The first juvenile court, established by the Illinois Legislature in 1899, cast the court in the role of parens patriae in determining what was best for the child who had violated the law. Processing was informal and dependent largely upon the highly subjective determinations of the court. Inadequate, arbitrary, and often repressive dispositions under this system led to a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that specified certain due process rights for juveniles. The Report of the Task Force on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention issued in 1976 recommends greater uniformity in the treatment of juveniles, increased diversion from the juvenile justice system, deinstitutionalization of status offenders, and specific requirements for family court judges and staff. There has been an increase in the number of juveniles diverted from the juvenile justice system in recent years, reflected in a sharp decrease in the number of juveniles officially on probation from the juvenile courts. Diversion is based on the theory that a court encounter is inherently harmful. Some fear that the diversion system may degenerate into the kind of informal and arbitrary processing that characterized actions under the parens patriae model. Further, there is no consensus about which models of treatment are most effective. There are apparently no instruments that effectively measure what types of treatment work under what circumstances. The future will probably emphasize community-based treatment and early prevention of delinquency through actions by various community institutions. Fifty-four notes are listed. (Author summary modified)