Competency to stand trial (CST) assessment of juvenile offenders is a relatively recent phenomenon, as are juvenile mental health courts. Factors associated with youths' ability to participate in legal proceedings are not well understood, regardless of the court venue. Using a sample of 324 juveniles participating in the Los Angeles County Juvenile Mental Health Court (LAJMHC), we sought to exp...

This article surveys the current landscape of the juvenile court. The original concept of this court, when implemented by state legislatures, took different organizational forms. The length of judges' assignments to this court varies as does the extent of their specialization. These courts differ from one another in numerous ways such as the minimum and maximum ages of their delinquency jurisdi...

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally-funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. The causes of delay in the youth justice system are complex. No single approach is likely to be ef...

The issue of controlling discretion in large public institutions is a crucial one in modern society, and procedural legal reforms are often viewed as one tactic of control. Using due process guarantees in juvenile courts as the substantive issue, this paper tests the utility of procedural reform in reducing discretion. Results indicate that procedural reform in the juvenile court has a quite li...

The treatment of juveniles within the criminal justice systems is a matter of great variety in the 11 European countries studied comparatively. The study focuses on the age of criminal responsibility, ways to divert juvenile offenders from the criminal justice system or avoid criminal justice responses to them, juvenile proceedings and special reactions and sanctions. In spite of different appr...

Each year, state juvenile courts provide thousands of immigrant and refugee children with access to consistent and reliable caregiving and a stable environment. To examine how courts interpret "the best interests" of immigrant and refugee children, this article examines 24 cases in courts across the United States, which indicate they use a territorial approach when evaluating the best interests...

Chief Inspector Cottam told us about the scheme; he had been in at its inception nine years ago under Sir Charles Martin. At this time research showed that 40 per cent of all children appearing before the Liverpool Juvenile Courts had previous police records. This fact and the heavy increase in juvenile crime generally, finally decided the police to start an experiment which was to be a system ...

Prior to the creation of the first juvenile court, most children who committed crimes in the colonial United States were prosecuted as adults in the tradition of English law. Common law of that period held that children under the age of 7 were presumed incapable of committing a crime (the defense of “infancy”). Children between the ages of 7 and 14 were presumed responsible for their acts, but ...