ABSTRACT

Gerald Gault's sentenced up to six years at the Arizona State Industrial School for Boys for making a lewd phone call is the creation story of the modern juvenile justice system. Steve Vukcevich improved Fort Grant's physical plant and fired the worst-offending correctional staff members. Arizona reflects the situation in the rest of the country, which continues to lock up its most vulnerable youth in antiquated, dangerous, ineffective, and expensive facilities. The gross racial and ethnic disparities are nothing short of immoral. In 1995, the American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center released A Call for Justice: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality Representation in Delinquency Proceedings. Children with delinquency adjudications and their families routinely are excluded or evicted from public housing, leaving many homeless when they are released from custody. Fifty years after In re Gault, a large gap exists between the "rehabilitative" ideals of juvenile court and the reality experienced by youth once they leave the courtroom.