The Role of Parents and Parens Patriae: Developing Views of Legitimacy and Justice in Juvenile Delinquency Court

The juvenile delinquency court aims to modify children's behavior, but little is known about how parents' experiences in the juvenile justice system may be affecting the court's efforts. Whether parents believe the court system is fair and effective and how they discuss the court's legitimacy with their child could have important implications for the juvenile justice system. There exists widespread distrust of courts and the justice system in poor and minority communities (Rottman and Hansen 2001). Since children from disadvantaged communities are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system (Feld 1999), it is critical to understand how these views of the court develop and under which circumstances parents' perceptions of the court's legitimacy increase or decrease. Parents are one of children's primary socializing agents and how parents perceive issues of law and justice may strongly influence their children's moral and political beliefs (Henning 2006).;This study takes an in-depth look at the experiences of thirty families in two urban juvenile delinquency courts in the Northeast United States. This project extends prior work in procedural justice and legal consciousness by taking a longitudinal and multi-perspectival approach to the development of legal perceptions, values, and ideas. Much of the previous research in these areas has been cross-sectional and retrospective; this study combines observations with interviews with multiple members of the same family at different times during the court process. This multi-faceted approach allows for the study of how views of law and justice evolve during a legal process and how perceptions of the court system are shared within families. This study includes eighty-six semi-structured interviews of parents and youth and 108 observations of court hearings and attorney meetings with the family.;Most parents enter the court process seeking to engage with the justice system, viewing their role as parents to be their child's advocate and to ensure that legal authorities act fairly. Often, parents and youth want to challenge the police version of the criminal incident and to broaden who is held accountable in the courtroom. When they find they cannot participate meaningfully in the court process, many parents and youth become more passive and disengaged. Their passivity resembles deference to legal authorities because these parents and youth are no longer speaking out against the state's version of the case. When parents fail to find influence inside the court system, they often seek it extralegally through conversations within the family. These families create an intermediate space outside the formal court process where parents transmit their views and socialize their child. These conversations are primarily negative, revolving around parents' growing distrust of the court process. This research finds that notions of justice are interactive and intersubjective, with parents filtering the meaning of court experiences for their court-involved child.