Fighting unfair Juvenile justice

Welcome back to my blog. We are starting to close to the end and with this fact I want to make sure my readers understand what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting against the trying of children in adult courts. If children are tried in it is because the government want to use them as examples to other children. Also children who are tried as adults are less likey to reform and are more likey to get arrested again. Another problem I have with trying juveniles as adults is it pushes some children like Jimmy Stewart. By allowing states to have bills that allow for children to be tried as adults, America is showing other countries it is ok to destroy a trouble child's life. I believe if all 15 states ,that have bills that allow children to be tried as adults,  pass laws that don't allow for this to happen I feel that it make America a better place and also America would be a better example for other countries. Think of it this way, do you what to live in a country that allows for children to be in the same jail with murders, rapists ,and gang members?

Sources

- (picture) http://www.portlandmercury.com/binary/9a7b/1311262097-picture_2.png

Pros and Cons

Their are many Pros to passing laws that disable courts from trying kids as adults, but some would argue there are also many Cons to passing such laws. One Pro for passing the law would be it allows kids just enough time to reflect on their actions while still not beingin a super hostile environment like a state prison. Also by putting kids in a juvenile prison for a shorter amount of time the state governments will save a lot more money than if they put them in a state prison. Also it will be hard for a juvenile criminal to get hired if they were tried and put in federal prison than if the were put in juvenile deletion. One Con about passing the law is if a juvenile was to commit a massacre or killed multiple people, like a cereal killer, than the courts would not be able to put him/her in a federal prison. Also juveniles have a right a jury in all adult courts, while a lot of juvenile courts do not give them the right to the jury. Finally if this bill is passed it will give some juvenile offenders the false idea that they can do something bad and for the most part get away with it. These are a few of the Pros and Con if a bill like this was passed.

Citations

- http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/juveniles-youth-adult-criminal-court-32226.html

A Tragic Story

I justed wanted to say I'm lucky enough to live in a state that does not allow for children to be tried as adults. Their are only 15 stares in America that allow that to happen and I'm making it my goal to change those states through my blog. To help with this I want to tell a very emotional story about an unlucky child. 

Their have been many cases in which a juvenile has been tried as a adult but the case of Jimmy Stewart touched me the most. Jimmy was at his third year at Wheat Ridge High School in Denver. He did what most high school student do and he went out to drink but sadly he got drunk and tried to drive home. On the way home he killed Nathan Woods. He work with the police and was very sorry for his crime. He even wrote a 6 page long letter to the Nathan's wife Iman. Even though he did all of this the district attorneys wanted to try him as an adult and were able to because a law passed in 1993. If you ask me I think the District Attorney's office was using jimmy as an example to other kids to get them to stop drinking and driving. This tragic Ann's cruel dission made jimmy depressed enough to hang himself when he was left alone in his cell. Even Iman felt bad about what with jimmy. This case shows the injustice of trying children as adults because in some cases it can even push people to killing themselves. 

Citations

- http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10871303

History of Juvenile Justice

In early America their was no such thing as a separate Juvenile Justice system. This means kids were put in the same place as murders and child molesters. Finally some people saw this was wrong and reformed it. After the juvenile justice system was made there was a big difference in opinion about when a child is juvenile and when they are counted as an adult. Even though the Juvenile Justice system was made some states still allowed for children to berried as adults. This varied by state mostly. Some state had certain crimes, such as murder, that would land a Juvenile in an adult court. In 1997 46 states passed laws that allowed Juveniles to be reassigned to an adult court. For the the most part when a child was put in a adult prison their sentence was generally shorter. However, some court were not so nice. Some court tried children and sometimes those kids would be put away for life or sentenced to death. In the 1988 the Supreme Court passed a law that made it illegal to sentence a child younger than 16 to death. Today a lot more regulations have been passed to regulate juvenile justice system. Also today their are only about 15 states who still have laws to allow children to be tried as adults.

Follow me on twitter @jack_moroni and leave me a question

Sources
-Juvenile Justice." Crime and Punishment in America Reference Library. Ed. Richard C. Hanes, et al. Vol. 2: Almanac, Volume 2. Detroit: UXL, 2005. 340-357. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014

Welcome

Hello my name is Jack and I welcome  you to my blog about Juvenile Justice. I will be mostly concerning my self with a bad part of Juvenile Justice. That bad part is the courts ability to try a child as a adult. Because the ability to try children as adults is state controlled I will be following multiple bills from different states on the subject. The reason I think this is a big deal is because some kids who are tried as adult can't even bare the fate of going to federal prison, so they kill themselves. I think no child should be push to that and the way I look at it, it's like giving those kids the death penalty.

Also I want to give you guy some more info about me. I'm jack I go to Loyola academy in Illinois. This blog is a project for my US history class. The purpose of the project is to be an agent of Change.  Hopefully through this blog I can do exactly that. Feel free to tweet at me @jack_moroni