Juvenile justice review 1994-1995

This review of the state of juvenile justice in South Africa introduces a new section to this journal in which annual developments relating to law and policy in the field of juvenile justice will be examined. Juvenile justice has long been a Cinderella topic in the South African legal and academic arena. Legislation relating to juvenile justice is spread out in various sections in the Criminal Procedure Act 1977, the Child Care Act, and the Correctional Services Act. No textbook for those practitioners concerned with juvenile justice has yet been published, and journal articles on aspects relating to juveniles in trouble with the law are sporadic. However, juvenile justice issues have for some years been the focus of media attention. Activists have drawn attention to the plight of children detained in prisons and police cells in particular. At an international seminar hosted by the Community Law Centre in 1993, the matter of comprehensive and radical legislative reform was mooted (see Report of the International Seminar on 'Children in Trouble with the Law', Community Law Centre, 1995). An outcome of the conference was the establishment of a drafting team, which set to work to produce innovative proposals for a new juvenile justice system. Published in November 1994 by the Drafting Consultancy as 'Juvenile Justice for South Africa: Proposals for Policy and Legislative Change' (discussed in D Pinnock, A Skelton, R Shapiro (1994) 3 SACJ 338-347), the document has inspired much of the current debate about legislative and policy reform for juveniles who come into conflict with the law