McKeiver v. Pennsylvania

The juvenile justice system in the United States had its origins in Chicago at the onset of the twentieth century, and its reform-minded tenets and goals of rehabilitation rather than punishment had gradually taken hold and become the law of the land. Individual states administered juvenile courts. The courts were considered a support system designed to enfold the juvenile within a framework of social workers, probation officers, and psychologists--and guided by a trained and fair judge--in order to correct the flaws that had led to criminal actions, and prevent them from occurring in the future. The juvenile legal system was designed as a trade-off: in exchange for forgoing some protections usually given to criminal defendants, minors would receive special treatment and would not be subject to the harsh criminal sentences accorded to adults for similar crimes.

Yet as juvenile crime rose, its legal system came to be viewed as underfunded, understaffed, overtaxed, and ultimately ineffective. A 1967 Presidential Task Force on Juvenile Delinquency found major flaws. These included overcrowding in juvenile facilities, which were also understaffed and offered little "rehabilitative" activities or opportunities to the incarcerated youths. Sometimes youths were even held in maximum-security jails due to lack of space in juvenile detention centers.