It is essential that mandates are created on a federal level in order to regulate judge decisions on waiving juvenile cases to adult criminal court. To maintain the current downward trend of youth violence in America for the long term, preventative measures should be emphasized more than punishment. Juvenile court systems were created with the protection of child welfare through rehabilitation in mind, but current practices allow judges to avoid this purpose by sending children to adult criminal trial for harsher punishment. Judges may feel inclined to put more adolescents through this for a variety of reasons, including reelection and closeted deals with privately owned detention centers. If there were federal guidelines on which few cases
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In many states, the ages can be lowered if the case involves theft, violent sexual offenses, and homicide. Certain charges can allow a judge to send a child to adult court regardless of age, if it meets loosely set criteria (3). Charging a juvenile with an adult crime would mean potentially sending them to life in prison, even at ages as young as 13 or 14 (4). It would easily be assumed that the serious nature of these types of situations are heavily regulated and supervised in order to protect minors from unusual punishment, but shockingly, there are almost no official guidelines in place regarding the matter. In a large amount of cases, judges are allowed to use their own personal discretion to make those kinds of calls. This may initially sound like exactly what the juvenile system needs. After all, flexibility and special circumstances are primary themes in this department. When rules in relation to judge discretion regarding waiving procedures in juvenile court were put into place, concerns of corruption were not put into play. Abuse of this freedom is unfortunately the resulting choice in a disturbing number of proceedings on the judicial level, so that instead of harsh punishment being the exception in general practice, it has become the standard. Judges may petition to waive, or accept a petition to waive from the district attorney, any or no case before it is even heard in juvenile court. In theory, this would be a rare but necessary intervening measure in extreme cases, implemented only when the child exhibits a clear and resilient threat to society for an amount of time only accounted for in normal adult proceedings, but upwards of forty percent of juvenile offenders currently being held in detention facilities for adult sentences were only found to be guilty of non-violent
In many states, the ages can be lowered if the case involves theft, violent sexual offenses, and homicide. Certain charges can allow a judge to send a child to adult court regardless of age, if it meets loosely set criteria (3). Charging a juvenile with an adult crime would mean potentially sending them to life in prison, even at ages as young as 13 or 14 (4). It would easily be assumed that the serious nature of these types of situations are heavily regulated and supervised in order to protect minors from unusual punishment, but shockingly, there are almost no official guidelines in place regarding the matter. In a large amount of cases, judges are allowed to use their own personal discretion to make those kinds of calls. This may initially sound like exactly what the juvenile system needs. After all, flexibility and special circumstances are primary themes in this department. When rules in relation to judge discretion regarding waiving procedures in juvenile court were put into place, concerns of corruption were not put into play. Abuse of this freedom is unfortunately the resulting choice in a disturbing number of proceedings on the judicial level, so that instead of harsh punishment being the exception in general practice, it has become the standard. Judges may petition to waive, or accept a petition to waive from the district attorney, any or no case before it is even heard in juvenile court. In theory, this would be a rare but necessary intervening measure in extreme cases, implemented only when the child exhibits a clear and resilient threat to society for an amount of time only accounted for in normal adult proceedings, but upwards of forty percent of juvenile offenders currently being held in detention facilities for adult sentences were only found to be guilty of non-violent