You are currently visiting the ACLU online archives. These pages are not updated. For the latest information from the ACLU, go to http://www.aclu.org ACLU Fact Sheet on the Juvenile Justice System A movement has taken hold nationally to undermine the juvenile justice system, and erase any distinction between young offenders and adult criminals. In the past two years, almost all 50 states have overhauled their juvenile justice laws, allowing more youths to be tried as adults and scrapping long-time protections to help rehabilitate delinquent kids and prevent future crimes. On the federal level, members of Congress have proposed legislation designed to gut crime prevention programs and use the expiration of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 this September as an opportunity to dismantle the preventive and rehabilitative goals of the nation's juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system has its roots in the beginning of the century, when the mistreatment of juveniles became a focus of the Progressive Movement. By 1925, nearly every state had adopted laws providing for separate juvenile proceedings that centered on prevention and rehabilitation, rather than retribution and punishment. Now federal and state lawmakers are rushing to turn the juvenile justice system completely upside down. If this backward trend isn't halted, the consequences will be disastrous not only for an entire generation of our nation's youth who will be condemned to prison, but for all of us who will be left with a more violent society. | |
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