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The Juvenile Court and Social Welfare: Dynamics of Progressive Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

John R. Sutton
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Abstract

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This analysis of the juvenile court movement is critical of both functionalist and social movement interpretations. Following Meyer and Rowan (1977) and Hagan et al. (1979), I suggest that the juvenile court was not a substantive reform but served primarily to extend conventional means of child-control through the legitimizing vocabulary of Progressivism. Descriptive analysis of state statutes shows the derivative, ambiguous nature of the juvenile court as a legal phenomenon. Dynamic analysis of the diffusion of juvenile court acts shows that neither functional need nor social movement influence provides a convincing explanation for the rapid institutionalization of the court.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , 1985 , pp. 107 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

Thanks are due to several people who contributed to the analysis presented here, especially Terry Amburgey, Gary Hamilton, Michael Hannan, and John Meyer. Data analysis was supported through the NIMH Organizations Research Training Program, Department of Sociology, Stanford University. Richard O. Lempert and anonymous Law & Society reviewers contributed important suggestions for revising the original manuscript.

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