Juvenile Delinquency History

Register to read the introduction… After hearing the cases of Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966), and In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967), the Supreme Court made the decision that juveniles should have the same rights of due process as awarded to adult offenders. Justice Fortas stated that “neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone” and that during delinquency hearings juvenile would be allowed certain elements of Due Process to ensure that they were treated fairly (Americanbar.org). This decision led people to wonder if the country was staying true to the mission of the juvenile system of rehabilitation, because by allowing juveniles the right to due process we were changing juvenile proceedings into criminal proceedings and that was not the goal of the juvenile system. Juveniles are to be rehabilitated, while adults are to be …show more content…
If these youth are not being rehabilitated and are committing more serious crimes, such as rape and murder, should they not be treated as adults and be punished for their actions? All of these new implementations to the juvenile system are leaving people wondering whether the two systems should even continue to be separate or if they should be combined into one justice system. While there are many believing that the juvenile system is outdated and ineffective, there are just as many that believe the system can be fixed. True, some of the programs that are available in the juvenile system are outdated, but rather than do away with the system that does have a positive effect on some of these young offenders, we need simply to address the problems within the