Terminology Service: SST: history of juvenile justice

... > criminology and criminal justice > criminology > social history of crime > juvenile crime and justice > history of juvenile justice

history of juvenile justice

The history of juvenile justice in the United States can be divided into distinct periods, and each can be viewed in relation to a fundamental question: To what extent should the American system of justice view juveniles differently than adult offenders? That question has been resolutely and inexorably tied to how American society has throughout its history viewed “infants,” “children,” “youth,” and “juveniles.” Child-Saving Movement American justice has long been influenced by the English common law, which, until the colonies and states passed their own laws, was the law that governed the thirteen colonies. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Sir William Blackstone, a British jurist, judge, and politician, much admired and read in American judicial circles, wrote that “infants” were incapable of being classified as criminals because they lacked what Blackstone described as “a vicious will.” Blackstone differentiated between “infants” and “adults” and their liability at law on the basis that children were too young to understand their actions and therefore lacked the necessary “intent” to commit unlawful acts. [Source: The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America: An Encylopedia; Juvenile Justice, History of]

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/history_of_juvenile_justice

RDF/XML TURTLE JSON-LD

Terminology Service