How Do Youth Offenders Affect The Juvenile Justice System?

Crime continues to be an important issue of the 21st century. In the 1980s and early 1990s, crime was high. The increase in crime was very short but it still has a lasting effect on the juvenile justice system. Because of the many youth gangs, gun violence, and drugs, they created three agencies that present new ways of handling youth offenders on a separate system. The first agency was the way that they portrayed the violence of the youth. Because of that, the fear of crime to the public was intensified and that added to emotional hysteria. The media also played a huge role. The coverage that they portrayed boosted acts of random violence by youth on innocent victims and as a result of that, the public’s view became warped and the public developed a magnified sense of vulnerability. …show more content…
They were demonized as representing a new and different breed of delinquents. They clumped every adolescent together and denounced them to be evil, especially the inner-male city minorities. Because of this, all adolescent offenders were marked as “super predators” who were dangerous and unrepentant. Lastly, because of the toughen hearts of the public, they viewed the justice system as incompetent of controlling youth crime and controlling youth offenders. These 3 things--magnified fear of crime, demonization of youth, and distinguished incompetence of the justice system – were capitalized on in the political stand point to enhance legislation and public policies that makes youth offenders, adolescent’s adults, and shifted caution in determining transports of cases to criminal court from judges to