Comparison of Juvenile Courts and Adult Courts

However, as from the late 1960s, the highest court on the land heard and decided a range of juvenile cases that spontaneously influenced the shaped as well as procedures of the juvenile justice system. As such, there have been many juvenile cases before the Supreme Court; however, the Kent v. United States 388 U. S 541, 86 S Ct. 1045 (1966) is one of the most outstanding ones. Later, Kent’s attorney appealed to the appeal court to have the criminal indictment dismissed on grounds of waiver validness. As such, his appeal called for state justification on his client’s detention. Nevertheless, the appeal was rejected by the Appellate court on grounds of court secrecy arguing that it did not have any jurisdiction to scrutinize any judge’s investigations on anonymous grounds, thus accepted the waiver as valid.

To this point, the only remaining option for Kent and his lawyer was to make an appeal to the U. S Supreme Court which was later made. As such, both the adult court and the U. S Supreme Court would have ruled differently (Zimring, Langer, & Tanenhaus, 2017). To begin with, keeping in mind that Kent had similar charges in the past would have made matters more difficult on him. As such, the adult court would have ruled that the accused, Kent be imprisoned for many years than allow the decision to be made by the juvenile court. In essence, the Juvenile court does not treat their cases as severely criminal based unless the density of the case determines otherwise. In other words, adult courts attempt imposing a penalty which is aimed at making it less likely for the person to commit a similar crime in the future, and serve as a warning to the rest on the consequences of committing a specific crime on a particular context.

As such, incarceration is the most used means of punishment among adults. On the other hand, juvenile court systems often lay their attention on an attempt to rehabilitate the minor and prevent them from the public eye for the prosperity of their future. As a result, probation and parole are mostly used together with diversionary programs (Blomberg, 2017). Counseling, the need for performing community services as well as a restriction to persons harmed by the defendant’s delinquent act are some of the common components of the latter. Furthermore, there is need to understand the difference between juvenile courts and adult courts in regard to the relationship between them and they execute their mandates. References Blomberg, T. G. American penology: A history of control.