California has two courts in which children may find themselves appearing – dependency court and juvenile court. Both are part of the California Superior Court system and both are part of the juvenile justice system. Dependency court is for children who are abused, neglected or being raised by parents who have been declared unfit to raise their children. Basically, children removed from their home, due to no fault of their own, end up in dependency court. The government steps in and assumes responsibility for the health, safety, welfare and education of children who have been removed from their homes unless and until they can be safely returned to their home or adopted by another family. Delinquency court takes jurisdiction over children who do things that would be considered illegal if they were adults. If a child is in this system, he or she may be able to continue living with his or her parents under court supervision or may be removed from his or her home and placed in a juvenile detention center or another type of live-in facility.

Juvenile Justice works in a number of ways. With respect to dependency, when a parent has been convicted of child abuse, neglect, endangerment or of another domestic abuse crime, his or her child may be removed from the home and made a dependent of the court. Before a child is removed, the court will consider a number of factors, including whether that parent has a significant other or is single and the “fitness” of the other parent if available. It should be noted that California regards same sex parents in the same light as it does heterosexual parents. If the child is placed with the court, social services may try to reunify the child and parent if the parent follows all court orders and can prove that he or she has been rehabilitated. If successful, the court offers services to help benefit the family. If reunification services aren’t offered, either because the court determines that it would be against the “best interests” of the child to do so or because the court finds that the parent can’t be rehabilitated, his or her parental rights may be terminated and he or she may lose custody of that child.

Delinquency focuses on treating and rehabilitating children. In order to determine the best approach for doing so, the court considers the child’s offense and any prior delinquent behavior. The court may decide that successful treatment will be best achieved in a formal or informal detention center (which may be a jail-type facility or a ranch in a boot-camp type setting) or may place the child on probation and allow him or her to continue to live with his or her parents. Because the goal of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate and not punish (unlike the adult criminal system), schools, community organizations and social service agencies all play a role.

When a child is abusive to his or her parent (a type of domestic violence), that parent may, under certain extreme situations, voluntarily place his or her child in the juvenile justice system and ask the court to take over. This may include situations where the child is beyond the parent’s control and refuses to obey his or her parent’s lawful requests. If the parent does so, he or she risks possibly losing permanent custody of the child, as the court may determine that it is the parent who is failing to adequately control the child. This is a difficult situation to be in and professional legal guidance should be sought before making this decision.

The GLBT supportive California domestic violence lawyers at the Kavinoky Law Firm understand all of the unique issues that coincide with DV and DV-related child cases and know how to effectively handle them all. For legal advice about an intimate partner abuse charge or for questions about the juvenile justice system, contact them for a free consultation.