Juvenile Law Commons^™

Juvenile Justice & Diminished Criminal Culpability, Mitchell F. Crusto

University of Miami Law Review

When regulating the bad, albeit illegal, choices made by minors, the law is conflicted. On the one hand, we have a clear national policy to ensure the safety of and to promote the positive development of our young people, yet we simultaneously criminalize minors who make bad choices. This conundrum raises a quintessential jurisprudential flaw in our legal system: We lack a unifying, overarching principle that guides the law’s relationship with minors. In a companion piece, I pose and explore such a unifying principle, which I coin as the “best interest of the minor” standard (“BIMS”). Consequently, this Article applies …