What are the jurisdictional responsibilities of juvenile courts?
Juvenile courts have two primary workloads: 1) juvenile delinquency and 2) child abuse, neglect, and dependency. A third type of case, status offense, is an additional jurisdictional category, but in a small number of states this is included within child-abuse, neglect, and dependency cases. Some juvenile courts handle such other matters as juvenile traffic offenses, guardianships, commitment procedures for juveniles with mental illness or developmental disabilities, cases involving contributing to the delinquency of a minor, consent to an abortion or marriage, and paternity and child-support proceedings.
