Essay example --

Since 1899, when the first juvenile court was created in Cook County, Illinois there has been a debate on whether or not the juvenile court system is effective and a useful tool in dealing with juvenile delinquents. After the first juvenile court was established, there was a rapid accepting across the United States which eventually led to the juvenile justice system. Since then, every state has accepted the idea and now has a juvenile court system. While every state has a juvenile court system, many states are now looking at the alternative of rehabilitation for juveniles rather than incarceration. Rehabilitation is shown to be more effective as a policy towards juveniles than incarceration, and because of that, the United States should focus their attention on rehabilitation over incarceration (ABA Division). During the late 1700s and early 1800s, the way of punishing juveniles was to confine them in prison because there were really no other options. During this time, adult criminals were housed with juveniles as well as the mentally ill inside overcrowded facilities. In response to this problem, Thomas Eddy and John Griscom led the way for the creation for the first Houses of Refuge in 1825 in New York. This facility house vagrant and poor children who were on the path to becoming delinquents. By 1840, there were approximately twenty five similar facilities in states all across the United States. While these facilities became popular, the same issues began to happen that were happening with the prison system. Overcrowding and horrible conditions within the facilities began to get worse. Reformers called for new facilities to put more of an emphasis on education. This shift led to the use if r... ... juveniles. From this, states began to pass law for stricter conditions, including mandatory sentences as well as adult court transfers for certain crimes that were committed by juveniles. Because of these new laws, more juveniles were being sentenced to jail time and were being tried within the adult criminal justice system and being incarcerated in juvenile corrections facilities. By the mid to late 1990s, more and more juveniles were being incarcerated and overcrowding became to occur. With this, conditions within these facilities began to worsen. Since then, states have begun to reduce to number of juveniles that are being sent to correctional facilities. States are now looking to the idea of the training and reform schools that were originally used and looking to move back to a system of rehabilitation rather than incarceration (ABA Division).