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Juvenile Justice System Analysis

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The juvenile justice system has its roots in the adult system, but it is more structured and has more of clear purpose than the adult justice system. The juvenile justice system consists of government agencies with a distinctive role to investigate, supervise, and adjudicate youthful offenders. Prior to the modern era, children who committed crimes in the Western world received no special treatment of their youth. They were adjudicated and punished alongside adults, which many children as young as six being hung or burned. Early philosophy in dealing with juveniles derived from a Roman principle called Patria Potestas. In the Roman law, children were members of their family, but the father has complete control over them and they in turn had the responsibility to obey his wishes. The Roman’s understanding of the social role of children strongly persuaded the English culture and eventually led to the growth of the legal principle of “parens patriae” in Western law (Siegel, Schmalleger, & Worrall, 2015). The King was allowed to take the place of parents in dealing with children who broke the law. By the end of the eighteenth century, …show more content…
The law applied the expression “delinquent” rather than criminal when referring to young offenders. By sheltering the juvenile from the punishment philosophy of the adult system, the Illinois Juvenile Court emphasized reformation in place of retribution. In 1938, the federal government passed the Juvenile Court Act, which resembled many of the features of the Illinois Act. The act specified that juvenile’s court judges were to use the best interest of the child as a guide for decision-making in their deliberations. By 1945, every state had implemented a special legislation concentrating on the handling of juveniles through police, court, and correctional involvement (Siegel, Schmalleger, & Worrall,

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