The Juvenile Justice System is among the most fascinating and researched aspects of the American Justice System. The purpose of this discussion is to examine status offenders in the juvenile justice system. Let us begin our discussion by defining the term "status offender".

             Status Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System.

             According to Tracy (2002) a status offender is "a child who was accused and adjudicated for conduct that would not, under state law, be a crime if committed by an adult, including truancy, running away from home.and violating a juvenile curfew ordinance or order (p. 43)." Prior to 1974 and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, many states punished status offenders through the Juvenile Justice system. Feld (1999) writes that at the time of the Supreme Court decision of Gault, most states classified status offenses as a type of delinquency. In addition the juvenile courts asserted a youth was a generic "delinquent" whether or not they committed a serious crime or a misdemeanor, or truanted from school (Feld 1999). This particular definition of delinquency assumed that juveniles need assistance, and that juvenile courts had the same dispositional power over all juveniles, in spite of their fundamental "symptomatic" misconduct (Feld 1999). .

             "They detained and incarcerated non-criminal status offenders in the same institutions with youths convicted of criminal offenses ( Rosenberg and Rosenberg 1976; Handler and Zatz 1982). Some reports indicated that juvenile courts committed as many as half of all youths confined in training schools for non-criminal status misconduct (Feld 1999; 169).".

             According to an article entitled "The Juvenile Justice System" American Juvenile Justice System was created during the Progressive Era which was a time of social reform throughout the nation. The article explains that initially the juvenile justice system was developed to help delinquents that were being dealt with in the adult system.