Blount County Juvenile Court
What is Juvenile Court’s Purpose?
The Juvenile Court’s purpose is to effectuate the following public purposes:
- Provide for the care, protection, and wholesome moral, mental and physical development of children coming within its provisions;
- Consistent with protection of the public interest, remove from children committing delinquent acts the taint of criminality and the consequences of criminal behavior and substitute therefore a program of treatment, training and rehabilitation;
- Achieve the foregoing purposes in a family environment whenever possible, separating the child from such child’s parents only when necessary for such child’s welfare or in the interest of public safety;
- Provide simple judicial procedure through which this part is executed and enforced and in which the parties are assured a fair hearing and their constitutional and other legal rights recognized and enforced;
- Provide simple interstate procedures that permit resort to cooperative measures among the juvenile courts of the several states when required to effectuate the purposes of this part; and
- Generally, deinstitutionalize children who have not been found to be delinquent.