Preview

Juvenile Delinquent Definition Essay

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
539 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Juvenile Delinquent Definition Essay
Definiton essay: Juvenile delinquent

Definition Essay: Juvenile Delinquent
English Composition 1
Kelley Jones
September 5th 2010

Abstract

This paper is a definition essay that defines the term juvenile delinquent. Juvenile delinquent is a person under the legal age that breaks the law. This essay will give the reader in depth information about the term juvenile delinquent.

Juvenile Delinquent Juvenile delinquency is a term that basically means a person under the age of legality that commits that act of breaking the law. In many courts the punishment for committing a crime whilst under the age of 18 doesn’t seem like a big deal. Juvenile delinquency doesn’t seem that bad. Back in the good old days when America was still a little baby, juveniles were treated the same as everyone else. You commit the crime, you do the time. This went on till the early 1900’s when juveniles were giving their own system. Some people in this era believed that when someone committed a crime it was because of the environment or forces around them rather than their own personal choice. This means that people were not really morally responsible for crimes people committed. The system was all about reforming the juvenile rather than punishing them for the crime that he/she committed. Therefore, the wrongdoer was rehabilitated rather than being punished. The courts, when dealing with a juvenile delinquent, would ask themselves, “What is in the best interest of the child”. A juvenile needed to be adjudicated delinquent. Prosecutors would file a petition for delinquency; an official reviews it and then schedules a hearing. Being under legal age, he/she has no right to a jury trial. If the court finds that the petition is in the right manner then the court will judge the juvenile delinquent. After this was finished the juvenile would then be assessed and given their rehabilitation measures. This system was all grand until the 1970’s, when juveniles started gaining in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    An individual that is under the age of 18 is considered a juvenile in the eyes of the law. Therefore, any child under the age of 18 that commits any form of a crime they are referred to as a juvenile delinquent. In this paper I will discuss the juvenile statistics that were recorded on the 2008 juvenile arrest report.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    For many years, the Juvenile delinquent system was established to separate children form adults in the criminal justice system. This process begins in the early 1960’s, however instead of the common term…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The main component of the juvenile justice system is that it is designed to cater to minors who break the law. The legal information institute categorizes it as; juvenile justice is the area of criminal law applicable to persons not old enough to be held responsible for criminal acts. In most states,…

    • 2342 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A delinquent is a youth up to the age of 18 who commits an act that would be a crime committed by an adult. Some examples of a delinquent act is murder, burglary, rape, auto theft, and arson. If these crimes are committed then it can be lead to adult court then juvenile court. Juveniles in this case are made criminals then born criminals.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Juvenile Justice System is part of the criminal law system that focuses on those individuals who are between the ages of 9 and 18. This system was set up for those persons who did criminal acts, but who are not yet considered adults. In most states the age for criminal culpability is 18. While the age of being treated as a juvenile in the court system is up to the age of 18, this can depend on the crime. Juveniles can be transferred to the adult court system if the juvenile court waves or relinquishes its jurisdiction. Juvenile law is mainly governed by state laws…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    . The purpose of the juvenile court system was to protect the public by providing a system that responded to delinquent acts committed by juveniles who were maturing into adulthood (Juvenile Law Center, n.d.) In most states delinquency is defined as the charge of a criminal act by a child who is under the age of 18 (Juvenile Law Center, n.d.). The juvenile court system was established in the United States to remove youth offenders to welfare agencies or social services (University of Phoenix, 2013). The states recognized that children who committed…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Juvenile court is a special court used to handle cases involving children usually under the age of 18,in some states 17, and in incredibly serious cases, children down to the age of 11 were moved to adult courts. Juvenile court came to be because of a change in ideology in the 1800’s involving children who have committed crimes. Before then children went through the same process as adult criminals at the time, but juvenile court was supposed to focus more on the rehabilitation of the child instead of exposing them to the harsh environment and punishments in adult courts. In juvenile courts the judge would usually talk about the child's background and talk with the child in a private hearing,they would then reach a decision in their best interest.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Only if the delinquent act is considered dangerous, it may be considered a crime and a juvenile may be tried in criminal adult court. Most times a juvenile that is charged with a crime will have an adjudication hearing where the judge will hear the evidence against the offender and the judge is the one that decides whether the juvenile is delinquent. After that the court decides what action will be taken against the juvenile. Whereas, in the adult system the basic goal by the court is to punish the offender not rehabilitate them. A juvenile delinquent, the goal is to rehabilitate them, possibly teach them a trade and give them an education so that when they are released they can either continue their education or get a job. Another difference is the fact that juvenile records are sealed whereas adult criminal records are public knowledge they do this to protect the juvenile from public scrutiny. Adult criminals are sentenced to a certain amount of time in adult prison for their crime; depending on the crime they could receive up to life without parole juvenile delinquents must be released by their twenty-first birthday no matter what the…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Juvenile incarceration has created a lot of uncertainties in the legal justice system. This is because it is often assumed that indeed there are several persons that are underage that at the time of the crime did not have the proper mental reasoning to appreciate that indeed they were committing a crime. For this reason, there has been several problems regarding Juvenile incarceration and it has been argued that there is a need to re-evaluate and ensure that indeed the problems that affect the system are given the proper judicial involvement and justice. . This paper is going to examine how different it is from adults and juvenile when it comes to…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Children are not just born delinquents; by law, a juvenile delinquent is a person under the age of eighteen who is found guilty in a court of law for committing some sort of crime. Juveniles are normally products of circumstances, chance, and their surroundings. Juveniles who are in an area of violence and crime learn to disagree with authority and their superiors, also leading them to participate in crime because it is the acceptable thing to do.…

    • 2312 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In today’s society, there is a national debate about what to do with juveniles in the criminal justice system. This debate is a result changes in practice throughout United States. The United States made it possible to try juveniles as adults in court after the case of Kent vs. the United States in 1966. The change in legislation is relatively new due to the fact that juvenile courts have "for most of the past century, treated youngsters between 7 and 17 not as criminals but as delinquents." The United States choose to treat the kids as delinquents because there was a major focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment.…

    • 4926 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Juvenile justice was formed in response to juvenile delinquency. Juveniles were treated the same as adults before the juvenile justice system existed. According to the Criminal Justice Reference Service (1999) during the 18th century, children as young as seven could be sentenced to prison or death for crimes. This atrocity continued throughout the centuries because children were not deemed as a group with special needs and behaviors. Finally, England played a pivotal role in giving voice to the American juvenile justice system. The voice, was given…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The history of juvenile justice can be dated back to the 1760s when Blackstone classified a juvenile offenders as individual between 7 to 14 years old that understands they are committing a crime and has the intent to commit a crime. The juveniles were trialed, sentenced, and house with adult offenders. In the 19th century there were a shift and the best interest of the child were taken in to consideration. The best interest of the child was not to punish, but to rehabilitate which started the House of Refuge and opened up for more juvenile institutions.…

    • 256 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Juvenile Crime Paper

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The proceedings are civil as opposed to criminal. So, instead of being formally charged with a crime, juvenile offenders are accused of committing a delinquent act. Even though juvenile court is more civil in nature, a juvenile court judge does have some criminal type “authority”. A juvenile case gets started when a prosecutor or probation officer files a civil petition, charging the juvenile with violating a criminal statute and asking that the court determine that the juvenile is delinquent. If the charges are proven a delinquency, a determination is made, and the juvenile comes under the courts broad power. At that point, the juvenile court has the authority to do what it considers to be in the best interest of the juvenile.…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Juvenile Justice System

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages

    When we start to discuss juvenile delinquency and juvenile crimes it can sometimes become complicated because of age limitations that come within the bounds of the law. Each state has their own interpretation of what is considered a juvenile in the juvenile justice system. Juveniles in the State of Louisiana are defined as anyone who is older than age 10 and younger than age 17, where a 17-year-old is classified in the eyes of the state as an adult. In the State of Louisiana a 10-year-old juvenile may be charged for any crime that he or she may commit. In the juvenile justice system there are six categories in which are still used in today’s judicial system jurisdictions to describe the variety of children are subject to juvenile court jurisdiction (Schmalleger, 2011).…

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays