History

• The Juvenile Justice System was created in the late 1800s to end abuses faced by young offenders in the adult court system. The first juvenile court was created in 1899 in Chicago. Before this time, children as young as 7 were tried in the adult court system. If found guilty, they were given the same penalty as an adult. During the majority of the 20th century, juvenile reforms revolved around rehabilitation efforts. During the last two decades of the 20th century, perceptions of increases in juvenile violent crime led to a shift toward punishment.
  
  

Prevalence

• The National Center for Juvenile Justice reports that more than 2 million children and teenagers were arrested in 2003. Most of these were teenagers between the ages of 16 and 17. The arrests were for violent and non-violent crimes. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, the number of murders committed by juveniles decreased by 65 percent between the years of 1994 and 2002. The number of murders committed by a juvenile acting alone decreased from 66 percent in the 1980s to 55 percent in the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. In 2002, juveniles were responsible for 8 percent of the nation's murders.
  
  

Detention

• Juvenile offenders may be sentenced to public or private facilities. Private facilities are operated by profit and not-for-profit organizations. The employees in the private agencies are hired and controlled by the facility owners. There are more private facilities in the U.S. than public facilities. In general, public facilities are larger than private facilities. The majority of juvenile offenders are held in public facilities.
  
  

Transfer to Adult Court

• Since 1992, almost every state has passed legislation making it easier to transfer juvenile offenders to adult court. Juveniles are transferred by the waiver or mandatory waiver process. In 1998, juvenile court judges and prosecutors were given more authority to transfer juveniles as young as 14 to the adult court system. In most states, a juvenile cannot be tried in juvenile court for another case following a case in which he was tried in adult court. According to statistics published by The Sentencing Project, 200,000 youths under the age of 18 were transferred to the adult court system in 1998.
  
  

Racial Imbalance

• The American juvenile justice population does not match U.S. population characteristics. Minority youths accounted for one third of the total U.S. juvenile population in 1997. During this same year, they accounted for two-thirds of youths detained in correctional facilities. In 2000, 58 percent of the youths incarcerated in juvenile facilities were minorities. More than half of all female juveniles held in detention facilities were from minority populations.