Strengths and limitations of juvenile courts for young offenders

Alternative Dispute Resolution: Juvenile Courts

For some people, juvenile courts are a better alternative to other kinds of litigation. For others people however, these kinds of courts are not severe enough for the crimes that are committed, and the juveniles do not learn anything from them. Overall, there are both pros and cons to juvenile courts (Widom, 1992). On the pro-side, the juvenile can avoid actual litigation, so he or she will not then be stuck with a criminal record that is very hard to do anything about. Once a juvenile is branded a criminal, getting a job or attending certain schools can be much more difficult. On the con side, though, juvenile courts do not have very severe punishments compared to actual courts. The juvenile courts are more geared toward making the juvenile accountable to his or her parents, and trying to 'scare them straight,' instead of making them do any kind of actual jail time, which would often happen to an adult in the same circumstances.

For very young juveniles - 10 or 12 years old and under - I think that justice might be better served by these juvenile courts. This is especially true for a first offense for a kid who has otherwise not gotten into any kind of trouble. For older juveniles, though, and for repeat offenders, I do not think that juvenile court is really a very good idea. These children are old enough to understand right from wrong and start to make good choices (Anderson, 1994). They often do not worry about the consequences, because they know that they are often not punished harshly. If the punishment is not serious and/or frightening, there is no real reason for a juvenile to avoid a crime (Anderson, 1994; Widom, 1992).