Youth Corrections Act 1950

History

In 1948, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, which provided funding for states to operate separate, specialized systems for juvenile offenders. This act was merely a formality and another indication of support for rehabilitation, as many states had already been operating separate systems for juvenile offenders.

During the 1940s and 1950s, juvenile justice research across the United States was focused on the “rehabilitative ideal.” The American Law Institute, the national organization responsible for research on the criminal justice system, released a report titled “The Model Youth Correction Authority Act,” which recommended indeterminate sentences for youth under a separate correctional authority. This model was based primarily on the English Borstal system of correctional programming, in which youth are housed separately from adult offenders and are provided with vocational and education training along with psychological treatment. The English Borstal system includes indeterminate sentencing, with youthful offenders being released once they are rehabilitated. The similarities between the English Borstal system and the YCA were quite evident.

Legislative Intent of YCA

The legislative history of YCA indicates congressional concern with the disproportionate amount of crime committed by juveniles as compared with adults and with the high rates of recidivism for some juvenile offenders. The act sought to rehabilitate juveniles to prevent them from pursuing a life of crime.

Under YCA, a federal judge had several sentencing options: (1) to sentence the young offender to probation only; (2) to sentence the young offender to a rehabilitation program with an indeterminate sentence length not to exceed six years; (3) to sentence the young offender to a rehabilitation program with an indeterminate sentence length exceeding six years, but not exceeding the otherwise maximum sentence prescribed by law; and (4) after a thorough review of the risk posed by the offender and the benefit to be obtained from available programming, to sentence the young offender under standard adult provisions if the court found the young offender would not benefit from a rehabilitative sentence under YCA. However, the only criminal offenders explicitly excluded in YCA were those convicted of violent crimes while armed. Thus, potentially, a young offender with a first-degree murder charge could be sentenced under YCA and then released after a period much shorter than an adult sentence if the offender was determined to be rehabilitated.

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