NCJ Number
173310
Date Published
1998
Length
33 pages
Annotation
The author believes that juvenile courts have deflected, ignored, or accommodated constitutional and legislative reforms with minimal institutional change over the past three decades and that States have transformed juvenile courts from their original model as a social service agency into deficient criminal courts that do not provide young people with positive treatment or criminal justice.
Abstract
Juvenile courts effectively punish young offenders but use procedures under which no adult would consent to be tried. Further, public and political concerns about youth crime, drugs, gangs, and violence support policies to repress rather than rehabilitate young offenders. To add to the problem, fiscal constraints, budget deficits, and competition from other interest groups suggest there is little basis for optimism that States will expand treatment services for young offenders. The emergence of punitive juvenile justice policies coincides with social indicators that reveal a broader decline in the welfare of children, especially among minority youth. Although original juvenile courts attempted to combine social welfare and social control in one institution, existing juvenile courts subordinate social welfare to criminal social control because of their inherent penal focus. The very existence of juvenile courts provides an "excuse" to avoid fundamental improvements in the juvenile justice system. Nonetheless, uncoupling social welfare policies from penal social control is central to considering alternatives to the juvenile court welfare idea. Future strategies to deal with youth crime and violence should focus on providing a hopeful future for young people, pursuing racial and social justice, and preventing the proliferation of handguns. Procedural justice in juvenile courts is examined in relation to jury trials, the right to counsel, diversion, deinstitutionalization, and decriminalization. The waiver of jurisdiction over serious juvenile offenders is discussed, juvenile sentencing legislation and practices are reviewed, and conditions of juvenile confinement are addressed. 85 references