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For over a century, society has held the belief that the juvenile justice system was a means to protect the public by providing a system that responds to the needs of delinquent children. Whereas legal treatment of juvenile delinquents in the late nineteenth century remains a mystery (Wolcott, 2003)historians have generally accepted the notion that prior to the creation of juvenile courts in the late nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, the criminal justice system made no distention between juveniles and adults (Wolcott, p. 110). Historically, if children as young as seven years old were accused of committing crimes, they were imprisoned with adults (History of Juvenile Justice in the United States). Techniques referred to as the “old way” of handling juvenile offenders was to simply place them in adult jails (Wolcott, p. 110). Juvenile court advocates theory was “arrest him and lock him up, because a thief’s a thief, no matter if he is a kid” (Wolcott, p. 110). Historian Thomas J. Bernard stated that by not distinguishing adolescent offenders from that of adult offenders, an unfavorable dilemma was created as juveniles were either sentenced as adults, thus receiving excessive punishments, or either let go with a discharge or suspended sentence, which ultimately failed to provide a form of discipline, consequently encouraging further acts of crime (Wolcott, p. 111).

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American welfare reformers (Wolcott, p. 109)believed that delinquent children needed a separate court system from adults, as to provide opportunities for rehabilitation opposed to punishment, hence the category of “juvenile delinquent” was created to separate children from adults it the criminal justice ...

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...vior. It is the responsibility of the parent to provide sufficient positive guidance to children (Cook & Gordon, p. 206).

Parental responsibility laws derived from the notion that juveniles commit crimes because their parents fail to exercise proper control and supervision (Cook & Gordon, p. 206) by holding parents legally responsible, they are motivated to exert proper control over their children (Cook & Gordon, p. 206). While many believed the use of parental accountability laws is an effective way to decrease juvenile crime rates, parents feel the laws are unfair. In an interview of one hundred and forty seven juvenile offenders, a great deal of the children stated they did not feel their parents were responsible for their actions and would not have committed such acts had they known their parents would be punished (Brank & Lane, p. 333). Although many parents