| Chapter
2
Juvenile
Justice
By Jack
Kresnak
Delinquency Proceedings
While much of the delinquency system resembles criminal cases in
adult court, most states' legal authority for juvenile justice
primarily falls under civil law. Suspected young offenders are
called respondents, not defendants. Their cases are not titled "People
vs. Johnnie Doe." Rather they are "In Re: Johnnie Doe" or "In
the matter of Johnnie Doe."
Nevertheless, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, delinquent children
have many of the same legal protections as do adult defendants:
the right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, the right
to confront accusers, cross-examine witnesses and appeal to a higher
court. Adult defendants are "arraigned" before a judge
usually within a day or two of being arrested. Adults also are
entitled to a probable cause hearing, also called a preliminary
examination, usually within 14 days of being charged.
In most states, police who detain a child suspected of a crime
are required to take the child before a juvenile court judge as
soon as it is practical. State laws vary on whether child suspects
can be questioned without their parents being present. Some child
advocates doubt that juvenile suspects can understand their basic
rights such as the right to have a lawyer present during questioning
by police. There is no hard-and-fast rule on at what age a child
is able to understand, say, their right to remain silent.
Most juvenile detention centers follow guidelines on which children
can be admitted to their facilities. Because juvenile detention
is expensive, costing well over $100 per day per child, admissions
are usually restricted to kids charged with serious offenses.
For example, a child charged with armed robbery likely will be
admitted but one charged with shoplifting likely will not.
Juveniles are not entitled to a jury by their peers (other juveniles).
Most states allow jury trials for juveniles, but limit the number
of jurors (all adults) to six. Some jurisdictions have created
so-called "Teen Courts" in which juveniles who admit
to non-violent and less serious offenses explain their actions
to a jury of other youths who then prescribe a punishment. A real
judge usually oversees teen court to ensure fairness and to make
sure the punishment fits the crime.
If convicted – or in some states "found responsible''
for an act of delinquency – a juvenile generally faces three
dispositional options. Juvenile court judges can:
- Warn and dismiss – lecture the child about obeying the
law and his/her parents and dismiss the case.
- Probation – place the child under the supervision of court
probation officers while he or she continues living at home.
- Commit the child to a government agency for rehabilitation services.
Often this option includes placement in a residential facility
such as a reform school.
In most states, juveniles are not "sentenced" to serve
a specific amount of time. Convicted juveniles face a "disposition
hearing." Delinquent youths can be placed in facilities and
put through an often rigorous program of education and counseling
for an indefinite period of time or until they turn 21. Case workers
overseeing the youth's rehabilitation periodically report to the
juvenile court judge about the child's progress.
If a child fails to cooperate with rehabilitation programs, case
workers can ask the judge to "escalate" the child's placement
from, for example, a non-secure program to medium or high security
facility. If a child is making progress, case workers can ask the
court to "de-escalate" him or her to a non-secure facility
or to a community-based program. In community-based programs, juveniles
live at home with their families while attending required counseling
sessions, school and other programs ordered by the court. Sometimes
children in community based programs are monitored closely through
the use of electronic tethers.
Juvenile court judges decide when rehabilitation efforts should
end and when a delinquent youth can safely be returned home. Since
the mid-1990s, many states have adopted a system of "blended
sentences" that allow judges to send a youth convicted of
a serious crime to adult prison if the youth is not rehabilitated
in the juvenile system.
Trying Juveniles as Adults
Most states allow serious juvenile offenders to be charged as adults.
Sometimes those decisions are made initially by prosecutors.
At other times, prosecutors ask a juvenile or family court judge
to allow them to try a juvenile as an adult in proceedings that
are called transfer hearings or waiver-of-jurisdiction hearings.
In transfer hearings, prosecutors must convince the judge that
the juvenile or society at large is best served by having the youth
tried in the adult system. Factors that are considered include
the youth's past history with the juvenile justice system and whether
he or she already had an opportunity to reform, the age and maturity
of juveniles who may be too mature for most juvenile rehabilitation
programs, the seriousness of the offense and whether public safety
is best served by having the juvenile locked up for many years.
Child advocates challenge those assertions. A 1996 study of children
sent to adult prison in Florida showed that those children were
one third more likely to re-offend after getting out of prison
than kids sent to a juvenile rehabilitation program for the same
crime. Of those youths who commit new crimes, those sent to adult
court re-offended at twice the rate of those sent to juvenile court,
according to the study, published in the journal Crime and Delinquency.
Ironically, adult court judges used to dealing with hardened
criminals often deal less harshly with a juvenile standing before
them than do juvenile court judges because the judges know that
adult prisons offer little in the way or rehabilitation, counseling
or schooling.
Adolescents mature at different rates; a 15-year-old boy's appearance
can range from a pimply-faced diminutive youth to a strapping
football player with mustache and goatee. The law must draw the
line between childhood and adulthood somewhere. Many states set
the division at age 16, others at 18. Children cannot vote or
buy cigarettes until age 18 and society does not consider them
mature enough to drink alcohol until they are age 21. Yet kids
aged 17 and 18 can be considered mature enough to be locked into
adult prison for impulsive acts of violence. Many studies have
shown that children who commit crimes have poor decision-making
skills. They lack the ability to foresee the consequences of
their actions. Most juvenile delinquents mature into adults who
never have another contact with the criminal justice system.
A common mistake by journalists is to label any residential placement
of a youth as "juvenile detention." Technically, detention
facilities are used to hold a child pending trial and disposition.
Once a child is found guilty and a judge or court referee orders
placement, he or she moves from detention into a residential facility
for treatment. Those correctional facilities vary from maximum
security training schools operated by state governments to medium
or low security schools resembling Ivy league college campuses
that are operated by non-profit agencies.
Most states established juvenile "boot camps" in the
1980s and 1990s to impose a military style regimen of hard work,
calisthenics and discipline on juvenile offenders. Yet many studies
have cast doubt on their effectiveness in reforming youths.
Consider the purpose of boot camp for the U.S. Army or Marine
Corps: to weed out recruits who are not up to the physical rigors
and strict discipline of military life. With juvenile boot camps,
the purpose is not to weed out kids but to impose structure on
their chaotic lives. Boot camp operators may not know about a
particular youth's unstable upbringing, psychological deficits
or hidden medical problems.
When defiant kids refuse to do what they're ordered to do, youths
are not kicked out of the boot camp. Instead, they are punished
in ways that can be dangerous, such as excessive physical activities
like push-ups or jumping jacks. Delinquent youths in boot camps
have died while enduring such physical punishments in hot weather
and without being allowed to drink water.
Many, but not all, juveniles who have been the victims of sexual
assault become sexual predators themselves. There is a difference
between the rare youth who is a serial rapist and one who is unsure
of his sexuality and experiments with another youth under the age
of consent. But under the law, both youths are guilty of a sex
crime and in many states they face the prospect of being listed
for many years on a computerized registry of sex offenders that
is open for public inspection on the Internet. (In 2002, the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed to hear lower court rulings that overturned
sex offender registry laws in Alaska and Connecticut).
Treatment of sex offenders is costly and difficult. Some experts
believe that a child rapist never can be rehabilitated, that pedophiles
cannot ever be trusted to control their impulses. There are so
many young sex offenders that most facilities offering treatment
have long waiting lists.
There is no cookie-cutter approach to treating juvenile delinquents.
Each youth requires an individualized plan to correct misbehavior,
a plan that may have to be adjusted as counselors uncover layers
of pathological thoughts and behaviors. By exploring the complexities
of the juvenile justice system's rehabilitation efforts, journalists
can mine a rich vein of human interest stories.
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