Children have become increasingly violent since the 1970s. Today more gangs exist and homicides occur than in the past thirty years. Crime rates have only dropped slightly in the five previous years (Vieregge n.p.). Now that more juvenile delinquents are entering the justice system, the question arises as to how they should be tried. Being tried in a juvenile court for a serious offense is much like a slap on the wrist. Sure, they can be sent to an adult correctional facility if sentenced to it in a juvenile court, but the longest amount of served will be twenty years. In contrast, trying a juvenile as an adult guarantees that the youth will be held accountable for his or her actions. Children commit violent acts throughout the United States and believe that they cannot be held responsible for their actions; such a practice should change and violent juvenile should be used as examples to the rest of the country's youth by being tried as adults in the United States Justice System.
             Overall, the crimes of juveniles have become much larger and the ages of the delinquents have dropped considerably since the first juvenile court was established in 1899. The main purpose of this court was to deal with miscreants that threw bricks or rocks through windows (Butterfield 154). Today, the juvenile courts have a much harder task at hand. In 1985 and 1986, Howard Snyder found an increase of 75 percent among juveniles for crimes involving drugs (Hurst 2). The crime rates seem to have sky-rocketed ever since the early 1980s. The fastest growing crime has become possession of a loaded gun. Yet, the youth of America are not just carrying those loaded guns and not using them. The year of 1991 produced armed robbery exceeding drug-related offenses (Kramer 213). The two previous years had brought a 26 percent increase in juveniles arrested for murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Those same two years lead to a 17 percent increase...