Legal Issues
In addition to overall policy and research issues, many important legal issues concerning child delinquents must be resolved, including the following (Wiig, 2001):
- Jurisdiction. States differ greatly in their minimum age for delinquency jurisdiction and their enactment of alternative grounds for court jurisdiction (such as dependency and children in need of protective services).
- Competency. The competency of most child delinquents is debatable in terms of their ability to understand the severity of charges, court proceedings, and the implications of sentences.
- Counsel. The right to counsel and
other constitutional rights are of
importance to all juvenile delinquents
but are complicated for
children because of their inability
to understand rights (e.g., the
Miranda warning or the privilege
against self-incrimination).
- Parental responsibility. The value both of making parents more legally responsible for their children's delinquency and of followup sanctions for parents needs to be investigated.
- Alternatives to court jurisdiction. Alternatives for handling child delinquents outside the courts (e.g., either informally by the police or through a voluntary referral to a child-serving agency) may represent an important and promising approach to deflecting children from future delinquency.
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