A Call For Justice: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings

In the fall of 1993, the American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, in conjunction with the Youth Law Center and Juvenile Law Center, received funding from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to initiate the Due Process Advocacy Project. The intent of the project is to build the capacity and effectiveness of juvenile defenders through increasing access to lawyers for young people in delinquency proceedings and enhancing the quality of representation those lawyers provide. This report does not address the significant number of young people now being handled by adult criminal courts.

This project, called for by Congress in 1992 in its reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, has even greater importance today. The juvenile justice system in our country is at the center of public debate. The public is concerned about juvenile crime, particularly violent crime. Congress, state legislatures, and executive agencies have insisted that the juvenile courts respond with more punitive sanctions, longer periods of confinement for many youthful offenders, and increased handling of juveniles in adult criminal courts.