Violent Crimes: The Juvenile Justice System

The youth of today’s society are not held accountable for their actions. In 2015 alone, 53,500 juveniles were arrested for committing violent crimes. However, many of these crimes go unpunished under the Juvenile Justice Act, “on the theory that long sentences are unlikely to help rehabilitate young offenders, the new act specifies relatively short terms for offences”(Dolphin). While violent crimes are being committed, the juvenile offenders go on, hardly punished at all. These juveniles need to be taught that they are responsible for the actions that they commit. The Juvenile Justice System should create harsher punishments for juvenile who have commited violent crimes in order to teach them about the consequences of their actions. Juvenile
These punishments are categorized into incarceration and non-incarceration options. The non-incarceration options are options that do not involve confinement. One non-incarceration option is counseling, in which, “judges require juveniles to attend counseling as part of a disposition order”(Michon). Counseling, while it will rehabilitate the juvenile, it does not punish them for the crime that they committed. The other non-incarceration options include verbal warnings, fines, and community service requirements. These punishments are too lenient on juveniles who are tried by the Juvenile Justice System. The incarceration objects are not much stronger than the non-incarceration options. One incarceration option is “juveniles can be sent to secured facilities (sometimes called “camps”) for months or years”(Michon). While this punishment is more severe than house arrest or community service, it ceases to compare to a prison sentence. A prison sentences for a first-degree murder for an adult could be life in prison, whereas a juvenile will only spend a few years in a secured facility. These punishments are softened for violent crimes simply because juveniles are more childish and irresponsible than adults. Just because a person is younger does not mean that they should be treated as children. The punishments for juvenile offenders need to be more severe, such as in adult
However, the actions of a juvenile also rely on the juvenile’s personal experiences, parenting, economic status, nutrition, culture, psychological state, environment, and social relationships and interactions. Juveniles should not be punished as children because of their actions. It is only fair that “Juveniles that commit violent crimes should be tried as adults in order to teach crime severity”(Backstrom). Serious crimes should not have light punishments due to a person’s age. All serious crimes that are committed need to be tried in adult court in order to ensure that the individual that committed the crime does not commit the crime again and that the individual is punished for their actions accordingly. However, in cases tried in the Juvenile Justice System, “Children who commit violent crimes are given opportunity of a new start with short sentences”(Dolphin). These short sentences are given to violent offenders simply because the offenders are young. Treating a violent crime offender differently based on the offender’s age is a flaw within the Juvenile Justice System, and therefore requires a