Every state has laws establishing a system of juvenile justice courts, outlining their purposes and procedures, and defining the limits of their powers. The names of the courts with juvenile delinquency jurisdiction vary by state and include District Court, Superior Court, Circuit Court, County Court, Family Court, Probate Court, and others. For the purposes of this document, we will refer to the delinquency jurisdiction as juvenile justice court. Regardless of what the court is called, the following tenets should apply to all courts that handle juvenile delinquency cases:
The juvenile justice court should have original and exclusive jurisdiction and authority to coordinate all matters affecting children and families in delinquency cases.
The juvenile justice court should have the stature of general trial courts.
The juvenile justice court should have the power necessary to meet judicial responsibilities and should have the authority, by statute or rule, to order, enforce, and review delivery of court-ordered services and treatment for children and families.
Although all juvenile justice courts have jurisdiction over misdemeanors and felonies, except where statute provides prosecutorial waiver or requires that certain offenses be directly filed in criminal court, other boundaries of jurisdiction vary from state to state. The five main jurisdictional areas of variation in the juvenile justice system are age of criminal responsibility, how jurisdictions handle status offenses, how jurisdictions handle traffic offenses, the extent to which the most serious offenses are transferable to criminal court or excluded from juvenile jurisdiction, and whether juvenile justice courts have continuing jurisdiction over youth placed with the state youth correctional authority while in custody and upon return to the community.