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Asylum at St. Michele in Rome
Founded by Pope Clemente XI, in 1704, this was a place was set aside for the 'profligate youth' of the time where they were taught to be useful citiezens. Set up at the Asylum of St. Michele in Rome, it was the precipitate of John Howard's solitary cells. this was the first facility designed for men under the age of 20; the first juvenile detention center. -
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Growth of Juvenile Justice through the last few centuries
From its meager beginings in Rome of the Eighteenth Century to recent Supreme Court Rulings, Juvenile Justice has had a bumpy ride. -
St. Michele sparks reform in New World with Walnut Street Jail
While not a juvenile detention center on its own, Walnut Street Jail was the first American facility to not only separate the violent criminals in the solitary cells used in the Roman blueprint, but to divide the women and the children apart from the other offenders in the prison walls. For the first time in our brief history, our youth was protected from the more violent criminal element. -
Houses of Refuge, the next step in deliquent control
Between 1825 and 1828, 23 houses of refuge sprung up across the country; from New York, Boston, Phildelphia, Bangor, all the way west to Chicago, thes ehomes were designed not only to hold the deliquents, but the orpahned youth of the cities, Most of the facilities wer efor males only, but a few sprang up to house the females, too. By 1840 there were 210 of these homes across the nation; not perfect, but better than the streets. -
From houses of refuge to violent Training Schools
The middle of the nineteenth centrury saw the movement toward the schools of reformation or the training schools. Popular until the 1890s, these were more labor camps for the disenfranchized children of the era. Brutal treatment and exploitation was in store for those convicted of even the pettiest of crimes. This included punishment with whippings with a cat-o-nine-tails. This was the begining of the state-contol over the youth in correctional facilities. -
Refuge in cities were now cottages in the country
As the juvenile offenders became more violent, there was a move to take them out of the cities that may have contributed to their lawlessness. In the mid-1800s, Reformers thought that living in the country and getting in touch with Mother Nature, youthful offenders would not be tempted by the ills of the cities that coorupted them. At first, real cottages in the countryside, they soon became brick edifaces housing more and more children, with less state funding to help. -
Chicago changes everything
By 1899 the face of juvenile justice changed for good. Redefining the idea of what constituted a juvenile and how they were housed and classeifed became the blueprint of current trends. This parens patriea doctrine gave more control to the state, redefined terminology that affected the youth and kept them from seperate from adult courts. Gone now were the formal courtrooms, instead it was now an informal meeting between judge, child, their parents, and the probation officer. -
Probation comes to juvenile justice
An early proponent of probation was Herman Folks, who appreciated the idea of a no walls type of reformatory, and one without too much coercion needed to get the juvenile involved in its premise. Here the officer was changed into a friend or an advisor to help the child keep from going into a reformatory. It was, however, still a stepping stone back into the walled reformatories, if the child refused to follow the guidelines. -
Kent v United States
Unchanged for nearly 75 years, the juvenile justice system started to make inroads into the Supreme Court and changing the face of how youth were perceived in the eyes of the court. In this landmark case, it was first discussed that even children had the right of due process guaranteed by the Constitution. If they were 16 or younger and the crime could be considered a felony and the death penalty is possible, they have the same rights under the law to due process.
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In re Gault
Up until this time, juveniles charged with a delinquent act, such as the lewd phone calls made by Gerald Gault could be punishable to many years in prison, or to a time they reached majority: Whereas the same crime done by and adult was only punishable by a small fine. Again, due process was brought into the picture and the courts held the unconstitutionality of the law. -
in re Winship
If there is a case of delinquency and the possibility of prison time is evident, then the case must be proven by a reasonable doubt. In this case, a young boy who was 12 years of age did a crime that was tantamount to larceny if done by an adult. If he was to be sent to a juvenile detention center for any amount of time, it needed to be proven his crime held all two of the elements of completion, mens rea, mens actus, as a child that age may not be aware of doing a criminal act. -
Mckeiver v Pennsylvania
It was found that in cases involving juveniles, the Constitution has no provisions in requiring a jury trial for juveniles. The Supreme Court understood the practice of due process, but felt the right to a jury was not covered under the articles of law, and because they were ‘tried in similar proceedings to a criminal trial’ -
Breed v Jones
This landmark case held that once a child was adjudicated in a juvenile court and then remanded to and adult court for the same transgression, it amounted to a case of double jeopardy. The fact that he was 17 when he did the crime put him on a sort of razor’s edge. But since he had already been ‘convicted’ under juvenile considerations, if he went to court as an adult, it would have violated his Fifth Amendment right and his Fourteenth Amendment rights of disclosure and a fair trial. -
Smith v Daily Mail Publishing
There have been some setbacks. In this case, a newspaper came by the name of a juvenile by monitoring police bands and talking to others. While it had been an understanding that names of juveniles should not be printed in the media, the Supreme Court sided with them publishing company stating it had used its First Amendment rights and attained the information legally -
January 19, 1982 Eddings v Oklahoma
This is another one of those setbacks in juvenile justice history. In this case, it was deemed to not consider the age of the defendant in cases of the death penalty. It was brought to the attention of the court about the juvenile’s sorted upbringing and his ‘sad childhood’, but at this point, it was not considered a factor in setting the death penalty for any one, any age who may have committed a crime to warrant it. -
June 4, 1984 Schall v Martin
In this case, the courts upheld a case where juveniles, if the committed a crime that if had done by and adult would be considered a felony, able to be held in pretrial detention. In this case, it was determined if the court felt that the child would not return for their trial, or seemed to pose a risk on the population if returned to the general population, then the idea of incarceration until the trial was justified. -
Girls and crime
Meda Chesney-Lind's 1989 article, "Girls' Crime and Woman's Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency stated that there was double standard being evoked between male and female delinquency. Studies showed that there were more female status offenders, but the was not a system set up to deal with them. More and more women were committing crimes, but as Chesney-Lindd expressed, it was more of an outcome of centuries of repression and a fighting back of domestic violence and sexual abuse -
Simmons v Roper
Although he planned and executed a murder at age 17, Christopher Simmons, citing the Eight Amendment and previous cases, such as Eddings got the Supreme Court to reverse its decisions to keep the death penalty age at 16 and change it to 18. Hereafter, no one convicted of a capital crime under the age of 18 can be sentenced to death once they reach 18 years of age, but to be sentenced to life in prison. -
Latest trials and errors Scared Straight
An idea that has already come and gone in our society is the plan that if you scare a youngster enough by placing them in stressful situations such as a hardend juvenile or adult facility, you will scare the crime out of them. While some places still use this tactic, it has been generally dismimissed by most criminalists. -
References
Bartollas, C., & Miller, S. J. (2011). Juvenile Justice in America 6th Edition. Saddle River: Pearson Education.
Chesney-Lind, M. (1989). Girls' Crime and Women's Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency. Theories of Deviance: Conflict theory, 1.
Cornell University Law School. (1966, May 15). Kent v United States. Retrieved July 20, 2012, from Legal Information Institute: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0383_0541_ZO.html
Cornell University Law School. (1967, M
