Law Commons^™

Families With Service Needs: The Newest Euphemism, Stanley Z. Fisher

Faculty Scholarship

Juvenile court jurisdiction over "status offenders" - juveniles engaging in noncriminal misconduct such as truancy, running away, and "incorrigibility" - has become the subject of national debate. Most participants in the many-sided discussion agree that the system needs reform. The major disagreement, however, is between those who wish merely to reform the court's jurisdiction over this conduct, and those who would substantially eliminate it. This article concerns the newest reform proposal: to revise status offense jurisdiction under a new category entitled "Families With Service Needs" (FWSN). Proposed in 1977 by a federally funded task force, 5 the FWSN concept has …