CJCJ: Intro to California's Juvenile Justice System

The Juvenile Court was created in the early 20th century on the philosophy that children are inherently different from adults and that the state should take on the responsibility of protecting and rehabilitating young offenders.

In the past 20 years, despite actual declines in youth crime rates, public perceptions of youth violence have contributed to widespread support for the dismantling of the juvenile court system and tougher crime legislation, like trying children as adults and increasing incarceration as the solution to juvenile delinquency.

Research shows that incarceration does not rehabilitate juvenile offenders and that more and more youth who end up in juvenile halls or state prisons are non-violent offenders.

California leads the nation in juvenile arrests and incarceration rates. In 1997, California�s juvenile custody rate was one and a half times higher than the national average. This includes a growing number of girls and a disproportionate number of minorities.

CJCJ works to promote alternatives to incarceration and to uphold rehabilitation as the primary goal of juvenile justice reform.

Until the 19th century, children were punished and confined in the same ways as adults. Early jails housed men, women, adults, juveniles, sane and insane all together.

Houses of Refuge
In the early 1800�s reformers became concerned about the overcrowded conditions in the jails and the corruption youth experienced when confined with adult felons. The first House of Refuge opened in New York in 1825, as a facility exclusively for children. By the 1840�s, 53 more were built around the country.

Houses of Refuge were not limited to children who had committed crimes. They were also homes for poor children, orphans, or any child thought to be incorrigible or wayward. The average number of children in any given House was 200, but some, like the New York House of Refuge, housed over 1,000 youth at any given time.

Training or Industrial Schools
In response to overcrowding, deplorable conditions, and reports of brutality in the Houses of Refuge, training schools were developed in the mid-nineteenth century. Massachusetts opened the first state-operated training school for boys in 1847 and for girls in 1856. Training Schools placed a larger emphasis on schooling and vocational training.

Many of the new facilities were built outside cities. According to contemporary thinking, the city was the source of temptation and a rural setting would offer a more virtuous and simpler way of life.

Training schools are still the models of juvenile incarceration today. While the 20th century brought some changes, like the evolution of individualized diagnosis and treatment, new kinds of rehabilitative therapy, and improved educational programming, the congregate model of concentrating large number of juvenile offenders in one institution has remained.

History of the Juvenile Court
Until the late 19th century, children were tried in criminal courts along with adults. Movement for juvenile justice reform was informed by the 16th century educational reform movement in England that perceived children to be different than miniature adults, with less than fully developed moral and cognitive capacities.

As early as 1825, the Society for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and other reform organizations were advocating for a separate court system for youth.

In 1899, the first juvenile court was finally established in Cook County, Illinois, and by 1925, all but two states had followed suit. Again, borrowing from the British thinking, the doctrine parens patriae (the State as Parent) was the underpinning of the newly established right for the state to intervene and to provide protection for children whose parents did not provide adequate care or supervision, such as in the case of juvenile delinquency. The primary motive of the juvenile court was to provide rehabilitation and benevolent supervision for the child.

There were significant differences in the juvenile and criminal court systems. The focus of the juvenile court was on the offender, not on the offense and on rehabilitation, not punishment. All crimes by individuals under the age of eighteen were adjudicated in a juvenile court, with rare exceptions (decided upon a case by case basis) when a waiver could transfer a youth to adult court.

The juvenile court, with its rehabilitative mission, could be much more flexible and informal than the criminal court. Due process protections, an attorney for the state and the youth were deemed unnecessary. A range of dispositional options that were related to the child�s situation, and not only to the crime, was available to a judge.

In the 1950�s and 60�s public concern grew about the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system, not because of the rehabilitative philosophy, but because of its perceived lack of effectiveness and the number of juveniles who were detained indefinitely.

In the 1960�s, the Supreme Court made a series of decisions that formalized the juvenile courts and made them more like criminal courts. Formal hearings were required in situations where juveniles were waived to adult courts, juvenile facing confinement were required to be given the right to receive notice of charges held against them, and the right to have an attorney represent them. �Proof beyond a reasonable doubt� had to be established, instead of just �a preponderance of evidence� for an adjudication.

In the 1980�s the public perceived that juvenile crime was on the rise and that the system was too lenient. Many states passed punitive laws, including mandatory sentences and automatic waivers to adult court for certain crimes.

In the 1990�s this tough on crime trend accelerated. Transfer provisions made it easier to transfer juvenile offenders to the criminal justice system. In the court process and in detention, there is more of an emphasis on punishment and less of an emphasis on rehabilitation.

History Resources:
Bartollas, Clemens and Miller, Stuart J., Juvenile Justice in America, 2nd Ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1994.
California Youth Authority [http://www.cya.ca.gov/about/history.html]
Macallair, Daniel. �Emerging from Darkness: Reinventing San Francisco�s Juvenile Justice System.� Stanford Law & Policy Review. Vol. 7:1 1996.
Sheldon, Randall G., �Juvenile Justice in Historical Perspective: Confronting the Edifice Complex and Field of Dreams Syndrome.� Reforming Juvenile Justice: Reasons and Strategies for the 21st Century, edited by Macallair, Daniel and Schiraldi, Vincent. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, 1998.
Snyder, Howard N. and Sickmund, Melissa, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report, National Center for Juvenile Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. September 1999.

1. Legislators
Create policies and laws

2. Police
Apprehend juvenile offenders: Can issue a warning, cite and release, or make an arrest

3. Prosecutors
File charges: Can reduce, modify, or drop charges

4. Public Defender/Defense Attorney
[http://www.cpda.org/publicarea/county/countypdwebsites.html]
(Represent the juvenile during legal proceedings)

5. Judge/Courts
Determine whether the petition filed against the juvenile is true Assign the offender to probation, foster care or group home, other alternative program, juvenile ranch or camp, or CYA Determine whether a juvenile accused of a serious offense should be remanded to adult court

6. Probation Officers
Decide whether or not to accept and "book" the juvenile offenders in juvenile hall Compile a pre-disposition report that includes a social history and disposition recommendations Supervise juveniles in detention or detention alternatives

7. Youthful Offender Parole Board
Determines CYA institutional designation and earliest possible release date Decides when wards are eligible for parole and revokes parole for violators

8. Community Based Organizations
Offer alternative to detention or incarceration Often offer case management and intensive supervision as an alternative Advocate for juveniles in the system

9. County Probation Departments
County agencies that oversee juvenile halls and camps.

10. California Youth Authority (CYA) [http://www.cya.ca.gov/]
(State agency that oversees correctional facilities and supervises paroles for youth aged 12 � 24)

Following the arrest of a juvenile offender, a law enforcement officer has the discretion to release the juvenile to his or her parents, or take the offender to juvenile hall. The county probation department, the agency responsible for the juvenile hall, has the discretion to accept and "book" the offender or not.

If the offender is booked, the probation department and/or the district attorney can choose to file a "petition" with the juvenile court, which is similar to filing charges in adult court. At this time, the district attorney could also request that the juvenile be "remanded" to adult court because of the nature of his or her offense. For a juvenile who is adjudicated and whose petition is sustained (tried and convicted) in juvenile court, the offender can be placed on probation in the community, placed in a foster care or group home, incarcerated in the county's juvenile ranch or camp, or sent to the Youth Authority as a ward of the state. For a juvenile tried and convicted in adult court, the offender can be sentenced to the Department of Corrections, but can be placed in the Youth Authority through age 24.

The following charts display the detained juvenile population broken down by offense, age, gender and race.

You miss being free more than anything... What you hate is the doors being locked at night. When you hear that key turning, it really does something to you... You hate being locked in your room. Every body hates being locked in. Being able to take a walk--even just a little walk--whenever you feel like it. Some days I feel like I�m going to jump out of my skin if I can�t go off by myself from everyone in the cottage, and just think by myself. You miss your freedom.

How to Survive
When you get there, you go to your own race and they run down what you have to do. If someone disrespects you, badmouths you or your family or your city -- you either fight or flee. Fighting gains you respect, If you run you�re a �lame� or a �lop� or a �leva.� If you give in to pressure -- and the older boys pressure you all the time -- you�re a pressure case, a �P.C.� And if you�re weak, they could rape you.
-CYA ward

The Rules
All movements are to be in bank order formation and on silence. All wards are to be silent upon exiting the cottage for movement. Pictures may be hung on the inside of the lockers (only). No carpeting in rooms and dorms. No visiting is allowed in the dorm. Showers are in silence. Wards are allowed five minutes to shower from the time they leave their bunks. Wards that just finished showering area allowed five minutes in the latrine to dry off, brush their teeth....
-Rules in a locked dorm for 13-15 year olds

On Being Incarcerated for the Third Time:
There were a lot of weak people in there, and I had finally learned how to use my mind to manipulate. Plus, I could use a knife; most people don�t want to die, but I didn�t care. In DeWitt Nelson, I was the assaulter, I took what I wanted: radios, cigarettes, commissary, clothes, sex. I felt powerful. What I said was the word. People did what I wanted. They were scared of me. CYA had helped me get worse.
-Former CYA ward

References:
Kroll, Michael �Locking up the Problem,� West, Feb 19, 1989.
Bartolla, Clemens and Stuart J. Miller. Juvenile Justice in America, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 1994.