Democratic overview of juvenile justice in the united states
America is the only country in the world where juveniles are sentenced to life imprisonment without providing parole, and their chances of reform and coming back to the mainstream are eliminated in a way, Why is there no better legal and human remedy than this? Does a teenager in America have any right to live like teenagers in other democratic countries of the world? Is it, not an injustice to him to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or other harsher punishment without giving him a chance to distill the wrong parts of his life? Can anyone who has committed a crime as a juvenile criminal for the first time, should not find any possibility of improvement according to criminology? Should they not be given a chance to improve their field of work in life? Shouldn’t they be given a chance to rectify their mistake? Shouldn’t they be given a chance to become a good law abiding person? Can’t they be given better justice in the world’s best constitution? These are some of the questions that have been tried to discuss in the topic according to the principles of humanity and natural justice and according to the law of the United States.
Strong logic in favor of a better juvenile justice system in the United States
In June 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that the sentence of life imprisonment to juveniles compulsorily and without taking into consideration the circumstances is against the US Constitution. The Honorable US Supreme Court asked for a number of circumstances to be considered. There is also an independent argument that if juveniles without parole are compulsorily punished, then this cannot be a measure of the development of American law because if it were rightly considered, in countries where juveniles are given concession in punishment on the basis of being teenagers, then the judicial system of those countries may not be progressive? From the point of view of humanity and also from the reformative view of criminology and penology, the ultimate aim of punishment is to make atonement and correction of the criminal and to include them in the mainstream of society. A criminal state of mind is not a full-time state of mind. It can be an instantaneous oscillation and sudden provocation. If on this basis the juvenile delinquent has to spend his entire life in imprisonment, then it can be considered as injustice on one side only. Many things are not correct just because it is legal. If the law also does not live up to the principles of natural justice, then the public at times calls for elected governments to change by running a democratic campaign to reform within such a law, this paves the way for policy judicial reform. It is a very good thing to bring justice to the victims, but revenge from criminals cannot be the objective of justice. Preventing other criminals from such acts by bringing a sense of improvement within the criminals and the system of exemplary punishment has been the principle of criminology. History has taught us that just doing something legal does not become beneficial to humanity. If it were to happen, Nelson Mandela, David Livingstone, and Greta Thunberg would not have to take a different approach to make their ideas known to the people. And the reforms that have been done by these people over time have been adopted by the whole world through their laws. In fact, the law is a codified form of representing public sentiment.
US Supreme Court overview of juvenile justice 
Some recent legal developments and some legal reforms in the United States raise some hope that 23 states and the District of Columbia in the United States have imposed a ban on a life sentence for juveniles without the possibility of parole. Many other states are also reviewing such cases. By the end of 2016, more than 2300 people were facing life imprisonment in the US as juvenile offenders. However, after the decision of Montgomery v. Louisiana Supreme Court, the JLWOP cases were invalidated. Following the US Supreme Court’s recent moratorium, several US states reviewed their decisions and were given a new sentence by the federal government after reviewing them. In 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled in the Miller v. Alabama case that the federal government is required to consider the specific and unique circumstances of each juvenile offender in determining individual punishment. The provision of mandatory life imprisonment for juveniles without the possibility of parole is not only unconstitutional but cannot be said to be humanly justified. Scientists have done many types of research on the adolescent brain. Research conducted on juvenile brains makes it clear that the attitudes of adult criminals to commit crimes are different from those of juvenile offenders. Many adult offenders are habitual offenders while juvenile offenders commit crimes even if they are momentarily misguided or abetted by someone. They do not fully understand what is appropriate and welfare for them. Justice Kennedy, in an important judicial finding relating to juvenile offenders, also expressed his views on how to punish juvenile offenders differently from other offenders. Scientific research on juvenile brain science has been accepted by the US Supreme Court. And banned the harshest punishment for juveniles. In the 2005 Ropar v. Siemens case, the US Supreme Court held that the death penalty for a juvenile would be an unfair punishment. Maturity of age affects their state of mind of committing a crime. Juvenile delinquents have great potential for improvement. This means that he is entitled to a different type of punishment arrangement. The US Supreme Court said that the current norms of decency have sentenced teenagers to death for being cruel and unusual, which is not good. The case of Roper v. Siemens was an unprecedented decision in the history of the American judicial system. After this decision, the doors of reform have opened for American juvenile offenders, as well as appropriate human punishment for them by law. Justice Kennedy stated that the harshest punishment should be prescribed for hardened persons.
Why juvenile offenders should be given different punishment
Reformative juvenile justice system and law review
The behavior of juvenile offenders is unstable and criminal behavior done by them is also unstable. There should be separate punishment for such persons. Juvenile delinquents have very poor childhood experiences and their childhoods have been spent in abuse due to which they are oriented towards crime. Their family environment is steeped in violence, due to which they do not find sensitivity and easily lead to crime, The court should also take these circumstances into consideration. And when deciding the point of punishment, a positive attitude should be adopted. In 2012, The Santi Ging Project conducted a survey of juvenile offenders in jail. The survey results were shocking. Violence was found in the homes of most juvenile offenders. Such juvenile offenders were also enrolled in a special education class for education i.e. these children were not very good in studies. Less than half of the children who were juvenile delinquents were going to school. 45% of juvenile offenders were physically abused. 80 percent of girls reported a history of sexual abuse. The results of the survey reveal that a lot of atrocities on juvenile offenders have made them juvenile offenders. Adopting a reformative approach keeping in view the childhood circumstances of juvenile offenders, the court should decide the punishment. Many juvenile criminals were also victims of racial violence, due to which they committed crimes in anger. The costs incurred on juveniles while serving a jail sentence should also be taken into consideration if a 16-year-old teenager is given a 50-year sentence, which would cost around US $ 2.25 million which would last the rest of his life will have to be spent by the government. The financial outlook should also be kept in mind while punishing juvenile offenders. Punishing juvenile offenders without parole is not a guaranteed opportunity for their release but creates a new basis for a review. These recent decisions of American judicial reforms have opened up new opportunities for the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders in the United States, and juvenile offenders may join the mainstream of society by giving up their life of crime. But the concession and reformative approach in the law does not mean that criminals are being given some kind of leeway to commit a crime, rather it is an opportunity for atonement to improve their valuable lives and to join the mainstream of society by correcting their mistakes. Can be considered a great opportunity. Prison cannot be a permanent residence of a person. Keeping this feeling in mind, different better types of punishment should be provided for juvenile offenders.
