JUVENILE JUSTICE

Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Justice

Introduction

Over 15 years ago, Robert Harris and Noel Timms (1993) identified two contradictory viewpoints concerning closed accommodation for children and young people. The first viewpoint emphasizes the fact that in certain situations, some children and young people have to be placed in institutions for their own good. According to this viewpoint, closed accommodation works in the child's best interests and responds to the child's needs. The second viewpoint approaches closed accommodation via the theme of locking-up. Closed accommodation is seen as restricting the rights of the child or the young person. The authors felt that both viewpoints were too simplistic: the first is unreasonably naïve, the second unreasonably cynical.

Harris and Timms's analysis is surprisingly relevant today, when it is considered that children's rights should also extend to situations such as closed accommodation, which are a response to children and young people breaking norms. Still, the viewpoints tend to be polarized as either defending or rejecting closed accommodation. The arguments are still the same: the child's best interests versus restricting the child's rights. The practice of special care that forms the topic of this article is one example of this. The care in question is a restrictive intervention enabled by the Child Welfare Act. An absolute prerequisite for this intervention is considered to be that it should serve the child's best interests. By virtue of the legislation, special care can be resorted to, among other situations, in order to interrupt a vicious circle of crime that a child or young person has ended up in. Special care is implemented by restricting the child's right to free movement and social contacts in closed institutional space. However, implementing a child's best interests by restricting his or her rights is far from being a straightforward or undisputed matter.

Discussion

Juvenile justice is largely a state and local duty; the federal government can and should make a crucial contribution. Often, states and areas lack the monetary capital and methodological know-how to reform their juvenile programs and practices, and they have long looked to Washington for guidance. Indeed, since the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) was passed in 1974, Washington has often played a vital role in setting minimum standards, conducting and disseminating research on best practices, and providing funding to help states and localities improve their juvenile systems. Unfortunately, in recent years the federal government's role in juvenile justice has suffered due to inattention and drift. The juvenile fairness scheme in the United States has long relied on other, associated schemes of treatment, intervention and punishment. In many European countries, this has intended use of other governmental purposes outside the juvenile justice system. In the United States the use of such “other” systems has largely intended use of schemes from the private sector. Such states as Florida rely nearly exclusively on personal systems of command for secure firm pledge purposes, particularly at the more protected levels of confinement for juveniles (Gordon, 2005).

The tendency in the 1970's and 1980's in America to try ...