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Village Children: A Plea for Juvenile Justice (From Reforming Juvenile Justice: Reasons and Strategies for the 21st Century, 1998, P 248-267, Dan Macallair and Vincent Schiraldi, eds. -- See NCJ-181359)

NCJ Number
181371
Author(s)
John C. Curtin
Date Published
1998
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This analysis of juvenile justice policies argues that the warehousing of children has been structured along class lines, that the current criminal model of juvenile justice needs replacement with a village model of child and youth development, and that only the tiny number of violently incorrigible juveniles would require a different approach.
Abstract
The public debate about juvenile justice does not reflect empirical reality that the children of the poor have been warehoused with a fair regularity in factories, in agribusiness fields, in schools, and in jails. Increasing numbers, of children of the underclass have been jailed with each passing decade. The juvenile justice system used the class-based concept of parens patriae until the 1960's brought the laying of the foundations of constitutional juvenile law with the United States Supreme Court decisions in the Kent case in 1966 and the Gault case in 1967. However, high rates of juvenile detention and incarceration continue. The criminal model is the empirical reality of the juvenile justice system. A more appropriate model recognizes the that human children are social beings shaped by society and that delinquency demands development in and by the village rather than separation and warehousing. In addition, elimination of plea bargaining in juvenile adjudication and added efforts at therapy should precede conclusion that a youth is incorrigible and that incarceration is appropriate, because violent incorrigibility among juveniles is extremely rare. Reference notes