Abstract
In The Evolution of the Juvenile Court: Race, Politics, and the Criminalizing of Juvenile Justice, Barry Feld (2017) provides a comprehensive historical analysis of the juvenile court from its inception in Cook County, IL, in 1899 to the present day. Feld delivers a robust summary of the juvenile court’s transformation throughout four distinct eras: the Progressive Era, the Due Process Era, the Get-Tough Era, and the Kids Are Different Era. He demonstrates how each period was shaped by the specific social, cultural, and political ideologies of its time. And in the last two eras in particular, Feld lucidly demonstrates how courts are torn between whether to punish or rehabilitate the child—punishment prevails.
Feld provides several key points supported by past research and sound evidence. He discusses Supreme Court cases such as Miranda v. Arizona, Kent v. United States, and decisions from in re Gault, Roper, Graham, and Miller to explain how our juvenile justice system has failed to extend full protection to our youth while at the same time punishing them for their age, race, and economic status. Feld also explores how political parties have planted and exploited public fears of crime and use “White voters’ racial animus” to promote get tough policies to secure their own political campaigns. This strategy has resulted in the abandonment of children’s rights in the juvenile system and damaging the futures of largely Black and brown youth and their families. In addition, Feld uses an interdisciplinary approach in his research that includes the work of developmental psychology and neuroscience scholars to argue that the diminished culpability of minors is not adequately acknowledged in our current legal and social system. Minors are not capable of completely understanding and protecting their legal rights, so they often waive their Miranda rights and fall deeper into the abyss of the court system regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty.
Feld concludes with some worthy policy proposals for the future of juvenile justice. For example, he argues that courts should implement a “Youth Discount” during sentencing, a mandatory nonwaivable counsel during court proceedings, and automatic competency assessments for children 14 years of age or younger. Feld’s ability to continuously provide actionable and robust recommendations intended to reform the juvenile justice system is admirable—if they are applied through a lens that places the interest of “our children” and “other people’s children” above all else. Yet the most important contribution that his book offers is the one that also provides the least amount of hope. Feld argues that child poverty is the root cause of crime and racial disparities that extend beyond the juvenile justice system. He writes that “child poverty is the United States’ public policy,” and until we decide to fix rather than sidestep the social and political structures that produce child poverty and racial inequalities, we will face the same problems from one generation to the next.
While Feld’s analysis provides readers with an expansive, unadulterated analysis of the juvenile court system, it also has its gaps. For example, the exclusion of Latinos is unfortunate in any analysis that covers politics, race, and class dynamics. The omission falsely suggests that Latinos are not part of the American history, yet nearly two decades ago Latinos surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, and today’s population of children under 18 is 51% White, 25% Hispanic, and 14% Black (“ America’s Children,” 2017). Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group and their numbers are projected to grow to 32% by 2050, while Whites and Blacks are projected to decrease to 38% and 13%, respectively (2017).
This absence of evidence results from the ongoing tendency to discount Latinos within present and past analyses, as well as the practice of combining Latino youth statistics with those of White youth, as in the 2015 case in which Hispanics in Alabama, Maryland, Montana, and Vermont state prisons were classified as White (Nellis, 2016). This practice both erases Hispanics from the justice system and obscures the statistics comparing Blacks and Whites. Feld’s data would have benefited from the inclusion of cases such as Mendez v. Westminster (1946) 1 and Hernandez v. Texas (1954), 2 for while Latinos do not share the same history within the juvenile and criminal justice system, they have certainly experienced similar forms of discrimination. For instance, President Trump’s statements about immigrants (particularly migrants from Latin American countries) being murderers, rapists, and drug dealers replicate the strategies used by Republicans in the early years of the War on Drugs to bait the racial and ethnic fears of Whites across all classes. These similarities extend to the juvenile justice system, and a comparative analysis would illustrate the parallel ways in which African American and Latino(a) youth are disadvantaged within this system.
Nonetheless, this book is an important read for legal scholars, juvenile justice activists, academics, and instructors interested in learning how race and politics have shaped juvenile justice. Feld’s analysis is remarkably clear and expansive, but his conclusions about race will come as no surprise, so I understand his feelings of “sadness and anger” at witnessing the decline of two generations of children whom political leaders have failed to protect.
