The Historical Development of the Juvenile Court - Essay Example

Corrections Module 7 Writing 1. How were juveniles viewed in early European history? Explain the historical development of the juvenile court and the early characteristics of the system. Answer: The concept that juveniles are innocent and need protection from harmful influences that might affect their innocence was not a common one in the early European history. The idea that children should be stopped from doing undesirable things started taking root around the years 1500 and 1600. The exact of definition of undesirable was, however, ambiguous during these medieval times and children openly indulged in activities like carrying arms and drinking alcohol. In 1825, a refuge institution was opened in New York that was the first of its kind to deal with the juvenile delinquents, followed by the opening of two other institutions of the same kind. The methods of treatment used in these institutions included corporal punishments and heavy labor. Voices were raised against such a treatment of the children and eventually, a juvenile court bill was passed in 1899 in Illinois. The main role of these courts were to rehabilitate and reform neglected children, children who committed offenses not deemed appropriate for their age and who committed offenses that would be considered crimes if carried out by adults. 2. Discuss the development of due process rights for juveniles through several key U.S. Supreme Court cases. Answer: The U.S. Supreme Court did not recognize procedural restrictions for juvenile courts because of their rehabilitative nature as opposed to punitive nature. But the Gerald Gault case of 1964 set precedent for subsequent development of the due process rights for juveniles. In this case, the child was initially institutionalized for six years, the punishment for the similar offense for adults was a mere 50$ or a few months detention. On the appeal of the parents, the Supreme Court reversed the Arizona case decision and the development of due process rights started taking shape. Other significant developments in defining procedural restrictions which resulted from case trials were: the decision in the Mckiever v Pennsylvania case that the states had the right to use jury trials independently in juvenile cases but this was not a constitutional requirement, the Roper v Simmons case which resulted in the minimum age for death penalty being set at 18 years and many other such cases. 3. What different models are used to transfer a juvenile to adult court? Why would a state want to transfer a juvenile out of the juvenile justice system? Answer: There are three models of transferring juveniles to adult courts: a) Judicial Waiver: It is the instance of transferring a juvenile case to a criminal court due to the transfer or waiver of jurisdiction by the judge himself. b) Concurrent Jurisdiction: It is also known as the Prosecutorial Discretion because in these cases the prosecution has the choice of either filing the case in the juvenile court or the criminal court. c) Statutory Exclusion: The cases where the criminal courts have original jurisdiction, the juvenile cases are transferred through this model. The reason why some of the juvenile cases are transferred to adult courts is because the nature of their offenses is extremely violent and the public outrage over some of the offenses like school shootings etc. makes it difficult to prosecute them under juvenile due process. 4. Explain the processing of juvenile offenders, including delinquency, status offense, and detention cases. Answer: The delinquency cases come to the courts through the police, social service agencies, probation officers etc. the judge or prosecutor decides upon handling the case formally or informally after the referral. Most juvenile delinquency cases are handled formally where upon the judge or the referee decides whether the youth will be adjudicated delinquent. The confirmation of delinquency is followed by disposition proceedings. Status offenses are normally not tried at juvenile courts, but the cases that are referred and petitioned. Most of the cases that are petitioned result in adjudication and the juvenile are put under probation. The status offenders are tried in the same juvenile courts as the delinquents and proclaimed as mischief makers on the same par which is unjust as the status offenses are minor compared to delinquency. The adjudication of delinquents and status offenders can result in detention but in case of status offenses, detention only results when the courts orders are not met by the offender. Certain guidelines overlook the detentions in both cases. 5. Describe the characteristics of juvenile facilities and offenders. Include in your response a discussion about DMC - why it happens and what could be done to stop it. Answers: Juvenile facilities consist of both private and public correctional facilities. Statistics show that the facilities are likely to have a complex mixture of people with children who might have been accused of something to proven delinquents. The private facilities contain more status offenders than public facilities but both have same proportion of delinquents. The juveniles who are contained in the detention facilities are more commonly delinquents and their offenses are more often related to people than property. The juvenile detention centers of the US present a situation of Disproportionate Minority Confinement. The basic factors contributing to such an over-representation of minorities are related to their socio-economic conditions and educational access. The prejudicial behavior of the law enforcers is also an important factor. The solutions to these problems lie in the change of the mindset of the society towards minorities and complete removal of racial segregation. The government has to make sure that the children from the minorities have access to the same educational facilities as the other children. 6. Discuss both institutional-based and community-based responses to juvenile offenders. Which do you think are the most effective? Answer: The juveniles who receive institutionalization in punishment, for their offense or rehabilitation, go through several programs like educational programs and reading and writing programs. These help in accomplishing both educational and rehabilitative goals. More serious offenders are treated in the Florida Environmental Institute. Some offenders who are put on probation are also ordered community based punishments like attending drug counseling, doing community work or participating in victim-offender mediation. The concept of restitution is one which deals with the restoration of the juveniles to the community through which the loss or hurt of the victim is restored and the juvenile is also made to avoid his mistake. In my view, community work is more appropriate as the institutions segregate the juveniles from the rest of the world and the confinement with other offenders does not have a good impact on them either. The community based restoration is more effective as the offender is made to realize the wrong e has done to the victim and the community through direct contact with both. 7. What types of technology systems are used in community corrections and within prisons? How do these systems help in the monitoring of offenders? Answer: The pretrial service programs use supervision technologies like drug and alcohol testing devices such as the sweat patch, and electronic monitoring. Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency built the Supervision and Management Automated Record Tracking (SMART) application which is a community correction technology. It helps in managing the complete information regarding offenders. Global Positioning System (GPS) aids in keeping track of the offender. The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) also aid in the tracking of inmates. Many other developing technologies have great potential in carrying out the supervision and correction of the juveniles more effectively. The systems in use can point us to the location of the juvenile offender if carries out an offense again. The better management of the records of the offenders helps in making accurate reports and dealing with the offenders in the required way in the courts. Metal detectors are being replaced by technologies that can even detect the presence of plastics and drugs. This will be a great aid in upgrading the supervision of the inmates. 8. Discuss the interaction of the media, public opinion, and legislators in the development of public policy. Answers: The public has supported the get tough policy for a long period of time but is now realizing the effectiveness of the rehabilitative treatments. More and more people are of the view that offenses like drug abuse are best treated in rehabilitation centers than in prisons. The media influence the public view greatly, and the legislators base the amendments and enactments of laws based on those public views. All three elements are connected to each other and are factors in public policy changes. The policy makers believe that they understand the public opinion but it is not always the case. The people of today want the punishments to be preventive and rehabilitative in nature. Many states have followed suit of each other in opening facilities in prisons which aim at the rehabilitation of the criminals and their restoration to normality. Thus, the interaction of the media, public opinion and the legislators results in policy developments. 9. Discuss the "nothing works" controversy. Answer: In 1974, Robert Martinson wrote in an article, after reviewing over a 1000 studies in rehabilitation, that the rehabilitative measures taken in facilities had no appreciable effect except a few exceptions. The idea became popular as the “nothing works” controversy. Studies had been carries out earlier as well with similar findings. After the idea gained popularity, the National Research Council carried out reviews of the study and backed the Martinson claim. In 1979, Martinson revised his earlier conclusion and reported that some methods did produce positive effects, thus, a controversy was born. Further evaluation studies claimed that his earlier methods were biased and corrective programs had positive results. This revived the correction based rehabilitation programs. 10. Explain the characteristics of both effective and ineffective treatment programs. What is meant by the term evidence-based practices? How can this help eradicate ineffective programming? Answers: Researchers still believe that there are some programs that work and some that do not. The programs that do not work include those which are inappropriately focused and improperly implemented like correctional boot camps with military style activities. The effective programs are those that directly target the root cause of the problem and are reformatory and interactive in nature. They use effective therapy to change those aspects of the offenders which can be changed. Evidence based practices are those practices that are validated through the data that supports their effectiveness. If we start making a database of all the histories of the offenders and chalk out the methods that produced most positive results, we can come out with an effective plan to completely eradicate ineffective programming[KEN09]. Source: KEN09: , (STIER), Read More