The Juvenile Court System: Reform, Justice, and Young Offenders

Introduction: Children, Crime, and the System

The many young children and teenagers currently institutionalized for criminal behavior and violence are products, first, of their environment, and, second, of society as a whole. These young offenders constitute one of the most vulnerable segments of American society, and there remains a disjointed thinking amongst the public and professionals as to what responsibility people beyond the child's home have for the safety and well-being of a minor child. Once in the system of protective custodies — such as the Department of Children and Family Services or state-sponsored foster care — there is often a continuum of disjointed thinking and a lack of professional decision-making on behalf of the children. They become lost within a massive system of further abuse and neglect, largely forgotten unless or until they become the object of sensationalism through violence perpetrated against them, or by them against others.

The plight of children who enter the criminal justice system is offset by the justice system's view that, in order to best protect the rights of minor children and to ensure them the best platform for understanding the criminality of their actions, a specialized juvenile justice system was established. This system is expected to be expert in handling juvenile justice cases and to account for children's inability to make fully informed adult decisions on their own behalf.

Historical Development of the Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile justice system as we know it today has undergone changes reflective of society's perceptions and attitudes about youth crime. Steven M. Cox, Jennifer M. Allen, Robert D. Hanser, and John J. Conrad (2008), in their book Juvenile Justice: A Guide to Theory, Policy, and Practice, document the history of the juvenile justice system — from a non-existent system in which no distinguishing penalties were imposed on children versus adults, to one championed by suffrage activists who established the earliest specialized systems, to the court challenges and cases that have evolved the system into its present form. In some respects, the system appears to have come more than half-circle back toward its origins, as children are now tried as adults for heinous crimes regardless of their age.

The King Brothers Case: A Study in Systemic Failure

A 2002 case in Pensacola, Florida involving two brothers, aged 13 and 14, brought national attention to the entangled lives of these young offenders, who were tried and prosecuted as adults for the murder of their father and for attempting to cover it up by setting their home on fire (Canedy, 2002). The case took several significant turns. First, it came to the public's attention that the boys had suffered neglect, abuse, and possibly sexual abuse throughout their lives. Then, an adult neighbor was arrested and alleged to have influenced the boys to commit the murder (Canedy, 2002).

It was a complex case that baffled the public when prosecutor David Rimmer took different prosecutorial approaches to the adult neighbor, 40-year-old Ricky Chavis, and the brothers, Alex and Derek King:

"A separate jury acquitted Ricky Chavis, a 40-year-old family friend, who was tried for the same killing of the boys' father, Terry Lee King. Mr. Chavis is said to have been sexually obsessed with Alex. The age of the boys and the nature of the crime brought extensive attention to the case from the beginning. But the prosecutors' approach greatly increased the attention and brought criticism from legal experts, who said it was rare to conduct separate prosecutions for a crime that only one defendant or set of defendants could have committed.

David Rimmer, the assistant state attorney who prosecuted both cases, was under a court order of silence during the trials. But Mr. Rimmer said that his office brought both cases because the boys confessed to the crime before recanting before a grand jury and saying they were covering up for Mr. Chavis. Mr. Rimmer said that it was up to the juries to decide which version of events was accurate. 'I felt there was enough circumstantial evidence that he motivated and influenced them,' Mr. Rimmer said of Mr. Chavis. 'The boys said he was the perpetrator, but the jury rejected their testimony. They didn't believe it' (Canedy, 2002)."

Chavis was acquitted, but both boys faced long prison sentences — a system that, once they become adults, they will be poorly equipped mentally or emotionally to navigate. The boys are victims of a social system that allowed them to fall through the cracks of Florida's child welfare institutions and organizations charged with ensuring their well-being. Verdicts in cases like the King brothers' trial tend to take the general public aback, causing many to wonder what went wrong in the lives of young children who relied on adults to act in their best interest — adults who miserably failed them at the most crucial periods of their lives.

Roper v. Simmons and the Death Penalty for Juveniles

Yet the system does maintain certain protections for young offenders. In March 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roper v. Simmons, reversing a 1989 precedent and striking down the death penalty for crimes committed by individuals under the age of 18 (Cox et al., 11). The ruling effectively raised the minimum age for capital punishment from 17 to 18 years old (11). This landmark decision reflected a growing judicial recognition that adolescents possess diminished culpability relative to adult offenders.

Conclusion: Reforming Juvenile Justice

Perhaps consistent with the public's perception of juvenile delinquency — especially crimes by violent young offenders — it is going to be more important than ever for peripheral agencies, and especially the family, to step up and address juvenile delinquency before it reaches the formal court system. The court system, while it has taken positive steps by raising the minimum age for the death penalty to 18, is nonetheless demonstrating a lack of empathy toward young offenders by sentencing them to life terms or sentences that will consume most of their lives in environments saturated with collective criminal influence. They cannot emerge from such environments better off; they will, in all likelihood, emerge far worse. A meaningful commitment to juvenile justice must begin long before a young person ever sets foot in a courtroom.

Canedy, Diana. 2002. "Florida Boys Convicted in Father's Death." New York Times, September 7, 2002. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from

Cox, Steven M., Jennifer M. Allen, Robert D. Hanser, and John J. Conrad. 2008. Juvenile Justice: A Guide to Theory, Policy, and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.