This paper is a discussion of the pros and cons of having a separate system of justice to deal with juvenile crime. Since the first courts were established to provide for different ways of dealing with youthful offenders, American society has gone through alternating waves in its opinions about whether age should determine an individual=s culpability and what the primary purpose of juvenile justice should be. Research has tried to find out whether more severe penalties or the assignment of certain crimes to adult courts, despite the age of the perpetrator, have any effects on the frequency or the rate of recidivism of especially violent crimes, with mixed results. The system as it exists treats younger offenders inconsistently, often depriving them of rights which are routinely part of the adult system. Most experts agree that juvenile justice in America needs reform but disagree on the extent to which change is needed. This paper argues that children who break the law should in fact be treated differently from adults but that the existing structure needs, at the very least, modifications that take their relative youth into account.
Juvenile justice as a concept in America has its roots in the early part of the 1800s. Lawrence M. Friedman (1985) writes, AAs early as 1825, New York set up a >House of Refuge= for juveniles@ (p. 598). Jeffrey M. Jenson and Matthew O. Howard (1998, July) note, AThe House of Refuge, and the development of institutions for juveniles in Massachusetts, embodied the belief that children should be treated separately from adult offenders@ (p. 325).
By 1884, New York=s judges had the discretion to assign delinquents under the age of 16 to the care of a guardian or an institution, rather than sending them to prison. The first true juvenile court was established in Illinois in 1899, and, within 20 years, almost every state had some version of its own of such court. However, Friedman (1985) argues, A...