The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 is a United States federal law providing funds to states that follow a series of federal protections, known as the "core protections," on the care and treatment of youth in the justice system. The four "core protections" of the act are:
- Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO) -- the deinstitutionalization of status offenders and non-offenders requires that youth who are runaways, truants or curfew violators cannot be detained in juvenile detention facilities or adult jails;
- "Sight and Sound" -- The "Sight and Sound" separation protection disallows contact between juvenile and adult offenders (i.e. if juveniles are put in an adult jail or lock up under the limited circumstances the law allows for, they must be separated from adult inmates);
- "Jail Removal" -- The "Jail Removal" disallows the placement of youth in adult jails and lock ups except under very limited circumstances;
- Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) -- The DMC provision requires states to address the issue of over-representation of youth of color in the justice system.
The "DSO" and "Sight and Sound" protections were part of the original law in 1974. The "Jail Removal" provision was added in 1980 in response to finding youth incarcerated in adult facilities resulted in "a high suicide rate, physical, mental, and sexual assault, inadequate care and programming, negative labeling, and exposure to serious offenders and mental patients." The "DMC" requirement was added in the JJDPA in 1992.
The compliance of states towards the requirements of the JJDP Act is monitored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. As of 2000, the "vast majority" of participating states comply with the first three requirements and are making strides towards the fourth. . With the exception of Wyoming, all states participate in the program.
Read more about Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Act: Reauthorization Bill
Famous quotes containing the words juvenile, justice, delinquency, prevention and/or act:
“I never found even in my juvenile hours that it was necessary to go a thousand miles in search of themes for moralizing.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“The authoritarian child-rearing style so often found in working-class families stems in part from the fact that parents see around them so many young people whose lives are touched by the pain and delinquency that so often accompanies a life of poverty. Therefore, these parents live in fear for their children’s future—fear that they’ll lose control, that the children will wind up on the streets or, worse yet, in jail.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)