Increased Teenage Crime & Juvenile Corrections

The American system of juvenile corrections has numerous failures and few successes, and it is a system in crisis as the inner cities produce more and more street gangs, violence, and troubled youth. There are many reasons for the increase in these problems, and the programs developed to cope with them have not kept pace with the rate of change and have not served well to control juveniles or to address their problems. Yet, new programs are suggested all the time, showing that there is a realization of the need and an attempt to come to terms with it.

There has long been a tension in the system between the twin missions of punishment and rehabilitation, just as there is in the adult criminal justice system. With juveniles, however, there is the added belief that the offenders are less responsible for their actions than are adults, that the system has a role as substitute parent, and that alternatives to incarceration are particularly valuable to meld these missions. However, as juvenile crime has increased in incidence and severity, the public has become less patient and has demanded punishment over rehabilitation, seeing this as a way to protect itself against the depredations of young offenders. More and more courts are moving juvenile cases into adult court, and this is a response to the perception that the juvenile justice system has failed and that youthful offenses are becoming more egregious.

Bennett notes that one of the consequences

ystem as treating children as if they had free will in their actions when in fact they were less responsible than adults. In the long run, they said, the system actually created more crime. The new philosophy held that the court should take the role of parent in lieu of the real parents and should treat the children as wards. The court created in 1899 would have jurisdiction over children who were under the age of sixteen and who were found to be dependent, neglected, or delinquent. Vito and Wilson describe it as follows: The court was to be a special jurisdiction within the circuit court, presided over by separate judges. The children were to have a separate court, separate hearings, and separate records. The procedures were to be informal, and charges were not filed against the child; instead, a petition was filed in his or her interest (Vito and Wilson, 1985, 48). Many of the trappings of adult court procedure were eliminated, such as indictments, pleadings, and juries, and instead the probation officers and the judge used informal hearings to determine the causes of the problem and to recommend and oversee the treatment. Shireman and Reamer (1986) find that the period from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s can be consid

Category: Government - I