NCJ Number
116448
Date Published
1984
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This chapter identifies conceptions of delinquency during three historic periods in the United States: the Puritan era, 1700-1776; the mid-19th century; and the era of the socialized court, 1880-1910.
Abstract
Each conception of delinquency was related to a particular social organization, based on views of childhood and adolescence, justifications for State intervention, and distinctive sanctions. In his critique of the juvenile court that emerged in the era of the socialized court, Platt (1969) concludes that it did not represent the triumph of benevolence as its proponents claimed, but rather the victory of special interests that had a stake in rescuing troubled youth. The motivations of the reformers, however, were diverse. Some supported large-scale radical experimentation with new community organization and other efforts at 'empowerment.' The authors' analysis of the juvenile court movement is similar to Schlossman's. He viewed the juvenile-court movement as part of a broader effort to accommodate urban institutions to an industrial base and a predominantly immigrant population, to introduce control and planning into diverse aspects of city life previously monopolized by entrepreneurs, and to apply recent scientific discoveries to the education of children. In this view, the juvenile-court movement was the triumph of a new bureaucratically minded middle class. Under this perspective, the court was a symbolic proving ground for other reforms: child-labor laws, industrial education, compulsory school attendance, visiting nurses and teachers, the establishment of kindergartens, etc. It was also an arena in which the familial shortcomings of the lower class immigrants were confirmed and sanctioned. 2 tables. (Author summary modified)