Reasons why adults should be tried under adult criminal justice systems

Reasons why adults should be tried under adult criminal justice systems

For many years, the debate on whether juveniles should be subject to the criminal justice system when they commit crimes has elicited different opposing reactions from people from the civil society, justice system and the parents. Under common law, a juvenile is any person under the age of seven years cannot be charged with criminal offenses, because they do not have the moral sense to differentiate between wrong and right (Jung, Ahn-Redding, Heather and Meredith 341).

The number of juvenile crimes has risen significantly, and evidence shows that the figure has tripled since the 1980s. The rising rate of crimes perpetrated by this group of people is worrying and legal experts suggest that the juvenile justice systems have failed to address this issue in their current form. The role of juvenile systems is to correct rather than to have juveniles punished. In the view of the fact that the juvenile justice system has been around for decades without successfully addressing the problem of increasing juvenile crimes, there is a need to shift the discussions and have juveniles tried in adult criminal justice systems (Jung, Ahn-Redding, Heather and Meredith 341).

While it is true that juveniles need to be reformed and turned into law-abiding citizens, there’s probably no reason to justify the continued call to uphold it amidst evidence of repeat offenses. There are circumstances that would justify a juvenile to be tried in the adult criminal justice system (Jung, Ahn-Redding, Heather and Meredith 341). In the case where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the juvenile committed heinous acts such as murder knowingly, the law should provide for such a child to be charged with crimes in the same way an adult would be charged, and if convicted, be jailed.