Throughout history, youth were generally treated as mini adults and subject to the same legal system. The 1800s saw the emergence of houses of refuge and reformatories to deal with concerns over poverty and train youth. The first juvenile court was established in 1899 in Cook County, Illinois based on the philosophy of parens patriae, treating youth as the state's children. While reformers argued the system was benevolent, critics viewed it as a tool to create a compliant workforce under corporate capitalism. The juvenile justice system faced many problems but remained largely unchallenged until the 1960s when courts began granting youth more procedural rights.

1. Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 7th ed.
Chapter 2
THE HISTORY OF
JUVENILE JUSTICE

2. Chapter 2
What You Need to Know
• Throughout most of history, youthful offenders were
handled under the same laws and system as adults.
• The early institutions for handling juveniles (houses
of refuge and reformatories) emerged in the 1800s
as an outgrowth of concern over poverty and the
need to train youths to be productive members of
society.
• The first recognized juvenile court was in Cook
County, Illinois, in 1899 with a focus on helping
youths and not punishment.
• Parens patriae became the philosophical basis for
the new juvenile court with a focus on handling
youths as parents would handle their children.

3. Chapter 2
What You Need to Know (Cont’d)
• The early court cases of Ex parte Crouse and
Commonwealth v. Fisher affirmed the right of the
state to intervene in a child’s life even if the parents
objected.
• Platt and others argue that the juvenile court was not
developed solely out of the benevolent intentions of
those involved, rather it was developed as a tool of
capitalism to ensure a complacent work force.
• Today, juvenile courts operate under a number of
different rationales besides parens patriae, including
punishment, deterrence, child welfare, restorative
justice, and rehabilitation.

4. Chapter 2
Property and Person
• Throughout most of history, there was no such status
as “child.”
• The very young, from birth to age five or six, held
much the same status as any other property.
• Once the individual reached the age of five or six, he
or she became a full-fledged member of society.

5. Chapter 2

6. Chapter 2
Indifference Toward Children
• The life expectancy of the average person was short.
• Infant mortality rate exceeded 50 percent.
• Indifference reduced or eliminated the pain and
sorrow that would accompany the loss of the infant.
• The inability of many families to provide for the
young.
• Each child represented an increased burden to the
already overburdened family.

7. Chapter 2
Practices with Infants
• Infanticide
– the killing of young children
– common before 4th century (appears into 14th)
– strong economic reasons
– dowry practice - provision of goods by the female’s family
to the groom
• Abandonment
– similar to reasons for infanticide
– all classes in society

8. Chapter 2
Practices with Infants
• Wet-Nursing
– Surrogate mother paid to care for a child.
– Wealthy families would hire other women to raise their
children.
– Poor women would kill their offspring in order to save
their mother’s milk for the “paying” youths.

9. Chapter 2
Practices with Infants
• Involuntary Servitude/Apprenticeships
– Nothing more than the sale of youths by the family.
– Alleviated the burden of having to feed and clothe the
person
– Gained something of “greater” value in return—money, a
farm animal, food, or some other necessity of life
– view that individuals who survived the years of infancy
were simply “little adults”

10. Chapter 2
Legal Status of Young Adults
• Subject to the same rules and regulations as adults.
• No separate system for dealing with youthful
offenders.
• The law made no distinction based on the age of the
offender.
• Youths could be (and were) sentenced to death.
• Nullification, or refusal to enforce the law against
children, often took place.

11. Chapter 2
Emergence of Childhood
• Concept of childhood began to emerge in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
• Medical advancements brought about a lengthening
of the life expectancy of youths.
• Clergy and scholars began to view the young as
different from adults and in need of protection,
assistance, and guidance in order to grow up
uncorrupted.
• Young viewed as a source of attack on the immoral
and sinful aspects of society.
• Childhood came to be seen as a period of time during
which the young could receive an education and
moral training.

12. Chapter 2
Rise of Juvenile Institutions
• Grew out of the establishment of ways to handle
poor people in the cities.
• Poor were seen both as a threat to society and in
need of help.
• Bridewell Institution established in 1555 in London to
handle youthful beggars.
• Houses of Refuge
– First house in New York City in 1825.
– Rationale and setup closely followed the concern for the
poor and the need for training.
– Central aspects were indeterminate sentences, education,
skills training, hard work, religious training, parental
discipline, and apprenticeships.

13. Chapter 2
Rise of Juvenile Institutions
• Problems with Houses of Refuge
– Housed juveniles with adults.
– Housed poor with offenders.
– Military behavior was the norm- enforced silence, marching,
uniforms, and swift and habitual corporal punishment.
– Lack of education.
– Overcrowding.
– Basically a prison.
• Lyman School for Boys
– Established in 1848 in Massachusetts.
– Eliminated the housing of adult and juvenile offenders in the same
facility.

14. Chapter 2
Rise of Juvenile Institutions
• Reformatory Movement
– Carried over the goals of Houses of Refuge
– “Cottage” set-up
• intended to closely parallel a family
• surrogate parents would oversee the training and education of a
small number of problem youths
• discipline would be intermixed with the care and concern typical
of family life
• emphasized work on the farm
– Faced similar problems of overcrowding, lack of education
and training, and harsh discipline as Houses of Refuge
• Lancaster State Industrial School for Girls
– Similar cottage set-up and problems as those for boys

15. Chapter 2
Rise of Juvenile Institutions
• Probation Developed
– John Augustus in 1841 credited with starting probation in
Boston.
– 1869 - Massachusetts dictated that the State Board of
Charities would participate in, and take charge of, court
cases involving youthful offenders.
– Probation officers would assist in the gathering of
information on the youths, suggest alternative means of
intervention, and oversee the placement of juveniles in
reformatories and apprenticeships.

16. Chapter 2
Establishment of the Juvenile Court
• The first recognized individual juvenile court was established
in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899.
• The legislation that established the Illinois court reflected the
general belief in the ability to alter youthful behavior.
– Court was to operate in a highly informal manner without any of the
trappings of the adult court.
– Lawyers and other adversarial features of the adult system (such as
rules of evidence and testimony under oath) were discouraged.
– Judge was to take a paternal stance and provide whatever help and
assistance was needed.
– Goal of providing assistance to both the youth and the family.
– All juveniles under the age of 16 could be handled by the new court.

17. Chapter 2
Establishment of the Juvenile Court
• Gradual widening of the juvenile court’s mandate.
– In 1903 Illinois added status offenses to the court’s
jurisdiction.
• Development of new institutions for handling youths
who needed to be removed from their families.
– Illinois State School at St. Charles, Illinois, funded in 1901
and opened in 1905.
– Followed the family/cottage model.
• Institution of court-affiliated guidance clinics.
– First established in Chicago by William Healy in 1909.
– Relied on the new psychological and sociological
explanations emerging during this time.
– 232 clinics were established by 1931.
• By 1920 all but three states had juvenile courts.

18. Chapter 2
Parens Patriae
• Legal philosophy adopted by the juvenile court.
• Loosely translated as the state as parent.
• Based on the actions of the English Chancery Court.
– Concerned with property matters in feudal England
– Oversaw the financial affairs of juveniles whose parents
had died
– Acted as a guardian until such time that the youth could
assume responsibility
• Parens patriae was used prior to establishment of
court to justify intervention with youths.

19. Chapter 2
Parens Patriae
• Ex parte Crouse, 1838
– Incarcerated upon her mother’s request but against her
father’s wishes
– Father argued that it was illegal to incarcerate a child
without the benefit of a jury trial
– Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the father’s
argument and denied that the Bill of Rights applied to
youths
• People v. Turner, 1870
– Disagreed with Crouse decision
– Affirmed the rights of the parent to care for the child
– Intervention to be reserved for instances in which the
youth had violated a criminal law and after the application
of due process

20. Chapter 2
Parens Patriae
Crouse excerpt:
– May not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of
education, or unworthy of it, be superseded by the parens
patriae, or common guardian of the community? It is to be
remembered that the public has a paramount interest in the
virtue and knowledge of its members, and that of strict right
the business of education belongs to it. That parents are
ordinarily entrusted with it, is because it can seldom be put in
better hands; but where they are incompetent or corrupt,
what is there to prevent the public from withdrawing their
faculties, held as they obviously are, at its sufferance? The
right of parental control is a natural, but not an inalienable
one. It is not excepted by the declaration of rights out of the
subject of ordinary legislation (Ex parte Crouse, 1838).

21. Chapter 2
Parens Patriae
• Commonwealth v. Fisher 1905
– Child had a right to intervention and not a right to
freedom.
– Parents had little, if any, rights in the disposition of the
child.
– Juvenile court was viewed as providing help in the most
benevolent fashion possible.
– Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the juvenile system
a free hand in dealing with youths.
• Basic constitutionality of the juvenile system went
largely unchallenged after the Fisher decision.
• Fisher was largely ignored in favor of parens patriae.

22. Chapter 2
Parens Patriae
Fisher excerpt:
• The design is not punishment, nor the restraint
imprisonment, any more than is the wholesome restraint
which a parent exercises over his child. The severity in either
case must necessarily be tempered to meet the necessities
of the particular situation. There is no probability, in the
proper administration of the law, of the child’s liberty being
unduly invaded. Every statute which is designed to give
protection, care, and training to children, as a needed
substitute for parental authority, and performance of
parental duty, is but a recognition of the duty of the state, as
the legitimate guardian and protector of children where
other guardianship fails. No constitutional right is violated
(Commonwealth v. Fisher, 1905).

23. Chapter 2
Problems of the Court
• Many of the courts and agencies relied solely on
untrained volunteers.
– The number of full-time, paid juvenile court judges,
probation officers, and trained clinicians was small.
– Inadequate facilities and resources.
• The expanded jurisdiction of the court based on
parens patriae also led to an increase in unofficial
dispositions and handling of youths.
– Many proceedings took place without the presence of a
judge or the keeping of records.
– Many trivial actions, such as making noise, sledding in the
street, playing in the street, riding bicycles on the sidewalk,
and throwing paper into the sewers, became the subject of
unofficial cases.

24. Chapter 2
Benevolence or Self-interest?
• Benevolence argument
– Institution of the juvenile court has generally been held as
a progressive, humanitarian development.
– The establishment of the juvenile court was seen as
benevolent actions of the reformers and society.
– Institutions and the court needed to provide the type of
love, affection, and concern found in the family setting.

25. Chapter 2
Benevolence or Self-interest?
• Self-interest argument
– Typically discussed in terms of “child savers.”
– The growth of juvenile justice seen as a part of larger social
movements that attempted to solidify the position of corporate
capitalism in the United States.
– Intervention through the courts allowed the powerful classes of
society to mold a disciplined, complacent labor force.
– Juvenile court was a means of preserving the existing class system in
the United States.
– The driving force behind the growth of the juvenile system were
middle- and upper-class individuals.
– The establishment of new laws addressed the activity of the lower
classes.

26. Chapter 2
Juvenile Justice from 1920 to the 1960s
• Most of the great movements and changes in juvenile justice
were completed by the early 1920s.
• The problems and criticisms directed at the court and its
institutions were passed off as the failure to implement the
programs properly.
• Society and the legal system were content to leave the
juvenile justice system alone to search for effective
interventions, provided the system continued to act in the
best interests of its youthful clients.
• Various new institutions were established for handling
problem youths.
• Psychological explanations and perspectives led to the growth
of various training and counseling (group and individual)
programs.

27. Chapter 2
Changes since the 1960s
• The period from 1967 to the early 1980s has been
referred to as the Due Process Period.
– The federal courts ruled in a number of key cases that
juveniles had to be offered some procedural rights similar
to those enjoyed by adults.
• The 1980s returned to an approach that was more
punishment-oriented and ushered in what is
referred to as the Punitive Period.
– The strong reliance on and belief in rehabilitation and
treatment that dominated throughout the twentieth
century has given way to more punitive responses.
• Parens patriae remains the key philosophy
underlying juvenile courts in the United States.