The Iowa Juvenile Court Judge

Perspective of a Juvenile Court Judge Judge

The juvenile court judge occupies a unique position. Like all other judges, the juvenile court judge must apply the law to resolve a dispute. For juvenile court judges handling abuse and neglect cases, however, the law requires a new type of role. The judge must monitor whether child welfare agencies have provided services to individual children and families sufficient to comply with federal an...

Criminalizing the American Juvenile Court

Progressive reformers envisioned a therapeutic juvenile court that made individualized treatment decisions in the child's "best interests." The Supreme Court's Gault decision provided the impetus for transforming the juvenile court from an informal welfare agency into a scaled-down criminal court. Since Gault, the juvenile court procedures increasingly resemble those of adult courts, although i...

How The Traffic Engineer Can Assist The Traffic Court Judge

Far too many courts lack interest in either education or engineering. This also can be applied to the police departments. In too many in­ stances educators are indifferent to the courts, police and engineering. Not desiring to point an accusing finger, it is felt that traffic engineer­ ing falls as short of perfection in this regard as the other fields of re­ sponsibility in traffic safety. If,...

Juvenile Drug Court Programs

This Bulletin is part of OJJDP’s Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants (JAIBG) Best Practices Series. The basic premise underlying the JAIBG program, initially funded in fiscal year 1998, is that young people who violate the law need to be held accountable for their offenses if society is to improve the quality of life in the Nation’s communities. Holding a juvenile offender “accountab...

The Transformation of the Juvenile Court