NCJ Number
76911
Date Published
1981
Length
19 pages
Annotation
In addition to providing brief summaries of the 16 position papers presented at a 3-day symposium on juvenile justice standards, this document tells how to order both microfiche and paper copies of the abstracts, summaries, position papers, and discussion transcripts of this 1978 symposium.
Abstract
The symposium covered juvenile justice standards proposed by the Institute of Judicial Administration/American Bar Association Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards (IJA/ABA), the National Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (NAC), and the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals Task Force on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (the Task Force). The symposium was funded by the National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (NIJJDP) and was conducted by the National District Attorneys Association in cooperation with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association, and the Judicial Administration Division of the American Bar Association. The involvement of these four national organizations, often in opposition, was intended to provide a reasoned analysis from within the juvenile justice system by professionals familiar with current juvenile court practice and procedures. The final report of the Juvenile Justice Standards Symposium Project noted that there was only one conflict between the basic principles of the IJA/ABA Standards and the basic principles of the other two standard projects; i.e., the recommendation of the IJA/ABA project that status offenses be removed from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Unlike NAC and the Task Force, IJA/ABA avoided making explicit recommendations regarding delinquency prevention programming or planning, rejecting such efforts as futuristic. Topic areas included court organization, scope of court services (whether the court should be responsible for probation and detention), jurisdiction over noncriminal misbehavior and over abuse and neglect, pretrial detention, waiver of jurisdiction (to adult court), and intake and diversion. Other topics were jury trial and public trial, adjudication (focusing on plea negotiations), the role of the prosecutor, proportionality and determinate sentencing, the right to counsel, termination of parental rights, rights of minors in nondelinquency settings, interim status (in abuse, neglect, in noncriminal misbehavior), and records and confidentiality. Footnotes are given.