NCJ Number
93300
Date Published
1984
Length
39 pages
Annotation
An historical analysis reveals a series of public juvenile justice policies in America evolving from a rich history of public and private actions affecting misbehaving youth; however, a well-defined, cost-effective, and cooperative Federal policy for dealing successfully with troubled youth has not yet developed.
Abstract
For America's first three centuries, public juvenile justice policies were characterized by a philosophical consensus about the need to control unacceptable conduct of lower-class youth, as well as a lack of organizational consensus about who should dispense such control; consequently, 19th-century juvenile justice responsibilities shifted back and forth between the private and public sectors. By the early 20th century, all consensus about juvenile justice policy had dissolved, as policymakers and practitioners could not agree about the causes of delinquency, the most effective treatment for deviant behavior, or who should be the proper agents of juvenile justice policies. The resulting confusion led to the shifting of juvenile justice responsibilities between governmental layers. Beginning with the landmark passage of the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961, the Federal Government committed a multitude of resources to augment and create community juvenile justice and delinquency prevention services. The was the first of several large-scale Federal juvenile justice and delinquency prevention grants producing thousands of programs encouraging the formation and application of new delinquency theories and treatment while stimulating needed juvenile justice system reforms. The expanded Federal role encouraged the belief that a well-designed, coordinated approach to the Nation's juvenile justice problems had arisen. Instead, evolving concurrently with the new programs was a series of policies independently designed and administered by the nine Federal bodies, creating a highly fragmented and overlapping collection of programs. It is hoped that this analysis of how we got where we are today will encourage contemporary policymakers to identify and address the difficult questions concerning the future Federal role in juvenile justice. The appendix graphically summarizes Federal involvement in juvenile justice policies. Thirteen notes and 54 references are provided.