Juvenile Crime Issues

Juvenile Crime Issues

Eric Brown

CJS/200

9/18/2011

Stephen Johnson

Juvenile Crime Issues

Juvenile crime issues play a big part in all of the crimes that happen throughout the United States. Juvenile delinquency leads to adult crimes and status offenses. There are many variables that contribute to juvenile crime rates as well as many ways to prevent them.

Adult court and juvenile court are different in many different ways. “Juvenile court was designed to be a little less adversarial than adult court” (Girls in Trouble, 2007, p. 117). Unlike adult court, juvenile court is held without a jury. A juvenile’s fate is collectively determined by the judge, parents, social workers, prosecutors and defenders to see what is in the best interest of the child (Girls in Trouble, 2007). A jury for adults who commit crimes is made up of their peers, but that cannot be the case with juveniles because their peers are all under the age of eighteen. Another difference between adult and juvenile court is that the public is not allowed to observe juvenile trials because juvenile court is based on protecting the identity of the youth offenders and privacy of the family (Girls in Trouble, 2007).

Juvenile actions or conduct in violation of criminal law, status offenses, and other juvenile misbehavior are all contributed to delinquency. From different perspectives, delinquency has many different theories and definitions. One example of delinquency would be the differential association theory. Edwin Sutherland developed a theory that people violate laws only when they feel it is necessary to prove they are right in their argument (Hagan, 2001). Another example of delinquency is the neutralization theory. Within this theory, there are four neutralization techniques described. The first technique is the denial of responsibility, which can be described as blaming their acts on a bad childhood (Hagan, 2001). The second technique is the denial of injury, which can be described as...