NCJ Number
129401
Date Published
1990
Length
25 pages
Annotation
Juvenile delinquency continues to evolve in response to changing social and economic conditions: the legal status of juvenile delinquency affects not only the activities of law enforcement agencies but also the relationships among young people, other citizens, and the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
Abstract
An important consequence of the changing status of childhood has been increasing reliance on the law to govern relationships among citizens. The education and control of children, once the sole province of families, have become matters of concern for the law and government. The historical review of juvenile delinquency emphasizes the effects of colonialization, industrialization, urbanization, and the intermingling of cultures due to immigration as major factors in the changing status of childhood. Increasing interdependence of individuals and institutions, a heightened sense of propriety, and growing national self-consciousness have contributed to legal and social reforms and to the cumulative process by which juvenile law, courts, and corrections have developed. Historical trends in the juvenile court movement concern religious interests, social class interests, feminism, professional interests, public versus private interests, and nativism and rural traditions. The juvenile court movement is also assessed in relation to social structures and objective conditions and in terms of local variations versus the struggle for uniformity in standards and practices. 54 notes