Juvenile Law Commons^™

Integrating Education Advocacy Into Child Welfare Practice: Working Models, Jennifer N. Rosen Valverde, Cara Chambers, Megan Blamble Dho, Regina Schaefer

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Interview With Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Iachr Rapporteur On The Rights Of The Child, Human Rights Brief

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Holding Parents Responsible: Is Vicarious Responsibility The Public’S Answer To Juvenile Crime?, Eve M. Brank, Edie Greene, Katherine Hochevar

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Parental responsibility laws hold parents accountable for the delinquent behaviors of their children even when parents’ actions are not the direct cause of an offense. Despite the prevalence of these laws, we know little about their perceived fairness. Is it reasonable to make parents vicariously responsible for outcomes they could not have foreseen and, if so, under what circumstances? Our series of three studies addressed those questions by systematically examining the impact of various situational and dispositional factors on public opinions regarding parental responsibility. Respondents attributed most of the responsibility for a crime to the child, and attributions of responsibility …

Moral Disengagement Among Serious Juvenile Offenders: A Longitudinal Study Of The Relations Between Morally Disengaged Attitudes And Offending, Jeffrey Fagan, Elizabeth P. Shulman, Elizabeth Cauffman, Alex R. Piquero

Faculty Scholarship

The present study investigates the relation between moral disengagement – one’s willingness to conditionally endorse transgressive behavior – and ongoing offending in a sample of adolescent male felony offenders (N=1,169). In addition, the study attempts to rule out callous-unemotional traits as a third variable responsible for observed associations between moral disengagement and offending. A bivariate latent change score analysis suggests that reduction in moral disengagement helps to speed decline in self-reported antisocial behavior, even after adjusting for the potential confound of callous-unemotional traits. Declines in moral disengagement are also associated with declining likelihood of offending, based on official records. Given …

Three Lies And A Truth: Adjudicating Maternity In Surrogacy Disputes, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Historically, courts were called on to answer the following question: What makes a man a legal father? Courts applied different presumptions to arrive at the answer. For example, if the case involved a married couple, the woman's husband was presumed to be the legal father.1 In situations involving an unmarried woman, the man who helped to conceive the child was the legal father. While paternity was being litigated, maternity was resolved-the woman who gave birth to the child was the child's legal mother. The phrase “momma's baby, papa's maybe” reflected society's attitude towards maternity. Since the woman who gave birth …

Section 2259 Restitution Claims And Child Pornography Possession, Dina Mcleod

Michigan Law Review

In 2009, a child pornography victim brought a criminal restitution claim against a defendant who possessed images of her abuse. The statutory provision authorizing restitution, 18 U.S.C. § 2259, had never before been used to bring a claim against a defendant who had only possessed, rather than produced or distributed, child pornography ("child pornography possession defendants"). The federal courts have not developed a consistent approach to resolving Section 2259 claims involving such defendants. This Note argues that two conceptions of traditional proximate cause doctrine can provide a framework for analyzing such claims. It examines Section 2259 claims using both a …

No Harm, No Foul? Why Harmless Error Analysis Should Not Be Used To Review Wrongful Denials Of Counsel To Parents In Child Welfare Cases, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

The application of a harmless error standard by appellate courts reviewing erroneous denials of counsel in child protective cases undermines a critical procedural right that safeguards the interests of parents and children. Case law reveals that trial courts, on numerous occasions, improperly reject valid requests for counsel, forcing parents to navigate the child welfare system without an advocate. Appellate courts excuse these violations by speculating that the denials caused no significant harm to the parents, which is a conclusion that a court can never reach with any certainty. The only appropriate remedy for this significant problem is a bright-line rule …

Mainstreaming Children's Rights In Post-Disaster Settings, Jonathan Todres

Faculty Publications By Year

In recent years, major natural disasters — ranging from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to the 2010 Haiti earthquake — have challenged the global community to ensure the survival and well-being of millions of individuals under the most difficult circumstances. Each of these natural disasters has created crisis spots with huge numbers of displaced individuals, including many children. The international community has struggled to deliver the resources needed to ensure a prompt and full recovery. In these settings, the challenges confronting children are particularly acute. Yet frequently children are marginalized and underserved by disaster response and reconstruction efforts. This symposium …

Juvenile Incarceration And The Pains Of Imprisonment, Jeffrey Fagan, Aaron Kupchik

Faculty Scholarship

After legislatures criminalized a major portion of juvenile delinquency in the 1980s and 1990s, large numbers of incarcerated youth began serving their sentences in adult correctional facilities. To understand the ramifications of this practice, prior research studies compared the correctional experiences of youth in juvenile and adult facilities. Yet this research often minimized the pains of imprisonment for youth in juvenile facilities, based on the contrast to adult facilities and the toxic conditions of confinement within them. In this Article, we contribute to this literature by analyzing data from interviews with 188 young men incarcerated in juvenile and adult facilities …

The System Response To The Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Girls, Francine Sherman, Lisa Grace

Francine T. Sherman

This chapter, which is written from the perspectives of law, public health, and social work, examines the system’s response to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), focusing on girls. It describes the issue and then examine the range of international, federal, state, and local laws and policies, aimed at aiding and enhancing prosecution of perpetrators of CSEC (i.e., pimps, johns), and at providing protection and services to its victims. The chapter argues that, as state and local authorities implement practice and policy for this population, the two central goals—law enforcement and victim protection—may conflict, creating practices that serve neither …

Children's Rights And Relationships: A Legal Framework, Francine Sherman, Hon. Jay Blitzman

Francine T. Sherman

This chapter provides an overview of United States children’s law, framed both in terms of autonomy-based and needs-based rights, and by the legal dynamic among child, parent, and state. The chapter highlights the law of juvenile justice and child welfare systems, and also examines law relevant to education and health care, two central institutions for children. The chapter proceeds ecologically, acknowledging that children’s lives, including their legal lives, are related to their families, communities, and the social institutions surrounding them. As such the chapter provides a readable introduction to children’s relationship with the law for both lawyers and non-lawyers.

Finding Home In The World: A Deontological Theory Of The Right To Be Adopted, Paulo Barrozo

Paulo Barrozo

Because of the continued dominance of consequentialist views, the deontological paradigm that emerges in the form of a human rights approach to adoption faces two major and partially connected obstacles. First, and despite the fact that the human rights approach has found compelling advocates, its jurisprudential basis has yet to be fully articulated. And in part because of insufficient theorization, the emerging deontological adoption is constantly at risk of being rhetorically and practically subsumed or engulfed by the resilient consequentialist-cum-charity paradigm. This article addresses these two obstacles, laying out the foundations of a deontological theory of adoption.After the Introduction, Part …

The Role Of Gender In Youth Systems: Grace's Story, Francine Sherman, Jessica Greenstone

Francine T. Sherman

This chapter —written from a legal and developmental perspective —describes the experiences of ‘‘Grace,’’ a teenage girl involved with multiple public systems, including juvenile justice. Through detailed analysis of primary interview data with Grace and others responsible for her care and supervision, and of court case material. The chapter sheds light on how Grace’s actions were interpreted and the responses they evoked. The case study includes recommendations for implementing gender-responsive principles across these systems.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, And Practice, Francine Sherman, Francine Jacobs

Francine T. Sherman

This accessible, edited volume reflects the multiplisciplinary, multisectoral nature of juvenile justice, including chapters by leaders in the fields of child development, law, public health, education, advocacy, and public administration. The voices of scholars, parents, administrators, and youth are woven into its fabric; it offers several complementary theoretical lenses through which to understand the behavior of youth involved with the juvenile justice system, and provides a range of promising and proven practical approaches to juvenile justice policy, programming, and evaluation.

The book is organized ecologically into four sections: Framing the Issues, Understanding Individual Youth, Understanding Youth in Context, and Working …

Evidence On The Effectiveness Of Juvenile Court Sanctions, Daniel P. Mears, Joshua C. Cochran, Sarah J. Greenman, Avinish S. Bhati, Mark A. Greenwald

Sarah Greenman

Judging Parents, Judging Place: Termination Of Parental Rights In Rural America, Lisa R. Pruitt, Janet L. Wallace

Lisa R Pruitt

Parents are constantly judged, by fellow parents and by wider society. But the consequences of judging parents sometimes extend beyond community reputation and social status. When law and legal institutions get involved, such judgments may result in the termination of parental rights. In these legal contexts, parents’ merits as parents are typically assessed in relation to a wide array of their decisions and actions, including where they live.

Among those judged harshly in relation to geography are impoverished parents who live in rural places. Yet judgments of these parents are particularly unfair in that poor rural parents often do not …

Judging Parents, Judging Place: Poverty, Rurality And Termination Of Parental Rights, Lisa R. Pruitt, Janet L. Wallace

Lisa R Pruitt

Parents are constantly judged, by fellow parents and by wider society. But the consequences of judging parents sometimes extend beyond community reputation and social status. When law and legal institutions get involved, such judgments may result in the termination of parental rights. In these legal contexts, parents’ merits as parents are typically assessed in relation to a wide array of their decisions and actions, including where they live.

Among those judged harshly in relation to geography are impoverished parents who live in rural places. Yet judgments of these parents are particularly unfair in that poor rural parents often do not …

Safe Schools: The Threat From Within?, Donn Short

Donn Short

Safe school policies in many urban schools in Ontario have featured security guards, electronic surveillance, student identification tags, discipline, and zero tolerance. In 2000, the Ontario Ministry of Education passed the Safe Schools Act, which set out a list of offences that could trigger expulsion, suspension, and other disciplinary responses. Interestingly, it did not define safety. In a parallel move, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) adopted The Equity Foundation Statement in 1999 – a comprehensive commitment to equity and a rally against racism, homophobia, sexism, and oppression based on class. This article explores the disconnect between students’ and teachers’ …

Socialtjänst Och E-Förvaltning. E-Tjänster För Äldre Och Personer Med Funktionshinder, Titti Mattsson

Titti Mattsson

No abstract provided.

The "Youngest Profession": Consent, Autonomy, And Prostituted Children, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Although precise estimates do not exist, the data suggests that the number of children believed to be at risk for commercial sexual exploitation in the United States is between 200,000 and 300,000 and that the average age of entry is between eleven and fourteen, with some as young as nine. The number of prostituted children who are criminally prosecuted for these acts is equally difficult to estimate. In 2008—the most recent year for which data is available—approximately 1500 youth under age eighteen were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as having been arrested within United States borders for prostitution …