Status offences in juvenile justice systems

Status Offenders

Throughout modern history, society has struggled with how to handle children and adolescents who committed crimes. Historically, juveniles who came to the attention of the courts have been considered less guilty, because of their age, than adults (Klein, 1998). This in turn developed into an attitude at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century that the appropriate role for police and the courts was to guide the young person to a better path. This in turn encouraged the idea of "status offenses" -- that is, offenses that would not be crimes if committed by an adult. For example, a 15-year-old could be considered truant if he or she stopped attending school, but an 18-year-old who dropped out of high school without graduating would not be truant.

The change from adult to juvenile courts for youthful offenders, however, took some time to accomplish. Until 1899 youth drawn I by the legal system were served by the same courts that served adult offenders. In addition, some rules were quite harsh: in 1827, the age for criminal responsibility was ten years old in Illinois (Wolcott, 2001).

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, people working in various aspects of social reform were concerned that when children went through the adult courts they were treated as if they were adults and fully responsible for what was often a childish choice of action (Wolcott, 2001). The police were perceived as too quick to arrest adolescents on any pretext -- not only such things as theft, but for vague status offenses such as the youth's inability to explain why he or she was in a certain place, or even "just to keep him out of mischief" (Wolcott, 2001).

The first juvenile court, created in 1899, served to separate youths from adults in the legal system. Led by social workers such as Jane Hull as well as the Chicago Bar Association and other groups, they hoped the Illinois Juvenile Court Act would allow authorities and agencies to intervene in cases of delinquency and eliminate its causes (Wolcott, 2001). This law, soon copied by many other states, separated youths from the criminal law applied to adults and gave the courts a chance to provide alternatives to incarceration that might be more rehabilitative (Feld, 1997). These choices reflected the Progressive social movement of the time and gave the court the right to intervene in place of the parents. This policy, called parens patriae, allowed the court to act as the child's parents and make decisions that parents might have otherwise made. This put the court in the position of dealing with youth for status offenses that otherwise would have been dealt with by the parents, such as truancy, running away, and sexual activity (Feld, 1997). These juvenile courts became the core of a juvenile legal system intended to look out for the best interests of those children who fell under its care. The goal was to help rather than punish (Wolcott, 2001).

The philosophy of parens patriae allowed the courts, and through them a variety of social service programs, to concern themselves with actions that violated societal expectations. The juvenile system then had a tiered set of offenses, just as the adult criminal system did, but at the bottom of the tier for youths were offenses that were not listed in any criminal code. Police had broad discretionary power at this level and could choose whether to ignore what they saw, to simply talk to the youth or youths in question, or to make an arrest (Wolcott, 2001). The standards for what was acceptable and what was not varied by sex; girls would often appear before a judge, brought by her parents, for sexual activity. Parents, in fact, could use the courts in an attempt to control behaviors in their children they did not want to see (Wolcott, 2001).

Eventually the juvenile system could not meet the original goals of rehabilitation; there were just too many youths. Treatment moved to group settings such as juvenile facilities (O'Connor & Treat, 1996). Individual treatment became sporadic or completely absent. This resulted in a juvenile system that often gave out lesser sentences for crimes that would have been dealt with more severely had the person commiting the crime been an adult (O'Connor & Treat, 1996).

As the system got bogged down under its own weight, the actual ability of the courts to act as parens patriae diminished. The courts could no longer act as counselor or therapist, and locking up a youth in a juvenile facility for sexual activity or for truancy from school made no sense, was expensive, and often was counter-productive. At the same time, rulings by the Supreme Court required due process rights fo juveniles, such as the right to have a parent present while being questioned, the right to an attorney if charged, and other legal protections given to adults (O'Connor & Treat, 1996). One unanticipated result of this was that the standards in juvenile courts became tied to the standards for adult criminal court. The juvenile courts were now far less parens patriae and much more a second legal system for younger offenders.

Today, the juvenile court system is mostly a milder version of the adult criminal court system (Feld, 1997). The youth who appear before it typically are charged with serious crimes, and status offenses are no longer treated as a reason for the courts to intervene. Some municipalities have passed law to codify some behaviors as illegal. For instance, where in the past, youth could be brought before a judge because a parent or police officer felt the person was out too late with no good reason, today many municipalities have legally-enforced curfews. In such municipalities, youth charged with curfew violation have broken a specific law and have specific standing in that regard when they go to court. Likewise, most municipalities have laws regarding truancy, although when a youth is found to be truant, it may be the parents who are judged in violation, as many municipalities view it as the parents' responsibility to make sure their children attend school.