Juveniles charged as adults essays

Juveniles charged as adults essays Beginning in Chicago, Illinois in 1899, a distinction was made between crime committed by adults and crime committed by juveniles. With the help of Jane Adams and other reformers, a separate court was set up for juvenile offenders. This new court for youthful offenders was designed to place greater emphasis on the welfare and rehabilitation of youth in the justice system. Training schools and detention centers specialized in rehabilitation were set up to house and treat these kids who had run afoul of the law. These detention centers were designed not only to address the educational and psychological needs of these young criminals, but also to provide vocational skills in order to ensure that these kids would not re-offend and could become productive members of society. The present form of the United States juvenile court system came about due to the case of Gerald Gault in 1967. Prior to 1967, juveniles charged with a crime were not afforded the same right that adults were. The right of being tried by a jury, the right to cross examination and counsel, and the right to protect ones self form self-incrimination were replaced by the benevolence of a single judge. This changed when Gault, a 15 year-old, was charged with making an obscene phone call. While the maximum penalty he would have faced in an adult court would have been a $50 fine or two months in jail, his fate was left solely to the discretion of a single judge in the juvenile system. The judge ordered Gault to a detention center for six years. Under appeal, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the juvenile system was a violation of the fourteenth amendment, asserting that juveniles should have the same right to due process that were afforded adults. This ruling sculpted the juvenile court system that is in place today. Over the last fifteen years, once again the face of the juvenile justice system is changing. During the decade of the 90s, ...