Status Offenses

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Status Offenses

• Class 7

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Status Offenses and the Origins of the Juvenile
Court

• The Court envisioned a broad reach to any form of
  juvenile misbehavior, not just criminal behavior?
• The court acted for the state, as a parent, to
  protect children who were abused or abandoned,
  living with disreputable adults, beggars, found
  gambling or drinking in saloons, wandering the
  streets (at night)
• Parenting children accused of criminal conduct
  was almost an afterthought in the original
  juvenile courts
• The court called children to account for any
  misbehavior, whether legal (if done by an adult)
  or illegal. It substituted for parents to
  correct the behavior of unruly children

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What is a Status Offense?

• Embedded in early Juvenile Court statutes
• Acts that are wrong only because the actor is a
  minor
• Incorrigibility or unruly
• Indecent behavior (lasciviousness, bad
  associations)
• Truancy
• Running away from home
• Prohibited conduct sexual behavior, smoking or
  drinking
• Social class dynamics
• More problem-behavior cultural focus in
  recent decades

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Supreme Court Rationale

• Bellotti v Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979)
• Peculiar vulnerability of children
• Childrens inability to crucial decisions in an
  informed manner (competence? Immaturity?)
• Importance of parental role in child rearing

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Juvenile Court Responses to Status Offenders

• Gender dynamics see, Hagan, Power Control
  Theory -- thread from immorality to
  pregnancy, girls were often detained
• Detention as front end punishment, largely
  unregulated both in its use and its conditions
  for several decades
• Conflict with diversionary theory of juvenile
  court
• Court ordered restrictions on freedom of movement
• Violation of valid court order is delinquency,
  subject to full force of juvenile court sanctions
  and interventions

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Typical Statutes

• California WI Code 601
• Minors habitually disobedient or truant
• Runaways
• Petty offenses misdemeanors, mostly
• Alcohol, controlled substances
• Ohio Stat. 2151.022
• Unruly behavior defiance of parental control
• Truant
• Self-endangerment, moral hazard
• Visit disreputable places

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Modern Reforms

• Tied to rights movements in 1960s
• Context of constitutional activism and change in
  juvenile court setting (Gault, Kent) challenged
  wisdom and fairness of procedural informality
• Skepticism about efficacy of rehabilitation
  generally
• Segregation of status offenders from other
  juvenile offenders in detention and correctional
  placements
• Influence of labeling theory or secondary
  deviance on reforms

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• Ties to victim rights movements runaways and
  child prostitutes seen as victims of violence in
  families and other family pathologies or
  inadequacies shift of legal attention to
  sanctions on parents
• Increasing use of mental health placements to
  circumvent prohibition of status offenders in
  the juvenile court
• Theoretical tension between control of children
  and fostering developmental progress toward
  autonomy
• Tension between parent and child over autonomy
  and rights
• Tensions between parent and state when parents
  alocate rights to children that the state might
  not (e.g., Ramos v Town of Vernon ordinance)
• Missing children as animator of popular concerns
  about need for stronger public protection of
  children

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Cases

• S.S. and L.B. v. State (299 A.2d.560 (Me.1973))
• Due process guarantees cannot be equated with
  vagueness concerns
• Rejection of some aspects of Gault? Due process
  not required here despite possibility of loss of
  liberty
• These standards are not vague when applied to
  this class

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• E.S.G. v. State (447 S.W.2d (Tex. Ct. Civ. App.
  1969))
• Facts (female)
• Confined indefinitely in state correctional
  agency to age 21
• Vague standard? Child-specific standard of
  conduct (concern for health and morals of child
  is heart of statute)
• Rights of child are protected by careful mapping
  of alleged conduct to the danger to health and
  morals

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Legislation JJDPA (42 U.S.C. 5601)

• The Federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
  Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974 mandated that
  states receiving any federal (JJDP) funds are
  shall comply with three specific requirements
  contained in the Act
• Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO)
• Status offenders may not be held in secure
  detention or confinement. (Status offenses are
  non-criminal offenses that only apply to children
  under 18, such as skipping school, running away,
  and breaking curfew.) There are several
  exceptions to this rule that allow for temporary
  confinement for up to 24 hours.
• This provision seeks to ensure that status
  offenders who have committed no criminal offenses
  are not placed in jails and prisons, including
  adult jails and prisons, for extended periods of
  time. These children need community responses
  including alternative schools, residential homes,
  counseling, mentors, and jobs not jail.

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• Separation
• Children may not have any type of contact with
  adult offenders in confinement. This prohibition
  includes both "sight" and "sound" contact.
• This provision protects children from abuse -
  physical and verbal - and physical assault. Under
  this provision, children can not be put in
  adjoining cells with adults, or placed in
  circumstances that allow them to be subject to
  threats and verbal abuse from adults in dining
  halls, recreation areas, and other common spaces.
• Removal
• Children may not be detained in adult jails and
  prisons, except for limited times before or after
  a court hearing (6 hours), in rural areas (24
  hours plus weekends and holidays), and in unsafe
  travel conditions (24 hours.)
• This provision protects children from abuse
  physical and verbal and physical assault
  because children housed in adult prisons are 8
  times more likely to commit suicide 5 times more
  likely to be sexually assaulted 2 times more
  likely to be assaulted by staff and 50 more
  likely to be attacked with a weapon compared to
  children in juvenile facilities.

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Curfews, Loitering, and Other Side Doors into
Status Offenses

• Bellotti v Baird logic
• Reassertion of Status Offense Logic as Crime
  Control
• Ramos v. City of Vernon
• Morales (reconfigured), People v. Acura
• Parental liability statutes
• Empowerment of parents to use law as auxiliary
  for parental authority

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The Hooky Party!

• State school parent relationship ?
• Limits of state authority on behavior ?
• Health concern covered under current caselaw ?
• ACLU suit