In our last blog entry on the Texas Juvenile Justice System, we introduced the basic purposes behind Texas juvenile justice. The San Antonio and greater Bexar County Juvenile Justice System possesses several distinct differences from the Texas Adult Criminal Justice System. The first major difference is the actual language or terminology used with the Texas juvenile system.
The juvenile equivalent of an adult criminal trial is known as ”adjudication”, but it is important to note that the Juvenile Justice Code clearly states that an adjudication is not a conviction. Whereas adult offenders must deal with vocabulary like “arrest, bail, bond, indictment, conviction, and sentence”, Texas juveniles have an entirely different set of terms. San Antonio juveniles can be “detained, referred, released from detention, adjudicated, and either placed on probation or be completely separated from their home”. The actual allegation against the juvenile is a civil petition, not a criminal indictment. Whereas adult records are subject to expunction, juvenile records are “sealed”.
The next major difference between a juvenile offender and an adult offender in Bexar County is the wider array of procedural options available to a juvenile under the Texas Juvenile Justice Code. In a criminal allegation against a juvenile, the alleged crime is classified as either “delinquent conduct” or “conduct in need of supervision”. Delinquent conduct is that conduct which violates a penal law and is punishable by jail. Conduct in need of supervision (CINS) generally includes less serious legal violations and certain types of non-criminal conduct, like violations of school conduct policy.