JUS-331 Juvenile Justice
3.1 Rights vs. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation v. Rights
The main purpose of the juvenile justice system is to hold juvenile offenders accountable and responsible for their delinquent actions against society. The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to give juveniles a better understanding of law and to understand that ideally for every delinquent action there is going to a consequence and is determined within the confines of the law. Adults that commit crimes, have a separate legal system that in the criminal process awards the criminal typically community service, tickets, rehabilitation, fines, probation or even incarceration. The juvenile justice system plays a different roll with the mindset that rehabilitation if the first for of prevention and correction. The rehabilitation process holds value because the judicial system understands that there are age related differences mentally, physically and socially between a child and an adult (Department of Juvenile Justice, 2000). Although there are differences there are similarities juveniles and adult accept the confines of the United States Constitution (Department of Juvenile Justice, 2000) and the right amended within the Constitution. With these rights we as a society have establishedour own ethical and moral standards as a society and develop laws based of flaws, delinquency, and social harm.
In 1967 a turning point in the juvenile justice system allotted juveniles the same rights awarded to adults. Francis Gault from Arizona was taken into custody based off of hearsay because of alleged phone call made to a Mrs. Ora Cook who accused Gault of making “lewd and offensive comments; resulting a Francis Gault court ordered to the State Industrial School 21 year of age. Later after appeals the Arizona court system dismissed the ruling on the basis that (Elliott, 2007); * Arizona juvenile code at that time was unconstitutional; (a)Francis Gault and his parents were not notified of the charges. (b) The parties were not notified of the hearing. (c) did not allow any juvenile appeal of juvenile court decisions in Arizona (Cornell University law School, 2011) * Secondly Gault in essence was denied the right to a lawyer and there weren’t any due processes involved. Gaults Sixth amendment and Fourteenth amendments were violated due to the inability to confront the accuser (Cornell University law School, 2011).
My personal disposition I personally feel that all people should be held countable for their actions. If we are to hold a person liable for their action under United States Judicial System and the laws enforced by this system, the accused should have the support of the United States Constitution. The U.S. Constitution was drafted