The history of the 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act
During a May 1971 hearing held before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, advocates testified on the grim challenges faced by children in the juvenile justice system.
News coverage of the hearing recounted “stories of brutality, corruption and flouting of the law by juvenile judges, parole officers and those who run detention homes for children.”
Reporters wrote that “witnesses told of children being sent for months to jails and reformatories without a court hearing or an attorney, having committed no ‘crime’ other than being runaways or being described as ‘uncontrollable’ by a parent.”
The 1971 hearing was part of a series of hearings organized by lawmakers in the early 1970s to study juvenile justice across the country and investigate the conditions faced by youth in jails and detention centers.
At the time, children could be placed in adult or juvenile corrections facilities that lacked adequate medical services and education or rehabilitation programs. Children were often treated like adults no matter how minor the offense.
With concerns over the treatment of children in the justice system, rising juvenile crime rates and doubts surrounding the implementation of a 1968 juvenile justice bill, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh first introduced the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in February 1972.
Bayh proposed safeguards to prevent young people from entering the justice system and coordinated federal assistance for communities to develop more appropriate approaches for youth accused of delinquency or crime.
In the midst of Watergate, Congress would consider and later pass the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1974. President Gerald Ford signed the JJDPA into law on September 7, 1974 – just one month after President Richard Nixon resigned and the day before Ford announced his pardon of the former president.
The passage of the JJDPA was a landmark federal effort to address juvenile delinquency. It set basic standards for state juvenile justice systems, established core protections for young people in the system and created the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Protecting Justice-Involved Children
The most comprehensive piece of juvenile justice legislation ever passed by Congress, the JJDPA substantially revised existing federal laws and agency responsibilities related to juvenile delinquency.
The JJDPA created a federal-state partnership for the administration of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, placing the principal responsibility for federal juvenile delinquency resources in the U.S. Department of Justice. By establishing OJJDP, the JJDPA created a federal office to serve as a partner with the states on issues related to juvenile justice. OJJDP is the only federal office whose primary charge is to lead juvenile justice efforts.
Under the JJDPA, states and territories were required to meet certain standards for how youth were treated in the justice system in order to receive federal funding for their juvenile justice systems.
Initially, the JJDPA required keeping youth separate from adults in adult facilities with the ultimate goal of removing youth from adult jails – which it required in the 1980 reauthorization. The JJDPA also called for preventing the detainment of youth for status offenses, actions that would not be a crime if committed by an adult, such as truancy and underaged drinking or smoking.
For states that met these requirements, the JJDPA provided federal funding for an array of juvenile justice approaches and programs, with a focus on community-based programs. Since 1974, it has helped states fund innovative programs that support children and make communities safer.
Federal Efforts on Juvenile Delinquency Reforms
The rate of crimes committed by youth was a concern long before the JJDPA was passed in 1974. Some of the earliest efforts to address juvenile delinquency can be traced back to 1912 when Congress created the children’s bureau to investigate and report on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children, including juvenile courts.
However, juvenile delinquency became a pressing issue for lawmakers in the 1960s as juvenile crime rates increased over the decade.
Between 1960 and 1968 the number of juvenile court cases increased by 76.4% and the FBI reported that arrests of those under 18 doubled during that same timeframe.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act which provided federal resources to local communities for initiatives to reduce juvenile delinquency. Administration of these resources was assigned to the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the agency that would eventually become today’s Department of Health and Human Services.
Years later, President Lyndon Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice described reducing juvenile delinquency and youth crime as “America’s best hope for reducing crime” when they published The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society in 1967.
The 1961 Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act expired in 1967 and the next federal effort to address youth crime issues came the following year when Congress passed the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act along with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act.
Under the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was once again assigned responsibility for national leadership in developing new approaches to juvenile delinquency problems and the coordination of federal efforts.
However, lawmakers believed that efforts from the 1968 juvenile delinquency legislation could be better coordinated between federal agencies.
In response, Senator Bayh proposed the first version of the JJDPA in 1972 to strengthen federal resources that addressed juvenile justice reforms.
Originally, Bayh proposed a coordinating body in the White House for juvenile justice issues, but lawmakers decided the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration – an OJP predecessor which had just been established within the Department of Justice in 1968 – was best suited to lead these programs.
In 1974, the JJDPA was overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of Congress and it became the first juvenile justice legislation presented to President Ford after he ascended to the presidency.
The JJDPA replaced the 1968 Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act and moved ongoing juvenile justice efforts from HEW over to the newly created Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention within LEAA. HEW maintained responsibility for programs on runaway youth.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Bayh presided over the passage of the JJDPA in the early 1970s. He was the author, sponsor, and chief architect of the historic reforms to the juvenile justice system.
Since its passage in 1974, Congress has updated and reauthorized the JJDPA with strong bipartisan support to meet the changing needs of juvenile justice across the country.
