Youth Criminal Justice System in the United States

Youth Criminal Justice System in the United StatesNameInstitutional AffiliationDate
Introduction
The Juvenile justice system was established so that it can serve the needs of a child in ensuring that there is the delivery of justice to the young people and also to ensure that if a young person commits a crime, they will be dealt with by the law. It is established bearing in mind that the needs of a child are so different from those of the adults. On the other hand, most of the adult criminal justice system is not well equipped to meet the needs of the youth offenders at the various stages in the criminal justice system beginning from trial and even sentencing. According to statistics, the young people are represented in crime and violence as victims and also perpetrators of criminal activities. In most of the developed countries, there is an increase in the number of the young people who commit crime than in the past, and this raises concern about the juvenile system.
Youth Criminal Justice System in the United States
There are different statistics on the number of the young people who are tried in the adult court. Researchers approximate the number of the young people prosecuted in the adult courts to be approximately 200,000 in each year. However, one of the things that can be noted about this is that even though the law was established so that it can deal with the youth who commit the most serious they issued crimes, there are youths who are still tried in the adult courts even though their offenses are minor. A good example is legislation that was passed by states such as North Carolina and New York that stipulate that young people who are at the age of sixteen or seventeen are fit to be taken to court and tried as adults CITATION Liz12 \l 1033 (Liz & Peter, 2012).
One of the common policies that hinder delivery of justice to the young people is that the youths who are charged as adults can have a pre-trial in an adult jail where they face some challenges. One of the greatest challenges that they face is the fear of the risk of assault, abuse, and even their death. An estimated number of 75,000 young people are locked up in the jails for the adults where they mingle with them and come into contact with the adults. Such a situation can lead to physical or emotional harm to the young people when they are in custody. The jail officials work hard to separate the young people from the adults, but on the other hand, if they take them and place them in different places, it is viewed by the youth as isolation or confinement. Given that they are young people, they might begin to think that they have been isolated and get into depression over the issue. The youths can also get suicidal thoughts. However, the American Jail Association has also weighed in on the matter. They issued a recommendation that juveniles should not at all be housed in the jail courts for the adults if they are not designed in such a way that they meet the needs of a young person and no trained personnel can be able to handle the young person. The youth is also placed in adult jails before being taken to the juvenile courts for trial.
Locking the youths who are sentenced as adults in the adult prisons is also another challenge in the criminal justice system for the juvenile. An approximated number of 2700 youth are locked in the adult prisons in a day. Such an incidence may dispose the youth to incidences of sexual abuse or abuse of the adult prisoners. In a report released by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, they found out that the youths who are locked up with the adults are at the highest risk of sexual abuse than any other group of young people. The are numerous policies that are intended to put the situation into normal such as the establishment of facilities meant only for the juvenile such as detention cells and juvenile prisons. The correctional services administrators at the juvenile and adult courts are doing their best to support the efforts so that there can be an appropriate correctional setting facility for the juveniles.
Youths of color are also affected by the criminal justice system as they are unable to get justice by their skin color. For instance, the African-American youth in the juvenile system receive harsh treatment at the various stages of processing their cases as compared to their white counterparts. In fact, the number if the African-American youth who are arrested and taken to the juvenile courts make up 30% of the total number of the youths who are arrested, even though their population is 17% of the total number of the youth population in the United States. The African-American youth make up 62% of the youth who are prosecuted in the adult criminal system, and the likelihood of them receiving an adult prison sentence is nine times more than that of the white youth. There is a high likelihood that the native youth who are in the juvenile court are more likely to get the most severe punishments found within the juvenile justice systems. Such punishments are “out of home placement” where the young person is taken to a state correctional facility where they undergo a reformation process. Another punishment is the waivers to the adult treatment system where they are taken treated as adults.
Such incidences can hinder the efforts of the juvenile officers in working hard to ensure that there is far and equal treatment of the youths at the various juvenile court systems. Leaders and those who are in power should act to ensure that they come up with policies that are intended to ensure fairness and equality in the juvenile system.
There are some consequences of prosecuting the youth in the adult court, and they should not be looked down upon. The youth spend their time away in prison instead of staying at home and becoming productive to the nation. They are also denied the opportunity to mingle with their family members. The youth at such a critical age should be exposed to better ways of living, and they should also be presented with opportunities so that they can be able to achieve their dreams instead of exposing them to prison. It`s also unfortunate that the youth who is tried as adults also face the same punishment as the adults. They are placed in adult jails during their pre-trial periods and also during their post-trial periods and in some cases, they are placed in the prisons where they do not receive rehabilitation services at all. They are also subjected to the same sentencing as the adults, but they do not receive a death penalty for the offense that they have done CITATION Col09 \l 1033 (Collective & Jones, 2009). The problems begin after the young people are released, or they have completed their sentence. Some of the youth end up carrying an adult criminal conviction where they will experience difficulties in gaining access to the available job opportunities in their states or joining a college so that they can be able to receive the education. In some of the states, it is difficult for such people to get a driving license or you may be barred from holding any public office or even voting. Given the above instances, we can then see that the consequences of taking our youth to adult prisons and also treating them as adults are long-term and they occur later after the person has been released from prison.
Various researchers have carried out studies to establish the results that are obtained after sending the youth to adult criminal justice system Results from the research that they carried out show that sending the youth to adult criminal justice system will increase the likelihood of the young people committing criminal after they have been released from the prisons. A task force that was set up the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a recommendation that the policies are not fit for the juvenile offenders and as such they should not be transferred to other court systems. The report also found at that the transfer of the youth from the juvenile system to the adult cou...