Changing Perspectives on the Role of the Juvenile Court

• NCJ Number: 79469
• Author(s): J Stanley; K J Connelly
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 58 pages
• Grant Number(s): 79-JN-AX-0012
• Sponsoring Agency: US Securities and Exchange Cmssn
• Corporate Author: National Council on Crime and Delinquency
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

An historical account of the treatment and rehabilitative philosophy of the juvenile court is presented, and the current and future roles of the juvenile court are examined.

Abstract

Throughout its first 65 years, the juvenile court had virtually unlimited powers to decide what was best for delinquent youths. In the 1960's, deplorable conditions in juvenile institutions gained increasing attention, and the perception grew that juveniles were being harmed more than helped by juvenile court dispositions. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the juvenile court was failing to grant juveniles legal protections in court proceedings. Currently, the juvenile court is being challenged as a harmful institution for status offenders, while being too lenient with juveniles who have committed serious crimes, even while it fails to provide them full due process rights. Some argue for the abolition of the juvenile court, so that status offenders may come under the jurisdiction of social services and juveniles who commit serious criminal offenses may be tried in criminal court, where the severity of the crime and a defendant's due process rights are taken seriously. Those who argue for the retention of the juvenile court's jurisdiction over both status offenders and delinquents maintain that social services cannot provide the authoritative jurisdiction often needed to deal with the behavior of status offenders, while adult criminal courts have sufficient troubles dealing with their current caseload without having the added burden of dealing with juvenile offenders. It does not appear that the juvenile court will be abolished in the near future. Criticisms, however, are likely to reduce the extent and harshness of the court's intervention with status offenders and increase the court's attention to providing sanctions commensurate with offense severity while enhancing the due process rights of the juvenile offender. Thirty-eight references and 23 notes are provided.