Chapter 5: The Dazed and Dangerous Delinquents of Sin City: Policing and Detaining Juvenile Delinquents in Twentieth-Century Las Vegas

On 15 May 1967, the US Supreme Court announced the landmark decision In re Gault that dealt with juvenile due process rights. Gerald Gault, a fifteen-year-old boy from Arizona had been sentenced to a detention centre until his 21st birthday for an alleged lewd phone call he had made with a friend. The case argued that Gault had been unfairly denied his due process rights. In an 8-1 decision, the court radically altered the treatment of youth in the criminal justice system and took steps towards guaranteeing children in all 50 states equal protection under the law.¹ When news of the decision reached Las Vegas, Nevada, however, it was not heralded as a step towards protecting the civil rights of youth. Instead, William Compton, Juvenile Court Judge for Clark County, expressed concern for the financial burden this decision brought to his jurisdiction.² Compton described the juvenile court system in Las Vegas as having too many cases and not enough resources to properly run the system. Additionally, according to Compton, the majority of the youth going through the juvenile court were poor and in need of representation.³