Schall v. Martin

After Gault recognized substantial rights of juveniles in the justice system, a series of cases including Schall a juvenile's right to trial, preventive detention, and dealt with the possibility of capital punishment. The Court increasingly yielded to states in dealing with juvenile justice matters.

General opinion grew through the 1980s and 1990s that the juvenile justice system, characterized by highly inconsistent procedures and sentencing, was in great disrepair. Nationwide statistics indicated that from 1985 to 1994 teen arrests for violent crimes rose 72 percent, while corresponding adult arrests fell four percent. Meanwhile, government efforts in controlling youth activities were met with charges of racial and social class bias. The public increasingly favored punishment over rehabilitation. Juvenile court judges increasingly assigned juvenile cases to adult courts. Some state legislatures responded by creating stiffer penalties, particularly for serious juvenile crimes. Studies showed teen crime fell significantly in those areas where tougher treatment occurred. As a result, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 offering funding grants to states adopting tougher punishment standards. In reaction, advocates for juveniles pointed to other studies showing rehabilitation measures promoted by juvenile justice systems still worked in many cases.

Due process questions, as in Schall, rose again in the late 1990s with other systems of preventive detention. Often without the benefit of a trial, juveniles were sent to "bootcamps" for youths at risk. The camps offered tough treatment characterized as "behavior modification" or "attitude adjustment." The Schall decision was also used as a guide for preventive detention of other classes of people in civil law cases including the mentally incompetent and drug and alcohol addicts.

Juvenile preventive detention issues continued to attract considerable debate through the late 1990s. Pretrial detention was criticized on the basis that future criminal behavior by individuals can not be reliably predicted. Many individuals could be wrongly detained. The likelihood of guilt was recommended as a larger factor to be considered in addition to history of violent behavior. Society continued to struggle with balancing an juvenile's right to presumption of innocence before trial with increasing fears of crime.