ABSTRACT
In historical retrospect the juvenile court has the look of an agency of social control directed to raising and maintaining standards of child care, protection, and family morals, a purpose reinforced by its close association with social welfare organizations. Social scientists familiar with the juvenile court and its problems in the main agree that one of the great unwanted consequences of wardship, placement, or commitment to a correctional institution is the imposition of stigma. The indiscriminate way in which stigma embraces juvenile court wards raises the most serious questions about an important part of the rationale for state intervention into the lives of youth and parents through the juvenile court. Reference is to the idea that delinquency can be or will be thereby prevented. Social science research and current theory in social psychology refute the idea that there are fixed, inevitable sequences in delinquent or criminal careers.
