Juvenile Justice Administration

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.

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 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.

The Juvenile Justice System examines all aspects of juvenile justice in the United States. It discusses the history behind the US juvenile justice system and how juveniles are affected by the system. Features include a glossary, further readings, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

"An important book at an important time." —Choice "Remarkable and sobering. . . . Educators, policymakers, and advocates all should find this book as motivating as it is disturbing: for every reason it gives to despair about the current system, it also reveals a pathway toward a far less populated system of juvenile justice, one that actually helps children rather than harms them." —Daniel Losen, co-author of The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform Children and youth become involved with the juvenile justice system at a significant rate. While some children move just as quickly out of the system and go on to live productive lives as adults, other children become enmeshed in the system, developing deeper problems and at times introduced into the adult criminal justice system. Justice for Kids is a volume edited by leading academics and activists that focuses on ways to intervene at the earliest possible point to rehabilitate and redirect—to keep kids out of the system—rather than to punish and drive kids deeper. In the Families, Law, and Society series Contributors: Shay Bilchik, Brian R. Barber, Benjamin Cairns, David Domenici, Nancy E. Dowd, Jeffrey Fagan, James Forman, Jr., Joseph C. Gagnon, Theresa Glennon, Thalia N.C. González, Leslie Joan Harris, David R. Katner, KharyLazarre-White, Thomas A. Loughran, Thomas P. Mulvey, Kenneth B. Nunn, Vanessa Patino, Alex R. Piquero, Lawanda Ravoira, Stephen M. Reba, Sarah Valentine, Randee J. Waldman, and Barbara Bennett Woodhouse Nancy Dowd is Director of the Center for Children and Families at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law and holds the David H. Levin Chair in Family Law. She is the author of several books, most recently The Man Question: Male Subordination and Privilege (NYU Press).

This casebook focuses on three themes: legal, administrative, and policy issues associated with regulating children rather than adults; procedural and substantive implications of a justice system that emphasizes treatment rather than punishment; and tensions between discretion and rules that occur when states treat children rather than punish adults. It incorporates empirical evaluations and developmental psychological research on adolescent competence and presents criminological studies of controversial issues such as gender and racial disparities in juvenile justice administration. It also examines pretrial detention and alternative sentencing options available to juvenile courts and discusses how and when states try youths in criminal court. New to this edition are the Supreme Court's most recent decisions on the jurisprudence of youth: Eighth Amendment decisions that recognized that children are different and limit judges' authority to impose life without parole; Fifth Amendment decisions that reappraise the impact of youthfulness during interrogation; and Fourth Amendment decisions that limit school officials authority to search.

An effective administrator must not only have the educational background to understand the foundational basis for the system, but must also be guided by the vision and mission of the organization. Juvenile Justice Administration illustrates through examples and interviews with juvenile justice administrators and other personnel how these organizations and agencies function and provides a comparative analysis of juvenile justice systems across countries and continents. Using a plethora of case studies to demonstrate the issues presented, the book examines: The historical origins and goals of the juvenile justice system The tasks performed by juvenile justice administrators Management theories and administrative models such as the human relations approach, the social systems approach, and organizational models Juvenile justice personnel and administrative agencies serving endangered children Laws pertaining to juvenile offenders and children at risk Police and juvenile justice issues in the United States, Canada, Japan, Austria, and South Africa Probation, parole, community-based sanctions, and correctional facilities for juvenile offenders The book also explores future trends in juvenile justice administration. As the system increasingly shifts from a punishment-oriented model to a restorative justice approach, this book provides administrators with sufficient background on the topic as well as insight into innovative policies and procedures that may prove advantageous to their communities.

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.