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The False Promise Of Adolescent Brain Science In Juvenile Justice, Terry A. Maroney
The False Promise Of Adolescent Brain Science In Juvenile Justice, Terry A. Maroney
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Recent scientific findings about the developing teen brain have both captured public attention and begun to percolate through legal theory and practice. Indeed, many believe that developmental neuroscience contributed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s elimination of the juvenile death penalty in Roper v. Simmons. Post-Roper, scholars assert that the developmentally normal attributes of the teen brain counsel differential treatment of young offenders, and advocates increasingly make such arguments before the courts. The success of any theory, though, depends in large part on implementation, and challenges that emerge through implementation illuminate problematic aspects of the theory. This Article tests the legal …
Juvenile Justice: The Fourth Option, Christopher Slobogin, Mark R. Fondacaro
Juvenile Justice: The Fourth Option, Christopher Slobogin, Mark R. Fondacaro
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The current eclectic mix of solutions to the juvenile-crime problem is insufficiently conceptualized and too beholden to myths about youth, the crimes they commit, and effective means of responding to their problems. The dominant punitive approach to juvenile justice, modeled on the adult criminal justice system, either ignores or misapplies current knowledge about the causes of juvenile crime and the means of reducing it. But the rehabilitative vision that motivated the progenitors of the juvenile court errs in the other direction, by allowing the state to assert its police power even over those who are innocent of crime. The most …