juvenile justice volume vi, number 2 · catherine doyle senior editor earl e. appleby, jr....

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

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An Evolving Juvenile Court:On the Front Lines With

Judge J. Dean LewisAlso

◆ The Juvenile Court at 100 Years◆ Putting Research To Work for

Prevention

100th Anniversary of the Juvenile Court1899–1999

Volume VI • Number 2

From the Administrator

On the centennial anniversary of the creation of the juvenile court, it isfitting to commemorate its diverse and distinguished accomplishments. In earliercenturies, youth were tried in the same courts, sentenced to the same prisons, and,on occasion, condemned to the same gallows as adults. The juvenile court’s recogni-tion that the developmental differences between children and adults require distinc-tions in the way they are treated by the judicial system is worth honoring, as Judge J.Dean Lewis reminds us. The immediate past president of the National Council ofJuvenile and Family Court Judges, Judge Lewis speaks with authority about the manyreasons to celebrate the centennial of “An Evolving Juvenile Court.”

Although the juvenile court’s fundamental focus remains on the individual youthwho stands before it, we have come a long way since the Illinois legislature estab-lished the first children’s court in Chicago in 1899 with jurisdiction over dependent,neglected, and delinquent youth. Prof. Robert Shepherd summarizes and commentson that progress in “A Look Back” at the juvenile court’s impressive history.

That history, however, should serve as a prologue. As Judge Cindy Lederman per-ceptively observes, the juvenile court’s 100th anniversary affords us an excellent op-portunity not only to reflect on its historic accomplishments but to discuss how wecan go about “Putting Research To Work for Prevention” and collaborate across dis-ciplines to determine empirically “what works.”

We have come a long way, but we still have a way to go. We must not retreat fromthe path of progress charted by those reform-minded pioneers 100 years ago. We willnot abandon the individualized justice that lies at the heart of their legacy—or theyouth whose future depends in large part on the wisdom and perspective of the juve-nile court.

To help inaugurate the court’s second century, OJJDP has launched its JuvenileCourt Centennial Education Initiative, whose theme is “Delivering on the Promiseof the Juvenile Court.” By highlighting new insights and advances, the initiative willhelp to revitalize the court and restore public confidence in the work of the juvenilejustice system.

Shay BilchikAdministratorOffice of Juvenile Justiceand Delinquency Prevention

Volume VI • Number 2 December 1999

810 Seventh Street NW.Washington, DC 20531

(202) 307–5911

Shay Bilchik, Administrator

Editorial Advisory Board

Shay Bilchik, Chair

John J. Wilson,Deputy Administrator

State and Local Programs

Betty Chemers, DirectorResearch and ProgramDevelopment Division

Donn Davis, Acting DirectorSpecial Emphasis Division

Roberta Dorn, DirectorState Relations andAssistance Division

Eileen M. Garry, DirectorInformation Dissemination Unit

Ronald Laney, DirectorMissing and Exploited

Children’s Program

Emily Martin, DirectorTraining and Technical

Assistance Division

Executive EditorEileen M. Garry

Managing EditorCatherine Doyle

Senior EditorEarl E. Appleby, Jr.

Production EditorEllen Grogan

Juvenile Justice (ISSN 1524–6647)is published by the Office of Juve-nile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention (OJJDP) to advanceits mandate to disseminate infor-mation regarding juvenile delin-quency and prevention programs(42 U.S.C. 5652).

FEATURESAn Evolving Juvenile Court: On the Front LinesWith Judge J. Dean Lewis ....................................................................................... 3

“The first juvenile court was established with the belief that youth are everyone’sresponsibility. Courts and communities need to become partners to ensure that thecourt has the resources necessary to deal effectively with the problems of youth andtheir families.”

The Juvenile Court at 100 Years: A Look Backby Robert E. Shepherd, Jr. ............................................................................................. 13

Prior to 1900, at least 10 children were executed in the United States for crimes com-mitted before their 14th birthdays. Other children died in adult prisons. These deathsshocked the public conscience, and Americans began to seek pervasive reform.

The Juvenile Court: Putting Research To Work for Preventionby Cindy S. Lederman ................................................................................................... 22

The juvenile court has the potential to be the most effective prevention tool in thejuvenile justice system. However, this cannot occur unless judges take the lead inrevitalizing and professionalizing America’s juvenile courts.

IN BRIEFJustice Matters

Delivering on the Promise of the Juvenile Court ................................................. 32Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report ...................................... 32

OJJDP OnlineCourt-Focused URL’s ............................................................................................ 34

ORDER FORM ....................................................................................................... 35

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of JusticePrograms, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, theNational Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarilyrepresent the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

An Evolving Juvenile Court: On the Front Lines With Judge J. Dean Lewis

3Volume VI • Number 2

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An Evolving JuvenileCourt: On the FrontLines With JudgeJ. Dean Lewis

JUVENILE JUSTICE: Judge Lewis, as wemark the 100th anniversary of the estab-lishment of the juvenile court, what doyou believe are its lasting achievements?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: When peoplemention the juvenile court, they oftenrefer only to the court’s jurisdiction overdelinquency cases. It is important to un-derstand that our jurisdiction has ex-panded considerably since the creation ofthe first juvenile court in Chicago 100years ago.

The Illinois statute created a court,known as the children’s court, with juris-diction over dependent, neglected, anddelinquent youth. Although jurisdictionvaries from State to State, judges are gen-erally vested with broad jurisdiction overproblems involving children and theirfamilies. These problems include:

◆ Child custody and visitation.

◆ Child and spousal support.

◆ Establishment of paternity.

◆ Divorce.

◆ Child abuse and neglect—both civiland criminal cases.

◆ Foster care, termination of parentalrights, and adoption.

◆ Truancy.

◆ Runaway youth.

◆ Children in need of services.

◆ Youth with mental illness and otherdisabilities.

◆ Crimes committed by family membersand partners against one another.

◆ Civil orders of protection for familymembers and youth.

◆ Crimes committed by and against youth.

The continuing expansion of the jurisdic-tion of juvenile courts has led legislatures

The Honorable J. Dean Lewisserves as judge of the Juvenile andDomestic Relations Court for the15th Judicial District of the Stateof Virginia and is immediate pastpresident of the National Councilof Juvenile and Family CourtJudges (National Council). In1997, Judge Lewis received theNational CASA Judge of the Yearaward. She has been invited byPresident Clinton to participate inThe White House Leadership Con-ference on Youth, Drug Use, andViolence and in Safe From theStart: The National Summit onChildren Exposed to Violence.This interview was conducted forJuvenile Justice by Earl E.Appleby, Jr., Senior Editor.

he journal’s On the Front Lines series features interviews withleading authorities on juvenile justice and related youth issues. Theseexperts have earned their credentials on the front lines in the strugglefor a better tomorrow for today’s youth and their families.

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to rename these courts “juvenile and do-mestic relations courts,” “family courts,” or“juvenile and family courts,” titles thatdescribe their evolving function and phi-losophy more accurately than “children’scourt.”

Youth are developmentally different fromadults, and these differences make themmore amenable to intervention and treat-ment. Few youth are beyond reform. Fromits inception, the juvenile court has fo-cused on rehabilitating youth rather thanpunishing them. The first juvenile courtwas established with the belief that youthare everyone’s responsibility. Courts andcommunities need to become partners toensure that the court has the resourcesnecessary to deal effectively with theproblems of youth and their families.

If we, as juvenile and family court judges,do not intervene early and effectively,the child who first comes before thecourt as a victim has a great likelihood ofreturning as an offender. To help youth,we must intervene effectively with theentire family.

Technically, we are commemorating thepassage of a piece of Illinois legislation en-titled “An act to regulate the treatmentand control of dependent, neglected anddelinquent children.” The work of turn-of-the-century progressives, it bears theirbrisk, businesslike, confident, and humanestamp.

The Act provided for the designationof a Cook County Circuit Court judgeto hear petitions asserting that a childwas destitute, homeless, abandoned, un-cared for, begging in the streets, beingmistreated, or breaking the law. It au-thorized the court to enlist probationofficers, “discreet persons of good char-acter,” who served without compen-sation, to investigate the basis forpetitions filed in the juvenile court

and provide “friendly supervision” ofthe youth before the court.

The Act prescribed no particular formalprocedures but gave the court broad pow-ers to order commitments, rearrangefamilies, and compel adult cooperationon pain of contempt.

The institution caught on quickly.Within a generation, similar courts hadbeen set up in nearly every State in theUnion.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: How do you accountfor the swift acceptance of the juvenilecourt? What do we celebrate in itscentennial?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: The reason islinked to what I regard as the first andmost fundamental triumph of the juvenilecourt: its recognition of the separate sta-tus of youth. The rapid acceptance of thejuvenile court was in effect a popular re-pudiation of the legal treatment of youththat had preceded it. For centuries, com-mon law held youth and adults to thesame legal standards, subjected them tothe same procedures in the same court-rooms, sentenced them to the sameinstitutions—even, on occasion, to the

Judge Lewis addresses an OJJDP NationalConference on court issues.



same gallows—as if there were no differ-ences between them. Thus, we must firstcelebrate the establishment of a separatecourt for children that recognizes theirdevelopmental distinctions from adults.

Second, we celebrate the evolution ofthe children’s court to the family court.The Chicago statute of 1899 gave thecourt jurisdiction over “dependent, ne-glected, and delinquent children.” Thisrecognition of the link between childvictimization, family disorder, and thepotential for child victims to become of-fenders unless early and effective inter-vention is provided was the beginningof the vision that became the modernfamily court—a single court responsiblefor both delinquency and child abuse andneglect, for children in need of supervi-sion and those in need of correction, andfor family dissolution and other mattersaffecting the welfare of children.

Over the past 100 years, legislatures haveseen that children are best served whenthe court dealing with their situation hasjurisdiction over all legal issues involvingthat child’s family. In 1914, the first full-fledged family court was established inCincinnati, OH. Family courts are nowoperating or are being developed in 20States, and other States are consideringthe idea and are likely to follow suit. Thecreation of a single forum within whichall matters relating to children can beresolved, regardless of the legal or equi-table categories in which they fall, seemslike a simple and inevitable step. In fact,it was neither. It was a breakthrough andis an ongoing historic achievement.

Third, we celebrate the juvenile court’streatment of each youth as a unique humanbeing. The purpose of this process of indi-vidualized justice was not to determine theappropriate degree of punishment, but todetermine how to help. The newly createdjuvenile courts introduced a more flexibleand constructive judicial approach to theproblems of children than the law had

previously provided. Court officials beganto approach troubled youth in a spirit ofhumane empiricism—common in medi-cine but new to law. Not only were theiraims therapeutic, their means and outlookwere essentially scientific. They attemptedto bring to bear on their cases the insightsof medical, social, and behavioral sciencesand made a place in their courtrooms forthe data and findings of research and ex-perimentation. Thus, we celebrate thefourth great achievement of the juvenilecourts: the introduction of the “medicalmodel,” which focuses on the need fordiagnosis and treatment in dealing withthe disposition of a court case. The colla-boration of juvenile courts with mentalhealth and substance abuse workers, socialworkers, health officials, school officials,and other professionals who deal with diag-nosis and treatment has been integral totheir success. With the development ofspecialized courts such as drug courts andthe use of evolving rehabilitative ap-proaches to sentencing, the criminal courtis now incorporating the medical modelinto its system.

Court officials began to approach troubledyouth in a spirit of humane empiricism—common in medicine but new to law.

Fifth, we celebrate the development inthe juvenile and family courts of alterna-tive methods for resolving legal proceed-ings. The early juvenile court judges didnot act like other judges, and their courtsdid not operate like other courts. In time,these discrepancies came to be regardedas detrimental. The story of how judgescame to be restrained and their courts’procedures formalized as a result of U.S.Supreme Court decisions is a familiarone. The juvenile courts adapted them-selves to the due process requirementsof Kent v. United States [383 U.S. 541

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(1966)], In re Gault [387 U.S. 1 (1967)],and In re Winship [397 U.S. 358 (1970)]more easily than most critics—and mostsupporters, for that matter—thought pos-sible. However, that does not mean thatthese courts have become just like theiradult counterparts.

Nonetheless, a valuable legacy of the ju-venile courts is the alternative they havealways offered to adversarial methods ofarriving at truth and settling disputes.In a sense, the juvenile courts pioneeredwhat is now called alternative disputeresolution, and juvenile court profession-als are still among the most active experi-menters in this field. Among responsible,compassionate professionals meeting ina forum in which the welfare of youth isinvolved, we find a flexible spirit, col-laborative process, regard for candor andplain speaking, and common desire forconsensus.

a youth, whether a victim or an offender,to remain in the community rather thanbe sent to an orphanage or correctionalfacility.

Seventh, we celebrate the leadership ofthe first judges who served in these courts,whose vision lives on today. Much of whathas been achieved on behalf of youth inthe 20th century has been achieved as aresult of the influence and leadership ofjuvenile and family court judges and courtofficials who were not only well educatedin the law, but well versed in other mattersthat affect children and families. Thesematters include child development, alcoholand substance abuse, mental health andlearning disabilities, child abuse and ne-glect, linguistics and child victim testi-mony, family violence, and rehabilitativeprograms.

Judges know that we cannot succeed inhelping youth and families alone. Weknow that it takes multidisciplinary,multiagency collaboration involving thecourts and communities. Those who cre-ated the juvenile court took their respon-sibility seriously, which is one of thereasons that this equitable, humane, andpragmatic alternative to the traditionallegal treatment of youth was so warmlyembraced by this country.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: As you have noted,Judge Lewis, there have been a numberof developments since those early years.A number of specialized courts—drugcourts, gun courts, even youth and teencourts—have come to play a role in thejuvenile justice system. How do you seetheir impact?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: Judicial leader-ship has been critical to the develop-ment of specialized courts for youth.The key philosophy that has guided thedevelopment of juvenile drug courts,family drug courts in dependency cases,and gun courts has been the use of indi-vidualized treatment with close judicial

The problems of youth can be best solvedin the home and through the family.

Sixth, we celebrate the innovation of thejuvenile and family courts in turningaway from institutions and toward fami-lies, a development that constituted adecisive reversal of the preference forinstitutional care that had dominated19th-century thinking. Although com-mitments to reformatories did not end,the juvenile courts recognized that theproblems of youth can be best solved inthe home and through the family.

The dispositional orders of juvenile andfamily courts are characterized by the rec-ognition of the sanctity of the familyunit, the need for placement of a youthwith extended family rather than withstrangers, the option of family foster carein lieu of institutional placement, andthe establishment of programs that allow



oversight. The availability of adequatecommunity-based resources for treat-ment plans that involve youth and theirfamilies has also been crucial.

Judges who sit in specialized courts at-tribute their success to the low caseloadassigned to each judge, frequent reviewhearings to monitor progress with imme-diate sanctions if the youth fails to abideby the court’s order, involvement of theyouth’s family in the rehabilitative pro-cess, and prompt availability of treatmentresources. Specialized courts are a hu-mane development in keeping with thetraditions of the juvenile court. One typeof specialized court—the teen court—isan important diversion program. Thiscourt enables volunteer youth in thecommunity to serve, depending on theprogram model used, as judge, jurors,prosecutor, and defense attorney inadjudication and disposition processes,providing them a powerful learningexperience. As to its effect on the juve-nile offender who is offered this alterna-tive, anecdotal evidence from judgesindicates that teen courts often holdyouth to a higher level of accountabilitythan traditional courts.

The National Council recommends thatjuvenile drug courts—another type ofspecialized court—be based on principlesand practices that are developmentally,culturally, and gender appropriate foreach youth. Juvenile drug courts shouldnot be developed as carbon copies ofadult drug courts for the same reason thatthe juvenile court was created in the firstplace—children are developmentally dif-ferent from adults. The problems thatlead youth to substance abuse often in-volve learning disabilities, mental illness,and family dysfunction. Our challenge isto develop a clear framework and toolsthat judges can use to fashion programstailored to meet local needs and the indi-vidual needs of youth and families.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: The number of juve-nile offenders waived to criminal courtappears to have increased over recentyears. What are your thoughts on thistrend?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: Widespread fear ofjuvenile crime and the suspicion that thejuvenile court is unable or unwilling todeal effectively with youthful offendershave generated a number of critics. Thejuvenile court’s perspective, methods,results, and even the basic concept thatled to its creation—the belief in the dif-ference between youth and adults—haveall been called into question.

Some critics question whether a distinctjuvenile court should exist.

These criticisms have prompted legisla-tures in virtually every State to take ac-tion to curtail the court’s jurisdiction,restrict its discretionary powers, relax itsconfidentiality, or increase the severityof its sanctioning. Some critics havequestioned whether we should even con-tinue to have a distinct juvenile court.

I believe this outlook arises from the gapbetween public perception and realitywith regard to juvenile crime trends, thejuvenile share of overall crime, the pro-portion of juvenile delinquents to thejuvenile population as a whole, and thethreat posed by juvenile violence. Forexample, we know that although juvenileviolent crime increased between 1985and 1994, it has consistently decreasedsince 1994. We also know that in 1994,when juvenile crime was at its highest,94 percent of the approximately 69 mil-lion youth under the age of 18 had neverbeen arrested. Less than 10 percent ofdelinquents commit violent crimes.Adult, not juvenile, violence is our

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Nation’s number one crime problem.Adults are responsible for three-fourthsof the recent increases in violent crimein the United States and commit sevenout of eight crimes. When juvenile courtsare given adequate resources, they can beeffective in curtailing juvenile crime.Five out of six youth referred to juvenilecourt for violent crime do not commit asubsequent violent offense.

focused, community based, multiagency,and multidisciplinary. They shouldinclude prescreening of youth and care-givers for substance abuse and mentalillness; any required followup assess-ment and treatment services for theyouth and caregivers; learning assess-ment of youth, with prescreening fordevelopmental delay; and public-privatepartnerships in the development of re-sources, including volunteer servicessuch as advocacy, mentoring, and tutor-ing. Interventions should incorporategraduated sanctions and accountabilityfor individuals subject to the court andensure safety for family and communitymembers while holding juvenile offend-ers accountable.

That being said, alternative dispositionsthat do not require incarceration aremost effective when the youth has afunctioning nuclear family or substitutefamily support network. The individual-ized family services and treatment plandeveloped by the court in the disposi-tional order should include the family.

Adult, not juvenile, violence is ourNation’s number one crime problem.

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By following the principles enunciated inthe National Council’s The Juvenile Courtand Serious Offenders: 38 Recommenda-tions and the Office of Juvenile Justiceand Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s)Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Vio-lent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders andmaking use of rehabilitative resourcesand sanctions programs, juvenile courtshave been able to reduce juvenile crime,even among serious and violent offend-ers. Recidivism rates have proven to bemuch higher among juveniles tried incriminal courts and placed in adult pris-ons than among those retained in juve-nile court. Juveniles transferred tocriminal court are more likely to commitnew offenses, commit them sooner, andat a higher rate.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: Alternatives to incar-ceration, ranging from alternative schoolsto home detention, are being advocatedfor some juvenile offenders. How do youview the role of alternative sentencingand for which types of offenders is it mosteffective?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: To be effective,interventions—whether addressingchild abuse or neglect, family violence,delinquency, or any other jurisdictionalissue—need to be child centered, family



Success requires intensive court monitor-ing and supervision and prompt availabil-ity of treatment and sanctions resources.A significant number of youth have sub-stance abuse, learning disability, andmental health problems that requireprompt and appropriate screening, assess-ment, and therapeutic intervention. It iscritical to remember that every youthand family is unique; therefore, programscannot be “one size fits all.” A well-qualified probation staff with access toprofessional staff who can assess youthimmediately after adjudication is essen-tial to matching the youth and his or herfamily with the programs and servicesthat can ensure a safe outcome.

A principal triumph of the juvenilecourt has been its turn away from insti-tutions and toward families. Juvenilecourts have always favored community-based sentencing over institutional care.We must remember, however, that someyouth have problems of such magnitudeand have exhibited these problems forsuch a long duration that they pose athreat to the community. For theseyouth, institutional care is necessaryand appropriate to deliver treatmentand establish accountability before astep-down program to community carecan be realized with any success. Wemust also be sensitive to the fears of vic-tims. Restorative justice models havebeen effective in this area.

The public must be able to feel confidencein alternative dispositions in order to ac-cept them in lieu of incarceration. Whenpeople begin to look beyond the myth ofthe “superpredator” to understand theconnection between family dysfunction,child victimization, and juvenile delin-quency, they will become more favorablydisposed to alternative dispositions. Suc-cess stories describing the youth who havebenefitted from court interventions mustbe publicized in the media as widely as arethe horror stories.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: The disproportionateconfinement of minority juveniles raisesa number of questions. Is the juvenilecourt in a position to affect this problem?If so, how?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: Judges are in aprime position to have an impact on dis-proportionate minority confinement byfollowing the recommendations in theNational Council’s policy statementMinority Youth in the Juvenile Justice Sys-tem: A Judicial Response. They shoulddiscuss the problem openly and shouldlead court-related agencies to identifythe practices and procedures of the jus-tice system that cause minority youth tobe at greater risk of removal from theirfamilies than other youth.

We need to remember, however, that theoverrepresentation of minorities in thecourt system exists in the dependency sys-tem (e.g., cases involving child abuse andneglect and foster care) in addition to thedelinquency system. The intake mecha-nisms for all systems should be reassessed,and ethnic and cultural sensitivity trainingshould be put in place for all who deal withyouth and their families.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: It seems the challengefacing juvenile court judges has neverbeen greater. What do you believe arethe most significant challenges facing thejuvenile court today, and what are thetools the court needs to surmount them?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: The National Coun-cil, in partnership with OJJDP and theState Justice Institute, sponsored TheJaniculum Project, a national symposiumto address this issue, in the fall of 1997. Inessence, juvenile courts need to build onthe triumphs they have achieved and mustenhance due process, court-communitycollaboration, and availability of rehabilita-tive resources and graduated sanction op-tions. Government needs to ensure thatthe juvenile courts have sufficient profes-sional staff to monitor cases. The courts

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need to integrate the child welfare and de-linquency intervention services in commu-nities. The approach to delinquency mustbe a multidisciplinary one.

The juvenile courts of the future need tobe involved in prevention and early in-tervention. The Federal grants availablefor the Safe Start Initiative (a project ofthe U.S. Departments of Justice andHealth and Human Services) are a stepin the right direction. The judiciary andthe citizens of this country must becomepartners in preventing abuse, neglect,and family violence in order to preventdelinquency. This focus will benefit fu-ture generations and improve quality oflife as we empower more youth and fami-lies with the skills to ensure a successfulfuture.

vention for at-risk youth in their commu-nities. There are successful programsacross the country that can be replicated.If we really want to make a difference,the tools are there. Judges can play aleadership role in making communitiesaware of the problem and the solutions.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: What role can judgesplay in improving the juvenile court sys-tem in the coming years?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: The NationalCouncil of Juvenile and Family CourtJudges encourages all judges who serve inthese courts to follow in the footsteps ofour founding fathers and:

◆ Step out from behind the bench andbe involved in the community.

◆ Be conveners and educators in theircommunities.

◆ Advocate for the development ofresources and ensure their availability.

◆ Recruit and train attorneys and court-appointed special advocates willing toserve as counsel and guardians ad litemfor children in the court.

◆ Ensure that all who advocate for chil-dren and families are well educated in thelaw, court procedures, and local resourcesfor children and families. Judges shouldhold these important court participantsto a high level of accountability.

◆ Administer an effective and efficientcourt system that implements good busi-ness practices in serving both a reha-bilitative and protective function forchildren and their families.

◆ Involve the citizens and the govern-ing body of the community in the processof change.

Working together, courts and communi-ties can shape the personality of thecourt to suit the needs of the communitythat the court serves. The work of thejuvenile court has always been, in the

The approach to delinquency must bea multidisciplinary one.

Court Improvement of Foster Care andAdoption programs have proven to bean important focus in the prevention ofdelinquency. These State projects havegiven needed guidance to judges and so-cial workers in methods to use in reduc-ing the time dependent youth linger infoster care. Because we now recognizefrom the research publicized by PresidentClinton that exposure to child abuse andneglect and family violence and later de-linquency are linked, there should be acommitment to effective interventionwhen the child is a victim. Because ofthis linkage, courts and communitiesneed to implement the recommendationsof the National Council’s recent publica-tion Effective Intervention In DomesticViolence and Child Maltreatment Cases:Guidelines for Policy and Practice.

Courts should encourage citizens to getinvolved in identifying and seeking inter-



The Janiculum Project: Reviewing the Past To Look Toward the JuvenileCourt’s FutureTaking its name from Janiculum Hill, the highestpoint in Rome, which became a 19th-century watch-tower for invasions from any direction, the JaniculumProject was initiated by the National Council of Juve-nile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), with supportfrom OJJDP and the State Justice Institute. Theproject is tasked with examining the past, present,and future of the juvenile and family court.

To inaugurate the project, juvenile court judges, pros-ecutors, defense counsel, court managers, probationofficials, victims’ advocates, and scholars convened in1997 to review the early history of the court; analyzecurrent practices, trends, strengths, and weaknesses;and discuss the expectations of and challenges for thecourt of the future. The group’s recommendationswere set forth in The Janiculum Report: Reviewing thePast and Looking Toward the Future of the JuvenileCourt, a blueprint for juvenile court reform.

Symposium participants recognized that the role ofthe juvenile and family court is in reducing factorsthat could lead to a juvenile’s court involvementand strengthening those that promote successfulcommunity reintegration. The court should addressdelinquent behavior through a balanced approach.This approach includes community protection, con-structive sanctions, juvenile accountability, and thedevelopment of skills to change the behavior thatled to the juvenile’s involvement in the system andwhich will enable him or her to become a contribut-ing member of society. The project’s recommenda-tions address the ways that courts can accomplishthis mission most effectively.

The Janiculum Report envisions a juvenile and familycourt that is more open, user friendly, and sensitiveto crime victims. The recommendations it containsare organized in four sections:

◆ Jurisdictional and structural recommendations,including the recommendation that juvenile andfamily courts have broad jurisdiction over theentire range of legal concerns of youth and fami-lies, including delinquency prevention functions.

◆ Procedural recommendations, including the rec-ommendation that youth have an unwaivableright to effective and well-compensated counselin juvenile court cases involving criminal andnoncriminal misbehavior and in cases of abuse orneglect.

◆ Programmatic recommendations, including therecommendation that the juvenile and familycourt should use a continuum of program optionsin the provision of services for dependent, ne-glected, abused, and delinquent youth and theirfamilies.

◆ System accountability recommendations,including the recommendation that juvenileand family court service providers use the bestavailable technology to enhance operationaleffectiveness.

In this centennial year of the juvenile court,juvenile justice practitioners will do well to re-flect on its status, considering where it has been,where it is now, and, most important, where itshould go. Only consistent and ongoing reviewcan ensure that the court will continue to meetthe needs of youth, on whom the Nation’s futurerelies.

For further information regarding the JaniculumProject, contact NCJFCJ, P.O. Box 8970, Reno,NV 89507, 702–784–6012. The full text of thereport is available on the NCJFCJ Web site(ncjfcj.unr.edu/homepage/online.html).

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words of one of my predecessors as Na-tional Council President, the HonorableGustav Schramm, “to draw together andto focus upon the problems of a child thebest the community has developed.”

JUVENILE JUSTICE: Judge Lewis, as ourdiscussion has illustrated, the juvenilecourt has adjusted to many societalchanges—both in behaviors and atti-tudes—over the past century. How doyou see the court evolving to meet theneeds of the 21st century?

HON. J. DEAN LEWIS: Probably the singlegreatest societal change we have encoun-tered is the breakdown of the nuclear andextended family. As young families relo-cate seeking jobs and housing, many ofthem, including single parents, feel iso-lated due to this movement away fromrecognized support systems. We need tobuild community support systems to re-place traditional family support systemsfor those single-parent families at highrisk because of their isolation. Again, ju-dicial leadership can be key in informingcommunities of the problem and of po-tential solutions. In my own jurisdiction,the population doubled in a 10-year pe-riod. Many of the new residents havebeen single parents looking for affordablehousing but commuting to work each dayto Washington, DC, or Richmond, VA,sometimes traveling 2 hours each way.These newcomers have no extended fam-ily in the area and spend so much timecommuting that they often do not havethe time to get to know their neighbors.They are at high risk due to their isola-tion and the unavailability of both thenuclear family and extended family sup-port systems we have relied on in thepast. Courts can partner with communi-ties as the first juvenile courts did toidentify families at risk and assist thembefore problems become unmanageable.

Juvenile courts have long been evolvingin the direction of the comprehensivefamily court—that is, toward dealingwith the family, whose members may bebefore the court over different issues, asa functioning unit rather than a collec-tion of disconnected individuals. Nodoubt, that movement will continue.The National Council has promoted amodel of “one family-one judge” in thedependency court system. This conceptneeds to be applied to all juvenile andfamily court cases.

Unquestionably, as a court, we need tobecome more efficient—swifter andsurer. We need to achieve a better under-standing of our successes. We need toface our failures more squarely. And weneed to continue to enlist the energy andsupport of the communities we serve.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: Thank you, JudgeLewis.

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The Juvenile Court at 100 Years: A Look Back


Robert E. Shepherd, Jr., is Profes-sor of Law at the T.C. WilliamsSchool of Law, University ofRichmond. He is a member of theBoard of Fellows, National Cen-ter for Juvenile Justice; chair of theVirginia Bar Association Commis-sion on the Needs of Children;and former chair of the JuvenileJustice Committee, American BarAssociation.

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The Juvenile Courtat 100 Years:A Look Backby Robert E. Shepherd, Jr.

ne hundred years ago, the Illinois legislature enacted the IllinoisJuvenile Court Act (1899 Ill. Laws 132 et seq.), creating the first sepa-rate juvenile court. The policy debates raging around the country in thiscentennial year, however, make it uncertain whether the traditionaljuvenile court will prevail. To put these debates in a proper historicalperspective, it may be useful to review the evolution of the court.

Early in the 19th century, juveniles weretried along with adults in criminal courts.In common law, children under age 7were conclusively presumed immune fromprosecution because they lacked moralresponsibility (the infancy defense). Chil-dren between ages 7 and 14 were pre-sumed not to be criminally responsible,and prosecutors had to prove that an in-dividual juvenile was culpable. Youth age14 and older were deemed as responsiblefor their criminal acts as adults.

Despite the law’s effort to temper the se-verity of trying and punishing children asadults, young children were sometimessentenced to prison and occasionally todeath. James “Little Jim” Guild, a blackservant, was 12 years old when he wasconvicted of murder after a 2-day trialand less than 3 hours of jury delibera-tions. A sentence of death was automaticat the time. While awaiting execution,Guild conducted a mock trial with micehe had captured in his cell. Newspapersreported that Guild’s attitude toward this

mock trial seemed the same as it hadbeen all during his imprisonment, that ofnot really comprehending the situation.

On execution day several thousandpersons came to . . . witness Guild’shanging. To accommodate thecrowds, the gallows was erectedin a large field just outside town.The procedure followed its solemncourse, complete with black hoodand noose around the neck. ButGuild shook off the hood as the trap-door was sprung, and . . . balancedprecariously on his toes at the edgeof the drop. The sheriff rushed backup the steps and pushed Little Jim’stoes off the edge and into thin air.Guild was thirteen years seven andone-half months old (Streib, 1987).

Prior to 1900, at least 10 children wereexecuted in the United States for crimescommitted before their 14th birthdays(Streib, 1987). Other children died inadult prisons. Virginia penitentiary

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Jury nullification began to play asignificant role in the acquittal ofchildren charged with crime.

records from 1876 reflect that a 10-year-old prisoner died from being scalded acci-dentally in a tub of boiling coffee. Thesedeaths shocked the public conscience.Accordingly, Americans in the 19th cen-tury sought more pervasive reform thanthe infancy defense to address the dis-tinctive nature of children and youth.

In an early legal assault on the involun-tary incarceration of children in suchinstitutions, a father sought a writ ofhabeas corpus from the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court declaring the commit-ment illegal. The court denied the writand concluded that “it would be an act ofextreme cruelty to release” the girl fromthe facility and refused to inquire intothe procedures for commitment, the du-ration of her incarceration, or the condi-tions within the school.1 This decision isoften credited with originating the use ofthe doctrine of parens patriae to justifyinformality and paternalism in dealingwith children in the courts. The term,meaning literally the “father of the coun-try,” was a doctrine used by English eq-uity courts to provide judicial protectionfor orphans, widows, and others.

ReformatoriesThe House of Refuge movement evolvedinto the slightly more punitive reformschool, or reformatory, approach. Thereformatory was created in the middle ofthe century to do the following (Platt,1977):

◆ Segregate young offenders from adultcriminals.

◆ Imprison the young “for their owngood” by removing them from adversehome environments.

◆ Minimize court proceedings.

◆ Provide indeterminate sentences tolast until the youth was reformed.

◆ Be used as punishment if other alter-natives proved futile.

◆ Help youth avoid idleness throughmilitary drills, physical exercise, andsupervision.

◆ Be used as a cottage approach withinlarger institutions in rural areas.

Early ResponsesHouses of RefugeIn the early part of the 19th century, to thechagrin of prosecutors, jury nullification—the process by which jurors acquit an ap-parently guilty criminal defendant ratherthan impose a disproportionately severesanction—began to play a significant rolein the acquittal of children charged withcrime. By creating the Society for the Pre-vention of Pauperism, Quakers in NewYork City sought to establish a balancebetween those concerned about jury nullifi-cation and those repelled by imprisoningjuvenile defendants in adult institutions orexposing them to the possibility of capitalpunishment. The society, which laterevolved into the Society for the Reforma-tion of Juvenile Delinquents, founded thefirst House of Refuge in New York in 1825to “receive and take . . . all such children asshall be taken up or committed as vagrants,or convicted of criminal offenses” (Pickett,1969). The children worked an 8-hour dayat trades such as tailoring, brass-nail manu-facturing, and silver plating in addition toattending school for another 4 hours. Manyof them had not committed any criminalact, and a number were probably statusoffenders.



◆ Reform youth by focusing oneducation—preferably vocationaland religious.

◆ Teach sobriety, thrift, industry, andprudence.

Later in the 19th century, an occasionallegal attack on the incarceration of chil-dren in such youth prisons was successful.In an 1870 case, the Illinois SupremeCourt held it unconstitutional to confinein a Chicago reform school a youth whohad not been convicted of criminal con-duct or afforded legal due process.2 Twoyears later, the school closed, and juve-niles convicted of crimes were sent toadult prisons or to a reformatory aftercriminal conviction. It was against thisbackdrop in the last quarter of the 19thcentury that the juvenile court move-ment began.

The Illinois JuvenileCourt ActThe 1899 Illinois Juvenile Court Actwas, in part, yet another response to the

growing incidence of jury nullification,concerns about the dominance of sectar-ian industrial schools in a Chicago fillingwith immigrants, and reform-based oppo-sition to confining youth with adults.While the Act did not fundamentallychange procedures in the existing courtsthat now were sitting as juvenile courtsto adjudicate cases involving children,it did reintroduce the parens patriae phi-losophy to govern such cases. In additionto giving the courts jurisdiction overchildren charged with crimes, the Actgave them jurisdiction over a variety ofbehaviors and conditions, including:

The Act defined a rehabilitative ratherthan punishment purpose for the court.

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[A]ny child who for any reason isdestitute or homeless or abandoned;or dependent on the public for sup-port; or has not proper parental careor guardianship; or who habituallybegs or receives alms; or who is liv-ing in any house of ill fame or withany vicious or disreputable person;or whose home, by reason of ne-glect, cruelty or depravity on thepart of its parents, guardian or otherperson in whose care it may be, isan unfit place for such a child; andany child under the age of 8 who isfound peddling or selling any articleor singing or playing a musical in-strument upon the street or givingany public entertainment.3

The Act was unique in that it created aspecial court, or jurisdiction for an exist-ing court, for neglected, dependent, ordelinquent children under age 16; de-fined a rehabilitative rather than punish-ment purpose for that court; establishedthe confidentiality of juveniles’ courtrecords to minimize stigma; required thatjuveniles be separated from adults when

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placed in the same institution in additionto barring altogether the detention ofchildren under age 12 in jails; and pro-vided for the informality of procedureswithin the court.

The court’s procedures in Illinois were,indeed, quite brief and simple, often con-sisting of the judge gaining the trust of theyouth through informal conversation andthen asking about the offenses charged. Inits initial year, the Chicago judge presid-ing over the first juvenile court, the Hon-orable Richard S. Tuthill, sent 37 boys tothe grand jury for adult handling, deemingthem unsuitable for the juvenile court’streatment orientation. His successor, theHonorable Julian Mack, described thecourt’s goals as follows:

The child who must be brought intocourt should, of course, be made toknow that he is face to face with thepower of the state, but he should atthe same time, and more emphati-cally, be made to feel that he is theobject of its care and solicitude. Theordinary trappings of the courtroomare out of place in such hearings.The judge on a bench, looking downupon the boy standing at the bar,can never evoke a proper sympa-thetic spirit. Seated at a desk, withthe child at his side, where he canon occasion put his arm around hisshoulder and draw the lad to him,the judge, while losing none ofhis judicial dignity, will gain im-mensely in the effectiveness of hiswork (Mack, 1909).

The juvenile court idea spread rapidlyacross the country.

The Juvenile Court’sEvolutionThe juvenile court idea spread rapidlyacross the country, having been adoptedby 46 States, 3 territories, and the Dis-trict of Columbia by 1925. In Colorado,a parallel movement occurred under theleadership of the Honorable Benjamin B.Lindsey, who sat on the county courtbench in Denver from 1901 until 1927(Larsen, 1972). He exercised a type ofjuvenile jurisdiction under the authorityof an obscure part of Colorado’s compul-sory school attendance law. He used thejurisdiction of the court not only to re-form youth who appeared before thecourt, but to reform the city of Denver.His reforms ranged from addressing po-lice corruption to ordering the creationof more playgrounds.

An incident that took place after JudgeLindsey left the juvenile court bench af-ter his electoral defeat illustrates his zeal.He removed the court records, storedthem in his home to keep them from hismore punitive successors, and finally—accompanied by his wife, friends, andreporters—went to a vacant lot andburned them.

The Professionalization ofCourt StaffIn the early days of the juvenile court,volunteers on the court’s own probationstaff, who were largely untrained, per-formed many of the service functions insupport of the judge. It soon becameclear that professional staff were neededto serve the court and its clientele (Fox,1970). As these professional services be-came more common, the role of volun-teers diminished.



The Challenge of the Juvenile Court1

by Dean Roscoe Pound

Roscoe Pound, Dean of Harvard Law School from1916 to 1936, was known as the dean of Americanjurisprudence. The following excerpt, taken from TheJuvenile Court Judges Journal, reveals his beliefnearly five decades ago that although the juvenile courthad done much to further justice and prevent delin-quency, much more work lay ahead.

Since the first setting up of the juvenile court greatprogress has been made in building upon it towardintegration of the activities of law enforcement, ofextralegal social control, of government and churchand school and civic societies, of social workers,and of philanthropic individuals in anticipating de-linquency, in reaching for its causes, and in rationaltreatment of its beginnings.

In particular, out of the juvenile court and experi-ence of its possibilities there has grown awarenessof the futility of dealing with the troubles of ahousehold in detached fragments after damage hasbeen done. We have been learning better methodsthan to have four separate courts in eight separateand unrelated proceedings trying unsystematicallyand not infrequently at cross purposes to adjust therelations and order the conduct of a family whichhas ceased to function as such and is bringing orthreatening to bring up delinquent instead of up-right citizens contributing to the productive workof the people.

It is not the least of the fruits of the juvenile courtthat we are ceasing and shall more and more ceaseto see a court of equity with a suit for divorce andalimony before it, courts of law with actions bytradesmen for necessaries furnished deserted wivesand children, actions for alienation of affections of

a spouse, actions over a child’s wages, and habeascorpus proceedings to obtain the custody of chil-dren before them, criminal courts with prosecu-tions for abandoning wife or child or both beforethem, juvenile courts entertaining proceedingsfor contributing to the delinquency of a child,special courts under one name or another, enter-taining guardianship proceedings, and very likelyalso juvenile courts determining what to do aboutspecific delinquencies of a child—as like as notall arising out of a single household.

Already there is a movement to substitute healingprocedures, devised to save households, for thecombative proceedings operating to make disrup-tion permanent; and this movement is the resultof experience gained in the juvenile courts andwisely directed activities of judges of juvenilecourts. Not only in what it has done in its ownsphere but in indicating to us a larger sphere inwhich there is much to be done and in showingus something of the way to do it, the juvenilecourt has made lasting contributions to the ad-ministration of justice.

But while we may well be proud of what thatcourt has been able to do in its relatively shorthistory, we must realize that its usefulness haslittle more than begun and that difficult tasks stilllie before it.

You who sit in American juvenile courts andtheir outgrowths are called to do a great work.You are called to carry on an outstanding forwardstep in the development of human powers totheir highest unfolding—in the maintaining, fur-thering and transmitting of civilization.

1 R. Pound. 1950. Future challenges judges. The Juvenile Court Judges Journal 1(4):21–23, 28 (the journal of the National Council ofJuvenile and Family Court Judges).

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Status OffensesThe juvenile court movement’s expansionbeyond urban areas was slower than thecourt’s initial growth during the first twodecades of the 20th century. The post-World War II period witnessed furtherdevelopment, however, as the “status of-fender,” a concept derived from statutorydefinitions of delinquency, became a sepa-rate jurisdictional category. New York cre-ated a new jurisdictional category forPersons in Need of Supervision (PINS):runaways, truants, and other youth whocommitted acts that would not be crimi-nal if committed by an adult. Other Statesfollowed New York’s lead. With the en-actment of the Juvenile Justice and Delin-quency Prevention Act of 1974 (Pub. L.93–415, 42 U.S.C. 5601 et seq.), theStates’ approach to these new categoriesof offenders changed dramatically, asyoung people subject to juvenile courtjurisdiction for noncriminal misbehaviorwere removed from juvenile detentionand correctional facilities. (The Act isdiscussed in more detail on page 20.)

Washington, DC.4 Because the trialjudge (1) failed to hold a hearing priorto transferring Morris Kent, a 16-year-old, to criminal court for trial and (2) didnot give Kent’s lawyer access to the so-cial information relied on by the trialcourt, the Court concluded that Kenthad been denied due process. TheCourt also concluded that there mustbe a meaningful right to representationby counsel and a hearing on the issueof transfers to criminal court. Counselalso must have access to the socialrecords considered by the juvenilecourt in making its decision, and thecourt must accompany its waiver orderwith a statement of the reasons fortransfer. The Court’s reliance on theDistrict of Columbia Code for its deci-sion in Kent, however, left doubt aboutthe significance of the holding forother jurisdictions. Justice Abe Fortassounded the following warning:

While there can be no doubt of theoriginal laudable purpose of juve-nile courts, studies and critiques inrecent years raise serious questionsas to whether actual performancemeasures well enough against theo-retical purpose to make tolerablethe immunity of the process fromthe reach of constitutional guaran-ties applicable to adults. Thereis much evidence that some juve-nile courts, including that of theDistrict of Columbia, lack the per-sonnel, facilities and techniques toperform adequately as representa-tives of the State in a parens patriaecapacity, at least with respect tochildren charged with law viola-tion. There is evidence, in fact, thatthere may be grounds for concernthat the child receives the worst ofboth worlds: that he gets neitherthe protections accorded to adultsnor the solicitous care and regen-erative treatment postulated forchildren.5

Society began to question the validity andvitality of the juvenile court’s informality.

Kent v. United StatesIn the 1960’s, society began to questionthe validity and vitality of the juvenilecourt’s informality and its focus on treat-ment without sufficient regard for dueprocess. Critics from the right com-plained that the court was incapable ofdealing with delinquent youth, whiletheir counterparts from the left urgedthat the court was ignoring the rights ofthose young people who were comingbefore it. Finally, in 1966, the U.S. Su-preme Court addressed the fundamentalfairness of the juvenile court processin Kent v. United States, a case from



In re GaultIn 1967, the President’s Commission onLaw Enforcement and Administration ofJustice, appointed by President LyndonJohnson, issued its Task Force Report:Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime,which expressed serious reservationsabout many of the fundamental premisesof the juvenile justice system, its effec-tiveness, and its lack of procedural safe-guards (President’s Commission on LawEnforcement and Administration ofJustice, 1967). That same year, manyof the questions raised by Kent and thePresident’s Commission were addressedby the U.S. Supreme Court in the his-toric decision of In re Gault.6

Gerald Gault was a 15-year-old chargedwith making an obscene telephone callto a female neighbor. He was convictedby a juvenile court in Arizona and com-mitted to a juvenile correctional facilityfor an indeterminate period not to ex-tend beyond his 21st birthday. JusticeFortas again wrote the opinion for theCourt and ruled that youth are also pro-tected under the 14th amendment. Healso stated that Gault’s constitutionalrights had been violated and that Gaultwas entitled to:

◆ Adequate notice of the precise natureof the charges brought against him.

◆ Notice of the right to counsel and,if indigent, the right to have counselappointed.

◆ The right to confront witnesses andhave them cross-examined.

◆ The privilege against self-incrimination,which applies to juvenile and adultproceedings.

The Court also concluded that, becausethe noncriminal label attached to juve-nile proceedings did not dictate thescope of the juvenile’s rights, callingsuch matters “civil” would not dictate

the parameter of the rights prescribed.Justice Fortas said that “it would be ex-traordinary if our Constitution did notrequire the procedural regularity and theexercise of care implied in the phrase‘due process.’ Under our Constitution,the condition of being a boy does notjustify a kangaroo court.”7 Gault markedthe constitutional domestication of theparens patriae juvenile court, and a newera dawned based on a more criminaldue process model contrasted with thehistoric informality of juvenile courtproceedings. Gerald Gault later spokeat an American Bar Association cer-emony honoring Amelia Lewis, the law-yer who initiated his suit. He observedthat, without a lawyer, he had no ideawhat was happening to him in court un-til the judge said he was committeduntil he was 21.

Later CasesIn subsequent cases, the U.S. SupremeCourt concluded that juveniles must beproved guilty beyond a reasonable doubtduring the adjudicatory stage of delin-quency cases;8 the right to a jury trial isnot required by the Constitution in de-linquency cases, although a State couldprovide a jury if it wished;9 and theConstitution’s Double Jeopardy Clauseprevents a juvenile court from transfer-ring a youth to criminal court after previ-ously finding him or her delinquent.10

The Court also decided that a youth’sMiranda rights regarding self-incriminationare not invoked by his or her request to seea probation officer during custodial inter-rogation by the police11 and that a youthcan be subjected to “preventive detention”awaiting trial.12 Thus, there is a somewhatschizophrenic quality to the juvenilecourt’s direction after almost two decadesof seemingly conflicting U.S. SupremeCourt decisions about due process. DeanRoscoe Pound of the Harvard Law Schoolstated that the juvenile court has become

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like “the illegitimate issue of an illicit re-lationship between the legal professionand the social work profession, and nowno one wants to claim the little bastard”(Reader, 1996).

The Act introduced a strong Federalpresence to the juvenile justice arena.

◆ It recognized the immense value inplacing the primary responsibility forimplementing those goals and policiesat the State and local community levelthrough a Formula Grants program con-ducted under the policy guidance ofState Advisory Groups, a majority ofwhose members are not governmentemployees.

◆ It created OJJDP to institutionalizethe Federal presence in juvenile justice.

◆ It established a discretionary grantprocess through the Special EmphasisPrevention and Treatment Program tomake awards directly to public and pri-vate nonprofit agencies to help developand replicate creative techniques andstrategies for realizing the Act’s purposes.

◆ It established a National Institutefor Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention to conduct research, evalu-ation, and statistics activities; gatherand disseminate information to thefield; and provide training and techni-cal assistance.

◆ It encouraged the development of na-tional standards to assist in reforming thejuvenile justice system.

◆ It embodied the goal of coordinatingFederal programs in the areas of delin-quency prevention and juvenile justice.

Obviously, the Act constituted a greatdeal more than the characteristics high-lighted above, but it was built largelyupon these pillars, with the most impor-tant ones being the identification of na-tional goals for the rehabilitation andreform of juvenile justice and the desig-nation of a Federal-State partnership forthe implementation of those goals. TheFormula Grants program placed theimplementation emphasis on the Statesand, through the State Advisory Groups,on local communities.C

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Juvenile Justice andDelinquency PreventionAct of 1974In addition to committing the FederalGovernment to removing status offend-ers and nonoffenders from secure facili-ties and separating juvenile offendersfrom adults in institutional settings (asdescribed on page 18), the Juvenile Jus-tice and Delinquency Prevention Acthad other important features:

◆ It introduced a strong Federal pres-ence to the juvenile justice arena bycommitting resources and establishinga legislative commitment to certain goalsand policies.



ConclusionToday, the future of the juvenile court is inquestion. This uniquely American institu-tion has been duplicated throughout theworld as the best model for the humaneand innovative handling of juveniles whocommit crimes. Many countries with newdemocracies have recruited American juve-nile justice experts to replicate the juvenilecourt born on U.S. shores a century ago.The juvenile court system’s contributionsto the just handling of children and fami-lies in the legal system should be cel-ebrated, and the court should be providedwith the support and resources that it needsto meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Notes1. Ex parte Crouse, 4 Wharton 9, 11 (Pa. 1838).

2. People ex rel O’Connell v. Turner, 55 Ill. 280,283–84, 287 (1870).

3. Illinois Juvenile Court Act, 1899 Ill. Laws 132et seq.

4. Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966).

5. Id. at 555–556.

6. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).

7. Id. at 27–28.

8. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 385 (1970).

9. McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528(1971).

10. Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519 (1975); Swisher v.Brady, 438 U.S. 204 (1978).

11. Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707 (1979).

12. Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253 (1984).

Supplemental ReadingCoalition for Juvenile Justice. 1998. ACelebration or a Wake: The Juvenile CourtAfter 100 Years. Washington, DC: Coali-tion for Juvenile Justice.

Fitzpatrick, J.L., and Keenan, B.M. 1999.The juvenile justice system—a circleclosed. Virginia Lawyer 47(1):24–30.

ReferencesFox, S. 1970. Juvenile justice reform: An historicalperspective. Stanford Law Review 22:1187–1239.

Larsen, C. 1972. The Good Fight: The Life andTimes of Ben B. Lindsey. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle.

Mack, J.W. 1909. The juvenile court. HarvardLaw Review 23:104–122.

Pickett, R. 1969. House of Refuge: Origins ofJuvenile Reform in New York State 1815–1857.Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Platt, A.M. 1977 (Revised from 1969). The ChildSavers: The Invention of Delinquency, 2d ed.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

President’s Commission on Law Enforcementand Administration of Justice. 1967. Task ForceReport: Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime.Washington, DC: U.S. Government PrintingOffice, Superintendent of Documents.

Reader, W.D. 1996. The laws of unintendedresults. Akron Law Review 29:477–489.

Simonsen, C.E. 1991. Juvenile Justice in America,3d ed. New York City, NY: MacMillan.

Streib, V. 1987. Death Penalty for Juveniles.Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

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he juvenile court is a noble institution—a noble, underfunded,often unappreciated institution charged with the most important dutyimaginable, protecting and reforming our children when all else hasfailed.

T

The Honorable Cindy S.Lederman is presiding judge ofthe Miami-Dade Juvenile Court,FL. Judge Lederman is a mem-ber of the Board on Children,Youth, and Families of the Na-tional Research Council andInstitute of Medicine.

The Juvenile Court:Putting Research ToWork for Preventionby Cindy S. Lederman

The scrutiny the 100th anniversary of thejuvenile court has brought to bear on theinstitution is welcome. It provides an op-portunity to examine the court’s record inattempting to achieve its virtually impos-sible charge. More important, it providesa forum to discuss the modifications thatneed to be made to design a juvenile courtthat can meet the challenges of the nextcentury. This discussion, involving legalscholars, researchers, judges, lawyers, his-torians, social scientists, and others, is tak-ing place at a time in history when societyis scared of its own children (Klein, 1998).

Society is permeated with rhetoric abouthow children are its most precious re-source, but too often those words ring hol-low. In reality, the needs of children arenot a national priority. One in five chil-dren lives in poverty, more than 11 mil-lion (1 in 7) have no health insurance,and among industrialized countries, theUnited States ranks 18th in infant mortal-ity (Children’s Defense Fund, 1998).Some children who have recently immi-grated to the United States appear to beprotected from these and other risk factors

(e.g., those involving physical and mentalhealth), but this advantage wanes withlength of residence and from one genera-tion to the next (National ResearchCouncil and Institute of Medicine, 1998).

The juvenile court is one of the fewplaces in society where the needs ofchildren are paramount and where apassion for helping children defines itswork. In the juvenile court, children arethe absolute priority. The juvenile courtis doing a creditable job under adversecircumstances toward achieving thesegoals—however, a better job is neededand, fortunately, it can be achieved.

Most citizens see the juvenile court as aninstitution designed to deal with youngoffenders who commit crimes. Althoughthis may be its most public function, thejuvenile court is much more. The disposi-tions of child abuse and neglect cases andcases involving the termination of paren-tal rights are equally and increasingly im-portant functions that are essential tounderstanding the relationship betweendependency and delinquency.1 There are

The Juvenile Court: Putting Research To Work for Prevention


more than 3 million reports of child abuseand neglect each year, almost half ofwhich are substantiated (Children’s De-fense Fund, 1998). These children, whohave been beaten, raped, starved, burned,maimed, neglected, and abandoned, are atincreased risk for delinquent behavior.Many of the children who are arrested forcommitting offenses are already familiarwith the juvenile court as dependent chil-dren. Data indicate that 75 percent of vio-lent juvenile offenders suffered seriousabuse by a family member, 80 percent wit-nessed physical violence, and more than25 percent had a parent who abused drugsor alcohol (Trask, 1997).

From Rehabilitation toPunishmentIn the past decade, the juvenile court hasundergone a major shift toward a morepunitive and less therapeutic institution.There have been significant changes inState juvenile codes based not on data orresearch, but on the misconception thatAmerica is in the midst of a violent juve-nile crime epidemic. Contrary to such per-ceptions, the record shows:

◆ The juvenile crime rate, while cycli-cal in nature, is declining (see Snyderand Sickmund, 1999).

◆ Adults—not youth—are responsiblefor most violent crime. Seven out ofeight violent crimes are committed byadults (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

◆ Although juvenile violence remainsat a higher level than a decade ago, it isdeclining (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

◆ Today’s youth do not commit moreacts of violence with greater regularitythan their predecessors, but more juve-niles are being arrested for violent acts(Snyder and Sickmund, 1999; Torbet andSzymanski, 1998). This means that the“superpredator epidemic” does not exist.

Despite these facts, virtually every Statehas enacted legislation during this de-cade to significantly alter the philoso-phy of juvenile justice and promote theview that the juvenile justice systemshould mirror the criminal justice sys-tem. Increasingly, judicial authorityand discretion have been taken awaydespite the belief that properly con-strained judicial discretion in chargingand sentencing is more effective thanprosecutorial or legislative control(Yellen, 1996). Limitations on juvenilejurisdiction, mandatory sentencing, andthe creation of more punitive program-ming have seriously affected the abilityof the juvenile judge to dispense justicein a therapeutic environment.

The juvenile court has undergone a majorshift toward a more punitive and lesstherapeutic institution.

The social reformers who created the ju-venile court 100 years ago believed thatchildren’s culpability for their actionswas limited and that delinquency wasclosely related to poor parenting, neglect,poverty, and lack of moral values. Theybelieved that children were malleableand that rehabilitation could occur underthe jurisdiction of a benevolent juvenilecourt through which the State adoptedthe philosophy of parens patriae.

Since that time, the juvenile court hasundergone significant change, from beingan institution focused on social welfareand acting in a child’s best interest toone, after In re Gault,2 focused onchildren’s due process rights, and, inthe 1990’s, to one focused on account-ability and punishment. None of these,alone, is enough. Today, the court mustsomehow simultaneously afford children

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due process, deliver swift and appropriatepunishment, and endeavor to rehabilitateand meet the therapeutic needs of juve-nile offenders and their families.

Juvenile or Criminal Justice?The “adultification” of the juvenile justicesystem continues to this day. Increasingnumbers of youth—some 17,000 peryear—are transferred to the criminal jus-tice system, often without benefit of judi-cial intervention in the decisionmakingprocess. Florida researchers, led by DonnaBishop, compared 3,000 transferredFlorida youth with 3,000 nontransferredFlorida youth and found that the formergroup was more likely to be incarceratedand for longer periods of time. When re-leased, transferred youth were more likelyto reoffend and reoffend earlier than thosewho were not transferred (Altschuler,1999).

punishment should be swift, measured,and well reasoned. In some cases, secureconfinement is appropriate. Juvenilesmust learn that delinquent behavior isintolerable and that they will be held ac-countable for their actions. Tough sen-tencing laws for crimes involving firearms,often involving mandatory confinement,have proven effective (Loeber andFarrington, 1998). While there are chil-dren in the juvenile justice system whocan be classified as serious, violent, andchronic offenders, they constitute a smallminority of the juvenile offender popula-tion (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). Theseoffenders may need to be confined to re-ceive long-term treatment and to ensurethe safety of the community.

At the same time, the juvenile justicesystem should not be redesigned to re-spond disproportionately to the behav-ior of a small number of offenders whoare uncharacteristic of the populationas a whole. Juveniles often stop com-mitting crimes as they mature and be-come employed (see Hamilton andMcKinney, 1999). Increasingly puni-tive in nature, juvenile justice legisla-tion must not abandon the critical goalof rehabilitation. The juvenile courtneeds to adopt a rational, measured,and scientific approach to the continu-ing problem of violent juvenile crime(Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin-quency Prevention, 1996). Such anapproach should include balancing ac-countability and rehabilitation. Educa-tion, counseling, and training of youthincrease the chances that those adjudi-cated for delinquent acts, whether con-fined or not, will be helped to avoid livesof crime (Yellen, 1996). It is essential toavoid creating a one-dimensional juve-nile justice system with rules, laws,practices, and goals designed to adjudi-cate Billy the Kid when most of thejuveniles in the system more closelyresemble Dennis the Menace (Klein,1998).

Increasing numbers of youth aretransferred to the criminal justice system.

There is no question that some juvenilesmerit transfer. Serious, violent, andchronic juvenile offenders may demon-strate by the nature of their offenses oroffense history, their failure to benefitfrom treatment programs in a mannerindicating a lack of amenability to treat-ment, and in other ways that transfer tothe criminal justice system is appropriate.However, the wholesale transfer of juve-niles on the basis of factors other thanindividual characteristics and withoutjudicial intervention is imprudent. It iscrucial that juvenile courts be allowedto make carefully defined, individual de-terminations regarding transfer (Klein,1998).

Accountability is a crucial goal of thejuvenile justice system. When necessary,



InterventionReliance on scientific research is keyto realizing the promise of the juvenilecourt. Decades of research in juvenileand criminal justice, developmentalpsychology, epidemiology, and other dis-ciplines, including evaluations of promis-ing program interventions, should informpolicymaking, decisionmaking, and thedevelopment of programs and treatments.Working as a multidisciplinary team, ju-venile justice and child welfare systempractitioners, researchers, and experts inthe community should combine theirclinical experience with this growingbody of knowledge.

Some argue that the juvenile justice andchild welfare systems have been one hugeexperiment (Courtney, in press). Childrenare assigned to a variety of treatments orprograms, and child welfare and juvenilejustice practitioners have little to say aboutthe comparative benefits of these interven-tions or the quality of decisionmaking bythose who operate the system.

Most practitioners believe—as does thepublic—that a well-meaning interven-tion designed by competent people willhave a positive effect. Whether a pro-gram could have unintended negativeeffects—or no effect at all—is seldomconsidered. Initial progress may be shortlived (Altschuler, 1999). These factorsunderscore the need for rigorous programevaluations across the entire spectrum ofchild welfare and juvenile justice servicesto ensure that interventions benefit chil-dren and society and do not produce un-intended effects that may even increasethe risks of delinquent behavior. Thejuvenile justice system must be vigilantabout the quality of its programs, services,and service providers and must work withresearchers to design an agenda that willmake a positive contribution to the bodyof evaluation research.

Working collaboratively, juvenile justiceofficials and researchers can developstudy designs and outcome measures thatmore accurately assess the effectivenessof treatment programs. Measures of suc-cess should embrace more than the cus-tomary outcome measures of efficientcase management and reduced recidi-vism. Intermediate outcomes also shouldbe measured, and evaluators should de-termine whether participating childrenreceived other benefits from the programsuch as academic success, conflict resolu-tion skills, and reduced use of alcoholand drugs.

Some argue that the juvenile justiceand child welfare systems have beenone huge experiment.

Risk and Protective FactorsFor decades, juvenile justice researchersand social scientists have been studyingthe causes and correlates of delinquentbehavior and identifying a variety ofrisk factors for delinquent behavior thatcould assist the court in designing andadopting earlier and more effective

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interventions. A major risk factor for de-linquent behavior is family dysfunction;other risk factors include negative peerinfluences, parental neglect, low aca-demic achievement, early onset of anti-social behavior, substance abuse, andexposure to violence (Loeber andFarrington, 1998). The risk factors formaladaptive behavior are all too preva-lent in dependent children and are oftenseen well before they begin to engage inacts of delinquency. Early childhood vic-timization has demonstrable long-termconsequences for delinquency, adultcriminality, and violent criminal behav-ior, providing strong support for the“cycle of violence” hypothesis (Widom,1989). Research enables us to identifythose juveniles most in need of inter-vention (Catalano and Hawkins, 1996;Loeber and Farrington, 1998; and seeHowell, 1995).

Developmental experts have identified avariety of protective factors that counterrisk factors and thus reduce the likeli-hood of delinquency. Protective factorsrange from a strong and involved grand-mother to parental involvement, acommitment to school, and personalself-esteem (Smith and Dabiri, 1995).The research on risk and protective fac-tors can be used by practitioners to de-velop risk assessment instruments thatmeasure exposure to risks and to designinterventions that reduce the impact ofrisk factors and strengthen protective fac-tors. It is important to note that protec-tive factors can change over time. Beinga female was once considered a significantprotective factor against delinquency, buttoday girls make up 26 percent of all juve-nile arrests (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999).Learning more about the needs of thesegirls should be a priority of the juvenilejustice research agenda. With knowledgedelivered from research, courts can ex-pand their influence over children andtheir environment and not be limited tomerely adjudicating cases and makingeducated guesses about their appropriatedisposition.

There are several clearly defined develop-mental pathways to delinquent behavior,and every child responds differently to riskand protective factors. Sound interventionby the juvenile court requires specific in-quiry into a particular child’s family, schoolperformance, social activities, and othercircumstances to identify risk and protec-tive factors present in the child’s life. Thefactors that cause youth to commit delin-quent offenses do not disappear when theyreturn home from the juvenile system(Treiber, 1998), and rehabilitation will failif a youth returns to the same environmentwithout the support and services needed tosucceed (effective aftercare services involvethe family, school, and community andtake into account the child’s therapeuticand academic needs).

Early victimization has long-termconsequences for delinquency, criminality,and violent criminal behavior.

From a developmental perspective, itis now possible to identify risk factorsfacing children before birth. The po-tential for offending is higher amongindividuals with multiple perinatalcomplications (American Society ofCriminology, 1997; CoordinatingCouncil on Juvenile Justice and De-linquency Prevention, 1996; Howell,1995), particularly when coupled withother risk factors. Examination of riskfactors for delinquency leads to theconclusion that if delinquent behavioris to be prevented, the juvenile justicesystem must work at the earliest pos-sible opportunity not only with thechild but with the child’s family, peers,school, and neighborhood.



Early Intervention and theDependency CourtIn addressing delinquent behavior, it isimportant to consider its developmentalorigins and intervene at the earliest op-portunity to prevent it. Prevention effortsshould include intensive, individualizedintervention in the lives of dependentchildren so that the dichotomy betweeninterventions with delinquent and depen-dent youth, and between the way theircases are handled, can be dissolved. Suchefforts would ensure that the juvenilecourt may act to prevent delinquency be-fore it takes root rather than simply pre-vent recidivism, a traditional outcomemeasure of the juvenile and criminal jus-tice systems. Simply preventing anotheroffense is inadequate.

Unless society devotes significant attentionand resources to abused and neglected chil-dren, the juvenile court will not realize itspotential. More than half the children whoenter the child welfare system as a result ofchild maltreatment are under 7 years old(Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). For theseyoung victims, the juvenile court needs toconsider their developmental and mentalhealth needs. With a comprehensive pic-ture of the child in mind, the juvenilecourt has its best opportunity to provideneeded services.

Comprehensive andInterdisciplinary InterventionsThe response of the juvenile system mustbe collaborative and interdisciplinary be-cause children at risk are often the vic-tims of cumulative disadvantage. Juvenilejustice system professionals, in particularservice providers, need to take into ac-count the relationships between childmaltreatment and other problems, in-cluding violence, substance abuse, andother high-risk behaviors. More researchon how these factors combine to place

dependent and delinquent youth at riskis essential, and the knowledge gainedfrom this research should be used to re-form practice, guide policy, and influencethe design of interventions.

Society should devote significantattention and resources to abusedand neglected children.

The Dependency Court InterventionProgram for Family Violence, a nationaldemonstration project in Miami, FL,provides an example of interdisciplinarywork in jurisprudence. Funded by theViolence Against Women Office, Officeof Justice Programs, U.S. Department ofJustice, this demonstration project seeksto address the co-occurrence of childmaltreatment and family violence in ajuvenile court setting (Lecklitner et al.,1999). Advocates are provided to bat-tered mothers of dependent children, as-sessment instruments have been designedto measure the extent and impact of vio-lence on children, and collaboration be-tween the child welfare and domesticviolence community has been fostered asthe foundation of a communitywide ap-proach to handling child abuse cases inwhich other forms of family violence arealso present.

Because infants and toddlers can tell thecourt about their development throughtheir actions, an assessment for use withchildren from 1 to 5 years old has beendeveloped through this program, withassistance from Joy Osofsky, Ph.D., Profes-sor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Louisi-ana State University Medical Center.Parents and dependent children are video-taped in a number of structured andunstructured interactions. The develop-mental and cognitive functioning of theyoung child and his or her bonding and

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attachment with a caregiver are assessed.Preliminary data indicate that, whilemany of these dependent children aredevelopmentally delayed, the develop-mental delays often go undetected. TheMiami court is now able to reach thesechildren earlier, enhancing their abilityto develop in a healthy, age-appropriatemanner.

The program is undergoing a rigorous pro-cess and outcome evaluation. A quasi-experimental research design is being usedto develop data on the needs of childrenand their families when multiple forms offamily violence are present. The demon-stration project already has resulted in in-stitutional reform intended to enhancechild safety.

ciplinary teamwork, intensive judicialsupervision, close monitoring of drug use,rewards, and sanctions. Long-term evalua-tions of juvenile drug court programs areunder way.

Every person or institution that touchesa child’s life and interacts with his orher family can contribute positively tothat child’s development (Smith andDabiri, 1995). The juvenile judge’s roleshould be expanded to include leadingthe community in responding to theneeds of its children. The CaliforniaRules of Court, for example, encouragejuvenile judges to provide communityleadership in determining the needs ofat-risk children and families and obtain-ing and developing resources and ser-vices to address them.3 The largersociety that contributed to the problemshould also be part of the solution(Treiber, 1998). It is essential to learnmore about collective efficacy and howneighborhoods can organize to protectand supervise their children. The heartof any institutional reform must beginwith a community partnership for childprotection (Executive Session on ChildProtection, 1997) and a collective real-ization that every citizen is responsiblefor the well-being of all children, a re-sponsibility that cannot be delegated tothe juvenile justice and child welfaresystems.

School and community interventions arekey to serving children’s needs. The fol-lowing types of interventions have dem-onstrated positive effects on reducing riskfactors and enhancing protective factors(Loeber and Farrington, 1998):

◆ School organization interventions.

◆ Comprehensive community inter-ventions incorporating communitymobilization.

◆ Parental involvement and parentaleducation.

Every person or institution that touchesa child’s life and interacts with his or herfamily can contribute positively to thatchild’s development.

Other innovative interventions have beendeveloped to address the comorbidity ofsubstance abuse and child maltreatment.By 1995, dependency and delinquencycourts, building on the success of adultdrug courts, had begun to experiment withsimilar collaborative processes that focuson a juvenile’s recovery from drug depen-dency rather than on punishment. In ad-dition to drug treatment, a variety ofpsychosocial interventions were mar-shaled to encourage recovery. The juve-nile drug court team could look beyondthe individual to the family and seek tochange behavior by attacking problemsthat permeate the juvenile’s environment:drug use, mental health needs, poverty,and poor parenting skills. There is hopethat a youth’s behavior can be modifiedby relying on some of the same processesused in adult drug courts, such as interdis-



◆ Classroom-based social and behav-ioral skills curriculum.

◆ Intensive police patrolling, targetinghotspots in particular.

◆ Media campaigns to influence publicattitudes.

Aftercare programs, specific to each childand each treatment program, are also im-portant. The progress made by programparticipants will be limited unless it isfollowed up, reinforced, and monitoredin the community (Altschuler, 1999).

Tomorrow’s JuvenileCourtModernizing and professionalizing thejuvenile court requires that interdiscipli-nary training be provided to court staff—judges in particular. Knowing the law isnot enough. Judges should be aware ofavailable diagnostic tools, sensitive tothe developmental needs of children andpossible risks that they face, and proac-tive in efforts to prevent youth crimeand violence (Smith and Dabiri, 1995).

There should be no need to wonderwhether the juvenile court’s work makesa difference. Juvenile court judges needto take the lead in promoting programevaluation as an integral part of eachnew intervention by demanding that ser-vices have been proven effective or arebased on sound principles of proven ef-fectiveness before more children andfamilies are sent to participate in them.With the resources to conduct evalua-tions of promising and innovative pro-grams, dedication, and a willingness tocollaborate across disciplines, juvenilecourt and juvenile justice practitionerscan answer the question of what worksempirically.

The juvenile court should also stress itsnonadversarial nature, keeping the child’sbest interest in mind by promoting a more

sophisticated, less confrontational mannerof adjudication (Schaller, 1997). The ju-venile justice system should avoid dupli-cating the criminal court model, whileprotecting the fundamental rights of juve-niles. A one-dimensional system dealingexclusively with adjudication would limitthe juvenile court’s potential to promoterehabilitation and the well-being of youthwhile protecting the community and serv-ing victims. Adjudication culminating inindividualized dispositions and based onthe need for accountability and the bestinterest of youth and society should be thecornerstone of the juvenile court’s work.

There should be no need to wonderwhether the juvenile court’s workmakes a difference.

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challenges that confront them, they arestaffed with professionals who reflecttalent, dedication, and commitment.4 Afully functioning professional juvenilecourt has the potential to be the mosteffective prevention tool in the juvenilejustice system. However, this cannotoccur unless judges take the lead in revi-talizing and professionalizing America’sjuvenile courts, using the results of scien-tific research, the promise of creativeinnovation, and the resources of thecommunity. The Nation’s societal pledgethat “children come first” must not beallowed to ring hollow in, of all places,the halls of justice.5

Catalano, R.F., and Hawkins, J.D. 1996. The so-cial development model: A theory of antisocialbehavior. In Delinquency and Crime. CambridgeCriminology Series. Cambridge, United Kingdom:Cambridge University Press.

Children’s Defense Fund. 1998. The State ofAmerica’s Children. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and De-linquency Prevention. 1996. Combating Violenceand Delinquency: The National Juvenile Justice Ac-tion Plan. Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Depart-ment of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Officeof Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Courtney, M. In press. Research Needed to Improvethe Prospects for Children in Out-of-Home Place-ment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Executive Session on Child Protection. 1997.Child Protection: Building Community Partnerships.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Hamilton, R., and McKinney, K. 1999. Job Train-ing for Juveniles: Project CRAFT. Fact Sheet #116.Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Jus-tice and Delinquency Prevention.

Howell, J.C., ed. 1995. Guide for Implementing theComprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, andChronic Juvenile Offenders. Report. Washington,DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of JusticePrograms, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin-quency Prevention.

Klein, E. 1998. Dennis the Menace or Billy theKid: An analysis of the role of transfer to criminalcourt in juvenile justice. American Criminal LawReview 35:371–408.

Lecklitner, G., Malik, N., Aaron S., andLederman, C.S. 1999. Dependency Court Inter-vention Program for Family Violence. Child Mal-treatment 4(2):175–182.

Loeber, R., and Farrington, D. 1998. Never tooearly never too late: Risk factors and successfulinterventions for serious and violent juvenile of-fenders. Studies on Crime and Crime Prevention7(1):16.

National Research Council and Institute of Medi-cine. 1998. From Generation to Generation: TheHealth and Well-Being of Children of ImmigrantFamilies. Washington, DC: National AcademyPress.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Pre-vention. 1996. State Responses to Serious andViolent Juvenile Crime. Report. Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Pro-grams, Office of Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention.

Schaller, B. 1997. A Vision of American Law.Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

The juvenile court has the potential tobe the most effective prevention tool inthe juvenile justice system.

Notes1. “Dependency” and “dependent children” referto children involved in dependency cases relatedto abuse, neglect, and abandonment.

2. 387 U.S. 1 (1967).

3. California Rules of Court, § 24(e) (1999).

4. In 1998, each juvenile court judge in Floridamanaged 3,273 cases, compared with 1,270 casesper judge in the criminal division and 1,357 casesper judge in the civil division. Amendment toFlorida Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.100(a), No.84,021, at fn.3 (Fla. April 29, 1999).

5. See Amendment to Florida Rule of JuvenileProcedure 8.100(a), at 11.

ReferencesAltschuler, D.M. 1999. Trends and issues in theadultification of juvenile justice. In Research toResults: Effective Community Correction, edited byP. Harris. Lanham, MD: American CorrectionalAssociation.

American Society of Criminology. 1997. CriticalCriminal Justice Issues. Task Force Report. Wash-ington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office ofJustice Programs, National Institute of Justice.



Smith, G.B., and Dabiri, G. 1995. The judicialrole in the treatment of juvenile delinquents. Jour-nal of Law and Policy 3:347–365.

Snyder, H.N., and Sickmund, M. 1999. JuvenileOffenders and Victims: 1999 National Report. Re-port. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Jus-tice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of JuvenileJustice and Delinquency Prevention.

Torbet, P., and Szymanski, L. 1998. State Legisla-tive Responses to Violent Juvenile Crime: 1996–97Update. Bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Depart-ment of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Officeof Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Trask, G. 1997. Diffusing the teenage time bomb.The Prosecutor 31(2):29–31.

Treiber H. 1998. Juvenile justice: Rehabilitatingthe system after the introduction of mandatoryminimum sentences. Suffolk Journal of Trial andAppellate Advocacy 3:175–189.

Widom, C.S. 1989. The cycle of violence. Science244:160.

Yellen, D. 1996. What juvenile court abolitionistscan learn from the failures of sentencing reform.Wisconsin Law Review 1996:577–600.

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JUSTICE MATTERSIN BRIEF

The juvenilecourt’s 100thanniversaryoffers an op-portunity to

centralize thenew insights and advances in thefield, thereby helping to revitalizethe court and restore the public’sconfidence in the juvenile justicesystem. Through OJJDP funding, aconsortium comprising Bright FutureVentures, the Center on Juvenileand Criminal Justice, the Childrenand Family Justice Center, Commu-nication Works, and the Youth Law

Delivering on the Promise of theJuvenile Court

Center developed the Juvenile CourtCentennial Education Initiative tofocus attention on these issues.

The initiative’s objectives are to:

◆ Sharpen and stimulate debateamong juvenile justice practitionersand policymakers.

◆ Expand the juvenile justicenetwork and improve collabora-tion among local and nationalorganizations.

◆ Amplify existing and developingrevitalization efforts by local andnational organizations.

Juvenile Offenders and Victims:1999 National Report

The problems ofjuvenile crime,violence, andvictimizationtogether con-stitute oneof the mostcrucialchallengesof the new

millennium. To meetthat challenge, Juvenile Offendersand Victims: 1999 National Reportanswers questions frequently askedby juvenile justice professionals,

policymakers, the media, and con-cerned citizens.

This OJJDP Report brings togetherthe latest available statistics from avariety of sources and includes nu-merous tables, graphs, and maps,accompanied by analyses in clear,nontechnical language. Readers willfind baseline information on juve-nile population growth trends; pat-terns of juvenile victimization,including homicide, suicide, andmaltreatment; the nature and ex-tent of juvenile offending, including

data on arrest rates, antisocial be-havior, and juveniles in custody;and the structure, procedures, andactivities of the juvenile justicesystem, including law enforcementagencies, courts, and corrections.

The 1999 National Report includesthe most recent updates of informa-tion originally presented in JuvenileOffenders and Victims: A NationalReport (the benchmark publicationissued in 1995) and also includesfindings from important newsources, including the Bureau of

◆ Conduct communications andtraining activities on successful ju-venile justice strategies.

◆ Use the media to focus publicattention on juvenile justice issues.

A national juvenile justice summitwill be held soon in Washington,DC, to reaffirm the role of the juve-nile justice system in addressing theneeds of troubled and neglectedyouth. Stay tuned to OJJDP’s Website, www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org, for moredetails on the initiative, or send ane-mail to [email protected].


JUSTICE MATTERSIN BRIEF

Labor Statistics’ 1997 NationalLongitudinal Survey of Youth andthe Office of Juvenile Justice andDelinquency Prevention’s new na-tional Census of Juveniles in Resi-dential Placement. As new databecome available, updates will bemade available online through theOJJDP Web site’s Statistical Brief-ing Book.

Questions Answered bythe Report◆ How much crime are juvenilesinvolved in, and what kinds ofcrimes do they commit?

◆ How often are juveniles thevictims of crime, and what is thenature of their victimization?

◆ What are the recent trends injuvenile violence, and can futuretrends be predicted?

◆ How common is school crime,and how many juveniles carry gunsand other weapons to school?

◆ What are the characteristics ofjuveniles in custody?

New Facts◆ After peaking in 1993, the rateof serious violent crime committedby juveniles declined dramaticallythrough 1997 to its lowest levelsince 1986.

◆ In one-third of all sexual assaultsreported to police, the victim wasunder age 12.

◆ The juvenile violent crimearrest rate for females nearlydoubled between 1981 and 1997,while the rate for males increased20 percent.

This is a clear overview of the facts about juvenile crime andvictimization—an essential resource for juvenile justice profes-

sionals and all citizens concerned with our Nation’s youth.

—Attorney GeneralJanet Reno

◆ One in every three delinquentswith a history of violent offenseshas a juvenile court record beforeturning 14.

◆ Preventing one youth from leav-ing school and turning to a life ofcrime and drugs saves societyapproximately $2 million.

How To Obtain Your CopyJuvenile Offenders and Victims:1999 National Report is availableonline from the OJJDP Web site(www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org) through theJJ Facts & Figures section and thePublications section or can be or-dered from OJJDP’s Juvenile JusticeClearinghouse (see the order form).

1999 National ReportBulletin Series

To give readers quick, focused access to some of most criticaldata contained in the 222-page 1999 National Report,OJJDP has developed a series of Bulletins derived from theReport. Each of these Bulletins highlights selected themesat the forefront of juvenile justice policymaking andextracts relevant sections from the Report (includingselected graphs and tables). See the order form for thefirst installment of the series.

34

IN BRIEF

OJJDP ONLINE

Court-Focused URL’sFollowing is a select list of Web ad-dresses that link to additional re-sources related to youth and courts.These links represent Federal agen-cies, clearinghouses, and nationalorganizations and associations.

Administrative Office of U.S.Courtswww.uscourts.gov

American Bar Associationwww.abanet.org

ABA Center on Children andthe Lawwww.abanet.org/child/

American Judges Associationaja.ncsc.dni.us

American Probation and ParoleAssociationwww.appa-net.org

American Prosecutors ResearchInstitutewww.ndaa.org/apri/Index.html

Center for Civic Educationwww.civiced.org

Constitutional Rights FoundationChicagowww.crfc.org

Drug Courts Program Officewww.ojp.usdoj.gov/dcpo.htm

Federal Judicial Centerwww.fjc.gov

National American Indian CourtJudges Associationwww.naicja.org

National Association of Counselfor Childrennaccchildlaw.org

National Association for CourtManagementnacm.ncsc.dni.us/

National Association of DrugCourt Professionalswww.drugcourt.org

National Association of PretrialServices Agenciesnapsa.org

National Association of StateJudicial Educatorswww.nasje.org

National Center for State Courtswww.ncsc.dni.us

National Center for Youth Lawwww.youthlaw.org

National Clearinghouse forJudicial Education Informationjeritt.msu.edu

National Council of Juvenile andFamily Court Judgeswww.ncjfcj.unr.edu

National Court Appointed SpecialAdvocate Associationwww.nationalcasa.org

National Criminal JusticeReference Servicewww.ncjrs.org

National District AttorneysAssociationwww.ndaa.org

National Indian Justice Centernijc.indian.com/

National Judicial Collegewww.judges.org

Office of Juvenile Justice andDelinquency Preventionwww.ojjdp.ncjrs.org

OJP Drug Court Clearinghouseand Technical Assistance Projectwww.american.edu/academic.depts/spa/justice/dcclear.htm

Pretrial Services Resource Centerwww.pretrial.org

Sentencing Projectwww.sentencingproject.org

State Justice Institutewww.statejustice.org

Street Law, Inc.www.streetlaw.org

Tribal Court Clearinghousewww.tribal-institute.org

U.S. Sentencing Commissionwww.ussc.gov

Vera Institute of Justicebroadway.vera.org

Juvenile Justice Order FormVolume VI • Number 2 December 1999

International SubscribersAirmail Postage ScheduleAll documents ordered by Canadian and other international usersare sent airmail. Postage is included in the cost of fee items butmust be paid separately for free items. Use the schedule belowto compute the postage cost for your free items.

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PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE FREE.

Single copies are available free. There is a nominal fee forbulk orders to cover postage and handling. Contact theClearinghouse for specific information.

❑ Delinquency Cases in Juvenile Courts, 1996 (FactSheet). FS 99109.

❑ Delinquency Cases Waived to Criminal Court, 1987–1996 (Fact Sheet). FS 9999.

❑ NEW Detention in Delinquency Cases, 1987–1996(Fact Sheet). FS 99115.

❑ Drug Offense Cases in Juvenile Court, 1986–1995 (FactSheet). FS 9881.

❑ NEW Focus on Accountability: Best Practices for theJuvenile Court and Probation (Bulletin). NCJ 177611.

❑ Innovative Approaches to Juvenile Indigent Defense(Bulletin). NCJ 171151.

❑ NEW Juvenile Court Statistics 1996 (Report).NCJ 168963.

❑ NEW Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 NationalReport (Report). NCJ 178257.

❑ Model Courts Serve Abused and Neglected Children (FactSheet). FS 9990.

❑ NEW Offenders in Juvenile Court, 1996 (Bulletin).NCJ 175719.

❑ Person Offenses in Juvenile Court, 1986–1995 (FactSheet). FS 9877.

❑ NEW Teen Courts in the United States: A Profile ofCurrent Programs (Fact Sheet). FS 99118.

❑ NEW Violence After School (Bulletin, 1999 NationalReport Series). NCJ 178992.

PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE FOR A FEE.

❑ Juveniles in the Criminal Justice System (Video, VHSformat), NCJ 173944.

❑ Youth Courts: A National Movement (Video, VHSformat), NCJ 171149.

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Publications From OJJDP

OJJDP produces a variety of publications—FactSheets, Bulletins, Summaries, Reports, and theJuvenile Justice journal—along with video-tapes, including broadcasts from the juvenilejustice telecommunications initiative. ThroughOJJDP’s Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC),these publications and other resources are asclose as your phone, fax, computer, or mailbox.Phone:800–638–8736(Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–7 p.m. ET)Fax:301–519–5212Online:

OJJDP Home Page:www.ojjdp.ncjrs.orgE-Mail:[email protected] (to order materials)[email protected] (to ask questionsabout materials)

Mail:Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse/NCJRSP.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849–6000Fact Sheets and Bulletins are also availablethrough fax on demand.Fax on Demand:800–638–8736, select option 1, select option 2,and listen for instructions.To ensure timely notice of new publications,subscribe to JUVJUST, OJJDP’s electronicmailing list.JUVJUST Mailing List:e-mail to [email protected] the subject line blanktype subscribe juvjust your nameIn addition, JJC, through the National CriminalJustice Reference Service (NCJRS), is the re-pository for tens of thousands of criminal andjuvenile justice publications and resourcesfrom around the world. They are abstractedand placed in a database, which is searchableonline (www.ncjrs.org/database.htm). You arealso welcome to submit materials to JJC forinclusion in the database.The following list highlights popular and re-cently published OJJDP documents and video-tapes, grouped by topical areas.The OJJDP Publications List (BC000115) offersa complete list of OJJDP publications and isalso available online.In addition, the OJJDP Fact Sheet Flier(LT000333) offers a complete list of OJJDPFact Sheets and is available online.OJJDP also sponsors a teleconference initia-tive, and a flier (LT116) offers a complete list ofvideos available from these broadcasts.

Corrections and DetentionBeyond the Walls: Improving Conditions ofConfinement for Youth in Custody. 1998,NCJ 164727 (116 pp.).Disproportionate Minority Confinement: 1997Update. 1998, NCJ 170606 (12 pp.).Disproportionate Minority Confinement:Lessons Learned From Five States. 1998,NCJ 173420 (12 pp.).

Juvenile Arrests 1997. 1999, NCJ 173938(12 pp.).Reintegration, Supervised Release, and Inten-sive Aftercare. 1999, NCJ 175715 (24 pp.).

CourtsGuide for Implementing the Balanced and Re-storative Justice Model. 1998, NCJ 167887(112 pp.).Innovative Approaches to Juvenile IndigentDefense. 1998, NCJ 171151 (8 pp.).Juvenile Court Statistics 1996. 1999,NCJ 168963 (113 pp.).Offenders in Juvenile Court, 1996. 1999,NCJ 175719 (12 pp.).RESTTA National Directory of Restitutionand Community Service Programs. 1998,NCJ 166365 (500 pp.), $33.50.Trying Juveniles as Adults in Criminal Court:An Analysis of State Transfer Provisions. 1998,NCJ 172836 (112 pp.).Youth Courts: A National Movement Teleconfer-ence (Video). 1998, NCJ 171149 (120 min.), $17.

Delinquency Prevention1998 Report to Congress: Juvenile MentoringProgram (JUMP). 1999, NCJ 173424 (65 pp.).1998 Report to Congress: Title V IncentiveGrants for Local Delinquency Prevention Pro-grams. 1999, NCJ 176342 (58 pp.).Combating Violence and Delinquency: TheNational Juvenile Justice Action Plan (Report).1996, NCJ 157106 (200 pp.).Combating Violence and Delinquency:The National Juvenile Justice Action Plan(Summary). 1996, NCJ 157105 (36 pp.).Effective Family Strengthening Interventions.1998, NCJ 171121 (16 pp.).Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block GrantsStrategic Planning Guide. 1999, NCJ 172846(62 pp.).Parents Anonymous: Strengthening America’sFamilies. 1999, NCJ 171120 (12 pp.).Prenatal and Early Childhood Nurse HomeVisitation. 1998, NCJ 172875 (8 pp.).Treatment Foster Care. 1999, NCJ 173421(12 pp.).

Gangs1996 National Youth Gang Survey. 1999,NCJ 173964 (96 pp.).Gang Members on the Move. 1998,NCJ 171153 (12 pp.).Youth Gangs: An Overview. 1998, NCJ 167249(20 pp.).The Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Violence Con-nection. 1999, NCJ 171152 (12 pp.).Youth Gangs in America Teleconference(Video). 1997, NCJ 164937 (120 min.), $17.

General Juvenile JusticeComprehensive Juvenile Justice in StateLegislatures Teleconference (Video). 1998,NCJ 169593 (120 min.), $17.Guidelines for the Screening of Persons Work-ing With Children, the Elderly, and IndividualsWith Disabilities in Need of Support. 1998,NCJ 167248 (52 pp.).Juvenile Justice, Volume V, Number 1. 1998,NCJ 170025 (32 pp.).

A Juvenile Justice System for the 21st Century.1998, NCJ 169726 (8 pp.).Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 NationalReport. 1999, NCJ 178257 (232 pp.).OJJDP Research: Making a Difference forJuveniles. 1999, NCJ 177602 (52 pp.).Promising Strategies To Reduce Gun Violence.1999, NCJ 173950 (253 pp.).Sharing Information: A Guide to the FamilyEducational Rights and Privacy Act andParticipation in Juvenile Justice Programs.1997, NCJ 163705 (52 pp.).

Missing and Exploited ChildrenPortable Guides to Investigating Child Abuse(13-title series).Protecting Children Online Teleconference(Video). 1998, NCJ 170023 (120 min.), $17.When Your Child Is Missing: A Family SurvivalGuide. 1998, NCJ 170022 (96 pp.).

Substance AbuseThe Coach’s Playbook Against Drugs. 1998,NCJ 173393 (20 pp.).Drug Identification and Testing in the JuvenileJustice System. 1998, NCJ 167889 (92 pp.).Preparing for the Drug Free Years. 1999,NCJ 173408 (12 pp.).

Violence and VictimizationCombating Fear and Restoring Safety inSchools. 1998, NCJ 167888 (16 pp.).Guide for Implementing the ComprehensiveStrategy for Serious, Violent, and ChronicJuvenile Offenders. 1995, NCJ 153681(255 pp.).Report to Congress on Juvenile ViolenceResearch. 1999, NCJ 176976 (44 pp.)Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders. 1998,NCJ 170027 (8 pp.).Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: RiskFactors and Successful Interventions Teleconfer-ence (Video). 1998, NCJ 171286 (120 min.), $17.State Legislative Responses to Violent JuvenileCrime: 1996–97 Update. 1998, NCJ 172835(16 pp.).White House Conference on School Safety:Causes and Prevention of Youth ViolenceTeleconference (Video). 1998, NCJ 173399(240 min.), $17.

Youth in ActionCommunity Cleanup. 1999, NCJ 171690 (6 pp.).Cross-Age Teaching. 1999, NCJ 171688 (8 pp.).Make a Friend—Be a Peer Mentor. 1999,NCJ 171691 (8 pp.).Plan a Special Event. 1999, NCJ 171689(8 pp.).Planning a Successful Crime PreventionProject. 1998, NCJ 170024 (28 pp.).Stand Up and Start a School Crime Watch.1998, NCJ 171123 (8 pp.)Two Generations—Partners in Prevention.1999, NCJ 171687 (8 pp.).Wipe Out Vandalism and Graffiti. 1998,NCJ 171122 (8 pp.).Youth Preventing Drug Abuse. 1998,NCJ 171124 (8 pp.).

NCJ 178255

PRESORTED STANDARDPOSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/OJJDPPERMIT NO. G–91

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Washington, DC 20531

Official BusinessPenalty for Private Use $300

To order, contact OJJDP’s Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at800–638–8736

or visit OJJDP’s Web site,www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

OJJDP announces the availability of Reducing Youth Violence: A

Comprehensive Approach, a multimedia CD–ROM that provides

juvenile justice practitioners, researchers, and policymakers with

information on successful programs, publications, and technical

assistance resources. A pool of practitioners and policymakers

tested the initial release, and this updated CD–ROM reflects their

input.