Introduction
The juvenile criminal justice system is a rehabilitative procedure adopted by corrective agencies to combat delinquencies among young offenders. The system comprises federal and local agencies collaborating with private entities that provide juvenile detention, probation, and correctional services to juveniles. In European, African, and Asian countries, juveniles are children between 10 and 18 years, while in the United States, they range between 10 and 21 years (Aji, 2019). The trials, sentencing, and rehabilitative strategies differ from the adult criminal justice system, making the juvenile system unique.
Ways Juveniles Became a Distinct Legal and Social Age Group
The juvenile justice system has had numerous reforms regarding responsibilities since its inception. After its creation in the early 1800s, the juvenile system has acted as a corrective tool for children below 18 years (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). Due to the progressive reforms since its establishment, the juvenile justice system has become an avenue to protect the rights of the youth. Involvement in deadly crimes such as murder, robbery with violence, and cyberbullying among teens has necessitated the emergence of the juvenile criminal; system, which has led to the categorization of juveniles as a social group.
Unlike adults, juveniles are not charged with crimes but rather delinquency, corrected through judicial processes, including education, rehabilitation, detention, and adjudication (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). Since most juvenile offenders are in school or a tender age group, the juvenile prevention and control act, in conjunction with the Tough on Crime strategy, was adopted as the key scheme to adjudicate juvenile offenses. The juveniles were therefore set to follow a separate legal process that involved the right to cross-examination and confrontation, unlike the adult offenders.
Role of the Education System in the Process
Juvenile criminal justice involves referral to an education system, whereby young offenders are taught the legal repercussions of particular offenses. The education system entails intake and diversion as the preliminary stages. The perceived young offender goes through an intensive intake protocol, which includes alienation from the general population, for instance, in the school setting. The juveniles are isolated f the rest of the students in the rehabilitative program. Once the offenders are selected, the approved education system tends to reduce the crime rate among the juveniles through involvement in co-curricular activities (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). The activities in the juvenile court system include bowling, dancing, and drama. Value-based educational programs in most juvenile criminal systems impose integrity, spirituality, and honesty amongst the offenders.
Reasons for Different Courts Treatment Between Juveniles and Adults
Since juveniles are classified as a distinct social group, criminal justice systems treat them differently than adult crimes. When presented before a court of law, juvenile offenses are prosecuted as delinquent acts, while adult crimes as criminal offenses. In a court system, juvenile offenders have tried ins an adjudication process (Fountain et al., 2021). The process involves a judge listening to a case and determining whether the offender is delinquent. Conversely, adult offenders are subjected to a trial by a jury, which determines their guilt or innocence.
Variation in Intervention Strategies Between Adults and Juveniles
The core purpose of interventions is either to keep the offenders away from the justice system or to punish the offender if crimes occur. Intervention strategies include therapy services, which the offenders receive from professionals to revert to positive attributes (Aji, 2019). In the juvenile justice system, intervention strategies include meeting programs with offenders to advise them on cordial social interactions and how criminal offenses jeopardize their freedom. Regarding adults, intervention strategies are rather traditional, including physical punishments and threats.
Approach for One Area of the Criminal Justice System to Handle the Juveniles
In the cyberbullying case involving a high school freshman and another student, the juvenile justice system adjudication should be followed, which is at the center of the juvenile criminal justice system. During the adjudication process, the tricked student, the delinquent, should be taken for a hearing to s determine whether the physical injuries caused to the trickster were justified (Agnew & Brezina, 2017).
Referral, which was to be done by the trickster’s parents, who are hospitalized, is the initial step in solving the delinquency caused by the target student. Through a juvenile criminal system, the complainant’s parents should table the misconduct in terms of the severity of the injuries caused to their child. Additionally, the complainants should table out the intentions of the target students before carrying out a referral to the juvenile criminal system to rule over the case in which the cyber bully had used a fake account to humiliate the targets, students. The criminal justice system should conduct an informed judicial review of the harm caused by the trickster, which led to infuriation amongst the target student.
Equating the tricks into a bigger cyberbully attack which would lead to the breach of one’s privacy, the juvenile criminal justice system should adopt a diversion process, which determines whether the attacks are worth being handled formally by a juvenile court or dismissed for a consensus between the two parties since the matter cannot be elevated to an adult criminal’s system (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). According to the juvenile criminal justice system, the offender should not be transferred to adult criminal court systems since the crimes committed are cot c categorized as first-degree (Fountain et al., 2021).
The physical attacks and emotional breakdowns subjected by both students do not relate to serious murder crimes, which can be transferred to the adult criminal system but rather be Waived. Since the cyberbully attacker is hospitalized, the other student, through the detention rule, should restrict at their home until the other party recovers, and then the trials begin. Right to fair judgment and rehabilitative counseling is the major area threat the juvenile justice system should adopt in the case study to both tope the malicious behaviors and violent actions from the students.
An Approach to Handle the College-Aged Adult Workers
If college -aged s adult workers are involved in cyberbullying and physical attacks, an adult criminal justice system will be involved in the case resolution. Unlike the juvenile court system, which involves waiver and rehabilitative attempts on the h cyberbully trickster, the target students should be punished for malicious before an adult court (Fountain et al., 2021). Upon reporting the target actions by the trickster’s parents, the case is referred to as a criminal offense, and both parties are terminated from the college. Since cyberbullying occurs in school confinement, the college should use community-based knowledge amongst the juveniles since they are allowed to interact safely with the external environment and social interactions with other people, leading to the installation of positive values to the offender, making them less harmful to society. The colleague who attacked the bully should s beheld in custody, awaiting trial till the other party recovers.
Unlike juvenile criminal, which the victim’s parent majorly reports, the college cans take the initiative to report the physical assault committed by the colleague on the other. According to the adult criminal justice system, the attacker can bond during custody. The accused, referred to as the defendant, can use monetary compensation for their temporary freedom (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). Once the complainant recovers, a trial period, which includes an intensive fact-finding process, leads to sentencing or equivalent punishments for the guilty party.
Sentencing, unlike disposition, is a punishment to the adult offender. In this case study, both parties are responsible for crimes that attract sentencing, unlike the adult criminal system. Unlike the juvenile system, which adopts dispositions as a mode of ruling, the guilt parities in the college-adults case study attract stringent penalties and sentencing. The adult criminal justice system should ensure free trial and sentencing on both crimes to punish the parties for related behaviors (Agnew & Brezina, 2017). The primary purpose of the adult criminal system is to punish an offense m while the juvenile system is to rehabilitate the minor offender of the bad acts which might put them in jail. Regarding formality, adults are subjected to a formal structured trial system.
Conclusion
Juveniles are a distinct social group governed by different rulings in the court of law. Distinct differences occur between the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, which range from the terminologies used during the proceedings, sentencing, and trial. During sentencing, clear differences occur, which portray the differences between juvenile and adult crime offenses During the progressive era in the United States of America, making juveniles a social age group was the key priority due to the state of offenses they were involved in. In juveniles, the final verdicts are referred to as disposition, which y determines whether the acts committed were right or wrong. On the other hand, the adults’ criminal system adopts sentencing, a harsher act of determining the innocence or guilt of the defendant.
References
Agnew, R., & Brezina, T. (2017). Juvenile delinquency: Causes and control (p. 624). Oxford University Press. Web.
Aji, W. S. (2019). The implementation of diversion and restorative justice in Indonesia’s juvenile criminal justice system. Journal of Indonesian Legal Studies, 4(1), 73. Web.
Fountain, E., Mikytuck, A., & Woolard, J. (2021). Treating emerging adults differently: How developmental science informs perceptions of justice policy. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 7(1), 65. Web.