Juvenile Justice

IJA-ABA Juvenile Justice Standards     

(Annotated Edition. Complete Text, 1996)

Copyright by the American Bar Association. This work (Criminal Justice Standards) may be used for non-profit educational and training purposes and legal reform (legislative, judicial, and executive) without written permission but with a citation to this source.  Some specific Standards can be purchased in book format.

Specific Standards

• Standards for Juvenile Justice - A Summary and Analysis
• Standards Relating to Adjudication
• Standards Relating to Appeals and Collateral Review
• Standards Relating to Corrections Administration
• Standards Relating to Counsel for Private Parties
• Standards Relating to Court Organization and Administration
• Standards Relating to Dispositional Procedures
• Standards Relating to Dispositions
• Standards Relating to Interim Status - The Release, Control, and Detention of Accused Juvenile Offenders Between Arrest and Disposition
• Standards Relating to Juvenile Delinquency and Sanctions
• Standards Relating to Juvenile Records and Information Systems
• Standards Relating to Monitoring
• Standards Relating to Planning for Juvenile Justice
• Standards Relating to Police Handling of Juvenile Problems
• Standards Relating to Pretrial Court Proceedings
• Standards Relating to Prosecution
• Standards Relating to Rights of Minors
• Standards Relating to the Juvenile Probation Function - Intake and Predisposition Investigative Services
• Standards Relating to Transfer Between Courts
• Standards Relating to Youth Service Agencies

Background

The American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Standards address the entire continuum of the juvenile justice system, from police handling and intake to adjudication, disposition, juvenile corrections, and appeals.

Developed in conjunction with the Institute for Judicial Administration, the standards were the result of several years of research, discussion and deliberation by 300 professionals in a variety of disciplines. The recurring themes in the IJA/ABA Juvenile Justice Standards hold that any intervention or encounter with youth should involve the least restrictive or least drastic alternative available to decision-makers throughout the system, and any sanction imposed on the youngster should be proportionate to the seriousness, or non-seriousness, of the offense. Sentences imposed by a court should be determinate, and not open-ended.

The IJA/ABA Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards recommended the adoption of 23 volumes addressing the functioning of the juvenile justice system to the ABA House of Delegates in 1979. That year, the House approved 17 volumes of the standards and a year later, adopted three more. [Read a brief history of the development of the JJ standards.] Three volumes addressing child abuse and neglect, education and non-criminal misbehavior were withdrawn.

The standards are based on the concept that a family or juvenile court should be the centerpiece of any juvenile justice system, dealing with all but the most egregious offenses committed by youth, transferring those cases to the criminal justice system only after a comprehensive hearing. Provocative and transformative, they are available to judges and lawyers, law-makers, policy makers, teachers, administrators and other professionals to review and improve the juvenile justice system in their jurisdiction. [View a summary of the Juvenile Justice standards.]

Three decades of developments in law and sociological or psychological research implicate updating or revision of the standards. The Criminal Justice Section has empaneled a task force to undertake that endeavor and it is underway.