For nearly 40 years I worked as a juvenile probation officer and supervisor for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The transfer of juvenile offenders for trial in an adult court is a decision made in the state courts, and statutes vary widely state to state. In Virginia, an offender must be at least 14 years old […]
American courts used to try children over the age of seven as adults. While they received the strict protections of a defendant in a criminal trial, they could also receive a court’s harshest penalty, death. By the nineteenth century, attitudes had changed. The first juvenile court convened in Chicago, Illinois, in 1899. Procedures were more […]