FOUNDATIONS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE CHILDREN'S COURTS IN THE U.S./ C INTERNATIONAL PENAL AND PRISON COMMISSION CHILDREN'S COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES. IEIR ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND RESULTS Reports prepared for THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON COMMISSION. SAMUEL J. BARROWS, COMMISSIONER FOR THE UNITED STATES. APRIL 25, 1904.-Referred to the Committee on the WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. le courts--United States. I. Barrows, CHILDREN'S COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES Samuel J. Barrows, in submitting the International ison Commission's report on children's courts to the ongress in 1904, strongly endorsed these new, informal, eatment-oriented courts and commented optimistically on eir potential for stimulating broad, far reaching improveent in America's criminal justice system. The creation of the children's court was a milestone in le developmental process of American justice, the central chic of these courts being their commitment to rehabilitate ther than punish young offenders. Starting with the establishment of the first court in linois just prior to the turn of the century, the children's ourt movement spread rapidly so that even at the writing f this early report in 1904, children's or juvenile courts ere functioning in jurisdictions throughout the country nd the non-criminal, almost paternalistic orientation of nese courts was being hailed as a successful youth rehabiliation model by noted jurists of the day. It should be noted that the enthusiasm surrounding the arly children's courts may in part have been stimulated by he symbolic importance of the court to social and correcional reformers of the day. The emergence of the childen's court represented the fulfillment of a dream for these eformers, for they now had the practical workshop to test heir theories of rehabilitative intervention. They wanted ery much for that workshop to succeed. They wanted to lemonstrate that the young offender could be reformed, hat rehabilitation was a viable correctional tool that reatment worked where punishment failed. The zeal surrounding the children's court movement perhaps helps to explain why the International Prison Commission's Report treats the early days of the court in uch glowing terms and why the report largely fails to ddress itself to problems like the denial of due process in he court's informal proceedings and the pervasive lack of ehabilitative services, then as now, for the treatment of young offenders. It is, in fact, not without irony that, as his early report on the children's court is reprinted, |