NCJ Number
91592
Date Published
1983
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) completed virtually all the activities planned in association with its two major goals: (1) moving juvenile justice from the county court into a higher level trial court and (2) improving case planning and case review for out-of-home placements. Activities connected with the secondary goal -- education of parents and youth about youth-serving agencies -- were accomplished primarily in conjuction with work done under the primary goals.
Abstract
One primary goal was to ensure uniformity and equity in the handling of juvenile cases by placing jurisdiction for juvenile matters in a higher level trial court presided over by a qualified judge who follows an approved set of rules of procedures for juvenile cases. The juvenile court has not yet been restructured, but some key legislators have become interested in the issue and are willing to attempt the legislative route to attain a better juvenile court system. Through work with the Arkansas Bar Foundation's Juvenile Justice Task Force, the AACF played a role in getting the legislature to pass eight important amendments or additions to the 1975 Juvenile Code, helping to offset the absence of rules of procedure for the code. The Juvenile Court Observation Project occupied AACF throughout the grant period, starting with developing a questionnaire for use in the courts by volunteer observers, recruiting and training the observers, obtaining permission from the judges to permit observation, and ending with the publication of 'Due Process Rights and Legal Procedures in Arkansas' Juvenile Courts' based on the survey's findings. Out-of-home placement has been the greatest success as measured by goal attainment. AACF has been influential in establishing a State policy that calls for individual case plans for each child, administrative review, judicial review, and an information system to track children in substitute care. However, AACF is not entirely satisfied with policy implementation partly due to the newness of the policies and partly due to internal problems of the administrative agency.