Unit IV Literature Review



Unit IV Literature Review

Similar Areas of Studies Leading to the Current Research and the Importance of the Questions being Asked

Juvenile offenders and their sentence has become a debatable topic. Some feel that the young criminals should not be punished severely but some feel that these young criminals should be tried and punished as adults. Many research have been done regarding this topic. Five research articles were selected to study for this current research.

The research article by Cothern (2000), states that sentencing a young person through the auspices of the juvenile court is fairly recent. It grew after the juvenile crime spike of the mid-1990s, which at the time seemed to suggest there was a coming wave of predator teenagers who were increasingly violent and in need of adult sanctions to punish their adult-like wrongdoing.

The research paper by Richards (2011), determines that when youths are sentenced, the options typically include some type of restitution; unsupervised or supervised probation; placement in a private or state-run residential facility; or, prior to sentencing, being tried as adults and subjected to the full range of sentencing options in the criminal justice system.

According to the research paper by Ash (2006) tried to relate the role of prosecutors with the juvenile offenders' justice system. He stated, in many states, prosecutors play the pivotal role in determining whether youths will be handled in juvenile or adult court, similar to the adult criminal system, where prosecutorial discretion is perhaps the greatest determinant of how offenders enter the system (how they are charged) and what sentencing options then flow from those charges if the defendant's guilt is confirmed.

However, according to research paper presented by Steinberg (2000), prosecutorial discretion, direct file, or prosecutorial waiver is a procedure that removes juvenile offenders from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and transfers jurisdiction to the ...