Juveniles In Adult Court

Juveniles In Adult Court

Juveniles In Adult Court

Children have always been seen as the hope for a better tomorrow but for Americans they seem to represent a certain symbol of evil in society. There are a lot of cases that have been filed against children among these murder cases. Juveniles have been prosecuted as adults for years. Before the 17th century, they were considered miniature adults therefore subject to the same procedures as adults whenever they committed a serious crime (Brown 1998). Childhood then was considered to end at five years of age. Even though these juveniles are incarcerated for their crimes, they suffer in adult prisons where they are easy targets for sodomy and other violent experiences in the hands of hard core criminals. Later on the European church and other community leaders convinced the general public that children are weak and innocent human beings who need protection and guidance from adults. Childhood was then prolonged and education became the first priority. Societal norms became the determinant of age-appropriate behavior. This led to their cases being separated from those of adults. Brown (1998) further states that by the 18th century, children under the age of seven were considered to be incapable of forming criminal intent unless it could be proven beyond reasonable doubt that they did.

The first juvenile court established in the United States was in 1899 based on the premise that young offenders should be treated differently from adults. This court would seek long-term behavioral change first instead of issuing harsh punishment by providing the necessary guidance that these juveniles lacked from their parents. This would increase rehabilitative effects of the court's intervention on the juvenile's life.

People do not expect children to commit crime and this makes it difficult for them to decide how to handle a case of a crime committed by a child. The only choice they have is to either redefine the offense to a much lesser one or redefine the offender as not being a child. Children are considered to have different competencies from adults and furthermore they have different potential to change their behavior compared to adults and that is why they need to be tried separately (Ortiz 2005). It is considered easier for a child to change behavior than for an adult since most children are susceptible to environmental factors. Children are considered clean slates that have to be tamed and taught how to behave appropriately. In this way rehabilitation is so much more effective at this age than at adulthood where it is difficult to make someone change their behaviors. This makes it unfair to charge a child in an adult criminal court when the choice of juvenile court is available.

The crime alone should not be the only determinant of how a crime is prosecuted but the motive should be put under serious consideration especially if the offender is a juvenile. Juveniles should not be tried as adults since they possess different levels of reasoning (Gorski 2005). Criminal acts must have the intent to commit a crime before committing it. Most juveniles lack criminal intent as do adults and this is why they should not be given the same consideration as adults. Most of their crime is done amidst temporary insanity where the child has been molested or badly mistreated to the extent that their brains snap and they find themselves committing murder. They normally just want it to stop and they never even realize what they are doing until they have done it and the damage is done. This case is different from an adult's where the adult most probably will meditate on his crime before committing it and try his best to hide any evidence that point to him as the offender. These two offenders should therefore be incarcerated separately, the one for the youngster being tried in juvenile court and the adult in adult court.

Developmental psychology states that people go through several changes in life, physically, emotionally and intellectually as well as socially (Ortiz 2005). This should be able to define whether one is competent or not to commit a crime knowingly. Adolescence is known to be a stage in life when most people are vulnerable to malleability therefore they tend to be influenced by their environment. Transferring such an adolescent into criminal justice system may hinder his or her rehabilitation and instead do more harm than good. The only result doing this can guarantee is that the child might end up being a hard core criminal in life or they might not survive in jail. The adults in jail will tend to molest and use them molding them into criminals just like them. Reversing this kind of a scenario is almost impossible (Berman and Bergman 2009).

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