American juvenile justice system

The American Juvenile Justice System is the primary system used to handle youth who are convicted of criminal offenses. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.

Juvenile delinquency punishments trace back to the Middle Ages when crimes were severely punished by the Church. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, few legal differences existed between children and adults. Children as young as six and seven years were considered productive members of the family and their labor contributed to family income. In court, children as young as seven were treated as adults and could receive the death penalty. Early debates questioned whether there should be a separate legal system for punishing juveniles, or if juveniles should be sentenced in the same manner as adults

With the changing demographic, social, and economic context of the 19th century resulting largely from industrialization, “the social construction of childhood...as a period of dependency and exclusion from the adult world” was institutionalized. This century saw the opening of the first programs targeting juvenile delinquency. Barry Krisberg and James F. Austin note that the first ever institution dedicated to juvenile delinquency was the New York House of Refuge in 1825. Other programs, described by Finley, included: “houses of refuge”, which emphasized moral rehabilitation; “reform schools”, which had widespread reputations for mistreatment of the children living there; and “child saving organizations”, social charity agencies dedicated to reforming poor and delinquent children. These ‘child-saving efforts’ were early attempts at differentiating between delinquents and abandoned youth.

Prior to this ideological shift, the application of parens patrea was restricted to protecting the interests of children, deciding guardianship and commitment of the mentally ill. In the 1839 landmark case Ex parte Crouse, the court allowed use of parens patrea to detain young people for non-criminal acts in the name of rehabilitation. Since these decisions were carried out “in the best interest of the child,” the due process protections afforded adult criminals were not extended to juveniles.

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