NCJ Number
102589
Date Published
1979
Length
334 pages
Annotation
The major changes in California's juvenile law in 1977 produced both intended and unintended impacts on the handling of juvenile status offenders and delinquents.
Abstract
The new law, AB3121, aimed to treat serious offenders more harshly, to deinstitutionalize status offenders, and to encourage counseling and shelter care programs instead of more severe measures for all minor offenders, including status offenders. The law assumed the existence of a clear distinction between status offenders and delinquent offenders, although empirical research makes it clear that this distinction cannot always be made. The imposition of the legal changes from outside the juvenile justice system also made resistance to change likely. Implementing the provisions liberalizing the treatment of status offenders and minor offenders has been more difficult than implementing the provisions relating to law and order. California's counties, confused about the mandates of the law, have developed widely diverging policies to deal with the new rules surrounding status offenders. Some counties did not increase the use of informal probation at all. Most counties have increased the numbers of criminal petitions since the law took effect, however, despite opposition to making the juvenile court increasingly similar to adult court. Detailed analyses based on sample cases from three counties, data tables using both county and statewide data in 1976 and 1977, and chapter reference lists.