This article surveys the current landscape of the juvenile court. The original concept of this court, when implemented by state legislatures, took different organizational forms. The length of judges' assignments to this court varies as does the extent of their specialization. These courts differ from one another in numerous ways such as the minimum and maximum ages of their delinquency jurisdictions, the types of cases they are authorized to hear in addition to delinquency and child abuse and neglect, the extent to which referees or quasi-judicial hearing officers hear cases, whether or not the juvenile probation department is administered by the court, and the individual practices that constitute particular court cultures. Today change in one form or another is common to all juvenile courts as this institution adapts to contend with the delinquent behavior of young people and with the failures of adults responsible for the well-being of their children.

The 1967 In re Gault decision by the United States Supreme Court expressly noted that its procedural requirements for the adjudicatory stage had no necessary applicability to the preadjudication treatment of juveniles. However, the Gault mandate of the right to defense counsel in time led to greater prosecution representation of the community interest at ad judicatory hearings. This set in motion another development which is now eroding probation officers' informal, discretionary practices at the intake stage. State legislatures, responding to public concerns regarding juvenile crime, are rapidly placing prosecutors in decisional roles at juvenile intake, using various models in accommodating and accomplishing this. This development portrays yet another example of the replacement of historic juvenile court informality and parens patriae practice by a legal process model.

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Like most American institutions, the juvenile court has been pressed into re-assessing its purpose and role. Its longstanding preference to be largely unencumbered by legal constraints and its historic practice of seeking to be all things to all children have impeded the clarity of the redefinition of what it should be doing and how it should be doing it.

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