Juvenile Justice Process and Corrections
Develop a 700- to 1,050-word paper based on your selected juvenile offender. Address the following in your assignment: • Describe the process the juvenile will follow after arrest, from intake, through court, sentencing, and punishment or rehabilitation. The process should be based on actual state laws and practices of your state or a state in which you are familiar. One or more sources. Base it on this juvenile: Colleen M. is a 15-year-old Caucasian girl. She has lived in the state for her entire life. Her father abandoned the family when she was an infant and her mother is currently in a drug rehabilitation facility. Colleen has been living on a farm with her aunt. Although she has no prior contact with the law, she admits to having run away from her aunt in the past, though she always returned on her own. Colleen’s current trouble is centered on a neighbor’s dispute about her dog. After the dog bit the neighbor, the neighbor threatened and attempted to take the dog to animal control. When the neighbor later found Colleen and the dog trespassing on her property, the neighbor verbally threatened to “get” them both. Apparently, the neighbor set fire to a scarecrow on her property to emphasize her point. At this point, Colleen threw a nearby bucket of liquid on the neighbor. The liquid was later determined to be a pesticide. The pesticide burned the skin on contact and triggered an extreme allergic reaction in the neighbor, resulting in her death. Colleen was charged with involuntary manslaughter and was determined delinquent by the court. Colleen claims that she was simply attempting to douse the fire. Coincidentally, a few weeks prior, Colleen had been a passenger of a motor home that had collided with a vehicle driven by the neighbor’s sister. This accident resulted in the neighbor’s sister’s death, though it was ruled an accidental homicide. Witnesses report that Colleen took a pair of fancy shoes off the feet of the corpse and immediately put them on her own feet. Colleen defends her actions by claiming that an observer told her to do this. At the time of her arrest, Colleen’s blood tested positive for opiates. Colleen claims that while traveling with three homeless men, they unknowingly stumbled upon a field of poppies and that before they knew it; the intoxicating aroma caused her to pass out. Colleen claims not to have a drug problem. Colleen states that all she wants to do now is go home and that she misses her Aunt Emily.
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The juvenile justice system is a large and complex system. It has varying processes and components depending on the state. Within these states, the procedures of processing juvenile cases vary from community to community depending on the community’s practices and traditions. Therefore, a description of the juvenile justice processing must be general and outline a series of decision points.
Figure 1: The General Juvenile Justice Process
The juvenile system differs from the criminal system justice system for adults. The terms used in the juvenile court system are also different. The differences are a reflection of the fact the goals of the juvenile system are different from those of the adult justice system (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011). The juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania provides care, supervision, and rehabilitation of the youth that ensures protection of the community, accountability, and development of competency (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011).
Soon after the arrest, Colleen has the right to speak to her lawyer and in the event where she could not afford one. She had a right to a public defender who is offered free of cost for every court hearing or the aunt (Emily) can directly call the office of the public defender. After the arrest Colleen may have been detained at a juvenile detention facility or any other out of home placement facility according to Pennsylvania state laws (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011). On detention, a hearing usually proceeds within 72 hours to determine if the juvenile will stay on detention or will be released. The child and the lawyer must be notified of the date, time, and place, and purpose of the hearing. If this is not done, an affidavit can be issued to the probation officer informing the officer you were not aware of the hearing and another hearing must be held within the same number of hours (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011).
The detention hearing determines if there is a reasonable basis that the juvenile might have committed the crime and whether the child should be detained or not in order to protect the community’s people or property or ensure the child returns for adjudication hearings. In addition, it determines if restrictive alternatives could work. (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011),
If not detained, the probation intake process follows where the child meets the probation intake officer who schedule a meeting that includes the child and parent or guardian. The officer then recommends what action should be taken on the child based on interviews with the child, complainant, parent, and victim. This is after issuance of a written copy of the allegation and communication of the child’s constitutional rights (Feierman, Keller, Glickman, & Stanton, 2011).
The outcom...