Susan Gillespie

ENGL 3001
9/9/15
Response 2
There are three types of juveniles when it comes to the juvenile
court system. These three types include juvenile delinquents (who
break laws), status offenders (who commit crimes that are only crimes
to juveniles), and dependents (who have been abused/neglected by
parents). This response focuses on two types of juvenile delinquents
specifically: serious juvenile offenders and violent juvenile offenders.
A serious juvenile offender is a juvenile who has been convicted
of a part 1 offense not including auto theft, petty theft, or dangerous
substance theft or distribution. There are early onset factors with this
group of offenders. Such factors can be individual (birth complications,
impulsivity, psychological disorders) or family related (substance abuse
by parents or physical abuse). Even with serious juvenile offenders,
there is still hope that with proper and extensive prevention and
intervention, they will get out of the juvenile court system and back on
the right track in life. Therefore, they may not become life long
offenders.
A violent juvenile offender is a juvenile who has been convicted
of a violent part 1 offense against a person and has been involved in
prior violent offenses or is a youth convicted of murder. Violence done

by this group of juveniles can either be instrumental (such as taking

possessions) or expressive (such as violence to show emotion). With
this violent youth group, there is a greater chance they will be life long
offenders, especially with serious crimes such as murder.
These two groups of juveniles share many common
characteristics among the profile of juvenile delinquents. According to
the readings in Chapter 6: Juvenile Offenders, these juveniles are
socially assertive, defiant, ambivalent about authority, resentful,
hostile, suspicious, destructive, impulsive, and lacking in self-control
(pg. 182). They often skip class or drop out of school as well. Obviously
not all serious and violent juvenile offenders share this commonality
but many do.
As far as juvenile offenses in recent years, the rates of violent
crimes have greatly decreased since 1994. Violent youth crimes
increased in the 1980s and 1990s, but peaked in 1993 and started to
decline thereafter. After doing extended research, I discovered that it
wasnt only youth crimes that declined, but also adult crimes and
crimes in general declined as well. I found a great article from CBS
News ( http://www.cbsnews.com/news/youth-crime-rate-down/ )that
states:

Experts say the decline of crack cocaine and the violent

gangs that peddled it, combined with big city police

crackdowns on illegal guns and expanded after-school

crime prevention programs, have turned around the
juvenile crime wave that pushed murder arrest rates for
youths, age 10 to 17, up from 1987 to a peak in 1993.

I personally agree with this statement. In recent years, there has been
a great deal of effort in crime prevention programs to reduce crime and
stop it in its tracks. Not only that, but also the increase in intervention
programs that work with juveniles to get them onto the right track to
hopefully ensure they will not commit a crime again.