juvenile justice

Introduction

      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.

History and operation

      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 (juvenile court), 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).

Great Britain

      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.

United States

      The establishment of the first Children's Court of Law in Chicago in 1889 represented a major innovation in juvenile justice. Throughout the 19th century, juveniles in the United States who were accused of criminal behaviour were tried in the same courts as adults and subjected to the same punishments. Reports have indicated that during this period approximately one dozen youths were executed for crimes committed before they reached the age of 14.

      The reformist philosophy instituted in the juvenile court stressed probation (conditional release to parents or guardians) and the resolution of family problems presumed to be reflected in delinquent behaviour. Juvenile detention centres were intended to replace jails as the primary forms of temporary secure confinement during the processing of cases. Court proceedings were to be nonadversarial, operating “on behalf of” rather than against the juvenile. It was widely agreed that the emphasis on probation and family treatment was innovative, but the new system also extended the state's control over the behaviour of youth via the designation of status offenses. Moreover, confinement and imprisonment in a juvenile correction centre or reformatory (also known by the term training school) persisted as a common outcome, especially for disadvantaged youths.

      A juvenile in the United States may be tried in criminal court rather than in juvenile court in any of the following circumstances: (1) state laws mandate such processing for certain offenses within a set age range (statutory exclusion), (2) prosecutors decide on a criminal proceeding with limitations based on offense and age (prosecutorial discretion), and (3) the juvenile court judge decides to waive the case within limits based on offense and age (judicial waiver). It is commonly assumed that such transfers result in harsher punishment for juveniles, but research has shown that the likelihood of some form of punishment is greater in the juvenile than in the adult justice system. Nonetheless, studies of cases that are transferred to criminal court show higher rates of subsequent offense relative to similar cases processed in the juvenile court.

      A trend toward harsher punishments for juvenile offenders, including the death penalty, began in the 1980s. In 2005, however, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (Roper v. Simmons) to raise the minimum age for eligibility for the death penalty to 18 years.

      A high proportion of cases involving juvenile offenders are handled informally by means of cautions or counseling. The procedure followed in juvenile courts is distinct from that of criminal courts. The juvenile court was originally founded as a coercive social-work agency rather than as a criminal court. Thus, juvenile courts normally have not been concerned with determining guilt or innocence so much as with making a finding of fact—that the juvenile is, for one reason or another, legally subject to the jurisdiction of the court. This finding of fact is comparable to conviction at a criminal trial in an adult court and is generally referred to as an adjudication. The adjudication of a juvenile as delinquent is the basis for a disposition, comparable to sentencing, in which either freedom in the community under supervision or confinement in a correctional facility can be ordered. In keeping with what was seen as the juvenile court's role as a welfare tribunal rather than a court of criminal jurisdiction, procedural standards in the United States were formerly rather elastic. Most American juvenile courts also deal with cases of neglect or abuse of children as well as with criminal and status offenses committed by children.

      Critics of juvenile courts in the United States have argued that, while they institute a rhetorical emphasis on children's rights, they nonetheless ignore constitutional protections and ultimately fail to serve the best interests of youth. In this connection there has been much disagreement, especially in the United States but also elsewhere, over whether the traditionally informal nature of juvenile court helps or hurts children. Some critics have argued that juveniles have been denied the rights commonly afforded adult criminal defendants. Numerous legal challenges to juvenile-court decisions prompted criminal courts in the United States to extend some due-process (due process) rights to juveniles, most of which pertain to the adjudication hearing (the hearing that determines the facts of the case). Juveniles consequently gained the right to be notified of the charges against them, to allow the cross-examination of witnesses, to have an attorney present at the adjudication stage, and to be protected from double jeopardy and self-incrimination. However, due-process rights are often disregarded, and juveniles still do not have the right to a jury trial.

      In most U.S. states, juvenile courts have jurisdiction over juveniles who commit offenses before the age of majority (generally 18 years, though it is lower in some states). The court's jurisdiction over a juvenile generally cannot extend past his 21st birthday—meaning that, regardless of the offense, juveniles are required to be released when they turn 21. A juvenile can, however, be confined beyond his 21st birthday if he is transferred to criminal court and tried as an adult, though most states prohibit the transfer of juveniles below a certain age. In some states juveniles as young as 10 can be tried as adults.

      In the final two decades of the 20th century, increasingly stringent laws were passed by most state legislatures in an effort to further deter juvenile crime. They included a variety of mandatory transfer mechanisms by which juveniles who had committed certain serious crimes, or who had a prior record of committing such crimes, could face transfer to adult prisons upon reaching age 21. The pressure for tougher treatment of juvenile offenders also resulted in the creation and proliferation of prison-visitation programs, which are aimed at scaring juveniles by directly exposing them to prison life, and militaristic “boot camps,” which seek character reform through extremely strict discipline and highly structured routine. Although such methods were very popular toward the end of the 20th century, support for them eroded when research demonstrated that they failed to reduce levels of recidivism. Many states also incorporated juvenile records into the sentencing guidelines for criminal courts so that an adult offender who had a juvenile record would receive a longer sentence than one who did not—thus undermining the widely held notion that juvenile offenders get a “fresh start” with a clean record when they become adults.

      An increasingly popular approach, known as “restorative justice,” has been used especially in cases of delinquency unrelated to gangs (gang). Essentially, restorative justice attempts to make the juvenile offender aware of the consequences of his actions for the victim, with the larger aim of developing in him a sense of responsibility and accountability. This approach also sometimes requires the offender to pay restitution or to compensate the victim in some meaningful way. By effecting a kind of reconciliation between offenders and their victims, restorative justice seeks to reintegrate the offender into the community and to foster agreement between the parties that justice has been served.

Continental Europe

      Because the modern juvenile justice system effectively originated in the United States, most early delinquency laws in European countries were modeled on the concepts and practices used in Chicago in the late 19th century. However, each European country implemented programs suited to its own history, culture, and values. France, for example, placed priority on the educational and emotional needs of youth. The country passed its first juvenile court legislation in 1912, which created a court dedicated to handling juvenile cases. A more comprehensive system in use since 1945 is based upon the Tribunal for Children, a court composed of three members, one of whom is a juvenile judge. Lesser offenses committed by youths are handled by a children's judge who functions as a magistrate and who is charged with both investigating and judging minor cases involving juveniles.

      Examples of juvenile criminal cases being treated separately from adult cases can be found in early Germanic law. Although concerns over juvenile justice strengthened in the 1870s, it was not until 1923 that Germany established a separate system of juvenile courts.

      The contemporary juvenile system in Germany reflects the practices that developed in the Federal Republic (West Germany) after World War II. The primary goal of the German system is not to punish but to instruct delinquent youth and to change undesirable behaviour patterns, often by working within the family. Status offenses do not exist in the German legal system, but German youths who exhibit delinquent behaviour are often handled by the welfare system and by a guardianship court (family court). German law also recognizes three juvenile categories: children (those under 14 years of age, who are presumed to be not responsible for their actions because of their youth), juveniles (those between the ages of 14 and 18), and adolescents (those between the ages of 19 and 21). Generally, adolescents are considered more accountable for their actions than juveniles.

      Prosecutions of juvenile cases also differ depending on the seriousness of the offense: relatively minor cases (involving less than one year of incarceration) are handled by a juvenile court judge; more serious cases are heard by a tribunal composed of one juvenile judge and two lay judges; and the most serious cases are reserved for another mixed tribunal consisting of three trained judges and two lay judges.

Juvenile justice in other systems

China (Chinese law)

      In most other countries, juvenile justice is modeled after the U.S. system but incorporates variations based on local traditions. In china, for example, juvenile justice is defined by traditional, communal, and familial principles that nevertheless reflect the influence of communism. Traditionally, the Chinese system was informal, depending on corrective measures instituted by schools and parents. Yet China's burgeoning juvenile population, which exceeded 300 million in the early 21st century, requires a well-organized and far-reaching system for handling youthful offenders. Although the country began, after World War II, to incorporate more formal legal principles and procedures into its system of handling juveniles, the process was virtually halted by the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Although juvenile justice programs subsequently reemerged, the country nonetheless operates one of the youngest systems of juvenile justice among the world's major economic and political powers.

      The contemporary Chinese approach can be traced to Shanghai, where the country's first juvenile court was established in 1984. China follows most Western standards in setting 18 as the age of criminal responsibility, but it also assigns lower levels of responsibility beginning at age 14. China does not recognize status offenses, and responsibility for the correction of problematic juvenile behaviour thus lies with parents and schools, in keeping with traditional Chinese customs and practices.

The Philippines

      Other Asian societies have developed systems of juvenile justice that blend cultural and economic traditions with the influences of former colonial powers. In the Philippines, for example, which was a colony of the United States from 1898 to 1946, a juvenile court system was established with the U.S. system as its model. The first delinquency law was created in 1930 (as part of Article 80 of the Revised Penal Code), but it was not until 1955 that the first juvenile court was established, in Manila.

      This system was rarely used, however, especially in the provinces, largely because of a lack of funds but also because of cultural traditions and government policies. It was replaced by a strong and far-reaching barangay system, legally established in 1978 and based on principles of reconciliation and informal mediation. Every person in the country lives within a barangay, which is a political unit headed by an elected official, a captain. Virtually all minor cases of juvenile misbehaviour (and many serious ones as well) are handled within this system, which explicitly excludes lawyers and the advocacy approach to resolving citizen complaints. More serious cases of juvenile offense are officially handled by the national Department of Social Welfare and Development. The passage in 2006 of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act placed new emphasis on restorative justice and declared juveniles under the age of 15 to be criminally exempt.

Brazil

      In Brazil, juvenile delinquency is covered under the provisions of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. This act was established in the Penal Code of 1940 and has been revised several times. The Minor's Code, for example, had focused on removing delinquent children from the streets; it was replaced in 1990 by the Child and Adolescent Statute, which placed greater emphasis on reinforcing responsible behaviour in children. The age of majority—which signals the age of criminal responsibility in addition to voting privileges and other rights—is 18.

      Cases involving young offenders (generally defined as preadolescents) are usually handled within a tribunal system known as a council of guardianship. Every municipality in Brazil is required to have at least one such tribunal, which is composed of five locally elected members. Cases involving older children are typically handled within the juvenile court system. Both systems can use a variety of dispositions (i.e., punishments and rehabilitation programs), all aimed at reintegrating the offender into the community; these include admonition (basically, a stern warning), community service, and “assisted freedom,” which means being supervised in the community in a format similar to probation. Older youths—that is, those up to the age of 21—can also be subject to confinement or incarceration.

Egypt

      In Egypt, delinquency is a governmental concern, and juvenile offenders are usually not referred to parents for correction, except in cases of children whose behaviour indicates the possibility of future delinquent behaviour. Through a delinquency law passed in 1974 (revised in 1996), Egypt established 18 as the age of majority, although rehabilitative efforts and incarceration can last until age 21. Juvenile offenders under the age of 15 are for the most part not subject to punitive measures from the state.

Nigeria

      Nigeria's system of juvenile justice, which is modeled after the British system, was established in 1914, although it has been modified in various locations to accommodate local customs. Juvenile offenders are legally defined as those aged 7 to 17, and they are subject to the authority of the juvenile court, as established in 1958 by the Children and Young Persons Act. Juvenile court proceedings take place in two courts, a higher court consisting of a single judge and a magistrate court composed of a magistrate and two laypersons, including one woman. Proceedings are formal and are intended to protect the juvenile's rights. In contrast to many countries, however, Nigeria places more emphasis on punishment than on rehabilitation. Community treatment efforts are generally not well organized in the country. According to some experts, this lack of communitywide rehabilitation is partly the result of the breakdown of the extended-family system, which had previously influenced the socialization and control of children.

Research and debate

      Juvenile offenders have been a special focus of research in the field of criminology. Most early studies compared juveniles who were processed by juvenile courts with the general population or to groups of nondelinquents. Such cases were considered to be biased, however, usually because they were based on nonscientific samples of youths who committed (or did not commit) delinquent offenses. Research that utilized interview and questionnaire responses gathered from representative samples of youths had become the dominant method for studying juvenile delinquency by the 1970s. Such research generally confirms higher rates of delinquency among the following groups: (1) boys rather than girls, especially for the most serious offenses, (2) minority youths for major property and violent offenses, (3) youths with delinquent peers, (4) youths who have dropped out of school or who have difficulties in school, (5) youths whose parents neither communicate with them nor monitor their activities, (6) youths who do not accord moral authority to the law and its representatives, (7) youths who exhibit little empathy or concern for the effects of their actions on others, (8) youths whose parents have committed offenses or have exhibited violence in relationships within the family, and (9) youths who come from neighbourhoods with high crime rates and who have few positive forces in their lives—that is, youths with little social capital. Although there is some evidence that variations in physiological and hormonal characteristics may affect delinquency, they appear to do so through their effects on learning and social relationships.

      The information garnered through such research influenced the design of several programs aimed at preventing or reducing delinquency. Correctional programs that strove to change offenders through group processes recognized the role of peer groups in promoting—and preventing—delinquent behaviour (see group therapy). Such programs included those aimed at parents (including constructive techniques for monitoring and responding to misbehaviour), those intended to increase a commitment to one's school, those aimed at restorative justice and encouraging empathy through restitution, and neighbourhood surveillance projects such as Neighborhood Watch, recreational activities for juveniles and adults, and local problem solving.

      Systems of juvenile justice are frequent subjects of criticism, not least because they are expected to accomplish a number of varying, and sometimes incongruent, goals, such as deterring delinquency, incapacitating serious offenders, establishing appropriate retribution, and rehabilitating and protecting youth. Some conservative critics have challenged the use of probation in dealing with juvenile offenders and have called for the abolition of juvenile courts on the grounds that they are not sufficiently punitive. Liberals, meanwhile, have criticized juvenile courts for often ignoring rights of due process. A commonly proposed alternative would reinstate a single justice system with special considerations in sentencing based on age—a policy that would require extending to juveniles the same due-process rights enjoyed by adults.

      The concept of family treatment has been the object of significant attention. In this approach, the family is viewed as a major influence on the attitudes and behaviours of young persons; the treatment of delinquency therefore emphasizes patterns of interaction between family members. Particular attention is paid to parenting skills, discipline, and control tactics, especially for teenagers.

      Defenders of the juvenile justice system point to the fact that most youths whose cases are handled by juvenile courts appear only once. Furthermore, only a small proportion of such offenders will progress to more serious courses of adult crime.

      One trend in juvenile justice philosophy at the turn of the 21st century emphasized restorative justice, which accords equal weight to victims' rights and offender rehabilitation while placing particular value on restitution. Ongoing evaluations of such programs have shown promise toward the reduction of recidivism.

Gary Jensen Donald J. Shoemaker

Additional Reading

General texts on the subject of juvenile delinquency include Clemens Bartollas, Juvenile Delinquency, 7th ed. (2006); Larry J. Siegel, Brandon C. Welsh, and Joseph J. Sennam, Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law, 9th ed. (2006); Donald J. Shoemaker and Timothy W. Wolfe, Juvenile Justice: A Reference Handbook (2005); and Thomas J. Bernard, The Cycle of Juvenile Justice (1992). Special topics are treated in Meda Chesney-Lind and Randall G. Shelden, Girls, Delinquency, and Juvenile Justice, 2nd ed. (1998); Barry C. Feld, Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court (1999); and Richard Lawrence, School Crime and Juvenile Justice, 2nd ed. (2007). Social aspects are explored in Richard J. Lundman, Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency, 3rd ed. (2001); and Anthony M. Platt, The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency, 2nd ed., enlarged (1977).Theory and policy are the subjects of Larry J. Siegel and Brandon C. Welsh, Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, 3rd ed. (2008); Donald J. Shoemaker, Theories of Delinquency: An Examination of Explanations of Delinquent Behavior, 5th ed. (2005); Simon I. Singer, Recriminalizing Delinquency: Violent Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice Reform (1996); and Franklin E. Zimring, American Youth Violence (1998). Perspectives on juvenile justice from many parts of the world are presented in Paul C. Friday and Xin Ren (eds.), Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in the Non-Western World (2006); and Donald J. Shoemaker (ed.), International Handbook on Juvenile Justice (1996).Donald J. Shoemaker

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