Juvenile Justice History of Juvenile Justice Before the modern era children who committed crimes in the Western world would receive no preferential treatment because of their youth They were adjudicated and punish alongside adults A number of recorded cases have come down through history of children as young as six being hung or burned at the stake Although there are several time periods addressing juvenile justice There will be two addressed in this course Early times The Juvenile Court Era Earliest Times In the early times there was little distinction made between criminality and delinquency or other kinds of undesirable behavior Delinquency is referred to as juvenile actions or conduct in violation of criminal law status offenses and other juvenile misbehavior Early philosophy in dealing with juveniles derived from a Roman principle called patria postestas Under Roman law children were members of their family but the father had absolute control over children and they in turn had an absolute responsibility to obey his wishes Roman understanding of the social role of children strongly influenced English culture which led to the development of the legal principle of patens patriae It is a common law principle that allows the state to assume a parental role and to take custody of a child when they become delinquent is abandoned or in need of care the natural parents are unable or unwilling to provide By the end of the 18th century social conditions change because of the Enlightenment In this new age children were recognized as the only true heirs to their future and society became increasingly concerned about their well being By the middle of the 19th century large scale immigration occurred in American and some immigrant families fell victim to the cities often referred to as ghettos Many children abandoned by families that were unable to support them were forced to live on the streets forming gangs In 1824 the first house of refuge opened in New York City It sheltered mostly young thieves vagrants and runaways Other children especially those with more severe delinquency problems were placed in adult prisons and jails Houses of refuge became popular in New York and many cities followed It was not long before these institutions became overcrowded and living conditions deteriorated Not long afterward the house of refuge the American child savers movement began Child savers used a philosophy of productivity and avoided idleness and unprincipled behavior One product of the child savers movement was the reform school By the middle of the 19th century the reform school approach to handling juveniles led to the creation of the Chicago reform School opening in the 1860s Reform schools focused primarily on pre delinquent youth who showed tendencies towards more serious criminal involvement and attempted to emulate the wholesome family environments The Juvenile Court Era In 1870 an expanding recognition of children s needs led Massachusetts to enact legislation that required separate hearings for juveniles New York followed similar law in 1877 which also prohibited contact between juvenile and adult offenders Rhode Island enacted juvenile court legislation in 1898 Colorado School Law became the first comprehensive legislation designed to address the adjudication of problem children in 1899 However the 1899 codification of Illinois juvenile law that became the model for juvenile court statutes throughout the nation The Illinois Juvenile Court Act created a juvenile court separate in form and function from adult criminal courts To avoid the lasting stigma of criminality the law applied the term delinquent rather than criminal to young adjudicated offenders The act specified that the best interest of the child were to guide juvenile court judge in their deliberations In effect judges were to serve as advocated for juveniles guiding their development Determining guilt or innocence took second place to the betterment of the child The law abandoned a strict adherence to the due process requirements of adult prosecutions This allowed for an informal procedure to scrutinize the child s situation By sheltering juveniles from the punishment philosophy of the adult system the Illinois Juvenile Court emphasized reformation in place of retribution In 1938 the federal government passed the Juvenile Court Act By 1945 every state enacted special legislation focusing on the handling of juveniles and the juvenile court movement because well established The juvenile court movement was based on five philosophical principles 1 The state is the highest parent of all the children within its borders 2 Children are worth saving and non punitive measures should be used to save the child 3 Children should be nurtured and should be protected from the stigmatizing impact of formal adjudicatory procedures 4 To accomplish the goals of reformation justice needs to be individualized each child is different 5 Noncriminal procedures are necessary to give primary consideration to the needs of the child Categories of Children in JJ System Delinquent Child Dependent Child Abused Child Status Offender Neglected Child Undisciplined Child The Legal Environment Throughout the first half of the 20th century the U S Supreme Court followed a hands off approach to juvenile justice The adjudication and further processing of juvenile by the system were left mostly to specialized juvenile courts or to local appeals courts Although one or two early Supreme Court decisions dealt with issues of juvenile justice it was not until the 1960s that the Court began close legal scrutiny of the principles underlying the system itself The Juvenile Justice Process Today Juvenile court jurisdiction rests on the offender s age and conduct The majority of states today define a child subject to juvenile court jurisdiction as a person who has not yet turned 18 A few states set the age at 16 and several use 17 Depending on the law of the state and the behavior involved the jurisdiction of the juvenile court may have exclusive jurisdiction This applied when the juvenile court is the only court that has the statutory authority to death with children for specified infractions i e runaway Since delinquency involves violation of criminal law it is often not within the juvenile court exclusive jurisdiction All 50 states the District of Columbia and the federal government have provisions that allow juveniles who commit serious crimes to be bound over to
View Full Document
Unlocking...