In Our Children, Their Children, a prominent team of researchers argues that a second-rate and increasingly punitive juvenile justice system is allowed to persist because most people believe it is designed for children in other ethnic and socioeconomic groups. While public opinion, laws, and social policies that convey distinctions between "our children" and "their children" may seem to conflict with the American ideal of blind justice, they are hardly at odds with patterns of group differentiation and inequality that have characterized much of American history. Our Children, Their Children provides a state-of-the-science examination of racial and ethnic disparities in the American juvenile justice system. Here, contributors document the precise magnitude of these disparities, seek to determine their causes, and propose potential solutions. In addition to race and ethnicity, contributors also look at the effects on juvenile justice of suburban sprawl, the impact of family and neighborhood, bias in postarrest decisions, and mental health issues. Assessing the implications of these differences for public policy initiatives and legal reforms, this volume is the first critical summary of what is known and unknown in this important area of social research.
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.
Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 8th edition, presents a comprehensive picture of juvenile offending, delinquency theories, and how juvenile justice actors and agencies react to delinquency. It covers the history and development of the juvenile justice system and the unique issues related to juveniles, offering evidence-based suggestions for successful interventions and treatment and examining the new balance model of juvenile court. This new edition not only includes the latest available statistics on juvenile crime and victimization, drug use, court processing, and corrections, but provides insightful analysis of recent developments, such as those related to the use of probation supervision fees; responses to gangs and cyber bullying; implementing the deterrence model (Project Hope); the possible impact of drug legalization; the school-to-prison pipeline; the extent of victimization and mental illness in institutions; and implications of major court decisions regarding juveniles, such as Life Without Parole (LWOP) for juveniles. Each chapter enhances student understanding with Key Terms, a "What You Need to Know" section highlighting important points, and Discussion Questions. Links at key points in the text show students where they can go to get the latest information, and a comprehensive glossary aids comprehension.
In Disproportionate Minority Contact, Parsons-Pollard provides a broad look at DMC and the complexities of attempting to reduce its impact. This edited volume features the writings of prominent scholars and practitioners in the field who provide a well-organized and wide-ranging review of the literature, case studies, and current policies and practices impacting disparate treatment in the criminal justice system. "Parsons-Pollard has assembled a team of contributors who are experts in the subject matter--disproportionate minority contact. She and her colleagues plow into the issues, providing a rich, provocative, well-written, issues-driven text that presents ample material for many courses, including special topics and senior seminars. The importance of the topic, the caliber of the contributors, and the quality of the writing makes this text a must-read for those currently in the field and anyone else who has an interest in criminal justice." -- Laura Moriarty, Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University "Parsons-Pollard and the authors of Disproportionate Minority Contact have made a major contribution to academicians, policy makers, practitioners and community members involved in eforts to reduce the disproportionate representation of youth in the juvenile justice system. They do this in part through the exploration of the research in this area, including the complexities of the Relative Rate Index and analysis of the impact of decision points on disparate treatment and the overall rate of disproportionality. Their investigation, however, does not end there. They lift up the need for the collection of data that will inform this work at the local level and the need for transparency in sharing and analyzing it. Further, they examine the relationship of school policies and the disproportionate representation of children of color in the child welfare system and the need for a cross systems approach to successfully reduce rates of disproportionate minority contact. The picture painted in this thoughtful treatment is one of hope, but also one filled with great challenges; that there are no easy answers or "low hanging fruit" as we work in this area. The authors make clear, however, that our efforts are absolutely essential in ensuring fairness, equity and full opportunity for youth of color in our society. They are to be commended for shining this bright, illuminating light on such an important social issue." -- Shay Bilchik, Founder and Director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University Public Policy Institute "I know of no other source of information on disproportionality in criminal and juvenile justice that is as comprehensive or thorough as this book. It will immediately become the definitive authority on the subject." -- Judge Jerrauld C. Jones, Norfolk Circuit Court, 4th Judicial Circuit of Virginia "[Disproportionate Minority Contact] should be an adopted book for 21st century juvenile and criminal justice courses and integrated into course curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate level ... By reading the book, juvenile and criminal justice students will learn how their role as citizens and professionals can impact DMC [disproportionate minority contact]." -- ACJS Today A teacher's manual is available electronically on a CD or via email. Please contact Beth Hall at [email protected] to request a copy.
Smart Decarceration is a forward-thinking, practical volume that provides concrete strategies for an era of decarceration. This timely work consists of chapters written from multiple perspectives and disciplines including scholars, practitioners, and persons with incarceration histories. The text grapples with tough questions and builds a foundation for the decarceration field.
In the late nineteenth century, progressive reformers recoiled at the prospect of the justice system punishing children as adults. Advocating that children's inherent innocence warranted fundamentally different treatment, reformers founded the nation's first juvenile court in Chicago in 1899. Yet amid an influx of new African American arrivals to the city during the Great Migration, notions of inherent childhood innocence and juvenile justice were circumscribed by race. In documenting how blackness became a marker of criminality that overrode the potential protections the status of "child" could have bestowed, Tera Eva Agyepong shows the entanglements between race and the state's transition to a more punitive form of juvenile justice. In this important study, Agyepong expands the narrative of racialized criminalization in America, revealing that these patterns became embedded in a justice system originally intended to protect children. In doing so, she also complicates our understanding of the nature of migration and what it meant to be black and living in Chicago in the early twentieth century.
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.
Presents an innovative, synergistic practice model that will help social workers use restorative justice skills to facilitate healing and recovery in the families and communities that they serve.
Our society's preoccupation with crime and fear of crime appears to have shifted its focus to the juvenile offender. Both electronic and print media continuously warn us that juvenile offenders are increasingly younger and more virulent. The demographics of our population suggest that there will only be more juvenile offenders to fear in the near future. All of these concerns arise in a social climate that is characterized by an ever increasing demand for stronger retributive measures against the offender. The belief that only harsh justice will protect us from the ravages of juveniles has become dominant. Increasingly, perceptions and politics, rather than scientific data, dominate policy making with regard to youthful offenders. In Assessing the Youthful Offender: Issues and Techniques, Robert D. Hoge and D. A. Andrews make a restrained, rational, and ultimately persuasive argu ment for the use of standardized psychological assessments in the effective management of youth within juvenile justice systems. They clarify how what we already know about the cause and management of youthful criminal activity can be incorporated into standardized testing and that the information obtained from testing can improve the administration of criminal justice. Moreover, this informa tion is useful whatever the theoretical biases of those who administer the justice system. The efficiency of policies of either retribution, deterrence, or rehabilitation is only enhanced by reliance on data.
