Juvenile justice Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Juvenile justice - Thesis Example It is strongly felt that the best institutions that could try child or juvenile offenders need to be Juvenile Courts, and not adult Courts. This is because of the two principal reasons: 2. At their tender age, what is more important is the ability of the system to take correctional and rehabilitative measures to bring the offender back into the mainstream in order to do productive and useful work in future. By incarcerating the child to jail sentences, their future lives are spoiled and even after their sentences are completed, it may be too late to being them back into the mainstream of social life, and thus, later, they would prove burdens for themselves and society and may indulge in large-scale criminal activities due to non-correctional measures. Children and juveniles are not in a position to offer strong defense in adult courts of law because of their cognitive disabilities and other limitations because of which their position would be marginalized in adult Courts and they would not be in a position to defend themselves as well as they could possibly be able to do in Juvenile Courts, which would need to take more compassionate perspective of their crimes and misdemeours and pass judgments, based on individual characteristics of the crime and perceived 'child criminal. The aspect of children being tried in adult Courts is a social problem and s... Judgments need to be based on rehabilitative and correctional therapy and not designed to be punitive based. The aspect of children being tried in adult Courts is a social problem and sociologists, child behavioral specialists and child psychologists need to feel the responsibility of ensuring that the incidence of such cases are kept to the minimum. However, when one has to judge the severity of the crime, especially murder or rape, there needs to be a greater degree of autonomy to be granted to the legal process in trying such serious offenses and meting out punishment to the offenders, whether under-age or adult. This research study would take up the matter of trying children and its short and long-term implications upon society. The research question is: Should children or Juveniles be tried in adult courts Literature Review: In order to understand the progression of this hypothesis, it is necessary to go back to history. The aspects of juvenile Courts are a recent phenomenon. During the 18th Century, an offender who was above 7 years of age would be treated as adults. It was believed during that time that children below 7 years lacked moral capacity, and was thus devoid of giving consent. It has been documented that, before the 20th Century, 10 children below 14 years of age were awarded capital punishment in US for committing heinous crimes. (Stolba, 2001). The combination of child offenders with adult criminals in prison settings created social unrest, so much so that the "Society for the prevention of juvenile delinquents " was formed in 1925. With the primary objective of rehabilitating juvenile offenders. Since the majority of