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X. The United States and juveniles on death row. Conclusion: A call for more research into preventative and rehabilitative programs. Widespread panic over the increasingly violent nature of crimes committed by juveniles has prompted many to emphasize the need for punitive rather than rehabilitative practices in the juvenile justice system. Ever since a juvenile culture began to take shape in the United States, the problem of juvenile crime has been a hot issue in criminological debates. It is the purpose of this paper to analyze recent trends in the juvenile justice system. In discussing recent trends in the juvenile justice system it is important that we first attain an historical perspective of the various responses to juvenile crime. As we will see, the problems that confront the juvenile justice system go hand in hand with the serious problems that confront the criminal justice system as a whole. The ever popular trend that favors treating juvenile offenders as adults necessitates a brief examination of the adult criminal justice system. What this trend immediately suggests is that the lines drawn between the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system are becoming increasingly blurred. The above introduction has introduced two important approaches to juvenile crime: punitive and rehabilitative. Jenson reports that “Historically, juven |
