Task Force Report: Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime: Report on Juvenile Justice, and Consultants' Papers

Front Cover
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967 - 428 pages
A socio-economic analysis of juvenile delinquency that is critical of society's approach to juvenile crime responds with recommendations and principles for change. Efforts to modernize the juvenile court system and the general attitude of the public sector toward youth crime are discussed. To teach the youthful offenders involvement in community life, the public and private sectors of the population must respond to youthful needs. Emphasis is placed on the following areas for changes in attitude and approach of responsible individuals - public officials, community and social agencies, teachers, and potential employers. Greatest emphasis is placed on juvenile justice system personnel ranging from the police to the judge. The Gault decision is discussed as a viable vehicle for giving perspective to future programs and priorities. That a revitalized juvenile court system is needed is a logical conclusion.
 

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Page 52 - To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.
Page 66 - Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him.
Page 64 - In view of this, it would be extraordinary if our Constitution did not require the procedural regularity and the exercise of care implied in the phrase "due process." Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court.
Page 147 - Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (ie historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action.
Page 247 - Thus, if a white pupil from a home that is strongly and effectively supportive of education is put in a school where most pupils do not come from such homes, his achievement will be little different than if he were in a school composed of others like himself. But if a minority pupil from a home without much educational strength is put with schoolmates with strong educational backgrounds, his achievement is likely to increase.
Page 147 - Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
Page 62 - The absence of substantive standards has not necessarily meant that children receive careful, compassionate, individualized treatment. The absence of procedural rules based upon constitutional principle has not always produced fair, efficient, and effective procedures. Departures from established principles of due process have frequently resulted not in enlightened procedure, but in arbitrariThe Chairman of the Pennsylvania Council of ness.
Page 31 - ... to take the place of the father for the same purpose, required to adopt any process as a means of placing its hands upon the child to lead it into one of its courts. When the child gets there, and the court, with the power to save it, determines on its salvation, and not its punishment, it is immaterial how it got there. The act simply provides how children who ought to be saved may reach the court to be saved. If experience should show that there ought to be other ways for it to get there, the...
Page 75 - State, exerted within the limits of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions...
Page 62 - There is evidence, in fact, that there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds; that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children.

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