The Trend of Increasing The Use of Waivers
The trend of remanding juveniles to adult court for processing.
The U.S. Juvenile Justice System is a governmental structure that addresses the problem of the youth violence that are defined as suspect for the crimes or violations. It supposes the intervention of the police, court, social and correctional programs in delinquent behavior of the youth. As a result, the youth and their parents may be requested to complete probation or receive obligatory community services. However, the system may offer the special terms of the judgment. Mainly, it may be connected to the age limitations and boarders of 17 and 18 year, 13 and 14 year old offenders. While the courts may prescribe the alternative schooling because of the deviant behavior within the juvenile system, the waiver may increase the seriousness of the punishment. New Jersey demonstrated the great increase of the waivers between 1984 and 1990 (Waiving Juveniles to Adult Court: Some Trends and Concerns, 1993). As a result, in 1997, more than 28 states appealed to the need of the exclusion of the first-degree murders from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Some states leave to the prosecutor to decide either appeal to the court as the juvenile or adult case because of the similarities. At the same time, there are some failures in the local legislation when a prosecutor may apply into the juvenile court and later return to the adult court that leads to the double jeopardy of the youth. At the same time, there are additional complications in hearings: public hearing in the adult court instead of the close hearing in the juvenile court; the harsher penalties in the adult courts; the absence of the idea of rehabilitation in the judgment of the adult courts (Juvenile Waiver, n.d.). Therefore, on one hand, the waivers are aimed at increasing the responsibility of the youth for their misdemeanor and decrease the probability to escape from the sound punishment. On the other hand, it reduces the chances of the youth on rehabilitation and contradicts to the principles of the jeopardy that may not help to manage the general level of the crimes.
References
Juvenile Waiver (Transfer to Adult Court). (n.d.) Find Law. Retrieved from
http://criminal.findlaw.com/juvenile-justice/juvenile-waiver-transfer-to-adult-court.html
Waiving Juveniles to Adult Court: Some Trends and Concerns. (1993). Clearinghouse. Retrieved from …
