It is quite natural as a parent for you to worry about your children. Nothing is more worrisome than wondering how your children's actions and behaviors can be met with painful and uncomfortable consequences. Juvenile hall, juvenile delinquency, and juvenile courts come to mind when you catch your son or daughter making a bad choice. Yet, in spite of what you have heard, how much do you really know about juvenile detention? Learning what you can would be useful in setting your kids straight, but you need to have your facts straight first.

Youth Crimes and Criminal Attorneys

There is always the random story of the six-year-old who tortured a cat or the eight-year-old who killed a sibling, but these are very rare. Obviously these children are more disturbed and need more intensive treatment, which is where the criminal attorneys come in. They can argue for alternative sentences for these very young offenders, since they cannot go to adult prison and they are too young yet for juvenile hall. It rarely gets this bad, though, because these offenses are often the first serious criminal acts these children commit. The courts in the U.S. believe that young children like this need intensive therapy and restricted environments, and that is what the attorneys fight for.

Too Young for Juvenile Detention

Believe it or not, children under the age of twelve are too young for juvenile detention in the United States. Because they have not grown large enough to be a major threat to parents and the public, the criminal court system works harder to rehabilitate them rather than see them end up in "juvie." The youngest age of any kid in juvenile detention in America is thirteen, and the oldest is seventeen, since eighteen is considered the legal adult age. 

DUI Attorneys, Parole Officers and Group Homes/ Foster Care

The worst of the juvenile offenders stay in group homes with teens like themselves. Younger children become wards of the state or criminal attorneys request that these kids live in mental health facilities and foster care where the foster parents have special training to handle these issues. Parole officers only come into play when teenagers have been arrested for DUIs, in which case, they will have DUI attorneys as well. The parole officers and DUI attorneys make sure your troubled teenagers are regularly but randomly screened for the drugs and alcohol that got them in trouble in the first place.

Preventing These Courses of Action

When you consider the seriousness of the crimes and the behaviors that put these kids in foster care and juvenile detention, it clarifies for you just how troubled your kids need to be to get this kind of attention. There are ways to head this off. Seek cognitive and behavioral therapy the minute you notice something is not right with junior. Spend more time, not less, with your kids. Keep tabs on them, and have daily conversations with them. Your children's therapist and lawyers who work with children and teens can also suggest other ways in which you can help keep your kids on the right path.

For more information, contact a criminal attorney at http://johnlykelaw.com.