Juvenile Justice

Legal Studies

Assessment Task

Core Focus Study: Crime

Juvenile Justice

Juvenile justice is part of criminal law related to people who aren’t old enough to be held responsible for criminal acts. In most states in Australia the responsibility is set at 18 years. Juvenile law is mostly governed by state law and most states which have performed a juvenile system. The main goal of the juvenile justice system is having cure and remedy rather than punishment.

The first juvenile court was finally established in Cook County, Illinois, 1899. Similar to British the doctrine parens patriae served as the foundation for the right for the state to arbitrate and to provide protection for children whose parents did not provide care or supervision,

Until the 19th century, children were punished and treated in the same way as adults. Men, women, adults, juveniles, mentally healthy, and mentally unhealthy people all together in the same place and treatment.

The juvenile court was established in the early 20th century on the belief that children are different to adults and should be treated in a different manner. Also it is the states responsibility to protect and rehabilitate young offenders. It was a law reform of natural justice and treating everyone equally. There were now significant differences in the juvenile and criminal court systems. The focus of the juvenile court was on the offender and cure rather than punishment. All crimes by individuals under the age of eighteen were in a juvenile court.

The juvenile court could be much more flexible and informal than the criminal court. A range of characterised options related to the child’s situation, and not only to the crime, was now available to a judge.

In the 1960’s, there was a law reform and the Supreme Court made a series of decisions that formalized the juvenile courts and made them more like criminal courts. Formal hearings were required in situations where juveniles were waived to adult courts, juveniles facing imprisonment were required to be given the right to receive notice of charges held against them, and the right to have an attorney represent them. “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt” had to be established.
In the 1990’s this tough on crime trend accelerated. Transfer provisions made it easier to transfer juvenile offenders to the criminal justice system. In the court process and in detention, a greater emphasis moved from rehabilitation to punishment.

This graph illustrates juvenile gangs from 1996-2007.it shows from 1998 there was a decrease however increased from 2004.

State laws often create juvenile courts and provide a process for dealing with juvenile criminal behaviour and have generally been supported by courts as an acceptable extension of state police power to ensure the safety and welfare of children.

Serious violent crimes by juveniles are reported to law enforcement. This number has not changed significantly in 20 years. The rate at which juveniles committed serious violent crimes changed between 1973 and 1989, peaked in 1993, and by 1997 declined to the lowest level since 1986.this is because the effectiveness of the law, outlining justice ,equality and rights of individuals.

The juvenile justice system mainly judge cases in which a minor is involved in the criminal process. The process can be less disciplinary than the general criminal process, because a minor are helped more by various groups, rather than being sentenced straight to prison. Juvenile courts usually have control over matters about children, including criminal behaviour, neglect, and adoption.

In all states some young juveniles also go in adults criminal court but however under some circumstances. In many states, the government statutorily excludes some serious offenses from the authority of the juvenile court despite of the age of the accused.

Juvenile justice system deals with children who have or are alleged to have, committed offences; provide for the jurisdiction and proceedings of courts recognise the importance of families of children and communities, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander communities, in the provision of services, rehabilitate children who commit offences; and reintegrate children who commit offences into the community.

There are many types of cases that occur every day. Such as sexual abuse, gender, child protection, maltreatment on children, adoption, drugs etc.

Child sexual abuse is generally the form of child abuse in which a child is abused for sexual enjoyment of an adult or someone older. Child sexual abuse also occurs when an adult exposes their genitalia to a child or pressures or forces a child in sexual activities, such as producing a child. Approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international treaty that legally forces states to protect children's rights. In Australia, punishing the people who force a child to perform sexual activity, the prostitution of children, and the exploitation of children in creating pornography. States are also required to prevent the abduction, sale, or trafficking of children. However, there are still a lot of children around the world who face sexual abuse each day; they should make law reform because of the failure of existing law. More and new laws for the protection of the children and ...

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The government should help change this crucial behaviour and should give children freedom and return there happiness. The parliament should create harsher punishments.

There are a lot of differences between the two genders. Although males have a much higher rate of adult criminal behaviour, females who had childhood maltreatment were 73 percent more likely than organize group women to offend the abusers later in life for a variety of nonviolent offenses, and 8.2 percent of the abused females connect in successive violent behaviour, contrasted with 3.6 percent of those in the control group. It is studied that females are more likely to offend more than males and intricate sentence.

Both genders should be treated equally and not only males should be treated and recognised as to be powerful or strong. One gender shouldn’t be attacked by the other and abused. They should create laws which defend genders and prohibit them from doing such nasty things.

Most children who were abused or abandoned during childhood do not later engage in offending any criminal behaviour. There may be some other things going on in their lives that reduce the impact of the abuse or neglect and protect them from becoming offenders. However they are still alot of juvenile crimes for example in 1999, law enforcement officers arrested an estimated 2.5 million juveniles. Approximately 104,000 of these arrests were for violent crimes. The most common offense was larceny-theft. Juveniles usually commit these offences as to get money.

The ACT Human Rights Act 2004 came into power on 1 July 2004 and is Australia’s first human rights legislation. The Human Rights Commissioner has permission to review and report to the Attorney General on compliance with the Act The purpose of this review was to ensure that the delivery of services to young detainees in the Australian Capital Territory is consistent with internationally agreed human rights standards.

Children in adult jails and lockups are five times as likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon and eight times as likely to commit suicide as children confined in juvenile facilities. In addition, the research shows that transferring children from juvenile court to adult court does not decrease recidivism, and in fact actually increases crime.

This graph shows us crimes committed by juveniles in Sydney between 2005-2006.it shows the age group of 16-18 years committed most offences.

Children who are restricted to adult jails are at greater risk of being raped, decrepit or pushed to suicide. They also are more likely to become violent criminals than children handled through the juvenile justice system. When the parliament reauthorises the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, it should press the states to end this barbaric practice.

States classified ever larger numbers of young offenders as adults. Today, laws in more than 40 states authorize adult courts to try children as young as 14. Perhaps as many as half the young people who are transferred into the adult system are never convicted as adults and some are never convicted at all. But by the time the system is finished with them, many will have spent more than six months in adult jails.

The NT criminal justice system treats people as adults once they reach the age of 17 years. This means that 17 year olds will be focus to the adult mandatory detention supplies in the Sentencing Act. As mentioned, those provisions are not limited to repeat offenders and can be appeal to first conviction. In addition, under the Juvenile Justice Act a person who turns 17 while serving a term in a juvenile detention facility is required to be transferred to an adult prison to serve out the remainder of the sentence.

Children's rights are the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young, including their right of biological parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for food, education, health care and criminal laws appropriate for the age and progress of the child. Understandings of children's rights range from allowing children the ability for independent action to the enforcement of children being physically, mentally and emotionally free from abuse.

A child is any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."

Under the Young Offenders Act 1997 young people must be informed of their right to speak to a lawyer before making any access or statement to the police, and be told how they can apply this right. The Children’s Legal Service of Legal Aid New South Wales provides free telephone legal advice for all children in police custody in New South Wales. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are taken into police custody are legally entitled to speak immediately to a solicitor from the Aboriginal Legal Service.

Drug rehabilitation is a term for the processes of medical dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general goal is to allow the patient to end abuse, in order to avoid the psychological, legal, financial, social, and physical consequences that can be caused, especially by extreme abuse.

The youth justice system is primarily established under the South Australian Young Offenders Act 1993, which operates within the situation of the general laws of the state and spells out the relevant adaptations and modifications of these laws for the processing and treatment of young people. The youth justice system deals with 10–17 year olds who commit an offence or are alleged to have done so, although some older youth may be involved in the system for crimes committed as a young person.

The right to an appeal should be explained to the juvenile at the end of the case, firstly by the lawyer, but also on the record by the court itself. The youth should also be given information about the procedures for perfecting that appeal in a timely and proper manner. One important reflection for a lawyer in advising a juvenile whether to take an appeal is the effect of the appeal on the implementation of the disposition order. Juvenile codes generally afford juveniles a lesser right to bail on an appeal than adult criminal defendants. Some afford no right to bail at all. And the question of a stay of the court's nature order is usually addressed solely to the judgment of the juvenile or family court judge. This is important because the length of many juvenile dispositions is generally shorter and may make the realistic effect of even a successful appeal almost meaningless if no stay can be secured.

At the sentencing hearing the judge will decide what services will be ordered and what conditions the juvenile and parents must fulfil. Before the hearing, a probation officer will investigate the case by interviewing the family and other people to gather information to help the judge make a disposition. The judge may also order evaluations such as psychological, substance abuse, medical, etc. At the hearing the judge will consider the evaluations, reports, and statements made by all parties, including the victim. The juvenile and parents will be ordered to repay the victim for losses.

The judge may determine that the juvenile needs treatment that is not available in the community or that the community needs to be protected from the juvenile's behaviour. In such cases, the juvenile may be placed in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Corrections. The Department may then place the juvenile in foster care, a group home, a hospital, secure confinement, or placement in another state. Although the Department has legal custody of the juvenile, which does not mean that the parents lose either their rights or responsibilities as the parents. The Department will require that the parents pay for the treatment of their child while he/she is in the state's custody.

Juvenile justice case study

On Christmas night 1998, in the affluent neighbourhood of Los Altos, California, 16 year-old Shawn attacked his sleeping father, stabbing him repeatedly in the arms, head and neck with a knife. The reason for the attack remains unclear. Though there had been tension in the family over Shawn's marijuana use and expulsion from school, his family says that his relationship with his father had not been a violent one.

Shawn himself claims to have no memory of stabbing his father. His mother describes waking up to her husband screaming; his father remembers being unable to identify his attacker at first, then realizing it was his son and eventually tackling him to the ground. Police and medical help arrived, and both were taken to the hospital. Shawn didn't realize what had happened, he says, until a police officer approached him at the hospital: "The cop . . . said, 'You're gonna get charged with attempted murder, and if he dies, you're gonna get charged with first degree murder.' I said, 'If who dies?' He said, 'Your dad.' And it was then that I knew."

Shawn was charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors filed fitness papers to try Shawn in adult criminal court rather than in the juvenile system. If convicted in adult court of attempted murder, Shawn would have faced a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life .

After much discussion with his parents, Shawn decided to plead guilty to the charges and receive his punishment from the juvenile system, rather than risk the substantial prison sentence. By staying in the juvenile system, he avoided an adult criminal record, and would get a shorter sentence since the juvenile system could only hold him until he was 25.

Prior to this incident, there had been signs that Shawn was troubled. He had been arrested and charged with strong-arm robbery when he and a friend stole money from a smaller boy. Shawn says his drinking had escalated into serious marijuana use, and he was asked to leave two schools. At the juvenile court dispositional hearing which would determine his sentence, it became clear that there were serious problems in the household which had contributed to Shawn's drug use and troubled behavior. His mother had a drinking problem. Shawn told FRONTLINE that it was she who had introduced him to drinking at an early age. His father was often away on business trips, leaving Shawn and his mother alone.

In an effort to understand Shawn's behavior, the court ordered a psychological evaluation. The report found no significant psychiatric disturbances, but instead it proposed that the attack stemmed from "an altered state of consciousness" coming from "a disturbance of sleep." Based on this report, Shawn's public defender Bridgett Jones prepared a stunning new argument in his defense: he was sleep walking when he attacked his father, and therefore did not intend to do it.

At the hearing, attorneys for each side presented sleep research experts. Dr. Rafael Pelayo, of Stanford University's sleep clinic, agreed that "parasomnia" was a plausible explanation for Shawn's behavior. In his interview with FRONTLINE, he noted that family dysfunction often plays a role in parasomnia in children. The prosecution's expert disagreed, saying that parasomnia was not a likely explanation for the attack

Since Shawn's case was so unusual and the testimony in such conflict, Judge Thomas Edwards postponed his determination of Shawn's sentence and sent him for a 90-day evaluation at the California Youth Authority, the state's most restrictive juvenile detention facility. During his first week there, Shawn says he was pressured by a white gang member to force his cellmate to perform oral sex. He says he didn't want to do it, but complied because he was frightened for his own safety.

When Shawn returned, Judge Edwards handed down a sentence that surprised some people in court. After the incident with his cellmate, it seemed likely that Shawn would receive at least some time in the California Youth Authority. However, Judge Edwards ruled that Shawn remain in the Santa Clara County's Juvenile Hall until he turns 19. In addition, Shawn would be allowed to leave the facility during the day to attend community college classes, private counseling sessions, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Eventually he was even allowed to go home for meals with his family.

The prosecutor was surprised, and troubled, by the outcome. He said, "At the end, I think everyone in that courtroom was ready to fall out of their chairs. And I think that it was a tremendous injustice that was done in this case. Not just the fact that we didn't treat this individual the way that he should have been treated - in my opinion - but that we have created the perception in the community that certain people are going to be treated differently in the system, because of where they come from."

He is not the only one. Many of the kids serving time in Juvenile Hall think Shawn got a break, and that had he not been white and from an affluent neighborhood, he would have received a much harsher sentence. Even his attorney Bridgett Jones says that this case reminds her: "There is inequity in the juvenile justice system . . . . There is inequity in terms of race, there is inequity in terms of socioeconomic status. . . . You know it and you see it, but to actually have a case like this, it really brings it to the forefront."

Whether Shawn will take advantage of the break he has been given remains to be seen. At the end of October he got into trouble again--he smoked pot. When he thought his probation officer knew and had proof, he took off. When he was arrested four hours away in another town, he was high and belligerent, and officers had to use force to restrain him. In February Judge Edwards is due to sentence him for the probation violation. He can send him to the California Youth Authority, or sentence him to additional time in a local facility.

The government should make stricter laws in drugs and punishment for suppliers should be severe.

Juvenile Justice Article

Boy charged with schoolyard stabbing murder

COURTNEY TRENWITH

February 15, 2010

Distraught students were picked up early from St Patrick's College after 12yo Elliott Fletcher (inset) died of stab wounds.

Police have charged a 13-year-old boy with murder after the fatal stabbing of Elliott Fletcher at St Patrick's College north of Brisbane this morning.Elliott, 12, died of stab wounds after an altercation at the private Catholic boys' high school at Shorncliffe at about 8.15am.

Police tonight said a 13-year-old boy will appear in Brisbane Children's Court tomorrow.Past and present students have set up a in Elliott's honour.He died shortly after arriving at the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane, having suffered a puncture wound to the chest.

School headmaster Dr Michael Carroll described it as a "tragic loss of young life".

''My immediate concern is the welfare of the families affected and all students and staff at the college," Dr Carroll said. ''I have informed students and staff of this tragedy and counselling services are available to all students and staff."

The charged 13-year-old boy was found near the school with a minor self-inflicted stab wound to the neck.He was taken to Redcliffe Hospital, before being charged with Elliot's murder.

''All procedures have been followed so the safety of all other students was ensured,'' Detective Acting Inspector Todd Reid told reporters.

The school was in lockdown for almost three hours with a steady stream of frantic parents arriving to collect their children."I have been in tears - the first thing you think of, is it my son?" said one mother, who did not want to be named. "To think that something so awful could happen - they're just little boys. It's very upsetting."

School security in Queensland would be re-examined following the death, Premier Anna Bligh said.

Ms Bligh said there were no broader safety concerns at Queensland schools, but security at the school and the results of the police investigation would be reviewed in case safety could be improved. ''I think it's fair to say that schools in Queensland are not like some of the schools we might see in some of the big cities in the US,'' Ms Bligh told reporters. ''We don't have a serious problem with children bringing implements and weapons to school. ''But when it does occur it can end in tragedy and that's what's happened today."

This month, a 15-year-old boy was charged over a stabbing at Spring Hill in inner Brisbane.A 16-year-old student from St Joseph's College was stabbed in the thigh with a knife on February 5.The college says he was attacked by a student from another school after he refused to hand over personal items

The nation's juvenile courts disposed of more than 1.7 million criminal behaviour cases in 1997. Two thousand of those were for criminal homicide, 6,500 for violent rape, and 67,900 for aggravated assault. More than 180,000 were for drug related offenses. Most of these crimes offences against persons.

There should be a law reform in changing social values and scomposition to society. Young boys have been learning from what they see from adults’ television, movies and many more.