Status Offenders and Delinquent Youth: Actual or Artificial Taxonomy

The American juvenile justice system is built upon a long history of efforts to separate youthful offenders from more serious, "hardened" adult criminals. However, even within the juvenile system specifically designed for youth, distinctions have long been made between types of youthful offenders. One of the greatest is the distinction between youth who commit delinquent acts and youth who commit status offenses. Youth who commit acts that would be criminal for an adult are referred to as delinquent youth, whereas youth who commit acts that are sanctionable only for juveniles (such as truancy or running away from home) are deemed status offenders (Bernard & Kurlychek, 2010).Most states have developed specialized categories or terms for these offenders. In 1962, New York became the first state to provide a formal label for these more innocent children, or status offenders, coining the term PINS, or persons in need of supervision. This practice of classifying and separating youth based on such distinctions of behavior continued on a state-by-state basis, with only South Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana still including status offenders under the title of juvenile delinquent (Sanborn & Salerno, 2005). This distinction was then further formalized at the federal level in 1974 with the passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDP). Among the various things accomplished by this important legislation was the designation of core mandates that states needed to follow to receive funding for juvenile justice services from the federal government (Bernard & Kurlychek, 2010). The act required states to provide that "juveniles who are charged with or who have committed offenses that would not be criminal if committed by an adult or offenses.... shall not be placed in secure detention facilities or secure correctional facilities" (42 U.S. C. 5633 Section 223(12)). Youth are seen as malleable and still developing; therefore, exposure to negative influences could be problematic, leading them down a path to further criminality rather than rehabilitation (Platt, 1977).Although the 1974 Act calls for separation of delinquents and status offenders at the earliest (pre-adjudication) stages of processing, a variety of "in-between" placements exists in the juvenile justice system, in which the two groups are left to mingle in detention or confinement. For example, juvenile justice systems across the nation utilize mandatory afterschool programs and day reporting centers for juveniles, as well as non-secure or "staff " secure residential placements in which "status offenders" and "delinquents" live side by side.O'Neill's (2004) research found that sentencing youth to residential treatment was based on the following variables: "legal representation, probation violations, age, sex, prior intervention (community and residential), prior offenses (misdemeanors and violent misdemeanors), and seriousness of the offense (felonies)" (p. 41). O'Neill did not make a distinction on adjudication or delinquency status of youths remanded to care.While the distinction between criminal and status offenses appears clear on paper, in practice determining differences is more muddled. Once the juvenile appears in court, a variety of influences determine whether the juvenile court judge will adjudicate the juvenile as a "delinquent" youth or merely as a "status offender." In the 2013 report Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach (National Research Council, 2013), a summary of factors beyond the offense were listed that could influence how the juvenile system views and sanctions a youth. These included youth characteristics (respectful and polite versus disrespectful and disdainful), as well the resources and status of the family. An older article by Rankin and Wells (1985) discussed how status offense require less evidence and are therefore "easier to sustain than delinquency petitions" (p. 174).Caudill, Morris, Sayed, Yun, and DeLisi (2013) conducted a longitudinal study on juvenile case dispositions. …