| Chapter
2
Juvenile
Justice
By Jack
Kresnak
The System As It Exists Today
The juvenile justice system is comprised of the police, the juvenile
courts, the courts' intake and probation staffs, attorneys for
the state and for the child (and often for the parents), juvenile
detention centers, juvenile correctional facilities and the social
agencies that take children in placement on order of the juvenile
court.
"Each group has a particular set of responsibilities, expectations,
and reference points. The groups do not always work in harmony
or with reference to shared values," writes Margaret K. Rosenheim
in "A Century of Juvenile Justice" (University of Chicago
Press, 2002).
As Rosenheim points out, at nearly every point of contact in
the system a screening decision takes place. Most juveniles who
have contact with the police are neither charged nor detained.
Rosenheim says that of every 100 kids stopped by police in the
street only about 20 are taken into custody. Of those, about
70 percent are referred to juvenile court where the intake staff – usually
in consultation with the prosecuting attorney – returns
about half back to their communities.
Most large city police departments have a special bureau or units
to address crimes committed by juveniles. These officers are
adept at knowing which cases are serious enough for juvenile
courts to handle, but the youth bureaus often keep records of
every contact a juvenile has with an officer. A juvenile shoplifter
who never had contact with police before may be let go by police
with a warning, while police may push to convince a juvenile
court to accept a case on another kid with a history of troublesome
behavior caught shoplifting the same items.
Juvenile court clearly is the lynchpin of the entire juvenile
justice system. Juvenile courts generally operate along two tracks – delinquency
hearings for accused juvenile offenders dependency hearings for
abused, neglected, abandoned or exploited children.
Dependency Hearings
Also called neglect hearings or even dependency court, these are
proceedings in which judges decide whether abused, neglected,
abandoned or exploited children should be placed under the court's
protection and, in many cases, temporarily removed from their
parents' care. If children are removed from their homes, they
generally are made "temporary court wards" under the
jurisdiction of juvenile court. They can be placed in foster
homes, with relatives or with their parents while under the court's
jurisdiction.
All essential decisions about the child's welfare are then in
the
hands of the court, which can delegate a public or private agency
to act on its behalf. Juvenile courts typically order the children's
parents to fix whatever problems existed that led to the court
intervention. These could include psychological counseling, substance
abuse treatment, obtaining employment, finding adequate housing,
separating from an abusive spouse, or taking parenting classes.
If parents refuse to follow the court's orders or fail to benefit
from counseling or other services, the juvenile or family court
judge may be asked to terminate their parental rights. The court
often sets a deadline for parents to reform, usually a year or
two. Childhood is such a short period of time that juvenile courts
consider it unhealthy for children to wait years for their parents
to overcome their problems.
If the abuse or neglect is serious enough, or if there has been
a pattern of repeated abuses of children, the juvenile court judge
may be asked by a state agency in the initial petition to terminate
the parental rights.
Most parents accused of abuse or neglect in a juvenile court's
dependency hearings are not charged with any crime. The standards
of evidence are different in civil child abuse or neglect cases.
For a parent to be convicted of the crime of child abuse, the state
must prove its case "beyond a reasonable doubt." In juvenile
court, a child can become a ward of the court if the abuse or neglect
is proved "by a preponderance of the evidence," meaning
that more than half of the evidence shows that abuse or neglect
occurred. An example of a case where there is insufficient evidence
of a crime but ample evidence for a juvenile court judge to take
jurisdiction might be that a child sustained a serious injury while
in a parent's care but police and social service workers are unable
to find out who injured the child or whether that person intended
any harm.
A common misconception among journalists and the general public
is that the entire child protection system is the responsibility
of agencies known as "child protective services." Most
states have a unit called child protective services (CPS) that
is the investigative arm of a public child welfare agency. CPS
serves as the intake for the child welfare system. When enough
evidence is gathered, CPS petitions the juvenile court to take
jurisdiction over abused or neglected children.
In most states, once the court takes jurisdiction, the job of
CPS is finished and a second group of social service workers take
over. They are called foster care workers. (A social service worker
is not the same as social worker. A professional social worker
has at least a master's degree in social work and often acts as
the therapist for children and families. Most social service workers
have a bachelor's degree, not necessarily in social work but perhaps
in related fields such as psychology, sociology, even criminal
justice.)
Foster care workers have the responsibility of ensuring the child's
health and safety while they live outside of their parents' homes
and under juvenile court jurisdiction. These workers also must
help the parents obtain the counseling and other services they
need to become decent parents and to regain custody of their children.
Federal regulations and most state laws prohibit social service
workers from disclosing information about children in the child
welfare system to news reporters. Disclosing confidential information
to a journalist or anyone not specifically authorized is a crime
in many states.
States with good child protection systems appoint attorneys to
represent children in dependency hearings. Often called guardians
ad litem, these lawyers are charged with advocating for the legal
rights and protections of their clients. Many states require children's
attorneys to meet with their clients, face to face, at least once
every three months. But the compensation for such work is so low
that many attorneys fail to meet this obligation. Guardians ad
litem and other attorneys representing children can be excellent
sources of information about abused or neglected kids, especially
if the system is failing to address their needs.
Several states also use a system of volunteers called Court Appointed
Special Advocates (CASA). The advocates are nonlawyers assigned
by juvenile court to monitor the care and treatment of a child
or family of children in foster care. A CASA volunteer is considered
the court's eyes and ears to ensure that the child welfare system
is working on behalf of particular children, and judges often pay
close attention to what a CASA volunteer has to say. Attorneys
and social service workers may resent CASA volunteers because,
they say, the CASA volunteer is not well trained in the intricacies
of the child welfare system and can be swayed by emotion rather
than professional experience or expertise. CASA volunteers also
are prohibited from discussing their cases with the news media.
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