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October
1, 2002
Juvenile
Experts Discuss Children, Crime
CHICAGO
--- Headlines about children and crime continue to play out in the
news --- whether about fresh-faced kids convicted of killing their
parents or about confused youngsters confessing to terrible offenses
they did not commit.
Leading
authorities will gather Oct. 17 at an all-day symposium, titled
"A Century of Juvenile Justice," to put such news stories
into perspective and offer expert analyses about issues related
to juveniles and crime.
Based
on a recently released book of the same name, "A Century of
Juvenile Justice" (University of Chicago Press), the symposium
will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Northwestern University
School of Law, Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago Ave.
Free
and open to the public, the symposium is co-sponsored by the Children
and Family Justice Center of the Bluhm Legal Clinic of Northwestern
University School of Law and the School of Social Service Administration
of the University of Chicago. It is supported with a generous grant
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Panelists
will elaborate on the issues captured in "A Century of Juvenile
Justice," a comprehensive and comparative look at the history
and current state of juvenile justice. They will discuss the historic
legal institution known as Juvenile Court; the nature of adolescence;
the impact of adolescent institutions on youth and society; juvenile
rehabilitation; and lessons from youth policy.
Norval
Morris, Julius Kreegar Professor of Law and Criminology Emeritus,
the University of Chicago Law School, will be the keynote speaker.
He will be introduced by Judge David Mitchell, executive director
of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
Panelists
include Franklin E. Zimring, professor, University of California
at Berkeley School of Law; Bernardine Dohrn, director, Children
and Family Justice Center of Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University
School of Law; Steven Schlossman, professor and chair of history,
Carnegie Mellon University; Emily Buss, professor, University of
Chicago Law School; Anthony N. Doob, Centre of Criminology, University
of Toronto; Peter Edelman, professor, Georgetown University School
of Law; and Mark Testa, Office of Research, Illinois Department
of Children and Family Services.
Panel
moderators include U.S. District Judge Reuben Castillo, Arthur M.
Sussman, vice president, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, and Adele Simmons, Chicago Metropolis 2020.
Whether
juvenile courts protect delinquents from the destructive punishment
suffered in the criminal justice system, as they were intended,
will be among the topics addressed at the symposium.
A
nationally recognized expert on criminal violence, Zimring will
offer scarce analysis on the subject with statistics that show incarceration
rates between 1971 and 1991 doubled for young adults while staying
the same for juveniles. The soaring gap, he said, reflects the dominant
punitive policies of criminal courts.
"The
larger the punitive bite of the criminal court system, the more
likely a separate court for the youngest offenders takes some of
that bite out of state sanctions the youngest offenders receive,"
Zimring said.
"The
attack on the juvenile court in recent years is, thus, really a
result of changes in what criminal courts are doing, not any failure
or change in the system of juvenile justice."
The
book, "A Century of Juvenile Justice," was co-edited by
Margaret K. Rosenheim, the Helen Ross Professor Emeritia, School
of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago; Zimring;
David S. Tanenhaus, assistant professor of history, University of
Nevada, Las Vegas; and Children and Family Justice Center’s
Dohrn.
The
book offers a comprehensive look at the juvenile justice system,
with a focus on the first Juvenile Court in the world, established
here in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. The book provides
a history of the ideas around which the system was organized and
the institutions and practices that resulted; an understanding of
the ways in which those institutions and practices interact with
other aspects of government policy toward children in the United
States and other nations; a look at how the changing social and
legal meanings of childhood and youth have continued to influence
juvenile justice; and comparisons of the doctrines and institutions
of juvenile justice in Europe, Japan, England and Scotland.
For
more information, contact Children and Family Justice Center Administrator
Toni Curtis at (312) 503-0396.
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