The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act: Federal Leadership in State Reform

The policies advanced by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, while generally viewed as a success, are seen by some as a failure that may even abet juveniles in the commission of crime. After tracing the evolution of federal juvenile justice legislation and examining arrest and treatment data, the authors confront the criticisms aimed at the Act, and find reason for considerable optimism. Nationwide, the number, proportion, and rate of juvenile arrests have fallen more than the juvenile population, and many states appear to have made substantial progress in improving the processing and treatment of juveniles. The authors conclude that the Act is a continuing source of federal leadership for state innovation.     

Female Juvenile Delinquency: Misunderstood by the Juvenile Justice System,Neglected by Social Science

The study of juvenile delinquency has focused primarily on conduct disorder and aggression in males, while relatively little attention has been paid to females who commit delinquent acts. This article offers a critical review of the existing theories of and research on female delinquency and the juvenile justice system's response to female delinquency. The inadequacies and persistence of historical theories and the conceptual and methodological strengths and weaknesses of contemporary perspectives in female delinquency are reviewed. Understanding and treatment of female and male delinquency could be enhanced through the adoption of a gender-integrated theory of delinquency that is informed by the comprehensive study of developmental, psychological, and social-ecological determinants.     

对我国青少年犯罪研究范式的反思

对范式的关注和重视是青少年犯罪研究自身趋向成熟的体现。研究层次不应选择过于宏观或微观的研究层次,而应选择更具涵摄力的中观研究层次;研究前提应定位于犯罪现象的整体、全部,而不仅是对犯罪原因的研究;对青少年犯罪现象的质量互变认识是研究的基础;明确研究目的,围绕研究目的进行讨论对青少年犯罪研究具有重要的方法论意义。     

未成年人犯罪的预防研究

未成年人犯罪对社会的危害性非常大 ,依据《预防未成年人犯罪法》的规定 ,预防未成年人犯罪遵循独特的原则 ,如教育与保护原则、综合治理原则等。预防未成年人犯罪还具有其特点 ,要采取不同于预防成年人犯罪的教育方法。鉴于未成年人犯罪的心理原因 ,对未成年人进行心理健康的教育、心理的疏导与救治就显得尤为重要     

中学校园犯罪原因及预防机制研究——以广东地区部分中学为视角

青少年是祖国的未来，教育是关乎国家发展的百年大计，预防和减少未成年人犯罪是当今世界各国十分重视的重大社会问题。广东地处东南沿海，经济发达，比邻香港、澳门特区，与全国其他地方的中学校园犯罪相比而言表现出诸多不同特征，本文通过大量的社会调查与分析，提出了符合广东特色的中学校园犯罪预防机制，从而为我们预防、减少校园犯罪、构建和谐校园提供了可资借鉴的依据。     

Socializing Distrust of the Justice System through the Family in Juvenile Delinquency Court

Juvenile delinquency courts in the United States generally require parents to attend all court hearings, but little is known about how parents' experiences in the court process affect their discussions of the justice system with their court‐involved children. Using multiperspectival and longitudinal data combining observations with interviews of parents and youth in two courts, this research finds that many parents discuss the legal process in negative terms with their children when parents are outside the presence of legal authorities. This research adds to the literature on legal socialization by examining how parents' perceptions of law and their experiences with the court become part of the socializing content provided by parents to their court‐involved children. Creating a more meaningful role for parents in the juvenile justice process may potentially lead to more positive discussions of the court process between parents and juvenile defendants.     

Juvenile Delinquency in the USSR: A Criminological Survey

This article examines some statistical data concerning juvenile delinquency in the USSR, analyzes social and demographic characteristics of juvenile delinquents, and describes special methods of preventing and combating juvenile delinquency in the USSR.

In those cases when the article does not contain direct references to the source of the data, the author cites the results of various research studies which are in his possession.     

Self-Reported Delinquency and Alienation: A Study of Juvenile Crime

Based on a probability sample of 7542 from the seventh, ninth, 11th grade students of the Toledo metropolitan area, this study, using self-reported delinquency, investigated the relationship between alienation and deviant behavior. A positive association between alienation (normlessness and societal estrangement) and self-reported delinquency were observed. The degree of association and the direction still maintained when controlled for the age and sex of the students.     

A Clinical-Corrections Approach: The Failure of a Residential Juvenile Delinquency Treatment Center

Abstract With the incidence of violent juvenile crime and the increasingly limited funds for residential treatment of the adolescent offender, one court jurisdiction (16th Judicial Circuit, Kane County, Illinois) attempted to develop and administer its own residential treatment facility within the walls of its detention facility. This article documents the problems encountered in this endeavor and provides recommendations for other jurisdictions which might be tempted to try to balance the fiscal and rehabilitative demands of this growing population by administering their own residential treatment facilities. The problems addressed in this article pertain to the following areas of difficulty: developing a therapeutic milieu; attracting, training, and evaluating a competent child care staff; and implementing a consistent philosophy of change designed to drive all decision-making within the center.     

Juvenile Delinquency in the Cross-Cultural Context: The Egyptian Experience

This essay is a theoretical analysis of the cultural and structural factors that define and explain the extent of juvenile delinquency in the Arab Republic of Egypt. While delinquency in the United States and other Western countries continues to increase in rates as well as in the degree of violence, juvenile delinquency in Egypt remains relatively stable and remarkably benign. This can be attributed to three main factors: (a) an orthodox religion-based value system in which Islamic institutions exert dominant influences on the day-to-day moral behavior of juveniles; (b) a closely-knit family structure that functions within a communitarian environment in which children are constantly disciplined whereas they are taught socially acceptable behavior and shamed when they succumb to criminal behavior; and (c) an extraordinarily progressive juvenile justice system, which treats delinquency as a social phenomenon rather than a criminal endeavor. The study presents statistical data, based on official statistics, which show the levels of predelinquent and delinquent activity in the different provinces based on their degree of urbanization. Furthermore, the study attempts to explain the reasons behind the present deviance in society by discussing the possible impact of Social Control Theory, Strain Theory, and the idea of Relative Deprivation. The more serious aspects of deviance, it appears, emerged during the infitah era (economic opening) championed by president Sadat in the mid-seventies as an attempt to modernize—and westernize—the traditionally conservative nation.     

The Etiology of Juvenile Delinquency: The United States and Switzerland Compared

Both Switzerland and the United States are highly affluent societies and rank consistently among the top five countries in the world in per capita income, both are Western democracies, both are highly urbanized, and both are highly industrialized. Thus, it is quite surprising to discover that Switzerland has much lower rates of crime and delinquency than is the case for the United States, a fact which is especially true for violent crimes. This paper attempts to explain the sources of the differences in crime rates between the two countries and gives special attention to a comparison of juvenile misconduct in the two countries.

In the first section, difficulties are discussed concerning the measurement of crime and delinquency in Switzerland, a country which collects few data on social problems in general. Some general trends are shown to be clear, however, including marked increases in drug abuse and suicide cases among the young in Switzerland. In the subsequent section, previous explanations of crime in Switzerland as compared to the United States are reviewed with special emphasis on Clinard's famous Cities with Little Crime: The Case of Switzerland (1978). The limitations of earlier interpretations are considered in detail. Finally, this paper ends by generating a set of theoretically and practically informed hypothesis for explaining the differences in crime rates between the two countries. It is hoped that these hypotheses will form the basis for more detailed research in the future.     

Risk Assessment for Juvenile Justice: A Meta-Analysis

Risk assessment instruments are increasingly employed by juvenile justice settings to estimate the likelihood of recidivism among delinquent juveniles. In concert with their increased use, validation studies documenting their predictive validity have increased in number. The purpose of this study was to assess the average predictive validity of juvenile justice risk assessment instruments and to identify risk assessment characteristics that are associated with higher predictive validity. A search of the published and grey literature yielded 28 studies that estimated the predictive validity of 28 risk assessment instruments. Findings of the meta-analysis were consistent with effect sizes obtained in larger meta-analyses of criminal justice risk assessment instruments and showed that brief risk assessment instruments had smaller effect sizes than other types of instruments. However, this finding is tentative owing to limitations of the literature.     

The Double Paradox of Juvenile Justice

This article considers the history of a century of juvenile justice. Illinois 'invented' the separate 'children's court' in 1899 and this concept was spearheaded in Northern America, Great Britain and continental Europe in the first decades of the new century. However, a century after its foundation the future of the juvenile court is in doubt everywhere in the Western world. Some conclude that there is a cyclical pattern in juvenile justice policies. That proposition is rejected in this article. The proposition of a cyclical pattern also presupposes that there is no real problem at stake in treating juvenile offenders. The main point of this article, however, is that juvenile justice cannot escape trying to solve a very complicated foundational issue. This issue is a double paradox, that is, juvenile justice has to solve two philosophical questions: the justification of punishment and the justification of punishment for non-adults. This diagnosis presents a new conceptual framework for an analysis of the history of juvenile justice.