Juvenile Intake Process

The Intake

Jenifer R. Roberts

Brown Mackie College

The Intake

This paper will inform you on the intake process of a juvenile. There are three main parts.

The juvenile justice intake process, additional juvenile justice preadjudication processes, and

legal issues (Elrod & Ryder,2011). There is information on what all juveniles should expect

when going through the juvenile intake process, and the discretion of the intake process.

First it all begins with an arrest of a juvenile. Just because a juvenile gets arrested does not

mean that they are guilty. When arrested the juvenile will be searched, turn in all jewelry, hair

and/or head bands, wait on paperwork to be filed. Then they

The intake unit is the one’s who will be dealing with the juvenile

after the arrest. There job is to figure a suitable way of dealing with the juveniles that they

handle. There is a wide range of things that a juvenile can get into trouble over. The intake

unit’s job is to figure out with crimes “warrants a formal court action” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011).

The intake screening a system to see whether a juvenile should go through the “juvenile

system” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011) or if the intake officer should take another route. They usually

look at their past history of school, family, court, job, juveniles attitude, and their age. The

screening process may also include the juveniles race, gender, and wealth.

The intake process is usually “performed by probation officers” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011).

The attorney’s office of the prosecutor is usually the one’s who decide whether charges should

be made. They make sure there is enough legal cause to pursue a criminal charge. If the

prosecutor thinks the case should go forward then it goes to the intake officer and they make

Since the prosecutor is getting involved more they are sending juveniles to court more. In

some states the intake officers gives all cases to the prosecutor to look at. States are getting a

harder on juveniles in hopes it will detour youths from committing crimes. “Punitive model of

juvenile justice” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011) is to detour juvenile crimes and not be so easy on

juveniles. This lets juveniles have the “same criteria” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011) as adults. Discretion in the intake screening. It does not matter who looks at the case they always use

discretion. There factors in determining whether intake can handle the case. These are the

factors: Is there enough evidence to bring the case to court, what their performance is in school,

at home, and in and around the community, is this an issue that can be resolved, should they

remove the juvenile from the home or not, the “attitude” (Elrod & Ryder, 2011) of the juvenile,

the juveniles parents, and the person that the juvenile committed the crime against, the age of the

juvenile, school attendance, what the plaintiff wants to do with the juvenile, and if the juvenile