Encyclopedia Of Crime And Justice

C&JHalfTitle3 5/22/03 3:20 PM Page 1 Encyclopedia of Crime&Justice Second Edition C&JTitle3 5/22/03 3:19 PM Page 1 Encyclopedia of Crime&Justice Second Edition Joshua Dressler, Editor in Chief Volume 3 Juvenile Justice: Juvenile Court—Rural Crime J (CONTINUED) under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court rather than the criminal (or adult) court. Technically, juveniles cannot be arrested for committing crimes because the criminal code does not apply to young people under a certain age (usually age seventeen or eighteen). Rather than charging them with a crime, juveniles are usually arrested for committing acts of delinquency. A twenty-five year old who steals a car is arrested for the crime of auto theft. A fifteen year old who does the same thing is taken into custody for an act of delinquency that would have been considered auto theft if that youth had been an adult. America’s system of juvenile law was founded on the premise that, due to their immaturity, young people accused of crimes should be handled differently than adults. Ideally, the juvenile court is more responsive than an adult court would be to the social and developmental characteristics of children and youth. The services and sanctions imposed by juvenile courts should be designed to do more than punish wrongdoing. They should address the causes of the youth’s misbehavior and eventually restore the youth to full and responsible membership in his or her family as well as the larger community. Some contemporary critics doubt whether this mission is achievable or even desirable in all cases. Juvenile courts emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the period in American history known as the Progressive era. Practitioners, policymakers, and historians often see the juvenile court’s history quite differently. Some characterize the founding of the first juvenile court as the culmination of many years of effort to guard the safety and well-being of youth in the justice system. In this view, the invention of the juvenile court was sparked by so- JUVENILE JUSTICE: JUVENILE COURT Juvenile courts in the United States are legally responsible for young people who are arrested by the police or otherwise accused of breaking the criminal laws of their community. Some areas of the country do not have courts actually called juvenile courts. Law violations by young people may be handled by probate courts, juvenile divisions of a circuit court, or even comprehensive family courts. In every community, however, some form of court is charged with responding to cases in which a person under the age of adulthood (a juvenile) is suspected of breaking the law. Since these courts have jurisdiction over juveniles and they follow the same general principles of juvenile law, it is conventional to refer to them simply as juvenile courts. Many juvenile courts handle other types of cases. They often handle dependency cases (or matters involving abused and neglected children) and youth charged with noncriminal acts (or status offenses) such as curfew violations, running away from home, and truancy. Other juvenile courts (especially those known as family courts) may handle domestic violence and child custody matters. Typically, however, a juvenile court’s caseload is made up of law violations, status offenders, and dependency cases. Law violations usually account for about half of this workload. Origins Young people who violate the law before reaching the legal age of adulthood are referred to as juveniles in order to indicate that they are 937 938 JUVENILE JUSTICE: JUVENILE COURT cial reformers and activists who understood that children are different from adults and should be held less culpable for their unlawful b