Reforming Juvenile Justice A Developmental Approach (2013) / Chapter Skim
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2 Historical Context
2 Historical Context
Pages 31-48
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From page 31... ...
Under the rehabilitative model, the purpose of correctional interventions was to provide the treatment young offenders needed to avoid a life of crime. The second period of juvenile justice reform in the 1960s and 1970s was driven by the belief that the juvenile court was failing in its rehabilitative mission and that young offenders were actually being harmed by its paternalistic approach (Allen, 1964; Handler, 1965)
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From page 32... ...
Second, incarceration-based policies have strained state budgets, a burden that became more onerous during the economic recession of 2008-2009 and the period of anemic growth that has followed. More importantly perhaps, mounting evidence indicates that imposing harsh sentences on young offenders is unlikely to reduce reoffending or contribute to public safety in the way that supporters of get-tough policies assumed; indeed, sending youth to prison may increase the likelihood of recidivism (Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice, 2009)
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From page 33... ...
These conditions create an opportunity to implement reforms grounded in scientific knowledge that serve the public interest as well as the interests of the youth involved in criminal activity. FOUR STAGES OF JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM Stage One: The Rehabilitative Model The establishment of the juvenile court was at the heart of the Progressive Era social reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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From page 34... ...
. Thus, although the purpose of delinquency proceedings was to respond to alleged criminal conduct, the original architects of the juvenile court insisted that it did not conduct criminal trials.
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From page 35... ...
. Ultimately, the Supreme Court agreed with critics that youth in the juvenile system had the worst of both worlds.5 In In re Gault, the Court extended many of the procedural rights enjoyed by criminal defendants to juveniles facing delinquency charges in juvenile court.
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From page 36... ...
The procedural changes mandated by the Supreme Court in Gault and later opinions8,9 had a powerful impact on juvenile justice policy, transforming delinquency proceedings into adversarial hearings. Most importantly, juveniles after Gault have a right to be represented by attorneys, who can challenge prosecutors' evidence and raise defenses.
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From page 37... ...
Nonetheless, the due process revolution created a conceptual vacuum, by destabilizing the rehabilitative model that had provided a coherent rationale for a juvenile justice system and borrowing adversarial procedures and sanctions from the adult criminal justice system. In the 1970s and 1980s, a few law reform groups responded by offering a new model of juvenile justice -- one that emphasized accountability and public protection but retained a commitment to lenience and a concern for the needs of young offenders (Zimring, 1978, 1998; Shepherd, 1996)
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From page 38... ...
Stage Three: Getting Tough on Juvenile Offenders The sweeping legal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in juvenile justice policies quite different from both the traditional rehabilitative model and the due process model of the 1960s and 1970s. This third period of reform was triggered by an increase in violent juvenile crime, particularly homicide, in the late 1980s that generated hostility and fear of young offenders.
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From page 39... ...
. Under traditional laws in most states, the transfer hearing functioned as a safety valve to exclude from juvenile court jurisdiction the occasional older youth charged with a serious violent felony who was deemed not amenable to treatment as a juvenile, thereby acknowledging that not every youth could be rehabilitated in the justice system (Wagman, 2000)
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From page 40... ...
the criticism of the juvenile court's excessive leniency, dispositions became much harsher during this period, with greater use of secure placement and longer periods of time. Moreover, some states introduced so-called blended sentencing, under which youth adjudicated in juvenile court who received lengthy sentences would be committed to a juvenile facility but upon turning 18 could complete their sentence in an adult prison (Duggan, 1999)
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From page 41... ...
A new attitude toward adolescent offenders and juvenile crime emerged, along with a reevaluation of incarcerationbased correctional policies. The underlying premise of the juvenile court -- that juvenile offenders are different from adult criminals and that the justice
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From page 42... ...
In a Georgia case that received national publicity, a 17-year-old African American youth, Genarlow Wilson, received a 10-year prison sentence for aggravated child sexual molestation on the basis of consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old white girl. The sentence generated angry protests of racial bias and was reversed on the ground that it was excessive by the Georgia Supreme Court.12 Thereafter, the legislature amended the law to make the crime a misdemeanor (Joyner, 2007)
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From page 43... ...
. The Supreme Court has relied on developmental research in three recent opinions prohibiting the use of the harshest criminal penalties with juvenile offenders.
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From page 44... ...
Some states have retreated from laws facilitating the adjudication of juveniles in adult court. For example, Washington State repealed an automatic transfer law enacted in 1994 and narrowed the category of offenses eligible for transfer,16 and Illinois, as mentioned, abolished a statute mandating adult prosecution of 15-year-olds charged with selling drugs near schools (Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, 2005)
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From page 45... ...
First, research on adolescent development, particularly brain development, has been invoked to underscore that juvenile offenders are different from and less culpable than their adult counterparts -- and that these differences should result in more lenient punishment of juveniles. This scientific knowledge challenges the core assumption driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the last decades of the 20th century.
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From page 46... ...
Contemporary policy makers express more benign sentiments toward juvenile offenders than would have been heard a generation ago, and confidence in evidence-based programs is sometimes equated with a revival of rehabilitation as a key goal of juvenile justice. But the goal of rehabilitation is more closely linked to crime prevention than in the days of the traditional juvenile court.
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From page 47... ...
Recognition of the important differences between adolescents and adults and the other social and legal developments described in this chapter have distinct implications for policy making in the two key domains of juvenile crime policy -- the design and operation of the juvenile justice system and the treatment of juveniles in the criminal justice system. The committee's charge focuses exclusively on reforming the juvenile justice system, and the report accordingly does not address the policies and practices of criminal courts toward young offenders (the setting for the Supreme Court's influential decisions over the past decade)
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