Status offenses, as a legal category, came about close to the turn of the past century. The founding of the nation’s earliest juvenile courts brought with it the matter of establishing their jurisdiction and differentiating the boundaries from that of the traditional criminal court. Having arisen out of the progressive movement, early juvenile courts sought to implement formal social control in order to “marry the means of educational objectives and juvenile detention.”

Under the tenets of parens patriae, these courts were empowered to place children under the care of the state if their parents were unwilling or unable to do so. This outgrowth of interventionism led to the establishment of laws seeking to expand the court’s jurisdiction over noncriminal behavior in order to better the youth.