Criminal Justice Magazine
Spring 2000
Vol. 15, Issue 1
Can We Do Without Juvenile Justice?
By Jeffrey A. Butts
To satisfy constituent demands for stronger crime policies, elected
officials throughout the U.S. are gradually dismantling the juvenile
justice system and replacing it with a pseudocriminal system, one that
emphasizes mandatory sentences and formal, adversarial procedures. Large
portions of the juvenile court's original caseload have already been
re-assigned to the criminal court. Is the separate, juvenile justice
system still feasible? If not, what can replace it? Policymakers need
to confront these questions, and they need innovative answers. New policies
should aim for more than simply abolishing the juvenile court's delinquency
jurisdiction and sending all young offenders to conventional criminal
courts.
A compelling argument can be made for abolishing the juvenile justice
system, or more specifically, abolishing delinquency, the idea that
young offenders aren't fully responsible for their behavior and should
be handled in a separate court system. Abolishing delinquency is not
the same thing as abolishing the entire juvenile court. Even if lawmakers
ended the juvenile court's jurisdiction over criminal law violations,
the juvenile court could continue to handle other types of cases (e.g.,
abused and neglected children, truants, curfew violations). In fact,
youthful offenders could continue to be handled by the same judges in
the same courtrooms that handle them now, but the courts would operate
as youth divisions of a criminal court using criminal procedures under
the criminal code.
Neither would abolishing delinquency require that all young offenders
be sent to adult correctional programs or adult probation agencies.
Many states already operate separate correctional facilities for young
adults. The decision to handle all young offenders in the criminal court
would not prevent correctional specialization. States would still be
free to separate offenders by age when incarcerating or otherwise supervising
convicted offenders, and the federal government would still be free
to require such separation as a condition of financial support for state
corrections agencies.
Debate over abolition of the juvenile justice system refers only to
the court's responsibility for delinquency cases. Policymakers must
decide what type of court should have legal jurisdiction over young
people who violate the law. The debate centers on whether to continue
defining law violations by young people as delinquent acts, or to classify
them simply as crimes and refer them to criminal court.
Are juvenile courts still different?
Juvenile courts today bear only a passing similarity to the original
concept of juvenile justice formulated a century ago. State lawmakers
built the first juvenile courts around an informal, quasi-civil process.
Juvenile court judges had broad discretion with which they could intervene
quickly and decisively, even in cases involving hard-to-prove charges.
Juvenile offenders received minimal procedural protections in juvenile
court, but in return they were promised a court that would focus on
their best interests. The mission of the juvenile court was to help
young law violators get back on the right track, not simply to punish
their illegal behavior.
Long before the first juvenile court reached its 100th birthday in
1999, this original notion of juvenile justice had been largely abandoned
by state courts. According to Professor Barry Feld of the University
of Minnesota, America's juvenile courts became "scaled-down, second-class
criminal courts." In his view and that of other abolitionists,
the court's responsibility for young offenders should be ended. The
juvenile court no longer lives up to its part of the initial bargain.
Prosecutors in juvenile court openly promote dispositions that amount
to proportional retribution. Judicial decisions are based explicitly
on the severity of each juvenile's crime rather than the complexity
of his or her problems.
The juvenile justice system has strayed too far from its original mission,
according to Feld. Policymakers should cancel the nation's juvenile
justice experiment. Today's juvenile court retains much of the terminology
of juvenile law, but it functions as a pseudocriminal court. Worse,
it fails to provide complete due process protections for accused youth.
Juvenile courts are still not required to provide bail, jury trials,
or the right to a speedy trial for youthful offenders.
Feld recommends that all law violations be handled in criminal court,
although he hopes the system will continue to recognize the lessened
culpability of the very young by imposing sentences with a "youth
discount"-a 17-year-old defendant would get 75 percent of the sentence
length due an 18-year-old, a 16-year-old would get 50 percent, etc.
Even if Feld's "youth discount" is ultimately rejected by
policymakers, the insights and observations on which he bases his proposal
cannot be ignored. Lawmakers will soon have to confront the basic question,
"Can we do without the juvenile justice system?"
Juvenile justice politics
The juvenile justice system provokes strong opinions, and not all of
them fit into neat categories like "liberal" or "conservative."
It would be wrong to assume that all critics of the juvenile court are
heartless, law-and-order types who feel little compassion for the poor,
disproportionately minority youth who comprise the bulk of the juvenile
court's clients. The critics most in favor of abolishing the juvenile
justice system (Professor Feld, for example) are often motivated by
a concern for youth. In their view, the juvenile court has never lived
up to its rehabilitative promise and it never will. More importantly,
the juvenile court's lower standards of due process are no longer tolerable
given its modern emphasis on just deserts and retribution. Courts were
meant to handle law violations, the abolitionists say, not social welfare
problems.
It would also be wrong to characterize all defenders of the juvenile
court as "soft on crime" or unconcerned with victim rights.
Some of those who defend the juvenile justice system do so because they
believe despite its flaws, the juvenile court offers a unique opportunity
for broad, early intervention and effective crime prevention. In fact,
the juvenile court was originally conceived as an informal, quasi-civil
court precisely in order to free it of the procedural complexities that
prevent the criminal court from acting too aggressively. The juvenile
court was deliberately designed to be flexible and quick to intervene.
Both extremes in the battle over juvenile justice can go too far in
pursuing their agenda. The traditionalists support a strict demarcation
between juvenile and adult court and would like to save the original
concept of an informal, nonstigmatizing, juvenile justice system. This
position is completely unrealistic, however, given the legislative changes
already implemented across the country. Contemporary juvenile courts
operate much like criminal courts with strict rules of evidence, adversarial
procedures, and official goals that include incapacitation and retribution.
Moreover, nearly every state has enacted laws to send greater numbers
of youth to adult court. It is too late to save the traditional system
because the traditional system is already gone.
Abolitionists, however, can be just as impractical. Many would simply
eliminate the juvenile court's responsibility for young offenders. If
juveniles are going to be punished according to the severity of their
crimes, the abolitionists argue, they should be tried in real courts
with full due process rights. The abolitionists contend it is no longer
possible to maintain the fiction that juvenile courts are fundamentally
different. Yet, without significant reform of the criminal courts, the
abolition of juvenile justice would require sending all youth-even the
youngest and most vulnerable-to the same general trial courts criticized
by policymakers as ineffective and overwhelmed. If the traditionalists
appear naïve, the abolitionists seem reckless.
Policymakers have tried to find middle ground in this conflict. Unfortunately,
their compromise solution was to slowly criminalize the juvenile court.
Especially since the U.S. Supreme Court's Gault decision in 1967 (387
U.S. 1), lawmakers across the country have encouraged juvenile courts
to embrace the goals and operational style of criminal courts. Juvenile
courts today pursue many of the objectives once unique to criminal courts,
including incapacitation and retribution. Both juvenile courts and criminal
courts rely on plea bargaining for case outcomes. Both are forced by
growing caseloads to adopt assembly-line tactics and they often have
difficulty providing individualized dispositions. The day-to-day atmosphere
in modern juvenile courts (especially in urban areas) is increasingly
indistinguishable from that of criminal courts.
Although these reforms may have been enacted for good reason, they
raise serious questions about the continuing need for a separate, juvenile
court system. As lawmakers continue to increase the similarity of juvenile
and criminal court sanctions, it becomes harder to rationalize the separation
of the process that imposes them. As judicial discretion is restricted,
the juvenile court's once sweeping authority becomes diluted, making
the court more bureaucratic and inflexible. Decades of reform increased
the severity of the juvenile court process, but they also curtailed
the court's ability to provide individualized and comprehensive interventions
for young offenders.
Sacrificing some to save others
Do we still need a separate, juvenile justice system? Throughout most
of the juvenile court's 100-year history, there was little doubt that
we did. Juvenile courts allowed society to intervene early in the lives
of troubled youth and they prevented a variety of horrors that occurred
whenever young defendants were thrown in with adult criminals. Defending
the juvenile court was instinctive among youth advocates, social workers,
family therapists, clergy, educators, defense attorneys, judges, and
even many prosecutors.
If there were no costs to be paid for maintaining a separate juvenile
court, there would be no need to debate its existence now. All conscientious
and well-intentioned people would support the juvenile court without
question. In recent years, however, it has become clear that efforts
to retain the separate, juvenile court entail significant costs, for
the justice system and for youth.
Juvenile justice as currently practiced imposes two significant costs
on American youth. First, the juvenile court itself no longer delivers
on its promise (rehabilitation and low stigma in exchange for less due
process). Second, the continuing existence of the juvenile justice system
(even if in name only) allows courts, corrections, and other youth-serving
agencies to ignore the inherent youthfulness of many offenders now defined
as adults. Thousands of 14-year-old and 15-year-old "adults"
are removed to criminal courts every year to be treated just like any
other adult. They are no longer a concern to youth-serving professionals.
Of course, neither are the many more thousands of youths ages 18 and
19 who are viewed through the same either-or prism, either juvenile
or adult.
The growing use of criminal court transfer (or waiver) has been very
damaging to the institutional integrity of the juvenile court. Public
safety proponents are unduly focused on increasing the use of transfer,
despite research casting doubt on its effectiveness. At the same time,
youth advocates have painted themselves into a corner. They are compelled
to relinquish large portions of the juvenile court's original caseload
in exchange for whatever remnants of the juvenile system policymakers
might agree to preserve. In recent years, there have been few voices
of opposition willing to challenge state lawmakers each time they designate
another group of juveniles for transfer to adult court. Few complained
when New Hampshire and Wisconsin lowered the age of criminal court jurisdiction
in 1996, effectively transferring all 17-year-olds in those states to
the adult court system.
Growing numbers of youth as young as age 13 are tried and sentenced
in criminal courts that are often not prepared to create specialized
procedures and programs for developing adolescents. The juvenile justice
professionals who would be most qualified to design such programs are
not interested in (or welcomed by) the adult system. In effect, the
juvenile justice system sacrifices one group of youth (legally defined
as adults) in an effort to save its programs for a second group (legal
juveniles).
Undoing traditional juvenile justice
Today's juvenile system is vulnerable to abolition because it attracts
intense criticism from the public. Some of this criticism stems from
ignorance of juvenile law and its purpose, but not all of it comes from
lack of information. Many people simply no longer accept the concept
of delinquency, or diminished legal responsibility due to age. To them,
a juvenile drug dealer is still a drug dealer. When a 13-year-old Oklahoma
boy fired a gun at his school striking several classmates in December
1999, the local prosecutor was asked on national television why he was
seeking to handle the case in adult court. "This type of crime,"
he replied, "requires a serious response" (NBC Today Show,
December 14, 1999). He elaborated that according to Oklahoma law, a
juvenile offender cannot be held in secure confinement beyond age 19.
Equating seriousness with the length of confinement conflicts with
the traditional concept of juvenile justice, but support for traditional
juvenile justice is wearing thin. Federal and state lawmakers have enacted
sweeping changes in the nation's juvenile justice systems and the pace
of change continued even when juvenile violence began to plummet in
the mid-1990s. Nearly all states have passed laws to send far more juveniles
to criminal court and some jurisdictions have introduced formal sentencing
guidelines that limit the discretion of juvenile court judges. Together,
these efforts have begun to unravel the juvenile court's reason for
being.
Transfers to criminal court
No issue in juvenile justice captures the attention of the public or
of policymakers like criminal court transfer. Many policymakers believe
that serious juvenile offenders should be tried in criminal court in
order to achieve more certain and more severe punishment. Does this,
in fact, happen? Does the public get more punishment for its money when
juveniles are tried as adults? Researchers who examine this question
tend to find that the use of transfer does increase the certainty and
severity of legal sanctions, but only for the most serious cases, perhaps
30 percent of transferred juveniles.
In about half of all transfers, the offenders receive sentences comparable
to what they might have received in juvenile court. Some (about one-fifth)
actually receive more lenient treatment in criminal court. Some may
be convicted of lesser offenses or the charges against them may be dismissed
due to the greater evidentiary scrutiny in criminal court. The bottom
line is that criminal court transfer does not ensure incarceration,
and it does not always increase sentence lengths even in cases that
do result in incarceration. Yet, few policies are as popular with the
public or with elected officials.
During the 1980s and 1990s, lawmakers enacted new transfer laws on
an almost annual basis. Moreover, there was an increase in laws that
moved entire classes of young offenders into criminal court without
the involvement of juvenile court judges. Judicial authority in transfer
decisions was diminished while the role of prosecutors and legislatures
increased. Non-judicial mechanisms now account for the vast majority
of juvenile transfers.
For instance, many states enacted policies that made judicial waiver
presumptive, shifting the burden of proof from the prosecution to the
defense. Presumptive waiver provisions typically require a defense attorney
to show proof that a youth is amenable to juvenile court handling. Otherwise,
the juvenile is transferred to criminal court. Between 1992 and 1997,
according to a series of reports prepared for the Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) by the National Center for
Juvenile Justice, eleven states passed new presumptive waiver provisions.
Fourteen states (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Vermont, Virginia,
and Wyoming) and the District of Columbia had enacted presumptive waiver
laws by the end of the 1990s.
Another increasingly popular strategy for moving juveniles into the
criminal courts is mandatory waiver. While presumptive waiver allows
juveniles to rebut the presumption of nonamenability, mandatory waiver
provides no such escape. If a juvenile meets the criteria for mandatory
waiver, a juvenile court judge is left with no choice but to transfer
jurisdiction. Mandatory transfers became very common during the 1990s
after being quite rare as recently as the 1970s. By 1997, according
to OJJDP reports, 14 states (Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia) had some form of
mandatory waiver. South Carolina, for example, requires juvenile court
judges to transfer jurisdiction of any case involving a youth age 14
or older if the youth has been adjudicated for two or more previous
offenses and was accused of an offense punishable by a sentence of at
least 10 years. Indiana requires judges to waive any juvenile with a
prior adjudication who is charged with a felony.
Other mechanisms have contributed even more to the deterioration of
the juvenile justice system. One mechanism that became widespread during
the 1980s and 1990s was statutory exclusion, known in some states as
automatic transfer. Statutory exclusion laws mandate that some young
offenders are transferred automatically to criminal court as soon as
they are charged with certain offenses. Judicial consent is unnecessary.
If a youth is at least a certain age and charged with a certain offense,
state law places the case directly in criminal court. Georgia, for example,
excludes all juveniles age 13 and older from juvenile court if they
are charged with one of several violent offenses such as murder, voluntary
manslaughter, rape, or armed robbery with a firearm. Arizona automatically
excludes juveniles charged with any felony if the youth was adjudicated
for two or more prior felony offenses. As of 1997, 28 states had legislation
to exclude at least some juveniles from the juvenile court.
Direct file, also known as concurrent jurisdiction or prosecutor discretion,
is another increasingly prominent form of criminal court transfer. Direct
file laws give prosecutors the discretion to prosecute juveniles either
in juvenile or adult court. The popularity of direct file provisions
grew significantly during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1982, just eight states
had direct file statutes; by 1997, there were 15 states with these laws.
Colorado, for example, authorizes prosecutors to proceed directly to
criminal court in any case involving a youth age 14 or older charged
with a wide array of felony offenses.
Louisiana gives prosecutors discretion to file criminal charges against
any youth age 15 and older and charged with a second drug felony, a
second aggravated burglary, or virtually any of the Violent Crime Index
offenses. The number of juveniles transferred by prosecutors has grown
sharply. Florida prosecutors alone send more than 7,000 cases to criminal
courts each year.
Blended sentencing
Transferring juveniles to the adult court system is the most widely
recognized method of increasing the severity of sanctions for young
offenders, but it is not the only method. During the 1990s, some states
gave judges the power to blend criminal court sentences with juvenile
court dispositions. Instead of choosing between sentencing a youth in
juvenile or adult court, judges can draw upon both systems. A youth
might begin a period of confinement in a juvenile facility before being
sent to an adult prison at age 18.
Blended sentencing policies were devised primarily to provide longer
terms of incarceration for juveniles, but they also helped to blur the
distinction between juvenile justice and adult justice. Increasing the
variety of sentencing options may reduce the resistance of courts to
handle very young offenders in the adult system since juveniles may
not be subject to immediate confinement with adults. Blended sentencing
policies may also allow judges to draw upon the traditionally richer
treatment and supervision resources available in the juvenile justice
system without having to sacrifice the lengthy periods of incarceration
once available only in the criminal court system.
Blended sentencing was virtually unheard of in the juvenile justice
system before the 1980s. By 1997, there were 20 states employing one
or more blended sentencing schemes (including Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia).
Mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines
Sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum policies for juveniles
also began to proliferate during the 1980s and 1990s. As of 1997, 17
states and the District of Columbia had enacted some type of mandatory
minimum sentencing provisions for at least some juvenile offenders.
Some jurisdictions applied sentencing guidelines to juveniles by first
requiring that they be tried in criminal court, but others (e.g., Arizona,
Utah and Wyoming) enacted formal sentencing guidelines that applied
to juvenile delinquency cases handled by juvenile court judges. These
laws required juvenile court dispositions to be consistent with a pre-defined
sentencing menu based upon the youth's most recent offense and prior
record.
The use of structured sentencing fundamentally contradicts the basic
premise of juvenile justice by making sentence length proportional to
the severity of an offense rather than basing court outcomes on the
characteristics and life problems of offenders. As the popularity of
these policies increases, it becomes very difficult to justify the continuation
of a juvenile justice system that fails to provide complete due process
protections for the youth it handles.
Reduced confidentiality
Almost all juvenile court proceedings and records were confidential
as recently as the 1960s. Confidentiality was an integral part of the
traditional juvenile justice model, based upon the theory that publicly
designating a juvenile as a law violator would stigmatize a young person.
This stigma would then encourage the juvenile to adopt a deviant self-image
and reduce the potential for rehabilitation.
As juvenile justice policy became more contentious during the 1980s
and 1990s, support for confidentiality protections began to erode. Practical
issues such as jurisdictional information sharing and greater media
interest in juvenile court proceedings began to win out over confidentiality.
Most states opened their juvenile court proceedings or records to the
public and to the media. By 1997, 30 states had enacted provisions to
allow open hearings in at least some juvenile cases. Forty-two states
had enacted legislation authorizing the release and publication of the
names and addresses of alleged juvenile offenders in some cases. States
also began to allow more juveniles to be fingerprinted and photographed.
Nearly all states now allow juvenile fingerprints to be included in
criminal history records, and nearly all states authorize juveniles
to be photographed for later identification.
In addition, many states enacted laws that required juvenile records
to remain open longer or prevented the sealing or destruction of juvenile
records altogether, typically those involving violent or serious offenses.
Florida, for example, requires records about juveniles considered habitual
offenders to be retained until the offender reaches age 26. North Carolina
prevents authorities from expunging records altogether for certain,
serious offenses. By 1997, half the states had enacted laws restricting
the sealing and/or expunging of juvenile records.
Using juvenile records in criminal court
Finally, some states have even passed laws enabling juvenile court
records to affect criminal court sentences. Enhancing criminal court
sentences with juvenile court adjudications abrogates the agreement
that allowed the juvenile court to exist in the first place. Adjudication
in juvenile court begins to involve potentially serious jeopardy for
youth.
As of 1997, according to research by Joseph Sanborn, all 50 states
and the District of Columbia had enacted statutes or court rules allowing
this practice or they had case law that sanctioned it. For example,
Illinois and Indiana allow juvenile offense histories to serve as sufficient
grounds for increasing sentence length or imposing consecutive sentences.
Three states (California, Louisiana, and Texas) allow juvenile adjudications
to serve as the first and second "strikes" against an adult
offender. Thus, an offender with two prior juvenile court adjudications
could face life in prison for a first appearance in criminal court.
Chronic frustration
These changes were implemented in response to public demands for tougher
juvenile crime policies. Yet, the public still views the juvenile court
as a weak and inadequate response to juvenile crime. As always, the
most popular response to this perception is to send more juveniles to
criminal court. Not because criminal courts have been found to be more
effective than juvenile courts, but because the adult system offers
a more potent symbol of crime control than does the juvenile court.
Professor Franklin Zimring of U.C. Berkeley points out that the impetus
to enact new crime legislation is nearly always its symbolic value rather
than its operational impact. This is why one wave of reform is inevitably
followed by another.
Perhaps the public's frustration with the juvenile justice system is
perpetuated by the fact that juvenile courts are a distinct and highly
visible component of the criminal justice system. Individual, criminal
acts by 25-year-olds, or divorced people, or computer programmers do
not often provoke calls for sweeping reforms of the criminal law. There
is no system set aside for these groups. Every shocking crime by a young
person, on the other hand, calls attention to possible problems in the
court system especially designed to deal with juveniles. The juvenile
justice system acts like a magnet, attracting the public's frustrations
about the crime problem, even if juveniles are only a small part of
the problem.
Every time juvenile crime appears in the headlines, Americans wonder
why the police refer to the youth involved as a delinquent and not simply
as a criminal. Why does the juvenile court have its own, unique process
and vocabulary? Why do officials avoid using words like "verdict"
and "conviction" and instead describe the juvenile court as
"establishing facts" and "reaching adjudication"?
If a long prison term is warranted, why can't it be imposed by a juvenile
court? Why do prosecutors first have to transfer the case to adult court?
Juvenile court begins to sound like a synonym for weak and lenient.
Even professionals who work in the juvenile justice system can be confused
by juvenile law and procedure. This author recently participated in
a workshop for administrators and judges representing every juvenile
court jurisdiction in one western state. During the workshop, an experienced
juvenile court clerk observed that juvenile court terminology seems
mainly intended to obscure the court process and to keep the public
from understanding it completely. Of those attending the workshop, only
half seemed to fully support the continued use of the juvenile court's
unique terminology.
The words used in the juvenile court, of course, are intended to symbolize
the unique mission and legal philosophy of the juvenile justice system.
Youths adjudicated in juvenile court are technically not guilty of criminal
offenses. Instead, they are "found to be delinquent" which
authorizes the juvenile court to intervene in their behalf, even if
the court's intervention includes locked confinement. This legal distinction
supposedly spares youth the stigma of a "guilty" verdict and
preserves the chances that one day they can again be productive citizens
without the taint of a criminal conviction.
A century of juvenile court jurisprudence has established that the
juvenile justice system is supposed to be different from the criminal
justice system. Increasingly, however, it is not different in the ways
that once counted the most. The juvenile court's existence inflames
political rhetoric but it fails to deliver quality justice for all youth.
Beyond dichotomy: a new "youth justice" system
Youth advocates may need to re-consider their position on the juvenile
court. Instead of concerning themselves only with youth who still happen
to be legal juveniles, they may want to shift their focus and work to
ensure fair and timely justice for all youth-even those processed in
the criminal court system. This work could be done from either side
of the juvenile-criminal border, by making youth-oriented improvements
from within the criminal justice system, or by helping juvenile justice
professionals to get involved in programs for young adult offenders.
It may be even more effective, however, if the border no longer existed.
Criminal courts are not as evil and juvenile courts are not as virtuous
as some might suggest. The justice system as a whole might benefit if
lawmakers, judges, and practitioners were able to stop fighting over
the politically hobbled delinquency jurisdiction of the juvenile court.
If delinquency laws were abolished and all offenders young and old were
handled in an integrated criminal court system, youth advocates could
begin to focus on ensuring the quality of the process used for all youth.
The question is how to get from here to there. How can we build a new
justice system that protects the public safety and the rights of youth
while ensuring that youthful offenders get every chance they deserve
to mend their ways and rejoin society? One way to begin may be to take
advantage of the growing diversity of specialized courts.
The public generally assumes there are only two types of courts-criminal
or juvenile. Consequently, any effort to increase the symbolic strength
of juvenile crime policy necessarily favors making greater use of criminal
courts. American courts, however, are far more diverse than this. Innovative,
specialized courts such as drug courts, gun courts, and community-based
courts are bringing new ideas and a wider range of choices to the criminal
justice system. Some of these new courts actually resemble the traditional
juvenile court in their philosophy of human behavior, their approach
to processing cases, and their efforts to monitor offender compliance
with court orders by close, judicial supervision.
For the past two decades, state and federal officials have been slowly
dismantling the juvenile justice system without much thought as to what
will replace it. The emergence of innovative, specialized courts within
the adult system presents an unprecedented opportunity to create a new
"youth justice system." Ideally, this new system would retain
the best features of the juvenile court while gradually incorporating
new ideas and procedures developed by the specialized courts now spreading
across the country.
Eventually, every state could begin to implement a wide assortment
of court models and establish individualized intake procedures for routing
young offenders to the most appropriate forum. Once such a system was
fully in place, the old dichotomy of juvenile court versus adult court
may no longer seem as important. Lawmakers may be able to consider abolishing
the juvenile court's delinquency jurisdiction and improve the coherence
of criminal justice policy for all youth. Most importantly, the juvenile
court would no longer be such an easy target when politicians go looking
for symbolic victories over crime.
After all, the central issue is not whether young offenders are called
delinquents. The real issue is what happens when young people are arrested
and when they appear in court. What process is used to determine their
culpability? Who chooses the most appropriate response for each case?
How quickly does the process occur, and does it ensure the safety of
the public while guarding the rights of offenders? Is the process designed
to maximize each person's chances of rejoining the law-abiding community?
Satisfactory answers to these questions will be possible only when
every community has an effective, understandable intake process, a fair
and efficient system of fact finding and adjudication, and a diverse
menu of services and sanctions that are suitable for a wide range of
offenders. Maintaining the juvenile court and its separate delinquency
jurisdiction may have once guaranteed such a system for young people.
The benefits are far less certain today.
Conclusion
Recent decreases in juvenile violence offer the nation's policymakers
an opportunity to pause and reflect upon how they have changed the juvenile
court and what its future should be. This is a good time to ask whether
a separate system of juvenile justice is in fact sustainable, either
legally or politically. If not, how can state and local officials design
a new system that will meet the needs of youth and their communities
during the next century? There may be just enough time to fashion a
new youth justice system before the next violent crime wave comes along.
Jeffrey Butts, Ph.D., is senior research associate in the Program
on Law & Behavior, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C. The Urban Institute
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research organization based in Washington,
D.C. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the Urban Institute, its board, or sponsors.