinquency. With such expansions on juvenile

delinquency and the enactments of different acts of

legislations over the past century, the involvement of

adjudication in courts has been thoroughly investigated and

standards created to enable delinquents to rehabilitation

unlike the counterpart of the adult justice system. Juvenile

cases are treated in the aspect of civil and family law

matters, and sometime criminally. The separation of court

systems has also been through its share of constitutionality

and corrected throughout time, in Kent v. United States, the

establishment of the “4 D’s of juvenile justice” was created,

it was deemed to remain different in concept compared to the

regular justice system. (Kent v. United States, 1966) In the


Supreme Court case, In Re Gault, it was concluded that a

juvenile, if possible considering the stipulated facts, should

not be punished by the juvenile justice system, but helped by

it. Children are not adults and should not hold in the same

aspect of an adult’s punishment when not necessary with

discretion by the juvenile court. (In Re Gault, 1967)

Discretion among public officials like the district

attorney, police officers, and judges holds tremendous amount

of complex issues concerning the paths of juveniles. First and

foremost, the initial introduction to the juvenile justice

system is usually engaged by a police officer, if the situation

arises that it must be taken in a manner of justification.

(Lawrence & Hemmens, 2008) The discretion then pushes to the

district attorney. Once in the hands of the district attorney,

the factors, in a criminal instance, involving moving forward

is decided by discretion to adjudicate a delinquent in a

juvenile court or the regular court system. (Neitz, 2011) When

that becomes apparent a judge will then review and open an

investigation based on facts and commence to correct the wrong

caused by the delinquent. It is evident that the process of


adjudication in any aspect is complex in theory, yet

substantially more difficult when deciding the future of a

juvenile. (Nanda, 2012) It is detrimental to future generations

to deter delinquency, by rehabilitating and preventing

delinquency with state governed programs, such as Texas did in

2006, the already declining rate of juvenile delinquency will

diminish which would grant the government to set forth and

issue other concerns within the United States. The idea of the

juvenile justice system subjectively punishing juveniles is not

only an issue of maintaining peace among society, but changes

the aspect of catering to juvenile delinquents that are

confined and not help that blatantly shows a disregard to the

intended purpose of the court system itself. (Greenwood, 2008)

VI. Reference Page

Dishion & McCord. (1999). When interventions harm :Peer groups and problem behavior. American Psychologist, Vol. 54.

Flynn, W. J., & McDonough, B. (2004). Police work with juveniles:Discretion, model programs, and school police resource officers. In A. R. Roberts, Juvenile justice sourcebook: Past, present, and future. New York: Oxford University Press.


Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966).

In Re Gault, 383 U.S. 1 (1967).

Juvenile Law. (2013). Retrieved from legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com.

Juvenile court law & legal definition. (2013). Retrieved June 2, 2013, fromdefinitions.uslegal.com.

Moffitt. (2006). Life course persistent versus adolescent limitedantisocial behavior. In D. C. Cohen, Developmental Psychopathy (2nd ed). New York: Wiley.

The Doctrine of Parens Patriae. (2013). Retrieved June 1, 2013, from legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com.

What is juvenile court? (2013). Retrieved June 2, 2013, from criminal-law.freeadvice.com.

Becker, H. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.

Bura, R. (2012). What are the Four Main Types of Juvenile Delinquency? Retrieved June 4, 2013, from preservearticles.com.

Butts, J. A., & Evans, D. N. (2011). Resolution, reinvestment, and realignment: Three strategies for changing juvenile justice. New York, NY: Research and Evaluation Center.

Greenwood, P. (2008). Prevention and intervention programs for juvenile offenders. Retrieved June 5, 2013, from futureofchildren.org.

Lawrence, R., & Hemmens, C. (2008, February 8). Police and juvenile offenders. In Juvenile Justice. Washington: Sage Publications.

Michon, K. (2013). Juvenile court sentencing options. Retrieved June 2, 2013, from nolo.com.


Nanda, J. (2012). Blind discretion: Girls of color & delinquency in the juvenile justice system. 59 UCLA L Rev.

National Research Council. (2001). History of the juvenile justice system. In Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Neitz, M. B. (2011). A unique bench, a common code: evaluating judicial ethics in juvenile court. 24 Geo. J. Legal Ethics.

Woolard & Scott. (2009). The legal regulation of adolescence. In R. L. Steinberg, Handbook of Adolescent psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2). NewYork: Wiley.

the juvenile justice system prevention of delinquency by jeremy ray

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