A Return to Justice

"Juveniles who commit crimes often find themselves in court systems that do not account for their young age, but it wasn't always this way. The original aim of a separate juvenile justice system was to treat young offenders as the children they were, considering their unique child status and potential for reform. Now, after years punishing young offenders as if they were adults, the justice system is slowly making changes that would allow the original vision for juvenile justice to finally materialize. The original tenets of the juvenile justice system were slowly dismantled and replaced with a system more like the adult criminal system, one that takes no account of age. In recent years, the tide has turned again. The number of incarcerated youth has been cut in half nationally. In addition, juvenile justice practices are increasingly guided by scholarship in adolescent development that confirms important differences between youth and adults. Also, states and localities are choosing to invest in evidence-based approaches to juvenile crime prevention and intervention rather than in facilities to lock up errant youth. This book assesses the strategies and policies that have produced these important shifts in direction. Yet more needs to be done. This question now is how to take advantage of the opportunity for juvenile justice reform of the kind that would reorient the juvenile justice system to its original intent in both policy and practice. and that would return to a system that treats children as children. Using case examples throughout, Ashley Nellis offers a compelling history and shows how we might continue on the road to reform."--Back cover.