Juvenile Transfer Law Essay
Under the guise of parens patriae, the juvenile court emphasized treatment, supervision, and control rather than punishment.” As early as the 17th century there was a concern that juveniles were being housed with adults in adult prisons and mental institutions because there was no place to place youth that had broken the law or juveniles that had been abandoned by their families. There was also only one court, it was for adults and it was punitive. Originally, juvenile courts were designed to implement treatment for juveniles and to separate juveniles from adults in courts, jails and prisons. Social reform brought about juvenile justice. Juveniles were not considered the same as adults, but there was nowhere to try them as juveniles and house them as juveniles except with adults. As part of the reform juvenile justice was created to rehabilitate juveniles and treat them as juveniles and not to criminalize them in adult courts and jails. The primary purpose was to rehabilitate them as to return them to the community as soon as …show more content…
According to Steiner and Wright (2006) “the juvenile arrest rate for violent crime rose 62% between 1988 and 1994 and the juvenile homicide rate doubled between 1987 and 1993. Trends in juvenile crime provide no evidence that young people have become more crime prone or dangerous than in past years; the one category of crime that diverged significantly from the overall trends during that period was murder.” As the population grew between the years of 1988 to 1994 juvenile crime rate did not increase or decrease it virtually remained the same. Murder committed by juveniles began to increase, as violent murders in gangs also began to increase. Politicians came up with a plan to get tough on juveniles. Since they were committing crime, they would be dealt with as adults; this was supposed to make them not commit more crimes, or for the ones committing crimes they would be incarcerated. As a direct result of the get tough on juvenile crime the Supreme Court began a process of criminalizing juveniles in the adult court system verses juvenile court. Ultimately, criminalizing juveniles and transferring them to adult courts and prisons. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2015) “one important reform was the revision of transfer laws