Juvenile justice = the specialised system of laws, procedures, institutions and dispositions for children in conflict with the law — separate in aim and method from the adult criminal process. The rationale (the exam's three pillars):
1. Diminished culpability — the developmental science of Unit 1.3: the young offend with immature judgment, and retributive equivalence is unjust.
2. Greater malleability — the same plasticity that risks also heals: the juvenile is corrigible — the reform wager that the adult system's pessimism denies.
3. The label's danger — the stigmatising process itself criminogenic (labeling theory's policy face): the system must save the child from the system.