Chapter 11
Juvenile Justice: The System, Process, and Law
by Rolando V. del Carmen and Chad R. Trulson
Prepared by Chad R. Trulson: University of North Texas
Juvenile Correctional
Institutions
THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION
OF JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS

Early Seeds of Juvenile Institutions:
Almshouses and Orphanages (1600-1820s)
Separate juvenile institutions did not exist. When a
child was delinquent, it was the responsibility of the
parent to take care of the problem; juveniles were
treated much like adults
 Change in the 1700s brought about
 Population growth
 Disorder
 The need for child-caring institutions were established
such as:
 Almshouses (poor houses)
 Orphanages – one of the first was organized in
Savannah Georgia

THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION OF
JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS
 The
First Juvenile Institutions: Houses of
Refuge (1825-1850s)

1825 New York House of Refuge




A focus on juvenile lawbreakers
Movement across major U.S. cities
An institution to shield children from vice in the
larger society—a buffer from societal breakdowns
An institution to train children to resist temptations”
Military based
 Congregate living
 School model
 Criminogenic environment


An institution to simulate the ideal puritan family
THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION
OF JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS
 Reformatories,
Training Schools, and the
Cottage System (1846-1980s)

Reformatories as houses of refuge with a
different name
 Housed petty offenders—wayward and vagrant
youth
 Criticisms abounded that reformatories were
schools of crime
 Led to the adoption of the training
school/industrial school
THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION
OF JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS
 Reformatories,
Training Schools, and the
Cottage System (1846-1980s)

The training school
Shunned the school model for the family model
 Normalized environment (e.g., freedom of yard)
 Introduction of classification and grading, and a premium
on vocational programs
 The cottage system of living, not the congregate living in
reformatories
 Were the setting for social and psychological experiments
 Called state schools, industrial schools, and boys’ homes
today

THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION
OF JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS

The Juvenile Correctional Facility (1980s-present)
 Institution “within” a juvenile correctional system
 Concentration points for the “worst of the worst”
juvenile offenders
 Strict environment
 Security intensive
 Rehabilitation a 2nd, or 3rd tier goal
 Hold juveniles who may be transferred to adult
prisons
TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS
 Institutions
for juveniles may be generally
categorized as:
 Short-term and long-term
 Secure and non-secure
 Pre and post-adjudication
 There
are numerous types of facilities for
juveniles
 Perhaps the easiest categorization is pre
and post-adjudication
TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS
 Pre-Adjudication
Delinquents
Placements for
Adult Jails (short-term, secure)
 JJDPA restrictions and its “voluntary nature”
 Relatively few “juveniles” in adult jails
 Youth Shelters (short-term, non-secure)
 Rarely used for delinquents
 Sometimes used when delinquents is transitioning
from state school
 Detention Centers (short-term, secure)
 Primarily hold delinquents
 Equivalent to the adult jail in the criminal justice
system
 Used as transfer institutions, as a separate
disposition alternative, or a place for probation and
parole violators

TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS
 Post-Adjudication
Delinquents

Placements for
Diagnostic facilities (short-term, secure)
Purpose to assess and classify youth for proper
programming
 Not all states have separate diagnostic facilities
 State schools may serve double duty


Transfer facilities (short-term, secure)
Purpose is to hold youth until a “bed” opens up at a longterm facility
 Most states do not have a separate transfer facility for
juveniles
 County detention centers may serve same purpose in
those states

TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS

Post-Adjudication Placements for Delinquents
 Stabilization facilities (short-term, secure)

Hold mentally ill or emotionally disturbed youth

Suicidal behavior, depression, self-mutilation, etc.
Purpose is to “stabilize” youth and then send back to state
school
 County hospitals may serve this purpose in states without a
stabilization facility


State Schools and Juvenile Correctional
Facilities (long-term, secure)
Long-term is relative, as juveniles may stay an average of
225-365 days
 Mostly hold person and serious property offenders
 Most states incarcerate a disproportionate number of
minority offenders

TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS
 Post-Adjudication
Delinquents

Placements for
State Schools and Juvenile Correctional
Facilities (long-term, secure) (cont…)


Institutional programming
 Education, basic mental health treatment, vocational
training
 Issues with quality education in state schools
Focus of state schools and juvenile correctional
facilities
Rehabilitation, but a number of juvenile directors rank
deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution as goals
 Juvenile directors believed that less than one-half of
juveniles can be rehabilitation
 Goals may be switching from rehabilitation to something
else

TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS

Post-Adjudication Placements for Delinquents
 Juvenile Boot Camps (short/mid-term, secure)
 Supervision intense environment
 Mid-range offenders
 Recidivism impact is not promising
 Major forms of abuse and death found in juvenile boot
camps
 Ranches and Forestry Camps (Long-term, secure)
 Considered “non-institutional institutions”
 In rural or tree laden areas
 Second to state school in average length of stay
 For a specialized type of delinquent
 May handle serious delinquents such as Florida’s FEI
“Last Chance Ranch”
TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS

Post-Adjudication Placements for Delinquents

Transition facilities (short-term, secure)
 Called halfway houses, group homes, or
residence home
 Usually for transition out of a state school—a
“halfway out” house
 A period of supervised release to ensure smooth
transition to the streets
TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS

Post-Adjudication Placements for Delinquents

Adult Prisons (long-term, secure)
 The most severe institutional sanction for a delinquent
 Waived juveniles may be sent to adult prison
 Roughly 5,000 juveniles nationwide in adult prisons
 Typical juvenile inmate is male, black, age 17 or 18, who
committed a person offense, with average maximum
sentence of eight years
 Dangers of juveniles in adult prisons include
victimization and gang recruitment
 As a result, special housing procedures may be used for
juveniles including graduated and segregated adult
incarceration.
 Straight adult incarceration makes no attempt to
separate juveniles from adults in prisons
 Specialized programs exist for juveniles in prisons that
are not offered to adult inmates
TYPES OF JUVENILE PLACEMENTS

Placements for Non-Delinquents
Such placements may include youth shelters,
foster homes, group homes, mental health
facilities, substance abuse facilities
 The concept of “hidden delinquents”
 Civil commitment of delinquents
 Less due process rights than delinquents
facing adjudication, despite potential of
losing freedom

CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS

Conditions of Confinement in Juvenile Institutions
 Overcrowding
 35% of state schools are overcrowded, roughly 20%
over their rated capacity
 Overcrowding may be a problem because of its
byproducts, such as heightened stress, victimization
and injury, spread of sickness and disease
 Rhodes v. Chapman (1981) that overcrowding is not
unconstitutional unless it interferes with sanitation,
delivery of medical care, food, or increases inmate
violence
 Standards may be different for juvenile institutions as
juveniles may be less able to withstand overcrowding
 U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue for
juveniles
CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS

Conditions of Confinement in Juvenile Institutions (cont…)
 Suicide Prevention
 Little systematic data available on attempted suicides
in institutions, but high estimates.
 Some 17,000 “known” instances each year in juvenile
institutions
 Many more not likely detected
 A major problem, considering juveniles are less stable
than youth in general population
 Substance abuse
 Impulsiveness
 Poor family history
 Histories of physical and emotional abuse
 Staff are usually ill-equipped to deal with such
complex issues
 Policies and efforts to deal with suicidal behavior in
juvenile institutions
CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS

The Rights of Institutionalized Juveniles
 The right to treatment
 Juveniles have a right to treatment
 Treatment may include, according to some courts:
 Minimum standards for youth assessment, medical and
psychiatric care, adequate living conditions, proper
lighting, bedding, clothes, daily showers, and access to
medical facilities
 According to one case, treatment is “minimally adequate
programming designed to teach the necessary principles
to correct their behavior”
 Treatment is not, according to some courts
 The use of solitary confinement
 Unregulated use of anti-psychotic drugs
 Withholding of food, shelter, or clothing
 The use of corporal punishment
CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS
 The

Rights of Institutionalized Juveniles (cont…)
The right to treatment (cont…)
 There may be no absolute right to treatment,
however
 The U.S. Supreme Court said that a juvenile
does not have an absolute right to treatment,
if it is proven they would not benefit from it
 Proof generally derives from the juvenile’s
behavior in an institution
CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS

The Right to Be Free from Cruel and Unusual Punishment
 Punishment that is tortuous, degrading, inhuman, and
grossly disproportionate to the crime in question or
otherwise shocking to the moral sense
 Arkansas’ juvenile facilities 1970s
 Texas Youth Commission
 Morales v. Turman (1973)
 The most extensive juvenile conditions case decided
 A case that dealt with due process rights and
conditions of confinement for juveniles
 Other cases of cruel and unusual punishment
 Inmates of Boys’ Training School v. Affleck
 Nelson v. Heyne
 Pena v. New York State Division of Youth
 Morgan v. Sproat
CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS
 The
Right to Be Free from Cruel and Unusual
Punishment

Clarifying cruel and unusual punishment
Use of chemical restrains
 Prolonged isolation
 Failure to protect
 Use of physical restraints for prolonged periods


Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act
(CRIPA)
Program of U.S. Department of Justice to investigate claims
of abuse in institutions across the country
 Can sue facilities to remedy unconstitutional conditions

CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT AND THE
RIGHTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED DELINQUENTS
 Access



to the Courts
Courts have held that juveniles have a
constitutional right to court access, despite the
protective nature of juvenile court intervention
The U.S. Supreme Court has not, but states do
give juveniles the right to court access
Some courts have rationalized that confinement
is confinement, regardless if it is in a juvenile or
adult institution