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.

This book informs readers about the latest research and the most promising and effective programmes for understanding, preventing and controlling juvenile delinquency.

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.

Between 1980 and 1996 the number of arrests has increased considerably for offenders ages 12 and under. This increase is a cost to society in two ways: the cost of the crime and the cost of multiple agencies involved with these children. Several questions have developed due to this increase: How does the juvenile justice system deal with child delinquents? Is child delinquency a predictor of serious, violent, and chronic offending? How early can we predict delinquency, and what are early warning signs? In an effort to develop answers for these questions and many more, editors Rolf Loeber and David Farrington organized a study group on Very Young offenders comprising 39 experts on juvenile delinquency and child problem behavior. Over a two-year period of intense and collaborative work these individuals have produced the book Child Delinquents: Development, Intervention, and Service Needs. Presenting empirically derived insights, Child Delinquents is the definitive statement to date on the working knowledge of prevalence, development, risk and protective factors, and optimal intervention with preteen offenders. This book is an excellent source for a broad audience of researchers, scholars, psychiatry, and practitioners at the administrative level.

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report is the fourth edition of a comprehensive report on juvenile crime, victimization, and the juvenile justice system. The report consists of the most requested information on juveniles and the juvenile justice system in the U.S. Developed by the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of young offenders and victims, and what hap-pens to those who enter the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report offers-to Congress, state legislators, other state and local policy-makers, educators, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens-empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of juvenile crime and victimization and about the justice system's response. The juvenile justice system must react to the law-violating behaviors of youth in a manner that not only protects the community and holds youth account-able but also enhances youth's ability to live productively and responsibly in the community. The system must also intervene in the lives of abused and neglected children who lack safe and nurturing environments. To respond to these complex issues, juvenile justice practitioners, policy-makers, and the public must have access to useful and accurate information about the system and the youth the system serves. At times, the information needed is not available or, when it does exist, it is often too scattered or inaccessible to be useful. This report bridges that gap by pulling together the most requested information on juveniles and the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report draws on numerous national data collections to address the specific information needs of those involved with the juvenile justice system. The report presents important and, at times, complex information using clear, nontechnical writing and easy-to-understand graphics and tables. It is designed as a series of briefing papers on specific topics, short sections designed to be read separately from other parts of the report. The material presented here represents the most reliable information available for the 2010 data year on juvenile offending and victimization and the juvenile justice system. Given the breadth of material covered in this report, a data-year cutoff had to be established. We elected 2010 as a common anchoring point because all the major data sets required for the report were current through 2010 at the time we began writing. Although some newer data are now available, the pat-terns displayed in this report remain accurate.

This new four-color text provides students with a solid overview of the juvenile justice system in the United States. It presents the historical background of the US Juvenile Justice system, the current status, as well as contemporary societal and legal debate issues. An examination of the various policies, programs, and practices is provided throughout the text. The text includes coverage of juvenile law and procedure, juvenile corrections, juvenile delinquency, delinquency prevention, and the future of juvenile justice in the United States.