Youth And The Justice System

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.

A startling examination of the deliberate criminalization of black youths from the 1930s to today A stark disparity exists between black and white youth experiences in the justice system today. Black youths are perceived to be older and less innocent than their white peers. When it comes to incarceration, race trumps class, and even as black youths articulate their own experiences with carceral authorities, many Americans remain surprised by the inequalities they continue to endure. In this revealing book, Carl Suddler brings to light a much longer history of the policies and strategies that tethered the lives of black youths to the justice system indefinitely. The criminalization of black youth is inseparable from its racialized origins. In the mid-twentieth century, the United States justice system began to focus on punishment, rather than rehabilitation. By the time the federal government began to address the issue of juvenile delinquency, the juvenile justice system shifted its priorities from saving delinquent youth to purely controlling crime, and black teens bore the brunt of the transition. In New York City, increased state surveillance of predominantly black communities compounded arrest rates during the post–World War II period, providing justification for tough-on-crime policies. Questionable police practices, like stop-and-frisk, combined with media sensationalism, cemented the belief that black youth were the primary cause for concern. Even before the War on Crime, the stakes were clear: race would continue to be the crucial determinant in American notions of crime and delinquency, and black youths condemned with a stigma of criminality would continue to confront the overwhelming power of the state.

A New Juvenile Justice System aims at nothing less than a complete reform of the existing system: not minor change or even significant overhaul, but the replacement of the existing system with a different vision. The authors in this volume—academics, activists, researchers, and those who serve in the existing system—all respond in this collection to the question of what the system should be. Uniformly, they agree that an ideal system should be centered around the principle of child well-being and the goal of helping kids to achieve productive lives as citizens and members of their communities. Rather than the existing system, with its punitive, destructive, undermining effect and uneven application by race and gender, these authors envision a system responsive to the needs of youth as well as to the community’s legitimate need for public safety. How, they ask, can the ideals of equality, freedom, liberty, and self-determination transform the system? How can we improve the odds that children who have been labeled as “delinquent” can make successful transitions to adulthood? And how can we create a system that relies on proven, family-focused interventions and creates opportunities for positive youth development? Drawing upon interdisciplinary work as well as on-the-ground programs and experience, the authors sketch out the broad parameters of such a system. Providing the principles, goals, and concrete means to achieve them, this volume imagines using our resources wisely and well to invest in all children and their potential to contribute and thrive in our society.

Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks. Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century. It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.

Winner, 2020 ACJS Outstanding Book Award, given by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences A major statement on the juvenile justice system by one of America’s leading experts The juvenile court lies at the intersection of youth policy and crime policy. Its institutional practices reflect our changing ideas about children and crime control. The Evolution of the Juvenile Court provides a sweeping overview of the American juvenile justice system’s development and change over the past century. Noted law professor and criminologist Barry C. Feld places special emphasis on changes over the last 25 years—the ascendance of get tough crime policies and the more recent Supreme Court recognition that “children are different.” Feld’s comprehensive historical analyses trace juvenile courts’ evolution though four periods—the original Progressive Era, the Due Process Revolution in the 1960s, the Get Tough Era of the 1980s and 1990s, and today’s Kids Are Different era. In each period, changes in the economy, cities, families, race and ethnicity, and politics have shaped juvenile courts’ policies and practices. Changes in juvenile courts’ ends and means—substance and procedure—reflect shifting notions of children’s culpability and competence. The Evolution of the Juvenile Court examines how conservative politicians used coded racial appeals to advocate get tough policies that equated children with adults and more recent Supreme Court decisions that draw on developmental psychology and neuroscience research to bolster its conclusions about youths’ reduced criminal responsibility and diminished competence. Feld draws on lessons from the past to envision a new, developmentally appropriate justice system for children. Ultimately, providing justice for children requires structural changes to reduce social and economic inequality—concentrated poverty in segregated urban areas—that disproportionately expose children of color to juvenile courts’ punitive policies. Historical, prescriptive, and analytical, The Evolution of the Juvenile Court evaluates the author’s past recommendations to abolish juvenile courts in light of this new evidence, and concludes that separate, but reformed, juvenile courts are necessary to protect children who commit crimes and facilitate their successful transition to adulthood.

Annotation By the year 2000 more than 50% of the world population will be under the age of 15 (9th UN Congress, 1995) Youth crime is increasing around the worl d(9th UN Congress, 1995) In September 1997, Canadian Justice Minister, Anne McLellan, declared youth justice as a top priority. These and similar facts speak to the urgency for society to study youth crime and examine youth justice systems from a comparative perspective. As our world gets smaller, we discover the urgency and importance of sharing and learning at a global level. This collection offers a unique opportunity to examine six different juvenile justice systems and youth crime around the world. All eleven articles are original contributions from a distinguished set of experts on juvenile justice in their respective countries. Each contribution examines a set of common elements: defining delinquency, describing the nature and extent of youth crime, examining the administration of youth justice, and discussing issues confronting youth crime. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to students, criminologists, and criminal justice policy-makers who are interested in improving the intervention, treatment, and prevention of youth crime, and the administration of youth justice.

Juveniles who commit crimes often find themselves in court systems that do not account for their young age, but it wasn’t always this way. The original aim of a separate juvenile justice system was to treat young offenders as the children they were, considering their unique child status and amenability for reform. Now, after years punishing young offenders as if they were adults, slowly the justice system is making changes that would allow the original vision for juvenile justice to finally materialize. In its original design, the founders focused on treating youth offenders separately from adults and with a different approach. The hallmarks of this approach appreciated the fact that youth cannot fully understand the consequences of their actions and are therefore worthy of reduced culpability. The original design for youth justice prioritized brief and confidential contact with the juvenile justice system, so as to avoid the stigma that would otherwise mar a youth’s chances for success upon release. Rehabilitation was seen as the priority, and efforts to redirect wayward youth were to be implemented when possible and appropriate. The original tenets of the juvenile justice system were slowly dismantled and replaced with a system more like the adult criminal justice system, one which takes no account of age. In recent years, the tide has turned again. The number of incarcerated youth has been cut in half nationally. In addition, juvenile justice practices are increasingly guided by scholarship in adolescent development that confirms important differences between youth and adults. And, states and localities are choosing to invest in evidence based approaches to juvenile crime prevention and intervention rather than in facilities to lock up errant youth. This book assesses the strategies and policies that have produced these important shifts in direction. Important contributing factors include the declining incidence of youth-committed crime, advances in adolescent brain science, nationwide budgetary concerns, focused advocacy with policymakers and practitioners, and successful public education campaigns that address extreme sanctions for youth such as solitary confinement and life sentences without the possibility of parole. Yet more needs to be done. The U.S. Supreme Court has recently voiced its unfaltering conclusion that children are different from adults in a series of landmark cases. The question now is how to take advantage of the opportunity for juvenile justice reform of the kind that would reorient the juvenile justice system to its original intent both in policy and practice, and would return to a system that treats children as children. Using case examples throughout, Nellis offers a compelling history and shows how we might continue on the road to reform.

Provides a comparison of criminal justice and juvenile justice systems across the world, looking for points of comparison and policy variance that can lead to positive change in the United States. Contributors discuss important issues such as the relationship between political change and juvenile justice, the common labels used to unify juvenile systems in different regions and in different forms of government, the types of juvenile systems that exist and how they differ, and more. Furthermore, they use data on criminal versus juvenile justice in a wide variety of nations to create a new explanation of why separate juvenile and criminal courts are felt to be necessary. --From publisher description.

′In this pathbreaking volume Muncie and Goldson bring together leading authors to examine and compare youth justice systems around the world. Comparative Youth Justice will be of interest to all criminologists concerned with comparative penal policy and will be essential to all scholars of youth justice′ - Professor Tim Newburn, London School of Economics and Political Science and President of the British Society of Criminology ′Comparative Youth Justice is what we need in an era of hardening social policies and irresponsible political demagoguery: thoughtful critiques, comparative analysis, and a commitment to the rights of youth. John Muncie and Barry Goldson have done a fine job of bringing together a group of commentators who know the inner workings of juvenile justice and what it will take to change the current law and order model. A book that is required reading for practitioners, professors, policy makers, researchers, and students concerned about the bankrupt state of juvenile justice and willing to consider new ideas and directions′ - Tony Platt, California State University, Sacramento With contributions from leading commentators from 13 different countries, this carefully integrated edited collection comprises the most authoritive comparative analysis of international youth justice currently available. However, Comparative Youth Justice is not simply an attempt to document national similarities and differences, but looks critically at how global trends are translated at the local level. This book also examines how youth justice is implemented in practice with a view to promoting change as well as reflection. Each chapter addresses key critical issues: - the degree of compliance with international law; - the extent of repenalistion; - adulteration; - tolerance; - the impact of experiments in restoration and risk management. This book is designed as a companion volume to Youth Crime and Justice, edited by Barry Goldson and John Muncie, published simultaneously by SAGE Publications. ′This is a brilliant set of edited volumes that will be an indispensable and timely source of information and analysis for anyone with an interest in issues of youth justice and comparative criminology.′ David A. Green, Oxford University

This book analyzes the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings deeming juvenile life without parole (LWOP) sentences to be cruel and unusual punishment. These Court decisions brought about controversy and resistance in the criminal justice field, while at the same time providing hope for those 2,300 people who never thought they had a chance to experience life as an adult outside prison. By looking in depth at the lives of some of the individuals serving life terms, and understanding both the prosecutors who oppose review and resentencing of juvenile lifers and those who are sincerely following the Supreme Court’s guidelines, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of the issues – as well as the people – involved in the sentencing (and potential resentencing) of juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. The authors provide unique, perceptive and straightforward profiles on some of the prisoners who were ultimately sentenced to LWOP after being involved in criminal offenses committed before their 18th birthdays. The book poignantly features the experiences of young people who did not commit a murder yet were still sentenced to life terms, but also delves into the perspectives of the families of victims of juvenile offenders, prosecutors on both sides of the issue, psychologists who have interviewed many of the juvenile lifers and advocates for change in the way juveniles are treated by the criminal justice system. The decisions in Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana clearly demonstrated that the Court’s view of juveniles evolved over decades to reflect advances in our understanding of the unique characteristics of youth and their involvement in juvenile crimes. This book takes the position that the sentence of life without the possibility of parole for youth is wasteful of both human lives and scarce public resources. The authors write about the human concerns on both sides of the question, and, ultimately, allow readers to make their own decisions about how society should best handle juvenile offenders. This engaging ethnographic treatment will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, corrections, juvenile justice, and delinquency; practitioners working in social policy; and all those interested in a criminal justice system capable of positive outcomes for involved youth.