Processing Juvenile Delinquents

Processing Juveniles “Contact with a police officer often is a young person's introduction to the juvenile justice system.” (Bolden-Barrett, n.d.) Whenever this occurs, there are potentially two outcomes, the police officer either sends a summons to a juvenile justice system pertaining to the offense/s of the juvenile or they choose to throw out the case. “Law enforcement's role with youthful offenders, boys and girls under 18, is particularly challenging because federal law protects young people who commit serious crimes and encourages their return to the community. The other challenge for police is juveniles commit a disproportionate number of offenses compared to their population.” (Bolden-Barrett, n.d.) A major problem with juvenile delinquents
is that whenever they commit a crime, no matter the level of seriousness of the crime, they are often given little to no time in juvenile facilities and they return to the streets, versus adult criminals who may have committed the same crime. This is because society believes that these juvenile offenders are not capable of committing these crimes without outside influences and that they have the ability to change their behavior as they grow older and develop more logical reasoning. This though can be very dangerous for the public, as these juvenile offenders will be given the opportunity to commit the same crimes or more serious crimes repeatedly. In other cases, the juvenile justice system chooses to place juvenile delinquents in juvenile delinquent facilities to remove them from the public due to illegal behaviors that may develop into more serious offending resulting in a potential criminal future. This is also done as an example to other minors and potential juvenile offender that there may be some form of punishment for any illegal behavior or act they commit. Society does somehow see this as putting these juvenile offenders at risk for developing more criminal behaviors, simply by exposing them to other juvenile offenders. “Police officers handle noncriminal behavior, known as status offenses, involving juveniles. These offenses include skipping school, running away from home and violating curfews are status offenses.” (Bolden-Barrett, n.d.) Law enforcement also deals with those who display truant behavior that may lead to juvenile behavior in the future. They try to deter these individuals from being truant by speaking to the individual and their parent or guardian.