Washington's Juvenile Status Offense Laws
| Jurisdiction | Washington,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 2 No. 01 |
| Publication year | 1978 |
Juvenile status offense laws give courts authority over children's acts, like parental defiance and truancy, that have no adult equivalents.(fn1) Rooted in archaic paternalism, these often harsh, vague, and inequitable laws have been the subject of constitutional challenges(fn2) and calls for their abolition.(fn3) Although some jurisdictions have modified their status offense laws in recent years,(fn4) all jurisdictions still retain authority over status offenders.(fn5) The Washington State Legislature, in a broad revision of its juvenile laws effective July 1, 1978,(fn6) replaced the state's status offense laws with procedures emphasizing voluntary social services for rebellious children and their families.(fn7) Reflecting modern theories of child behavior, the new laws depart from traditional juvenile court philosophy and offer generally superior solutions to the problem of unruly children. The legislature, however, also instituted a new status offense applicable if the voluntary procedures fail.(fn8) Ambiguous and impractical, the legislation's new status offense represents a partial retention of the harsh paternalism of past juvenile laws.
This comment discusses the history and characteristics of traditional status offense laws, demonstrates why the laws are a poor response to juvenile misbehavior, and examines proposals to improve them. In subsequently analyzing the new Washington laws, this comment concludes that the legislature, though implementing some of these proposals, failed to apply a consistently progressive approach to its new legislation. Inadequate protection for some children and inequitable application of provisions in the new laws may result. Finally, this comment suggests ways to improve the Washington legislation.
I. Traditional Juvenile Status Offense Laws
Laws to control unruly children are an ancient idea that found early and ultimately universal acceptance in this country. Following the language of the Old Testament,(fn9) a 1625 colonial Massachusetts law prescribed the death penalty for "a stubborn and rebellious son . . . which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother."(fn10) By the nineteenth century, laws in various jurisdictions permitted the institutionalization of "incorrigible" children.(fn11) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many legislatures enacted lengthy statutes giving the newly-established juvenile courts authority over many kinds of juvenile misbehavior.(fn12) Today, all United States jurisdictions have status offense laws governing children's noncriminal misconduct.(fn13)
Many status offense laws are ambiguous and overly punitive. By using broad terms like "incorrigible child"(fn14) or "juvenile in need of supervision,"(fn15) many of the laws enable courts to exercise jurisdiction over a wide variety of behavior.(fn16) Additionally, some juvenile laws fail to provide different penalties for status offenses and delinquent acts, acts violating the criminal law.(fn17) Connecticut courts, for example, may impose identical sentences on a runaway child and a juvenile burglar.(fn18) Secure detention and institutional commitments of status offenders have been frequent in many jurisdictions.(fn19)
The purposes of status offense laws explain their characteristics. Status offense laws in America originally enabled colonial society to maintain children as disciplined members of the family work force.(fn20) Since the early nineteenth century, defenders of the laws have claimed the laws are necessary to prevent unruly children from becoming delinquents or criminals.(fn21) Confidence in the effectiveness of institutionalization and other forms of state intervention to reform wayward children reached its zenith with the advent of the juvenile court movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.(fn22) Broadly written laws permitted courts wide discretion in selecting children believed most in need of reformation. Status offenders could receive the same sentences as delinquent children because the courts' concern supposedly was with the children's social or emotional needs rather than with the acts the children committed. The juvenile court founders did not consider these sentences punishment, but rather means to mold wayward youths into responsible citizens.(fn23)
In the midst of attacks on the juvenile court system in recent years,(fn24) however, critics have shown status offense laws rest on mistaken beliefs about adolescent behavior. Although defenders of status offense laws claim the laws help courts identify potential delinquents or criminals,(fn25) behavior punishable by status offense laws is an unreliable indicator of future delinquent or criminal acts.(fn26) Defying one's parents is not necessarily deviant behavior, but rather is often a normal indication of adolescent striving for independence.(fn27) When this defiance escalates into behavior such as running away from home, inadequate parents, and not the child, may be primarily to blame.(fn28) The culpability of parents is even more likely when such behavior results in referrals to the juvenile court.(fn29) In perhaps the majority of status offense cases, however, one cannot accurately apportion blame; these cases arise from the mutual inability of parent and child to resolve conflicts with each other.(fn30) Accordingly, because parents may share the responsibility for their child's status offenses, the standard juvenile court practice of placing responsibility for status offense violations on the offending child alone, by institutional commitment or other penalty, is unfair and unlikely to correct the problems underlying the child's behavior.(fn31)
Juvenile court intervention in status offense cases frequently is counter-productive and may encourage delinquency rather than prevent it. Airing family disagreements in court may polarize parent and child instead of bringing them together,(fn32) and the humiliation of court involvement may turn a child towards more serious misbehavior.(fn33) The dispositional alternatives available in these cases also may make court intervention harmful. The stigma of institutional commitment may contribute to converting a rebellious child into a delinquent or criminal.(fn34) Moreover, many states permit the institutionalization of status offenders with delinquent children,(fn35) from whom the status offenders may learn delinquent habits.(fn36) Other coercive court intervention, such as court-ordered counseling, also is likely to be ineffective because the sensitive and complex nature of family conflicts, which produce many status offenses, makes these conflicts poorly suited to forced resolutions.(fn37) Ironically, the very existence of juvenile court authority over status offenses may have hindered development of more effective responses to juvenile misbehavior.(fn38)
In addition to attacking the philosophical basis and the ineffectiveness of status offense laws, critics have pointed to the laws' frequently inequitable application and consequences. Juvenile courts sometimes invoke their status offense jurisdiction when evidence is inadequate to bring delinquency charges against a child.(fn39) Accused status offenders generally receive fewer procedural rights at trial than accused delinquents,(fn40) are more likely to be girls than boys,(fn41) and are disproportionately the children of the poor.(fn42) Convicted status offenders may serve longer terms in institutions than delinquents,(fn43) although in many states both groups ostensibly are subject to the same sentences.(fn44)
II. Proposals For Reform
Dissatisfaction with traditional status offense laws has led to proposals for a less coercive approach toward status offenders. Congress has provided funding incentives to states to abolish the detention and institutionalization of nondelinquent children.(fn45) Critics have suggested replacing status offense laws with programs of voluntary services to rebellious children and their families.(fn46) Proposed programs include crisis intervention to resolve family conflicts at their onset,(fn47) nonsecure residences for children at odds with their parents,(fn48) and temporary shelters and counseling services for runaways.(fn49)
These voluntary programs are encouraging, but not totally satisfactory, responses to the problems of traditional status offense laws. The programs' lack of coercion should make them more palatable, and hence more effective, than court-ordered services.(fn50) Moreover, providing services to both parents and children eliminates the traditional system's unfairness of singling out the offending child for attention and should be effective in resolving the family conflicts underlying many status offenses.(fn51) Crisis intervention, in particular, has proven successful in restoring harmony between parents and children and in preventing the children's involvement with the juvenile courts.(fn52) A totally voluntary program, however, may have some problems. For all its abuses, the traditional approach does provide secure care for those children truly in need of state protection. A voluntary program may not reach those children in sufficient numbers. The cost and organizational difficulties of establishing and maintaining a satisfactory network of voluntary services pose additional problems in...
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