The juvenile justice system struggles with the distinction between judicial responses to law‐breaking behaviors of children versus those of adults, despite the establishment of separate juvenile courts early in the twentieth century. After decades of the courts viewing youth as delinquent rather than criminal, attributing their behavior to parental and family dysfunction, and assigning them legal rights, which adults possess, the 1980s heralded in a reactionary media frenzy, which promoted widespread perceptions of juveniles as “superpredators.” Since 2000, and despite a decrease in juvenile offenses and the onset of progressive policy shifts, courts have increasingly transferred youth into an adult, criminal status subjecting them to serious and long‐term punishments. This continues to occur despite growing neuroscientific research that indicates that youth, owing to biological brain development, possess less culpability for their offenses. Other studies acknowledge extreme poverty, detrimental social–environmental factors, the deleterious impact of traumatic history, and pervasive racial biases and inequalities throughout the juvenile system for youth of color as additional justice considerations. Today, the complex, cycling tension between punishment and rehabilitation, public safety, and cost‐effectiveness has produced dynamic, diverse, and ever‐changing contexts that challenge systemic accountability to keeping the child's best interest always in focus.
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