PUBLIC OPINION AND JUVENILE JUSTICE POLICY: MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

Abstract

In the last 30 years, legislatures throughout the United States haveinstituted a series of reforms that redefined the purposes of juvenile courtsand exposed young offenders to a variety of harsh punishments. Amongthe more significant changes, they amended juvenile codes to endorse thegoals of punishment and protection of public safety,expanded provisionsto transfer youths to the jurisdiction of the criminal courts, createdblended sentencing options that carry sentences that sometimes extendwell into the adult years, and adopted offense-based determinate andmandatory minimum sentencing.Legislators frequently claim that they had a public mandate to enactpunitive reforms. However, the role actually played by the public in the“get tough” movement is a matter of considerable debate. According tomost accounts, the movement was initially set in motion by an upsurge inyouth violence in the 1960s and 1970s that put the problem of youth crimesquarely on the nation’s radar screen. After a brief period of stabilizationin the early 1980s, juvenile crime—especially drug crime and urban gunviolence—increased at unprecedented rates. The media provided heavyand often sensationalized coverage, contributing to a climate of fear.According to one view, the citizenry placed much of the blame for thewave of youth violence on a juvenile justice system that was perceived tobe lenient and ineffectual. They powered the “get tough” movement bydemanding harsh punishments, which they believed would be moreeffective in reducing crime. An alternative view has it that the publicwanted “something