The Juvenile Justice for all

Many children and teens grow up today without proper the guidance and parental discipline that is essential for minors to become law-abiding citizens. Being truant in school or underage drinking can be ways that can land a minor a spot within the juvenile justice system. Many children and teens find out the hard way how the resources within juvenile justice systems are on a significant decline. Minors are not given the services needed to rehabilitate within the juvenile justice system; as a result, when children are not offered the proper resources to guide them away from criminal life, the consequences can be devastating. Education and the juvenile justice system must collaborate, for the juvenile justice system to become adequate; the system must also eliminate all biased tactics, operating mainly to rehabilitate minors of lesser crimes and status offenses who exhibit the desire and mental ability to be transformed into productive citizens.

When juveniles commit crimes, the minors are sent to a juvenile detention center where the juvenile justice system determines the youths' fate. For over a hundred years, society has been given the notion that the juvenile justice system has the responsibility to protect the public from juvenile delinquents (Juvenile Law Center). In the nineteenth century, lawmakers saw the opportunity to establish special courts for minors' where cases would be confidential to the public and result in the best interest of the child or teen. Many officials adopted the ideas that acknowledged the innocence of juveniles and that minors were not responsible for the crimes they committed because of maturity levels (Benekos et al. 128). In the more recent years, the juvenile justice system has taken a different turn from what lawmakers in the nineteenth century originally intended to do. In the 1980s and 1990s, the crime rates rose significantly from juvenile crimes that were committed. Most states during that time adopted the get tough policies, and since then the juvenile justice systems have leaned towards having a more intolerable attitude towards minors that commit crimes (Benekos et al. 130). In 2014 over one million children were arrested and referred to the juvenile justice system, but the rate had decreased significantly from the previous years where two million arrests were made. Most crimes that minors are involved in are nonviolent crimes such as stealing, disorderly conduct, and drug offenses (Dennis 1-2). Even though the crime rates involving children have decreased significantly, the juvenile justice systems in the United States are still overwhelmed with the number of kids within the system.

Primarily one of the issues that exist within the juvenile justice system is the use of stereotypes and racial biases and the sanctions that follow each minor. According to Birckhead, racial prejudices are one of the problems that loom over the juvenile justice system today, and the minors that are usually affected by these biases are black (383). Gonzalez echoes, Youth of color experience the clearest disproportionate treatment at the arrest and detention stages(50). Poverty and race is an apparent reason why many children of color become a part of the juvenile justice system (Lebrun 2). Statistically, many black families in the United States share the same qualities associated with socioeconomic statuses, and the families are those who have a single mother as the head of household (Birckhead 383). The differences of first names, physical appearance, and the way minors speak are the critical components of how cases are handled for children and teens of color. For example, a black child arrested for stealing comes to court with a haircut, he has presentable clothes on and speaks with articulation, the punishments are almost always more lenient. On the other hand, another black child is arrested for fighting in school. The minor comes to court with pants sagging around his waist, has visible tattoos, and does not have articulation when speaking; the sentencing is more severe because of the stereotypes that can be associated with that child in particular (Birckhead 383-386). In 2012, many children that lived in areas of high crime had cases in juvenile courts that were sentenced harshly just because of the neighborhoods that juveniles resided in (Dennis 3). The way that the juvenile justice system views minority groups should never come from a stereotypical perspective, each minor should be investigated on an individual basis to determine and understand the causes of the crimes committed and whether the child in question is a menace to society.

The most compelling issue that is widespread throughout the juvenile justice systems in the United States is the over-incarceration of youth and the length of stays that are associated with their sentencing. Gonzalez shows research that indicates that the period that minors must stay in juvenile detention centers is not beneficial because it does not keep the minor from reoffending and becoming apart of the system again (75). The longer length of stays is also associated with the reasons many teens within the juvenile justice system develop post-traumatic stress disorders and other mental illnesses (Gonzalez 75). The range of time that juvenile offenders serve in a detention center can also be contributed to the predictions made by psychologist and psychiatrist for the juveniles to reoffend, although, the projections are not accurate (Arya 654). Gonzalez asserts, Common length of stay problems arise when the youth release process is tied to treatment, but the facility fails to provide it (64). Minors who have the possibility of being released require paperwork that shows progress made over an amount of time by the minor, and when the evidence cannot be presented the lengths of stays are extended (Gonzalez 64). Shockingly, for some over incarcerated youth in Pennsylvania, a scandal was the blame. In 2011, judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were involved in the 'kids for cash' scandal which included bribery and extortion. The judges were paid 2.8 million to direct youth into two for-profit juvenile detention centers. Both Ciavarella and Conahan were found guilty of racketeering charges; as a result of the allegations made against them, over 4,000 juvenile justice cases were investigated and overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Benekos et al.127). It is the juvenile court system's responsibility to keep the public safe from minors that be at risk of crimes, but in doing so, it is also the system's responsibility to be fair when sentencing each case.

Overwhelmingly, many issues arise for children and teens who are acquainted with the juvenile justice system and these issues can have many detrimental and everlasting effects on minors' health and wellbeing. Leve declares, Exposure to maltreatment during childhood is a primary factor associated with involvement in the juvenile justice system (254). Gonzalez reports children that are incarcerated in the juvenile system, 42 percent have fears of being attacked, and 45 percent revealed that staff in juvenile facilities abuse them. The author also adds:

The staff of many facilities are not trained to handle the needs of a mentally ill inmate; their limited understanding of mental illness and the lack of adequate resources prevent them from being able to intervene appropriately, so instead, they turn to inappropriate uses of segregation, seclusion, and restraints, which further contributes to the decomposition of the youth's physical and mental well-being. (65)

Young individuals who have existing mental conditions before incarceration sometimes get worse after facing situations in many juvenile detention centers. Suicidal thoughts and actions, as well as depression, follow many children and teens into adulthood after a minor is incarcerated. Individuals who serve their sentences many still deal with the adverse effects from the juvenile justice system onto the path of early adulthood. According to the Juvenile Law Center, records that are obtained when individuals are minors do not automatically disappear once the child is released from the system and must hire lawyers to complete the process for them. Unfortunately, many youths cannot hire lawyers because they cannot gain employment, and the cycle repeats itself because survival mode is initiated which most of the times lands teen and adults back into the judicial system. The juvenile justice system must take into consideration, the lives of the juveniles after incarceration and establish the same programs that adult halfway houses have so that minors do not have to turn back to the presence of crime once released.

Another efficient way that will keep children from entering the juvenile justice system is the correlation between the education and juvenile justice system. Schools must change its policies and rules to serve children and teens on more productive terms. Many education systems have the zero-tolerance policies in effect to send mental and difficult children into the nets of the juvenile justice system. Monterastelli adds that policies such as the zero-tolerance policies have a more negative impact on children and teens because breaking one rule in these environments can get a student kicked out school, and it is easier to keep a child in school than to rehabilitate one that is apart of the system. For example, a child that is habitually truant at school in many states gets them turned over into the juvenile justice system, regardless of the situation (210-211). Dennis reports that in 2015 Texas lawmakers passed laws decriminalizing truancy. Texas reformed this law to encourage schools to treat truancy as a conduct problem rather than a severe offense; as a result, schools could not just refer children to the juvenile court systems without taking the proper steps (30). With the zero-tolerance policies that many schools have relied on many minors with mental illnesses are also ejected from schools on a daily basis because many schools do not have the resources or trained staff to deal with them (Monterastelli 210-211). Schools should eliminate the zero-tolerance policies and take responsibility for students who do not have serious crimes which could reduce the school to prison pipeline that exists today.

Many scholars oppose the argument that the education systems have not done their part and point the finger directly at parents and families for the staggering amount of youths that are a part of the juvenile justice system today. In the nineteenth century, lawmakers established parens partriae which proposed that if a parent could not provide or raise their children with the moral standard needed in society, the state would take the child and become acting guardian (Specialty 721). Many adults who have children in the twenty-first century are not fit to take care of children, and child welfare has become a steadily rising problem, as a result (Lebrun 5). Every bad or negative experience a minor must endure will affect the child adversely (Gonzalez 56). Minors routinely exposed to these adverse lifestyles would likely become statistics within the juvenile justice system (Gonzalez 60). The services given to minors within the juvenile system do not have the resources and cannot meet the demands of youth who enter into the system because of the number of children in the system (Lebrun viii). The author also asserts, Doesn't every youth in America deserve the chance and have the right to a great life?(xi). The justice system encourages parents to take more responsibility for their children's and teen's life. According to Lebrun research shows that minors who have support in school, in the community, and at home, rarely become a part of the justice system (viii). Additionally, Paraschiv adds that parents who speak on their children's behalf in the juvenile court process the results are always beneficial to the court and minor (78). Mitchell et al., claim that parents and families hold the key at guiding minors to the correct path of life because they have more access to the young individuals and have the most information about them (259). Juvenile justice professionals have always used the term family engagement to show ways that families can become more engaged in meeting the needs of children and teens (Arya 630). Parents and criminal justice officials should work together to uncover and share the common ground that exists between them, to complete the goal of keeping minors out of the juvenile justice systems.

Minors are the future of the world, and when the youths make mistakes, the juvenile justice system must improve the processes required in determining and eliminate stereotypical biases that affect the fate of young individuals today. It always has been a belief that children make mistakes and learn from them, so the juvenile justice system and society should learn the correct ways to guide youth away from the criminal justice systems. By society steering kids away from their illegal paths, it will ensure that most minors will not become a part of the justice systems as adults. Schools can be the primary contender to take burdens from the juvenile justice systems in the United States; doing its part for making sure the juvenile justice systems are efficient in the United States.

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