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“Kids Who Kill”
My perception of the Juvenile Justice system
The juvenile justice system was created in the late 1800’s to reform U. ... During our country’s “Progressive Era” – the time that saw women’s suffrage and the end to child labor laws - the goal of the juvenile justice system became that of reform and rehabilitation. It is my understanding that this is when the juvenile justice system first exercised its authority within a "parens patriae" (state as parent or guardian) role across the nation. ... Juveniles were no longer tried as adult offenders and juvenile cases were heard in more informal court setting, often without the assistance of attorneys. ... Juvenile courts aimed to make their civil proceedings unlike adult criminal trials. The juvenile justice system became a sort of quasi-welfare system, attempting to put the “best interests” of the youthful offender first. ... 1 (1967))
In 1968 Congress passed the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act, to be followed by a replacement version in 1974, which strove to place the emphasis on deterring juvenile crime and placing juveniles in different correctional facilities from adults. If the goal of the juvenile justice system is, as I have inferred from my readings and experiences, that of protecting society while rehabilitating youthful offenders I feel it has come up woefully short. While some semblance of the earlier model has remained, the juvenile justice system has moved stealthily toward a punitive system operating under a thinly veiled guise of putting the “best interests” of the youth first.
After reading the article Kids who kill: juveniles and the death penalty by Stan Grossfeld (Globe, 1999), I was prompted to read more. According to an article published by the Associated Press in 2000;
“Since 1973, 17 men have been executed in the United States for crimes committed as juveniles, including four this year, according to the Justice Department. A new report by the departments Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention said 74 other offenders are on death row for crimes committed before they turned 18.
Approximate Word count = 1587
Approximate Pages = 6.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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