Status Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System

According to Tracy (2002) a status offender is "a child who was accused and adjudicated for conduct that would not, under state law, be a crime if committed by an adult, including truancy, running away from home...and violating a juvenile curfew ordinance or order (p. 43)." Prior to 1974 and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, many states punished status offenders through the Juvenile Justice system. Feld (1999) writes that at the time of the Supreme Court decision of Gault, most states classified status offenses as a type of delinquency. In addition the juvenile courts asserted a youth was a generic "delinquent" whether or not they committed a serious crime or a misdemeanor, or truanted from school (Feld 1999). This particular definition of delinquency assumed that juveniles need assistance, and that juvenile courts had the same dispositional power over all juveniles, in spit

According to an article entitled "The Juvenile Justice System" American Juvenile Justice System was created during the Progressive Era which was a time of social reform throughout the nation. The article explains that initially the juvenile justice system was developed to help delinquents that were being dealt with in the adult system. Since the time that the Act was signed there have been many changes to the philosophy and policy that governs the Juvenile Justice system. The article asserts that

"The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act called for a "deinstitutionalization" of juvenile delinquents. It required that states holding youth within adult prisons for status offenses remove them within a span of two years (this time frame was adjusted over time). The act also provided program grants to states, based on their youth populations, and created the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) ("The Juvenile Justice System").

There have been many changes in the juvenile justice system in the years since the passing of the aforementioned Act. One of the primary changes is a system known as criminological triage (Feld). As it relates to status offenders this triage entails diversion of status offenders, waiver of serious young offenders to the adult system, and more severe punishment of delinquents (Feld).

In addition, research has found that as it relates to status offenders, there is a greater likelihood that female offenders are more likely to be referred to the juvenile court system then boys (Feld 1999). In addition they are more likely to have formal petitions filed, be placed in pretrial detention and incarcerated (Feld 1999). This difference in the sexes as it relates to status offenses has some people questioning the handling of such cases and the reasons why females are punished to a greater extent than boys.

"Because of the gendered nature of troublesome conduct and parents' responses to it, juvenile courts detained more often and confined for longer periods girls charged with status offen

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Approximate Word count = 1390
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)