The Foundation And Structure Of The Juvenile Justice System

How important is the foundation and structure of a building? It is important enough that without a solid plan and design that it can fall and crumble easily with age and bad weather. This same idea can be applied in many concepts other than building design. Moreover, it can be seen in road design, hierarchy of power, books, and even papers. More specifically, it can be seen in the juvenile justice system and its working parts. Similarly, on an internal level, the process and procedure of the juvenile justice system can be broken down into stages. The dilemma is for there to be efficiency in the operational structure of the juvenile justice system then there needs to be change. What the Juvenile justice system is today is only due to past mistakes …show more content…
Before then, children who partook in criminal activity or criminal behavior were often referred to differently. Some of the names were black-guard children, stubborn children, poor-vagrant children, or young criminals. Bernard continues to argue that the concept of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice system started to evolve around the same time. He defends his assumption by clarifying how the term juvenile delinquency truly begins to take on its own meaning within the past two hundred years even though the concept of children being different than adults has been around far longer. However, Bernard addresses how the worlds understanding and interpretation of children, is what began to change in the 1800’s. The industrial revolution provided more opportunities through industrialization and urbanization. This is what brought on the increase of juvenile delinquency, which, helped establish a more modern concept of juvenile delinquency. Building the foundation of what juvenile delinquency is, is vital in forming a foundation for how to assess the proper placement for youth. The first modern institution for juveniles opened in 1825. This was the House of Refuge. However, the first juvenile court was not created until 1899. This was due to the idea that juveniles are different from adults and that they need protection from them. The gap between 1825 and 1899 as well as the way juveniles were treated …show more content…
While any child under the age of seven could not commit a crime since at that age they do not have criminal intent. It was seen at this point in time that those under the age limit did not have mens rea then they could not be legally be charged for their crime in criminal court. Even if these crimes were rape, murder and other heinous acts. The disparity still fell upon the juveniles who had not committed crimes but were thought to be in danger to grow up to be criminals and paupers. Therefore any child that was neglected or depended was brought into the juvenile justice system because the idea behind reform for juveniles through houses of refuge was sold (Bernard,