The Contradictions of the Juveni

The Contradictions of the Juvenile Court

I went to court today. Juvenile Court, that is. I was there as a friend. The second-cousin of a friend of mine was in court, facing charges of Abattery.@ She=s 17 years old and her Acrime@ was in the context of a Adomestic dispute.@ Like millions of adolescents before her, the juvenile court became the arbiter of the inevitable conflicts that arise within families. Her Abattery@ charge was the normal outcome of the typical parent-child argument. Some pushing and shoving took place, but there were no injuries, no blood was spilled, no weapons were used, no one was taken to the hospital. Yet the police were called - as they are millions of times a year all across the country. What used to be Afamily matters@ are now formal affairs with the agents of the state intervening.

The juvenile court was founded in 1899 in Chicago, Illinois and almost simultaneously another one opened in Denver, Colorado. The promise of the founders of the juvenile court was that this new institution would always act Ain the best interest of the child.@ The law that established the juvenile court also included statutory definitions of Adelinquency@ which were broad in scope and quite vague: (1) the laws covered the usual violations of laws also applicable to adults; (2) they covered violations of local ordinances; (3) the also included such catchalls as "vicious or immoral behavior," "incorrigibility," truancy, "profane or indecent behavior," "growing up in idleness," "living with any vicious or disreputable person," running away from home and many more. These would eventually be known as Astatus offenses,@ those behaviors that apply to juveniles only.

Envisioned as a "benevolent" institution that would emphasize treatment rather than punishment, the juvenile court turned out to be a mixture of the two orientations. The confusion can be traced to the mixed legacy of the court that combined a puritanical approach to stubborn children and parental authority with the Progressive Era's belief that children's essential goodness can be corrupted by undesirable elements in their environments. One writer termed the mixture "ambivalent" or "even schizophrenic." Thus, there is an inherent contradiction within the court that persists to the present day, more than 100 years later.

The conflict is a serious one and you can see it every day in every juvenile court (or family court as many are now called) in the country. Here in Las Vegas it is called AClark County Juvenile and Family Court Services.@ The contradiction is that the court is both a Asocial welfare@ institution and a Alegal@ institution. The former emphasizes help, treatment, services, etc. The latter emphasize punishment. Elements of two conflicting theories about human behavior are played out on a daily basis within this court. On the one hand, the Asocial welfare@ model is based in part upon the belief that human behavior is Adetermined@ and that humans are not totally responsible for their behavior (especially children) in that there are numerous Acauses@ of every single human act. The founders of the juvenile court were well aware that delinquency stems from many different environmental and genetic causative factors and they wanted a court that would address some of these causes - what we might call Amitigating circumstances.@

On the other hand, the legal model, with its emphasis on punishment, is based upon the belief in Afree will.@ According to this view, humans are Arational@ actors who make Achoices@ with their own free will. Thus, they are responsible for their own behavior. In recent years we have heard a constant mantra that offenders (both juvenile and adult) should Atake responsibility@ for their actions. I heard it this morning in court and I also heard this young girl say she was sorry for her behavior (but there never seems to be enough Aremorse@). However, there was an important Abut@ that went along with it. And that Abut@ symbolizes the contradiction within the juvenile court.

The contradiction seems to boil down to this. On the one hand we humans do have choices and we make many choices during every day of our lives. On the other hand, such choices never occur in a vacuum. There are a multitude of variables that intervene every day. Every action has at least one cause, but usually many causes. In this particular case - not an uncommon one - there were all sorts of variables at work: the history of the relationship between mother and daughter, the fact that the mother is a single mom, that dad is not very much in the picture (he was supposed to show up in court today, but did not), that the family is a very typical working class family that has suffered so much in recent years with the changing economy, that the girl is a typical adolescent female with all the changing emotions that this entails. The mother has a Aboyfriend@ which almost always adds to the conflict.

Did the girl Achoose@ to get involved in this conflict? Did she Achoose@ to push her mother and slap the boyfriend in the context of a family argument filled with all sorts of emotions? Was she Aresponsible@ for the breakup the marriage? For that matter, did she freely choose to be female and to be living during a time when such conflicts become part of a formal court process?

After more than 30 years of research and writing on this subject I do not have the answers to this contradiction. All I know is that we as a society have gone too far. The most recent juvenile court statistics bear this out, as they reveal that the overwhelming majority of cases that file in and out every day are cases just like this one. Normal human conflicts that used to be handled by members of the family, relatives and even neighbors, now are placed in the lap of the police and courts. Judges and court officials seem to be merely Aprocessing@ one case after another.