Section 169-B:1 Applicability of Chapter, Purpose. - New Hampshire Statutes

This chapter shall apply to delinquent children as defined in RSA 169-B:2. This chapter shall be liberally interpreted, construed and administered to effectuate the following purposes and policies:
   I. To encourage the wholesome moral, mental, emotional, and physical development of each minor coming within the provisions of this chapter, by providing the protection, care, treatment, counselling, supervision, and rehabilitative resources which such minor needs.
   II. Consistent with the protection of the public interest, to promote the minor's acceptance of personal responsibility for delinquent acts committed by the minor, encourage the minor to understand and appreciate the personal consequences of such acts, and provide a minor who has committed delinquent acts with counseling, supervision, treatment, and rehabilitation and make parents aware of the extent if any to which they may have contributed to the delinquency and make them accountable for their role in its resolution.
   III. To achieve the foregoing purposes and policies, whenever possible, by keeping a minor in contact with the home community and in a family environment by preserving the unity of the family and separating the minor and parents only when it is clearly necessary for the minor's welfare or the interests of public safety and when it can be clearly shown that a change in custody and control will plainly better the minor.
   IV. To provide effective judicial procedures through which the provisions of this chapter are executed and enforced and which recognize and enforce the constitutional and other rights of the parties and assures them a fair hearing.

Source. 1979, 361:2. 1995, 302:1, 2; 308:99. 1999, 305:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2000.