Adolescents And Constitutional Law

This textbook offers a foundation for understanding adolescents’ rights by articulating the complexity, breadth, and challenging nature of laws regulating adolescents. It showcases the Supreme Court’s key interpretations of the Constitution as it relates to adolescents’ rights. Chapters examine relevant legal systems and the social contexts that legal systems control. In addition, chapters discuss constitutional issues and their nuances through actual cases that often offer alternative interpretations of constitutional rules. The textbook guides readers through both well accepted and often ignored conceptions of adolescents’ rights. It offers readers unfamiliar with the law the tools they need to understand the importance of adolescents’ constitutional rights and how they can contribute to developing them. Topics featured in this text include: The role of parents and family systems in conceptualizing adolescents’ rights. The complexities of providing health care to adolescents. Religious freedom and adolescents’ rights relating to religion. The flaws of child welfare systems. The challenge of developing rights specifically for juveniles and delinquent youth. Juvenile court systems and the differential treatment of adolescents. The difference between the juvenile court system and the criminal court system. Adolescents’ media rights. Adolescents and Constitutional Law is an essential textbook for graduate students as well as a must-have reference for researchers/professors and related professionals in developmental psychology, juvenile justice/youth offending, social work, psychology and law, family studies, constitutional law, and other interrelated disciplines.

There is much controversy about the dangers of a free media when it comes to children and adolescents. Many believe that this constitutional right should be amended, altered, or revoked entirely to prevent the young from being negatively influenced. Graphic violence, sexual content, and the depiction of cigarette smoking have all come under fire as being unacceptable in media that is geared toward adolescents, from television and movies to magazines and advertising. Yet not much has been written about the developmental science behind these ideas, and what effects a free media really has on adolescents. This book presents a synthesis of all current knowledge about the developmental effects of a free media on adolescents. Levesque first presents a full analysis of research studies into the media's effects on adolescents in four key areas: sexuality, violence, smoking, and body image. All findings are assessed within the context of normal adolescent development. Levesque then discusses how this knowledge can be used to inform current standards for the regulation of free speech with regard to adolescents. Both legal restrictions and less formal regulatory bodies (schools, parent groups, etc.) are reviewed to present a full picture of the ways in which a free media is constrained to protect adolescent's development.

Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law provides a foundation for understanding privacy rights and how they relate to adolescents. Roger Levesque argues that because privacy is actually an inherently social phenomenon, the ways in which adolescents' privacy needs and rights are shaped are essential to society's broader privacy interests. A close look at empirical understandings of privacy, how it shapes development, and how privacy itself can be shaped provides important lessons for addressing the critical juncture facing privacy rights and privacy itself. Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law provides an overview of the three major strands of privacy rights: decisional, spatial, and informational, and extends current understandings of these strands and how the legal system addresses adolescents and their legal status. Levesque presents comprehensive and specific analyses of the place of privacy in adolescent development and its outcomes, the influences that shape adolescents' expectations and experiences of privacy, and ways to effectively shape adolescents' use of privacy. He explains why privacy law must move in new directions to address privacy needs and pinpoints the legal foundation for moving in new directions. The book charts broad proposals to guide the development of sociolegal responses to changing social environments related to the privacy of adolescents and challenges jurisprudential analyses claiming that developmental sciences do not offer important and useful tools to guide responses to adolescents' privacy. Lastly, Levesque responds to likely criticisms that may hamper the development of sociolegal stances more consistent with adolescents' needs for privacy as well as with societal concerns about privacy.

This work attempts to explain changes in the legal conception of adolescence as a stage of life and as a transition to adulthood. The intended audience includes lawyers and others—such as parents, professionals, and kids—puzzled by trends labeled "children's liberation" and "the revolution in juvenile justice." Much cited and long recognized as an authority, it is considered a classic of law & society. Changes in legal conceptions of youth are interesting in their own right. They are also a useful way of examining important social, political, and economic changes. It is said that legal studies, "properly pursued, lead to a fuller understanding of the larger world of which the law and its institutions are a part." That is no less true when looking at "children" and "juveniles" through a legal lens. The law often compartmentalizes underage persons with bright lines and legal fictions such as "parens patriae" to allow leeway for them that would not be tolerable for adults. The law creates huge divides based on status and age. The standards against which to judge the exit from adolescence are concrete and measurable: a single chronological age. And an adult is anyone the state legislature says is adult. But life is not that simple, and the price we pay for sustaining such illusions is considerable. Adolescence is both a period in itself and a transition. This book takes seriously that status and the idea of transition, and attempts to explain the legal responses and concepts relevant to this important stage of life. The 2014 digital edition includes a new preface by the author and such quality formatting features as active Contents, linked chapter notes, original tables from the print edition, and a fully-linked and paginated Index, to allow continuity with the print edition, citation and referencing, and the convenience of readers.

Teen legal rights are perpetually changing in American society, whether in the classroom, at work, or within family and community settings. Fully revised and updated to reflect important changes in the legal status and rights of young people from all walks of life, the fourth edition of Teen Legal Rights is an accessible and indispensable resource to help teenagers navigate and understand the extent and limitations of their rights and liberties. Employing a simple FAQ format organized into nearly two dozen topical chapters (including new chapters devoted to such subjects as immigration and trans youth), First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. provides an authoritative analysis of the judicial system as it pertains to teens and their interests, explaining important court decisions, legal arguments, and legislative changes to help teens better understand how their rights are evolving as they move deeper into the 2020s.

The only book of its kind to examine all aspects of a young adult's legal rights at school, at work, and at home, including recent developments in teen-oriented legislation. Widespread Internet use and evolving privacy concerns compromise the legal rights of teenagers. While smart phones, social networking, and online music downloading pose new legal complications for teens and their parents to navigate, the Supreme Court has grappled with rights concerning every aspect of a young adult's life long before now. This newly updated text, written in accessible language and presented through an informal FAQ format, simplifies the laws, rights, and constitutional implications affecting young people today. In an easy-to-understand, non-intimidating style, First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. provides an authoritative analysis of the judicial system, utilizing actual court cases and legal arguments to help teens better understand their rights under the law. Additionally, the text presents recent changes and interpretations of legal areas still in debate. This third edition features an updated examination of recent topics that includes cyberbullying, "sexting," social media privacy, and illegal downloads of online content.

Teen legal rights are perpetually changing in American society, whether in the classroom, at work, or within family and community settings. Fully revised and updated to reflect important changes in the legal status and rights of young people from all walks of life, the fourth edition of Teen Legal Rights is an accessible and indispensable resource to help teenagers navigate and understand the extent and limitations of their rights and liberties. Employing a simple FAQ format organized into nearly two dozen topical chapters (including new chapters devoted to such subjects as immigration and trans youth), First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. provides an authoritative analysis of the judicial system as it pertains to teens and their interests, explaining important court decisions, legal arguments, and legislative changes to help teens better understand how their rights are evolving as they move deeper into the 2020s.