Divesting Status Offenses from Juvenile Court Jurisdiction

Abstract

Most states and locales that have sought to deinstitutionalize status offenders have restricted or prohibited secure confinement, but have permitted the juvenile court to maintain jurisdiction over status offenses. This article examines Washington state's experiences with a different deinstitutionalization strategy (divestiture of court jurisdiction). The results indicate that divestiture is successful in eliminating coercive control over status offenses, but that relabeling and discretion permits approximately half of the status offenders to be referred to court. In one area, the probability that a runaway would have delinquency charges filed and sanctions applied increased under the divestiture law. Delinquents who had a history of running away were given more severe sentences than were “pure” delinquents in both the pre- and postreform systems.