Criminalizing the Juvenile Court: A Research Agenda for the 1990s (From Juvenile Justice and Public Policy: Toward a National Agenda, 1992, P 59-88, Ira M Schwartz, ed. -- See NCJ-138726)

• NCJ Number: 138730
• Author(s): B C Feld
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: Macmillan
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter reviews the history of court decisions and policies that have brought the juvenile court from a rehabilitative institution to an institution that parallels the punitive intent of adult criminal courts, but without the full protections afforded adult defendants.

Abstract

Four procedural and substantive developments have contributed to the criminalization of the juvenile court: removal of jurisdiction over status offenders, waiver of serious offenders into the adult system, increased punitiveness, and procedural formality. These changes raise the question as to whether or not the juvenile court any longer fulfills a distinction function. It has emerged as a truncated version of the adult criminal court, as the juvenile court attempts to match the punitiveness of sentences to the severity of offenses. The distinctiveness of the juvenile court is not its superior rehabilitative impact on those processed compared to adult criminal courts, but rather its persistent procedural deficiencies compared to adult courts. After more than two decades of constitutional and legislative reforms, juvenile courts continue to deflect, co-opt, ignore, and absorb ameliorative procedural reform with minimal institutional change. The quality of procedural justice routinely dispensed to youths would be intolerable for adult defendants who face incarceration. 104 references