Question

This course has been an historical analysis of juvenile delinquency, mass media, and youth culture, roughly covering from World War II until the 1960s. Utilizing the concept of episodic notion, update this analysis to contemporary youth culture and its relationship to delinquency (as portrayed in current music, film, or television).

Answer 1

Juvenile delinquency is that behavior on the part of children which may, under the law, subject those children to the juvenile court. As such, it is a relatively new and legal term for a very old phenomenon.

The defining features of the juvenile court are its informality, as compared to the rigorously formal procedures of the criminal court with its rules of evidence and adversary system, and its primary concern with the welfare of the child rather than with guilt or innocence. Under the law, and following the ancient doctrine of parens patriae, the court, as the agent of the state, has the right and the responsibility to intervene in cases of child need, including those where violation of the law is involved or likely to be involved. However, there is no unanimity over the world concerning the precise conditions under which courts may intervene. United Nations reports suggest that there is a tendency in many countries to broaden the jurisdiction of the courts to include children who for various reasons are considered to be potentially delinquent, as well as those directly in violation of the law. This tendency, and the lack of rigorously defined rules of “due process” by which a juvenile may be deprived of his liberty or a family of its children, has led to great and widespread concern with the rights of children and their parents.

The flexibility urged as essential to the proper functioning of the court confers great power on juvenile court judges.