Background:

The Juvenile Justice System was established over a century ago. This was on the basis
that juveniles need an alternative judicial system which held them accountable for their actions
while still deflecting them from further crimes in the future. The first juvenile court was put into
effect in the early 1900s in Chicago to keep juveniles out of the adult criminal justice system,
and performed a therapeutic method/service for juveniles. The methods at which a child was
treated diverged from the original stand-point that children are not the same as adults. In the
early 1990s, the myth of a Super-predator was proposed by many researchers of juvenile
crime. The myth of a Super-predator was a term used to explain a sharp rise in juvenile crime,
and exclaimed that most of the nations crimes would be due to these juvenile Super-predators.
This idea scared state legislature into reverting back to before the juvenile justice system, where
youth would receive the same treatment as adults. This also gained the support of the public
opinion through scare-tactics, and soon led to changes in state law making it easier to transfer
teens to the adult justice system. A few years after the original prediction of a Super-predator,
the initial researcher who proposed this theory admitted that his prediction never actually
occurred. It is astounding that state legislature altered the original juvenile laws out of fear of a
phony prediction. In 2000, in response to a now discredited myth that youth violence was on the rise,
California voters passed the Gang P1 Treat Kids as Kids Why Youth Should Be Kept in the Juvenile
System Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act, also known as Proposition 21 (Castro, Page 1).
Proposition 21 made it so children as young as 14 years of age could be tried and convicted in the adult
justice system. This proposition also allowed for the prosecutor to choose whether a child should be tried
as an adult, instead of the judge deciding. After this law was passed, the number of adolescents that were
transferred to the adult criminal justice system automatically nearly doubled in California. An estimate of
250,000 youth under the age of 18 are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system every year

(Campaign for Youth Justice, Page 3). In California alone, an estimated 6,500 individuals are

incarcerated in an adult prison for a crime they committed under the age of eighteen. And
roughly 1,000 children are subject to the adult criminal justice system in California every year
(Castro, Page 1).
It seems that there are many disadvantages to trying adolescence in the adult court of law,
with no evidence that this system actually benefits public safety or lowers future crime rates in
underage offenders. This legislation was put into effect in order to try children that have
committed very serious crime such as murder, rape, burglary, or other serious crimes. Yet most of
the children that have been tried in an adult court system did not commit crime of this statue, and
over half of the children that were prosecuted had been first-offenders. This means that a system
was formed in order to fix an issue of serious crimes in juveniles, and did not even address the
issue after it was put into effect. Secondly, juveniles do not possess the same thinking ability as
adults. Brain science shows that dramatic changes in development of the brain occurs at the age
of adolescents. When in a complex situation, teens are more likely to make an impulsive decision
without realizing the long term effects of their actions. The region of the brain that is the last to
develop is the one that controls many of the abilities that govern goal-oriented, rational
decision-making, such as long-term planning, impulse control, insight, and judgment(CFYJ). I
personally have made many irrational decisions during my adolescent years without thinking of
the consequences or the long-term effects my choice played on myself and the people around me.
Furthermore, when teens are subjected to the adult court and are charged, they have to spend
their time in an adult jail/prison. This has many negative consequences on those children
confined in an adult prison, whether they are withheld in a solitary cell or a cell with adult
inmates. When withheld in a solitary cell, teens can face many mental health issues. On the other

hand, if teens are held with other adult inmates, they have a very high chance of being physically
or sexually assaulted. 21% of sexual assault among inmates is forced upon youth. Of that 21%,
80% of those teens were physically forced into sexual activity. Throwing kids in an adult jail also
puts them in a dangerous environment and tells them this is who you are and this is what youre
going to be. Being surrounded by felons during a developmental stage of life has adverse effects
of these teens. There are no therapeutic services in jails to help rehabilitate youth. When put in an
adult jail, teens are also deprived of an education. Most jails do not provide an educational
system, which plagues teen inmates when they are released. When they are released, they face an
obstacle of learning because they have been kept out of an education system for so long. There is
a major flaw in the way that our country is trying to stop teen violence, and something needs to
be done so these adolescents have an environment that rehabilitates and supports the
transformation of delinquency to a law-abiding citizen.
Solution:
The idea that children are not the same as an adults has been around since the beginning
of time. Although this has been a wide spread idea, many people still believe that children should
be tried as adults. This is on the theory that If you do the crime, you do the time. Many of these
people confide in the government to do the right for the United States as a whole. What these
people are blind to is that although the government does make many well thought-out decisions,
they also make many wrong decisions. In this instance, it is treating children with the same
parameters as adults. Others that believe that children should be tried as adults have emotional
connections to this situation. Many of these opinions are based on the fact that they have lost a
loved one or have been victims of a crime committed by an adolescent. This idea is completely
absurd, and should not have any impact on whether adolescents should be tried as adults. What

they overlook is the fact that children do not have the same brain capacity as adults, as discussed
in the problem section of this research paper and that jail has many negative effects on the
children that must adhere to it. They also dont understand that children have the ability to be
rehabilitated while adults do not.
On the other hand, many people have advocated for change in the ways that children are
inhumanely treated after committing a crime. In the article Treat Kids as Kids, By Estivaliz
Castro, David Muhammad, and Pat Arthur, they advocated for the elimination of direct files and
restrictions on juvenile waivers. Direct files were allowed due to proposition 21. This allowed for
youth to be tried in adult court without a fitness hearing. A fitness hearing is a short hearing
where a judge decides whether or not a child is fit to withstand an adult hearing. The use of
direct files is vulnerable to a prosecutors abuse of power (Estavalez, Page 5). The elimination
of this would make it more difficult for a child to be automatically sent to an adult hearing,
giving a higher chance that they would stay in the juvenile system. They also advocated for
restrictions on juvenile waivers. A juvenile waiver occurs when a juvenile court judge transfers
a case from the juvenile to adult court in order to deny the juvenile the protections
that juvenile jurisdictions provide (Findlaws). The changes that these researchers proposed in
are a small step in what actually needs to happen. The elimination of all practices of juveniles in
adult court is the main goal. The two legislative changes that were discussed in this article make
it harder for juveniles to make it to an adult court, but the impact that these legislative alterations
would make would change the number of teens tried in adult court by a small deviation.
How many organizations are trying to keep teens out of adult courts are small steps. They
want changes in one legislative law, or eliminating certain things such as fitness hearing and
juvenile waivers. I believe that something juristic needs to be done so that not another child has

to deal with the abusive and inhumane treatment that must adhere to when they are subject to an
adult hearing, conviction, and housing. Laws that enable for teens to be tried in an adult setting
need to be abolished immediately. These laws that are supposed to make our country safer have
actually put us all in a more dangerous environment. According to research done at Colombia
University by Jeffrey Fagan, teens who are processed in an adult setting over a juvenile setting
have a substantial difference in recidivism. A significantly higher proportion of the criminal
group were subsequently reincarcerated (56% vs. 41%). And those that did reoffend did so
sooner after their release (PBS). This is one of many reasons why teens must stay in the juvenile
system over being transferred to the adult justice system.
We should let the juvenile justice system do what it was put in place to do, punish and
rehabilitate those who are not old enough to be held accountable for a criminal crime.
Conclusion:
As previously stated in the problem and solution sections, there is a
problem at hand which needs to be dealt immediately. Progressive
movements have been advocating for change for the last 15 years, but
changes cannot be made unless the public is informed about the issue and is
ready to push legislation to make changes. This is a battle that cannot be
fully won until there is not a single child convicted and housed as an adult. I
have spoken about all the downsides of children convictions as adults, and
how there are no true upsides of this inhumane treatment. The future of
these children lies in your hands, the public voice. Lets make the world a
better place for everybody.