The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
History and background
Pre-1900
Juvenile delinquency punishments trace back to the Middle Ages when crimes were severely punished by the Church. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, few legal differences existed between children and adults. Children as young as six and seven years were considered productive members of the family and their labor contributed to family income. In court, children as young as seven were treated as adults and could receive the death penalty. Early debates questioned whether there should be a separate legal system for punishing juveniles, or if juveniles should be sentenced in the same manner as adults
With the changing demographic, social, and economic context of the 19th century resulting largely from industrialization, "the social construction of childhood...as a period of dependency and exclusion from the adult world" was institutionalized. This century saw the opening of the first programs targeting juvenile delinquency. Barry Krisberg and James F. Austin note that the first ever institution dedicated to juvenile delinquency was the New York House of Refuge in 1825. Other programs, described by Finley, included: "houses of refuge", which emphasized moral rehabilitation; "reform schools", which had widespread reputations for mistreatment of the children living there; and "child saving organizations", social charity agencies dedicated to reforming poor and delinquent children. These 'child-saving efforts' were early attempts at differentiating between delinquents and abandoned youth.
Prior to this ideological shift, the application of parens patriae was restricted to protecting the interests of children, deciding guardianship and commitment of the mentally ill. In the 1839 Pennsylvania landmark case, Ex parte Crouse, the court allowed use of parens patriae to detain young people for non-criminal acts in the name of rehabilitation. Since these decisions were carried out "in the best interest of the child," the due process protections afforded adult criminals were not extended to juveniles.
Early 1900s
The nation's first juvenile court was formed in Illinois in 1899 and provided a legal distinction between juvenile abandonment and crime. The law that established the court, the Illinois Juvenile Court Law of 1899, was created largely because of the advocacy of women such as Jane Addams, Louise DeKoven Bowen, Lucy Flowers and Julia Lathrop, who were members of the influential Chicago Woman's Club. The Chicago court opened on July 1, 1899 with Judge Tuthill presiding, along with several members of the Chicago Woman's Club who acted as advisors about the juvenile offender's backgrounds. Establishing a juvenile court helped reframe cultural and legal interpretations of "the best interests of the child." The underlying assumption of the original juvenile system, and one that continues to prevail, was that juveniles were generally more amenable to rehabilitation than adult criminals. This new application of parens patriae and the development of a separate juvenile court formed the foundation for the modern juvenile justice system.
An often overlooked aspect of history is the role of the juvenile court movement in solidifying religious involvement in the child welfare context and child placement services. The circumstances leading to the enactment of the Illinois Juvenile Court Law of 1899 was the product of powerful lobbying and careful legislative drafting. After Illinois passed a constitutional amendment that prohibited the allocation of public funds to any church or sectarian purpose, supporters of faith-based orphanages—who relied heavily on public funding—retained the aid of jurists such as Hastings Hart to draft a proposed juvenile court law that comports with the state’s existing institutional approach to child welfare. The final version of the law incorporated "strategic adjustments" in favor of institutions over foster care. The approved draft did not provide any funding for foster care, restricted inspection of institutions receiving public funding, and protected children’s religious identities by permitting courts to consider placing children “in the care and custody of some individual holding the same religious belief as the parents of said child, or with some association which is controlled by persons of like religious faith of the parents of the said child.” Many states soon adopted the language of the Illinois law in verbatim, spreading the establishment of juvenile courts around the nation. Juvenile courts soon became a powerful institutional mechanism that solidified the involvement of private, usually religious, orphanages in child placement services. The creation of the juvenile justice system in Chicago coincided with the migration of southern black families to the North. A combination of factors like lack of parental supervision and extreme poverty left black children vulnerable.
After states began passing compulsory education laws in the second half of the nineteenth century, repeated acts of truancy could land students in state juvenile courts. In enforcing the truancy laws, Progressive Era judges and educators relied on teachers' report cards to monitor the behavior of probationers. Report cards often categorized truants as disobedient and unyielding. In one case a 13 year old Kentuckian was accused of "habitual truancy" by the principal of his school, which would have been a violation of compulsory education laws, but the principal herself admitted that his attendance was perfect and that she had filed a petition for him to be sent to a Parental School because his parents were not giving him adequate care and "something should be done to keep him off the streets and away from bad company".
1960s to 1980s
The debate about morality and effectiveness surrounded juvenile courts until the 1950s. The 1960s through the 1980s saw a rise in attention to and speculation about juvenile delinquency, as well as concern about the court system as a social issue. This era was characterized by distinctly harsh punishments for youths. There was also a new focus on providing minors with due process and legal counsel in court. Criticism in this era focused on racial discrimination, gender disparities, and discrimination towards children with mental health problems or learning disabilities. While still recommending harsher punishments for serious crimes, "community-based programs, diversion, and deinstitutionalization became the banners of juvenile justice policy in the 1970's". However, these alternative approaches were short lived. The rising crime rates of the 1960s and media misrepresentation of this crime throughout the 1970s and 80s, paved the way for Reagan's War on Drugs and subsequent "tough-on-crime" policies. Heightened fears of a 'youth problem' "revealed white, middle- and upper-class anxieties about growing social unrest and the potential volatility stemming from social and economic inequality". Public perception of juvenile deviance was such that at the 1999 Juvenile Justice Hearings, Bill McCollum claimed "simply and sadly put: Today in America no population poses a larger threat to public safety than juvenile offenders". In the late 1980s, the United States experienced a large increase in crime, and juvenile crime was brought into public view (Juvenile delinquency in the United States). Americans feared a "juvenile super-predator", and this fear was met by the government with harsher policies for juvenile crime.
1990s to present day
In the 1990s, juvenile crime – especially violent crime – decreased, although policies remained the same. Schools and politicians adopted zero-tolerance policies with regard to crime and argued that rehabilitative approaches were less effective than strict punishment. The increased ease in trying juveniles as adults became a defining feature of "tough-on-crime" policies in the 1990s. As Loyola law professor Sacha Coupet argues, "[o]ne way in which "get tough" advocates have supported a merger between the adult criminal and juvenile systems is by expanding the scope of transfer provisions or waivers that bring children under the jurisdiction of the adult criminal system". Some states moved specific classes of crimes from the juvenile court to adult criminal court while others gave this power to judges or prosecutors on a case-by-case basis. Still, others require the courts to treat offending youth like adults but within the juvenile system. In some states, adjudicated offenders face mandatory sentences. By 1997, all but three states had passed a combination of laws that eased the use of transfer provisions, provided courts with expanded sentencing options, and removed the confidentiality tradition of the juvenile court. Juvenile courts were transformed to more easily allow for prosecution of juveniles as adults at the same time the adult system was re-defining which acts constituted a "serious crime." The "three strikes laws" that began in 1993 fundamentally altered the criminal offenses that resulted in detention, imprisonment, and even a life sentence, for both youth and adults. "Three strikes laws" were not specific to juvenile offenders, but they were enacted during a period when the lines between juvenile and adult courts were becoming increasingly blurred. The War on Drugs and "tough-on-crime" policies like Three Strikes resulted in an explosion in the number of incarcerated individuals.
Implementation of the Gun-Free School Act (GFSA) in 1994 is one example of a "tough on crime" policy that has contributed to increased numbers of young people being arrested and detained. It was intended to prosecute young offenders for serious crimes like gun possession on school property, but many states interpreted this law to include less dangerous weapons and drug possession. Many schools even interpreted GFSA to include "infractions that pose no safety concern, such as 'disobeying [school] rules, 'insubordination,' and 'disruption". These offenses can now warrant suspension, expulsion and involvement with juvenile justice courts. Schools have become the primary stage for juvenile arrest and the charges brought against them and punishments they face are increasing in severity. Today this is frequently referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.
Demographics
Demographic information for youth involved in the Juvenile Justice system is somewhat difficult to collect, as most data is collected at state, county, and city levels. Although the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention publishes national numbers that breakdown the racial make-up of youth involved in the juvenile justice system, this data provides an incomplete picture, as it excludes Hispanic youth in its demographic calculations.