NCJ Number
97938
Date Published
1984
Length
154 pages
Annotation
This hearing considered S. 520, which prohibits States from assigning to secure facilities juvenile nonoffenders in the care or custody of the State, and S. 522, which prohibits States from placing juveniles who have been arrested for or convicted of a criminal act in secure facilities where adults are also housed.
Abstract
Alfred Regnery, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, explains that the Department of Justice opposes the enactment of the two bills for several reasons. He highlights the Department's belief that there is a problem with the constitutionality of the bills: it attempts to enforce a right, the existence of which as a matter of constitutional law, is still speculative. Father Bruce Ritter of Convenant House, a short-term crisis shelter for children expresses his support for S. 522. However, he discusses his reservations concerning S. 520, explaining that the bill does not refer in any sense to the age of the children that need protection. Mark Soler, the executive director of the Youth Law Center in San Francisco, expresses his support for the two bills and testifies concerning their constitutional validity. Barbara Fructer of Pennsylvania's Juvenile Justice Center, expresses the Center's support for S. 520 and recommends that S. 522 build a wall of separation between juveniles and holding kids in jails. The texts of both bills are provided, as are copies of briefs filed in the U.S. District Courts.