The History of the Family Courts

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the history of courts that addressed the needs of children and vulnerable families. Beginning with the juvenile courts in the late nineteenth century, to the establishment of the first family courts, intended to hear problems of juvenile delinquency, custody, support, and child maltreatment. Building on the juvenile courts, the family courts intended to consolidate the many legal problems experienced by families in a “one family one judge” approach that favored informal outcomes rather than litigation. This model was to include an experienced judge working as a case manager to provide therapeutic justice with an interdisciplinary team of probation officers, attorneys, and mental health providers in a confidential court setting. The quasi-judicial nature of this court system in which families were to receive services, not legal outcomes, has been criticized because of unconscious biases regarding gender and racial stereotyping.