Crackdowns on teen crimes may be more a response to publicity than to a real epidemic of violence. Back in the mid-1980s, when violent juvenile crime tripled, the suicide rate also rose by 29 percent. Elikann is both an attorney and a crime reporter, and provides regular commentary for the Court TV network. Who Think by phone from his home in Boston. In the adult system, generally a young person may just fall through the cracks.
Adult courts are so much busier.
They tend to get shorter sentences, unless we're talking about a serious mass murderer-type, but most children who are transferred into the adult system are nonviolent offenders. The juvenile court has more time to scrutinize them. It's kind of ironic. In some ways, the juvenile system can actually be tougher on young people than the adult system. They're five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by the prison staff and statistics show that they're eight times more likely to commit suicide.