NCJ Number
138760
Date Published
1992
Length
31 pages
Annotation
England's Criminal Justice Act of 1991 renamed the juvenile court the youth court and brings 17-year-olds within its jurisdiction so that it deals with offenders under 18 years of age.
Abstract
The act stipulates that children and young persons must be dealt with in the youth court unless they are charged with homicide, they are charged jointly with an adult, or a defendant between 14 and 17 years of age is charged with an offense carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years or more for an adult. Parents or guardians of a child or young person under 16 years old must attend court during all stages of proceedings, unless the court decides it would be unreasonable to require such attendance. Further, the act changes court powers to impose detention at a young offender institution by raising from 14 to 15 the minimum age at which a male offender can be sentenced to detention in a young offender institution, reducing the maximum term of detention from 17 to 12 months in a young offender institution for an offender, and altering the minimum period of detention in a young offender institution to 2 months for offenders of both sexes under 18 years old. Provisions of the act also deal with offense seriousness and harm criteria, multiple offenses, sentence length, discharges, binding over, financial penalties, community sentences (supervision, probation, community service, combination, and curfew orders), remanding defendants under 18 years old, and police detention of juveniles. 7 references