NCJ Number
72412
Date Published
1980
Length
163 pages
Annotation
Interns for the National Legislative Internship Program conducted a comparative analysis of the juvenile codes of Ohio, Oklahoma, Arizona, and the District of Columbia vis-a-vis recent national juvenile justice standards to gauge the extent of compliance with Federal deinstitutionalization mandates.
Abstract
Following passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, States which received Federal funds and technical assistance to upgrade their juvenile justice systems had to meet the requirements of removing status offenders or nonoffenders from secure facilities and separating children from adults incarcerated for commission of a crime. The legislation also required that the States provide for an adequate system of monitoring jails, detention facilities, correctional facilities, and nonsecure facilities. In monitoring compliance with these legislative requirements, the report studies detention of youth and the timeframes and decisionmaking points within the process. Although these final reports vary in the issues addressed, there are at least five areas of common concern: the specification of time limits for filing a petition, proper advisement of the right to counsel prior to a detention hearing, formulation of a more exact definition of the intake diversion mechanism, substitution of discretion for specific criteria in detention decisions, and automatic periodic review of detention decisions. The findings and recommendations from these case studies clearly point to areas in the juvenile justice systems of all of these States (and the District of Columbia) where legislative intent is not being fulfilled. Flow charts, footnotes, and commentary by juvenile justice officials are provided. For individual studies, see NCJ 72413-16.