The Juvenile Justice System and Status Offenses

Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice
The juvenile justice system has a unique position in the American justice system as a whole. Its function should be to rehabilitate the juvenile offender before he or she becomes an adult criminal. Juvenile records are expunged when the individual becomes an adult. There are, of course, some exceptions of when a juvenile who commits a very serious crime and is charged as an adult, but for the most part, in theory, juvenile criminals have a unique status. Juvenile offenders also are unique in that because of their age they may be guilty of particular crimes that only juveniles can be convicted of, in the form of so-called status offenses. Status offenses such as truancy, violating age-specific curfews, running away, drinking alcohol, are crimes which would not be considered crimes at all if committed by adults (“Status Offenses,” 2020).
Status offenses are controversial and raise uncomfortable ethical questions from the perspective of the justice system. On one hand, the juvenile system is supposed to engage in greater leniency toward young people. Teens may be influenced by external situational factors such as parents, schools, and peers over which they have more limited control over (versus an adult) and also the face that cognitively they are not fully mature. Status offenses place an additional burden upon young people. “Children and adolescents commonly experiment with behaviors that are not considered positive or prosocial, such as lying, being truant, or defying parents. Such experimentation allows youths to discover the negative consequences of their behaviors and learn from their mistakes” (“Status Offenders, 2015, par. 1).
In other words, status offenses arguably penalize teens for the normal type of “acting out” that is part of adolescence such as defying a curfew. Additionally, some teens may have additional social pressures which may drive them to run away from home and play truant, and accusing them of a status offense does not address the real, root cause of their behavior. Coupled with the fact that most status offenses are minor, and do not enact real societal harms, from a utilitarian ethical perspective, it is not necessarily a societal benefit to penalize the teen. Rather the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals is addressing the social factors which may cause status offenses like truancy and drug abuse, rather than penalize the teens.
Another issue regarding status offenses which arise is the disproportionate harms done to certain classes of adolescents, such as minority youths. Individuals from historically discriminated-against backgrounds, such as African Americans and Latinos, are already disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system, and there is ample data to suggest they receive more punitive sentences than white juveniles for the same types of offenses (Rovner, 2014). Similarly, minority youths are also more apt to be accused of status offenses. The reasons for this are unclear, but may be due to prejudice on the part of law officers, and also the greater likelihood of curfews being imposed in urban areas where minority youths live, as well as the greater presence of law enforcement in such areas.
There has been a call for an end to status offenses, given that they do not appear to solve the problems of inadequate access to education, family problems, and a lack of a safe environment on the streets for young people. Status offense punish teens for circumstances they cannot control, and bring teens into the justice system for crimes that essentially penalize them simply for being teens. Alternatives to punishment include suggested counseling and connecting teens and their families with social workers and other forms of social assistance when they show signs of struggling in school, and only intervening through the justice system when teens have committed actual offenses.
References
Rovner, J. (2014). Disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system. The Sentencing Project. Retrieved from: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/disproportionate-minority-contact-in-the- juvenile-justice-system/
Status offenders. (2015). Development Services Group, Inc. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved from: https://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Status_Offenders.pdf