A Juvenile’s Right to Treatment in an Institutional Facility

The notion of the right to treatment encompasses the concept that after the juvenile has been confined to an institutional facility due to his mental state or condition, he is entitled to receive treatment for his state or condition. Substantive due process does not allow a mentally ill juvenile who has committed no crime to be deprived of his liberty by indefinitely institutionalizing him in a mental facility. The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate the juvenile, not to punish the juvenile as is the purpose of the adult justice system.

Courts have found numerous bases for justifying a juvenile’s right to treatment. Some courts have found a basis for justifying the juvenile’s right to treatment under the federal constitution, and other courts have found a basis under state constitutional provisions.

If the state voluntarily commits a mentally ill or otherwise incompetent juvenile to its custody without the procedural protections to which adults are entitled in criminal prosecutions, it must provide treatment for the juvenile’s mental illness. Although the juvenile may lose his procedural due process protections, he will gain rehabilitative treatment.

Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Some courts have found a basis for a juvenile’s claim to a right to treatment in the Eight Amendment. These courts have typically found that conditions in particular institutional facilities were so inadequate as to violate the juvenile’s Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Moreover, courts have applied such reasoning to institutional facilities including:

• Jails.


• Juvenile detention centers.


• State training schools.


• State mental hospitals.

Due Process Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Some courts have found that a juvenile has a right to treatment under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Courts that adhere to this line of thought believe that the detention of a juvenile in the justice system absent a provision for the rehabilitative treatment of the juvenile is a violation of due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Copyright 2012 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.