NCJ Number
101429
Date Published
1985
Length
53 pages
Annotation
This paper examines case law and legislation defining the legal limits of State power over juvenile offenders over the past 20 years and discusses their implications for the juvenile justice system.
Abstract
The first juvenile justice revolution, at the turn of the century, created a new system, unitary in nature, in which all juvenile offenders were routed through specialized institutions based on a rehabilitative ideal. The second revolution in the 1970's was initiated by the U.S. Supreme Court in such decisions as Kent v. United States and In re Gault. These and subsequent cases retained the original notion that the legal status of minors differed from that of adults. However, they also held that children have liberty interests similar to adults that require many of the basic procedural protections accorded adult criminal defendants and that punishment is an appropriate part of the juvenile court's task. This second revolution has resulted in a juvenile justice system that is no longer unitary. The trend has been toward the development of two distinct paradigms, based on differing rationales, for the disposition of chronic and severe offenders and that of minor delinquents and status offenders. In the former case, many offenders are waived into adult courts and treated as adults, while others are left within a juvenile court system that has adopted both the character and underlying punitive rationale of adult criminal courts. For status offenders and predelinquents, the trend has been toward deinstitutionalization and decriminalization based on a rehabilitative ideal that is responsive to individual needs. As a result of the divergence of these two separate paradigms for chronic delinquents and status offenders, the legal and social responses and the underlying rationales for intervention can no longer be discussed in the same terms. 13 footnotes and 65 references.