On Law Day 2010, as we are asked to reflect on “Law in the 21st Century: Enduring Traditions, Emerging Challenges,” I want to focus on juvenile justice, an area in which New York state has a proud history but now faces some very serious challenges.
Well into the 19th century in the United States, children over the age of seven who committed offenses were imprisoned in adult penitentiaries. In the early 1800s, social and political reformers in New York City began advocating for the creation of special facilities for children, to separate them from adult prisoners and help them avoid future lives of crime.
