Juvenile Court Case

Such statutes have had an incredible impact on the U.S. juvenile justice system. The original purpose of creating a separate juvenile court was to keep adolescents out of adult prisons, limit their exposure to adult criminal activity and poor role models, and also to provide guidance that helps them to turn away from further criminal behavior and be directed toward more positive results. It seemed that the individual juvenile offender cases were not getting looked at based on the individual characteristics or needs of the offender, rather whomever prosecuted the case was determining it based on the nature of the offense. Because of this, there were greater numbers of juvenile offenders having their cases in adult criminal courts, which do not
share the same importance of rehabilitation that is found in the juvenile court system. Estimates suggest that the cases of as many as 25 percent of juvenile offenders in the United States are adjudicated in adult criminal courts (Bishop, 2000). Criminal court judges work under federal and state laws that set harsher sentencing guidelines and require mandatory minimum sentencing, unlike the judges in juvenile court. These rules definitely limit the judges’ ability to consider circumstances that are specific to adolescents that might lessen their sentencing of these convicted juvenile offenders. This also means that factors like the juvenile’s age, education, maturity, and other developmental aspects, also including family history, have very little (if any) impact on the sentencing of juvenile offenders who are convicted in adult [criminal] court. These kinds of factors definitely affect the way in which adolescents are assessed. Adolescents who commit crimes do so during a very hectic stage in the development relating to biological, psychological, emotional, and social change. Compared to adults, adolescents are more prone to peer influence and are less mature when it comes to evaluating risks. Adolescents’ character is not formed and their decision-making skills are not developed yet. It has been found that risk taking and poorly regulated behavior tends to decrease with maturity, thus proving when children age, they are open to change.