Juvenile Court

The first juvenile court was established in Illinois in 1899. In the late 18th century children as young as seven could stand trial in criminal court and could be sentenced to prison or death. The perception of children was later changed and they were viewed as persons with undeveloped moral and cognitive capacities. This allowed the state of Illinois to intervene in the lives of children providing protection and care or supervision. The mission to help children in trouble was clearly stated in the laws that established juvenile courts. This led to the procedural changes between the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

The similarities of the juvenile court system and the adult court system are the right to an attorney, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to notice of the charges, and the prosecution must provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt before a person can be convicted. Individuals in both systems retain many of the same rights. Community protection is a primary goal for both the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Constitutional rights apply to both systems as well as held accountable for violating the law. Designers of the juvenile justice system retained many of the components of the criminal justice system as they constructed a new process to respond to delinquent youths (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999).

The use of waivers in the juvenile justice system is a transfer process used to transfer jurisdiction over certain juveniles from juvenile courts to criminal courts. Waiver proceedings are subject to a hearing to determine one’s suitability for transfer (Snyder, 2003). Forty-seven states allow waiver for certain typ...

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...also make more children harden criminals that may have been rehabilitated. The fact that society has better means of standard of living can be attributed to this adjustment in realization for the special needs of children. Sending more juveniles to adult court may not result in significantly more punishment for more offenders, but it may mean longer pretrial delays, more pretrial incarceration with few services to address youth problems, greater population management problems in prisons and jails, and greater exposure of youths to adult inmates. An integrated process would have to recognize that adolescents are not adults that the factors bringing youths to court require special consideration, and that the entire court process should involve an individualized, problem-solving approach rather than simply fact finding and sentencing (Butts & Mitchell, n.d.).