The Punitive Juvenile Court and the Quality of Procedural Justice: Disjunctions Between Rhetoric and Reality

Abstract

The quality of procedural justice is especially relevant to recent changes in juvenile courts' sentencing policies. Punitiveness is reflected in (a) changes in juvenile code purpose clauses and court decisions endorsing punishment; (b) juvenile sentencing statutes and correctional guidelines that employ proportional, determinate, or mandatory sentences; and (c) evaluations of dispositional decision making and conditions of institutional confinement. The shift from treatment to punishment raises basic issues of procedural justice, especially the delivery of legal services. As juvenile courts' sentencing practices resemble increasingly those of their criminal counterparts, does any reason remain to maintain a separate court whose sole distinguishing characteristic is its persisting procedural deficiencies?