ABSTRACT
The United States was once, not too long ago, a pioneer on juvenile justice matters. Legislators in Illinois invented the concept of a juvenile court at the end of the 19th century (Zimring and Tanenhaus 2014). Quickly thereafter, every state in the union instituted its own juvenile court system, and developed nations around the world emulated the American juvenile court model (Zimring and Tanenhaus 2014). The early juvenile court was premised on the notion that childhood is a period of dependency and risk; the state’s obligation was to assist a child in jeopardy, typically by providing social services (Kupchik 2006: 10–11).
