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Violent crime is committed disproportionately by young men, but government never has conducted a coherent, aggressive campaign against serious juvenile delinquency. The fragmentation has been evident since the late 1960s, when federal authority was divided between health and justice agencies. A 1974 law created a federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to take charge. The law set progressive standards, but the administration of Ronald Reagan tried to kill the agency in the early 1980s and downgraded it after Congress refused to end funding. The Reagan Justice Department did forge an alliance with the MacArthur Foundation to start a long‐term study of juvenile crime's causes. Meanwhile, a steady increase in arrests of juveniles prompted to require that more teen suspects be tried in adult courts, even when studies showed the tactic ineffective in preventing repeat criminality. Congressional Republicans helped enact a large “juvenile accountability” program designed to provide federal aid to programs that got tough on young lawbreakers. Some measures failed on a broad scale, such as ‘boot camps’ aimed at instilling more discipline in delinquents. Despite many promising crime prevention programs, the Congress under Republicans control starting in 1995 generally refused to fund them. Juvenile crime arrests declined sharply since the mid‐1990s, but there was no solid proof of what caused the change, whether government programs, the improved economy, or a lower number of teens in the population.

This chapter presents a discussion on juvenile justice. The Juvenile Justice Act 1986 replaced the Children's Acts. The Juvenile Welfare Board deals with neglected juveniles whereas delinquent juveniles are brought before the juvenile court. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 expands the definition of the ‘neglected juvenile’ by adding new categories of children. It has brought in some significant changes in an attempt to make the system more child-friendly. However, several critiques of this Act are presented. Juvenile justice has been enhanced by reducing the number of ‘at risk’-youth who enter the system. It is noted that juvenile courts should be vital community resources. The needs of the children and the families who appear in juvenile courts have to be considered. A juvenile court of the twenty-first century must have interdisciplinary connections with law, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and child welfare administration and management.

This chapter provides a historical overview of important developments leading to the enactment of the Juvenile Justice Act (JJA) of 2000. It also highlights the salient features of the JJA 2000 and examines critical questions under the act. The purpose of the JJA 2000 is “to consolidate and amend the law relating to juveniles in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection, by providing for proper care, protection and treatment by catering to their development needs, and by adopting a child-friendly approach in the adjudication and disposition of matters in the best interest of children and for their ultimate rehabilitation and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” The chapter examines the implementation of JJA 2000 from three perspectives: (1) implementation of basic infrastructure; (2) challenges of the judicial mind-set; and (3) the pattern of disposal of cases of children under the JJA 2000.

Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Graham v. Florida (2010) held that immature judgment, susceptibility to negative peer influences, and transitory personality development diminished criminal responsibility and precluded execution for murder and life without parole sentences for non-homicide crimes committed by youths younger than eighteen years of age. These developmental characteristics also affect adolescents’ ability to exercise Miranda rights and the right to counsel, and competence to participate in legal proceedings. Developmental psychological research bolsters Roper and Graham’s conclusion that adolescents’ immature judgment and limited self-control reduce culpability and adjudicative competence compared with adults. Neuroscience research provides preliminary biological support for the behavioral findings of juveniles’ immature judgment, impulsiveness and limited self-control. Widespread neurobiological differences in the structural and functional development of prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic structures in adolescents compared to adults may contribute to their poor judgment, reduced self-control, risk taking and heightened reward-responsiveness.

In November 2006, there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Juvenile Justice Center in San Francisco, and planners asked the Center for Young Women's Development (CYWD) to provide a speaker on the Incarcerated Young Mothers' Bill of Rights, which had recently become policy for the new facility. The Incarcerated Young Mothers' Bill of Rights is now policy and aims to protect the rights of pregnant and parenting young mothers at San Francisco's new juvenile hall. This chapter focuses on the Incarcerated Young Mothers' Bill of Rights, a ten-point visionary document that seeks to draw a thick, bright line that prison authorities dare not cross, even though the incarcerated women in question are young and particularly vulnerable. The incarcerated young mothers have identified respect, information, and access to advocates as conditions of their lives in prison that they cannot do without. They want to keep or regain their health. They take their status as mothers very seriously and want the prison authorities to do the same.

This chapter discusses the rights of children against sexual abuse and exploitation. Child marriage is a form of sexual abuse of children. Legal intervention in India is in the form of investigations which start with registration of offences under the earlier Juvenile Justice Act 1986 or the present Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 or the Indian Penal Code or the Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act 1956 (amended in 1986). The propelling factor for commercial sexual exploitation of children is the role played by traffickers. The advent of sex tourism and child pornography in India has been discussed in this chapter. Examples of judgments on trafficking are also provided here. The enforcement of law in India has been weak in dealing with abusers, exploiters, and traffickers of children. There have been several initiatives for preventing child pornography on the Internet. It has also been noted that children and young people should be offered more effective protection by the legal process.

This chapter provides an overview of the child rights in India. The Guardians and Wards Act 1890, Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956, Young Persons Harmful Publications Act 1956, Probation of Offenders Act 1958, Apprentice Act 1961, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, Children (Pledging of Labour) Act 1933, and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 are some of the provisions that deal with children. Some major policy and plan documents relating to children are described briefly. The Government of India is enforcing about 120 schemes and programmes for the welfare and development of children and women through more than thirteen ministries and departments. The child's right to development is crucial, both to safeguard the right to a future as well as the rights of future children.

In the United States, Juvenile Court jurisdiction targets young people at serious risk of anti-social development to whom society is committed to offering another chance, with some assistance, to develop in a more pro-social direction. This chance is offered, however, through a dispositional process that undermines the law’s pro-social goals. An extensive body of literature in developmental and social psychology suggests that a dramatic transformation of that process that brought the young people to the center of the decision-making could materially enhance the developmental value of that process for young people. It could offer them meaningful opportunities to develop their decision-making skills and foster an understanding of self as a part of, rather than outside of, the community of law enforcement. This chapter brings together current law and practice with the social science literature to argue for the undertaking of a process experiment in Juvenile Court.

Teen Courts are a growing trend in juvenile diversion programs in the United States. The active participation and sense of citizenship of juveniles is reflected not only in their own procedures as offenders, but later when these children serve as role-takers in peers’ trials. Through their participation, youth jurors gain practical knowledge about and respect for the judicial system, which in turn validates sentencing and enforces the effectiveness of peer support in the context of the rule of law. Teen courts foster a child’s civic development in the context of a reliable rule of law based on a jury of peers. Teens are also able to develop their verbal and communication skills by serving as prosecutors or defense counsel. They gain knowledge of decorum and protocol by serving as bailiffs. These wonderfully rich opportunities for child offenders are unique to the teen court process.

In chapter six we juxtapose the work of compassionate adults against the harsh “zero-tolerance” policy environment and highlight the positive impacts of caring adults on youth at critical times in adolescence. We begin with a brief review of the rise of “zero-tolerance” policies and how they took shape nationally and in Hawai‘i. We hear the stories of June and Auggie, who experienced the punitive sting of the juvenile justice system as teens under this policy environment. We contrast that with examples of school and court professionals who made a marked difference in the lives of youth and explore the meaning and importance of discretionary power using an “ethic of care.”

Mass incarceration exists in America on a scale unmatched in global history. America is also the only Western democracy that has not abolished the death penalty; and one of the nations that execute the most prisoners alongside abusive dictatorships like China, North Korea, and Iran. American justice is further characterized by pervasive racial discrimination, the peculiar “War on Drugs,” the dehumanizing treatment of juveniles, and routine use of harmful solitary confinement. Modern America has thus become a systematic human rights violator in criminal law and punishment. It was not always so, as foreigners once saw American justice as enlightened. Harsh justice has not made America particularly safe. It has the highest murder rate and the most gun violence in the West due to extraordinarily lax gun control shaped by die-hard partisans of the Second Amendment and lobbying by the NRA. Criminal justice reform gained more attention after shootings of unarmed black men in Ferguson and beyond led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, historical root causes behind this dimension of American exceptionalism have been widely overlooked, including systemic racism, populism, anti-intellectualism, market fundamentalism, and religious fundamentalism.