Should Youth Be Charged as Adults in the Criminal Justice System?
Youth should not be tried in adult court because it does not promote rehabilitation, does not deter youth crime, and imposes immense harm on children. The United States has a long history of over-criminalizing and policing youth, especially Black and Brown youth. Despite the formation of a separate juvenile court system specifically designed to “treat, rather than punish,” this over criminalization and policing has resulted in youth being pushed into the adult criminal system. Although the United States Supreme Court has recognized the differences between youth and adults, courts consistently fail to consider these attributes and the best interests of youth before transferring them to the adult criminal system.
History
At its formation, the juvenile justice system was designed to protect youth. The goal was treatment and rehabilitation as opposed to punishment. At the turn of the twentieth century, “the adult system was viewed as an inadequate and inappropriate forum to adjudicate the criminal behavior” of youth. Vincent M. Southerland, “Youth Matters: The Need to Treat Children Like Children,” 27 J. Civ. Rts. & Econ. Dev. 765, 768 (2015). Lawmakers were “disturbed” by children being subjected to “adult penalties, lengthy prison terms, and commingling with ‘hardened criminals.’’ Id. at 767. Thus, the first juvenile court was established in Illinois in 1899. Amnesty International, Betraying The Young: Human Rights Violations Against Children In The US Justice System 9 (1998). Within decades, all states adopted a juvenile court separate from the adult criminal system. Id. These courts purported to be concerned with the welfare of children rather than the offense that brought them before the court, and their goal was to identify the cause behind youth behavior and to provide appropriate rehabilitative remedies. Id. The court system was non-adversarial, and judges adopted a paternalistic approach. In most cases, these courts lacked formality as children were not represented by attorneys, and there was no right to a trial by jury or the right to appeal. Katharine F. Lenroot, “The Evolution of the Juvenile Court,” 105 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. and Soc. Sci., 213, 215 (1923).
A Shift to Treating Youth as Adults During the Super-Predator Era
In the 1980s and 1990s, youth violent crime rates rose, causing concern regarding the amount and nature of crimes being committed by youth. Skewed media headlines emerged depicting youth, particularly youth of color, as “hedonistic youngsters” from bad neighborhoods who were murdering, robbing, raping, dealing drugs and joining gangs. These youth were labeled as remorseless and believed to have an “inherent proclivity to violence.” Princeton University Political science professor, John DiIulio Jr., warned that America was sitting on a “demographic crime bomb.” John J. DiIulio Jr., “The Coming of the Super-Predators,” Wkly. Standard at 23 (Nov. 27, 1995). DiIulio predicted that by the year 2000, there would be a “sharp increase in the number of super crime-prone young males” and that this surge would include male predators from “black inner-city neighborhoods.” Id. at 24–25. These “super-predators,” as he called them were predicted to commit the most heinous acts of violence for trivial reasons. Id. at 26.
In response to the predicted crime wave, almost all states changed their laws to make it easier to prosecute youth in the adult criminal system, a process known as transfer or waiver. States moved away from the rehabilitative goals of the juvenile legal system toward a “punitive ‘tough-on-crime’ response.” The Situation of Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System in the United States, pg 26. For instance, states lowered the age limit for transfer, subjecting younger youth to adult criminal prosecution. See Patricia Torbet et al., “State Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime,” Off. Juv. Just. & Delinq. Prevention, 4 (1996). States also added eligible crimes to their transfer statutes. See Id. This meant that youth could be transferred to the adult court for a wider range of offenses. Due to federal incentives in the 1994 Crime Bill, many states also passed legislation implementing mandatory life sentences for certain offenses, mandatory minimum sentences, longer sentences for violent felonies, three strike laws, “truth in sentencing” laws (which required individuals to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence), and increased sentences for offenses such as gang related violence, carjacking, and offenses committed with a firearm. See Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 34 U.S.C. §§ 140002-140008. All these changes pushed more youth into the adult criminal system “reflecting a disregard for children’s vulnerable status, their need for protection, and the primacy of their best interests.” Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, The Situation of Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System in the United States 28 (March 2018) (citing D.C. Lawyers for Youth and Campaign for Youth Justice, Capital City Correction, May 2014).
Despite these legislative changes, the predicted upward trend in youth violence never materialized. Youth arrest rates for violent crimes dropped by almost half between 1994 and 2009. Off. Juv. Just. & Delinq. Prevention, “Juvenile Arrest Rate Trends,” Statistical Briefing Book (last visited May 29, 2025). In fact, in 1996 DiIulio recanted and apologized for how the term took off as well as its lasting effects and stated that he “wished he had never become the 1990s intellectual pillar for putting violent juveniles in prison and condemning them as ‘super[-]predators.’” Id. Yet, the impact of this characterization had a lasting impact on legislation, with many of the laws passed in the 1990s still in place today.