The American juvenile system has developed over the past century with several differences that distinguish it from the adult criminal justice process. The first juvenile court was established in 1899 in Cook County, Illinois, and since then the juvenile justice system has grown and changed significantly. Originally, the court process was informal. The process was nothing more than just a conversation between the youth offender and the judge. The lack of formal process and constitutional due process in the juvenile justice system came to light in the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision In re Gault. In Gault, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Constitution requires that youth charged with delinquency in juvenile court have many of the same due process rights guaranteed to adults accused of crimes, including the right to an attorney and the right to confront witnesses against them. Previously, the juvenile justice system withheld constitutional protections routinely afforded to adults. The court finds that juvenile proceedings must be in line with the 14th Amendment's due process clause (Lawrence). While those who agree that the court system should be able to try juveniles as adults depending on the severity of the crime, those who oppose that view believe that the juveniles’ sentence should focus on rehabilitation.
According to the Juvenile Law Center, today’s juvenile justice system still maintains rehabilitation as its primary goal and distinguishes itself from the criminal justice system in many important ways. With few exceptions, in most states’ delinquency is defined as the commission of a criminal act by a child who was under the age of 18 at the time; most states also allow the youth to remain under the supervision of the juvenile court until age 21. Instead of prison, juvenile court judges draw from a range of legal options to meet both the safety needs of the public and the treatment needs of the youth. While the youth are incarcerated, they are entitled to educational programs through the correctional center they are placed in.
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Prosecutors, defense attorneys, social workers and other experts are aware that even limited interactions with the juvenile justice system may be counterproductive and detrimental for youth who are alleged to have committed a crime. Unlike adult criminal proceedings, juvenile court hearings are often closed to members of the public and records in some states remain confidential, protecting children from stigma and collateral consequences unlike when their records are publicly available. However, juvenile records have increasingly become more accessible, and in most jurisdictions are not automatically sealed or expunged when the young person becomes an adult (Juvenile Law Center). A criminal record can be a barrier to future education, stable housing, and employment. While some youth may have committed an act that will and should result in the rehabilitative services provided by judgement, others would be best served by an alternative. According to Lisa Minutola and Abigail Layton “Sometimes all they need is a second chance to empower themselves and pursue a brighter future” (qtd. in “Civil Citations”).
Although juvenile records have increasingly become more accessible, youth advocates are pushing agencies to keep law enforcement and juvenile court records confidential and to comply with laws mandating that such records be sealed, physically destroyed, or “expunged,” which usually occurs when the individuals finish their probation or reach a certain age between 21 and 25. Such policies, which governed the handling of juvenile records in the past are designed to enable juvenile offenders, as adults, to seek education, housing and employment without being stigmatized as criminals (Parise). “What many of us are trying to do with young adult justice is reduce the level of consequences for youth up to 25, so when they come out, they don't have a felony on their record,” says David Muhammad, vice president of Impact Justice, an advocacy and research center in Oakland, California (Lyons).
On December 2nd, 2016, The U.S. Department of Education announced the release of new resources and guidelines to help justice-involved youth transition back to a traditional school setting. “It is in the interest of every community to help incarcerated youth who are exiting the juvenile justice system build the skills they need to succeed in college and careers and to become productive citizens,” said U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. “Unfortunately, many barriers can prevent justice-involved youth from making a successful transition back to school. We want to use every tool we have to help eliminate barriers for all students and ensure all young people can reach their full potential” (qtd. in “Fact Sheet”).
In 2014, the Department of Education released joint guidance with the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at improving school climate and reducing disproportionate discipline to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and a separate joint guidance to justice facilities to remind them that the Federal civil rights laws, regulations, and guidance that prohibit discrimination against students in traditional public schools also apply to educational services and supports offered or provided to youth in justice facilities. The Department of Education also collaborated with The Department of Justice to release guiding principles for providing high-quality education to incarcerated youth (“Fact Sheet”).
Medical science is a key role in the debate over whether juveniles accused of serious crimes should be treated as adults. By scanning the brain in far more detail than ever before, researchers are providing data supporting a key argument by those who advocate rehabilitation rather than jail. They say juveniles shouldn't be treated like adults because the brain scans show they don't think like adults. That position played a central role in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision banning the death penalty as unconstitutional for juveniles who were under 18 when they committed the crime. Christopher Simmons, a high school junior in Missouri, broke into a house with a friend, with burglary and murder in mind. 'Simmons said he wanted to murder somebody,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision. Simmons had said they'd get away with the crime because they were minors (“Oyez”).
According to Wallace Mlyniec, senior counsel at Georgetown University's Juvenile Justice Clinic, says advances in brain imagery have helped researchers understand that the human brain continues to mature until about age 25, meaning adolescents are less able to make rational decisions. “The cognitive part really is pretty good by the age of 16,” he says. “Most 16-year-olds have the cognitive capacity of adults, but they don't have the impulse control, the decision-making ability, the experience to understand what the consequence of their actions are, and they are influenced by peers in the ways adults are not. “The future, for a 15-year-old, is Friday night,” he says (qtd. in “Reforming Juvenile Justice”). Therefore, adolescents should not be held to the same standards of culpability as an adult, he contends.
However, while this may explain why some youths lack the reasoning ability to fully appreciate the consequences of their actions, it does not mean they should not be held accountable for their crimes. The vast majority of teenagers understand the difference between right and wrong and know it is wrong to torture or kill someone. Therefore, the law rightfully allows adult prosecution for these and other violent crimes. Prosecutors and judges thoughtfully and professionally enforce juvenile codes with fairness and impartiality every day, taking into consideration both mitigating factors such as a juvenile offender's age, maturity and amenability to treatment and probation. They also consider the aggravating factors such as the severity of the crime, the threat to public safety, the impact upon the victim and the offender's criminal history (Backstrom).
According to James Backstrom, a county attorney in Minnesota, states that prosecuting juvenile offenders in adult court is appropriate and necessary in certain cases to protect public safety and hold youths appropriately accountable for their crimes. Contrary to opponents' claims, this sanction is not being overused by prosecutors. Few jurisdictions prosecute more than 1-2 percent of juvenile offenders as adults. This is a tool reserved for the most serious, violent and chronic offenders, who should face more serious consequences for their crimes than those available in juvenile court.
The National District Attorneys Association believes strongly in the need for a balanced approach to juvenile justice. One emphasizing the importance of prevention and early intervention strategies, while ensuring that those who commit criminal offenses are apprehended, prosecuted and held accountable for their crimes. Prosecutors should have the discretion to file cases involving serious, violent and habitual offenders 14 years of age and older directly in adult court for prosecution. Prosecutors are more directly accountable to the public than are individuals in the juvenile justice system. States should be left to develop their own rules concerning the appropriate age of prosecuting juveniles as adults and developing laws that hold juvenile offenders accountable for crimes of violence (Backstrom 2).
In 1997, when Renaldo Adams was 17 years old, he put on a stocking mask and gloves and broke into the Montgomery, Alabama home of the Mills family, where the two parents and three young children were sleeping. He held Mrs. Mills, who was four months pregnant, hostage at knifepoint and forced Mr. Mills to go out to get money. While he was out, Adams raped Mrs. Mills and stabbed her multiple times. She and her unborn child both died. A jury decided, appropriately, that Adams should die for this crime. His sentence was reduced to life without parole when the U.S. Supreme Court imposed a blanket ban on the death penalty for anyone who has not reached his 18th birthday, regardless of how heinous the crime, how extensive his criminal record, or how close he was to his birthday. Now it is proposed that heartless, raping murderers such as Adams receive a double discount on murder, making them exempt from life without parole as well (Lyons).
Sentencing a juvenile to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is a weighty matter. Prosecutors do not seek such punishment lightly, nor do courts impose it without careful consideration and compelling reasons. But youthful offenders sometimes commit heinous crimes including but not limited to rape, kidnappings, violent robberies and assaults that may leave the victim injured for life, or worse. Many do so with full knowledge of the wrongfulness of their actions, and with callous disregard of both the demands of the law and the rights of their victims. And many are already repeat offenders with histories of recidivism. Prosecutors and court recognize that life without parole is a severe sanction that should be imposed on a youthful offender only in extreme circumstances, and therefore, the penalty is rarely imposed. But that does not mean that the Constitution bars such punishment on those rare occasions when it is necessary to protect society (Billitteri).
While restorative justice has many merits, reducing incarceration rates is not one of them. Restorative justice approaches generally include meetings between victims, offenders and other parties, where victims can explain the harms caused to them and offenders are afforded the possibility of making amends for these harms. Research has found that restorative justice probably leads to a small or moderate reduction in reoffending rates and is generally better for victims than conventional justice practices (Wood). Reductions in reoffending would seem to be a good starting point for lowering prison rates, but this is misleading. In the United States and most other English-speaking countries, restorative justice is used largely for youth and/or lesser offenses. Overall, it is not widely used for more serious offenses, or for repeat offenders likely to commit imprisonable offenses. Unless restorative justice is used more systematically for serious offenders, it will have little ability to reduce prison rates through reduced reoffending (Wood 2).
Another possibility would be to use restorative justice as an alternative to incarceration for first-time or low-risk offenders. Some of the earliest restorative programs were developed in the 1970s as alternatives to incarceration, and many early advocates focused on ways to lower prison populations (Wood 3). Since then, however, restorative justice has been largely institutionalized as part of criminal justice sanctions, not as an alternative to them.
Perhaps the most important thing that the federal government can do in addressing violent juvenile crime is to provide adequate funding to programs aimed at crime prevention. Programs proven to keep kids from becoming criminals in the first place are the most powerful weapons in law enforcement's arsenal against crime. Traditional law-enforcement efforts must continue with new tools to deal with today's violent juvenile criminals and to effectively deal with non-violent offenders before it is too late. Violent juvenile criminals must be prosecuted and dealt with severely by our criminal justice system (Backstrom 3).
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