Treatment of Juvenile Delinquents

Abstract

The Juvenile Court is now 80 years old. During the past 15 years, the Court has undergone many significant changes in its of juvenile delinquents. There are several definitions oftreatment, and I won't attempt to cover the subject of of juvenile delinquents generally. Rather, I will discuss the role of psychiatrists in the process within the juvenile justice system. In Juvenile Court, the first question to be determined by law is not how a juvenile before the Court shall be treated, but whether he should be treated at all. There are two phases to every juvenile court proceeding: (I) the adjudicatory phase to determine if the allegations of the petition are sustained, and (2) the dispositional phase, to determine what disposition or treatment is indicated. After a determination has been made that ajuvenile is delinquent, within the meaning of the law, and that is necessary, a decision must then be made as to what form of would be most therapeutic for the individual without undue risk to the community. A vast majority of juvenile delinquents can best be corrected, reeducated or rehabilitated in the communities in which they live and of which they are a part, rather than in distant, overcrowded reformatories, which are now usually designated as centers. In years gone by, there has been a noticeable reluctance on the part of private child and family serving agencies to become involved with the delinquent child. In 1976, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), under provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, funded a variety of special emphasis youth diversion programs to test various methods of diverting young people away from the juvenile justice system. In cooperation with Juvenile Court, the Memphis-Metro Youth Diversion Program was founded in 1977, one of 13 such programs in the nation. In the first year of that program's operation, over 1,500 juveniles were diverted to 30 different community agencies by the Juvenile Court Intake Department working in cooperation with Diversion Project staff members. The Memphis Diversion Project has been very successful and helpful to the Court in avoiding official adjudication and/or more drastic for thousands of youthful offenders during the some four years that the project has been in