NCJ Number
164984
Date Published
1996
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper reviews the development of the juvenile justice system in the United States, depicts the formal and informal juvenile justice procedures, and discusses the possibilities of systemic reform.
Abstract
The development of juvenile justice in the United States can be divided into six major periods: colonial, house of refuge, juvenile court, juvenile rights, the reform agenda of the 1970's, and the "get-tough" crime control policies of the 1980's and 1990's. The juvenile justice system is, in some ways, similar to the adult justice system. Three basic subsystems characterize both justice processes, and the flow of justice in both systems follows the same sequence: from law violation to police apprehension, from trial to judicial dispositions, and from sentencing to probation or correctional confinement. The juvenile justice system gives more attention to offender rehabilitation than does the adult system. The due process movement for juveniles, which has gained support in recent decades, still does not provide juveniles with as many rights as adults. The juvenile system must deal with status offenders. Following intervention by police, the next stage in juvenile justice processing occurs when a juvenile comes before the juvenile court. The court fulfills its role of controlling and correcting the behavior of law- violating juveniles by holding detention, intake, transfer, adjudicatory, and dispositional hearings. Community-based corrections are typically composed of probation, residential and day treatment programs, and aftercare. Ranches, forestry camps, farms, and private and public training schools are the primary types of juvenile correctional institutions. The informal juvenile justice system is much more in place and accepted than in adult justice. Still, the juvenile system is currently turning to the adult system to handle juvenile offenders more than it has since the juvenile court was founded. Juvenile offenders are increasingly being granted the due process rights that adult offenders have, receiving mandatory and determinate sentences in juvenile court, being transferred to adult court and tried as adults, and being sentenced to prison with adults. Juveniles have even been sentenced to death and executed. 38 references and appended directory of key juvenile justice agencies