Rights, Race, and Reform: 50 Years of Child Advocacy in the Juvenile Justice System

In 1962, a 15-year-old Arizona boy named Gerald Gault may or may not have made a lewd phone call to a neighbor. Gerald was arrested, prosecuted, removed from his parents’ custody, and sent to a juvenile prison, all without legal representation. Gerald’s mother’s outrage at the treatment of her son eventually propelled the case to the United States Supreme Court. With its sweeping 1967 decision in In re Gault, the Court revolutionized the American juvenile court system by finding that childr...