Analysis Of Sb 314 Direct Filing Of Juveniles Essay

SB 314: Direct Filing of Juveniles Overview of the Social Problem You would think that we would want to help protect and serve the youth of our country, but that is not always the case. We are trying more and more youth as adults each day for non-violent crimes when we should be trying to help them rehabilitate. Florida has to be the worst when it comes to youth offenders being tried in adult court and sentenced to prison. â€Å"Today approximately 7,000 youth under the age of 18 are held in adult jails on any given day, and one in 10 youth incarcerated in the United States are admitted to an adult prison or jail (Schubert et al. 2010). The social problem is not just the fact that youth are tried as an adult, it also has to do with the overrepresentation of black male youth in adult prisons. The history of the juvenile justice system came into play because young people who were accused of a crime were imprisoned with adults. They made the juvenile justice system because they thought that they should deal with youth separate from adults because of their lack of maturity to grasp what they have done wrong. â€Å"In many jurisdictions, African-American youth were overrepresented in felony charges filed in adult courts compared to their percentage in the felony arrest population; this was most evident in charges for drug and public order offenses† (Juszkiewics, J., Schindler, M, 2001). These have always been a differential difference in the treatment of African American males and