Are Special Courts for Juvenile Offenders a Relic of the Past, or a Blueprint for the Future?

In years past, serious violent crimes such as sexual assault, arson, and mass murder were generally committed only by the most hardened criminal defendants. They were frequently habitual offenders, and were almost always adults. Today, more and more of these violent and terrifying acts are being committed by children. More disturbing still is the fact that these acts are committed by children, against children. In the past five years, the horrific acts of violence and depravity committed by juveniles across the country have left prosecutors, law enforcement officials, judges and politicians struggling to understand this behavior, and questioning the efficacy of the juvenile justice system. As a result, many changes to the juvenile justice system are proposed, some of them quite radically favoring the abolishment of a special juvnile justice system.

To better understand the discussion of proposed changes to the current juvenile justice system, it is essential to remember the court’s origins. Modern juvenile courts still reflect in many parts the system established by the State of Illinois in the late 19th century. The Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899 provided strict regulations for the “control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children,” including comprehensive procedures for the probation, guardianship, supervision, and imprisonment of defendants under the age of 16. By 1925, nearly all states had enacted juvenile courts similar or identical to those of Illinois. By the 1930’s, influential organizations such as the National Probation Association continued to support the idea that “chancery procedures” were the appropriate approach for the juvenile court.1

The juvenile system, as it was originally intended, was designed to protect and rehabilitate wayward youths. Juvenile court procedures were generally informal and private. Juvenile systems, in keeping with the parens patriae principle that courts should rehabilitate wayward youths and provide them with the means to become law abiding citizens, and also generally seal juvenile records when the age of majority is reached. However, these principles have changed and evolved throughout the 100 years of the juvenile court’s existence.

During the 1940’s, after the end of World War II, the juvenile criminal justice system came under intense attack.2 Commentators assailed the system’s ironic reliance on catchy terms such as “rehabilitation” and “adjustment” to mask its outright mistreatment of juvenile offenders in “disciplinary barracks” that had evolved into prisons even worse than those designed for adults.3 By the 1950’s, the “rehabilitation model” and the protection of minors under the parens patriae theory of juvenile justice were widely called into question for their purported inability to deal with problems such as, among others, racial inequities in juvenile punishment and sentencing.4

In the 1960’s, criticism of state juvenile justice systems reached a new peak. The U.S. Supreme Court opined that the juvenile justice courts of the State of Arizona (and, by implication, the juvenile courts of many states) lacked basic “procedural regularit[ies]” and were little better than “kangaroo court[s]” due to the fact that, in most juvenile courts, minors lacked basic protections purportedly mandated by the U.S. Constitution.5 The Court ruled that in juvenile court, as in any other court, defendants were entitled to adequate written notice of the “specific issues that they must meet.”6 The Court further required states to provide indigent minors adequate counsel.7 The Court also ruled that the privilege against self-incrimination, long regarded a fundamental privilege of adults in standard courts, could be exercised by minors in juvenile court systems as well.8 By 1970, the Court had declared that proof of delinquency of a juvenile must be established “beyond a reasonable doubt” rather than by the lower civil standards of proof widely utilized by many state juvenile systems.9

Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, as a result of these Supreme Court rulings and the rapid rise in juvenile crime, state juvenile court systems began to focus more on punishment and process rather than on rehabilitation and restoration.10 The public, weary of the explosion in crime and increasingly insensitive to the progressive goals of juvenile justice, pressured legislatures to enact tough measures curtailing the special treatment afforded minors in criminal courts. In 1980, every state processed young offenders in juvenile court. Today, only the State of Hawaii continues to try all children under the age of sixteen as juveniles.11

As the court has changed over time, the role of the prosecutor within the juvenile justice system has changed. Contemporary juvenile courts increasingly focus on protection of the due process rights of defendants rather than on the “best interests” of youthful offenders.12 As a result, juvenile courts are becoming more adversarial. Most juvenile courts closely resemble adult courts in the types of crimes charged, the pre-trial motions filed and the adversarial posture of prosecutors and defense attorneys. The traditional role of the juvenile prosecutor as social worker, policeman, and district attorney, has slowly evolved into something much different than the early progressives envisioned. In response to the increasing seriousness of juvenile crime and the expansion of defendant rights in the juvenile system, juvenile prosecutors are now forced to operate more as district attorneys concerned with the safety of the public than as counselors charged with redirecting wayward youth.

On this, the 100th anniversary of the inception of juvenile court, the future of the juvenile justice system is uncertain. Some of the proposals that have been advanced for reforming the system include: 1) elimination of the traditional confidentiality of juvenile records, 2) imposition of equal sentences for adults and juveniles charged with the same types of violent crimes, 3) lowering the maximum age for juvenile court jurisdiction, and 4) automatic waiver to adult court for certain offenses. State legislatures continue to vacillate among the options of reforming the systems, maintaining the current systems, and eliminating the juvenile court systems altogether.13

Whatever direction the juvenile justice system takes, prosecutors will be called on to take the lead in developing policies and programs that make the system work. Now more than ever, juvenile courts need experienced, well trained prosecutors who are dedicated to solving the unique problems that arise when children commit crimes.

1 See Sanford J. Fox, A Contribution to the History of the American Juvenile Court, Juv. and Fam. Ct. J., Fall 1998, at 12-13.

2 See id. at 13.

3 See id. (comments of Albert Deutch).

4 See id. at 13.

5 See In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 28 (1967).

6 See id. at 31-34.

7 See id. at 34-42.

8 See id. at 44-56.

9 See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 368 (1970).

10 See generally Barry C. Feld, The Juvenile Court Meets the Principle of Offense: Punishment, Treatment, and the Difference It Makes, 68 B.U. L. Rev. 821 (1988).

11 See generally Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court (reprint ed. 1997).

12 See, e.g., In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).

13 See The Honorable Lawrence L. Koontz, Jr., Austin Owen Lecture: Reassessment Should Not Lead to Wholesale Rejection of the Juvenile Justice System, 31 U. Rich. L. Rev. 179, 180 (1997).