CMY2604 Summary
,THEME 1: THE DEVELOPMENT OF
JUVENILE JUSTICE
1. THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF JUVENILE JUSTICE
1.1. ANTIQUITY
Oldest legal code: code of Hammurabi – 2270 BC. If a son strikes his father, his hands shall be cut
off.
Mosaic code: Old Testament. Basis for US legal system.
Ancient Hebrews (600-400BC were first to make tripartite division of childhood: infancy (0-6y),
puberty (males: 7-13y; females: 7-12y), and pre-adulthood (from end of puberty to 20y).
Codification of Roman law (450BC): Law of the Twelve Tables. At the age of puberty, children are
capable of criminal intent. 6y olds were hanged/burned at the stake.
English criminal law recognised status of child.
Anglo-Saxon period (AD449-1066): death sentence included youth. Age of majority: 10 or 12.
1.2. MIDDLE AGES
Swaddling and wet nursing, disease, malnutrition, infanticide, child abandonment contribute to
the death of children.
Few children received education. Sons worked the land. Daughters were a drain on the family.
Boys as young as 7 were apprenticed.
1.3. RENAISSANCE
Renewed interest in learning – children were educated.
Protestant Reformation affected the handling and treatment of children with respect to their
moral training, education and discipline.
Need for supervision of and attention to children was acknowledged.
USA: families influenced by urbanisation. Children were increasingly placed in schools.
1.4. COLONIAL PERIOD
1636-1823 in USA. Family: primary source of social control of children.
Public dunking and whipping, expulsion from community, capital punishment, fines for parents.
Puritan (English Protestants): training and discipline.
1646 Massachusetts Stubborn Child Law: if the family couldn’t control child, fines given or child
removed. Workhouse was a possibility for stubborn children.
Execution sermons were used as a warning against sin.
17th and 18th centuries in England:
o Nuclear family structure became dominant. Children lived with parents, received
education, were disciplined for academic and moral lapses.
o Apprenticeship movement.
o Chancery courts established to protect welfare of children. Children were under the
collective protection of the King, who acted as ‘parens patriae’ (father of the nation).
o Holland and England influenced SA legal system. Corporal punishment and deportation
were common.
, o Chamber of Justice acted as mediator where children had disobeyed their parents.
Children who disobeyed were punished as slaves were.
1.5. INDUSTRIALISATION
Migration from farms to cities.
Children became cheap labour.
Juvenile lawbreakers were arrested, housed, tried and imprisoned with adults, resulting in sexual
exploitation and furthering of criminal schooling.
House of Refuge: removed children from prison and established places for homeless youths.
Obedience and conformity achieved through strict discipline.
First juvenile court in the world in Cook County, Illinois, USA.
“Child savers” promoted idea of separate justice system for children.
School became compulsory for all youths aged 6-16.
Common law (19th century): children under 7y “not guilty of a felony” because they could not
differentiate between right and wrong. 7-14y old: not guilty of a felony, unless the court could find
that he or she could discern between right and wrong. Older than 14y: responsible for actions.
Youths were hanged and imprisoned along with adults.
Growing interest in humanitarian approach.
His Lordship L Meijer made a plea in 1897 that youths should be separated and that special
institutions be made available for them. 1902: Anglo-Boer War ends, former legislation replaced by
British Laws.
Historically, (SA) age was a mitigating factor in relation to criminal responsibility and sentencing.
Child-saving movement played a role in establishment of reform schools and, later, industrial
schools.
Attorney General of the Cape Colony, William Porter, left 20 000 pounds in his will for the
establishment of a reformatory for juvenile transgressors; led to the Juvenile Reformatory Act in
1879, and the Porter Reformatory School in Cape Town. Open to all races.
1909: Houtpoort Reformatory established in Heidelberg, Transvaal.
First industrial school established by government in Cape Town in 1894.
Industrial schools aimed at poor whites.
Children’s Act of 1937: closed court proceedings; assistance from parents/guardians; additional
sentencing measures such as referral to a reformatory.
1948: National Party came to power. Corporal punishment and imprisonment used to discipline
children.
1.6. 1990 – 2005
By the early 1990s the state carried out more than 30 000 whippings per year.
1995: S v Williams and Others. Whippings are declared unconstitutional (cruel and unusual
punishment).
According to the SA Constitution, a child has the right not to be detained, except as a last resort
and can only be detained for a short period of time.
1.7. DEVELOPMENTS IN JUVENILE LAW SINCE 2005
1 March 2005: US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute offenders who were
under the age of 18.
Life imprisonment without parole is prohibited as a sentence for a child by the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
