NCJ Number
87192
Date Published
1982
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This future study of the juvenile justice system reviews Supreme Court decisions focusing on the parens patriae and the due process approach to juvenile justice and predicts the demise of the juvenile justice system in 1999.
Abstract
As the juvenile court celebrated its eightieth anniversary in 1979, it had survived eight Supreme Court cases which challenged its practice and philosophy. 'Gault' and 'Winship' had guaranteed juveniles fundamental fairness and had required that lawyers appear and certain rules of evidence be followed in adjudicatory hearings. The McKeiver case, however, had kept intact the essence of the juvenile court concept: informal and flexible proceedings operating within a rehabilitation/benevolence framework. In the 1980's it can be expected that the juvenile court will experience an identity crisis. Pressures will mount for the court to justify its separate existence. The criminalization movement which began in the late 1970's will gain momentum as State legislatures redefine the benevolent orientation of the juvenile court and narrow its parameters. Legislation will provide harsher, proportionate sentences, open public hearings, presumptive transfer measures, and restricted jurisdiction provisions. In the wake of the criminalization campaign, juvenile defendants will seek relief from the Supreme Court through greater constitutional protections. Although the Supreme Court will initially resist efforts to make the procedures of the juvenile court an exact replica of the adult criminal court procedures, evidence of the failure of the treatment concept in the juvenile justice system and the increase of the punitiveness of juvenile corrections will press the court toward the mandating of the full battery of constitutional due process rights for juveniles, which will render obsolete the concept of a separate juvenile justice system. Fifteen footnotes and 38 references are provided.