When was juvenile probation created

Among its tenants, was a primary reliance on probation and probation officers to rehabilitate young offenders. Within the following decades, nearly every state established juvenile probation with legislature and juvenile courts.

The National Probation Association published its first volume of standards for juvenile probation and juvenile courts. In the middle of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court for the first time gave juveniles Constitutional protections against self-incrimination, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to counsel. Kent v. United States- juvenile offenders are entitled to the same amount of due process of law as adults while under the jurisdiction of a juvenile court.

Initial post-mortem brain studies, suggest earlier development of more basic sensory function in the brain while the parts that support reasoning are last to develop Yakovlev, Lecours and Minkowski, In re Winship when adjudicated youth must be found guilty without a reasonable doubt the same as in adult criminal cases. In response to a sharp increase in violent crime among youths in the s and early s, virtually every state passed harsh, punitive laws and many abandoned the focus on rehabilitation.

As a result, recidivism became the norm. The brunt of the harsh policies was borne by children of color. Similarly situated youths could receive vastly different sentences based on the mood, temperament, or personal philosophy of individual judges. In the s, the Supreme Court made a series of decisions that formalized the juvenile courts and introduce more due process protections such as right to counsel.

Formal hearings were required in situations where youth faced transfer to adult court and or a period of long-term institutional confinement. In the late s the public perceived that juvenile crime was on the rise and that the system was too lenient.

Many states passed punitive laws, including mandatory sentences and automatic adult court transfer for certain crimes. In the s this tough on crime trend accelerated.

Tougher laws made it easier to transfer youth offenders to the criminal justice system. By the mids use of institutional confinement for even minor offenses was growing.

Youth correctional facilities across the country were overcrowded and conditions were deplorable. Beginning the in the late s the drive to increase rates of youth incarceration began to recede.

Led by California, many states began reducing the number of youths committed to youth correctional institutions. Borrowing from the lessons learned from the closing of the Massachusetts training schools in the early s, the efficacy of the congregate institution was now being questioned. By the end of the first decade of the 21 st century, states such as California were instituting the most sweeping reforms in the history of the juvenile justice system.

Consequently, each court chose the form of pretrial services organization that best met its needs, considering such factors as criminal caseload and court locations. Expanding pretrial services to all districts marked a significant milestone for what was now the "federal probation and pretrial services system. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Probation Act of , establishing probation as a sentence in the federal courts.

The first federal probation officer, Richard McSweeney, is appointed in the District of Massachusetts. Congress creates the National Parole Board and amends the Probation Act to give officers responsibility to supervise federal parolees. The first policy monograph, The Presentence Investigation Report, tells officers how to conduct presentence investigations and prepare reports.

Officers take on the duty of investigating the parole plans of Army and Air Force prisoners and supervising them following release from disciplinary barracks. A national training center is established in Chicago to provide officers with orientation and refresher training. Officers form their own professional organization, the Federal Probation and Pretrial Officers Association link is external. The Judicial Conference of the United States forms a permanent committee—the Committee on the Administration of the Probation System—expressly to address probation system issues.

Pretrial services agencies are established as an experiment in ten districts. The Judicial Conference of the United States adopts a policy that allows each district court to decide whether officers carry firearms. Early policies discouraged officers from carrying firearms and suggested that doing so was inconsistent with probation work--that in supervising individuals, officers assumed a helping role, not a law enforcement one.

In the 's, however, the Judicial Conference began to see circumstances in which arming officers might be prudent. The policy statement still presumed that officers should not be armed--unless their assignments subjected them to serious risk of physical harm. A decade passed before the Judicial Conference addressed the matter of firearms training.

In , in two-week training sessions held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Galveston, Texas, the system's first firearms instructors were trained to teach firearms handling and safety in their respective districts.

Congress gives the Director of the Administrative Office of the U. Courts the authority to provide contract aftercare treatment services to drug-dependent persons under probation system supervision. President Ronald Reagan signs the Pretrial Services Act, which authorizes expansion of pretrial services to each district court. The Bail Reform Act allows judges to consider danger to the community as a factor in deciding whether to release or detain persons awaiting trial.

The Bail Reform Act radically changed the pretrial process in that it permitted courts to detain dangerous defendants. Previously, courts did not consider danger to the community in deciding whether to release or detain persons awaiting trial. This new development increased the number of persons detained to such an extent that, within a few years, the nation faced a national pretrial detention crisis.

The increase in detention rates affected where defendants were housed while awaiting trial and when trials were scheduled. It hampered access to defendants by pretrial services officers and other parties in the criminal justice process. As a result of the situation, the Judicial Conference of the United States implored Congress to provide sufficient funding for adequate housing and supervision of pretrial detainees and encouraged use of alternatives to incarceration for some defendants, including community supervision and home confinement.

The Sentencing Reform Act of was passed in response to congressional concern about fairness in sentencing. The Act completely changed the way courts sentenced federal offenders. The Act created a new federal agency, the U. Sentencing Commission, to set sentencing guidelines for every federal offense.

The new sentencing scheme also placed officers in a more adversarial environment in the courtroom, where attorneys might dispute facts, question guideline calculations, and object to the information in the presentence report. In addition to providing for a new sentencing process, the Act also replaced parole with "supervised release," a term of community supervision to be served by prisoners after they completed prison terms.

If offenders demonstrated a promise for rehabilitation, they were placed in the hands of generous guardians who willingly took charge of them.

Hill had police officers pay periodic visits to these guardians in an effort to track the offender's progress and keep a running account.

John Augustus, the "Father of Probation," is recognized as the first true probation officer. Augustus was born in Woburn, Massachusetts in By , he was a permanent resident of Boston and the owner of a successful boot-making business. It was undoubtedly his membership in the Washington Total Abstinence Society that led him to the Boston courts.

Washingtonians abstained from alcohol themselves and were convinced that abusers of alcohol could be rehabilitated through understanding, kindness, and sustained moral suasion, rather than through conviction and jail sentences.

In , John Augustus attended police court to bail out a "common drunkard," the first probationer. The offender was ordered to appear in court three weeks later for sentencing. He returned to court a sober man, accompanied by Augustus. To the astonishment of all in attendance, his appearance and demeanor had dramatically changed. Augustus thus began an year career as a volunteer probation officer. Not all of the offenders helped by Augustus were alcohol abusers, nor were all prospective probationers taken under his wing.

Close attention was paid to evaluating whether or not a candidate would likely prove to be a successful subject for probation.