Juveniles & Justice Is it

Juveniles & Justice Is it fair when dependent and neglected children come under the jurisdiction of the court system, making them status offenders? What is the relevance of the concept of parens patriae, and how does it potentially conflict with due process? These two issues will be addressed and critiqued in this paper.

Thesis: This paper takes the position that it is not fair to make a child who commits acts that are not illegal a status offender, because the juvenile justice system is supposed to respond to the conditions that led to the child's predicament, not to the act itself.

Status Offense -- Fairness, Justice? The fact that a child can become under the jurisdiction and authority of the state for committing actions "that would not be considered illegal if committed by an adult" is, on the surface basically unfair (Siegel, et al., 2010, p. 17). The conduct that the underage individual has been accused of -- conduct that is only technically illegal because he is in fact a child -- is referred to as a status offense.

In the U.S., eleven states have a classification for these children called "child in need of supervision" but the other thirty nine states the classification is "unruly child, incorrigible child, or minor in need of supervision" (Seigel, 17). The whole point of the original establishment of the juvenile justices system -- as noted by Siegel on page 17 -- was poignantly expressed by the Chicago Bar Association with reference to the 1889 Juvenile Court Act in Illinois (the first juvenile court in America).

The spirit of that 1889 Act is that the State "… exercises that tender solicitude and care over its neglected, dependent wards that a wise and loving parent would exercise with reference to his own children under similar circumstances" (Siegel, 17).

In the 1914 publication of the Cyclopedia of American Government, Volume 1, the authors point out that juvenile court expressed the obligation of the state to protect a child, with emphasis "…throughout the proceeding is laid upon the correction of conditions responsible for the child's wrongdoing, and not upon the act of the child itself" (McLaughlin, et al., 1914, p. 500). Meanwhile when the state asserts control over the child due to his non-criminal behavior that governmental intervention supports parens patriae, Siegel maintains.

(Parens patriae in Latin means "substitute parent"; its been the court's prerogative to intervene in cases where through no fault of his own a child has been neglected or is dependent, Alarid, et al., explains on page 326). States' intervention supports parens patriae simply because state courts believe -- and they assume without really knowing for certain -- that status offender is in his best interests (Siegel, 17). Approximately 150,000 under age youths (technically children) are sent to juvenile court as "status offenders" every year, Siegel explains (17).

This policy takes due process and throws it out the window, just because the individual is under age. The U.S. Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1974, which provides funds to make it possible for states to improve their juvenile justice programs. In fact in 1974 Congress was so concerned about mistreatment of children (e.g., status offender abuse) that in subsequent reauthorizations of the Act, states that receive federal grants must "…remove status offenders from secure detention and lockups" so they will.