of ways in which courts have excluded certain juveniles from juvenile court jurisdiction. These include setting an age above which the juvenile court no longer has jurisdiction and various mechanisms for transferring juveniles under that age to criminal court. Show State laws set a maximum age for adolescents for which the juvenile court has original jurisdiction. This age varies by state and sometimes by offense. In Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina, the highest age of juvenile court jurisdiction in criminal delinquency cases is 15; that is, anyone age 16 and older is handled in the criminal (adult) court. In Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin, juvenile court jurisdiction applies through age 16. In the remaining states and the District of Columbia, the highest age of jurisdiction is 17 (Griffin et al., 1998). Assuming that children under a certain age cannot be responsible for their behavior, 15 states specify the lowest age for juvenile court jurisdiction. In North Carolina, the lowest minimum age is 6 years; it is 7 in Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York; 8 in Arizona; and 10 in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). In practice, very few children under the age of 10 appear before the juvenile court for delinquency charges. Lowering the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is one of the most drastic steps a state can take, because it moves an entire age group of adolescents into the adult system. In recent years, only three states have changed their laws to lower the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction. In 1993, Wyoming dropped its maximum age from 18 to 17. In 1995, New Hampshire and Wisconsin lowered their maximum ages from 17 to 16 (Torbet et al., 1996). Although it is difficult to determine exactly how many juveniles these changes affected, 17-year-olds accounted for 24 percent of the arrests of all those under 18 in 1998. Therefore, moving 17-year-olds to the criminal justice system could reduce the case flow in the juvenile system by as much as one-fourth. The fact that so few states have chosen this option suggests that legislative concern has been focused on serious and violent crime rather than all juvenile crime (Dawson, 2000). From the inception of the juvenile court, juvenile court judges have had the discretion to waive jurisdiction to the criminal court. These waivers generally fit one of three case types: serious offense, extensive MARYLAND’S LEGISLATURE should put an end to the practice of sentencing children to die in prison. The practice, known as juvenile life without parole, has been curtailed in recent years by the Supreme Court and state legislatures, but not eliminated. More than 600 are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of release for crimes they committed before turning 18. The Maryland Juvenile Restoration Act would ban life sentences for children going forward, and give those currently serving such terms the opportunity for sentencing review after serving 20 years. Maryland should pass the bill and join 24 states and the District of Columbia that have enacted similar measures. Sentencing more youths to parole-ineligible life sentences was part of the nation’s punitive response to high crime levels of the 1980s and 1990s. Myths of a fundamentally new type of child — a “superpredator” — flooded the national discourse, spreading the idea that some young people were simply beyond redemption, despite their youth. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debatesArrowRight In this fog of fear, between 1990 and 1996, 40 states changed laws to make it easier to try youths as adults. The number of people serving life sentences without parole grew as courts became increasingly willing to say to young people convicted of serious crimes: Your character is so fixed that we can never reevaluate whether public safety is served by incarcerating you. You will die in prison. Advertisement Thankfully, for the most part, the country has repudiated this gruesome logic. In 2010, the Supreme Court banned life sentences without parole for non-homicide crimes by juveniles. Two years later, in Miller v. Alabama, the court struck down state statutes that imposed mandatory life sentences without parole on young offenders for certain crimes. And in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that the Miller decision applied retroactively, making thousands of people who were automatically sentenced as children eligible for parole. But states still have further to go to fully ban the practice because the court left open the possibility of life sentences without parole in cases of “irreparable corruption” in the child. This means that states are not required to address nonautomatic sentences where the nature of the crime reflects that the youth is “permanently incorrigible.” There are two major problems with this “irreparable corruption” carve-out. First, a growing body of neuroscience tells us this kind of permanent judgment about an adolescent brain is fundamentally problematic. As the court itself noted in Miller, “It is increasingly clear that adolescent brains are not yet fully mature in regions and systems related to higher-order executive functions such as impulse control, planning ahead, and risk avoidance.” Advertisement Second, judgments about exactly which children are “irreparably corrupt” are fraught with racial bias. These troubling racial dynamics are on full display in Maryland. If the Juvenile Restoration Act is passed, 415 incarcerated Marylanders will immediately become parole-eligible — 87 percent of whom are Black. This staggering racial disparity is the worst in the nation, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. For its retroactive focus, the legislation is preferable to a similar bill being considered that would ban juvenile life sentences without parole going forward but do nothing for those currently serving life terms. This retroactive focus is crucial for addressing racial disparities so often baked into the criminal justice system. Read more: Read a letter in response to this editorial: Life sentences for youth offenders Advertisement The Post’s View: Virginia finally recognizes that children jailed for life deserve at least a chance for parole Juliene James and Susan Mangold: The juvenile justice system is stacked against poor families Nell Bernstein and Vincent Schiraldi: The successful closing of youth prisons shows a path to police reform Letters to the Editor: Life-without-parole sentences are both unconstitutional and cruel for youthful offenders What is the most common form of juvenile correction?Probation supervision: Probation supervision is the most common disposition within the juvenile justice system. Probation supervision is frequently accompanied by other court-imposed conditions, such as community service, restitution, or participation in community treatment services.
Which statement is true about the Illinois Juvenile Court Act?Which statement is true about the Illinois Juvenile Court Act? It created a special court for neglected, dependent, or delinquent children under age 16.
Where is a correctional officer most likely to work?Correctional officers may work in county jails, state prisons, or federal prisons. They may also provide supervision in certain rehabilitation facilities that serve criminal offenders.
What effect did the USA Patriot Act have on the death penalty in the US quizlet?How has the USA PATRIOT Act impacted the use of capital punishment? It significantly increased the number of federal crimes that are punishable by death. The list of crimes punishable by death under federal jurisdiction was expanded by the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and now includes approximately 60 crimes.
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