Morris Kent Jr. vs. the United States Essay Example for Free

Morris Kent Jr. vs. the United States Essay At the age of 14 years in 1959 he was reported to have committed several offenses on housebreakings and attempted purse snatching. He was placed under probation on his mother’s care with corresponding social services. At the age of 16 in 1961 he was reported to have committed housebreaking, stealing the house owner’s wallet, and raping her. After which he admitted committing several offenses of the same manner. The waiver Kent’s mother, a lawyer, and a case worker from the juvenile court filed a petition to consider waiving the case while he was placed at the District of Columbia Receiving Home for children for a week. The trial and verdict He was convicted to six counts on housebreaking and robbery but was acquitted on two rape counts by reason of insanity. The appeal Objections to fingerprinting proceeding, absence to notification of parents, and courts denial to the access on his social services file. Petitioner also questioned the validity of the one week detainment at the District of Columbia which if an adult is already considered unlawful. The validity of the waiver which denies the petitioner the benefits of the juvenile courts parens patriae capacity (Howell 1998). Schall vs Martin The history At the age of 14 in Dec. 13, 1977 Gregory Martin was arrested with first degree robbery, second degree assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. Martin with two others allegedly hit a youth on the head with a loaded gun. They then stole the victim’s jacket and sneakers. The procedure Martin evidenced of lack of supervision was based on possession of a loaded weapon, lateness of the hour, and false information on his address given to the police. He was detained for a total of fifteen days between the initial appearance and the completion of the fact finding. The trial and verdict Martin was found guilty on robbery and criminal possession charges. Since he was adjudicated as delinquent, he was placed on two years probation. The appeal Objections were made on the pretrial detention of juveniles implying greater abuses of law and power. Re Gault, re Winship, Mckeiver vs the State of Pennsylvania The cases Winship was a twelve year old boy in 1970 who entered into a locker and stole $112. 00 from a woman’s pocketbook. He was ordered placed in a training school for an initial period of 18 months subject to annual extensions from the basis of preponderance of the evidence. Gault was 15 years old in 1967 when taken into custody as a result of a complaint that he had made lewd telephone calls. He was ordered to perform as a juvenile delinquent until he should reach maturity at the State Industrial School. Mckeiver was charged together with a group of 11 to 15 years with various acts of misdemeanors which arose from several demonstrations protesting school assignments and a school consolidation plan. The public was excluded from the hearing for major reason that the juvenile proceeding might make the trial into a fully adversary process. Each member of the juvenile group was considered a delinquent while placing each of them under probation. Analysis and recommendations The Juvenile Justice Services Administration is responsible for the effective administration of the juvenile justice programs for delinquent and incorrigible youths which is being done in coordination with the juvenile courts. The identification of the needs of children facing delinquency leads to the invention and creation of the juvenile courts to go easy on young criminals. The rapid increased of juvenile crime and young people identified as at risk has created a furor on shocking juvenile crime statistics which resulted to a public outcry on the need for change in the management of young offenders in all of US states nationwide. This practically litigated some offenders in adult criminal courts. The argument details on young children who had committed violent crimes like assault, rape, murder and armed robbery which are often adjudicated in the same court as non violent offenders charged with shoplifting, burglary, and petty theft to drug offenses. The growing disillusionment of the therapeutic and ineffective approach of the juvenile justice system has resulted to appeals for a modification of its due process to transfer young offenders to adult courts and prisons. It has been the present society’s desire to oppose rehabilitation and effect punishment. They firmly believed that the framework of the juvenile justice system has permitted young offenders to avoid accountability which led to its nonadversarial, decriminalized process where violent offenders were never separated and categorized according to the severity of their crimes. The court subsequently measures to provide guidance and rehabilitation of the child and protection for society not to fix criminal responsibility, guilt and punishment according to their parens patriae capacity. It seems that US is now caught up with its own policy which seems to produce a rapid increase of juvenile offenders who are not amenable to rehabilitation who acts as criminals who happens to be children. The courts are now dealing on the crossroads of empowering themselves to consider amenability between children who err and those children who commits an isolated criminal offense against the mandates of the juvenile justice court system. There is a marked dependency issues within the jurisdiction of the court and for young offenders otherwise involved in the judicial system. The system which serves to pose as an integral part of the national development process to protect the young and maintain peaceful order in the system has created chaos because of its policy and practice of informal justice for issues of social control. Most common practice is the treatment of every youth who violates the law is not labeled as a juvenile delinquent unless they were officially processed through the juvenile courts and officially adjudicated. But how can they be properly processed if at the start police interventions are already placing lax policies at stake? Is it a matter of policy makers and policies implementation? Or is it a matter of family emotional and authority interconnections that created the young person as he is today? The purposes and procedures of juvenile courts have become immerse on public reactions reflecting opinions on the system. To protect the rights of the young offenders, there must be a classification on matters of the crime that was committed. It is necessary to redesign a new youth justice system before it does more public harm. Young offenders caught in the web of the existing criminal justice system shall be classified according to the severity of the crime that was committed through individualized assessment and proactive case management. There shall be a diverse menu of options where the institution shall be created solely for the young offenders. This is the day that the court will treat crime as a crime regardless of the offender’s age and the appropriate time that young offenders will hold accountability and experience the consequences of their acts. Young people who violate the law are no longer guaranteed special treatment simply because they are young but must be disciplined according to the severity of the violations they had committed on separate juvenile institutions. The separate institution is still a form of special treatment where the facilities and the education and training of the young offenders are to be thoroughly studied. Amidst the severity of the crime, young offenders will still continue to be cognitively, emotionally and socially different from adults. Therefore the separation and the creation of a unique institution for them where they shall attend training and education inside and still receive diplomas for their education continues to serve them as citizens and young offenders. There must be a mother image or model assigned to a particular group of five or six children who will monitor their personal needs and really pose as a parent to them. Screening for the recruitment of mothers on this process must be very thorough and well maintained. When we say that young people are vulnerable to negative influences, we can justify the mother or parent issue by the model parent who constantly monitors and cares for them and teaches them basic family values that may be more than what their biological parents could give largely dependent on the nature and characteristics of the model parent screening recruitment process. Why not try hiring Asians? Maybe a change of culture introduction will work for these offenders. When you are out of ideas on how to control them, we might as well try other cultures to experiment the effect. We might as well try blending policies and practices on the care management of these juvenile delinquents. There shall be no lapses over the rights of the child being tried in an adult court regardless of age on the basis of the severity of the crime because the institution to where he goes is not a mix adult one but a newly created institution that caters juvenile criminals for this matter. No fear of any adverse effect on social issues and negative adult influences because they interact with people of the same violent crimes and same age bracket. Or to modify court proceedings, since we already have classifications on the severity of offenses then it can move to create law appropriate for these juveniles who were criminally charged. However, the trials shall be done under and within the umbrella of the juvenile justice system with no act of favoritism on matters of age. So waivers on matters of jurisdiction may not pose a threat to committing mistakes on putting the child into the adult institution. The issue here is the willingness of the State to provide such juvenile penitentiary. The cost and the budget appropriations will more or less equal to the budget on their drug abuse intervention offers. But if young offenders will be criminally hold accountable for their offenses then they will absolutely stop and start to manage their baby instincts which results from baby court policies and treatment of their offenses and age. The court is not justifying the act but is more on protecting the age which contributes to these young people’s confidence in passing time making crimes and getting away with it because they are young which is very unreasonable and not applicable either in the family system more on the justice court system. The issue that serves to balance the recommendation is the factors that made this young delinquents abused their rights. Maybe there were too many rights given to them that the court cannot invade to create justice for the victims in that system anymore. They have made a perfect firewall on their policies that even them cannot manage to hack their own system to change. There shall be a modification with the justice system classification on young people’s offenses and put them right back on their tracks without getting their rights off. For once in their lives they should know the harm and damage they had done to their victims and make them pay for it in their unique form of institution. It is a matter of psychological warfare with these young people. The psychological warfare of which is already in their own advantage because of the juvenile justice system policies and practices. We love our children but we need to rear them right. Love does not only mean making them babies in treatment and in policies, they also need a little spanking when they err to understand the severity of their act. Love means caring for their needs but still punishing them when they do things that poses harm to themselves, harm to their families and harm to the society. We have to stop the notion of making them think that what they are doing is still acceptable because of the governing family policies and juvenile justice system methods of treatment and rehabilitation. It is a matter of breaking their confidence now that they were made indestructible in court because of their age. The idea is to make them realize what they have done is immaterial to age but a direct violation of love and God. The institution will serve them right because they are properly taken cared of depending on the administration. Since national policy has been taking children out of their families because they don’t trust parents to be effective anymore, which is due to their policy also, then putting then in a juvenile institution consisting of a large land, mother models, equip with schools for education and training when they err will put them in their places without taking out their right. It is a midway and the last recourse for these children. There will be no fear on part of the parents and no fear on part of the justice system. The kids now will serve their time studying and learning skills to get a life after serving their sentences. Some grave offenses will require them to work within the institution as part of the training like foundry or what Don Bosconian students are doing. If you don’t want to work and get trained 8 hours a day, then don’t commit grave offenses. Just be a youth and live how a youth is supposed to live. It is a matter now of choice for these juvenile offenders. The knowledge itself that they have an institution to go won’t make them go easy on their impulse acts and imaginations. It is like the idea of over feeding the child which makes him obese, overprotective policy will make him a criminal because nobody can touch him. It seems that the idea lies on the thought that the victim will fear more of being killed and raped by a juvenile offender because no justice can be absolutely derived from it. How can a nation maintain peace and order then when it disrupts respect for law and of the rights of the victim in the first place? We want to see the situation objectively. Reversing orders by judges is just not applicable but modifications on the juvenile justice system are what we have to look into deeply. It is time for a change and that change shall start now before certain events will turn to future abolition of the ineffective juvenile justice system. We just have to look at the flow chart and analyze the policies and procedures involved in each processes. The theme is objective analysis and not favors. The only thing that will hold them from waivers and transfers to adult courts are the negative consequences of adult institutions for their age and shall not be based on their ages. Figure 1. Juvenile justice flow chart (Arizona 2006) References Arizona Supreme Court. (2006). Juvenile justice flow chart. Retrieved May 19, 2007 Website: http://www. supreme. state. az. us/jjsd/jolts/FlowChart. htm Howell, J. C. (1998, January). NCCDs Survey of Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facilities. Crime Delinquency. Retrieved May 19, 2007 Website: http://law. jrank. org/pages/12936/Kent-v-United-States. html