Existing literature tends to present the advent of juvenile courts at the
beginning of the XXth century as a major shift in policy regarding the
treatment of youthful offenders. However research has focused mainly on
the study of discourse rather than practice. Little is known on the way
criminal courts actually dealt with young ...
(Show more)Existing literature tends to present the advent of juvenile courts at the
beginning of the XXth century as a major shift in policy regarding the
treatment of youthful offenders. However research has focused mainly on
the study of discourse rather than practice. Little is known on the way
criminal courts actually dealt with young people before juvenile courts
came into existence. We lack comparative data about the practice of those
courts and that of juvenile courts. Was the shift in official policy
followed by a shift in actual practice? Were criminal court dealings with
juveniles much different from those of the juvenile courts that succeeded
them? Could the ideas that led to the establishment of juvenile courts
have found their way into - and influenced - the practice of criminal
court judges prior to the existence of juvenile courts? In the following
years, did the practice of the newly created juvenile courts still retain
some of the approaches that characterized the way criminal courts had
handled juveniles in previous years? In brief, did youngsters undergo a
similar or a different court experience before and after the advent of the
juvenile court? This paper will present results from a research carried
out in Montreal (Canada) on the judicial treatment of juvenile offenders
before and after the establishment of a juvenile court in 1912. An attempt
will be made to clarify the extent to which the way juveniles were dealt
with actually changed with the advent of the juvenile court.
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