Historical Approach to the Relationship Between Juvenile Court and Child Guidance Clinic With Emphasis on the Procedure and Problems of Referral
Abstract
During the last decade of the nineteenth century, change in the social attitude toward problems of the young was marked in law by the creation of separate courts for children. Where for centuries there existed little differentiation between child and adult, as society imposed cruel, retributive punishment in the name of justice, there now grew the concept of humanitarianism and individualization of the offender. It was thought that by employing sympathetic and thoughtful judicial approach to each case, the child’s problems would be exposed and solutions formulated. Realization soon dawned, however, that development and manifestation of delinquent trends in an individual is highly complex. Factors in delinquency causation came to be seen as multiple, interwoven, and seldom easily determined, let alone resolved. To help answer the complicated questions of why a child became delinquent, the judiciary turned to the young sciences of human behavior. Child psychiatry had emerged at the turn of the century, largely through the intelligence, vision, and efforts of William James, G. Stanley Hall, Adolf Meyer and their students. Shortly after, the child guidance movement began as a means of meeting the problem of behavior disorders in children, and the prevention of social maladjustment. ’’From the outset the child was the object of the studies and examination carried on by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social case workers in order to determine the nature of the difficulty."
Subject Area
Law|Clinical psychology|Social work
Recommended Citation
Terpening, Carolyn L, "Historical Approach to the Relationship Between Juvenile Court and Child Guidance Clinic With Emphasis on the Procedure and Problems of Referral" (1957). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30509563.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30509563
