JUVENILE COURT

Juvenile Court

Juvenile Court

In 1899, Illinois passed the Juvenile Court Act, the fist of its kind to setup a separate legal entity for dealing with juvenile behavior. The Illinois system would become the model for almost every state to set up a similar juvenile court infrastructure.

The most important notion in this new juvenile system was the rehabilitative nature of these proceedings. Youths were no longer punitively responsible for their actions, but rather coerced into deviant behavior by a society who failed them. The rehabilitative nature of this system did not distinguish between criminal and non-criminal activities. As a consequence, the state ...