ArticlePublisher preview available

The Kids are Alright: Making a Case for Abolition of the Juvenile Justice System

Authors:
Scott Wm. Bowman at Texas State University
Scott Wm. Bowman
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

Abstract

When considering abolition of the criminal justice system, there is no greater or more impactful relevance than for juveniles that find themselves inextricably linked to the juvenile justice system. From its inception, the philosophical foundation of juvenile care was to provide individualized, compassionate assistance to young men and women perceived to be in need of emotional care and/or social control. With the establishment of the Cook County Juvenile Court in 1899, the American juvenile justice system has endured a 118-year odyssey that has produced progressively rational, largely unsympathetic, and increasingly punitive practices. With happenings such as the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, ‘juvenile life without the possibility of parole’, ‘teen courts’, and ‘deferred prosecution probation’, current juveniles that make unassuming mistakes and errors in judgment are adjoined to a system that sustains and reinforces itself through these mistakes and errors. The charge of this article is to recommend the abolition of the contemporary juvenile justice system, with safeguards for the protection from serious offenders and a return to the compassionate care that is warranted for the majority of juveniles that currently bolster the system.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Learn more
Content available from Critical Criminology
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Vol.:(0123456789)
Critical Criminology (2018) 26:393–405
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9402-2
1 3
The Kids are Alright: Making aCase forAbolition
oftheJuvenile Justice System
ScottWm.Bowman1
Published online: 12 July 2018
© Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract
When considering abolition of the criminal justice system, there is no greater or more
impactful relevance than for juveniles that find themselves inextricably linked to the juve-
nile justice system. From its inception, the philosophical foundation of juvenile care was
to provide individualized, compassionate assistance to young men and women perceived
to be in need of emotional care and/or social control. With the establishment of the Cook
County Juvenile Court in 1899, the American juvenile justice system has endured a 118-
year odyssey that has produced progressively rational, largely unsympathetic, and increas-
ingly punitive practices. With happenings such as the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, ‘juvenile
life without the possibility of parole’, ‘teen courts’, and ‘deferred prosecution probation’,
current juveniles that make unassuming mistakes and errors in judgment are adjoined to a
system that sustains and reinforces itself through these mistakes and errors. The charge of
this article is to recommend the abolition of the contemporary juvenile justice system, with
safeguards for the protection from serious offenders and a return to the compassionate care
that is warranted for the majority of juveniles that currently bolster the system.
Introduction
In an attempt to establish a legitimized, juvenile justice system that addressed the unique
needs and issues that children faced, legislation was passed in 1899 that established a sepa-
rate and distinct juvenile system that was designed to regulate the treatment and control
of dependent, neglected, and delinquent children (Schultz 1973). This undertaking largely
took place because industrialized, metropolitan city youth were constructed as “unique”,
compared to their adult counterparts, yet were often treated identically to their adult coun-
terparts in the criminal justice system—from arrest proceedings to incarceration outcomes
and placements (Ferdinand 1991). Prior to the 1899, organizations such as the “Child Sav-
ers” (Platt 1977) and the “Society for the Prevention of Pauperism” (Mohl 1970), as well
as facilities such as “Houses of Refuge” and “Reform Schools” (Pickett 1969), attempted to
address the changing climate for youth in the United States. However, these attempts were
largely unregulated and produced contrasting outcomes.
* Scott Wm. Bowman
scott.bowman@txstate.edu
1 School ofCriminal Justice, Texas State University, SanMarcos, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Across the U.S., problems with corruption, abuse, mental misdiagnosis, inconsistency, and mistreatment have plagued the juvenile justice system (Bowman, 2018). The juvenile justice system was initially designed to create a rehabilitative setting for youth but has drifted from this well-meaning intention. ...
Toward Modernization: Using Strategic Development to Address Deficits in the Juvenile Justice System
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2023
The Juvenile Justice System was established on the premise of rehabilitative action for behaviors that have led youth to the criminal justice system. However, the system has increasingly moved away from this original concept toward a punitive model. The authors present how this movement resulted in the devolution of human rights for the youth involved, a decrease in public safety, and a radical departure from fiscal responsibility related to the theoretical origins of rehabilitation. Studies on topics ranging from costs of correctional centers to trauma experienced by youth in these systems, along with many others, are compared to identify specific areas for renovation. Evidence-based pathways are presented to address these concerns along with pragmatic strategies for utilization of a constructed theory focused on the relationship between diversionary policies, attrition, and growth through the reinvestment of existing resources.
View
... Furthermore, socially and economically excluded young people and BAME young people, who already suffer discrimination and structural disadvantage, are more likely to come under state scrutiny (Lammy, 2017;Holley & VanVleet, 2006) as compared to all young people who offend, which is a far wider group (Gottfriedson & Hirschi, 1983;Loeber et al, 2012). This is of particular concern given the ample evidence that contact with formal youth justice systems can function as a criminogenic factor (Pritchard, 2010;Bowman, 2018), thereby entrenching and formalising social exclusion. Youth justice interventions need to be designed to assist young people and not disadvantage them further. ...
Evaluation of the Lewisham Trauma Informed Group Work Programme
Technical Report
Full-text available
  • Oct 2021
This study is an evaluation of the Trauma Informed Group Work Programme developed by the Lewisham Youth Offending Service. It was commissioned by the London Borough of Lewisham with funding from the Youth Justice Board.
View
View
View
Just for kids? How the youth decarceration discourse endorses adult incarceration
Article
  • Dec 2022
This article lays bare three interrelated and previously overlooked pitfalls of calls to reduce or abolish youth incarceration. First, despite their anti-carceral semblance, such calls persistently portray the overwhelming majority of people in trouble with the law—namely, adults—as incorrigible, blameworthy, and therefore as deserving of punishment and imprisonment. Second, this ageist rhetoric often disregards adult vulnerability. Thus, despite adults’ greater medical vulnerability to the COVID-19 disease, it is youth whom some organizations singled out or even called to prioritize for release from prisons during the coronavirus pandemic. Third, at the heart of the youth decarceration discourse are essentialist assumptions about youth, which rest on questionable science and downplay the socially constructed dimension of age differences. All three pitfalls epitomize a dual fault of the child rights discourse more broadly, as evidenced in other contexts: repeatedly lending legitimacy to punitiveness and apathy toward adults while also working to the detriment of children. Doubtless, there are compelling arguments against penal confinement, but it is only decarceration across the age spectrum that can truly challenge carceral thinking—and ageism.
View
View
View
The Trouble with the Child in the Carceral State
Chapter
  • Oct 2016
The second chapter focuses on the circulation of real and imagined children in four movements that surround the carceral state to illustrate how the invocation of children/childhood, even with the best of intentions, functions to strengthen regimes and logics that make everyone, even the child, less secure.
View
View
View
View
View
An abolitionist theory on crime: ending the abusive relationship with Racist-Imperialist-Patriarchy [R.I.P.]
Article
  • Oct 2017
In this article I re-assess the parameters of what we seek to abolish as we pursue penal abolition. I apply Black Feminist Hauntology to exorcize the barriers of traditional and ineffective deconstructions of crime and criminalization. To illustrate these weaknesses I discuss police killings and related vigilante white supremacist violence. I present the aftermath of the deaths and trials (when there were trials) to bring to light the large disconnects that exist between abolitionism and the world in which crime lives. To begin to address this disconnect I present an abolitionist theory on crime founded upon five pillars of assessment: abolition’s perceived minimization of violence; the abusive R.I.P. relationship between crime and justice; a cultural phenomenon of achieving significance through proximity or by association; abusive naturalizations of violence that have been unaddressed in penal abolition; locating the struggles to exit abusive relationships within the core of our studies of criminal justice and penal abolition. I conclude that when penal abolitionists conceive of crime as a social construction tied to criminal justice institutions alone, as opposed to part of a structurally Racist-Imperialist-Patriarchal [R-I-P] abusive relationship, they stunt the possibilities of abolition in manners akin to pushing against a 500 year old tree from its trunk and expecting it to topple over without any account for the roots that hold it firmly in the ground.
View
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice: Eleventh Edition
Book
  • Nov 2016
For nearly 40 years, this classic text has taken the issue of economic inequality seriously and asked: Why are our prisons filled with the poor? Why aren't the tools of the criminal justice system being used to protect Americans from predatory business practices and to punish well-off people who cause widespread harm? The Rich Get Richer shows readers that much that goes on in the criminal justice system violates citizens' sense of basic fairness. It presents extensive evidence from mainstream data that the criminal justice system does not function in the way it says it does nor in the way that readers believe it should. The authors develop a theoretical perspective from which readers might understand these failures and evaluate them morally-and they to do it in a short and relatively inexpensive text written in plain language. New to this edition: Presents recent data comparing the harms due to criminal activity with the harms of dangerous-but not criminal-corporate actions Presents new data on recent crime rate declines, which are paired with data on how public safety is not prioritized by the U.S. government Updates statistics on crime, victimization, wealth and discrimination, plus coverage of the increasing role of criminal justice fines and fees in generating revenue for government Updates on the costs to society of white-collar crime Updates and deepened analysis of why fundamental reforms are not undertaken Streamlined and condensed prose for greater clarity.
View
View