Welfare, Punishment And Juvenile Control

The origin and change of the American juvenile justice shows that, no matter how hypocritical or straight it is, the strength of the change lies in the juvenile controlling from the adult society. Adjusting between welfare and punishment, tend towards middle of the road is the rule of juvenile justice policy development. Welfare is a kind of periphrastic juvenile control policy, the pretext to constructing juvenile justice system, and the groundwork that cannot been threw away during the development of juvenile justice.Before the 19th century, America was still at its"ex juvenile-justice"stage. At that time, the juvenile was regarded as the"little adult"so that there wasn't a special juvenile group both being separated from the adult society and tending to make violence. As a result, there couldn't be an independent juvenile justice at all. The state dealt with the juvenile delinquent equally as with the adult's crime by a kind of measure like natural response which was called"retribution".With the emergence of the"childhood concept"in the 19th century, the juvenile was gradually separated from the adult and was treated as the"minors". That led to the birth of the special rules concerning the juvenile. As for the juvenile, they were given a unique social role by the adult society, including discipline, modesty, obedience, diligence. Then, there were the phenomena of violating these rules. It showed that the concept of"juvenile delinquency"was indeed"invented"in this sense. No sooner had the concept of juvenile come into being, than the adult society was very anxious about the group that was capable of violating the rules in such an age. At the same time, America was experiencing a transitional period: on one hand, as for the family and community, these traditional informal controlling institutions'influence waned so that they couldn't work effectively to control the activities of the juvenile; on the other, the traditional"severe-punishment oriented"criminal justice system was strongly criticized. Consequently, setting up a juvenile justice system in order to improve the relevant controlling measures was both necessary and feasible.After the setting up of the first juvenile correction institution"Houses of Refuge"at New York in 1825, America came to have its juvenile correction institutions. In 1899, the state of Illinois made the juvenile court law and the juvenile court was established in Cook County. Later, the juvenile court movement spread widely in America. In early 20th century, the welfare-based juvenile justice mode labeled"the best interest of the juvenile"was formed in the whole country. That movement almost considered all the disobedience as delinquency which was threatening good order. Then, the juvenile court became necessary for the state to intervene and protect the young people in the name of"parens patriae"or"love".From the 1960s, the American welfare-based juvenile justice began to face many challenges. It seemed that these challenges originated both from the lack of constitutional rights which should be vested on the juvenile and from the deviation of the due process. While, in fact, this mode lost its control on juvenile delinquency. Another important factor was that the change of the social environment in which the young people grew up made the juvenile more like an adult. As a result, the juvenile's traditional na?ve and lovely image was largely deteriorated by their delinquent and violence.The transition of the American juvenile justice can be divided into two stages. The first stage is from the late 1960s to early 1980s, a process from"good intention"to"good deed". People put their emphasis on the treatment that the juvenile experienced, instead of the"good intention"which the former mode had declared. In order to better the treatment in the juvenile justice system, new healing groups were formed to enhance the care and protection for the rights of the juvenile. The development of the juvenile justice in this period was greatly influenced by the newly-borne"labeling theory"in criminology and was characterized by"4D"movements, namely due process, diversion,decriminization, and deinstitutionization. The first transition of the juvenile justice which focused on juvenile protection tactically and successfully softened the line between the juvenile justice and the adult justice and then made a good preparation for the further transition, namely a control by punishment.By the influence of"Contemporary classicism"from the 1970s, the American juvenile justice tended to have a policy of severe punishment, which still governs the whole nation's juvenile justice system nowadays. Evidently, the first transition appeared at least in the name of juvenile rights'protection, while the second just disclosed the veil of welfare and directly announced the social protection and juvenile control.With the gradual harmonization of juvenile justice and the adult justice, two confronting thoughts came into being in America: one thought is about the abolition of the juvenile court by substituting it with the adult justice system; the other supports the co-existence of the juvenile justice and the adult justice system. In fact, as long as the differences between the various conditions of the juvenile and adult are still alive, the juvenile justice system will continue to function. Although some"wise"men predicted that"Juvenile court is to die in the 20th century", it is evident that the death of the prophecy itself has showed us the best answer.In recent years, the American juvenile justice system tends to reach a compromise: the attempt from"strike the severe crimes heavily and treat the petty ones leniently"policy to balanced and restorative justice forms an equilibrium model between the formal control system of juvenile delinquency and the informal control system. Such a compromise can avoid the disadvantages of the extreme measures from both the welfare and the punishment mode. That compromising method will continue to be a feature of the American juvenile justice system in the future. Although the verdict from the federal supreme court of America in 2005 indicating that the death penalty shouldn't be applied to the juvenile shows that the American juvenile justice has already entered another rethinking period, we should always bear in mind that the juvenile still can't escape from the destiny of being healed or punished by the adult. As a result, only the way of control is what really changed.