Week 2

Question 1

Where did we get 7 years old as a standard?

Answer 1

Blame the Romans

In NY, not the standard; except arson - as low as 7 years old

England - common law
- Children treated like adults; can be given the death penalty

Question 2

1500s criminal justice system

Answer 2

reeves, shires, and chancellors

Question 3

Middle Ages - English common law

Answer 3

Age 7 was used to separate infants from those older children who were accountable to the law for their actions

Originally from Roman law; English adapted it

Question 4

shires

Answer 4

counties
were organized to carry out the will of the king

Question 5

reeves

Answer 5

chief law enforcement officer
- each shire/county had one

Question 6

shire + reeve

Answer 6

‘sheriff’
chief law enforcement officer in most US counties

Question 7

chancellors

Answer 7

acted on the kings behalf and dispensed justice according to his wishes
- held court and settled disputes

Question 8

chancery courts or courts of equity

Answer 8

Courts conducted by chancellors

Question 9

banishment

Answer 9

was used as a way of punishing more serious offenders
- banished from region; could not obtain food or water

Question 10

transportation

Answer 10

Some offenders were transported to pacific islands; owned by the British and converted into penal colonies; many died there

Question 11

death penalty old times

Answer 11

common for petty crimes

Question 12

1600s criminal justice

Answer 12

british workhouses and poor laws

Imprisoned people who were in debt, paid off their debt in workhouses

Essentially the first jail

• Not for crimes against other people; just for people poor
• No separation of age and gender; as young as 7

Question 13

indentured servitude and exploration of British practices

Answer 13

To get labor force to the new land; promise 7 years of your life working for a passage to the new world

Entered voluntarily into contractual agreements with various merchants and businessmen to work for them for extended periods of up to seven years

Question 14

late 1700s and early 1800s view on children

Answer 14

children still viewed as adults by society and the law

Around the Industrial Revolution, city populations exploded, and rates of child poverty, abuse, and neglect were high
- Upper Class benefitting the most; high society

Parents of poor immigrant families were working, and youth were unsupervised

Question 15

Society for Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents

Answer 15

advocated for alternative institutions for “wayward” and “vagrant” youth (ie. poor kids, majority Irish immigrants)

Charity started to become more formal; more organized; imposing their own social values on the people they are trying to help

Question 16

houses of refuge

Answer 16

Institutions largely devoted to managing status offenders, such as runaways or incorrigible children

In 1825, New York House of Refuge established; many others followed

If boys were found doing petty crimes, they would be put in these homes and given basic education and “treatment” to “correct” their behaviors
- White boys

Teaching “religion” and “morals”
- Whose? Theirs.

Youth committed for indefinite periods, no due process rights

How was this legal?
- Ex Parte Crouse (1839)

Question 17

Ex Parte Crouse (1839)

Answer 17

established the doctrine of parens patriae

CASE:
- Father sued the city/state because they incarcerated his daughter who committed a crime and put her in a house of refuge and never told him
- Kept her for an indeterminate amount of time
- He claimed he had rights as a parent; he owned her

Courts decided - doctrine of parens patriae
- State takes over as the parental figure
- Country father
- Claimed you have rights of a parent but they are not universal; if you fail as a parent, they have the right to take your child and do a “better” job

Question 18

pushing back on parens patriae

Answer 18

People ex. Rel. O’Connell v. Turner (1870)

Common law vs case law

Illinois State Supreme Court case re: The Chicago Reform School

Question 19

Question:
Does the state (or city in this case) have the authority to hold (imprison) a youth in a “reform school” who is “‘destitute of proper parental care, and growing up in mendicancy, ignorance, idleness or vice’,” but who may have committed no crime. . .”

Can they keep a child who did no legal crime in reform school just because they are disrespectful?

Do we have the right to put people away just because they make us uncomfortable?

Answer 19

Answer:
No. The court reinforced a parent’s right to care for their children and limited the State’s power to interfere with this right except in cases of “gross misconduct or almost total unfitness of the parent

Question 20

Children as Defendants: Juvenile Courts

Answer 20

In 1889, the first separate Juvenile Court was officially established in Illinois
- Viewed children as distinct from adults, in need of care, protection and rehabilitation
- Goal to provide an intervention focused on the child’s needs rather than conduct
- Operated under parens patriae
- BUT youth were not entitled to any of the protections that adults receive in criminal court (e.g., right to attorney, right to fair trial)

Children not seen as fully responsible for their behavior
- Conduct was seen as a result of their life circumstances and parents’ failure to instill proper values

Court process was informal, with no no procedural rules or limits on case length or length of commitment

Question 21

What about Black and Brown youth?

Answer 21

Many black youth were still enslaved in the South when Houses of Refuge were opened

Even after Emancipation Proclamation, children of newly freed slaves could be forced into apprenticeships by slave holders until adulthood

Blacks arrested and imprisoned for crimes that were not applicable to Whites, allowing for “convict leasing”

Houses of Refuge were intended to provide both care and education; Black and Latinx youth were initially excluded from this

Even after Houses opened for Black youth, conditions were worse than those for White children

Latinex youth labeled as “feeble-minded” and received discriminatory treatment by juvenile courts

Question 22

1960s and 70s

Answer 22

Critics of the system began to question the lack of procedural protections for youth in juvenile delinquency cases
- Judges had no restrictions on how they handled cases
- Youth could be held for indeterminate amounts of time

Some argued that the system was merely a way to oppress and control poor, marginalized populations

There was also research showing that the juvenile justice system was not effective

In the 1960s and 70s, several US Supreme Courts cases led to an increase in the procedural protections for youth in delinquency cases
- The first of these cases was Kent v. United States (1966):

Question 23

Question: whether it was constitutional for thee juvenile court to transfer a youth to adult court without a hearing or other protections

Answer 23

Answer: No. juveniles are entitled to a hearing with an attorney prior to being waived from juvenile court to adult court, and the court must state the reasons for that transform (for waiver)

Question 24

In re Gault (1967) importance

Answer 24

In re Gault (1967) was a VERY important case in juvenile law. Because of this case, juveniles now have the right to:
- Notice of the charges against them
- An attorney
- Confront and cross-examine witnesses
- Privilege against self-incrimination (e.g., right to “plead the 5th”)
- Prior to this case, youth in delinquency cases were not guaranteed any of those rights

Question 25

In re Gault (1967) CASE

Answer 25

“Gerald (“Jerry”) Gault was a 15 year-old accused of making an obscene telephone call to a neighbor, Mrs. Cook, on June 8, 1964. After Mrs. Cook filed a complaint, Gault and a friend, Ronald Lewis, were arrested and taken to the Children’s Detention Home. Gault was on probation when he was arrested, after being in the company of another boy who had stolen a wallet from a woman’s purse.

At this hearing, the probation officers filed a report listing the charge as lewd phone calls. An adult charged with the same crime would have received a maximum sentence of a $50 fine and two months in jail. The report was not disclosed to Gault or his parents. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge committed Gault to juvenile detention for six years, until he turned 21.

Gault’s parents filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was dismissed by both the Superior Court of Arizona and the Arizona Supreme Court. The Gaults next sought relief in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court agreed to hear the case to determine the procedural due process rights of a juvenile criminal defendant.”

Question 26

After In re Gault (1967

Answer 26

the Supreme Court extended several other protections to youth in juvenile cases (these protections were already granted to adults):

The standard of proof = beyond a reasonable doubt (In re Winship, 1970)

The privilege against double jeopardy

Youth charged with crimes still do NOT have a guaranteed right to a jury trial or bail in Family Court

Question 27

double jeopardy

Answer 27

after being found innocent, they cannot be tried again for the same crime (Breed v. Jones, 1975)

Question 28

shift back to the punishment model

Answer 28

pendulum - swinging back and forth

1978, NY was the first state to increase punishment for youth as a result of the Willie Bosket case

Additional rights awarded to youth + increase juvenile crime in 1980s/early 1990s and studies showing that treatments were not working = move to a more punitive model

In 1995, the juvenile “superpredator” myth fueled this fire

Every state modified or implemented new transfer/waiver laws to make it easier for youth to be tried in adult court

Question 29

More recent protections

Answer 29

Sentencing
- Juvenile death penalty was legal in the US until 2005
- Roper v. Simmons (2005): Supreme Court found that death penalty for minors is a violation of 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment

Mandatory life without parole is no longer allowed for minors
- Graham v. Florida (2009)
- Miller v. Alabama (2012)
- Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016)
- Jones v. Mississippi (2021)

Question 30

Shifting Back to Rehabilitation?

Answer 30

Increase in the number and use of alternative to incarceration programs over the last two decades

Missouri Model

New York Juvenile Justice System
- More alternatives to incarceration in NY
- Reduction in use of secure detention for youth
- Focus on keeping youth closer to their communities if they are placed away from home
- Raise the Age initiative

Question 31

18th century jails

Answer 31

Established after workhouses

Bridewell Workhouse
- London

Question 32

workhouses

Answer 32

Early penal facilities designed to use prison labor for profit by private interests; operated in shires in mid-sixteenth century and later

Question 33

poor laws

Answer 33

Laws targeted debits who owed creditors, and for those unable to pay their debts, sanctions were imposed

imprisoned them, typically for life unless someone could pay them for them

Question 34

Hospital of Saint Michael

Answer 34

Youth housed were not ill

Assigned various tasks and trained to perform semiskilled and skilled labor

• Useful tools that would enable them to find employment more easily after their release
• Housed in individual cells

Question 35

Child Savers Movement

Answer 35

Organized effort during early 1800s to provide assistance, including food and shelter, to wayward youth (children roaming the streets while their parents were at work; family couldn’t afford care)

Question 36

reform schools

Answer 36

Different types of secure residential institutions designed to both punish and rehabilitate youthful offenders; operated much like prisons as total institutions

Question 37

People ex rel. O’Connell v. Turner

Answer 37

A youth, Daniel O’Connell, was declared vagrant and in need of supervision and committed to the Chicago Reform School for an unspecified period

His parents challenged this court action, claiming that his confinement for vagrancy was unjust and untenable

The court reasoned that state interested would be better served if commitments of juveniles to reform schools were limited to those committing more serious criminal offenses rather than those who were victims of poverty

Further held that it was unconstitutional for youth who had not been convicted of criminal conduct or afforded legal due process to be confused in the Chicago Reform School

Question 38

Jane Adams

Answer 38

Established and operated Hull House, a settlement home used largely by children from immigrant families in the Chicago area

Question 39

Act to Regulate the Treatment and Control of Dependent, Neglected, and Delinquent Children → Illinois Juvenile Court Act

Answer 39

Provided for limited courts of record, where notes might be taken by judges or their assistants, ot reflect judicial actions against juveniles

Question 40

Children’s tribunals - civil tribunals

Answer 40

Informal mechanisms were used to adjudicate and punish children charged with crimes, and they were entirely independent from the system of criminal courts for adults

Question 41

Compulsory School Act

Answer 41

Education law

Primarily targeted at truants; also encompassed juveniles who wandered the streets during school hours without any obvious business or occupation

Youth were termed as juvenile disorderly offenders

Question 42

Sweatshops

Answer 42

Children were put to work for low wages in factories named this

Question 43

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

Answer 43

A compilation of arrests for different offenses according to several time intervals

Question 44

Index offenses

Answer 44

Considered to be the most serious crimes

Question 45

Misdemeanor

Answer 45

A violation of criminal laws that is punishable by an incarcerative term of less than one year in city or county jails

Question 46

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCV)

Answer 46

Conducted annually

A random survey of approximately 90,00 dwellings and about 160,000 persons aged 12 and over measures crime convicted against specific victims interviewed and not necessarily reported to law environment officers

Question 47

Victimization

Answer 47

A basic measure of the occurrence of a crime and is a specific criminal act that affects a single victim

Question 48

Incident

Answer 48

A specific criminal act that may involve one or more victims

Question 49

Cleared by arrest

Answer 49

Meaning that someone has been arrested and charged with a particular crime

Question 50

National Juvenile Court Data Archive

Answer 50

Compendium of national statistical information and databases about juvenile delinquency

Question 51

At risk youth

Answer 51

Those who suffer from one or more disadvantages, such as lower socioeconomic status, dysfunctional family conditions, low self esteem, etc

Question 52

Pittsburgh Youth Study

Answer 52

Longitudinal investigation of 1,517 inner city boys between 1986 and 1996; studied factors involved in what caused delinquency among some youth and why others did not become delinquent

Question 53

Career escalation

Answer 53

Moving as a juvenile offender to progressively more serious offenses as new offenses are committed