Juvenile Court: The Fallacies of a Hopeful System

-- By DavidGarfinkel - 25 Feb 2010

During the summer between my third and fourth year of college, I served as a volunteer law clerk for one of the District Attorney’s Juvenile offices. This was my first true introduction to criminal justice, entering with an optimistic mindset about the potentials of this special branch. By the end of the summer, I had become cynical and pessimistic. The purpose of this essay is to question the efficacy of juvenile courts upon examining the outcomes of the system and the potentially true purposes of juvenile justice in light of the contrast between its ideals and actual process. Part of this analysis will be based on my own observations while working for the DA, including my later work in the sex crimes/family violence unit. Unsurprisingly, some of the analysis could also be easily applied to criminal justice in general and other facets of it, like capital punishment.

Ideals of Juvenile Justice

There are several overarching ideals or purposes of criminal justice. First is justice. The American adversarial system is expected to have a process by which a the prosecution and defense in front of a jury vigorously fight for their respective side, with the hopeful outcome that those who did commit the crime are convicted and those who did not are found not guilty. The next is punishment, which is self-explanatory. The third ideal is removal, in which the justice system removes, generally through incarceration, those who are deemed too dangerous to live among normal society. Finally, criminal justice is supposed to help rehabilitate those who can learn the error of their ways, thereby preventing future crimes.

The Juvenile Court system is supposed to reflect these ideals, but adjusted for younger age of the defendants. For justice, a similar process is supposed to be carried out but without the presence of the jury so as to shorten the length of the process and thereby take up less of the juvenile’s life. Punishment occurs, but taken a step down from the normal prison system on the belief that they don’t deserve as harsh or as severe of an environment as their adult counterparts. Juvenile delinquents are removed from society, but primarily to what are known as camps rather than prisons, with the Youth Authority being the last resort. Finally, rehabilitation. This ideal is meant to play the most prominent role, especially when looking at some of the mission statements of the various state systems, and is predicated on the beliefs that juveniles, due to their youth, can be much more easily led down the right path and they are at the age where problems can hopefully be nipped at the bud.

General Outcome

The outcomes that are expected unfortunately do not seem to match up with reality. Instead of reformed juveniles, we see a large recidivism rate in which many juvenile’s convicted of felony charges already have an arrest record. In addition, many adults who are later arrested for felonies or gang related activities will have been arrested at least once while a juvenile. So instead of nipping the bud, we let the flowers of crime blossom.

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