Non-Fiction RR #1

Rethinking Juvenile Justice by, John Schwartz, is about how it’s becoming harder to try teen offenders in an adult justice system.  Schwartz isn’t biased in this article, but some of the experts he speaks with in this article are.  Some of these experts are excited with the progress of getting juvenile offenders out of the adult justice system, and others are not excited at all.  Nicole Miera, sister of James Stewart, a 17 year old boy who committed suicide after being transferred from a juvenile detention center to an adult jail, also shared her thoughts on the changes taking place in justice for juveniles.
  In many major cities in the US, including New York City, Chicago, and Washington, change is happening in court systems.  These cities are trying to keep juveniles who have committed small crimes like, theft, and fighting, out of the criminal justice court.  The Annie E. Casey Foundation works with many counties across the US to have different choices for teen offenders.  Due to these changes, jailing juvenile offenders has become a less popular option.  Mark Soler, executive director of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, says, “If you’ve got kids who are really violent and a threat to their communities, then lock them up”.  He then goes on to say that if you have a safer and easier teen to handle in your community, handle them because it cost a lot less money.  What Soler is trying to say is, jail the really bad kids, and keep the kids that can be easily supervised out of jail all together.  His reason to do this would be you can save so much more money, since states are looking for ways to cut costs.
However, not every one agrees with that approach.  Kent Scheidegger of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation thinks this national trend of keeping juvenile offenders away from the adult justice system will be taken to far.  He states that this process could also be unfair to the victim of the crime.  Nicole Miera thinks juvenile offenders should be evaluated.  She believes, “Some juvenile offenders show such cruelty and viciousness that they should be charged as adults...”.  She then brings in her brother, saying he was different because he didn’t try to go out and murder  someone purposely (he ran over and killed someone while drunk driving).
From reading Rethinking Juvenile Justice, I found out lots of people have different opinions on this subject.  I have also found out, that each opinion has a lot of evidence to back it up, but also take it down.  Whatever decision is made about juvenile offenders in the adult legal system will be a very tough one to make, and no doubt anger some party of people.  

Works Cited

Schwartz, John. "Rethinking Juvenile Justice." Upfront 09 Dec. 2013: 8-11. Print.