Closing the Widening Net: The Rights of Juveniles at Intake

The author looks at how the intake process can be made fair for low-income children. His approach “would represent a middle ground between what often happens during the intake evaluation in juvenile court-namely that cases lacking a factual basis are approved for filing-and the practice in adult criminal court, where the defendant’s needs are never a factor in the analysis of whether a criminal complaint should issue” (p. 24). Sections following an abstract are: introduction; what is at stake; procedural rights of juveniles at intake-the right to counsel, and the right to pre-intake warnings; what can go wrong during the intake process; reasons not to have counsel at intake; proposals for intake reform; and conclusion.