Responsibilities of Juvenile Probation Officers
The 'juvenile probation' sentence, in fact, predates the United States' very first exclusive juvenile court. The state of Massachusetts had officially begun enforcing probation as the dispositional option for juvenile delinquents, by enabling suspended sentences, in the year 1878. Law-breaking children would be let free provided they undertook to not commit offense again in the course of their probation. However, pioneers of juvenile courts cast this type of sentence in a different way -- they intended it to be more than just monitoring; rather it was meant to be a "judicial guardianship" process. The innovation is linked to two major consequences. Firstly, the… Continue Reading...
“Central to the concept of juvenile court was the principle of parens patriae. This meant that instead of lawyers fighting to decide guilt or innocence, the court would act as a parent or guardian interested in protecting and helping the child” (yale.edu, 2000). These reforms were novel at the time, and helped to enact changes such as closed hearings for juveniles, informal proceedings and the separation of child criminals from adult criminals in the case of a conviction (yale.edu, 2000). The very first juvenile court was created in Cook County, Illinois in 1899 (yale.edu, 2000).… Continue Reading...
Juvenile Justice in the Twenty-First Century" argues that social welfare should be separated from social control in juvenile courts so as to allow courts to try all offenders in a more consistent manner that allows therapy to be delivered in a separate sphere (social welfare) and justice to be delivered in the courts (with the caveat being that youth offenders should receive smaller sentences on account of their youth). The argument is persuasive because it takes into consideration the idea that courts are there to pass judgment not to provide therapeutic intervention. Courts that try to do more than they are meant to simply make themselves unable… Continue Reading...
