Resolved: In the United States, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the criminal justice

system.

AFF Eleanor Roosevelt once said. Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both. For this reason I firmly affirm that juveniles should be treated as adults in the criminal justice system. My core value for this debate is justice and my value criterion is Utilitarianism, what is good for the majority of people in a society. Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, or fairness. It is the duty of the US government to make society the safest place for the majority and the minorities. It is essential for juveniles to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system to ensure the safety of society and the deterrence of minors. The following definitions are from Merriam Websters Dictionary of Law. Juvenile: an individual who is under18 at which he or she would be charged as an adult for a criminal act. Treated: to consider or regard in a specified way, and deal with accordingly. Criminal Justice System: A series of organizations involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and jailing those involved in crimes including law enforcement, attorneys, judges, courts of law, prisons. My first contention will be that with greater consequence there comes greater deterrence. According to the department of justice recidivism was reported in 79 percent of juveniles in Washington State who went to juvenile delinquency centers, while there was only a 47 percent recidivism rate amongst juveniles in states prisons. There is a significant difference between the rates of juveniles who end up committing another crime after their first offense. For the safety of the American public, we must place the juveniles in the adult justice system. The adult justice system is not a harsher punishment, but a place where both the rights of a juvenile and their future is safer. My second contention will be misconduct indicates that recidivism is likely. On a more practical level, research on the relationship of misconduct to recidivism can provide important information to practitioners charged with the release of state delinquents from juvenile incarceration. Notwithstanding other important benefits to examining the

Resolved: In the United States, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

misconductrecidivism relation- ship, this study suggests that misconduct may still provide some insight into the recidivism of youth as they transition from juvenile incarceration to freedom and from late adolescence into young adulthood. As mentioned, offenders transitioning from juvenile incarceration are, as a whole and as supported by post release recidivism research, still largely on the escalation side of the aggregate agecrime curve and represent some of the most risky juvenile offenders relative to re-offending. Involvement in institutional mis-conduct may signal a risk for continuity in offending post release and, at the least, the need for heightened attention to such offenders. As such, further attention should be placed on misconduct as part of the repertoire of information in terms of deciding who should get released and, perhaps more important, when they should be released. Almost all state juvenile commitments will eventually be released directly from juvenile incarceration (as opposed to adult prison transfer, for example), and with that fact in mind, institutional misconduct may serve as an additional early warning whereby further intervention efforts could be explored before release and transition back to society. Specific to the sample in this study, the results also suggest that such decisions should also give further credence to delinquent history variables, for example, gang membership and the length and seriousness of previous offending, including substance abuse history. These variables also appear relevant as an early warning sign for those offenders who may need different or lengthier services prior to their release from institutionalization to improve their chances for success post release.

econd, harsher punishment deters crimes. Studies show that as the threat of punishment goes up, criminal behavior goes down - as Brian Oliver explains: trying juveniles as adults [causes] juveniles [to] be less likely to become involved in criminal behavior A study by Glassner provided support to this hypothesis. In the study, the authors interviewed youth about the criminal behavior they had engaged in as adolescents.

Resolved: In the United States, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

What they found was that many of the youth interviewed made a conscious decision to stop engaging in criminal behavior once they turned 16, specifically because the laws on the books treated criminal offenders as adults starting at the age of 16. A recent study by Levitt 1998 provided additional support for the deterrence hypothesis. In the study, the juvenile crime rates between 1978 and 1993 were examined in relation to the punitiveness of the states juvenile court system in comparison to their criminal court system. What the study found was that states with harsher punishments for juveniles were more likely to experience lower rates of juvenile crime. This study provided evidence that harsher juvenile laws has a deterrent effect on juvenile crime.