NCJ Number
69849
Date Published
1978
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Emphasizing that over half of all the crime in the United States is committed by persons under 18, the film alternates comments by a juvenile court judge with two simulated juvenile court hearings.
Abstract
The hearings illustrate both the varied roles juvenile court personnel and the kinds of case dispositions received by the juvenile court. The first hearing deals with a repeat offender, one of the 3 percent of juvenile offenders that are called back to court. In this hearing, the role of the two counsels representing the boy and his parents are discussed as well as the role of the probation officer in putting together the social history of the offender. The second simulated hearing illustrates an abuse and neglect case in which a teenage girl, brought to court on a charge of truancy, is removed from the care of her mother and placed with an aunt. The judge comments that without juvenile court intervention, children in abuse and neglect situations would have no remedy.