The Juvenile Justice System

Wayne Reynolds

Fall 2011

Crime in Different Countries

Professor Stephanie Bush-Baskette, Esq., Ph.D

The Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile system as seen in the United States varies state to state and county to county. The juvenile system is completely different wherever you go, even in the same states. The juvenile justice system started with the medieval period in England, and it began to shape the juvenile justice system in the United States. In the United States the juveniles and adults were usually treated in the same manner, they were subjected to harsh punishment, mutilation, whipping, torture, and eventually death. The juveniles here were not viewed as a distinguished group of adults, everyone were viewed as equals from age seven and older and were treated as adult s and subjected to the same harsh and cruel punishments. The colonial period, which ran from 1636-1823 was the period in which we started seeing the idea of treating juvenile differently. During this period the history of the United States juvenile justice system began. We now saw the establishment of an informal form of social control.

The development continued with the House of Refuge period which ran from 1824 through 1898 and was also known as the immigration, Industrialization, and urbanization period. With these factors coming together, more people began looking for work in the cities. This resulted in children roaming the streets while the parents were working as there was no supervision for the kids. Philanthropists became concerned with the welfare of their children, some of the philanthropists were Jane Adams, Julia Winthrop, and Louis Brown, and they saw the problem for juveniles as coming from the families' inability to provide social control for the juveniles. The philanthropist now wanted to build a substitute for the family, they wanted to provide an ideal substitute, which would provide an ordinary and discipline environment for the juveniles. The ideal substitute was the House of Refuge, was designed to house statues offenders and to protect juveniles from weak and criminal parents. The House of Refuge was supposed to stop the temptation of the streets and protect the juveniles from moral weaknesses.

During the Period of 1899-1966 we then saw the development of the juvenile court period which was actually generated by a single court case "Ex Parte Crouse", here the state was given power over the care, custody, and control of the children, and this was over the parents of those children who now came in contact with the juvenile justice system. This case launched the juvenile justice system in the United States. The first juvenile court was created in Cook County, Chicago in 1899 and was based on the premise of "Parens Patriae" it was of the belief that juveniles were not entirely responsible for their actions, the juvenile's actions was based on poverty , inadequate family, neighborhood, and school system.

The juvenile rights period followed and this occurred during the period 1967-1975 here the United States supreme made a bunch of decisions that affect the juvenile justice system across the United States. More rights were given to the juveniles during this period. There was also a reduction in the use of juvenile institutionalization. We saw more community based sanctions and more diversions of statues and minor offenders from the juvenile justice system.

The 1970's to the early 2000's was the best period in the juvenile justice system. The 80's saw an increase in the level of juvenile violent crimes causing an increase in the fear of crimes. This resulted in a movement for institutionalization it was a change in from a rehabilitative model. This eventually led to "the Get Tough Era" which led to more changes, such as preventative detention and statues making it easier for juveniles to be transferred to the adult criminal court by lowering the age.

In looking at the juvenile justice system in Australia, it too has evolved. However, the fundamental continuity in their juvenile justice system has been the ongoing focus on work class, minorities, and the indigenous youth (C Muncie & Goldson, 97) .There have also been changes in the ideology, the policy and practice of the juvenile system in Australia. In the last decade Australia saw heighten public concern and moral premise about ethnic minority youth. The imposition of mandatory sentences on juvenile offenders, adoption of a zero tolerance and significant extension of public powers were some of the measures implemented to combat their public concern.

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