This chapter discusses the juvenile court process. It describes the key decisions made, including detention, intake, adjudication, and disposition. Over 1.6 million delinquency cases were processed in 2007. The detention decision determines whether a juvenile is kept in custody or released. Intake involves deciding whether to file a formal petition or handle the case informally. Cases may also be transferred to adult criminal court. Research shows disproportionate minority contact at various stages and that transferring juveniles to adult court does not effectively prevent crime and may increase recidivism.

1. Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 7th ed.
Chapter 8
THE JUVENILE COURT
PROCESS

2. Chapter 8
What You Need to Know
• In 2007, juvenile courts processed over 1.6 million
delinquency cases and an estimated 150,700 petitioned
status offense cases. In addition, approximately 8,500 cases
were transferred (waived) to adult court.
• The detention decision concerns whether to keep a juvenile in
custody or to allow the youth to go home with his or her
parents while awaiting further court action. Two options are
secure detention and non-secure detention.
• When an intake officer does not file a petition against a youth
but tries to resolve the matter, that is called informal
adjustment.
• Two avenues for youths not petitioned to court are teen court
and drug court.

3. Chapter 8
What You Need to Know (cont.)
• The prosecutor’s role in juvenile court may include
approving petitions, deciding to prosecute some
juveniles in adult courts, and prosecuting juveniles in
juvenile court.
• There are several means for youths to be sent to
adult court. The most traditional is transfer or
waiver, in which the juvenile court judge makes the
decision after a hearing.
• Statutory exclusion means that the state legislature
rules that certain offenses automatically go to adult
court.
• Prosecutorial waiver gives juvenile and adult court
concurrent jurisdiction over certain cases. The
prosecutor decides which court to use.

4. Chapter 8
Detention
• The first decision that juvenile court personnel must make is
the detention decision which decides whether to keep a
juvenile in custody or to allow the youth to go home.
• The Model Juvenile Delinquency Act, a guideline for state
codes, stipulates that the detention hearing be held within 36
hours and that certain criteria be used to decide whether to
detain a particular youngster.
• In 2007, approximately 364,000 delinquency cases involved
detention.
• Several years ago it was estimated that it cost about $116 to
detain a juvenile in 2005 and over $200 in 2006.

5. Chapter 8
Detention Options
• Court personnel have several options at the
detention decision point. Releasing a child to his or
her parents is the most frequently used option.
• Secure Detention - placing a child in the juvenile
equivalent of a local jail which involves placement in
a locked facility of 10, 20, or more youths who are
also awaiting further court action.
• Nonsecure Detention - typically involves less serious
offenders, who are placed in small group homes
which are not locked as secure detention facilities.

6. Chapter 8
Detention Alternatives
• Because of criticisms of detention programming and
the high cost of detaining youngsters in secure
detention facilities, many jurisdictions have sought
alternatives to traditional detention facilities.
• Day Evening Centers - A form of nonsecure
detention which provides formal education in the
morning, remedial/tutorial work in the early
afternoons, and recreational programs in the late
afternoons.
• Home Detention - Typically reserved for youths
awaiting further court action, but allows a youth to
live at home under the supervision of a detention
worker who ensures that the
youth is attending school and maintaining a curfew.

7. Chapter 8
Detention Alternatives (cont.)
• Bail - Not universally available in juvenile court,
often deemed inappropriate in the traditional
juvenile court.
– The temporary release of an accused person awaiting
trial, sometimes on condition that a sum of money be
lodged to guarantee their appearance in court.

8. Chapter 8
The Intake Decision
• The second decision that juvenile court personnel must make
is the intake decision. At intake, a court official (a probation
officer or prosecutor) decides whether to file a court petition
of delinquency, status offense, neglect, abuse, or dependency
in a particular case.
• The intake process is supposed to consider the welfare of the
child and the legal demands of the police and the victim
(parens patriae philosophy).
• This tradition is changing. There is a shift from probation
officers making the decision to allowing prosecutors to make
the decision to file certain cases under various court
processes such as informal adjustment, teen courts, drug
courts, and adult courts.

9. Chapter 8
The Intake Decision (cont.)
• Informal adjustment - Occurs when an intake officer decides
not to file a petition alleging delinquency or a status offense
but rather tries to resolve the issue in an informal manner
such as requiring a first time shoplifter to pay restitution or
ordering a truant child to receive counseling (account for 44%
of delinquent cases in 2007).
• Teen courts - Based on restorative justice (petition is filed) in
which most cases involve status offenses, misdemeanors, and
low-level felonies. Most common penalty is community
service, other penalties include teen court jury duty, writing
essays about offending, writing apologies to victims, and
monetary restitution.

10. Chapter 8
The Intake Decision (cont.)
• Drug courts - Typically involve a judge, prosecutor,
and defense attorney who collaborate as a team
with drug treatment specialists to coordinate
treatment and monitor the youth.
• Adult court - A prosecutor may decided to transfer
or waive the juvenile into an adult court. The
juvenile will then be tried in a criminal court and
possibly be punished by confinement within an adult
prison or jail. In 2007, approximately 8,500 juveniles
were waived to adult criminal court. There are also
additional methods for prosecuting juveniles in adult
court.

11. Chapter 8
Adult Court
• There are several additional forms of transfers or waivers
which include:
– Statutory exclusion - or legislative waiver, means that a state
legislature rules that certain offenses, such as murder, automatically
go to adult court.
– Prosecutorial waiver - State law gives juvenile and adult court
concurrent jurisdiction over certain cases. Depending on the offense,
the age of the offender, and/or the youth’s prior record, the
prosecutor decides whether to file the case in juvenile or adult court.
– Reverse waiver - Allows criminal courts the possibility to return a case
they received due to a mandatory judicial waiver, legislative exclusion,
or prosecutorial waiver back to juvenile court.
– “Once an adult, always an adult” provisions - Require that youths
placed in criminal courts must automatically be processed in adult
courts for any subsequent offenses.

12. Chapter 8
Adjudication and Disposition
• For children not sent to adult criminal court, the next
steps after the filing of a petition are adjudication
and disposition. In these decisions, a judge
determines whether there is enough evidence to
establish the petition and then decides what to do if
there is enough evidence.
• Ideally, the determination of the truth of the petition
occurs in a rational fashion, with the prosecutor,
defense attorney, and judge using their abilities and
training to seek justice.

13. Chapter 8
Attorneys in Juvenile Court
• There are several problems concerning attorneys in
juvenile court; many juveniles do not have attorneys,
many waive their right to counsel and many defense
attorneys have very large caseloads leaving juvenile
defendants with the impression that “their attorneys
do not care about them.”
– Many public defenders within the juvenile court system
fail to assume the zealous advocate role, in other words,
the ethical obligation to zealously represent their client.
– Some attorneys assume the concerned adult role and
encourage youths to admit to petitions in cases which an
adversarial approach may have resulted in a dismissal of
the petition.

14. Chapter 8
Plea Bargains, Jury Trials, and The Recent
Emphasis on Punitiveness
• As in criminal court, the vast majority of cases in juvenile court
are resolved by plea bargains. Youths admit the allegations in
the petition and are given a less severe punishment.
• Only 10 states allow jury trials as a right for juveniles and
another 11 states for special circumstances. Some contend
that it is critical for juveniles to have the right to a jury trial.
• Recent Emphasis on Punitiveness. Recently, dispositions
(sentencing) in juvenile justice have taken on an increasingly
punitive character. Rather than following the parens patriae
philosophy, states have taken a tougher approach by
emphasizing community protection, offender accountability,
crime reduction through deterrence, or outright punishment.
This recent understanding has led to the development of
blended sentencing.

15. Chapter 8
Disproportionate Minority Contact
• Research on disposition decisions shows evidence of
disproportionate minority contact. This means that
minority youths are overrepresented at the various
stages of court processing.
• The differential involvement hypothesis holds that
minorities commit more crimes.
• The differential selection hypothesis hold that police
and court officials process minority youth differently
than white youth.
• The mixed-model hypothesis contends that there is a
combination of differential involvement and
differential selection (processing).

16. Chapter 8
Effectiveness of Transfer
• The bulk of the research on transfer suggest that
transfer laws do not result in preventing crime. They
are not an effective general deterrent.
• The studies tend to find higher recidivism among
youths transferred to criminal court compared with
youths processed in juvenile court.
• One explanation for such higher recidivism is the
possibility that the youth is given a sentence in
criminal court that is too harsh. The term for this is
that the youth is “leap-frogged” to an excessive
penalty instead of being given the next, graduated
penalty.