Juvenile (In)Justice: Congressional Attempts to Abrogate the Procedural Rights of Juvenile Defendants

Abstract

The juvenile justice system seeks both to protect society from violent juveniles and to treat juvenile offenders as humanely as possible. Believing that these dual objectives are no longer reconcilable, Congress has sought to implement punitive reforms within the federal juvenile justice system that facilitate prosecuting and incarcerating youths in adult institutions. The most recent example of these efforts, House Bill 1501, sought to reform the procedures governing transfer hearings in federal courts by granting prosecutors the authority to make transfer decisions and shifting the burden of proof during transfer hearings onto juvenile defendants. Such reforms, however, are ill-conceived because they increase the likelihood that youths capable of being rehabilitated will be exposed to the consequences of prosecution in criminal court. Society is better protected when amenable youths remain within the juvenile justice system. Rather than attempting to abrogate the procedural rights of juvenile offenders, Congress should implement additional procedural safeguards to further limit the transfer of amenable youth. Language: en