The main idea of the juvenile justice system is to prevent the youth to become repeat offenders and rehabilitate them. Juvenile courts have always had the right to send juveniles to district court if they believe their system isn't working for them. Statistically, it has been proven that when a juvenile delinquent is transferred to adult court, their rehabilitation is very slim compared if they were to stay in the system. Studies found that youth's were 3 times more likely to offend if tried as an adult. That being said, a reform was in need to conduct more thorough investigation before making such decisions to trial juveniles as an adult. Here is an analysis of the background, arguments, and outcome of the Kent V. United States case on how it affected the government's stance on trialing juveniles as adults. .
Morris A Kent Jr., a boy who was 16 years of age, was arrested by the police because he had links between several incidents of robbery and rape. The Police continued by questioning him, which eventually led to Kent admitting some kind of involvement in those incidents. Because of this, the juvenile court waived its jurisdiction, which enabled Kent to be tried as an adult. Kent had six count of crimes that included house-breaking, robbery, as well as alleged rape. After being tried, it was ruled that Kent needed to serve 15 year for each count to where he was found guilty. It was later ruled that he would serve a 30-90 year sentence in prison. Kent's attorney argued that the Juvenile court did not complete a full investigation, which is required by the Juvenile Court Act. He then filed a motion, questioning the waiver as well as asking for access to the Juvenile's court service file. After further investigation, it was found out that the juvenile court sending the case to District Court was invalid "a boy of 16-was by statute entitled to certain procedures and benefits as a consequence of his statutory right to the "exclusive" jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court" (ABC-CLIO 5).
