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Parens Patriae
Four alleged juvenile delinquents in the Marion County Juvenile Court were tested for competency under the adult competency statute, were found to be incompetent and were ultimately ordered to the mental health division of Indiana. The mental health division unsuccessfully moved to vacate that order, and then appealed to the Indiana Court of Appeals. The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's order. However, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the order and remanded the case(s) for further proceedings. The two lower courts did not affectively apply Parens Patriae but the Supreme Court effectively applied the Doctrine.
Summary of In Re K.G.
was a 12?year-old boy accused of sexual battery, D.G. was a 10?year-old boy accused of child molesting, D.C.B. was an 11?year-old boy accused of arson and J.J.S. was a 13?year-old girl accused of burglary and theft. All four alleged juvenile delinquents: were in the Marion County Juvenile...
Through the mental health division of the Family and Social Services Administration, the State unsuccessfully moved to vacate the orders of commitment, though the Juvenile Court acknowledged the division of mental health "[did] not currently have available appropriate facilities or programs" for the alleged juvenile delinquents (Sirkin, 2005). The State then appealed to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The trial court's order/judgment was affirmed by the Indiana Court of Appeals but reversed by the Indiana Supreme Court. The Indiana Court of…
Use of Parens Patriae
The Doctrine of Parens Patriae (Latin: "parent of the country") acknowledges the inherent power/authority of the state to protect individuals legally incapable of acting on their own behalf (Fairlex, Inc., 2013). Though the doctrine was developed in English Common Law, American jurisprudence usually applies Parens Patriae to the state's ability to protect the best interests of children, the mentally ill and other persons who are somehow legally incompetent to manage their own affairs (Fairlex, Inc., 2013). The first two categories are self-explanatory and the third category might include a senile or comatose person, for example.
Before discussing whether the courts appropriately applied Parens Patriae, it must be
Law makers believed that transfer laws will assist in deterring juveniles from committing the most serious crimes. The article reports that it is unclear whether or not trying juveniles in Criminal Court as opposed to juvenile court deters crime. In fact the author points out the results of six large studies which found that the recidivism rates of those tried in Criminal Court was greater than the rate of those
Juvenile Justice How was the "get tough" movement different from the original parens patriae concept? This paper reviews both forms of punishment (or penalizing) when juveniles stray away from law-abiding behaviors. The history of parens patriae The system known as parens patriae was developed many centuries ago, beginning in the late fourteenth century, according to the book Juvenile Delinquency: An Integrated Approach. And early in the fifteenth century parens patriae (the law that
However, both articles show, despite the criminal justice system's best effort, that is often not the case. Juveniles often return to the court system repeatedly, and when they do, they are often tried as adults, which only seems to add to the problem. It is not that the court systems are ineffective (although in some cases it seems that they are), it is that they are still trying to
The problem of determining the right approach is compounded by the effects of the culture of violence to which many young offenders are exposed. In some cases, it is possible to reform their behavior but in other cases, juvenile offenders already take on the hardened attitude normally associated with adult offenders. As a result, some juveniles are too far gone to reach through non-punitive methods by the time they reach
, 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
Crime As Schmalleger explains, the American juvenile-justice system was designed a century ago to reform kids found guilty of minor crimes, but more and more, the system has to cope with more violent crimes committed by younger people. The response on the part of lawmakers has been largely to siphon the worst of these young people out of the juvenile system by lowering the age at which juveniles charged with serious