NCJ Number
86765
Journal
Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Dated: (1981) Pages: 41-81
Date Published
1981
Length
41 pages
Annotation
This paper explains the philosophy and regulatory framework of the 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and discusses four ways in which participating States try to circumvent it, as well as methods for dealing with these circumvention tactics.
Abstract
The act reflected the belief that status offenders should be removed from large, secure institutions and treated through nonsecure, community-based programs and services. However, when States receiving funding under the act experienced strict enforcement of the act's requirements, resistance developed from some parents, police, probation officers, and juvenile court judges. This opposition has forced the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to permit temporary confinement of status offenders for up to 24 hours before and after adjudication and incarceration for violations of valid court orders. Despite these concessions, participating States continue to practice the following approaches: using the contempt power to 'bootstrap' a status offender into a delinquent, referring or committing a status offender to a secure mental health facility, alleging juvenile delinquency where the facts support only a status offense, and developing semi-secure facilities to hold children for up to 72 hours. Among strategies for dealing with these tactics are monitoring how frequently contempt citations are issued in juvenile courts, opposing court orders which can easily provide the basis for bootstrapping, emphasizing the State's need to prove its case for hospitalization, and making active efforts at intake to persuade court personnel and prosecutors to charge youths as status offenders where the facts support only this charge. One hundred and fifty-six reference notes are provided.