| Abstract: | Abstract Despite a declining delinquency rate, legislatures and courts are getting tough with juveniles. Such policies are antithetical to the “best interest of the child” philosophy and counter-productive to treatment. Protecting the child's rights to due process and individualized treatment must be enhanced, not subverted. The laws which govern the behavior of citizens, companies, institutions, and various other elements in our society are man-made. “Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do.”1 However, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are ultimately made by the confluence of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the government that are, and of necessity must be, at least tangentially responsive to perceived public needs. “Courts respond … to societal pressures; they are moved by the same tides of public opinion as are legislatures and executives.”2 The resultant public policies and the programs created to administer them reflect these societal needs and respond to them accordingly. The evolution of the Children's Code in America, its eventual adoption into law and its subsequent changes over the years mark these shifts in society's view of its children. Throughout this slow and sometimes grudging process, the legal status of children has made numerous gains. Today, children hold a special place in our culture and until recently, the Children's Code was utilized to assist them in maintaining and enhancing that status. However, within the last few years this tide of evolutionary gains has turned into a flood of erosion of due process rights. Yet: |
