Treatment of Juvenile Delinquents in the 20th Century, Term Paper Example

In a very real sense,  juvenile delinquency as a defined form of crime was virtually invented in the late nineteenth century, in the United States. It is, of course, irrefutable that adolescent offenses were committed in earlier days, yet the manner in which they were dealt with largely depended upon each society’s and era’s views of juveniles themselves. Consequently, and for centuries, the European model of justice as pertaining to young offenders was based upon a cultural assessment of such offenders as, literally, merely youthful adults. As childhood was not perceived to be a distinct phase of life, youthful offenses were treated no differently than those of adults (Elrod, Ryder, 2009, p. 90). As allowances for possible youthful indiscretion or misjudgment were not entertained, punitive measures simply echoed adult punishments.

In the U.S., delinquency began to be identified as a singular issue in, as noted, the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the timing is by no means coincidental to what was occurring nationally. The primary movements and laws regarding delinquency arose as the Industrial Age took hold, and rural America was moving in vast numbers to crowded cities.   Adolescents and children were commonly displaced, abandoned, and/or set free to make their way as adults in the urban environments, and traditional supervision from within the home was a thing of the past. Consequently, the earliest laws pertaining to delinquency were a societal reaction to what was deemed a failure of society itself, and the recognition of the problem generated a more sociological, and less purely legal, mode of address (Musik, 1995,  p. 3). As today, actual laws dictating juvenile policy vastly varied from state to state, as did the ages of achieving majority status, and the latter most certainly reflects the divisive regional viewpoints within the country regarding exactly what a juvenile was, and how such a young person should be treated by the criminal justice system.

The movements of the era that created this system were, and remain, rooted in distinct ideologies, the most pertinent of which is the typical and ongoing assumption of a kind of diminished capacity; since the juvenile has not yet reached maturity, he or she cannot be held wholly responsible for acts of criminality. It was believed during the Industrial Age that, even when adolescents possess the rational  reasoning abilities of adults, they are nonetheless handicapped by a lack of life experience. Their crimes or minor offenses were consequently viewed as less malevolent, and more due to a lack of understanding as to one’s relation to society. Then, and directly linked to this ideology, the juvenile justice system is founded on the potential for reform (Howell, 2009, p. 282), far more so than the creeds behind adult rehabilitation. The beliefs of the earlier era maintained that unnatural, urban environments bred delinquency; consequently, the offender was in a sense a victim, and it was assumed that relatively mild punishment, combined with basic instruction on behaving within a society, would turn the offender around.

The earlier movements in addressing juvenile delinquency have proven to be remarkably resilient. The justice system still very much operates on the concept that actual criminality is unlikely in very young offenders, and that alternate opportunities will invariably permit the juvenile to move in a new direction. The approach is old-fashioned and literally parental, as in this statute excerpt from current Florida law: “The courts will try to ensure that the child learns from his or her experience and returns to the community as a productive citizen, without having suffered permanent harm” (FindLaw). This oddly personal, and certainly optimistic, viewpoint pervading the criminal justice system today has resulted in an unfortunate dilemma, in that juvenile delinquency is both removed from the mainstream system and dependent upon it for punitive measures.  Conflict is the inevitable result, as social concerns reflecting older ideologies run up against criminal justice imperatives and the more extreme forms delinquency takes in today’s urban arenas. The legacy of late nineteenth and early twentieth century movements in this regard has established a branch of the justice system wherein “caring” approaches and legal authority are continually at war with one another.   America’s youth justice systems are constantly contested by both the public and the courts, and for differing agendas demanding either severity or leniency due to the age factor  (Muncie, Wilson, 2004,  p. 225).  It is an extraordinary and regrettable situation, in the juvenile delinquency remains intently problematic chiefly because no satisfactory definition of the actual issue has yet been offered and/or accepted.

References

Elrod, P., & Ryder, R. S.  (2009.)  Juvenile Justice: A Social, Historical, and Legal Perspective. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

FindLaw.com. “Juvenile Arrest”, http://library.findlaw.com/1997/Sep/1/130724.html.  Retrieved July 18, 2011.

Howell, J. C. (2009.)  Preventing and Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Comprehensive Framework.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Muncie, J., & Wilson, D. (2004.)  Student Handbook of Criminal Justice and Criminology. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press.

Musik, D. (1995.)  An Introduction to the Sociology of Juvenile Delinquency. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.