Juvenile Court Philosophy: Death Penalty and Habitual Offenders
This paper examines two key Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) documents to analyze the competing philosophies driving the American juvenile justice system. Drawing on Cothern's (2000) critique of applying the death penalty to juvenile offenders, the paper highlights research showing that mitigating circumstances — including neuropsychological disorders, abuse histories, and mental illness — are routinely ignored in capital sentencing cases. It then contrasts this rehabilitative ideal with Medaris's (1996) overview of the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP), which reflects a retributive, public-safety-driven shift in juvenile justice policy that gained momentum during the 1980s and 1990s. The paper argues that public fear of crime, often amplified by media coverage, has distorted juvenile justice priorities away from individualized assessment and rehabilitation.
- Introduction to Juvenile Justice Philosophy: Overview of two competing OJJDP documents on juvenile justice
- Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Cothern's Analysis: Cothern critiques capital punishment applied to juvenile offenders
- Mitigating Circumstances Ignored in Capital Cases: Research showing mitigating factors overlooked in youth sentencing
- The SHOCAP Program and the Shift Toward Retribution: SHOCAP program reflects retributive turn in juvenile justice policy
- Public Fear, Media Influence, and Justice Policy: Media-driven fear distorts juvenile justice priorities
- Conclusion: Call to restore rehabilitative standards in juvenile courts
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its argument in two primary OJJDP source documents, allowing for direct textual comparison of competing juvenile justice philosophies.
- Uses extended block quotations from research studies (Lewis et al., Robinson and Stephens) to give concrete empirical weight to abstract claims about mitigating circumstances being ignored.
- Maintains a clear critical perspective throughout, openly questioning whether SHOCAP serves rehabilitative goals or simply responds to public fear of crime.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative source analysis: it places two OJJDP documents in dialogue with each other, using one (Cothern) to establish a rehabilitative standard and the other (Medaris) to illustrate how policy drifted away from that standard. This technique shows how synthesizing primary policy sources can reveal ideological tensions within a single institutional framework.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing both OJJDP sources and their relevance, then devotes the central body to a detailed review of Cothern's argument against juvenile capital punishment, supported by two cited empirical studies. It transitions to Medaris's SHOCAP factsheet and the retributive policy shift it represents, before closing with a critique of how public fear and media framing have distorted juvenile justice priorities away from individualized rehabilitation.
Introduction to Juvenile Justice Philosophy
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) offers researchers and readers many insightful documents regarding the history of the juvenile justice movement. That history is grounded almost entirely in the ideals of a few reformers who sought to create systems that responded more humanely to juvenile perpetrators of crime, alongside the more modern movement to provide accountability and retribution for juvenile offending. Among the OJJDP's document offerings are two particularly instructive articles. The first argues against the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders, based upon the special considerations of youth as outlined by the Supreme Court and the juvenile justice system's emphasis on understanding youth mentalities and development (Cothern, 2000). The second outlines, nearly decade by decade, the movement toward stricter and more adult-like responses to youth crime — especially serious crime committed by youths considered habitual offenders (Medaris, 1996).
Each of these articles addresses many realistic considerations involved in enforcing criminal laws upon juvenile offenders, as such enforcement has evolved over the years. Together, they illuminate a deep tension at the heart of juvenile justice philosophy: the conflict between rehabilitation and retribution.
Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Cothern's Analysis
Cothern's article provides a definitive overview of the history of the juvenile justice system — both as it was originally conceived and as it has evolved over the years to include sentencing options such as the death penalty and life in prison for offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed the crime in question. The article also provides a brief but comprehensive overview of the use of the death penalty across the criminal population as a whole, as well as specifically against youth. It highlights Supreme Court considerations of the issue and the stipulations the Court has applied to youth sentencing and to the criminal prosecution of juveniles as adults, including the special circumstances created by changing public perceptions of crime and public safety.
In essence, the article traces the evolution of the death penalty as it applies to both youth and adults. It confirms that even the special circumstances described by Supreme Court opinion — such as the particular obligation of the court to consider mitigating circumstances in each individual juvenile's life as crucial to sentencing decisions — have been ignored in the face of limited resources. Cothern contends that this disregard runs completely counter to the juvenile justice system's foundational goal of rehabilitation rather than retribution. The most telling information in the article is Cothern's assessment of a diagnostic evaluation study conducted on a large group of individuals sentenced to death for crimes committed as juveniles, which reveals the extent to which the criminal court system has failed to meet the Supreme Court's demands for documenting mitigating circumstances prior to imposing a death sentence.
References
Cothern, L. (November 2000). Juveniles and the death penalty. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184748.pdf
Medaris, M. (August 1996). Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Factsheet. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/shocap.txt
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.