Juvenile delinquency: causes, consequences, and prevention strategies

Juvenile Deliquency

Juvenile Delinquency

The system of juvenile courts is vital in all the nations globally more so in the U.S. Its purpose is to control the welfare of children, provide guidance and counseling while taking care of kids who have been abandoned by their parents. These systems address problems facing children who are below 18 years of age. These courts have authority in addressing cases that involve support to children, terminating parents' rights, and detention. Juveniles who commit serious crimes are handled by higher courts. The juvenile courts also address cases involving young people who commit serious crimes. In addition, these courts are in charge of juveniles who commit traffic offences or who are involved in military crimes (Trulson & Carmen, 2005).

The high court judge will appoint judges in the new juvenile courts. These cases involve youth offenders who have gone against the law. Law experts have argued that a status offender is a youth charged with an offence, which can be classified as either an offense or crime. Further, they have indicated that a juvenile delinquent is a child who has committed an offence. The above offenders can only be charged by using laws that apply to children (Winterdyk, 2002).

There are plans to split the juvenile courts into two. One section will be handling cases of juvenile delinquent while the other section will handle cases of state offenders. Research indicates that most kids who are involved in juvenile delinquency are status offenders. Thus, there is an increasing concern over splitting of the juvenile court system into two sections. If the juvenile court system is split into two sections, it will be beneficial to both juveniles and taxpayers. First, if the juvenile court system is split will of advantage to status offenders. These offenders are given unfair treatment in the juvenile courts thus the need to split the juvenile court system. Addressing matters of juvenile delinquents separately from status offenders will be beneficial to status offenders because they will be given fair treatment based on their offences (Winterdyk, 2002).

An advantage of splitting the juvenile court system includes the fact that it will enable juvenile courts to give punishment to young offenders. This is advantageous to the taxpayers because cases of youthful crimes will be reduced because of good punishment to youth offenders. This will relieve taxpayers of taking care of processes involved in juvenile court cases. When the juvenile court system is split into two, it will encourage appropriate punishment to be imposed on youth offenders based on the seriousness of their crimes. This will be an advantage to the youth because the punishment given to them will depend on the severity of crimes committed (Trulson & Carmen, 2005).