It may be convenient to call all youths under age 18 juveniles, but it is legally incorrect and morally evasive. Legally, a person is either a juvenile or an adult. Unless we are fully prepared to think of teens as adults, we should not prosecute them as adults, whether they face capital punishment, imprisonment or probation. Continue reading Too Many Youths Facing Adult Justice
In the rush to get tough on crime during the 1980s and 1990s, state laws were changed so that complicated questions of child development and legal responsibility now are settled in the state capitol, not in the courtroom. Continue reading San Francisco Chronicle – Juvenile Justice: Deadly Distraction
Jeffrey A. Butts and Janeen Buck (2002). The Sudden Popularity of Teen Courts. Judges’ Journal, 41(1): 29-33, 48. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association. The rapid spread of teen courts underscores their popularity with the public, elected officials, schools, and parents. Research about teen courts is limited, although some studies offer encouraging results. Continue reading The Sudden Popularity of Teen Courts
Sociologist Simon Singer draws upon the experiences of a single jurisdiction (New York State) to examine the most prominent trend in contemporary juvenile crime policy-the transfer of young offenders to criminal court, where they can be tried as adults. Nearly every state legislature, the U.S. Congress, and virtually all candidates for elected office now embrace criminal-court transfer as a necessary keystone of juvenile crime policy. Continue reading Book Review
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