Thoughts on Juvenile Justice Systems and Research

This article updates comments published in this journal in 1994 about the nature of the American juvenile justice system, which laid out reasons that it might not serve as a useful model for other nations. Since that time, the US system has moved further right towards the justice model and away from the welfare model. Individualistic philosophies and political conservatism have combined to produce a more adult-like and punitive juvenile system, applied to increasing numbers of minors and to increasingly younger minors. Successful demonstrations of community absorption or treatment have been too few to balance the rightward direction. European scholars are urged to undertake increased studies in two critical areas: (1) the nature, functions, and comparative differences in their juvenile justice systems, and (2) the nature of local communities and their contributions to patterns of delinquency.