Development of the Juvenile
Court
Urbanization
Child savers
Development of institutions and
organizations for the care of delinquent
and neglected children
Houses of Refuge
 Juvenile reformatories

Houses of Refuge
Developed for
dependent/neglected/destitute children
Work for room and board, a form of
slavery
Ex parte Crouse upheld them (1840s)
Mother committed daughter to house,
father objected
Government can take custody
Ex parte Crouse
Children acknowledged as different
from adults, due process not necessary
Supported Houses of Refuge
Juvenile reformatories
Lyman School for Boys (1847), Mass.
Girls school in Mass, 1855
Included all types of problem children
Lyman school closed in 1971, reopened
in the 1990s (see Jerome Miller, Last
One Over the Wall)
Other movements
Children’s Aid Society, founded 1853
Rescue youths from harsh environments,
placing-out plan, sent children to western
farms
Orphan trains—families wishing to take in
children would meet the train and select
children
SPCC, prevention of abuse, removal and
placement of abused children
Juvenile Court
First juvenile court: Chicago, 1899
Parens patriae: court was to act as a
kindly parent, in loco parentis
Help children in all types of trouble
Dependent, neglected and abused
(physical, sexual)
 Delinquents (violated penal codes

Juvenile court
Status offenders (acts against the family
codes, forbidden because of status—
age)
Status offenses
Running away
 Truancy
 Drinking
 Curfew violations

Juvenile court
Habitual disobedience, incorrigibility
 Lack of morals (promiscuity)
 Currently includes such designations as
status offender, unruly child, PINS, MINS,
CHINS, JINS

Juvenile court
These courts were civil
Differences between civil and criminal
courts
Lawyers
 Punishment (criminal courts, not in juvenile
court)
 Standard of proof
 Different standards of evidence

Civil vs. criminal
Civil: lawsuits, contracts, divorces
Mental health commitments as a
parallel to the JJS
Juvenile court
Medical model: figure out problem and
find best cure
Informal nature: meeting with judge,
probation officer, guardian and
professionals
Decisions were to help the child,
standards of due process not necessary
Juvenile courts
By 1925, juvenile courts were
nationwide
Network of courts, probation and reform
schools established (probation
disposition of choice)
Little distinction between various groups
of juveniles—it was all “help”
Problems
Although supposedly help,
reformatories were often punitive
A very strong class bias
Juvenile courts
Delinquents mixed with status offenders
and dependent/neglected (problems)
Although designed for treatment, this
treatment tended to be absent.
Juvenile justice hit a low during the
Great Depression, as conditions were
very bad institutions (“era of shame”)
Juvenile courts
During the 1930s, first major studies of
delinquency were conducted (Gluecks)
By 1960s, serious objections to the
juvenile justice system
Courts could do anything they wanted
under parens patriae
Complete discretion
Juvenile courts
Number of youths referred began to rise
dramatically, with the rise in births
Overuse of institutionalization
Significant increase in the study of
delinquency, especially gangs
Little legal protection
Horror stories about institutions (Weeping in
the Playtime of Others, Wooden)
1960s and 1970s
Major movements
Due process
 De-institutionalization
 Diversion
 Separation of status offenders and
delinquents
 Massachusetts and deinstitutionalization

1960s and 1970s
Major Supreme Court cases
Establishment of limited due process in
the juvenile justice system
Compromise between criminal and civil
system
More referral to DFS
Juvenile Justice & Delinquency
Prevention Act of 1974
Deinstitutionalization of status
offenders, dependent/neglected
Separation from adults in institutions
Separate detention facilities for
juveniles
Disproportionate minority confinement
Punitive era, 1980s
Perception that juveniles becoming
more dangerous
More gun use & lethal violence
Changing view of mens rea for juveniles
More due process, adult model of
corrections
Transfer of juveniles to adult court
Balanced Juvenile Justice and
Crime Prevention Act of 1996
See p. 39
Balance between punishment and
treatment
Punitive vs. Rehabilitative model
Mens rea: free will and intent
Are juveniles less developed?
Free will vs. environmental causes (free
will would imply punitiveness,
environment would imply treatment)
Protection of society (punitive) vs.
protection of juvenile (rehab)
Punitive vs. Rehabilitative
Punitive: need for due process in order
to ensure fairness, Rehabilitative: no
need for cumbersome procedures
Role of discretion: punitive model
would limit it, rehabilitative would
expand it
Role of records
Punishment vs. changing behavior
The present system
Measurement of delinquency
UCR and other official statistics such as
police and court records
 Part I and Part II. Three status offenses
(runaway, truancy and curfew violations)
 Victimization surveys
 Self-report studies

Problems
Only those acts reported—many
delinquent acts handled informally,
especially status offenses
Many other options aside from the
system
Sealing of records
UCR
2.3 million arrests of juveniles
16% of all arrests
30% of Part I crimes
70 million juveniles, about 23%, of the
population is under 18, and
Accounts for 15% of violent crime
 25% of property crime arrests

Decline in violent crime
1980s and early 1990s, increase in
juvenile crime
“superpredators”
Not substantiated, juvenile crime has
been decreasing
Greater decreases than for adults
1300 homicides, about 8%
UCR 2006
1.5 million arrests for Part II offense
114,200 running away from home (60%
female, decreasing)
207,700 disorderly conduct, increasing
196,700 drug abuse violations
(increasing)
152,900 curfew violations
Other violations
Larceny 278,100
Aggravated assaults 60,700
Simple assaults (249,400)
Burglary 83,900
Motor vehicle 34,600
Weapons 47,200
DWI 20,100
Other
Drunkenness 16,000
Vandalism 117,500
Prostitution 1600
Sex offenses 15,900
Rape 3610
UCR
Property crime peaks at age 16
Violent crime peaks at 18
Crime rates decline after these peak
years
Arrests for juvenile violent crime began
to increase in 1989, peaked in 1994,
and then fell
UCR
Property offense remained more stable,
but have also showed recent decline
Juvenile murder rates more than
doubled between the early 1980s and
their peak in 1993; they have declined
but remain higher than earlier levels
Self-reports
Interviews or anonymous
questionnaires
If truancy, alcohol consumption, theft,
etc., are included, delinquency is almost
universal
Most people admit to something for
which they could have gone to juvenile
court
Self report
50% admit to truancy
1/3 defying parents
½ to drinking
10% to running away
25% to shop lifting
30% to destroying property
1/3 to B & E
10% to joyriding
Self-report
It is estimated that 90% of status
offenses are undetected
Self-report
Delinquency problem far greater than
reflected in UCR
Do not indicate that the delinquency
rate is climbing
Problems with self-report
Validating against arrest statistics
Inclusion of many minor offenses
Exclusion of serious delinquents
Juvenile victimization
Types of victimization:
1. abuse (sexual, physical, emotional
educational)
2. crime victimization (i.e., assaults,
thefts)
2.9 million cases of abuse investigated,
25% substantiated
Juvenile victimization
Of those substantiated, 61% were
neglect, 19% physical, sexual 10%
Female perpetrators
Infants most likely, then the rate is fairly
constant, begins rapid decline after age
14
Other victimization
Most common away from school or on
the way to school
Juveniles tend to be victims of theft, at
higher rates than adults
14% of males in one study indicated
that they had been attacked, robbed or
bullied
Correlates of delinquency
Gender
Race: disproportionately African
American, 12.5% of the population, but
31% of all arrests and 36% of index
crimes
Reasons?
Other correlates
Social class
Age
Criminal careers
Juvenile victimization
Overview of juvenile justice
process
Reasons for increases in
juvenile crime
Educational standards
Teenage pregnancies, although now
declining (drop in teenage marriages,
rise in premarital sex, beginning at an
earlier age, better health)
Increase in alcohol and drug use
Increased opportunity for crime
Unemployment among the young
Reasons (continued)
One parent homes
More mobility, less extended family
Standard of living issues
Reasons for the decrease
More punitive measures?
Changing values? i.e., negative views
of gangs, drugs, etc.
Community programs?
Regression to the mean?
Incapacitation, more beds for juveniles?
Aging population?