Fix the Justice System 

         The justice system is a place where justice is supposed to be served and people who commit crimes are supposed to serve their time. For decades the Justice system has been a place where it disappoints more than it is supposed to, when it comes to the fairness and conclusion of a case. One of those cases are when it involves juveniles and their sentencing on criminal cases. Juveniles are one of few types of people who end up in the criminal justice system. Although the laws can be different, ultimately juveniles can get lesser sentences than adults, even if the crime is the same as an adult. The justice systems laws, policies, and procedures are regulated if the accused are juveniles. This means that the treatment of non-adult offenders is better than adults, because its goals are to rehabilitate the juveniles so that they don’t come back into the system.

        We need to design a system that has it so that people such as juveniles get a real taste of what their actions can lead to in the future so that they have the chance to think about their actions before they do something bad in the future. Studies have shown that people under the age of 18, commit more crimes than adults do, and most depending on their crimes, end up living most of their lives behind bars. Because of the increase, each state in the US had set different policies that were set in place in order to help reduce the crime rate (Jordan, K.L). Depending on the case most juveniles will be transferred to an adult prison, even before they turn 18 (Jordan, K.L). “With this method of transfer, juveniles are waived to the adult system by a juvenile court judge. In other words, the court of original authority is the juvenile court, and judges make the decision on whether to retain the case in juvenile court or send the case to adult court for processing” (Myers, 2005).

       “We can’t keep letting juveniles get away with crimes, they need to learn that committing crimes is not ok and there are consequences for their actions” (Peterson, S. B, 2020). The severity for cases have to be the same for all people, no matter the race or ethnicity. A crime is a crime. You often hear a lot that people can get away with crimes such as murder because of their ethnic background. In some cases people even claim insanity as to the reason why the crime was committed. Both of those claims need to go to make it so that everyone has the same severity to the trials for everybody. hopefully there can be new program funding, which will help juveniles get on the right path before it leads to something worse than it has to be. Death is one of those things that is common in most juveniles, or the other way around where juveniles are the ones committing murders and harsh crimes. The funding needs to be set in place so that it can help all of those in need, especially the ones that have been through trauma and abuse growing up. I hope that the right funding, rules and regulations are set in place, more kids are paid attention to so that bad things are prevented from happening. If everyone gets together and paves a path, so that people are taken care and less bad things happen in the world. 

legislative law maker contact -Monica duran

-        Jordan, K. L., & McNeal, B. A. (2016). Juvenile penalty or leniency: Sentencing of juveniles in the criminal justice system. Law and Human Behavior, 40(4), 387-400. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000186

-        Myers, D. L. (2005). Boys among men: Trying and sentencing juveniles as adults. Westport, CT: Praeger.

-        Peterson, S. B., Burnett, L., & Halstuch, J. A. (2020). America's New Criminal Justice System Diversion Program, the Community Acceptance Program. Criminal Justice, 34(4), 23+. https://link-gale-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A619219666/ITOF?u=auraria_main&sid=summon&xid=847a972d