Juvenile Law Commons^™

Foster Care Reentry Laws: Mending The Safety Net For Emerging Adults In The Transition To Independence, Bruce A. Boyer

Faculty Publications & Other Works

While state child welfare agencies are notoriously bad parents, for some youth they remain the best available option. This is particularly true for older youth who have no other viable choice for permanency, and who must therefore aim toward achieving independence as graduates from the foster care system. Because of the many challenges facing youth exiting foster care to independence, most states now permit youth to receive continuing foster care services and supports beyond 18, and in many cases up to 21. Frequently, however, the goal of extending time in care for older youth is impacted by the opposition of …

"Get Tough On Juvenile Criminals": An Assessment Of Punitiveness And Punitive Attitudes, Richard Charles Gehrke

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This quantitative study surveyed college students (n=111), currently attending a community college in northeastern Minnesota, regarding whether juveniles should receive the same due process rights as adults, what the primary goal of the juvenile justice system should be, whether juveniles charged with serious offenses should be tried as adults, and whether juveniles convicted of committing a serious offense should be sentenced as adults. Utilizing two competing theoretical frameworks, the researcher hypothesized that students who self-identify with a conservative political ideology would be more punitive than students who self-identify with a liberal political ideology. The researcher's second hypothesis was that students …

Juvenile Justice In Global Perspective: From Chicago To Shanghai And Back To First Principles, David S. Tanenhaus

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

‘Let’S Change The Law’: Arkansas And The Puzzle Of Juvenile Justice Reform In The 1990s, David S. Tanenhaus, Eric C. Nystrom

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Decriminalizing Violence: A Critique Of Restorative Justice And Proposal For Diversionary Mediation, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Hanan explores the issues surrounding reforms to the criminal justice system, juveniles, and conflict resolution. She asserts that enthusiasm for restorative justice as the best method of out-of-court dispute resolution in criminal cases should be tempered in favor of mediation, which is neutral because it does not assume that the accused is guilty and that "healing" or repair is warranted. Because decriminalization is not complete and the state retains jurisdiction, Professor Hanan argues for a neutral mediation program, which should (1) function to reduce overall contact with the criminal courts and (2) include procedural safeguards in …

Review Of Alaska Mental Health Statutes, Sara Gordon, Melissa Piasecki, Gil Kahn, Dawn Nielsen

Scholarly Works

This report identifies key statutory provisions that we recommend be amended, a description of our findings based on interviews with stakeholders, legislative history of the Alaska statutes, reviews of national best practices and, where applicable, information about emerging areas in national mental health law for Alaska to consider in creating new law. Our recommendations are based in large part on significant advances in law and medicine in the understanding and treatment of mental illness that have occurred in the years since Alaska last made significant and substantive reforms to its criminal and civil mental health statutes. It is important to …

Untangling The Web: Juvenile Justice In Indian Country, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

The juvenile justice system in Indian country is broken. Native youth are vulnerable and traumatized. They become involved in the system at high rates, and they are more likely than other youth to be incarcerated and less likely to receive necessary health, mental-health, and education services. Congressional leaders and the Obama administration have made the needs of Indian country, especially improvement of tribal justice systems, an area of focus in recent years. The release of two major reports—one from a task force convened by the Attorney General to study violence and trauma among Native youth and the other from a …

Locked Up: Fear, Racism, Prison Economics, And The Incarceration Of Native Youth, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

Native youth are disproportionately incarcerated, often for relatively minor offenses. One potential solution is to move more Native youth out of federal and state courts and invest in tribal juvenile justice systems. Tribal systems are assumed to be less punitive than nontribal ones, so greater tribal control should mean less incarceration. Little is known, however, about the role of incarceration in tribally run systems. This article examines available information on Native youth in tribal juvenile justice systems from 1998 to 2013. At least sixteen new secure juvenile facilities were built to house youth under tribal court jurisdiction, with federal investment …

Juvenile Life Without Parole In Law And Practice: Chronicling The Rapid Change Underway, John R. Mills, Anna M. Dorn, Amelia Courtney Hritz

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutionalization Of Children’S Rights In South Africa, Warren Binford

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reforming (But Not Eliminating) The Parental Discipline Defense, Hazel Blum

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that although states should retain the parental discipline defense, their legislators should rewrite their statutes to limit the defense to a specific range of disciplinary methods that social science research has shown to have either net-beneficial or net-neutral effects on children. Part II explores religious and cultural attitudes about corporal punishment, including an overview of traditional American attitudes toward corporal punishment. Specifically, it explores how religious teachings, including Evangelical Christianity, Methodism, and Judaism, affect attitudes towards parental discipline. Additionally, Part II will examine the build-up to and aftermath of Sweden’s ban on corporal punishment—the first nation worldwide …

Serious Juvenile Offenders: The Need For A Third Sentencing Option In Wisconsin, Danielle S. Snyder

Marquette Law Review

In light of the “Slenderman” trial, it has become abundantly clear that a gap exists between the sentencing options available for “Class A” juvenile offenders and “Class B” juvenile offenders. This Comment proposes an expanded sentencing option for “Class B” serious juvenile offenders under the Juvenile Justice Code to allow those “Class B” serious juvenile offenders the benefit of extended supervision in the Serious Juvenile Offender Program as is available to “Class A” serious juvenile offenders currently. This expansion aims to alleviate the concern that certain “Class B” serious juvenile offenders must remain under original adult court jurisdiction in order …

Juvenile Sentencing Reform In A Constitutional Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso, Marsha Levick, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Roper v Simmons in 2005 prohibited the imposition of the death penalty for a crime committed by a juvenile. Five years later, Graham v. Florida held that no juvenile could be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for a nonhomicide offense. Then in 2012, Miller v. Alabama struck down statutes that required courts to sentence …

Compassion Fatigue: Caveat Caregiver?, Jennifer Baum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Most of us are familiar with the stereotype of the burned out lawyer who drags herself to work in the morning, makes cynical comments throughout the day, no longer provides her best service to her clients, and goes home bored and uninspired. You may wonder why someone so uncaring ever became a child advocate in the first place, or how she lost her spark. And you know this could never happen to you. Right?

Wrong, according to a panel of experts convened by the ABA Section of Litigation’s Children’s Rights Litigation Committee in a teleconference examining the phenomenon recently …

Digging Out Of The Hole: Arguments Against The Use Of Juvenile Solitary Confinement In Kentucky, Mary Ann Lee

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Brain Science And The Theory Of Juvenile Mens Rea, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

The law has long recognized the distinction between adults and children. A legally designated age determines who can vote, exercise reproductive rights, voluntarily discontinue their education, buy alcohol or tobacco, marry, drive a car, or obtain a tattoo. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld such age-based restrictions, most recently constructing an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that bars the application of certain penalties to juvenile offenders and a Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that contemplates an adolescent-based standard of reasonableness for the Miranda v. Arizona custody analysis. In the cases of Roper v. Simmons , Graham v. Florida , Miller v. Alabama , and …

Thailand's Ban On Commercial Surrogacy: Why Thailand Should Regulate, Not Attempt To Eradicate, Allison L. Zimmerman

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

International commercial surrogacy is when a person or couple from one country hires a surrogate in a different country. In recent years, this form of reproductive tourism has been a booming industry in Thailand due to the lack of meaningful regulation, relatively low cost, and unavailability in other countries. After a string of scandals involving Thai surrogacy arrangements arose, however, the Thai government enacted the Protection for Children Born Through Assisted Reproductive Technologies Act (the “ART Act”), prohibiting Thai commercial surrogacy from serving foreign clients, and only allowing Thai heterosexual couples to make use of surrogacy arrangements. As a result, …

From Baby M To Baby M(Anji): Regulating International Surrogacy Agreements, Yehezkel Margalit

Journal of Law and Policy

In 1985, when Kim Cotton became Britain’s first commercial surrogate mother, Europe was exposed to the issue of surrogacy for the first time on a large scale. Three years later, in 1988, the famous case of Baby M drew the attention of the American public to surrogacy as well. These two cases implicated fundamental ethical and legal issues regarding domestic surrogacy and triggered a fierce debate about motherhood, child-bearing, and the relationship between procreation, science, and commerce. These two cases exemplified the debate regarding domestic surrogacy—a debate that has now been raging for decades. A new ethical and legal debate …

Young Adulthood As A Transitional Legal Category: Science, Social Change, And Justice Policy, Elizabeth S. Scott, Richard J. Bonnie, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, much attention has focused on developmental brain research and its implications for the regulation of crime. Public and policy interest has been directed primarily toward juveniles. In light of recent research, courts and legislatures increasingly have rejected the punitive response of the 1990s and embraced a developmental approach to young offenders. Of particular importance in propelling this trend has been the framework offered by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of Eighth Amendment opinions that have rejected harsh adult sentences for juveniles. These decisions, supported by adolescent brain research, rested on two empirically based principles: …

Juvenile Justice Reform And The Myth Of The Superpredator, Frank E. Vandervort

Other Publications

In the 1980s and 1990s, driven to a moral panic by a sudden escalation in juvenile homicide rates, Michigan lawmakers enacted tougher laws with the intention of cracking down on all juvenile crime. That was the era of the “superpredator” (a term that has recently resurfaced in the presidential contest), a term coined by John Dilulio ,a Princeton professor who later became the Director of Faith Based Initiatives in George W. Bush’s administration, and was spread far and wide by a number of self-serving reform advocates who predicted an onslaught of psychopathic juvenile predators.

Here in Michigan, then-Governor John Engler …

Easy Come, Easy Go: The Plight Of Children Who Spend Less Than 30 Days In Foster Care, Vivek Sankaran, Christopher Church

Articles

This article explores the plight of “short stayers” and argues that juvenile courts are failing to use two tools—the federal reasonable efforts requirement and the early appointment of parents’ counsel—to prevent the unnecessary entry of children into foster care. The article also argues that states should give parents and children the right to an expedited appeal of removal decisions to ensure removal standards are properly applied. Finally, this article argues that the federal government must acknowledge the problem of short stayers by utilizing data related to children who may unnecessarily enter foster care in the Child and Family Services Review, …

Evolving Contours Of Immigration Federalism: The Case Of Migrant Children, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

In a unique corner of immigration law, a significant reallocation of power over immigration has been occurring with little fanfare. States play a dramatic immigration gatekeeping role in the process for providing protection to immigrant youth, like many of the Central American children who sought entry to the United States in the 2014 border “surge.” This article closely examines the history of this Special Immigrant Juvenile Status provision, enacted in 1990, which authorized a vital state role in providing access to an immigration benefit. The article traces the series of shifts in allocation of power between the federal government and …

Making Juvenile Justice More Humane And Effective, Julie Ellen Mcconnell

Law Faculty Publications

Long commutes, high costs and too much time away from family are among the most common frustration for workers in Virginia. But while those annoyances may be tolerable when it comes to our daily commutes, they have become an unfortunate feature of Virginia’s youth justice system, which confines hundreds of youth in large institutions far from their homes.

When young people have regular visits with their family and other members of the community, they have a much higher chance of being rehabilitated and successfully returning to those communities. Currently, many incarcerated youth in Virginia are held far from their families, …

Evading The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Schools (K-12) And The Regulation Of Cyberbullying, Philip Lee

Utah Law Review

Cyberbullying has received increasing societal attention in the aftermath of the tragic suicides of some of its youngest and most vulnerable victims. In this Article, I have argued that cyberbullying is so harmful, in and of itself, that it should be afforded diminished First Amendment protections. I have also advocated for a narrow definition of cyberbullying that incorporates the three elements of the prevailing social scientists’ definition of “bullying” as it relates to cyberbullying: (1) intent to harm; (2) repetition; and (3) power imbalance between cyberbully and victim.

Mandatory Restitution For Enticing A Minor For Sexual Purposes: Additional Punishment Or Compensation For The Victim?, Myra S. Reyes

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Overrepresentation Of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, Gender Nonconforming And Transgender Youth Within The Child Welfare To Juvenile Justice Crossover Population, Angela Irvine Ph.D., Aisha Canfield M.P.P

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Salvaging "Safe Spaces": Toward Model Standards For Lgbtq Youth-Serving Professionals Encountering Law Enforcement, Brendan M. Conner Esq.

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.