ABSTRACT
Reflections on crime reveal that youths and young criminals have been the focus of fear and the target of punitive public policies. Since the sensational youth gang violence in the 1980s and the “horrific series of shooting sprees by public school students” in the late 1990s, lawmakers have been guided by punitive ideology in designing reactive legislation. One hundred years ago, the image of “wayward” children who were engulfed by the forces of the Industrial Revolution and the dynamics of an expanding and increasingly diverse urban population captured the attention of concerned citizens. The “child savers” believed that miscreant youths were subjected to additional harms as a result of being handled by the criminal court. A basic rationale of the juvenile court has been the principle that youths are engaged in developmental processes and tasks of transitioning from childhood immaturity and dependence to adult responsibility and independence.
