Juvenile Shackling Reform: The Judicial Role in Ensuring Trauma‐Informed Courts and Why States Are Rethinking Restraints

• Author: Donna Quigley Groman
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12027
• Date: 01 April 2015
• Published date: 01 April 2015

Juvenile Shackling Reform: The Judicial Role in

Ensuring Trauma-Informed Courts and Why

States Are Rethinking Restraints

By Judge Donna Quigley Groman1

ABSTRACT

In juvenile courts around the country, youth are routinely shackled, without any

evidence that these young people are a danger to anyone or likely to attempt flight.

A number of states are moving away from this practice. Shackling reform initiatives

are motivated by constitutional issues, emerging science around adolescent develop-

ment, and a growing recognition of the need for trauma-informed, evidence-based

courts. Judges are ultimately responsible for safeguarding the rights of the young

people who appear in court, and must uphold the dignity of the courtroom. A review

of jurisdictions that have adopted limits on juvenile shackling shows that these

policies have not resulted in breaches of safety.

INTRODUCTION

[Shackling] doesn’t make you feel like anybody really cares about you and you are being treated like

an animal . . . I felt I was already guilty because I was shackled.2

In most states, there are no statutory restrictions on the shackling of young people

in juvenile courts. The practice is commonplace. Respondents—sometimes even young

1 Thank you to Colleen Shaddox, David A. Shapiro, and the many judges and mental health and

medical professionals who graciously offered their wisdom, time, and support.

2 Letter from T.W., incarcerated juvenile, to Wash. S. Ct., (April 2014), available at https://

www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.commentDisplay&ruleId=348.

Donna Quigley Groman has been a judicial officer since 1997. She currently serves as Supervising

Judge of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Delinquency Court, of which there are 23 courtrooms dedicated

full-time to hearing Juvenile Delinquency cases. Judge Groman serves as the lead faculty for California’s

statewide judges education program in Juvenile Delinquency and recently served as chair of the Juvenile Law

Curriculum Committee. She serves on the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ Juvenile

Law Advisory Committee. Correspondence: dgroman@lacourt.org

bs_bs_banner

Juvenile and Family Court Journal 66, No. 2 (Spring) 19

© 2015 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges