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The Juvenile, the Court, or the Community: Whose Best Interests Are Currently Being Promoted in Juvenile Court?
Abstract
Originally, juvenile courts were designed to promote only the best interests of the child. Developments within the last three decades, however, have suggested that there are other interests represented in juvenile court proceedings. In this study, one hundred juvenile court workers (judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, probation officers) from three juvenile courts (urban, suburban, rural) were interviewed to determine the extent to which the child's interests are promoted in the contemporary juvenile court. The data suggest that a number of other interests currently rival the youth's for primacy in decisions reached in juvenile court.
... Similarly, whereas punishment-related provisions have been added to many states' purpose clauses, it is more important that rehabilitation and family-oriented clauses have not been deleted from the juvenile court statutes. Instead, juvenile courts have been instructed that their mission is to employ both rehabilitation and punishment with delinquents (Hemmens, Fritsch, & Caeti, 1999), suggesting that serious punishment should be reserved for serious offenders (Applegate, Turner, Sanborn, Latessa, & Moon, 2000;Sanborn, 1994a). ...
... This does not convert, however, to an across-the-board abandonment of rehabilitative interventions for all juvenile offenders. The prospect of a two-tiered juvenile court, which divides its offender population by offense and record and responds more punitively to the more serious population, is logical and consistent with both the purpose clauses and mandatory sentencing provisions of many states' statutes (Sanborn, 1994a). ...
X-rated X-ray machines utilizing backscatter technology are strip-searching unsuspecting travelers as they pass through our nation's border and airport checkpoints. These machines not only check for explosives, drugs, or other contraband, but also are capable of counting hairs on a man's chest or measuring the depth of a woman's navel. At the same time the machines are checking for contraband, they can produce an X-rated image comparable in quality to those found in Playboy magazine. This article focuses on the efficacy of the device, the need to protect society, and individual privacy rights in light of the boundaries provided by Fourth Amendment search and seizure laws. Supporting arguments advanced for use of backscatter technology include (a) the enhanced security to society, (b) reduced invasiveness of the search, and (c) the reduction in health risks associated with the use of the devices. Opposing arguments focus upon the slippery slope and unacceptable degree of intrusion upon the privacy rights of the individual. The article concludes by framing the legal arguments within an analysis of the opportunity costs associated with implementation of the X-rated X-ray devices.
... Similarly, whereas punishment-related provisions have been added to many states' purpose clauses, it is more important that rehabilitation and family-oriented clauses have not been deleted from the juvenile court statutes. Instead, juvenile courts have been instructed that their mission is to employ both rehabilitation and punishment with delinquents (Hemmens, Fritsch, & Caeti, 1999), suggesting that serious punishment should be reserved for serious offenders (Applegate, Turner, Sanborn, Latessa, & Moon, 2000;Sanborn, 1994a). ...
... This does not convert, however, to an across-the-board abandonment of rehabilitative interventions for all juvenile offenders. The prospect of a two-tiered juvenile court, which divides its offender population by offense and record and responds more punitively to the more serious population, is logical and consistent with both the purpose clauses and mandatory sentencing provisions of many states' statutes (Sanborn, 1994a). ...
This study surveyed prosecuting attorneys' offices to determine the current practices involving the use of televised testimony of child witnesses. Members (or designates) of the National District Attorneys Association (n = 768) completed questionnaires that assessed whether they had ever used televised child testimony and whether its use had led to an appeal. Respondents who had never used televised testimony were asked to indicate the reason(s) why they had chosen not to use it. Results suggested that televised testimony is not a common practice among respondents in that only 17.1% of the sample used it. If a respondent did use it, it was unlikely to lead to an appeal (only 22.9% of the time). Respondents who had never used this type of testimony reported that a variety of legal and practical restrictions, as well as their own personal beliefs, prevented them from doing so. Results are discussed in terms of the controversy regarding the use of televised testimony.
... Similarly, whereas punishment-related provisions have been added to many states' purpose clauses, it is more important that rehabilitation and family-oriented clauses have not been deleted from the juvenile court statutes. Instead, juvenile courts have been instructed that their mission is to employ both rehabilitation and punishment with delinquents (Hemmens, Fritsch, & Caeti, 1999), suggesting that serious punishment should be reserved for serious offenders (Applegate, Turner, Sanborn, Latessa, & Moon, 2000;Sanborn, 1994a). ...
... This does not convert, however, to an across-the-board abandonment of rehabilitative interventions for all juvenile offenders. The prospect of a two-tiered juvenile court, which divides its offender population by offense and record and responds more punitively to the more serious population, is logical and consistent with both the purpose clauses and mandatory sentencing provisions of many states' statutes (Sanborn, 1994a). ...
As the new millennium has arrived, so has the appearance of a new breed of terrorist, highly sophisticated in technological skills, sometimes motivated by political and/or religious beliefs and sometimes motivated by the monetary incentive to sell his services as a mercenary. This type of terrorist made an appearance in the United States during the Y2K crisis and, under its cover, appeared and then disappeared creating further terror by now hiding in the shadows. Using the Italian Red Brigades as a case study, this article examines how the rules of the game of dealing with terrorists has been crucially altered by this new breed and discusses how these rules will present new problems that in turn will necessitate the consideration of serious changes in the tactics and strategies employed by law enforcement agencies and governments as they carry their fight against terrorism into the future.
... Similarly, whereas punishment-related provisions have been added to many states' purpose clauses, it is more important that rehabilitation and family-oriented clauses have not been deleted from the juvenile court statutes. Instead, juvenile courts have been instructed that their mission is to employ both rehabilitation and punishment with delinquents (Hemmens, Fritsch, & Caeti, 1999), suggesting that serious punishment should be reserved for serious offenders (Applegate, Turner, Sanborn, Latessa, & Moon, 2000;Sanborn, 1994a). ...
... This does not convert, however, to an across-the-board abandonment of rehabilitative interventions for all juvenile offenders. The prospect of a two-tiered juvenile court, which divides its offender population by offense and record and responds more punitively to the more serious population, is logical and consistent with both the purpose clauses and mandatory sentencing provisions of many states' statutes (Sanborn, 1994a). ...
For several decades, juvenile courts functioned like clinics. Judges assigned there were instructed to assume a variety of roles: jurist, psychologist, counselor, sociologist, and parent. The In re Gault decision in 1967 granted juvenile defendants several constitutional rights that transformed juvenile courts into criminal court-like operations. Juvenile court judges have not been told whether they should continue to be paternal or emulate their counterparts in adult court; research has not addressed this subject. In this study, 100 juvenile court workers (judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers) from three juvenile courts (urban, suburban, rural) were interviewed to ascertain how judges operate in juvenile court and what these workers perceive to be the proper role for the judge. The data show that most workers believe that the role of the juvenile court judge is and should be unique.
... That is, there may be a disjuncture between ideals and actual practice. In addition, the ideal in fact may contribute to worse rather than to better outcomes for youth (Butts and Mears, 2001;Feld and Bishop, 2012;Klein, 1979;Rubin, 1979;Sanborn, 1994). ...
Research Summary: The juvenile court was established to help children through the use of punishment and rehabilitation and, in so doing, “save” them from a life of crime and disadvantage. Diversion programs and policies emerged in the 1970s as one way to achieve this goal. Despite concerns about its potential harm, diversion became increasingly popular in subsequent decades. We examine the logic of a prominent contemporary diversion effort, civil citation, to illuminate tensions inherent to traditional and contemporary diversion. We then review extant evidence on traditional diversion efforts, examine civil citation laws, and identify the salience of both traditional and contemporary, police-centered diversion efforts for youth and the juvenile court. The analysis highlights that diversion may help children but that it also may harm them. It highlights that the risk of net-widening for the police and the court is considerable. And it highlights the importance of, and need for, research on the use and effects of diversion and the conditions under which it may produce benefits and avoid harms. Policy Implications: This article recommends a more tempered embrace of diversion and a fuller embrace of research-guided efforts to achieve the juvenile court's ideals. Diversion may be effective under certain conditions, but these conditions need to be identified and then met.
Between 1900 and 2000 an unprecedented effort to use state regulation to guarantee health, opportunity, and security to America's children failed to reach its goals. This account of the period reveals that the achievements envisioned were extremely ambitious and reflected entrenched, but self-contradictory, values as well as Americans' inconsistent expectations of government. Based on extensive research, the volume analyzes the period's public policies that affected children's welfare, work, education, and health.
Malaysia as one of the countries that had signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), has now reformed their Juvenile Criminal Justice System by introducing the Child Act 2011 (Act 611). The reformation includes the provision that allocates the orders for juvenile offenders to be issued by Magistrates from the Court for Children. This article aims to discuss the legal problems arising from punishing child offenders in Malaysia. The discussion will focus on the theoretical aspects of the underlying adjudication of each order in Act 611. This preliminary study found that the reform legislation through the Act 611 has not able to protect the best interests of children, particularly among those that conflict with the law. Order based on the theory of rehabilitation should be prioritized by the legislative and judiciary so the children could be given a second chance.
Existing research on the criteria used by juvenile court judges in choosing dispositions is limited in two respects. First, the predictor variables included in most investigations have been limited either in number or in the quality of their measurement. Second, research has not focused on sentencing decisions for serious offenders. Using a factorial survey of juvenile court judges, the present study seeks to determine what factors shape disposition decisions for juvenile felony offenders. The results suggest that judges focus primarily on offense characteristics, and are influenced only marginally by the offender's social characteristics. These findings are more consistent with the view that juvenile courts are becoming “criminalized” than with the view that individualized treatment is the goal. An alternative interpretation—that judges may be problem solvers, trying to dispose of cases efficiently—also is proposed.
This study uses case records from the Los Angeles Juvenile Court to examine how racial discrimination played out in juvenile justice before the decline of public confidence in rehabilitation in the 1960s and 1970s. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, I compare how Mexican‐American and white boys (ages 10–17) were treated by the juvenile court during the Great Depression era. I find that although Mexican‐American boys were more likely to be arrested and petitioned to court, they were less likely to receive out‐of‐family placements because court officials viewed these placements as beneficial and were less interested in rehabilitating minority than white youth. I compare these results with the current overrepresentation of minorities in institutional confinement and with contemporary studies that find that black youth are punished more severely than comparable whites. My research suggests that there have been major philosophical changes in how officials in the juvenile justice system view out‐of‐family placements, and that patterns of discrimination in juvenile justice depend upon how officials in courts and correctional institutions view the rehabilitative potential of their interventions.
Variables related to court decision making and recidivism over a two-year follow-up were studied in a group of 475 first-time referrals to a juvenile court. Recidivism was associated with extralegal factors more consistently than were court actions except on the age variable. Court actions were more strongly related to legally relevant factors and, like the referral offense variable, failed to predict recidivism. The court's extensive and repeated reliance on diversion (vs. formal petitioning of cases) did not generate high recidivism levels, implying a need to reconsider the recent “get tough” orientation of juvenile justice policy.
The use of victim impact statements occurs in the majority of states' juvenile court proceedings. Many victims' rights advocates celebrate the use of these statements as a valuable means of victim empowerment, as victim impact statements allow victims to convey the personal effects that delinquent acts had on their lives directly to the courts. Yet at the same time, many oppose the use of victim impact statements in juvenile courts because they inhibit judges' ability to focus on delinquent juveniles' rehabilitative needs by infusing the victims' feelings and emotions into the disposition-crafting process. This article suggests that a balance can be struck between these competing concerns by incorporating victim impact statements into the rehabilitative programs prescribed in the dispositions of delinquent youths, instead of using the statements as an influencing force in crafting the dispositions.
The fate awaiting the juvenile charged with murder varies considerably from state to state. In some jurisdictions the youth (depending on age) would have to be prosecuted in juvenile court and receive at worst the most severe sanction available in that forum. In other locations the juvenile could have to be tried in adult court or could be sent there by either a judge or a prosecutor, and would be eligible for an adult sentence, including possibly the death penalty. This study examines the country's various policies regarding the prosecution of juvenile murderers, as well as the implications behind both using the juvenile versus the adult court for these prosecutions and extending the transfer power to the prosecutor versus the judge.
Disillusionment with the therapeutic ideal has led to the current movement to reduce the jurisdiction of juvenile courts to cases in which they can exercise a crime-prevention function and to emphasize a fair, adversarial court procedure including representation by a lawyer. Two North Carolina juvenile courts were studied in 1975-1976 to determine their degree of concern about rehabilitation, crime prevention, and adversarial procedure. These courts showed a trend toward reducing their intake of cases with a less serious prior record and current offense and becoming more punitive with regard to the remaining cases. The dominant factors associated with disposition-particularly with the decision to commit the child to training school-were prior court record and seriousness of current offense. Other factors found to be of some importance were the child's family structure, support by the family as shown by court attendance, and whether the complainant in the case was a parent or probation officer. Race, family income, and the sex of the child had little or no effect on decisions to commit. Differences in individual judges' commitment rates were explained largely by differences in the cases they handled. Being held in detention before the court hearing made commitment more likely. The type of counsel a child had-private, individually assigned, or specialized Juvenile Defender-made no difference in whether he was adjudicated delinquent or committed. In fact, children represented by counsel were somewhat more likely to be committed than those without counsel. This and other findings of the study suggest that the participation of lawyers in juvenile court may be largely a formality, a token compliance with due process requirements rather than an integral part of court fact-finding.
Despite statutes and rules of statewide applicability, juvenile justice administration varies consistently with urban, suburban, and rural social structure and context. In urban counties, which are more heterogenous and diverse, juvenile justice intervention is more formal, bureaucratized, and due process-oriented. Formality is associated with greater severity in pre-trial detention and sentencing practices. By contrast, in more homogeneous and stable rural counties, juvenile courts are procedurally less formal and sentence youths more leniently. The Article explores the implications of "justice by geography" for juvenile justice policy.
This article presents an overview of current policy debates surrounding reform in the juvenile justice system. New data on trends in juvenile crime and the justice system are also presented. These data reveal that while juvenile arrests have declined, the juvenile justice system has become more formal and restrictive and more oriented toward punishment. The authors also present their views of policy implications and potential remedies.
This article provides an exposition of the changed federal perspective on juvenile justice reform. The major programmatic elements of OJJDP's new reform emphasis are presented, and the ideological rationale for those activities is explained.
Like most American istitutions, the juvenile court has been pressed into re assessing its purpose and role. Its longstanding preference to be largely unencumbered by legal constraints and its historic practice of seeking to be all things to all children have impeded the clarity of the redefinition of what it should be doing and how it should be doing it. This paper examines contemporary juvenile court practices and finds them faulty as to law and lawyer representation and disproportionately concerned with protecting status offenders from themselves. Paternalism has comprised law, and excessive optimism has compromised a more effective work product. While intake, detention screening, detention alternatives, and decentralized probation services expand usefully, concern for improved juvenile court administration has lagged. The article urges a rigorous adherence to legal procedures. Defense counsel representation should be a mandatory requirement. The use of referees as hearing officers, symbolic of the inferior status of this court in the judicial and public mind, should be ended. Jurisdiction over status offenders should be repealed, diversion expanded, wide ranging discretion narrowed, the doctrine of the least restrictive alternative promulgated, and the change agent community role of the judge and probation staff extended. The court's increased interest in furthering the accountability of collaborative agency services with court clientele is supported.
The research reported in this paper develops a typology of American metropolitan juvenile courts through factor analysis of 96 court characteristics and a cluster analysis of courts based on indicators of five derived factors representative of structural dimensions. The data were collected through a mail and telephone survey of court personnel in a saturated sample of 150 metropolitan juvenile courts. The empirical typology is presented and its implications for future comparative studies and studies testing differential processing are discussed.