Juvenile Court Jurisdiction Over Childrens Conduct

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

This very teachable book is ideal for child-focused courses that deal with the juvenile justice system and the child welfare system or with the legal position of children within their families and society. The Fourth Edition is updated with case law and legislation current through mid-2019, including the Supreme Court’s latest decisions on special education, constitutional limits on punishing minors, new materials on conflicts between parents and state authorities over school curriculum, faith healing, and compulsory vaccination, as well as on the free speech and free exercise rights of students. The chapters on delinquency explore why the new understanding of how and when adolescents mature is revolutionizing the law, and the unit on child abuse and neglect and the child welfare system covers new state and federal legislation, as well as cases from around the country that examine the tension between protecting children’s relationships with their families and protecting them from harm. New to the Fourth Edition: The Supreme Court’s latest special education decisions Cases challenging new, tough legislation eliminating exceptions to vaccination requirements More in-depth examination of the conflict between students’ free speech rights and schools’ anti-bullying initiatives The “Making a Murderer” case as a vehicle for analyzing limits on police interrogation of juveniles Cases exploring how Troxel affects child abuse and neglect cases Professors and students will benefit from: Problem exercises throughout the book—some short and others longer and more complex An interdisciplinary approach that incorporates information from related social sciences such as psychology and sociology Balanced perspective and coverage of issues, with no perceptible liberal or conservative bias in tone or selection of topics Ample coverage of juvenile courts Logical organization and clear structure that make it suitable for a variety of teaching styles Teaching materials include: Teacher’s Manual Sample interim assessment problems

This title focuses exclusively on the criminal and non-criminal misconduct of children that bring them within the jurisdiction of juvenile courts and examines law enforcement, judicial, and administrative responses to that misconduct. It deals with issues of children's rights only insofar as they relate to the processes of investigating and prosecuting juvenile offenders for delinquency and status-offenses. Like all Nutshells, it strives to provide a succinct exposition of the law for students studying juvenile justice, for lawyers who do not regularly practice in juvenile court, and for legislators and policy officials involved in juvenile justice law reform efforts.