WORKS CITED 5

"Juvenile Justice." Issues & Controversies On File 31 Mar. 2002. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services. 23 Sept. 2008 .

• One of the major reasons for the rise in violent crimes over the past two decades is due to the rise in crack cocaine. Crack dealers often hire children to distribute drugs and give them guns for protection. From 1990 to 1995, there was a 700% increase in the number of juvenile arrested for heroin and cocaine possession and an 80% rise in juvenile murders.
• There is no evidence that treating young offenders like adults works. In fact, some studies show that children retained in the juvenile justice system are less likely to commit another crime after leaving prison compared to those in an adult justice system. When young offenders are sentenced to adult prisons, they do not receive the educational, rehabilitative and occupational training they need to find an alternative to crime when they are released.
• Some alternatives to adult sentencing for juveniles are boarding schools, "last chance” facilities, boot camps (designed to instill respect for authority), community-based facilities, restorative justice programs which include community service work hours, and victim-offender mediation.
• Violent youth are typically abused, neglected, fatherless, and impoverished. At-risk youths need responsible adults in their lives. Society needs to develop a sense of moral obligations to their children.
• “At the end of 1995, about 2% of inmates on death row in the United States were juveniles--aged 17 or younger--when they committed the crimes that put them there.”“Some believe that treating juvenile robbers, rapists and murderers like adults is fitting and just, considering the seriousness of their crimes. "Adult crime, adult time" is their battle cry.” “Throughout the country, voters and politicians have embraced the motto, "If you're old enough to do the crime, you're old enough to do the time." “The word most frequently used to describe the growth in the rate of violent crime among children 17 years old and younger is epidemic. After holding roughly steady from 1973 to the late 1980s, the arrest rates for youths accused of violent crimes rose sharply. From 1987 to 1995, arrests for violent crimes per 100,000 juveniles climbed to more than 500 from around 300, an increase of close to 65%. During the same period, rates of arrest for similar crimes committed by adults remained about steady.”