ABSTRACT
The balance within a juvenile justice system is controlled by the statutes, by the discretion allowed to those who operate the system and the resources available to them, and by the restrictions on referral to the system. Juvenile courts were retained by the 1969 Act, and the climate in the mid 1970s is unlikely to lead to a rejection of the court as the primary decisionmaking organ in juvenile justice in England. The statutes give the courts little guidance on where the emphasis should lie, and read as if the interest of the child and of the public are the same. Inspection of the sealed files and records thereafter may be permitted by an order of the court upon petition by the person who is the subject of the records and only by those persons named in the order.
