Criminal Justice

Discussion Post #4
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prompt
Chapter 10 discusses the issues facing minority youth on the streets and through the court system, such as lack of adult supervision, being unaware of their rights, prosecution of juveniles as adults, hefty sentences for nonviolent offenders, etc. Please choose one issue facing our nation’s youth that contributes to juveniles becoming dependent on the system for stability, safety, and security. Please refer to your readings, lecture notes, the video for review, and the websites provided to answer and discuss the following questions:

1- Explain one issue facing juveniles that would contribute to them becoming dependent on the system.
2- Conduct further research to help substantiate your claims that the issue you selected does in fact contribute to the dependency.
3- Discuss some alternative reform suggestions to help combat the issue you selected.

ANSWER

The United States Courts have been sending juveniles to life imprisonment. Apart from two states, all other states allow this sentence (The Sentencing Project). Research on the adolescent brain indicates that children’s common sense understanding is different from adults, making them culpable (North 2015). This phenomenon raises the question of whether juvenile offenders should be subjected to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Currently, there are about 12,000 people in U.S prisons serving life imprisonment for crimes committed under the age of 18. Most of these offenders are African American. However, in the year 2012, the U.S Supreme court in Miller v. Alabama vacated life without parole charges of about 2000 offenders who committed the crime before they were 18 years old (The Sentencing Project). Since then, a discussion has erupted on the logic and morality of sentencing young individuals to life imprisonment.

Neurobiology researchers reveal that the process of development of the brain in adolescence that makes them more culpable and the reason their decisions at that time cannot be used to determine life imprisonment or to understand the purpose of imprisonment and through this become culpable to dependency on the system. A correlation between science and law ultimately concludes that life imprisonment for youth is neither logical nor moral. Alternative preventive reforms would be an improvement in the educational system where the system can provide better opportunities for young people. Similarly, community outreach in poor neighborhoods can prevent young people from associated with crime. An alternative to imprisonment could be restorative and transformative justice or no punishment at all. With massive advancements in technology, electronic monitoring can be enforced on youth offenders to eliminate youth imprisonment.

References

North, A. 2015. Juvenile or Adult Court: Research on Future Offending. a system, 5(6), 7. Retrieved on 1^st November 2020 from https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/hdfs/fii/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/s_ncfis03c04.pdf

The Sentencing Project. Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview. Retrieved on 1^st November 2020 from https://www.sentencingproject.org/

The Sentencing Project. Youth Sentenced to Life Imprisonment. Retrieved on 1^st November 2020 from https://www.sentencingproject.org/