These social trends led to the establishment of childhood, adolescence, delinquents, and status offenders as bio-social-legal categories between birth and legal adulthood. The legal groundwork and philosophical precedents of the juvenile court resulted from the development of houses of refuge and reform schools for troubled youth in the early and mid-1800s. The legal doctrine invoked in establishing such institutions was parens patriae, the concept that the state has the right to act as a parent. However, the establishment of houses of refuges and reform schools, the later anti-institutional movement, and the eventual creation of the juvenile court did not flow purely from humanitarian concerns; these movements also reflected religious, ethnic, and class interests of the time. The debate among scholars about forces that shaped the juvenile justice system has not been resolved. Some scholars interpret the emergence of the juvenile court in the late 1800s as an extension of religious and class conflicts, while other scholars argue the emergence of the juvenile court reflected an anti-institutional ideology that stress probation, the home, and the family as targets of treatment. Scholars agree, however, there is a considerable gap between professed aims and actual operations of the juvenile justice system. Although the first juvenile court was established in 1899, it was not until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court first ruled on a constitutional issue related to juvenile proceedings. In a few cases since the 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court has extended several rights of due process to juveniles at the adjudicatory level, but these rulings do not apply to pre- or post-adjudicatory stages of the juvenile justice system. Further, the creation of a separate juvenile court has involved more than instituting new procedures. Rather, it has involved the extension of state control over a wider range of activities than criminal law encompasses. Despite evidence of similarities in outcomes when comparing adult and juvenile justice systems, the juvenile court will continue to be a subject of controversy and will be attacked by some factions as being harsh and repressive and by others as being lenient and sympathetic. 50 references and 4 figures