Washington's Becca Bill: the Costs of Empowering Parents

• Publication year: 1996
• Citation: Vol. 20 No. 01

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 20, No. 1FALL 1996

COMMENTS

Washington's Becca Bill: The Costs of Empowering Parents

Alison G. Ivey(fn*)

I. Introduction

Abuse was the pervasive theme of Washington teen Rebecca Hedman's short life. "Becca," as she was known by her family, was sexually abused by her natural mother. At the age of fifteen months, Becca was placed in a foster home with the family that eventually adopted her, the Hedmans. When she was five years old, Becca was sexually abused by her older adopted brother. Her adoptive family provided her with counseling to cope with her abusive past, and at the age of twelve, she seemed to be adjusting well. In middle school, however, Becca became involved with the "wrong crowd" and began to rebel. Unable to handle her, her parents sent her to a state-run Crisis Residential Center and then to a group home. At the group home, Becca met older girls who introduced her to crack cocaine, prostitution, and a life on the streets.

After running away from the group home for forty-seven days, Becca returned home to her parents. They enrolled her in drug counseling and, for a short time, she appeared to be getting her life together. Her parents, still concerned about her drug habit, sent her to a residential drug counseling clinic in Spokane, Washington. They were under the impression that the staff of the clinic would call if she ran away from the clinic. However, Becca ran away from the clinic five times and her parents were never notified.

In October 1993, during one of her runaway periods, Becca was picked up on a Spokane street corner by a thirty-five year old man who paid her fifty dollars for sex. Because Becca did not adequately satisfy the man, he became enraged and demanded a refund. When she refused, he grabbed a baseball bat and hit her in the back of the head six times, killing her. He dumped her body in the Spokane River.(fn1)

It was Becca's short life and tragic death which spawned Washington's new legislation regarding runaway youths and the parents who want to control them. Appropriately nicknamed the "Becca Bill," Senate Bill 5439 became law in Washington in July 1995.(fn2) The Becca Bill is the Legislature's attempt to accommodate frustrated parents' demands for control over their children's lives. It provides for detainment and court intervention into the lives of juveniles known as "status offenders." Unlike juvenile delinquents, status offenders fall within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court for actions which would not be criminal if committed by an adult.(fn3)

This Comment gives a practical overview of the Becca Bill and its provisions and addresses the potentially dangerous ramifications of the bill. Part II of this Comment gives a brief history of the trends in juvenile justice in this country, establishing a context for what led to the Becca Bill's passage. Part II also introduces the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, the first federal act to mandate the deinstitutionalization of the status offender.

Part III of this Comment gives a brief history of Washington's statutes dealing with status offenders. This section then outlines the key portions of the Becca Bill, focusing primarily on the "lockup" provision and new petitions available to parents in order to obtain court intervention into the lives of their unmanageable children. Part III also briefly discusses controversial portions of the Becca Bill that were vetoed by Governor Lowry, as well as alternative bills that were before the Washington Legislature.

Part IV of this Comment addresses potential problems with the Becca Bill as enacted. This section discusses how the Bill is working, one year after its passage, based primarily on reports by practitioners who are attempting to carry out the law. Part IV then addresses concerns about the potential loss of federal funding under the JJDP Act of 1974, and discusses the extent that federal dollars provided to Washington for enacting juvenile justice programs are placed in jeopardy by the Becca Bill. Part IV also examines the practice of "bootstrapping" juvenile status offenders into the criminal justice system through the bill's contempt of court provisions.

This Comment concludes that not only is the Becca Bill not working in practice, but that it represents a dangerous trend back to the days of parens patriae and excessive court intervention into the lives of noncriminal youths. Close watch should be placed upon our Legislature to ensure that even stronger laws to control noncriminal juveniles are never passed, as well as to ensure that valuable federal dollars are not further jeopardized. Additionally, advocates for children's rights should be watchful that contempt provisions, now more accessible to parents through the Becca Bill, are not used as a way of bootstrapping a child into the criminal justice system.

II. Trends in Juvenile Justice

A. Parens Patriae and the Rise of the Child-Savers

Around the turn of the century, a growing concern developed over the apparent disintegration of our nation's youth. Out of a trend referred to as the "child-saving" movement arose a new way of looking at the plight of juveniles who misbehaved.(fn4) These children were seen as young human beings to be rehabilitated, rather than criminals to be punished.(fn5) The goal of the juvenile courts was a benevolent one: to save the children. The first juvenile court was established in Chicago in 1899 to implement this lofty ideal.(fn6) By 1920, all but three states had established a juvenile court system.(fn7)

The creators of the juvenile courts envisioned a kinder, gentler court which would relax the formalism and constitutional protections of the adult courts in order to allow a judge to discern what was troubling a child.(fn8) The proceeding was viewed as civil rather than criminal.(fn9) In order to meet the "best interests of the child," intervention was to be informal and individualized.(fn10) The child-savers believed that society's role was not to ascertain whether the child was "guilty" or "innocent" but ratherto find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, not to make him a criminal but a worthy citizen.(fn11) The authority under which the child-savers believed they could do this was the doctrine of parens patriae.(fn12) The phrase literally means "parent of the country."(fn13)

The doctrine of parens patriae developed in medieval English courts of chancery.(fn14) The major issues in the medieval courts involved the distribution of property and testamentary and guardianship problems.(fn15) Chancery, acting as an agent of the monarchy, used the doctrine to authorize involvement in the family in the interest of maintaining the fuedal structure.(fn16)

The first American court to use the doctrine of parens patriae was a Pennsylvania court in the case of Ex parte Crouse.(fn17) In Crouse, a girl was committed to a "House of Refuge."(fn18) The girl's father petitioned for habeas corpus to have her released from the house and the court denied the petition.(fn19) In an historic opinion, the court used the term parens patriae, previously used only in dealing with property interests in feudal England, to justify the further detention of the girl in the House of Refuge.(fn20) The court stated:To this end, may not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it, be superseded by the parens patriae, or common guardian of the community? It is to be remembered that the public has a paramount interest in the virtue and knowledge of its members, and that, of strict right, the business of education belongs to it.(fn21)

The Crouse court thereby transformed a doctrine used in medieval England into a "new" doctrine, which was fully embraced by the creators of the juvenile court.(fn22) The doctrine provided a rather murky justification for state intervention into the lives of children. Because the state considered that it had a profound interest in seeing that its children grew up to be moral, virtuous, and productive members of society, it utilized the parens patriae doctrine to fulfill this goal.(fn23)

Parens patriae provided a rationale for juvenile court jurisdiction over criminal and noncriminal offenders. The juvenile courts' reach extended to all children in danger of leading a societally unacceptable life, regardless of whether or not they had committed a crime.

B. In re Gault and Its Influence: Parens Patriae Questioned

While the child-saving movement may have grown out of the best of intentions, the juvenile court soon fell under criticism for causing children to suffer the worst of both worlds.(fn24) Because of the informality of court proceedings, constitutional safeguards were often relaxed or altogether abandoned.(fn25) In addition, children under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court were not undergoing the expected transformation into virtuous citizens.(fn26) In essence, the child-savers were neither fulfilling their role as rehabilitators, nor providing procedural safeguards to ensure the integrity of the court process.(fn27)

Although the exclusion of juveniles from the constitutional scheme went...