Juvenile Justice

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Juvenile Justice

• Chapter 14 In Your Textbook
• John Massey
• Criminal Justice

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Before the 1800s

• Middle Ages
• Children portrayed as little men and little women
• Infancy ended at age 7.
• Childhood was invisible.
• Adolescence did not emerge until the 1800s.
• Deviance handled informally.
• Strict laws governing youth behavior.
• Punishment rarely administered.
• Children, if punished, were usually punished by
  parents.

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1800s Child Workers

• As late as 1780, children could be convicted and
  hanged for over 200 crimes.
• Behavior and control responsibility of parents
• Physical size and capacity more important than
  age.
• Child Workers
• Boys as young as 6 or 7 began work during
  Colonial Period.
• Running errands, chopping wood
• Age 14, family trade.
• Social Security and Income

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Parens Patriae the emergence of adolescence

• Legal document, England
• King is the father of the country
• Authority to take child under custody
• Intervention between the child and family.
• Emergence of adolescence
• Breakup of Colonial Society
• Capitalism begins
• Immigration, poor and dangerous classes
  emerge
• Agriculture shifts to Industrialism
• Adolescent, Juvenile Delinquency emerges

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House of Refuge Movement

• Children wandering the streets
• 6 and 7 year olds convicted in criminal courts
  housed with adult inmates in jails and prisons.
• Groups began to emerge to help the children.
• Focus to remove children from unhealthy
  environments
• 1824, New York
• New York House of Refuge
• First correctional facility for young offenders
  in U.S.
• Aims
• Teach reading, writing, math
• Enforce moral and religious obligations
• Be both corrective and punitive

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Statistics

• 63 of juveniles committed during a 30 year
  period Irish
• Only 1 in 73 sent in the first year had been
  convicted of a serious offense.
• 63 of the 73 were committed for stealing,
  vagrancy, etc.
• Working class backgrounds (working poor, poor)
• Fate of the House of Refuge Movement
• Best interests of the children were not served
• Strict discipline and control
• Emergence of refuges in Boston, Philly, Baltimore
• Crime and delinquency remained a problem.

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Mid 19th Century Reforms

• Complaints about HOR movement.
• Growth of large cities.
• Need for factory/mine workers children as cheap
  source of labor.
• Public School Programs established.
• Kindergarten, Extracurricular activities,
  Homeroom, Organized Playgrounds
• All taught cooperation, respect for authority and
  discipline.
• Schools as a Network of Social Control
• Used to prevent and control delinquency
• Teachers, guidance counselors, social workers
  all part of the network.

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Fate of Mid 19th Century Reforms

• Reforms did little to reduce crime.
• Used to regulate and control deviants, potential
  deviants and poor in general.
• Progressive Era opened the way for new forms and
  new institutions.
• Care, Control, and Protection Child Saving
  Movement
• Child Savers
• Upper middle class, upper class whites w/
  business and professional backgrounds
• Goals were to save children from jails and
  prisons and divert them from the adult CJ system.

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Juvenile Court

• Chicago and Denver 1899
• 1899 Illinois Juvenile Court Act removed cases
  from adult system and formally established a
  juvenile court.
• Status offenses
• Vicious or immoral behavior, profane/indecent
  behavior, truancy (skipping school), running
  away, growing up in idleness, curfew violations.
• Juvenile Court Environment
• Judges were like stern fathers.
• Informal, no need for lawyers
• Cases were not criminal, Children were diagnosed.

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20th Century Developments

• Little change between 1920s and 1960s in
  juvenile system.
• The 1960s brought hope.
• Supreme Court Cases
• In re Gault (1967) same due process rights as
  adults
• Kent v. US (1966) right to counsel like adults
• In re Winship (1970) beyond a reasonable doubt
  like adults
• Breed v. Jones (1975) double jeopardy
• McKeiver v. Penn (1971) does NOT give juveniles
  right to jury trial.

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Issues Today

• The Age Question
• Are juveniles liable? Can they understand their
  actions?
• Juvenile Gangs
• Competency
• Juveniles can be transferred to adult court
  through the use of a waiver.
• Variety of Sanctions for juveniles curfews,
  juvenile detention, prison, boot camps, etc.

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