It tried to explain the view that children were fully responsible for their conduct and were able to be rehabilitated. Parens patraie remains the base of the juvenile justice system across the country. Then, like now, juvenile court was designed more to protect the child than to punish bad behavior. Most people feel that, until recently, the juvenile justice system served our country and our children very well. Beginning in the 1970’s, the nature of juvenile crime became different. Juvenile crime grew more common and more violent, and the system was not prepared. The biggest problem facing law enforcement today may be the very structure of the juvenile justice system. A system that neither punishes nor rehabilitates is useless. Examples of juvenile justice system failures are found everywhere throughout the United States. In Rhode Island, Craig Price, age fifteen, deliberately killed a mother and her two young daughters. Yet, this wasn’t his first offense, nor his first murder. Two years earlier he had murdered another woman. He also had a long record of assaults, burglaries, and other crimes. In Chicago, two of the neighborhood’s toughest bullies lured a five year old boy and his eight year old brother up to an empty fourteenth floor apartment. While up there one of the bullies decided to dangle the helpless five year old out the window by his feet. As the eight year old tried to help his younger brother, the bully dropped him, and he plunged fourteen floors to his death. The bullies, who were both ten years old, are not even going to juvenile prison. Journalist Richard Lacayo calls these kids “predator juveniles” (Lacayo 60), because they steal the life of others. Closer to home, the system is just as corrupt. A sixteen year old boy from Somerville has been charged with killing his next door neighbor, his best friends' mother. According to police the boy was infatuated with her, and...
