Confronting Youth Crime

5.8 The Crown Court

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs received testimony from representatives of federal agencies as to how the U.S. government might better address the needs of American Indian youth through the development of federal laws, programs, and policies. The hearing was a followup to an oversight hearing 1 month earlier in which American Indian young people identified critical challenges they face. In oral testimony and written statements, senators and representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); the Indian Health Service (IHS); and the Departments of Labor, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) discussed the following topics: (1) the high rates of substance abuse, suicide, and teen pregnancy among American Indian youth; (2) problems of alcoholism and child abuse and neglect on Indian reservations; (3) summer youth employment programs sponsored through the Job Training Partnership Act, and proposed budget rescissions that would eliminate the programs; (4) the extent of crime in Indian country, and federal assistance to tribal law enforcement, tribal courts, and social services for delinquency prevention and intervention; (5) child health and family well-being; (6) HUD programs for Indian youth, focusing on drug elimination, sports, cultural activities, and Boys and Girls Clubs; (7) BIA efforts in the areas of child abuse prevention, parent education, youth entrepreneurship, health promotion, school improvement, drug abuse prevention in schools and communities, and gang resistance training; (8) IHS services related to physical and mental health; and (9) implications for tribes of the new block grants to states, including lists of programs to be terminated or amended. (SV)

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.

Probes the social, political, and economic factors behind America's crime problem, challenges conservative views of permissiveness and judicial weakness, and calls for a new approach to solving the crime crisis.

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.