In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation. Since the establishment of the first juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois in 1899, states have recognized that children who commit crimes are different from adults; as a class, they are less blameworthy, and they have a greater capacity for change. By the mid 1920s, every state in the country had established a separate system of criminal justice designed to acknowledge those differences called the juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system has grown and changed substantially since 1899. Originally, the court process was informal—often nothing more than a conversation between the youth and the judge—and the defendant lacked legal representation. Proceedings were conducted behind closed doors with little public or community awareness of how the juvenile court operated or what happened to the children who appeared before it. Rather than confine young people in jails with adults, the early juvenile courts created a probation system and separate rehabilitation and treatment facilities to provide minors with supervision, guidance, and education. The lack of formal process and constitutional due process in the juvenile justice system – and potential for substantial deprivations of children’s liberty through extensive periods of incarceration even in juvenile facilities — came to light in the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision In re Gault. In Gault, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Constitution requires that youth charged with delinquency in juvenile court have many of the same due process rights guaranteed to adults accused of crimes, including the right to an attorney and the right to confront witnesses against them. Following Gault, the Supreme Court extended additional constitutional rights to youth, including the right to have the charges against them proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the right against double jeopardy. In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled that youth were not entitled to jury trials in juvenile court, but several states have judicially or legislatively elected to provide youth a right to jury trial. Following this shift to ensure process in juvenile court proceedings, an increase in juvenile crime rates in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted legislators to adopt “tough on crime” policies, depriving certain youth of the juvenile justice system’s protections. States enacted mechanisms to move youth from juvenile to adult criminal court for trial and punishment. In some cases, these new laws saddled children with the most severe sentences—death and life without the possibility of parole. Many of the new state laws also exposed youth to the dangers and potential abuses attributed to incarceration with adult offenders—much like they had experienced before the creation of the original juvenile court more than a century earlier. Since the 1990s, juvenile crime rates have steadily decreased, yet the harsh penalties of the 1990s remain in many state laws. With this shift, key distinctive and rehabilitative approaches of the juvenile justice system have been lost to the more severe consequences attendant to criminal justice system involvement. Today’s juvenile justice system still maintains rehabilitation as its primary goal and distinguishes itself from the criminal justice system in important ways. With few exceptions, in most states delinquency is defined as the commission of a criminal act by a child who was under the age of 18 at the time; most states also allow youth to remain under the supervision of the juvenile court until age 21. In lieu of prison, juvenile court judges draw from a range of legal options to meet both the safety needs of the public and the treatment needs of the youth, although youth may be confined in juvenile correctional facilities that too often resemble adult prisons and jails, routinely imposing correctional practices such as solitary confinement, strip searches, and the use of chemical or mechanical restraints. Youth are entitled educational programming while incarcerated. Educational and therapeutic programming may be provided in the child’s community or the child may be placed out of the home in a residential treatment program and ordered to attend school on-grounds. Unlike adult criminal proceedings, juvenile court hearings are often closed to members of the public and records in some states remain confidential, protecting children from stigma and collateral consequences when their records are publicly available. However, juvenile records have increasingly become more accessible, and in most jurisdictions are not automatically sealed or expunged when the young person becomes an adult. This creates barriers to obtaining employment, serving in the military, or enrolling in higher education programs. In recent years, research by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice led many states and courts to view juvenile crime — and juvenile justice — through a scientific lens. Developmental psychology — which demonstrated youth’s developmental immaturity, particular susceptibility to negative peer influences, and a capacity for change and rehabilitation — is supported by neuroscience, which has shown that key areas of the adolescent brain continue to develop until the mid-twenties. This research has forced constitutional changes in how youth are sentenced when prosecuted in the criminal justice system, as well as required the adoption of new rules and standards for law enforcement interrogation of youth, youth’s competency to stand trial and the reliability of youth confessions, among other things. Since 1975, Juvenile Law Center has worked to ensure that youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system have robust and meaningful rights, access to education and developmentally appropriate treatment, and opportunities to become healthy and productive adults. Juvenile Law Center works towards a world that affirms the unique and developmentally distinct qualities of youth, guarantees fair and equitable treatment, and ensures opportunities for successful adulthood.
 To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.
juvenile justice, system of laws, policies, and procedures intended to regulate the processing and treatment of nonadult offenders for violations of law and to provide legal remedies that protect their interests in situations of conflict or neglect. Punishable offenses that are classified as criminal offenses for adults (e.g., murder, robbery, and larceny) are referred to as delinquency when committed by juveniles, whereas juvenile offenses mandating legal intervention only (e.g., alcohol and tobacco use, truancy, and running away from home) are referred to as status offenses. Children are also subject to specialized laws, procedures, and policies designed to protect their interests when parents or other legal guardians are unavailable, negligent, or involved in custodial disputes. A controversial method of juvenile punishment has been the use of corporal punishment. Although such physical punishment is prohibited in many Western countries, it is still used in some parts of the United States and in much of the non-Western world. Historically, an increase in juvenile crime (such as the late 20th-century rise in juvenile gun offenses in the United States) has been followed by calls for the reinstatement of corporal punishment in those regions where it had been prohibited. Opponents of corporal punishment, however, argue that it is inhumane and that juvenile corporal punishment risks reinforcing the delinquent behaviour of those who receive it. The specific mechanisms for administering juvenile justice have varied over time—among societies and even among jurisdictions within countries. The concept of delinquency, as well as special trials and institutions for confining and controlling youth, was established in the mid-19th century in Great Britain, where courts acquired the authority to intervene as parens patriae (Latin: “parent of the land”) to protect the property rights of children. Yet juveniles were tried in the same courts as adults until the Juvenile Court of Law was founded in Chicago in 1899. The first court dedicated to cases involving delinquent children was a success, which led to the creation of other juvenile courts, known colloquially as children’s courts or family courts, in other states. The model was soon adopted in other countries such as Canada and Great Britain (1908), France (1912), Russia (1918), Poland (1919), Japan (1922), and Germany (1923). Early common law made no special provision for children who committed crimes. Provided that the child was over the minimum age for criminal responsibility (originally seven) and had “mischievous discretion” (the ability to tell right from wrong), the child was fully liable as an adult to the penalties provided by the law. During the 19th century, children who were criminally liable were regularly imprisoned, and there are records of children’s being hanged as late as the 1830s. In practice, however, age usually served as a mitigating factor in punishments accorded to children. In the 19th century the reformatory movement, which established training institutions for young offenders as an alternative to confinement in adult prisons, advanced the concept of treating juvenile offenders differently from adult criminals. The Children Act in 1908 created a special justice system for juvenile offenders—the Juvenile Court (renamed Youth Court in 1991), intended to handle both criminal and noncriminal cases. The English youth courts exercise jurisdiction over offenders aged 10 (the minimum age of criminal responsibility) to 16. (Those under 14 are designated as “children,” and those over 14 and under 17 are classified as “young persons.”) Offenders aged 17 and over appear in the normal adult courts, though special sentencing provisions apply to offenders under the age of 21. In addition to age, youth and adult courts are distinguished by the types of cases they handle, with youth courts hearing a much wider variety of offenses. Nearly all offenses committed by children are tried in youth courts, though the courts are not bound to deal with extremely serious offenses such as robbery or rape. On such charges, a young person will nearly always be tried as an adult. In most cases a youth also will be tried as an adult for murder or manslaughter. If he is charged jointly with an adult crime while being tried in juvenile court, he can be sent to an adult court for trial, though he is normally returned to the youth court for sentencing. Youth courts also deal with children of any age up to 17 in what is called a care proceeding, which is based on the idea that the child is in need of court-ordered care, protection, or control because one of a number of conditions is satisfied. Reasons for care proceedings can include neglect or assault by parents, but they always stem from the fact that the juvenile has committed an offense. Thus, a juvenile who commits an offense will come before the youth court in one of two ways: criminal proceedings or care proceedings. This combination of two different roles in the youth court was a source of difficulty and controversy for many years, particularly because the court in its criminal jurisdiction was required by law to “have regard to the welfare of the child or young person” and, if satisfied that it was necessary to do so, remove the youth from unsatisfactory surroundings for his own good, irrespective of the gravity of the offense. In appearing before the youth court, a juvenile charged with a minor offense could be removed from parental custody and required to reside in an institution (known as a community home), perhaps for a period of several years and possibly under conditions of security. Under legislation passed in the late 1960s, a care order mandated by the youth court could effectively transfer parental rights to the local authority. The care order is only one of many sanctions available to the English youth court and is used only in a minority of the cases that come before it. Another measure, the supervision order, places the juvenile under the general supervision of a social worker but sometimes requires participation in a wide range of organized, constructive activities as intermediate treatment. A supervision order can also include restrictive requirements prohibiting the juvenile from certain activities or a curfew in the form of a “night restriction,” a requirement to remain at home during the evening for a specified period. Juveniles can also be fined (though the court usually orders the parent to pay the fine) or be ordered to pay compensation for the offense. In 1991 the Criminal Justice Act allowed the newly named Youth Court to handle cases involving 17-year-olds, and in 1994 the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act assigned stiffer punishments to juvenile offenders. It was followed in 2000 by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act, which advanced the use of community service as a form of punishment.
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Why was the juvenile justice system created
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