Youth Affenders

10 Pages 2376 Words

To many Americans today, the country is a hostage-but not from oversea terrorism as one might expect to think. No today, we live in fear from our own children; and these are the same young people who we are entrusting the future of this great country with. According to the Department of Justice reports, thirty-eight percent of those arrested for weapons offenses in 2003 were under the age of eighteen. In the same report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics stated that in 2003, 3 out of every 100 eighteen-year-olds were arrested for weapons offenses. A rate three times higher than for males twenty-five to twenty-nine and five times higher than for males thirty to thirty-four.
Just weeks later the FBI released a report indicating that arrests for youths under eighteen increased by seven percent in 2004 (Curriden). In light of these disturbing statistics, it may not be surprising that the general public is starting to believe its children are getting meaner and more violent. The media, politicians and the American public want something done, and they want it done now. Right now we are beginning to realize that if the situation looks bleak now, it could deteriorate even more in the future. The U.S. Census projects that the juvenile population reported to be 27.1 million in 2003 will rise to 33.8 million by the year 2010 (Curriden). At the heart of this controversy: the juvenile justice system.
For the past several years the system has been under attack by every one from state legislatures to parent-teen groups. Our solution to the rising juvenile crime problem to get tougher. According to a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, 60 percent of Americans believe that a teenager convicted of murder should get the death penalty (Ollson). In response to this “get-tough” mood, more and more states are passing legislation to try youths as adults for more types of crime at younger ages. Colorado for example has a brand new type of tough love for ...