Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDP) Of 1974

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDP) of 1974 according to Girls Study Group “provided impetus to divert, deinstitutionalize, and decriminalize all status offenders. Although the Act restricted commitment of status offenders to training schools, states did not provide adequate community based alternatives for girl’s Female status offenders were relabeled as “delinquent” and often confined in private-sector mental health and chemical dependency treatment facilities, or were placed in detention as a protective strategy when other placements were not available” I think all that means is that they had no place to send female juvenile so they sent them to places like mental health and chemical dependency treatment facilities instead of jail.
When setting up programs and developing policy some of the differences between male and female delinquent that need to be addressed is the physical mistreatment of females, such as sexual assault or abuse.
Girls are at a much greater risk for physical exploitation in and outside the home compared to males. In our textbook it states that “Rosemary C. Sarri concludes that juvenile law has long penalized females.” There is evidence that there is a decline in prejudiced treatment of female status offenders since the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act was passed many states no longer send female status offenders to training schools alongside delinquents. Social justice in the juvenile justice system needs to have safety measure setup to protect due process for female status offenders, and female
delinquents.