Juvenile Justice System: Article Analysis

There are multiple gaps in the Juvenile Justice System due to organizational issues, in which the decisions are made. One of the major concerns in the juvenile justice system is the over representation of minorities. This is due to prejudice and bias people in higher power that make the decisions regarding juvenile sentencing. In the first empirical article “Contexts of Decision Making…” the authors briefly discuss how earlier people often used Conflict Theory to explain why minorities are over represented in the juvenile system. Criminologist have discovered that sometimes there was intentional prejudice against someone due to his or her race. Furthermore, Modern Conflict Theory suggests that minorities lack power, which limits the resources
The majority of studies that cover juvenile transfers to adult court suggest that once a juvenile is transferred to an adult court they are more likely to be incarcerated for a longer time because the goal of adult court is to execute greater, severe punishment. Researchers have discovered that comparing sentencing in these two courts cause controversy because some juvenile courts use indeterminate sentencing structure with a limited age jurisdiction while most sentences in adult court are determinate and do not have an age restriction (Feld, 1999). The ultimate goal of this research was to assess whether or not transferred juveniles are given harsher sentences than juvenile offenders processed through juvenile court. However, this research has not been able to determine if juveniles are actually treated similar to adults. Depending on the state, the age that an offender can be charged as an adult varies. In some states transferred youth were more likely to be incarcerated and to receive longer confinement time. Overall, throughout this research there was more evidence that suggested that juvenile was punished more harshly than adults. Judges usually use multiple factors that will help them to determine how dangerous transferred youth are and their ability to be rehabilitated, which causes the judge to give a harsher sanction
Researchers believed that juvenile courts should be abolished due to the belief that juvenile crime and violence was the cause for public anxiety and most political responses. Because juveniles are considered a major problem, people were led to believe that juvenile courts were no longer a social welfare agency and had become a deficient criminal court. Researchers argued that youth need to be taught to take responsibility for their actions, and thereby when dealing with a juvenile offender judges should use “a sliding scale of developmental and criminal responsibility, as the appropriate sentencing policy mechanism to implement the lesser culpability of younger offenders” (Feld,