"The statement of our findings has gradually assumed the scope of a text or reference book, the first on the subject. We hope for our science the growth that other sciences have experienced; there is great necessity for further research, but extensions and modifications are to be embodied only as their truth is assured. It would take long to specify the parts of our subject with which people of various affairs should be familiar. Judges, other court officers, including lawyers, and institutional authorities, should have a particularly well-rounded knowledge of the whole field. Without the most thoughtful observation a great deal is hidden from view, as may be easily appreciated by consideration of our cases and causal types. Psychologists, physicians, religious leaders, school people, and, not least of all, parents, should be in possession of many of our fundamental facts. All who have to deal with offenders need the utmost possible understandings of human beings"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

Criminology has experienced tremendous growth over the last few decades, evident, in part, by the widespread popularity and increased enrollment in criminology and criminal justice departments at the undergraduate and graduate levels across the U.S. and internationally. Evolutionary paradigmatic shift has accompanied this surge in definitional, disciplinary and pragmatic terms. Though long identified as a leading sociological specialty area, criminology has emerged as a stand-alone discipline in its own right, one that continues to grow and is clearly here to stay. Criminology, today, remains inherently theoretical but is also far more applied in focus and thus more connected to the academic and practitioner concerns of criminal justice and related professional service fields. Contemporary criminology is also increasingly interdisciplinary and thus features a broad variety of ideological orientations to and perspectives on the causes, effects and responses to crime. 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook provides straightforward and definitive overviews of 100 key topics comprising traditional criminology and its modern outgrowths. The individual chapters have been designed to serve as a "first-look" reference source for most criminological inquires. Both connected to the sociological origins of criminology (i.e., theory and research methods) and the justice systems′ response to crime and related social problems, as well as coverage of major crime types, this two-volume set offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of criminology. From student term papers and masters theses to researchers commencing literature reviews, 21st Century Criminology is a ready source from which to quickly access authoritative knowledge on a range of key issues and topics central to contemporary criminology. This two-volume set in the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series is intended to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not so much jargon, detail, or density as a journal article or research handbook chapter. 100 entries or "mini-chapters" highlight the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in this field ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st century. Curricular-driven, chapters provide students with initial footholds on topics of interest in researching term papers, in preparing for GREs, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree, career, etc. Comprehensive in coverage, major sections include The Discipline of Criminology, Correlates of Crime, Theories of Crime & Justice, Measurement & Research, Types of Crime, and Crime & the Justice System. The contributor group is comprised of well-known figures and emerging young scholars who provide authoritative overviews coupled with insightful discussion that will quickly familiarize researchers, students, and general readers alike with fundamental and detailed information for each topic. Uniform chapter structure makes it easy for students to locate key information, with most chapters following a format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparison, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography & Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References. Availability in print and electronic formats provides students with convenient, easy access wherever they may be.

This book presents a study of co-offending relations among youths under 21 suspected of criminal offenses in Stockholm during 1991-1995. In total, the study includes just over 22,000 individuals suspected of around 29,000 offenses. Jerzy Sarnecki employs the method of network analysis that makes it possible to study the ties, social bonds, interactions, differential associations and connections that are central to many of the sociologically oriented theories on the etiology of crime. Up to now, network analysis had been used only rarely in the criminological context.

Despite a century of effort, criminologists do not yet fully understand the relationship between disadvantage and crime. The balance of evidence suggests that economic and social stress increase the risk of involvement in crime by increasing the motivation to offend. But there are a number of empirical anomalies that cannot easily be reconciled with this interpretation of the evidence. Weatherburn and Lind argue that the transmission mechanism linking economic and social stress to crime is not offender motivation but disruption to the parenting process. They put forward an epidemic model of the genesis of delinquent-prone communities and show how this model resolves the empirical anomalies facing conventional interpretations of the disadvantage/crime relationship. This book offers compelling evidence which will stimulate debate in this area of criminology and will also interest academics, policy makers and practitioners in the field.

This volume is the comprehensive synthesis of the empirical findings of seven important ongoing longitudinal studies of delinquency. It aims to examine the extent to which these studies answer the basic question of the origins of delinquent and criminal careers despite their varying guiding theories, methods, and settings. This book is an important resource for criminologists, psychologists, sociologists, and students on juvenile delinquency, criminology, developmental psychology, and deviant behavior.

The first C. Wright Mills Award-winning book, Delinquency and Drift has become a recognized classic in the fields of criminology and social problems. In it, Matza argues persuasively that delinquent thought and delinquent action are distorted reflections of the ideas and practices that pervade contemporary juvenile law and its administration. His ideas are as persuasive today as when they were first published twenty-five years ago. By example and illustration, Matza argues that the delinquent subculture is based on many of the same standards as the conventional social order, and that the delinquent's negation of the law is the result of his relations with an inconsistent and vulnerable legal code. Once the juvenile breaks his or her ties to the legal order, the drift to delinquency becomes relatively easy to justify. The author also maintains that being liberated from legal constraint does not necessarily lead to delinquency; that event depends on the will to commit crime. Because delinquency remains one of our most serious social problems, it is important to consider Matza's thesis that the drift toward delinquency is frequently aided by the unwitting support of society and the guardians of social order.

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.