essay about juvenile justice

Free Juvenile Justice Essay Examples & Topics

What happens when a child or a teenager commits an offense that carries criminal responsibility? They are usually processed by the juvenile justice system . It comprises local and state-based courts, detention centers, correction facilities, and rehabilitation programs. The procedure of youth justice is similar to adult criminal law. The significant difference is that it encourages development, advancement of skills, and reintegration into society for juvenile offenders.

Convicted minors get special treatment when receiving their sentences. There are several types of juvenile punishments. For example, you might have heard about house arrest, delinquency programs, and youth prisons. Depending on the severity of the committed crime, the judges can be more or less lenient with the offenders.

In case you are looking to write a juvenile justice essay, we can help. Our team has gathered a collection of original topics and useful tips on this page. Underneath the article, you will find juvenile justice system essays written by other students.

Top 12 Juvenile Justice Essay Topics

• Should teenage offenders be tried as adults?
• Ways to prevent juvenile crime.
• Troubled youth, peer pressure, and drug use.
• Punishments for violent crimes committed by minors.
• Can an adult sue a juvenile?
• Do youth rehabilitation programs work?
• Exploring the reasons children commit crimes.
• Willie Bosket: a case study.
• The role of law enforcement in juvenile probation.
• Washington State laws regarding youth crime.
• What contributes to teenage delinquency?
• Are crimes committed by juveniles on the rise?

17 Juvenile Punishments Report Titles

Apart from juvenile justice essay papers, you might be assigned to write a report. It is a succinct document that you compose for a specific purpose. Reports present and examine a situation or an issue and recommend the following steps. These papers are based on facts and should be clear and concise.

In this section, we have listed several topics tailored for juvenile punishment reports. For more original ideas, you can try out our title generator !

• The impact of family relationships on delinquent incarceration.
• What happens when juvenile offenders enter adult prisons?
• Exploring the race relations among convicted minors.
• How does school performance affect the likelihood of lenient punishment for children?
• The effectiveness of juvenile correctional facilities in the US.
• Controversial: should parents be punished for the crimes their children commit?
• Does age have an impact on the severity of juvenile sentences?
• Is the youth criminal justice system effective for the prevention of recidivism?
• Differences in delinquency punishment between boys and girls.
• The relationship between child abuse and harsher punishment: causation or correlation?
• The issue of punishment for underage drinking and drug abuse in the UK.
• Are there any risks of early intervention for potential young offenders?
• Analyzing the “school-to-prison pipeline” over the last two decades.
• The influence of parental incarceration on the juvenile crime rate.
• How can the system penalize children that join street gangs?
• Exploring the flaws of the juvenile correction centers.
• What should be the punishment for early signs of deviance in children?

In need of more ideas? Check our list of juvenile delinquency essay topics .

Tips for Writing a Juvenile Justice Essay

For a successful essay on juvenile justice, you will need to master the required academic structure. We can help you figure it out in the section below.

When writing your essay, follow this outline:

Introduction

• Hook. A solid way to start your introductory paragraph is to think of something unusual that will interest your audience. For example, you can provide youth crime rate statistics. Or state a mistaken belief about juvenile delinquency. Use any method at your disposal to hook your readers. Get them interested enough to continue reading your paper.
• Background. Familiarize your audience with your topic. Provide the necessary context, outline background information, and clarify new terminology. Here, make sure to explain why the given issue is important and worth researching.
• Thesis Statement. The thesis statement goes either at the very end or close to the end of the introduction. It should present the main argument that you are trying to make. Also, it should reflect what you will be discussing in the following paragraphs. Formulare your thesis to be concise and no longer than a single sentence.

Body Paragraphs

• Topic Sentence. In the body, a topic sentence should come first in each paragraph. It states your argument, explaining what you will talk about in the section. It also prepares your audience for the new information. To illustrate, if you are writing about child abuse and delinquency, topic sentences can link the first issue to the second.
• Supporting Evidence. It is necessary to include proof to support the claims you are making. These can come in the form of studies in criminology, incarceration statistics, citations from texts, and more. Include a mix of evidence and analysis to back up your key arguments.
• Restatement of Your Thesis. Bring your essay back to the beginning by referring to your thesis statement. Make sure to paraphrase it and show how it developed since the introduction.
• Summary. The conclusion is where you tie all the pieces together. Give a quick overview of the points that you have made. Mention how they support your core statement.
• Concluding Sentence. End your essay on a high note. You can give directions for future research or recommend a course of action to undertake. Emphasize the importance of your topic once more. After all, juvenile justice is a crucial element of our society.

Thank you for reading our article! We hope that you have found the information above helpful. Now, you can read free juvenile justice essays below.

210 Best Essay Examples on Juvenile Justice

The impact of media on juvenile delinquency.

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Juvenile Delinquency

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“Weeping in the Playtime of Others” by K. Wooden

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Juvenile Delinquency: Social Disorganization Theory

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Christopher Simmons and the Trial of Roper v Simmons

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Adolescent Diversion Project in Juvenile Delinquency Treatment in Michigan

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Discipline or Formal Punishment of Juveniles

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Leadership Fostering Collaboration Within the Department of Juvenile Justice

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Juvenile Delinquency and Affecting Factors

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Future of the Juvenile Justice System

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Juvenile Diversion Programs

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Aspects of the Juvenile Sentencing Efficiency

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Juvenile Delinquency: Impact of Collective Efficacy and Mental Illnesses

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The Shame & Juvenile Offenders Connection

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The Community Policing Impact on Juvenile Crime

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“Palaszczuk Government Releases…” by Di Farmer

Juvenile law and juvenile sentencing.

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Role of Family in Reducing Juvenile Delinquency

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The Relationship Between Gender and Delinquency

Juvenile justice and delinquency prevention act.

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The Impact of Parental Incarceration and Foster Children to Delinquency

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The Rate of Juvenile Recidivism

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Juvenile Justice in the Western World

Motivation for juvenile justice system, juvenile violent crime and children below poverty, homeboy industries organization’s structure and aim, jones girls juvenile justice facility.

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Brian Banks’ Juvenile Case

American justice system and christianity, juvenile crime of lionel tate: causes and effects, issues with juvenile interrogation, adolescent sexual offenders treatment program.

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Indeterminate Sentencing: To Be or Not to Be?

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Juvenile Justice System of USA

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Alternative Dispute Resolution and Diversion Programs

The ‘street games’ athletic intervention to reduce youth crime.

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Shock Incarceration in Regards to Juveniles

Restorative justice for juveniles: ethical guidelines, the expanding role of the prosecutor in juvenile justice, the costs and benefits of dealing with juvenile crimes in boot camps.

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Meta-Analysis of the Ethics of Risk Assessment and Risk Management in Juvenile Justice

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Risk Assessment and Risk Management in Juvenile Justice

Juvenile justice process and corrections: the case of colleen m., juvenile and adult courts: a comparative analysis, question of youngsters with mental health problems, is a life imprisonment sentence on a juvenile a cruel and unfair punishment, milwaukee county juvenile detention center’s new policy, crime challenges in the 21st century.

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Juvenile Courts and Their Objective

Punishments for juvenile offenders.

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The Practice of Sealing Juvenile Court Records

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Juvenile Treatment: The High Scope Perry Preschool Project

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Juvenile Delinquency: Three Levels of Prevention

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Juvenile Correction Facility Design

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Juvenile Justice Systems and Processes

Juvenile crime statistics.

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Court Decisions that Influence Juvenile Justice System

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Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders

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Youth Justice Conferencing as a Government Hybrid Technique

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Features of Conviction of Juvenile Offenders

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Alternatives to Juvenile Detention Centers

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Court Sentencing: Juvenile Status and Unemployment

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Behavior Modification as an Intervention to Enhance School and Training Attendance at Manson Youth Institution

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Criminology: Bring Community Justice To Corrections

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice — Juvenile Justice System

Essays on Juvenile Justice System

Hook examples for juvenile justice system essays, anecdotal hook.

Meet Sarah, a 16-year-old who committed a non-violent crime and ended up in the juvenile justice system. Her story sheds light on the complexities of youth incarceration and rehabilitation.

Question Hook

Is the goal of the juvenile justice system to rehabilitate or punish young offenders? Explore the conflicting objectives and effectiveness of this system.

Quotation Hook

"Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be." — Rita Pierson. Investigate how the juvenile justice system acts as a champion or fails to fulfill this role.

Statistical or Factual Hook

Did you know that the United States has one of the highest rates of youth incarceration among developed nations? Examine the alarming statistics surrounding juvenile delinquency and its consequences.

Definition Hook

What exactly is the juvenile justice system, and how does it differ from the adult criminal justice system? Delve into the definitions and key components of this specialized legal framework.

Rhetorical Question Hook

Can we break the cycle of youth offending by reforming the juvenile justice system? Analyze the strategies and policies aimed at reducing recidivism among young offenders.

Historical Hook

Travel back in time to explore the origins of the juvenile justice system and the evolution of juvenile law in the United States. Discover how societal attitudes toward young offenders have shifted over centuries.

Contrast Hook

Contrast the rehabilitation-focused juvenile justice system with the punitive aspects of the adult criminal justice system. Explore the pros and cons of treating young offenders differently.

Narrative Hook

Step into the shoes of a juvenile justice counselor who works tirelessly to guide troubled youth toward a brighter future. Their personal experiences reveal the challenges and rewards of this profession.

Shocking Statement Hook

Prepare to be shocked by the disparities in the juvenile justice system—how factors like race and socio-economic status can significantly impact a young person's journey through the legal system. It's a stark reminder of the work that remains to be done.

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Discussion of Whether Juveniles Should Be Tried as Adults

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The Juvenile Justice System refers to a specialized legal framework that addresses the treatment and rehabilitation of young individuals who have committed offenses or engaged in delinquent behavior. It is designed to promote the fair and equitable handling of cases involving minors, recognizing their developmental differences and offering alternatives to traditional criminal justice procedures.

The origin and history of the Juvenile Justice System can be traced back to the late 19th century when societal attitudes towards children and their capacity for rehabilitation began to shift. Prior to this period, children who committed crimes were often treated and punished as adults. However, reformers recognized the need for a specialized approach that considered the unique circumstances and developmental needs of juvenile offenders. One of the key milestones in the development of the Juvenile Justice System was the establishment of the first juvenile court in Chicago in 1899. This court aimed to provide a more rehabilitative and individualized approach to handling juvenile offenders, focusing on their welfare and future prospects rather than punishment alone. Over time, the Juvenile Justice System evolved further, incorporating elements such as diversion programs, probation, and community-based interventions to address the underlying causes of juvenile delinquency and promote positive behavior change. Additionally, landmark legal cases and legislation played a significant role in shaping the rights and protections afforded to juvenile offenders.

The Juvenile Justice System in the United States today reflects ongoing efforts to provide fair and effective responses to juvenile offenders. While specific practices and policies may vary across states, there are some common principles and trends. One important aspect is the emphasis on rehabilitation and treatment rather than punitive measures. The system recognizes the developmental differences between juveniles and adults, aiming to address the underlying causes of delinquency and promote positive behavior change. Community-based alternatives to detention have gained prominence, focusing on diversion programs, counseling, education, and support services. These interventions aim to keep juveniles connected to their families and communities, reducing the likelihood of reoffending. Additionally, efforts have been made to reduce the unnecessary confinement of juveniles and promote a fair and equitable system. This includes reforms to address racial and ethnic disparities in the treatment of juvenile offenders. Collaboration between various stakeholders, including law enforcement, courts, probation services, and community organizations, is vital in ensuring a comprehensive approach to juvenile justice. However, challenges persist, such as resource limitations and the need for ongoing improvement in evidence-based practices. Continued evaluation and adaptation are crucial to ensure that the Juvenile Justice System effectively serves the needs of young individuals and promotes their successful reintegration into society.

The purpose of the Juvenile Justice System is to address the unique needs and circumstances of young individuals who have engaged in delinquent behavior. Unlike the adult criminal justice system, the focus of the juvenile justice system is not solely on punishment, but rather on rehabilitation and reintegration. The primary goal is to protect the community by holding juveniles accountable for their actions while providing them with opportunities for growth and positive change. The system aims to address the underlying factors contributing to delinquency, such as family dynamics, peer influences, and educational challenges. By offering a range of interventions, including counseling, education, mentoring, and community-based programs, the Juvenile Justice System seeks to guide juveniles away from further involvement in criminal activity. It aspires to equip them with the necessary skills and support to make responsible choices and become productive members of society. Furthermore, the Juvenile Justice System strives to ensure fairness, individualized treatment, and the protection of juvenile rights throughout the legal process. It recognizes the developmental differences between juveniles and adults, emphasizing the importance of rehabilitation and providing second chances for youthful offenders.

1. Studies have shown that juvenile offenders who receive rehabilitative services are less likely to reoffend compared to those subjected to punitive measures alone. 2. Research has highlighted the concerning trend of the school-to-prison pipeline, where students, particularly from marginalized communities, are funneled into the juvenile justice system due to disciplinary policies and lack of supportive resources. 3. Data indicates that minority youth, especially African American and Hispanic youth, are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, highlighting racial disparities in the treatment of juvenile offenders. 4. Over the past decade, there has been a significant decrease in juvenile arrests in the United States, reflecting efforts to implement preventive measures, diversion programs, and community-based alternatives. 5. Boys historically comprise a larger proportion of the juvenile justice system population compared to girls, but research suggests that girls involved in the system often face unique challenges related to trauma, mental health, and exploitation. 6. A substantial number of juveniles in the justice system have experienced traumatic events and exhibit mental health needs that require specialized interventions and support. 7. Investing in prevention and early intervention programs has been found to be more cost-effective than long-term confinement, as it reduces future criminal justice and societal expenses.

The topic of the Juvenile Justice System holds great significance as it encompasses various complex issues that require exploration and analysis. Understanding the intricacies of this system is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, the treatment of young individuals who engage in delinquent behavior shapes their future trajectories and has long-term societal implications. Exploring the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs, diversion initiatives, and community-based alternatives can provide insights into promoting positive outcomes for juvenile offenders. Secondly, the Juvenile Justice System intersects with broader social issues such as poverty, race, mental health, and education. Examining these intersections can shed light on the disproportionate representation of certain groups within the system and help identify ways to address systemic inequalities. Furthermore, the evolving nature of the Juvenile Justice System, with ongoing policy reforms and debates, presents an opportunity to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Exploring best practices from different jurisdictions and considering evidence-based approaches can contribute to the ongoing improvement of the system.

1. Feld, B. C. (2017). The juvenile justice system: Delinquency, processing, and the law (9th ed.). Routledge. 2. Feyerherm, W., & Shapiro, J. (Eds.). (2018). The handbook of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice. John Wiley & Sons. 3. Grisso, T., & Schwartz, R. G. (Eds.). (2014). Youth on trial: A developmental perspective on juvenile justice. University of Chicago Press. 4. Lawrence, C. R., & Hemmens, C. (2019). Introduction to the juvenile justice system (3rd ed.). Routledge. 5. Mallicoat, S. L. (2018). Juvenile justice: Policies, programs, and practices (5th ed.). Sage Publications. 6. Merlo, A. V., Benekos, P. J., & Furst, G. (2018). Juvenile justice: A social, historical, and legal perspective (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. 7. Scott, E. S., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.). (2010). Rethinking juvenile justice. Harvard University Press. 8. Sickmund, M., & Puzzanchera, C. (2014). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2014 national report. National Center for Juvenile Justice. 9. Steiner, B., Hemmens, C., & Bell, R. (Eds.). (2019). Juvenile justice: An introduction (9th ed.). Anderson Publishing. 10. Zimring, F. E. (2017). The contradictions of American juvenile justice. Oxford University Press.

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Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001)

Chapter: the juvenile justice system, the juvenile justice system.

A separate juvenile justice system was established in the United States about 100 years ago with the goal of diverting youthful offenders from the destructive punishments of criminal courts and encouraging rehabilitation based on the individual juvenile's needs. This system was to differ from adult or criminal court in a number of ways. It was to focus on the child or adolescent as a person in need of assistance, not on the act that brought him or her before the court. The proceedings were informal, with much discretion left to the juvenile court judge. Because the judge was to act in the best interests of the child, procedural safeguards available to adults, such as the right to an attorney, the right to know the charges brought against one, the right to trial by jury, and the right to confront one's accuser, were thought unnecessary. Juvenile court proceedings were closed to the public and juvenile records were to remain confidential so as not to interfere with the child's or adolescent's ability to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. The very language used in juvenile court underscored these differences. Juveniles are not charged with crimes, but rather with delinquencies; they are not found guilty, but rather are adjudicated delinquent; they are not sent to prison, but to training school or reformatory.

In practice, there was always a tension between social welfare and social control—that is, focusing on the best interests of the individual child versus focusing on punishment, incapacitation, and protecting society from certain offenses. This tension has shifted over time and has varied significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and it remains today.

In response to the increase in violent crime in the 1980s, state legal reforms in juvenile justice, particularly those that deal with serious offenses, have stressed punitiveness, accountability, and a concern for public safety, rejecting traditional concerns for diversion and rehabilitation in favor of a get-tough approach to juvenile crime and punishment. This change in emphasis from a focus on rehabilitating the individual to punishing the act is exemplified by the 17 states that redefined the purpose clause of their juvenile courts to emphasize public safety, certainty of sanctions, and offender accountability (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998). Inherent in this change in focus is the belief that the juvenile justice system is too soft on delinquents, who are thought to be potentially as much a threat to public safety as their adult criminal counterparts.

It is important to remember that the United States has at least 51 different juvenile justice systems, not one. Each state and the District of Columbia has its own laws that govern its juvenile justice system. How juvenile courts operate may vary from county to county and municipality to municipality within a state. The federal government has jurisdiction over a small number of juveniles, such as those who commit crimes on Indian reservations or in national parks, and it has its own laws to govern juveniles within its system. States that receive money under the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act must meet certain requirements, such as not housing juveniles with adults in detention or incarceration facilities, but it is state law that governs the structure of juvenile courts and juvenile corrections facilities. When this report refers to the juvenile justice system, it is referring to a generic framework that is more or less representative of what happens in any given state.

Legal reforms and policy changes that have taken place under the get-tough rubric include more aggressive policing of juveniles, making it easier (or in some cases mandatory) to treat a juvenile who has committed certain offenses as an adult, moving decision making about where to try a juvenile from the judge to the prosecutor or the state legislature, changing sentencing options, and opening juvenile proceedings and records.

Changes in laws do not necessarily translate into changes in practice. In addition to the belief that at least some juvenile offenders are amenable to treatment and rehabilitation, other factors limit overreliance on get-tough measures: (1) the expense of incarceration, (2) overcrowding that results from sentencing offenders more harshly, and (3) research evidence that finds few gains, in terms of reduced rates of recidivism, from simply incapacitating youth without any attention to treatment or rehabilitation (Beck and Shipley, 1987; Byrne and Kelly, 1989; Hagan, 1991; National Research Council, 1993a; National Research Council, 1993b; Shannon et al., 1988). Practice may also move in ways not envisioned when laws are passed. For example, many jurisdictions have been experimenting with

alternative models of juvenile justice, such as the restorative justice model. Whereas the traditional juvenile justice model focuses attention on offender rehabilitation and the current get-tough changes focus on offense punishment, the restorative model focuses on balancing the needs of victims, offenders, and communities (Bazemore and Umbreit, 1995).

Tracking changes in practice is difficult, not only because of the differences in structure of the juvenile justice system among the states, but also because the information collected about case processing and about incarcerated juveniles differs from state to state, and because there are few national data. Some states collect and publish a large amount of data on various aspects of the juvenile justice system, but for most states the data are not readily available. Although data are collected nationally on juvenile court case processing, 1 the courts are not required to submit data, so that national juvenile court statistics are derived from courts that cover only about two-thirds of the entire juvenile population (Stahl et al., 1999). Furthermore, there are no published national data on the number of juveniles convicted by offense, the number incarcerated by offense, sentence length, time served in confinement, or time served on parole (Langan and Farrington, 1998). 2 Such national information is available on adults incarcerated in prisons and jails.

The center of the juvenile justice system is the juvenile or family court (Moore and Wakeling, 1997). In fact, the term juvenile justice is often used synonymously with the juvenile court, but it also may refer to other affiliated institutions in addition to the court, including the police, prosecuting and defense attorneys, probation, juvenile detention centers, and juvenile correctional facilities (Rosenheim, 1983). In this chapter, juvenile justice is used in the latter, larger sense.

After providing a brief historical background of the juvenile court and a description of stages in the juvenile justice system, we examine the various legal and policy changes that have taken place in recent years, the impact those changes have had on practice, and the result of the laws, policy, and practice on juveniles caught up in the juvenile justice system.

Throughout the chapter, differences by race and by gender in involvement in the juvenile justice system are noted. Chapter 6 examines in more detail the overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system.

HISTORY OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Until the early 19th century in the United States, children as young as 7 years old could be tried in criminal court and, if convicted, sentenced to prison or even to death. Children under the age of 7 were presumed to be unable to form criminal intent and were therefore exempt from punishment. The establishment of special courts and incarceration facilities for juveniles was part of Progressive Era reforms, along with kindergarten, child labor laws, mandatory education, school lunches, and vocational education, that were aimed at enhancing optimal child development in the industrial city (Schlossman, 1983). Reformers believed that treating children and adolescents as adult criminals was unnecessarily harsh and resulted in their corruption. In the words of one reformer, the main reason for the establishment of the juvenile court was “to prevent children from being treated as criminals ” (Van Waters, 1927:217). Based on the premise that children and young adolescents are developmentally different from adults and are therefore more amenable to rehabilitation, and that they are not criminally responsible for their actions, children and adolescents brought before the court were assumed to require the court's intervention and guidance, rather than solely punishment. They were not to be accused of specific crimes. The reason a juvenile came before the court—be it for committing an offense or because of abuse or neglect by his or her parents or for being uncontrollable—was less important than understanding the child's life situation and finding appropriate, individualized rehabilitative services (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 1998; Schlossman, 1983). Historians have noted that the establishment of the juvenile court not only diverted youngsters from the criminal court, but also expanded the net of social control over juveniles through the incorporation of status jurisdiction into states' juvenile codes (e.g., Platt, 1977; Schlossman, 1977).

The first juvenile court in the United States, authorized by the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899, was founded in 1899 in Chicago. The act gave the court jurisdiction over neglected, dependent, and delinquent children under age 16. The focus of the court was rehabilitation rather than punishment. Records of the court were to be confidential to minimize stigma. The act required separation of juveniles from adults when incarcerated and barred the detention of children under age 12 in jails. The act also provided for informality in procedures within the court. The idea of the juvenile court spread rapidly. By 1925, a functioning juvenile court existed in every state except Maine and Wyoming (Schlossman, 1983).

How well the juvenile courts around the country lived up to the founders ' aspirations is difficult to ascertain. They succeeded in diverting most children and adolescents from the criminal system, but they may

have been less successful with their rehabilitative goals. Schlossman (1983:965) noted that the following broad generalizations could be made of early 20th century juvenile courts:

First, the clientele was overwhelmingly from the lower class and of immigrant parents. Second, boys and girls appeared in court for different reasons, and the courts disposed of their cases differently. The majority of girls, as compared to a very small proportion of boys, were charged under the loose heading of “immorality;” however, higher percentages of girls than boys were sent to reformatories, whereas lower percentages were placed on probation. Third, referral to court by agents other than the police, especially parents, relatives, and neighbors, was a far more common practice than it is today. Fourth, juvenile courts, particularly the probation staffs, often dealt with nearly as many cases “unofficially” (without court appearance) as officially. This placed added burdens on already large case loads and widened the net of the court to embrace every conceivable form of nonconventional behavior.

A case study of the Milwaukee juvenile court in the early 20th century (Schlossman, 1977) found that probation officers had over 200 cases, far too many for the individualized services envisioned by the Progressive Era reformers. The detention center lacked any serious diagnostic function and was sometimes used punitively. The court hearings, rather than relying on “empathy, trust, and a spirit of rapprochement” (Schlossman, 1983:966) as called for by Denver's Judge Ben Lindsey, resorted to “fear, threats, and short-term detention to render children malleable” (Schlossman, 1983:966).

As early as the 1910s, criticisms of the juvenile court's fairness and effectiveness began to be heard. One set of critics called into question the court's informality, charging that it resulted in discrimination and lack of attention to due process. Furthermore, the court treated children who had committed no crime the same as those who had committed a criminal act. Unlike adults, juveniles could be detained and incarcerated without a trial, a lawyer, or even being made aware of the charges against them. Another set of critics charged the court with being too lenient on young offenders. These same criticisms continue today (Dawson, 1990; Feld, 1997).

Three Supreme Court decisions in the second half of the 20th century resulted in more procedural formality in the juvenile court, but other decisions maintained differences between juvenile and criminal courts. In 1966, in Kent v. the United States, the Court concluded that Morris Kent was denied due process rights when his case was transferred to criminal court without a hearing and without giving his attorney access to the social information on which the juvenile court judge based his decision.

The Court held that juveniles had the right to a hearing on the issue of transfer to adult court, that there must be the right to meaningful counsel, that counsel must be given access to the social records considered by the juvenile court, and that the juvenile court must provide a statement of its reasons for transfer with any waiver order. Justice Abe Fortas also called into question the fundamental fairness of the juvenile court:

While there can be no doubt of the original laudable purpose of juvenile courts, studies and critiques in recent years raise serious questions as to whether actual performance measures well enough against theoretical purpose to make tolerable the immunity of the process from the reach of constitutional guaranties applicable to adults. . . . There is evidence, in fact, that there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children ( Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 555-556).

A year later, the decision of in re Gault (387 U.S. 1, 1967) extended the procedural safeguards required in juvenile court even further, giving juveniles many rights similar to those of adults charged with a crime. Fifteen-year-old Gerald Gault was sentenced to a state reformatory for an indeterminate period that could last until his 21st birthday for making an obscene phone call. The maximum sentence for an adult would have been a $50 fine or 2 months in jail. The case embodied nearly every procedural irregularity distinctive of juvenile courts: Gault was detained by the police and held overnight without his parents being notified; he was required to appear at a juvenile court hearing the following day; a probation officer filed a pro forma petition alleging Gault was a delinquent minor in need of care and custody of the court; no witnesses were called; there was no sworn testimony or written record of the court proceedings; and Gault was not advised of his right to remain silent or to have an attorney. The Gault decision entitled juveniles to receive notice of charges against them, to have legal counsel, to confront and cross-examine witnesses, to be protected against self-incrimination, to receive a transcript of the court hearing, and to appeal the judge's decision.

In 1970, the Supreme Court raised the standard of proof necessary in juvenile court to that required in adult criminal court. In in re Winship (397 U.S. 358), the Court required that juveniles charged with criminal acts be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” to have committed them. Prior to this ruling, there was no constitutional decision that required more than the less stringent civil court standard of a “preponderance of the evidence.”

Protection from double jeopardy was extended to juveniles by the Supreme Court in 1975. In Breed v. Jones (421 U.S. 519), the Court held that

the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits states from trying a person as a juvenile and later as an adult for the same crime. In so doing, the Court recognized juvenile court proceedings as criminal proceedings, not social welfare ones (Feld, 1999). Nevertheless, the Court did not grant full criminal procedural entitlements to juveniles. In McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (403 U.S. 528 [1971]), the Court held that juveniles were not entitled to a trial by jury, arguing that the juvenile court proceeding was not the fully adversarial process found in criminal courts. Some critics of the juvenile court argue that, given the punitive changes in juvenile justice legislation since the 1971 decision, the only remaining procedural differences between juvenile and adult criminal courts are access to juries and access to counsel (Feld, 1993). The lack of access to juries may have consequences for the outcome of a trial because judges and juries may decide cases differently. There is some evidence that juvenile court judges may be more likely than juries to convict. For example, a study by Greenwood et al. (1983) of juvenile justice administration in California compared the conviction rates of similar types of cases in juvenile and adult courts, concluding that it “is easier to win a conviction in the juvenile court than in the criminal court, with comparable types of cases” (Greenwood et al., 1983:30-31 cited in Feld, 1999). Furthermore, judges try hundreds of cases every year and consequently may evaluate facts more casually and less meticulously than jurors who focus on only one case. Judges may have preconceptions of the credibility of police and probation officers and of the juvenile in question. In contrast, jurors hear only a few cases and undergo careful procedures to test bias for each case. Also, judges are not required to discuss the law and evidence pertinent to a case with a group before making a decision, and they are often exposed to evidence that would be considered inadmissible in a jury trial (Feld, 1993, 1999).

From their inception, juvenile courts had authority not only over children and adolescents who committed illegal acts, but also over those who defied parental authority or social conventions by such acts as running away from home, skipping school, drinking alcohol in public, or engaging in sexual behavior. These children and adolescents were deemed to be out of control and in need of guidance. Criticism of treating these status offenders (whose acts were considered problematic only because of their status as children) the same as children and adolescents who had committed criminal acts grew during the 1960s. The juvenile courts also had jurisdiction over abused and neglected children who had committed no offense. In the 1960s, many states revised their delinquency laws to move status offenders and nonoffenders into new nondelinquent categories, such as Persons, Children, or Minors in Need of Supervision (referred to as PINS, CHINS, and MINS). In 1974, in response to reported abuses in

the nation's training and reform schools and the high numbers of juveniles being held in adult facilities, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (42 U.S.C. §§5601-5640), creating a federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention within the Department of Justice. The Act provided federal leadership in the reform of the treatment of status offenses and nonoffenders. It required states that received federal formula grants to remove noncriminal status offenders and nonoffenders (e.g., abused and neglected children) from secure detention and correctional facilities. The provisions for the deinstitutionalization of status offenders led to a decrease in the numbers of status offenders held in detention facilities and institutions by the early 1980s (Krisberg and Schwartz, 1983; National Research Council, 1982; Schneider, 1984a). Schneider (1984b), however, found that some children and adolescents who, prior to the move to deinstitutionalize status offenders, would have been charged with a status offense, were subsequently being charged with minor delinquent offenses (e.g., theft rather than running away). Therefore, Schneider asserted, they were still coming to the court at the same rate, but as delinquents rather than status cases. Amendments to the 1974 act in 1980 weakened the deinstitutionalization mandate somewhat by allowing detention and incarceration of noncriminal juveniles for violating a valid court order. Status offenders who did not comply with treatment ordered by the court could become criminal delinquents by virtue of being charged with criminal contempt of court.

Young people who might formerly have been processed through the juvenile justice system for status offenses may now be institutionalized in other facilities, such as private mental health and drug and alcohol treatment facilities. Very little is known about the number of youngsters confined to such institutions, the length of their institutionalization, or the conditions of their confinement.

Concern over housing juveniles with adult criminals led to other requirements under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Sight and sound separation of juveniles and adults in detention and correctional facilities and removal of juveniles from adult jails and lockups were mandated. In 1988, the act was amended to require states to address disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles.

At the same time the federal agenda and the voices of reformers were calling for deinstitutionalization procedures and more prevention, the states seemed to be moving in the opposite direction (Schwartz, 1989). Between 1978 and 1981, lawmakers in nearly half the states enacted some form of tougher legislation with regard to handling serious and chronic juvenile offenders. In a handful of states, provisions included making it easier to prosecute juveniles in adult court by lowering the age of judicial waiver (three states); excluding certain offenses from juvenile court juris-

diction (four states); and enacting mandatory minimums or sentencing guidelines for juveniles (three states). The impact of these reforms was an increase in the detention rate on any given day by more than 50 percent between 1977 and 1985.

In response to public concern over crime, in particular violent crime, committed by children and adolescents, almost all states now have made these kinds of changes to the laws governing their juvenile justice systems since the early 1990s. These changes are described following a description of the current juvenile justice system processes.

THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN THE 1990s

Juvenile justice systems vary greatly by jurisdiction. The organization of courts, case processing procedures, and juvenile corrections facilities are determined by state law. Most juvenile courts have jurisdiction over criminal delinquency, abuse and neglect, and status offense delinquency cases. Criminal delinquency cases are those in which a child has committed an act that would be a crime if committed by an adult. Status offense delinquency cases are acts that would be legal for an adult, but are not allowed for juveniles, such as truancy, running away, incorrigibility (i.e., habitually disobeying reasonable and lawful commands of a parent, guardian, or custodian; also referred to in various statutes as unruly, uncontrollable, or ungovernable), or curfew violations. Some courts also have responsibility for other types of cases involving children, such as dependency, termination of parental rights, juvenile traffic cases, adoption, child support, emancipation, and consent cases (e.g., consent for a minor to marry, have an abortion, enlist in the armed services, or be employed).

Before any court processes come into play, a juvenile must be referred to the court. Referrals may be made by the police, parents, schools, social service agencies, probation officers, and victims. Law enforcement agencies account for the vast majority—86 percent in 1996—of delinquency referrals (Stahl et al., 1999). 3 The police are the principal gatekeepers of the justice system and play a central role in the processing of youths in both the criminal and juvenile justice systems. They have a great deal of contact with youthful offenders and at-risk youth, perhaps more than any other officials do in the justice system. Most of these contacts are undocumented and of low visibility (Goldstein, 1960); only a fraction reach the attention of juvenile court judges or youth detention authorities.

There is scant empirical data on police encounters with juveniles (Black and Reiss, 1970; Lundman et al., 1978; Wordes and Bynum, 1995). A study by Sealock and Simpson (1998), based on an analysis of Philadelphia birth cohort data in which police contacts with juveniles from 1968 through 1975 were recorded, is one of the few that deals with juveniles ' encounters with police. To further understand the nature of police interactions with juveniles, the panel commissioned an analysis by Worden and Myers (1999) of the data involving juveniles from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods, a multimethod study of police patrols in two cities (Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida). The study involved systematic social observations of patrol officers in the field by trained observers who accompanied officers during their entire work shifts. Observations were based on spatial and temporal sampling, with shifts representing all times of the day and all days of the week. Data were gathered during summer 1996 in Indianapolis and summer 1997 in St. Petersburg. Observers recorded more than 7,000 encounters involving approximately 12,000 citizens. Of these encounters, 421 involved one or more citizens (a total of 626) who appeared to be under 18 years of age and who were treated by the police as suspected offenders. An encounter was defined as “any event in which there is face-to-face communication between a police officer and a member of the public” (Worden and Myers, 1999:13).

Consistent with past research, most of the encounters involved incidents of relatively low seriousness; 55 percent were for public disorder (e.g., disorderly behavior and loitering), nonviolent crimes (e.g., shoplifting and other theft), and traffic offenses. Less than one-tenth of the encounters concerned violent crimes. It appears that police may be initiating more of the encounters than in the past. Worden and Myers (1999) reported that previous research (primarily conducted in the 1960s and 1970s) found that the majority of police encounters with juveniles resulted from a request from a victim or complainant, and only one-quarter to one-third of encounters were initiated by the police themselves. In the study, half of the encounters with juveniles were initiated by the police. This finding may indicate an increase in proactive policing, although direct comparisons with past research are hindered by differences in measurement and sampling. The existence of a juvenile curfew in Indianapolis gave police in that city authority to stop juveniles after hours and contributed to a high percentage (61 compared with 37 percent in St. Petersburg) of their encounters with juveniles being police-initiated.

Worden and Myers (1999) found that only 13 percent of the encounters ended with the arrest of the juvenile(s). Table 5-1 shows the frequency with which each disposition in these encounters was the most authoritative that the police took. The categories are listed from least

TABLE 5-1 Disposition of Police Encounters with Juveniles and Adults

restrictive (release) to most restrictive (arrest). Over half (56 percent) of the encounters involve interrogation and/or searching of the suspects. As the table shows, dispositions were similarly distributed in police encounters with adults.

Worden and Myers (1999) analyzed factors that affected the likelihood of arrest in juvenile encounters with police. Arrests were significantly more likely when there was strong evidence against a suspect and when the offense was a serious one. The likelihood of arrest more than doubled when a juvenile showed disrespect for the police officer. Possession of a weapon also increased the likelihood of arrest. Female juveniles were significantly less likely to be arrested, independent of other factors, including seriousness of offense. 4 Worden and Myers concluded that “the situational factors on which research on police behavior has dwelt do not suffice to account for arrest decisions, however, and they are of even less value in explaining officers' choices among nonarrest alternatives” (1999:31).

Once a juvenile is taken into custody, it appears as if police are less likely now to deal informally with him or her than in the past. About 22 percent of juveniles taken into custody by police were handled informally within the department and released in 1998, compared with 45 percent in 1970 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1999); 69 percent of juveniles taken into police custody in 1998 ended up in juvenile court and 7 percent in criminal (adult) court.

Although there are many differences among juvenile courts in case processing, there are stages that they all must go through: intake, petitioning, adjudication, and disposition. Figure 5-1 provides a simplified view of case flow through the juvenile justice system. Cases that are referred to the court are screened through an intake process, in which charges are delineated. In some systems, this process is done within the

FIGURE 5-1 Simplified view of case flow through the juvenile justice system. Source: Adapted from Snyder and Sickmund (1999).

court system; in others, it occurs outside the court system, for example, in a probation department, a state juvenile justice department, or the prosecutor's office. The intake screening determines whether a case should not be filed because of insufficient evidence, resolved by diversion to a program or specified set of conditions, or should proceed to formal processing in the juvenile court (i.e., petitioning, which is similar to indictment in criminal court). Depending on state law, a decision to waive a case to criminal court may also be made at intake processing.

If a case proceeds to formal handling, a petition is filed and the case is scheduled for an adjudicatory hearing in the juvenile court, or the case may be waived to criminal court. At the adjudicatory hearing, which establishes the facts of the case (similar to a trial in criminal court), the juvenile may be judged to be delinquent (similar to a finding of guilty in criminal court) and scheduled for a disposition hearing; the juvenile may be found not guilty, and the case may be dismissed; or the case may be continued in contemplation of dismissal. In the latter event, the juvenile may be asked to take some action prior to the final decision being made, such as paying restitution or receiving treatment. If a juvenile has been

adjudicated delinquent (i.e., found guilty), a disposition hearing (similar to sentencing in criminal court) is held to determine the appropriate sanction. Dispositions include commitment to an institution, placement in a group or foster home or other residential facility, probation, referral to an outside agency or treatment program, imposition of a fine, community service, or restitution. At any point during the process, some juveniles may be held in a secure detention facility. In 1996, juveniles were detained in 18 percent of criminal delinquency cases processed by the juvenile courts (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999).

Juvenile courts also vary by the extent of services for which they are responsible. Some courts oversee only the adjudication process, while others provide a full array of preadjudication and postdisposition services. In over half the states, juvenile courts administer their own probation services, and many are responsible for detention and intake as well (Torbet, 1990).

Some researchers have expressed concerns regarding certain juvenile justice procedures. As mentioned previously, the lack of a right to a jury trial may have consequences for the outcome of a trial. Also at issue is legal representation for juveniles. As in adult court, juveniles have the right to be represented by an attorney. The majority of states, however, allow juveniles to decide independently to waive their rights to an attorney without having had legal counsel prior to the decision (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995b). This practice is inconsistent with the assumption that children are different from and should be treated differently than adults, in that it implies that juveniles can make the decision “voluntarily and intelligently, ” although studies suggest that juveniles are not as competent as adults to waive their rights in a “knowing and intelligent” manner (Feld, 1993:31).

Studies from 1980 to 1990 found that the majority of juveniles were not represented by an attorney, including the majority of youths who received out-of-home placement (Feld, 1993). Rates of representation varied between urban and rural jurisdictions, and among states and within states (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995b).

Also of possible concern are the quality and impact of attorney representation. Some studies suggest that there are grounds for concern about the effectiveness of defense counsel in juvenile trials, possibly because of inexperience and large caseloads (Feld, 1993). Studies also indicate that presence of counsel in juvenile courts is related to differences in pretrial detention, sentencing, and case-processing practices (Feld, 1993). One study (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995b) found that, in general, while unrepresented juveniles were as likely as represented juveniles to be adjudicated as delinquents, they were less likely to receive out-of-home placement for certain crimes than juveniles with attorneys. The

study also found that other factors, including the type of counsel, were more strongly associated with placement outcomes than the mere fact of being represented by counsel.

Juvenile courts processed nearly 1.8 million criminal delinquency cases 5 and 162,000 status offense delinquency cases in 1996 (Stahl et al., 1999). Figures 5-2 and 5-3 show how criminal and status delinquency cases, respectively, were handled by the courts in 1996, the most recent year for which data are available. A total of 56 percent of the criminal delinquency cases that were referred to juvenile courts in 1996 were formally handled by the court (petitioned); that is, these cases appeared on the official court calendar in response to the filing of a petition, complaint, or other legal instrument. Over the past 10 years, there has been an increase in the percentage of cases (from 47 percent in 1986 to 56 percent in 1996) handled formally for all juveniles, regardless of age, race, or gender. Criminal delinquency cases involving older juveniles, males, and blacks, however, are more likely to be petitioned than those involving younger juveniles, females, and whites or other races, respectively (Stahl et al., 1999). Arguably, formal handling of cases can be considered more punitive than release or diversion to other systems. Therefore, the increase in formal handling of juveniles who come into contact with the police or who are referred to juvenile court may be interpreted as a system that is becoming more punitive.

Diversion covers a wide range of interventions that are alternatives to initial or continued formal processing in the system (Kammer et al., 1997). The idea behind diversion is that processing through the juvenile justice system may do more harm than good for some offenders (Lundman, 1993). First offenders or minor offenders may be diverted to an intervention at intake processing or prior to formal adjudication. Juveniles may be diverted from detention while awaiting adjudication and disposition. After adjudication, minors may be diverted from incarceration by being placed on probation or given some other sanction or intervention.

One concern that is often raised about diversion programs is that they may result in net widening which is “a phenomenon whereby a program is set up to divert youth away from an institutional placement or some other type of juvenile court disposition, but, instead, merely brings more youth into the juvenile justice system who previously would never have

FIGURE 5-2 Juvenile court processing of criminal delinquency cases, 1996. Source: Stahl et al. (1999:Figure 2).

FIGURE 5-3 Juvenile court processing of petitioned status delinquency cases, 1996. Source: Stahl et al. (1999:Figure 16).

entered” (Shelden, 1999:4). A true diversion program takes only juveniles who would ordinarily be involved in the juvenile justice system and places them in an alternative program.

The array of interventions covered under the term diversion makes it difficult to generalize about them or their effects. Some researchers have found significantly lower recidivism rates among diverted juveniles than among controls who received normal juvenile justice system processing (e.g., Henggeler et al., 1993; Pogrebin et al., 1984). (For an overview of studies discussed in this section, see Table 5-2 .) Other research has found no difference in recidivism rates between juveniles diverted from the juvenile justice system and those who remained in it (Rausch, 1983; Rojek and Erickson, 1982) or more recidivism among diverted juveniles (Brown

TABLE 5-2 Interventions in the Juvenile Justice System: Evaluations of Diversion Programs

et al., 1989; Lincoln, 1976). The variety in findings may be due to the types of juveniles involved and the types of treatment and services provided.

For a diversion program to be successful, it may have to provide intensive and comprehensive services (Dryfoos, 1990); services that include the juveniles' families and take into account community, school, and peer interactions (Henggeler et al., 1993); and use experienced caseworkers (Feldman et al., 1983). Elliott and colleagues (1978) found that whether intervention occurred in the juvenile justice system or in another program, juveniles experienced increases in their perception of being labeled as delinquent and increases in self-reported delinquency. It is even possible that some diversion programs are more intrusive than traditional juvenile justice processing. Frazier and Cochran (1986b) found that juveniles in the diversion program they studied were actually in the system longer and had at least as much, if not more, official intervention in their lives than those not diverted.

One well-studied intervention for both juveniles diverted from incarceration as well as for juveniles at various stages of processing in the juvenile justice system is multisystemic therapy. Multisystemic therapy is a family- and community-based treatment derived from theories and research that trace the development of antisocial behavior to a combination of individual, family, peer, school, and community factors and their interactions. The intervention is not limited to the adolescent or the family but includes work on the intersections between various systems, such as family-school and family-peer interactions. Treatment is individualized to meet the needs of the adolescent and his or her family using empirically based treatment models, such as cognitive behavioral therapies, behavioral parent training, and structural family therapy (Henggeler, 1999). In addition, attention is paid to treatment fidelity through supervision of and support for treatment providers. A study that randomly assigned serious, violent juveniles either to multisystemic therapy or to the usual juvenile justice system processing (Henggeler et al., 1993) found that multisystemic therapy reduced recidivism at 2.4 years after referral to half of that for those who received the usual juvenile justice services. Borduin and colleagues (1995) found that juvenile offenders randomly assigned to multisystemic therapy, at four years after treatment, had better family relations and fewer psychiatric symptoms and were significantly less likely to be rearrested than those randomly assigned to individual therapy. A meta-analysis of family-based treatments of drug abuse found that multisystemic therapy had one of the largest effect sizes of all treatments reviewed (Stanton and Shadish, 1997).

A promising approach for youngsters for whom home-based programs have failed is multidimensional treatment foster care (see, e.g., Chamberlain, 1998; Chamberlain and Mihalic, 1998; Chamberlain and

Reid, 1998). This approach recruits, trains, and supports foster care families to implement a structured, individualized program for each youngster. Juveniles are placed in the foster care family for six to nine months, during which time their appropriate behavior is reinforced, they are closely supervised, and their peer associations are carefully monitored. Foster care families have daily contact with program staff to work out difficulties and review program plans. Juveniles also receive individual skill-focused treatment. Other components of the program include frequent visits with and weekly family therapy for biological parents (or guardians) to prepare them for after care and coordination with school and other needed service systems after their children return to their homes. Chamberlain and Reid (1998) compared chronic delinquent boys (with an average of 13 prior arrests and 4.6 prior felonies) who were randomly assigned to treatment foster care or to group homes in lieu of incarceration. Boys in treatment foster care were more likely to complete treatment and less likely to be rearrested or to spend time incarcerated than boys assigned to the group home.

Victim-offender mediation is one increasingly popular form of diversion. A national survey discovered 94 victim-offender programs dealing with juveniles in 1996, 46 of which were dedicated exclusively to them (Umbreit and Greenwood, 1998). The programs ranged from having 1 to 900 case referrals, with a mean of 136 cases. Referrals to victim-offender mediation are typically for vandalism, minor assaults, theft, and burglary (Umbreit and Greenwood, 1998). The vast majority of mediation cases are first-time offenders. Typically, mediation occurs prior to adjudication. Some pressure appears to be mounting to include more serious cases in mediation programs (Umbreit and Greenwood, 1998). Whether more serious or complicated cases can be handled through mediation remains to be seen.

Studies have consistently shown that victims tend to be more satisfied with the process of mediation than with court processes (Coates and Gehm, 1989; Marshall and Merry, 1990; Umbreit, 1990; Umbreit and Coates, 1992, 1993). This may be because victims are included in the mediation process only if they volunteer to do so. In their quasi-experimental study of four sites in the United States, Umbreit and Coates (1992:12) concluded that for offenders, “participation in mediation appears to not have significantly increased their satisfaction with how the juvenile justice system handled their case.” The study included interviews with victims and offenders who completed the mediation process. Two comparison groups were devised—the first of victims and offenders who had been referred to the mediation process but did not participate and the second victims and offenders who had not been referred to mediation in the same jurisdiction as the mediation sample, and matched on age, race, sex, and offense.

Over 90 percent of mediations resulted in a restitution plan agreed to by both victims and offenders (Neimeyer and Shichor, 1996; Umbreit and Coates, 1992) and significantly more juvenile offenders completed the agreed-on restitution than did those whose restitution was ordered by the court (Umbreit and Coates, 1993).

Findings on recidivism for juveniles who have been part of mediation programs are mixed. Schneider (1986) reported a significant reduction in recidivism among offenders in a mediation program. Other studies have found small but statistically nonsignificant reductions in recidivism among mediation program participants (Marshall and Merry, 1990; Umbreit and Coates, 1993).

Victim-offender mediation programs are one part of a larger diversion movement in juvenile justice that has been gaining attention worldwide —the restorative justice model. Under a restorative justice model, victims are given the opportunity to come face to face with the offender to negotiate restitution. In addition, restorative justice programs keep youth in the community and maintain community safety by community-based surveillance practices designed to limit the opportunities for juveniles to reoffend and strengthen rather than sever their connections with the community. These practices include monitored school attendance, monitored employment attendance, monitored program attendance, supervised community work service, supervised recreation, adult mentors and supervisors, training offenders' families to provide appropriate monitoring and disciplinary practices, day reporting centers, electronic monitoring, house arrest, and random drug testing. Placement in a secure facility is reserved for those juveniles who continue to offend or who pose a high risk to others. (For a more complete discussion of restorative justice, see Bazemore and Umbreit, 1995; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1998.) The restorative justice model is currently being evaluated in Australia.

On balance, the research on diversion and intensive probation (discussed in below) suggests that some community-based interventions can serve the needs of many juvenile offenders without added danger to the community. There also may be advantages to keeping juveniles in a less restrictive setting. Well-structured and well-run programs with appropriate services have the potential for improving the lives of diverted juveniles and their families and maintaining community safety.

Figures 5-2 and 5-3 , which illustrate juvenile court processing of criminal delinquency and petitioned status delinquency cases, respectively, do not include the percentages of detained juveniles, because reported

detention figures do not differentiate between preadjudication detention and postadjudication detention. Juveniles may be detained at any stage during the court process if it is believed that they pose a threat to the community, will be at risk if returned to the community, or may fail to appear at an upcoming hearing. Children and adolescents may also be detained for evaluation purposes. Juveniles who have been adjudicated delinquent and sentenced to incarceration may also be kept in secure detention until a placement in a long-term facility can be made. In 1996, 18 percent (320,900 cases) 6 of the 1.8 million criminal delinquency cases referred to the court resulted in detention, as did 6 percent (12,700) of the 162,000 status delinquency cases (Sickmund et al., 1998; Stahl et al., 1999). The percentage of criminal delinquency cases that result in detention has remained fairly stable over the past 10 years, and the percentage of status delinquency cases that result in detention has dropped. However, because the overall number of criminal delinquency cases coming to the court has increased, the number of cases that result in secure detention has increased, even though the percentage of cases detained has remained steady. Research consistently shows that juveniles who have been in detention are more likely to be formally processed and receive more punitive sanctions at disposition than those not placed in detention, after controlling for demographic and legal factors, such as current offense and history of past offenses (Frazier and Bishop, 1985; Frazier and Cochran, 1986a; McCarthy and Smith, 1986). Researchers have been unable to determine the variables that affect the initial decision to detain a juvenile, however. For example, Frazier and Bishop (1985), in an analysis of initial detention decisions, could explain less than 10 percent of variance in the decisions. Therefore, there may be unidentified factors related to the initial decision to detain that affect the impact of detention on eventual court dispositions.

It is important to remember that the court statistics do not refer to the number of juveniles detained, but only to the number of cases (in the course of a year, one juvenile may be detained in several cases). Based on one-day censuses of detention centers, it appears that the rate of detention of juveniles increased by 68 percent from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (Wordes and Jones, 1998). The average length of detention in the mid-1990s was 15 days (Wordes and Jones, 1998).

Of all juvenile cases resulting in detention in 1996, 26 percent were for person offenses, 38 percent were for property offenses, 21 percent were for public order offenses, 12 percent for drug law violations, and 3 percent

for status delinquency cases (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). Males are detained at a rate six times higher than females, and blacks are detained at eight times the rate of whites (Wordes and Jones, 1998).

The two generally accepted uses of preadjudication detention are to ensure that a juvenile will show up for his or her hearing and to prevent reoffending prior to adjudication. However, detention is also used as punishment, protection, and as a place to keep juveniles when more appropriate placements are unavailable (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1997). Intake workers and juvenile judges have a great deal of discretion in deciding whether to place a juvenile in detention. Several studies found evidence that detention rates varied in direct proportion to the availability of detention facilities (Kramer and Steffensmeier, 1978; Lerman, 1977; Pawlak, 1977). Anecdotal evidence suggests that whether a juvenile in crisis is kept in detention or sent to a mental health facility may depend on whether the juvenile's family has health insurance to cover private psychological or psychiatric treatment. The result of the use of detention for such diverse reasons is that a juvenile who has run away from an abusive home may be placed in detention alongside a juvenile awaiting trial for violent crimes.

Detention can be quite disruptive to children's and adolescents' lives. It separates them from their families, friends, and support systems, and it interrupts their schooling. Although some detention centers have many services in place to assess and treat physical and mental health problems and behavioral problems and to provide educational services, the scope and quality of services varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In addition, many detention centers have become overcrowded, jeopardizing their ability to provide services. Nearly 70 percent of children in public detention centers are in facilities operating above their designed capacity (Smith, 1998). Overcrowded conditions have been found to be associated with increased altercations between juveniles and staff and increased injuries to juveniles (Wordes and Jones, 1998). Even under the best of circumstances, providing services to an ever-changing, heterogeneous group of young people can be difficult. The average length of stay in juvenile detention centers is 15 days, but many youngsters may be there for only a few days, while some are there for much longer periods (Parent et al., 1994). For marginal students, even a few days of school missed because of detention may increase their educational difficulties.

The negative effects of being in detention and the overcrowded conditions in many detention centers have led to investigations of alternatives to detention. Table 5-3 summarizes the evaluations of alternatives to detention programs discussed in this section. A study in North Carolina (Land et al., 1998) examined 19 alternatives to detention programs around the state. The programs varied from site to site, but all were characterized

by the following factors: careful screening and interviews for case admission of secure custody-eligible juveniles; intensive monitoring and supervision; small caseloads with individualized attention; strict rules for compliance and curfew; contacts at nights and weekends; verification of compliance at home and school; inclusion of supportive community resources; and rapid placement into secure confinement if needed. Land and colleagues (1998) found the programs to provide less restrictive options to secure detention in a cost-effective manner without compromising public safety. Over three-quarters of the cases served by the alternative programs successfully avoided secure detention. The vast majority (80 to 90 percent) of the cases that failed in the alternative program and were sent to secure detention were for technical program violations, not for new offenses. Less than 5 percent of all alternative placement admissions committed new offenses while in the program.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation began a Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative in 1992 (Rust, 1999). Five urban jurisdictions—Cook County, Illinois (Chicago); Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Multnomah County, Oregon (Portland); New York City; and Sacramento County, California —were awarded grants to establish programs to eliminate the inappropriate or unnecessary use of detention, reduce the number of delinquents who fail to appear for court or who commit a new offense, develop alternatives to secure detention rather than adding new detention beds, and to improve conditions and alleviate overcrowding in secure detention facilities. The final evaluation of the programs in Chicago, Portland, and Sacramento, by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, was due in 2000. Preliminary indications from the evaluation are that the programs achieved significant reductions in admissions to detention and alleviated overcrowding without increasing failure-to-appear rates or pretrial crime rates (Rust, 1999).

After adjudicatory hearings, cases in juvenile court are scheduled for disposition hearings, in which the sanction is determined. Juveniles may be put on probation, placed in a correctional institution or other out-of-home placement, sent to treatment or other programs, or given some other sanction, such as paying restitution or performing community service. The most common disposition is probation; over half of the cases adjudicated delinquent were placed on probation in 1996; 28 percent of those adjudicated delinquent in 1996 were sent to out-of-home placement. Males were more likely than females to be placed (29 and 22 percent of adjudicated delinquency cases involving males and females, respectively) and females were more likely to be put on probation (53 and 59 percent for males and females, respectively). A higher proportion of cases involving blacks and other races results in out-of-home placement than do cases

TABLE 5-3 Interventions in the Juvenile Justice System: Evaluations of Alternatives to Detention

involving white juveniles (32 percent for blacks and other races, 26 percent for whites in 1996) (Stahl et al., 1999).

Over half of juveniles adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court are put on probation, as are one-fifth of those nonadjudicated (found not guilty). One-third of the cases that do not receive formal juvenile court processing are also placed on probation at intake (Stahl et al., 1999). In 1996, 634,100 criminal delinquent cases and 58,300 status offense delinquent cases resulted in probation. These figures do not include juveniles who were under the supervision of probation departments after serving time in a residential facility. National figures for the latter group are not collected.

Probation is essentially surveillance designed to prevent reoffending, with the threat of punishment and to detect reoffending if it should occur. Surveillance alone may be insufficient to prevent reoffending. Research with adults has found that the most successful probation programs combine both treatment and surveillance (Petersilia, 1997).

The early founders of juvenile courts saw probation as one of the most significant components of the juvenile court system (Schlossman, 1983). Probation provided the opportunity to rehabilitate juveniles in their homes rather than incarcerating them. Probation officers could get

to know the individual juveniles and their families and therefore provide individualized guidance. As with other ideals of the juvenile court, the reality of probation did not always live up to its expectations, either at the beginning of the juvenile courts 100 years ago or today. Nevertheless, probation has remained the overwhelming dispositional choice for adjudicated offenders of juvenile courts since statistics were first kept in 1927 (Torbet, 1996).

There is a great deal of variety in the responsibilities and structure of probation departments from state to state and even within states. In general, juvenile probation departments have three basic functions: intake screening of cases referred to juvenile court, presentence investigations, and court-ordered supervision of juveniles. This section deals only with court-ordered supervision of juveniles who were given probation as their primary disposition. The use of probation officers to supervise juveniles following incarceration is covered in the section on after care; it is not always easy to separate the two conditions, however. The same parole officers may oversee juveniles whose primary sanction was probation (probationers) and juveniles who have been released from incarceration (parolees). Conditions of probation may be similar for both groups of juveniles. Both probationers and parolees may attend the same treatment programs while serving their probation.

There has been little evaluation of traditional probation practices,

with more research emphasis being focused on such alternatives as intensive supervision (Clear and Braga, 1995). Intensive supervision, as its name implies, involves more intense scrutiny and monitoring than traditional probation. Interest in intensive supervision probation has waxed and waned since the 1960s. Spurred by both increasing overcrowding in correctional facilities and the get-tough approach, intensive supervision programs grew in popularity in the late 1980s (Armstrong, 1991). Studies of intensive supervision for adult offenders have not found increased monitoring alone to reduce recidivism. In fact, increased monitoring may detect more cases of technical probation violations than regular probation (MacKenzie, 1997), leading to higher rates of measured reoffending if technical violations are included in recidivism measures.

A study by Land and colleagues (1990, 1992) examined an intensive supervision program for status delinquency cases. Status offenders were randomly assigned to regular probation or to intensive supervision. In addition to frequent visits with the juvenile and his or her family from the counselor (as often as daily at first, then at least weekly thereafter, compared with visits once every 90 days for regular probation), juveniles and their families in intensive supervision were directed to community programs to assist them. Based on individualized assessments and program plans, juveniles in the intensive supervision program were given behavioral objectives to be met and were regularly assessed on their progress. A year after treatment end, juveniles in intensive supervision had significantly fewer criminal delinquency referrals than did those in regular probation. There was no difference between the groups in status offense referrals. As the program matured and became routinized, it appeared to become less effective. Status offenders who entered the program after it had been in existence for 1.5 years were as likely to be referred for criminal delinquency as were those in regular probation. Land et al. (1992) noted that there were fewer referrals to services made in the mature program than occurred when it was new, and that staff received less attention and support after the program was well established. Intensive supervision coupled with treatment and well-supported staff appears to have the potential to keep status offenders who have not already been involved in criminal delinquency from committing criminal delinquent acts.

Most of the intensive supervision probation programs instituted beginning in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s have been targeted not at status offenders, but at high-risk juveniles for whom community safety demands more intense supervision than can be provided under routine probation (Armstrong, 1991). These intensive supervision programs vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some include short-term residential placements with intensive community-based services; others rely on frequent contact between the probation officer and the

juvenile. The definition of frequent also varies from daily to weekly, but it is always more frequent than traditional probation.

Several studies have evaluated intensive supervision of probationers. 7 A study in which juveniles were randomly assigned to one of three inhome programs in Detroit, Michigan, or to the state training school (the control group), found no significant differences in recidivism (measured by court appearances for new offenses) or self-reported criminal delinquency among all four groups during the two-year follow-up (Barton and Butts, 1991). The in-home programs cost only one-third the expense of incarceration in training schools. The evaluators concluded that intensive in-home programs were cost-effective and posed no increased danger to the community.

A three-year follow-up of juvenile offenders randomly assigned to regular probation or intensive probation in Contra Costa County, California, found little difference in recidivism (measured by rearrest, court appearances, incarceration, and self-reported offending) between the two groups (Fagan and Reinarman, 1991). Although the intensive program was designed to include more therapeutic programs than regular probation, in practice, the major difference was the number of contacts between probation officers and juveniles—weekly for intensive supervision and monthly for regular probation. The program was originally intended for serious and violent offenders, but many nonviolent, less serious offenders ended up in the program. The authors concluded that regular probation suffices for most juvenile offenders and that intensive supervision should be reserved for serious and violent offenders who have failed under regular probation conditions.

A number of researchers (e.g., Altschuler and Armstrong, 1991; Baird, 1991; Clear, 1991) argue that intensive supervision is warranted only for juveniles at high risk of serious reoffending. Defining which juveniles are high risk and therefore warrant intensive supervision, however, is a complicated and difficult task. Relying solely on the seriousness of the current offense is inadequate, as that alone is a poor predictor of future offending (see, for example, Wolfgang et al., 1972). Judicial judgments of dangerousness have been shown to be quite poor at accurately predicting which offenders are dangerous (Fagan and Guggenheim, 1996). Demonstrating the success or failure of intensive supervision programs may ride on their ability to identify the appropriate group of juveniles to serve.

Incarceration

Deprivation of liberty through incarceration is usually thought to be the most severe sanction that can be meted out by the justice system. 8 Of all juvenile criminal delinquency cases disposed in 1996, 18 percent (320,900 cases) resulted in detention. The type of offenses for which juveniles are detained include not only violent offenses but also property and drug offenses.

The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP), conducted on October 29, 1997, found that nearly 93,000 youngsters under age 18 were held in public or private detention, correctional, and shelter facilities (Gallagher, 1999). The CJRP, which collects individual data on each person under age 21 held in residential facilities, replaced the Children in Custody census, which collected aggregate data on persons under age 21 in each facility biennially from 1971 through 1995. Differences in methodology between the two censuses make direct comparisons of the numbers of juveniles in custody over time problematic. It appears that the numbers of juveniles in custody has grown steadily since 1975 (see Figure 5-4 ). It is impossible to determine, however, how much of the increase from 1995 to 1997 is real and how much is an artifact of the change in method of data collection. Nevertheless, the United States has a high rate of juveniles in custody—368 per 100,000 juveniles (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999)—a rate that is higher than the adult incarceration rate in most other countries (Mauer, 1997).

It is easy to forget that most children who are incarcerated will be out on the streets in a few years or months. What they learn through the juvenile justice system is likely to influence their behavior later. Their access to appropriate education and vocational training and to mental health services may make all the difference between successful reintegration into society and reoffending.

Conditions in juvenile facilities vary greatly, from those in which appropriate educational and other services are provided and staff are well trained to those in which many juveniles spend much of their time in cells with nothing to do, and where facilities are unsafe and unsanitary, services are lacking, and staff are poorly trained and may even be abusive. In 1995, Human Rights Watch (1995) documented physical abuse of juveniles in Louisiana's Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. The New York Times (1998) documented continuing physical abuse and other problems in this facility in 1998, which “houses 620 boys and young men, age

FIGURE 5-4 Total number of youth under 21 in custody. Source: Data for 1975 to 1991 from Smith (1998); data for 1995 and 1997 from Snyder and Sickmund (1999).

11 to 20, in stifling corrugated-iron barracks jammed with bunks. . . . Meals are so meager that many boys lose weight. Clothing is so scarce that boys fight over shirts and shoes. Almost all of the teachers are uncertified, instruction amounts to as little as an hour a day, and until recently there were no books.” In late 1999, three boot camps in Maryland were closed and top juvenile justice officials lost their jobs after physical abuse of juveniles by staff was found to be widespread ( The Washington Post, 1999). The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in June 1998 that boys in the Central Arkansas Observation and Assessment Center seldom saw daylight, were given clean clothing only every other week, and were subjected to the unsanitary condition of raw sewage backing up into shower drains whenever toilets were flushed (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 1999).

In contrast, some facilities provide a wide range of programs in well-kept settings. The Giddings State Training School in Texas has modern educational facilities that are wired for the Internet and offers high school equivalency classes and vocational training. The facility has intensive treatment for drug abusers, sexual offenders, and capital offenders. The facilities are tended by the residents and are clean and well kept (Coali-

tion for Juvenile Justice, 1999). 9 Ferris School in Delaware, after years of fighting lawsuits, was rebuilt and restructured in the mid-1990s. Education is now stressed over punishment there. In fact, Ferris is the only education program in a juvenile secure care facility in the Mid-Atlantic region to receive accreditation (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 1999).

Even in well-kept settings, however, some misbehaving youth are punished through isolation or deprivation of privileges. The panel could find no studies of the impact of these punishments on the behavior of juveniles either during incarceration or upon release.

The only national study of conditions of confinement in juvenile correctional facilities (Parent et al., 1994) found substantial and widespread problems concerning amount of living space, health care, security, and control of suicidal behavior. Crowded conditions are widespread in juvenile training and reform schools. In 1995, 68 percent of juveniles in public facilities and 15 percent in private facilities were in facilities that housed more juveniles than they had been designed to house (Smith, 1998). Overcrowded conditions are not only unpleasant, but also may be dangerous—both staff and juveniles have higher rates of injury in overcrowded facilities (Parent et al., 1994). Injury rates were also higher for both juveniles and staff in facilities in which living units were locked 24 hours a day, regardless of the percentage of youth incarcerated for violent crimes, than in less secure facilities. The study found that large dormitory sleeping arrangements were accompanied by high rates of juvenile-on-juvenile injuries. Single sleeping rooms were related to suicidal behavior, with the rate of suicide attempts increasing as the percentage of juveniles in single rooms increased (Parent et al., 1994). Apparently, rooms housing two or three juveniles are preferable to either single rooms or large dormitories.

Parent and colleagues (1994) also found serious deficiencies in health care for incarcerated juveniles. Health care screenings, which national standards say should occur within one hour of admissions, and appraisals, which should occur within seven days of admission, are often not completed in a timely manner. Timely screenings are important to identify injuries and acute health problems that may require immediate attention. Timely health appraisals are important to identify health care needs that require treatment during confinement and to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. In addition, the Parent et al. study found that health care screenings may be performed by staff with no health training. This was a particular problem in detention centers, where one-third of juveniles were screened by untrained staff.

Parent et al. (1994) also examined education, recreation, and mental health programming in juvenile facilities. They found that, in the early 1990s, 65 percent of juveniles in public facilities were in institutions with current court orders or consent decrees related to programming deficiencies. They could not determine which areas of programming were specified in the orders and decrees, however. Nevertheless, this finding points to widespread inadequacies in services available to juveniles held in residential facilities.

Educational Needs and Services

Many children and adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system have fared poorly in school and have significant educational needs. Although not as well studied as the mental health needs of these youngsters (discussed in the next section), many have not attended school recently and many perform below grade level. In addition, for most incarcerated juveniles, correctional education services are their last exposure to formal education (Dedel, 1997). In site visits made during their study, Parent et al. (1994) received estimates from language teachers in juvenile facilities that 32 percent of their students read at or below 4th-grade level, 27 percent at 5th-or 6th-grade level, 20 percent at 7th- or 8th-grade level, and 21 percent at or above 9th-grade level. A Massachusetts state court decision ( Green v. Johnson, 513F. Supp. 965, 968 D. Mass., 1981) estimated that 50 to 80 percent of children in juvenile facilities were handicapped under the definitions in the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

The Parent et al. (1994) study found that nearly all juveniles are held in facilities that provide some kind of educational programming: 95 percent of juveniles in detention centers had access to educational programming, as did 97 percent in training schools, and 96 percent in ranches, camps, or farms. 10 The quality of the educational programming, however, appeared to vary greatly from site to site. The American Correctional Association standards recommend that educational programs in juvenile facilities use state-certified teachers, have a maximum student-to-teacher ratio of 15:1, and assess the educational status of juveniles to develop individualized educational plans. Only 55 percent of training school residents and 29 percent of ranch, camp, or farm residents are in facilities that meet all the recommended educational standards. The

Parent et al. (1994) study did not have access to information on educational outcomes to assess the effects of the educational programming on residents. Dedel (1997) reports that 75 percent of students in custody advanced less than a full grade level per year while in custody.

Mental Health Needs

A number of studies of incarcerated juveniles have found the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, diagnosed from structured interviews or clinical assessments, to be three to five times higher than in the general population of young people (Chiles et al., 1980; Davis et al., 1991; Eppright et al., 1993; Hollander and Turner, 1985; Lewis et al., 1987; McManus et al., 1984a; McManus et al., 1984b; Miller et al., 1982; Shelton, 1998; Steiner et al., 1997; Timmons-Mitchell et al., 1997). Conduct disorder was present in over 80 percent of incarcerated youth (Davis et al., 1991; Eppright et al., 1993; Hollander and Turner, 1985; Timmons-Mitchell et al., 1997). This finding is not surprising because the criteria for a diagnosis of conduct disorder includes delinquent and criminal behavior, such as truancy, arson, theft, breaking and entering, and assault. Other psychiatric disorders found among detained and incarcerated young people included depressive disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and psychotic disorders. Studies also report many times more personality disorders, especially borderline personality disorder, among incarcerated youth than among the general population of young people. At least half of juvenile detainees also report substance abuse (Davis et al., 1991; Timmons-Mitchell et al., 1997).

A study of randomly selected incarcerated boys and girls in Ohio found that girls displayed significantly more mental health problems (other than conduct disorder) than boys—84 percent of girls had a mental health disorder compared with 27 percent of boys. Studies of adult incarcerated women suggest that psychiatric disorders are also much more prevalent in adult incarcerated women than in either adult incarcerated men or the general population (Jordan et al., 1996; Teplin et al., 1996).

Juvenile offenders have been found to have a high rate of drug and alcohol use. In 1998, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program found illegal substances in the urine of 40 to over 60 percent (depending on the city) of male juvenile arrestees (National Institute of Justice, 1999). An analysis of the National Youth Survey found a strong correlation between serious substance use and serious delinquent behavior (Johnson et al., 1993): 23 percent of juveniles who reported involvement in multiple serious crimes were current cocaine users, compared with 3 percent of nondelinquents. Drug and alcohol use often coexist with other mental health problems (McBride et al., 1999).

Young people with substance abuse or mental health disorders in juvenile correctional facilities have little chance of receiving either an adequate assessment or appropriate treatment. Furthermore, treatment is very rarely coordinated with services after youth are released. Longitudinal evidence suggests that delinquents with serious psychiatric disorders are less likely than others to desist from delinquency in their late teens or twenties (Hare et al., 1988; Robins, 1974). The lack of adequate mental health treatment in the juvenile correctional facilities represents a lost opportunity for these juveniles.

Evaluations of Treatments in the Juvenile Justice System

Although no treatment program works 100 percent of the time for 100 percent of the participants, there are treatment programs that have been found to reduce the rate of future offending, whereas some get-tough sanctions have been found to increase recidivism. The panel did not have the resources to examine all the literature relevant to treatment of juveniles under the control of the juvenile justice system (Lipsey and Wilson, 1998, alone found 200 experimental or quasiexperimental studies for their meta-analysis). Rather, we relied on published reviews (Krisberg and Howell, 1998; MacKenzie, 1997; Petrosino et al., 2000) and several metaanalyses (Gottschalk et al., 1987; Lipsey, 1995; Lipsey and Wilson, 1998; Mayer et al., 1986).

Lipsey and colleagues have performed several meta-analytic studies of treatments for juvenile offenders (Lipsey, 1995; Lipsey and Wilson, 1998). Meta-analysis allows the quantitative findings of many studies to be combined and statistically analyzed. Differences in study methods and procedures can be controlled for statistically, allowing a pattern of treatment effects across studies to be revealed. Effect size is the usual measure employed in meta-analyses. It should be noted that effect size is influenced as much by the nature of the comparison group as by the treatment programs being evaluated. Meta-analyses can be an extremely important aid to identifying good treatment programs, but their use cannot overcome problems of poor research design. In fact, when metaanalyses are not based on rigorous criteria for inclusion, the results can be misleading.

In a meta-analysis of 400 research studies of programs for delinquency reduction, Lipsey (1995) found that the average effect across all the programs studied was a 10 percent reduction in delinquency among participants in the program compared with a control group. However, there was wide variety from program to program, with some studies finding increased delinquency among participants in certain programs and studies of other types of programs finding a 30 percent improvement in the

program participants over the control group. Overall, Lipsey (1995) found that programs that targeted behavioral change in a relatively structured and concrete manner had a greater effect on reducing delinquency than programs that targeted psychological change through traditional counseling or casework approaches. Other meta-analyses have similarly found that cognitive-behavioral, skill-oriented, and multimodal programs have the best effects (Gottschalk et al., 1987; Mayer et al., 1986). This pattern held for programs conducted under the auspices of the juvenile justice system and for those run by other institutions.

Of particular concern are programs that increased delinquency. Lipsey (1995:74) says about them:

Most notable are the deterrence approaches such as shock incarceration. Despite their popularity, the available studies indicate that they actually result in delinquency increases rather than decreases. Unfortunately, there are distressingly few studies in this category, making any conclusions provisional. The studies we do have, however, raise grave doubts about the effectiveness of these forms of treatment.

A systematic review of evaluations of deterrence programs, such as Scared Straight, that involve exposing youngsters who have come in contact with the juvenile justice system to prison life and adult inmates was undertaken by Petrosino and colleagues (2000). None of the nine evaluations that involved random assignment of youngsters to the treatment or control groups found any positive effect on future delinquency. Seven of the studies found that the effects of the program were harmful, that is, youngsters in treatment were more likely to commit additional delinquent acts than were those in the control group who received no treatment.

Lipsey (1995) also found that the length of the program and how well it was planned and delivered affected how well the program reduced delinquency. Programs that were monitored to ensure that they were delivered as planned had larger effects than programs that were not monitored. More of an otherwise effective program appears to be better than less. In general, Lipsey (1995) recommended that programs should have 100 hours or more of total contact with the juvenile, delivered at two or more contacts per week, over a period of 26 weeks or longer. Because the average length of stay for juveniles in residential placement is less than four months (Smith, 1998)—significantly shorter than 26 weeks—it may be difficult to provide programs over a sufficient length of time to make a difference for many youth in residential placement. Continuity of programming after release may be a way to increase effectiveness. It should be noted, however, that Lipsey and Wilson (1998) found that characteristics of effective programming both inside and outside institutions differed.

Lipsey and Wilson (1998) performed a separate meta-analysis on 200 studies of all the experimental or quasi-experimental studies of the effects of interventions with serious juvenile offenders. They summarize their results as follows (Lipsey and Wilson, 1998:229-230): “The average intervention effect for these studies was positive, statistically significant, and equivalent to a recidivism reduction of about 6 percentage points, for example, from 50 percent to 44 percent (mean effect size = 0.12). The variation around this overall mean, however, was considerable.”

Lipsey and Wilson (1998:330) note that the primary lesson of their study is “that sufficient research has not yet been conducted on the effects of intervention with serious juvenile offenders.” They found that the dimensions that characterized good programs for incarcerated offenders differed from those for nonincarcerated offenders. Therefore, they searched separately for effective programs in these two settings. Programs that provided interpersonal skills and insight into their own behavior and programs that placed offenders into community-based teaching family homes were most consistently effective for incarcerated offenders. Individual counseling, teaching of interpersonal skills and insight into their own behavior, and behavioral programming were most successful for the nonincarcerated offenders.

Of course, no program is effective for all offenders. A variety of attempts have been made to match offenders to programs on the basis of assessed needs. Whether such matching can be the basis for improved results has been the subject of some debate (see, e.g., Andrews et al., 1990b; Lab and Whitehead, 1990). Because effective programming can be costly, benefits should be carefully determined and reported (MacKenzie, 1997).

Although studies have focused on recidivism rates for treatment programs, there seem to be few credible studies of effects of policies in residential facilities, such as television viewing, recreational privileges, or the use of isolation or of lockups that occur in training or reform schools designed for juveniles. Many juvenile correction systems employ a behavior modification strategy tying rewards (e.g., to purchase special food, watch TV, use the library, play athletic games) to compliance. These systems also typically link punishments to misbehavior. Although designed to teach inmates better behavior, empirical evidence has demonstrated that the strategy may backfire with some populations (Deci, 1971; Kruglanski et al., 1971; Lepper et al., 1997). Because the punishments used in reformatories involve physical force, lockups, isolation, and a variety of forms of deprivation, some juveniles may be learning that force is appropriate to obtain compliance. Studies are needed to learn about effects of lockups and of behavior modification strategies in order to

ensure that the juvenile justice system is not creating or exacerbating problems it is designed to alleviate.

After Care and Reintegration

Following incarceration, most juvenile offenders will return to the communities from which they came. As with the adult system, juvenile corrections officials have a poor record of controlling juvenile parolees released from secure detention into the community. As in the adult system, concerns have been raised that heavy caseloads and poor quality and delivery of services affect offender rehabilitation and public safety. This situation has led to the testing of models of intensive parole supervision and after care (Altschuler and Armstrong, 1994a). Knowing how difficult it is for all individuals to make major changes in complex behavior patterns, it should not be surprising that juvenile offenders may need assistance if they are to avoid reoffending. Even for those who received appropriate treatment programs while incarcerated, change may be difficult to maintain when they return to their old environment. For juveniles to succeed in reintegrating into the community, more emphasis may have to be placed on continued treatment rather than merely on surveillance and monitoring.

Intensive after-care programs have evolved over the past 10 years out of the adult supervision probation movement and juvenile intensive supervision probation programs (Altschuler and Armstrong, 1994a). The intensive after-care model, as designed by Altschuler and Armstrong (1994b), represents a reintegrative alternative to confinement and release into the community under traditional parole supervision. From initial confinement to transition into the community, the goals of intensive after-care programs are to prepare the offender for prosocial adjustment to life in the community and in social networks (e.g., family, peers, school, and employment). The after-care component combines surveillance and control of offenders in the community with the provision of treatment and services based on the offender's needs and an assessment of factors that might increase his or her chances of reoffending. The combination of treatment and surveillance is critical to the intensive after-care model. Reviews of the research suggest that community corrections programs that emphasize surveillance and control only may not be enough (Byrne and Brewster, 1993; Petersilia, 1997; Petersilia and Turner, 1993). Community-based corrections programs that balance the provision of treatment and rehabilitation services (i.e., individual and family counseling, drug treatment, and vocational or employment training and assistance) with offender surveillance and monitoring (i.e., drug testing, curfew, and electronic monitoring) should be carefully evaluated to learn what mix is effective.

Very few studies have been conducted that evaluate the effectiveness of juvenile corrections programs; even less is known about how juveniles adjust to the community when they are released from secure confinement. Although there is evidence that rehabilitation programs, in general, can work (Andrews and Bonta, 1994; Andrews et al., 1990a, 1990b; Gendreau and Ross, 1979; Palmer, 1975), more information is needed on what programs work best for whom.

There is evidence that elements of the confinement experience increase the probability of failure upon release (Byrne and Kelly,1989; Hagan, 1991; National Research Council, 1993; Shannon, 1988). Moreover, researchers have found that the provision of services to offenders may be more effective when administered in the community rather than in secure facilities (Lipsey, 1992). Some research has also shown that length of confinement has no effect on rearrest rates of juvenile parolees (Beck and Shipley, 1987; Cohen and Canela-Cacho, 1994; National Research Council, 1993).

The most promising programs and strategies for use in juvenile after-care programs include those that address the needs and risk factors for reoffending of high-risk juveniles leaving secure confinement. Lipsey and Wilson's (1998) meta-analysis suggests that programs that provide interpersonal skill training (i.e., social skills training), behavioral contracting, and cognitive-behavioral individualized counseling are best at reducing recidivism rates for noninstitutionalized youth. These are the types of treatment and rehabilitation programs offered in many intensive after-care programs.

There have been very few scientifically rigorous evaluations of juvenile after-care programs. In addition, intensive supervision programs often mix probationers and parolees, making it difficult to separate possible different effects on juveniles diverted from incarceration and on those released from incarceration. Generally, these studies have failed to find consistent evidence of the effectiveness of juvenile intensive supervision programs and after care in reducing reoffending (Altschuler et al., 1999). As noted in the discussion of probation, intensive supervision may simply bring more technical violations of parole conditions or other delinquent acts to the attention of authorities than would be the case under routine parole or probation. Outcomes in addition to rearrest or reincarceration should be considered in evaluating program success. Intensive supervision after-care programs often include goals similar to those found in the restorative justice model, such as restitution and reintegration. How successful programs are in having juveniles pay fines, complete victim restitution conditions, attend school, or find a job are some of the other areas that could be considered in addition to recidivism measures. Evaluations of after-care programs are summarized in Table 5-4 .

TABLE 5-4 Interventions in the Juvenile Justice System: Evaluations of After Care Programs

Some evaluations of intensive after care have indicated moderate benefits. For example, an evaluation of the Philadelphia Intensive Probation Aftercare Program, in which serious juvenile offenders in one institution were randomly assigned to intensive after care or typical probation, found that, although the same proportions of youths in after care as without after care had been arrested, those in after care had fewer arrests (Sontheimer and Goodstein, 1993). The Philadelphia youth in the intensive probation group who were arrested were significantly less likely to be convicted or reincarcerated than those assigned to typical probation. Youth participating in juvenile after care as part of the Maryland Drug Treatment Program performed no better in terms of alleged or adjudicated offenses than those in a control group; however, after-care participants did have significantly fewer new crimes against persons than controls (Sealock et al., 1995, 1997).

In an evaluation conducted by Greenwood and colleagues (1993) of two intensive after-care programs implemented in Detroit and Pittsburgh,

youth randomly assigned to either intensive after care or traditional supervision performed equally well when compared on the proportion of arrests, self-reported offending, and drug use during a 12-month followup period. Deschenes et al. (1996) conducted a quasi-experimental evaluation of youth participating in a program that combined an alternative to traditional residential confinement (three months of participation in a wilderness camp) with placement in intensive after-care supervision (treatment and surveillance) upon release. When compared with youth placed in a traditional residential facility (the control group), program participants did no better on measures of arrest and self-reported drug use. Program participants did, however, report less involvement in drug selling than the control group.

Other studies show less positive findings. Minor and Elrod (1990) found no significant differences in self-reported or officially recorded delinquency overall, although juveniles in intensive supervision with extensive offending histories had significantly fewer offenses during an

18-month follow-up than controls with similar backgrounds. In an experimental study conducted by Barton and Butts (1990), juveniles randomly assigned to intensive supervision had more delinquency charges than those randomly assigned to the control group, but these charges were less severe. When only criminal charges were considered, the two groups had similar levels of charges. Both groups also had similar levels of self-reported reoffending.

This research is far from conclusive. It seems clear that delinquent juveniles require more than intensive surveillance and control to affect rates of future offending. Determining the appropriate amount and type of treatment and services is clearly an issue in need of further research and clarification. Change among delinquents may involve some backsliding. Relapse is known to be part of other forms of habit change (e.g., smoking, drinking, and drug use) and relapse prevention has become a standard part of drug and alcohol treatment programs (Institute of Medicine, 1990, 1997).

No clear evidence shows whether services or treatment are better received in the community or in secure confinement. As for program content, more research is needed that untangles effects attributable to intensive supervision from those of treatment and rehabilitation provided along with the supervision. It is also unclear from existing intensive supervision evaluations which specific rehabilitation and treatment programs are effective and for whom (Altschuler et al., 1999). Several intensive after-care programs are currently being evaluated through grants from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

JUSTICE SYSTEM INVOLVEMENT AND EMPLOYMENT

Being caught by the police and caught up in the juvenile or criminal justice systems are especially hazardous for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, because becoming involved in crime can produce not only future criminality, but also later problems in finding employment. These problems can be further conceptualized in terms of a process of “criminal embeddedness” (Hagan, 1993; Hagan and McCarthy, 1997).

For most individuals, the key to a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood is finding a job, and this involves social embeddedness. The personal contacts of individuals, friends, and families and the network of relations that flow from these contacts are important sources of social capital used in finding jobs and making job changes (Coleman, 1990; Granovetter, 1974). Youth from advantaged class backgrounds are more likely than others to have the social capital that derives from being socially embedded in job networks. This embeddedness facilitates finding and changing jobs.

However, just as early employment contacts can enhance the prospects of getting a job and subsequent occupational mobility, contacts with crime and the justice system seem likely, in a converse way, to increase the probability of unemployment. For example, criminal involvements of family and friends are more likely to integrate young people into the criminal underworld than into referral networks of legal employment. And youthful delinquent acts and justice system supervision are likely to further distance juveniles from the job contacts that initiate and sustain legitimate occupational careers. Criminal embeddedness is a liability in terms of prospects for stable adult employment. This embeddedness is compounded by the effects of becoming officially labeled and known as a criminal offender, especially in distressed community settings in which few jobs are available in any case.

These risks are reflected in a recent analysis of juveniles tracked from childhood through adulthood in a London working-class neighborhood (Hagan, 1993). This study reveals that intergenerational patterns of criminal conviction make youth especially prone to subsequent delinquency and adult unemployment (Hagan, 1993; Hagan and Palloni, 1990; Ward and Tittle, 1993). Other studies similarly show that working-class males with conviction records are uniquely disadvantaged in finding and maintaining employment (Laub and Sampson, 1995; Schwartz and Skolnick, 1964), and that a criminal arrest record can have negative effects on employment as much as eight years later (Freeman, 1992; Grogger, 1995; Thornberry and Christenson, 1984). Conviction and imprisonment have also been shown to have a permanent impact on legal earnings (Freeman, 1992; Hunt et al., 1993; Needels, 1996; Sampson and Laub, 1993). For example, Freeman's (1992) analysis of the Boston Youth Survey indicated that youths who were incarcerated had exceptionally low chances of employment; similarly, his analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth revealed that men who had been in jail or on probation experienced “massive long-term effects on employment ” (Freeman, 1992:217). Sampson and Laub (1993) found that unstable employment and a higher likelihood of welfare dependence characterized the lives of the delinquent boys in a prospective sample of 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents. Moreover, juvenile incarceration was found to have an indirect effect on the incidence of future crime, because “incarceration appears to cut off opportunities and prospects for stable employment [and] job stability in turn has importance in explaining later crime” (Laub and Sampson, 1995:256). Other data indicate that while more than half of state prisoners are employed before going to jail, only about a fifth of those on parole are employed following imprisonment (Irwin and Austin, 1994).

It is therefore important to emphasize the role of the police, courts,

and prisons in the development of these youthful criminal careers. Sullivan (1989) found in the more stable white neighborhood he studied that parents, using their well-developed social networks and resulting social capital, “sought to manipulate the system—and were often successful in doing so—by means of money and personal connections” (p. 196). In contrast, in both of the minority neighborhoods Sullivan studied, youth began to move further away from home to commit violent economic crimes and encountered more serious sanctions when they did so. These crimes produced short-term gains, but they also separated minority youths from the legitimate labor market, stigmatizing and further damaging their social and cultural capital in terms of later job prospects. Of the minority youth, Sullivan writes that “their participation in regular acts of income-producing crime and the resulting involvement with the criminal justice system in turn kept them out of school and forced them to abandon their earlier occupational goals” (p. 64). Court appearances and resulting confinements removed these youth from whatever possibility for inclusion in job referral networks school might provide and placed them in prison and community-based crime networks that further isolated them from legitimate employment.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Sullivan's work and other recent ethnographies of poverty and crime make the point that the material gains associated with embeddedness in the drug economy usually prove to be transitory. For example, in Getting Paid, Sullivan (1989) argues that although participation in the underground economy may yield temporary material gains, over time it becomes a limitation, and those involved “age out of youth crime and accept . . . low wage, unstable jobs” (Sullivan, 1989:250). Joan Moore, in Going Down to the Barrio, suggests a similar conclusion when she observes that “the very culture of defiance at best dooms the boys to jobs just like their fathers hold,” serving in the end “to keep working-class kids in the working class” (Moore, 1991:42). Felix Padilla echoes this theme in his ethnography of The Gang as an American Enterprise, noting that “instead of functioning as a progressive and liberating agent capable of transforming and correcting the youngsters' economic plight, the gang assisted in reinforcing it” (Padilla, 1992:163). In each of these ethnographies and in the related studies noted earlier, it is embeddedness in crime networks, including the juvenile and the criminal justice systems, that seals the economic fate of these young people.

Thus a number of studies now confirm that as time spent in prison increases, net of other background factors and involvements, the subsequent likelihood of disengagement from the legal economy increases. This is not surprising, given that even those in disadvantaged neighborhoods who do not have criminal records have difficulty finding employment. Hagan (1991), using data from a 13-year panel study, and Grogger (1995),

analyzing arrest data from the California Justice Department's Adult Criminal Justice Statistical System and earnings records from the California Employment Development Department, have demonstrated that even being charged and arrested are detrimental in the near term for occupational outcomes and earnings.

GIRLS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

As discussed in Chapter 2 , arrests of girls, although smaller in number than those of boys, have increased at a faster rate. The police are not the only justice system agency to see an increase in the number of female juvenile offenders; increases also extend to juvenile courts. Between 1987 and 1996, the number of cases involving female juveniles that were petitioned to juvenile court increased 76 percent, while the number involving male juveniles increased 42 percent. Girls, however, still only made up a little over 20 percent of juvenile court criminal delinquency cases and about 40 percent of status delinquency cases in 1996 (Stahl et al., 1999).

The nature of the offenses for which girls are seen in juvenile court has changed over time. Girls are increasingly referred to juvenile court for violent crimes. The rate for violent female juvenile court cases increased 127 percent from 1987 to 1996. During the same period, the rate for male juveniles increased 68 percent. Property offense case rates also increased from 1987 to 1996 by 37 percent for girls and 4 percent for boys. Drug case rates, in contrast, increased faster for boys (123 percent) than for girls (100 percent) (Stahl et al., 1999).

The handling of girls in the juvenile justice system also appears to have changed somewhat over the past 30 years. Studies done during the 1970s found that girls were considerably more likely than boys to be referred to juvenile court for status delinquency offenses (e.g., running away from home, incorrigibility, truancy). Girls were also more likely than boys to be formally processed, detained, and sentenced to incarceration for status delinquency offenses (see, e.g., Andrews and Cohn, 1974; Chesney-Lind, 1973; Conway and Bogdan, 1977; Datesman and Scarpitti, 1977; Gibbons and Griswold, 1957; Pawlak, 1977). However, girls were less likely to be arrested for criminal delinquency offenses, to be formally charged if arrested, or to be incarcerated (Chesney-Lind, 1973; Cohen and Kluegel, 1979; Datesman and Scarpitti, 1977). More recent studies have equivocal findings, with some showing differences in treatment of males and females (Pope and Feyerherm, 1982; Tittle and Curran, 1988) and some showing no differences (Clarke and Koch, 1980; Teilmann and Landry, 1981; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995c) with regard to dispositions of status delinquency cases.

Criminal delinquency cases involving females, however, are less likely

than cases involving males to be disposed of by detention or long-term confinement in secure facilities, after controlling for severity of offense and previous offenses (Bishop and Frazier, 1992). When contempt status (i.e., when the delinquency charge is for violation of a previously ordered condition of supervision) was introduced as a variable and interaction effects examined, however, Bishop and Frazier (1992) found that girls' risk of incarceration was substantially elevated in cases of contempt, whereas contempt had only a small impact on boys' risk of incarceration. In many cases, for girls, the original charge for which they were held in contempt was a status offense. In essence, for girls, the contempt charge means they are essentially treated as a criminal delinquent for a status offense, receiving harsher punishment for the contempt charge than for other criminal delinquency charges. Bishop and Frazier (1992:1183) reported that “the typical male offender who is not in contempt has a 3.9 percent probability of incarceration. The risk is increased only slightly, to 4.4 percent, when he is found in contempt. In sharp contrast, the typical female offender not in contempt has a 1.8 percent probability of incarceration, which increases markedly to 63.2 percent if she is held in contempt.”

In a study conducted on a geographically diverse, longitudinal (nine years of data) sample of approximately 36,000 court referrals, Johnson and Scheuble (1991) found that, after controlling for the nature of the offense, past offending, and other background variables, girls were more likely than boys to have their cases dismissed and boys were more likely than girls to be put on probation or to be locked up.

Very few programs address the unique needs and problems of female juvenile offenders. In a meta-analysis of juvenile prevention and intervention programs, the author reported that only 8 percent of the programs primarily served girls (Lipsey, 1992). When females get involved in the juvenile justice system, there are fewer options for them than for boys. Although delinquent girls share some problems with delinquent boys, they also have unique problems, including higher rates of childhood sexual victimization and depression (see Chapter 3 ) and greater, more central parenting roles. Yet programs are rarely tailored specifically for the needs of girls and their experiences.

RECENT LEGISLATIVE CHANGES AFFECTING THE JUVENILE COURT

In response to the rise in violent crime by juveniles during the late 1980s and early 1990s, states around the country made changes to their juvenile justice laws. These changes mainly involved making it easier to transfer juveniles to adult court, changing sentencing structures, and modifying or removing traditional confidentiality provisions. Between

1992 and 1997, 47 states and the District of Columbia changed their laws in at least one of these ways. State laws have also been changed in two other areas: regarding the rights of victims of juvenile crimes and in correctional programming. Table 5-5 indicates the type of changes made in each state between 1992 and 1997.

Ease of Transfer to Criminal Court

Determining which children belong in juvenile court has been an issue since the court's beginnings (Tanenhaus, 2000). There are a number

TABLE 5-5 How States Have Stiffened Laws Relating to Juvenile Justice in 1992-1997, by Type of Change

of ways in which courts have excluded certain juveniles from juvenile court jurisdiction. These include setting an age above which the juvenile court no longer has jurisdiction and various mechanisms for transferring juveniles under that age to criminal court.

Maximum and Minimum Ages of Jurisdiction

State laws set a maximum age for adolescents for which the juvenile court has original jurisdiction. This age varies by state and sometimes by offense. In Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina, the highest age of juvenile court jurisdiction in criminal delinquency cases is 15; that is, anyone age 16 and older is handled in the criminal (adult) court. In Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin, juvenile court jurisdiction applies through age 16. In the remaining states and the District of Columbia, the highest age of jurisdiction is 17 (Griffin et al., 1998). Assuming that children under a certain age cannot be responsible for their behavior, 15 states specify the lowest age for juvenile court jurisdiction. In North Carolina, the lowest minimum age is 6 years; it is 7 in Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York; 8 in Arizona; and 10 in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). In practice, very few children under the age of 10 appear before the juvenile court for delinquency charges.

Lowering the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is one of the most drastic steps a state can take, because it moves an entire age group of adolescents into the adult system. In recent years, only three states have changed their laws to lower the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction. In 1993, Wyoming dropped its maximum age from 18 to 17. In 1995, New Hampshire and Wisconsin lowered their maximum ages from 17 to 16 (Torbet et al., 1996). Although it is difficult to determine exactly how many juveniles these changes affected, 17-year-olds accounted for 24 percent of the arrests of all those under 18 in 1998. Therefore, moving 17-year-olds to the criminal justice system could reduce the case flow in the juvenile system by as much as one-fourth. The fact that so few states have chosen this option suggests that legislative concern has been focused on serious and violent crime rather than all juvenile crime (Dawson, 2000).

Transfer Mechanisms

From the inception of the juvenile court, juvenile court judges have had the discretion to waive jurisdiction to the criminal court. These waivers generally fit one of three case types: serious offense, extensive

juvenile record, or juvenile near the age limit. In the first case, the offense with which the juvenile is charged is so serious that the sanctions available to the juvenile court are felt to be insufficient. These cases usually involve violent crimes, most often murder. The second type of case involve juveniles with extensive histories of arrests and juvenile court sanctions who are deemed unable to benefit from juvenile court. In the third type of case, the juvenile is very close to the age limit of the juvenile court's jurisdiction. These cases are waived because the juvenile court would not have jurisdiction over the particular youth for a long enough period of time or because the juvenile is thought to be appropriate for adult court (Zimring, 1998).

All states have some mechanism for treating juveniles, under certain conditions, as adults (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998). How the decision to transfer is made is governed by state law and therefore varies from state to state. The state laws, including the District of Columbia, use one or more of the following methods to place a child in the adult criminal court: judicial waiver, prosecutorial direct file, and statutory exclusion. Judicial waiver, in which the transfer decision is left to the discretion of the juvenile court judge, is the traditional method that juvenile courts have used for transfer. Statutory changes in recent years have removed some of the judicial discretion and given it to either the prosecutor, through direct file, or to the state legislature, through statutory exclusions.

During the 1990s, most states made it easier to transfer juveniles to adult court (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998). The most common ways in which state laws were changed were by adding offenses that allow or mandate transfer to criminal court and lowering the age at which certain juveniles could be tried in criminal court.

Judicial Waiver. Most states and the District of Columbia have laws that permit juvenile court judges to waive jurisdiction from the juvenile court to the criminal court under certain conditions. The transfer decision is up to the juvenile court judge. There are three types of waiver proceedings: discretionary waiver, mandatory waiver, and presumptive waiver. There is also a provision known as reverse waiver, as well as a special transfer category described as “once an adult, always an adult.”

In all, 46 states give juvenile court judges the discretion to decide whether a matter will be tried in the juvenile court or the criminal court (Griffin et al., 1998). Some states require that the prosecutor initiate the process by filing a motion. Other states allow any party or the court to initiate the action.

The discretionary statutes in most states specify criteria similar to those set forth in Kent v. United States (383 U.S. 541, 566-67 [1966]) that should be considered by the juvenile court in deciding whether to transfer

jurisdiction to the criminal court. Generally, the states require the court to consider the following factors in the exercise of its discretion: whether a waiver of jurisdiction would serve the interests of the juvenile and the public; whether public safety requires it; whether there are further services available for the juvenile through the juvenile court system; and whether the child is amenable to rehabilitation (Griffin et al., 1998).

The statutes in 14 states provide for mandatory waivers in cases in which the age and offense criteria are met. Mandatory waiver proceedings are initiated in the juvenile court; however, the involvement of the juvenile court in a mandatory waiver case is minimal. Generally there is a preliminary hearing to determine if the case is one to which the mandatory statute applies. If the threshold criterion is met, the court has the authority only to appoint counsel and to issue interim detention and transfer orders (Griffin et al., 1998); the juvenile court judge may not opt to keep the case in juvenile court. Mandatory waivers leave no room for judicial discretion.

In 15 states, the statutes designate cases in which waiver to the adult criminal court is presumed to be appropriate (presumptive waiver). In these cases, the burden in the waiver hearing is on the child rather than the state. If a child who meets the age, offense, or other criteria specified in the statute fails to show that he or she is amenable to treatment or that his or her retention in the juvenile court does not jeopardize public safety, the case must be transferred to the criminal court.

The statutory criteria that activate presumptive waiver cases fall into three broad categories (Griffin et al., 1998). The first category focuses primarily on the current offense. In the second category, the statutes presumptively require a waiver for an older child, even if the offense for which the child was accused would not otherwise raise the presumption. The third category emphasizes the child's previous juvenile offense history over all other factors.

There are laws in 23 states that provide some mechanism for a child who is being tried in the criminal court to petition to have the case transferred to the juvenile court (Griffin et al., 1998). These provisions are sometimes referred to as reverse waiver. In some states, the statutes authorize the transfer from criminal court to juvenile court even if the case arrived in criminal court by direct file, statutory exclusion, or waiver. Some statutory provisions permit the criminal court to transfer a case to the juvenile court for disposition. Generally when the offense the criminal court is considering is one that was excluded from juvenile court by statute or one in which the prosecutor exercised the discretion to file the case directly in the criminal court, the criminal court's decision is governed by the same considerations and best interests standards as those

that the juvenile court must take into account when deciding whether to waive jurisdiction.

A total of 31 states and the District of Columbia have created a special transfer category which is referred to as “once an adult, always an adult” (Griffin et al., 1998). Most states with such statutes provide that once a child has been convicted in the criminal court, all subsequent offenses require criminal prosecution. In Mississippi, even if a child was not convicted on the first adult-prosecuted offense, he or she will be prosecuted in the criminal court for any subsequent offenses. The California statutes limit the application of the “ once an adult, always an adult” provision to children who are at least 16 years of age and require that any subsequent offenses must be those for which waiver to the adult court would be appropriate.

Prosecutorial Direct File . The statutes in 15 states designate a category of cases that may be tried in either the juvenile court or the criminal court (i.e., the juvenile and criminal courts have joint or concurrent jurisdiction) (Griffin et al., 1998). In those states, the prosecutor has the authority to decide in which court to file the case; the juvenile court judge has no part in the decision. The state laws vary widely regarding the category of the offenses, the age of the child, the seriousness of the offense, and the extent of the child's juvenile offense history that are to be considered in deciding where to file.

Statutory Exclusion. Certain offenses are excluded by statute from juvenile court jurisdiction in 28 states. The laws provide that a child who has reached a certain age and is accused of a designated offense will be tried as an adult in the criminal court. All proceedings against the juvenile occur in the criminal court in the same manner as if the offense had been committed by an adult. These laws focus on the nature of the offense, rather than on the background or needs of the offender. Some states exclude only the most serious offenses, while others exclude offenses based on age. For example, in New Mexico a child who is at least 15 years of age and is accused of first-degree murder is excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction. Mississippi excludes all felonies committed by juveniles who are 17 years of age. Among the offenses excluded by Indiana is the misdemeanor offense of carrying a handgun without a license. The focus in some states is not so much on the nature of the offense and the age of the juvenile as the previous juvenile offense history. Arizona excludes any felony committed by a juvenile who is at least 15 years of age if the juvenile has been previously adjudicated for two or more offenses that would have been felonies if committed by an adult (Griffin et al., 1998).

Sentencing Structure

Traditionally, sanctions imposed by juvenile courts were to be based on the needs of the offender, with an emphasis on the future welfare of the juvenile (Torbet et al., 1996). Juvenile court judges had a great deal of discretion in the disposition they selected for an individual. Sanctions could be indeterminate in length; that is, juveniles could stay under the oversight of the court until they were too old to be under juvenile court jurisdiction. The traditional goal of sanctions was rehabilitative. State legislative changes in recent years have moved the court away from its rehabilitative goals and toward punishment and accountability. Laws have made some dispositions offense-based rather than offender-based. Offense-based sanctions are to be proportional to the offense and have retribution or deterrence as their goal. Strategies for imposing offense-based sentences in juvenile court include blended sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, and extended jurisdiction (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998). All these sentencing options allow for longer sentences than might have been available under traditional juvenile courts.

Blended Sentences

Blended sentences allow the imposition of a combination of juvenile and adult correctional sanctions. 11 The form of the blended sentences varies from state to state. In some states, a juvenile or criminal court may impose a sanction in either the juvenile or the criminal system. In some states, the juvenile or the criminal court may sentence a youth to the juvenile corrections system to be followed by a sentence in the adult corrections system, which may be suspended if the juvenile successfully completes his juvenile sanctions. In a few states (Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Texas), the juvenile court may impose a sentence that goes beyond the age of its jurisdiction, at which point the case is transferred to adult corrections. In Texas, for example, juveniles as young as 10 can be sentenced to as many as 40 years for certain crimes and can be transferred to the adult corrections system any time after they turn 16 if approved by the sentencing court at a transfer hearing, and automatically

at age 21 if the sentence has not been completed. Because these blended sentences are often longer and more severe than those that traditional juvenile courts could impose, the laws frequently provide for more procedural safeguards for the juveniles subject to these penalties (Torbet et al., 1996).

Proponents of blended sentences see them as a less severe option than outright transfer of juveniles to criminal court. Systems that give juveniles a suspended criminal sentence that only becomes operational if they violate the terms of their juvenile disposition, as well as ones that require a reevaluation of the juvenile after a period in the juvenile correctional system, are intended to give juveniles who commit serious offenses a final opportunity to avoid serious criminal sanctions (Dawson, 2000). Some critics of blended sentencing plans note, however, that the juvenile courts do not provide all the same safeguards of the accused's rights as do the criminal courts, even though blended sentencing can result in adult sanctions. Other critics say that blended sentences represent a procedural and substantive convergence between juvenile and criminal courts and erode the rationale for a separate juvenile justice system (e.g., Feld, 1997).

Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Since 1992, a number of states have modified their laws to allow for mandatory minimum sentences for certain serious crimes. In Massachusetts, for example, a juvenile age 14 or older convicted of murder must receive a sentence of at least 15 years for first-degree murder and at least 10 years for second-degree murder (Torbet et al., 1996). Some states have instituted progressive or graduated sanctions that legislatively tie type of disposition to both current offense and past offense history.

Capital Punishment

The United States is among a handful of countries to have legitimized the use of capital punishment for juveniles. In 23 states, capital punishment is an option for offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time of their offense. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment for those over age 16 in a decision made in 1989. Only Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia have actually executed juveniles. The practice has been condemned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the American Bar Association, the Children's Defense Fund, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.

Extended Jurisdiction

In response to criticisms that the length of commitment to the juvenile system is too short, some states have increased the maximum age of the juvenile court's jurisdiction over offenders. Many states allow a judge to commit a juvenile to be held in the state's juvenile corrections system up to age 21 (even though the court's jurisdiction for hearing and disposing of cases ends when a juvenile is 16 or 17). In California, Oregon, and Wisconsin, the extended age is 25 and in Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, and New Mexico, the juvenile jurisdiction extends for the full term of commitment, regardless of age.

Confidentiality

Traditionally, the rehabilitative philosophy of the juvenile court led to protocols to protect the identity of and information about juveniles who came before it. Proceedings were closed to the public. The identity of juveniles was not disclosed. There was limited access to court records and the records could be sealed or expunged after a certain length of time. These measures were aimed at minimizing the stigma attached to court involvement and promoting the goal of rehabilitation. As state legislatures began stressing punishment and retribution over rehabilitation, many states changed their laws concerning confidentiality in the juvenile court.

As of the end of 1997, 30 states permitted or required open juvenile court hearings in cases involving juveniles charged with violent or serious offenses or repeat offenders (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998). And 22 of those states either created or modified their open hearing statutes between 1992 and 1997. For example, in 1997, Idaho added language to its statute requiring open hearings for all juveniles 14 or older charged with an offense that would be a felony if committed by an adult. States have also changed laws regarding the release of the name of a juvenile to the general public or the media. As of the end of 1997, 42 states allowed the release of a minor's name or picture under certain conditions, such as being found guilty of a serious or violent offense (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

Another area of legislative change involves access to juvenile court records. Although court records traditionally have been available by court order to any party who can show a legitimate interest, a number of states now allow access to a wide variety of people or agencies, including law enforcement, social service agencies, the schools, victims, and the general public. A number of states mandate notification of a juvenile's school when the child or adolescent is found guilty of particular offenses.

For example, in North Dakota, if a child or adolescent is found guilty of a sexual assault, the court must notify the child's school superintendent or principal. Juvenile records, fingerprints, and photographs are increasingly being integrated into centralized repositories. In some states, juvenile records are kept in a separate centralized system, but in others they are merged with the centralized criminal system, including sex offender registries (Torbet et al., 1996; Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

Traditionally, juvenile records could be sealed or expunged after a specified amount of time without offending. These provisions allowed young people who had been successfully rehabilitated to clear their records so that, in effect, the proceedings would be treated as if they had never occurred (Hurst, 1985). Recent changes in state laws have lengthened the amount of time before records can be sealed or have prohibited the sealing of records for some crimes. As of the end of 1997, 25 states had made such changes (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

Victims' Rights Legislation

The traditional juvenile court model did not include consideration of the victims of juvenile offenders. During the past 10 years, concerns about violence by juveniles, the victims' rights movement, and interest in a restorative justice approach led to changes in state law that provided for consideration of the victims of juvenile crime. Such legislation includes measures to allow victims to be informed of hearings and dispositions, to attend hearings, to make statements before disposition or sentencing, and to be notified if an offender is released. Between 1992 and 1997, 32 states passed laws dealing with the rights of victims of juvenile crime (Torbet et al., 1996; Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

Correctional Programming

In a number of states, changes in transfer and sentencing laws have led to changes in laws and administrative rules concerning corrections. These changes included allowing juveniles convicted as adults to be housed in separate facilities or in juvenile facilities until a certain age, creating special programs for juveniles convicted as adults, and enhancing programs in the juvenile correctional system. Between 1992 and 1995, these laws focused on the need for secure detention of violent juvenile offenders; more recently, they have focused on authorizing and funding community-based interventions and supervision of offenders (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998).

IMPACT OF LEGISLATIVE CHANGES

Most of these legislative changes are too recent for research to provide much information about their impact either on practices regarding juvenile offenders or on the young people themselves. In addition, the many inadequacies in the data available on juveniles at various stages of the system make it difficult to examine their effect on changes in practice.

The number of juveniles who are sent to criminal (adult) court nationally is not known (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995a). In 1994, about 21,000 persons under the age of 18 were convicted of a felony in a state criminal court (Brown and Langan, 1998). And 40 percent of them were convicted of a violent offense, compared with only 18 percent of all felony convictions of those over 18. An estimated 12,000 of the 21,000 were juveniles who had been transferred through judicial waiver, prosecutorial direct file, or statutory exclusion. The remainder were in states whose maximum age for juvenile court jurisdiction is 15 or 16 (i.e., states in which 16- or 17-year-olds are defined as adults). Bishop and Frazier (2000) suggest that the above figures may be a substantial undercount. Prosecutors alone reported filing 27,000 juvenile cases in adult court in 1996 (DeFrances and Steadman, 1998), and 10,000 cases were judicially waived in 1996 (Stahl et al., 1999).

Transfer to Criminal Court

Judicial waivers have been tracked for a number of years, but data on cases transferred by prosecutorial direct file or statutory exclusion are not systematically counted. Waivers by juvenile judges have remained fairly constant over the period 1986 to 1996, representing between 1.0 and 1.6 percent of all petitioned cases (Sickmund et al., 1998). There is some evidence that a similar percentage of cases was transferred in the early years of the juvenile court. About 1 percent of cases were waived by the Milwaukee Juvenile Court in the early 20th century (Schlossman, 1977). In a study of the Chicago juvenile court, Jeter (1922) reported that the percentage of boys transferred to adult court per year was usually less than 1 percent.

Despite some stability in the overall proportion of cases transferred through judicial waiver, there is variety by type of offense. Between 1986 and 1996, cases involving person offenses (i.e., homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, other violent sex offenses, and other offenses against persons) were the most likely to be sent to criminal court by juvenile court judges; about 2 percent of person offense cases resulted in judicial waiver (Sickmund et al., 1998; Stahl et al., 1999). In the late 1980s, there was a dramatic increase in waivers for drug offense cases,

which increased from 1.2 percent in 1986 to 4.1 percent in 1991. By 1996, the percentage of drug offenses waived dropped back down to 1.2 percent. It seems unlikely that changes such as those seen in waived drug cases were due to changes in legislation. The peak occurred during the height of the war on drugs and the rise in youth violence, which was often associated with drug dealing. Waiver decisions may have been influenced by the general antidrug tenor of the period. Alternatively, the drug cases seen in juvenile court during the early 1990s may have been much more serious offenses than in the years before and after. Research, including data collection, to explain such trends remains to be done.

National data on the number of cases transferred through direct file or statutory exclusion are not available. A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (1995a), based on data from five states, the District of Columbia, and counties in five additional states, found that the percentage of cases sent to criminal court by prosecutorial direct file ranged from less than 1 percent (in Utah) to 10 percent in Florida and 13 percent in Arkansas. At least in some states, the change to prosecutorial direct file appears to have resulted in more juveniles being processed in adult criminal court.

Recent changes in statutory exclusion laws have generally increased the population of juveniles potentially subject to transfer to the criminal courts, but no national data are currently available to determine the actual number of juveniles affected by exclusion laws, the characteristics of such juveniles, or the offenses for which they are transferred. A 1985 study of 12 jurisdictions (Gragg, 1986) reported that juveniles transferred by legislative exclusion tended to be younger and to have fewer prior arrests and placements than juveniles transferred by other means.

Research has examined the impact of various aspects of transferring juveniles to criminal courts, including studies on the types of cases most likely to be transferred, comparisons of sentences in juvenile and criminal courts, and comparisons of recidivism between transferred and non-transferred juveniles.

Types of Cases

In an analysis of judicial transfer decisions in Boston, Detroit, Newark, and Phoenix from 1981 to 1984, Fagan et al. (1987a) found that age at the time the offense was committed, age of delinquency onset, and seriousness of offense were the factors that most influenced juvenile judges' decisions to transfer a case to criminal court. The cases most likely to be waived involved older juveniles charged with serious, violent offenses, predominantly homicide. Poulos and Orchowsky (1994) examined the factors influencing judicial transfer between 1988 and 1990 in the state of

Virginia. Using multivariate logistic regression, they found that the factors most important to juvenile judges' decisions to transfer a case included current offense, prior record, and age. Most likely to be transferred were juveniles who were charged with homicide, rape, or drug sales; older juveniles; juveniles who used a gun in committing the offense; and those with prior felony person or drug adjudications or prior commitment to a residential juvenile corrections facility (learning center). Judges in metropolitan courts in Virginia were less likely to transfer cases than were those in rural counties. A small study of judicially transferred cases in New Mexico found similar results (Houghtalin and Mays, 1991). Podkopacz and Feld (1996) analyzed transfer motions filed between 1986 and 1992 in Hennepin County, Minnesota, and determined that in addition to age, present offense, and weapon use, the recommendations of probation officers and clinical evaluators significantly affected the eventual judicial waiver decision. They also found prior correctional interventions to be significant: youths with no prior program placements and those with only a few (1 to 3) were less likely to be certified to adult court than youths with four or more placements.

In contrast to the findings on judicial transfers, Bishop and Frazier (1991) found that juveniles transferred through prosecutorial waiver (direct file) in Florida from 1979 to 1981 were less often violent or chronic offenders: 55 percent of those waived were felony property offenses and only 29 percent were felony person offenses. Clarke (1996), in a study of automatic transfer (offenses legislatively excluded from the juvenile court) in Cook County, Illinois, from 1992 to 1994, found that 39 percent of the transfers were for drug or weapon offenses, 25 percent were for murder, and 22 percent were for armed robbery. The proportion of transfer cases for murder had dropped from nearly half of those transferred by judicial waiver from 1975 to 1981 to a quarter under automatic transfer. Clarke (1996) concluded that Illinois's automatic transfer provisions failed to identify and therefore protect the public against serious violent juvenile offenders. Instead, they prosecuted and stigmatized many juveniles who did not represent a threat to public safety and who could benefit from the more rehabilitative programs of the juvenile court.

A high proportion of the juveniles transferred to adult court are minorities. For example, blacks and Hispanics made up 94.7 percent of those transferred in the Cook County, Illinois, study (Clarke, 1996). Hispanics and American Indians made up 67 percent of judicially transferred cases in the New Mexico study (Houghtalin and Mays, 1991). The preponderance of minorities among transferred juveniles may be explained in part by the fact that minorities are disproportionately arrested for serious crimes. In the Fagan et al. (1987a) analysis, the effects of race on the judicial transfer decision were found to be indirect.

One reason given for transferring juveniles to criminal court is that the juvenile court cannot provide adequate sanctions for some offenses. Research on the likelihood and length of sentence in criminal versus juvenile court has mixed results. Brown and Langan (1998), in a national sample, found that a higher percentage of juveniles transferred to adult court were sentenced to incarceration than were those who remained in juvenile court: 63 percent of juveniles transferred to criminal court were sentenced to prison terms and 16 percent to jail terms. Prison sentences averaged 9.25 years. Only 21 percent were given probation. In comparison, only 31 percent of juveniles found guilty of person offenses in juvenile court were sentenced to out-of-home placement, and 53 percent were put on probation (Stahl et al., 1999).

A comparison of robbery and burglary cases in New Jersey and New York suggested that processing juveniles in the criminal court resulted in higher rates of incarceration, but not lengthier sentences than processing in the juvenile court (Fagan, 1995). Fagan also found higher rates of rearrest and reincarceration among young people processed for robbery in the criminal courts than in the juvenile courts; no such differences were found for burglary cases. A comparison of cases transferred to adult court with those adjudicated in juvenile court in St. Louis found that transferred youth did not receive greater punishment than they would have received in juvenile court (Kinder et al., 1995). The U.S. General Accounting Office (1995a) study of transferred juveniles found great variability in incarceration rates by state. In Vermont, for example, one-third of juveniles convicted of violent, property, or drug crimes in criminal court were incarcerated, while Minnesota incarcerated over 90 percent of the transferred juveniles convicted of those three types of crime. Pennsylvania incarcerated 90 percent of transferred juveniles in violent and drug offense cases, but only 10 percent in property cases.

There is some evidence that length of sentence varies in the juvenile and adult systems according to type of offense. For example, Podkopacz and Feld (1996) found in their Hennepin County, Minnesota study that for youths adjudicated of property offenses, the juvenile courts imposed longer sentences than did the criminal courts, while youths convicted of violent offenses in criminal courts received substantially longer sentences than their juvenile counterparts. Length of sentence and actual length of stay in a facility may differ, however. The length of stay in a juvenile facility appears, on average, to be much shorter than that in adult prison. Although national data on length of sentences given in juvenile court are not available, national average length of stay in long-term juvenile facili-

ties was about 8 months in 1990 (Parent et al., 1994) and was down to about 4 months in 1995 (Smith, 1998).

There appears to be variation by state in length of stay, however, with some states well above the national average. For example, in California, the average length of stay in Youth Authority institutions was 25.7 months in fiscal year 1997-1998 (California Youth Authority, 1997-1998); in Texas, the average length of stay in Texas Youth Commission facilities was 23 months for violent offenders (Criminal Justice Policy Council, 1999) and 16.5 months for all offenders in fiscal year 1999 (special data analysis done by the Criminal Justice Policy Council for this report). The California and Texas figures are similar to lengths of stay in reform schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

An analysis was prepared by panel member Steven Schlossman of length of stay in Michigan's Lansing Industrial School for boys and in the New York House of Refuge. In the Michigan reform school, average length of stay was 29 months in the 1870s, dropping to 21 months in the 1890s. In the New York House of Refuge, the average length of stay in 1925 was 20 months. Because there are no national historical figures, it is impossible to tell if the national average length of stay is similar to or has actually dropped considerably over the course of the past century.

Studies have found higher recidivism rates among juveniles who had been transferred to adult court than among those who remained in the juvenile system, even when severity of offense was controlled (Podkopacz and Feld, 1996); the researchers concluded that transfer to adult court may be more likely to increase recidivism than to lessen it (Bishop et al., 1996; Fagan, 1995; Winner et al., 1997). These studies have noted that the higher recidivism rates may be attributable to a number of possible factors: the juvenile system may have correctly identified and consequently transferred youths likely to recidivate; law enforcement may be more vigilant of youths who had been through the adult court; treatment in the juvenile system may have been effective in preventing repeat offending; or adult incarceration may have encouraged further criminality. More research is needed to replicate these studies and to determine the effects on subsequent recidivism of processing in the juvenile versus the adult systems. Studies in New York (Singer and McDowall, 1988) and Idaho (Jensen and Metsger, 1994) on the general deterrent effects of legislative waiver statutes indicate that waiver laws in those two states did not have a deterrent effect on rates of juvenile violent crime.

Levitt (1998) examined the relationship between the relative punitiveness of the juvenile and adult systems and arrest rates. Using state-level

panel data from the censuses of public and private juvenile facilities and censuses of adult prisons collected by the Department of Justice for the period 1978-1993, he found that in states in which the adult system was more punitive 12 than the juvenile system, violent crime rates decreased significantly at the age of majority. In states in which the adult system was more lenient than the juvenile system, violent crime rates increased at the age of majority. This suggests that it is the relative punitiveness of the system, not whether it is the juvenile or adult system per se, that may deter crime among young people in the short term. Levitt did not find any long-term relationship between the punitiveness of the sanctions imposed on juveniles and their adult criminal behavior.

The number of juveniles affected by blended sentencing is not known on a national level. There is some information at the state level, suggesting that blended sentencing may result in relatively lengthy sentences. For example, in 1996 in Texas, the average blended sentence imposed for all offenses was 10.5 years, ranging from an average of 5 years for burglary to 31 years for capital murder (Texas law permits blended sentences up to 40 years). The percentage of commitments to the Texas Youth Commission that were blended sentences increased from about 2 percent in 1990 to nearly 8 percent in 1996. The addition of 16 offenses eligible for blended sentencing in 1996 led to an increase from 4.7 percent of commitments in 1995 to 7.6 percent in 1996. The majority of juveniles receiving blended sentences in 1996 in Texas were Hispanic (42 percent) and black (32 percent). Nearly one-third of those receiving blended sentences in 1996 were 14 years old or younger (Criminal Justice Policy Council, 1997). The impact of these laws on ultimate sanctions for juveniles sentenced under them will not be known for some years to come; this is an area that is ripe for research to begin.

The effect of these legislative changes, overall, appears to be an increase in the number of juveniles held in adult state prisons. That is not to say that all juveniles who are tried as adults and found guilty end up in adult prison. States have adopted a variety of means to deal with sanctioning these juveniles, including blended sentences that allow juveniles to begin serving time in a juvenile facility and finish their sentence in an adult facility. Some states (e.g., Texas, New York) have created special secure facilities under the auspices of the juvenile or adult corrections

department to house youth found guilty in criminal court. Nevertheless, some of the juveniles sentenced as adults are incarcerated in adult prisons, where the emphasis is on punishment and few services are available.

Youth in Adult Prisons

Between 1985 and 1997, the number of offenders under 18 admitted to state prisons more than doubled, from 3,400 in 1985 to 7,400 in 1997 (Strom, 2000). And 61 percent of those under 18 sent to state prison in 1997 had been convicted of a violent offense. Juveniles arrested for violent offenses are more likely to end up in state prison now than in 1985. In 1997, 33 of every 1,000 juveniles arrested for a violent crime were sentenced to prison, compared with 18 per 1,000 in 1985. Nearly two-fifths of the juveniles sent to state prison in 1997, however, were not there for violent offenses—22 percent had been convicted of a property offense, 11 percent of a drug offense, and 5 percent of a public order offense (Strom, 2000).

Juveniles remain a very small percentage of the total state prison population. Those under 18 make up less than 1 percent of the inmates in state prisons, a figure that has remained steady since the mid-1980s. Since 1985, juveniles have consistently made up about 2 percent of new admissions to state prisons (Strom, 2000).

Minority juveniles are disproportionately represented among juveniles sent to adult prison. In 1997, minorities made up three-quarters of juveniles admitted to adult state prisons, 13 with blacks accounting for 58 percent, Hispanics 15 percent, and Asians and American Indians 2 percent (Strom, 2000). Males accounted for 92 percent of the juveniles admitted to state prisons in 1997.

Based on current sentencing and release policies, prison officials estimate that 78 percent of those who were admitted to prison prior to their 18th birthday would be released by age 21 and 93 percent would be released by age 28 (Strom, 2000). The fact that 90 percent of juveniles admitted to prison had not completed high school, coupled with the paucity of services available to them in adult prison, does not bode well for their reentry into society.

Historical Perspective

To provide some historical perspective on juveniles in state prison, panel member Steven Schlossman analyzed a detailed sample of prison-

ers at San Quentin and Folsom prisons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 14 Between the 1870s and the 1930s, mid-teens were committed to San Quentin and Folsom prisons, but in very small numbers and percentages. The largest shares were in the 1870s to 1890s, when 3.7 percent of the inmates were between ages 14 and 17. With the creation of California 's juvenile court in 1903 and reform schools for juvenile offenders (see, Schlossman, 1989, for historical details), juveniles under age 18 were eliminated entirely from Folsom by the 1910s. Juveniles under age 16 were eliminated from San Quentin and those ages 16 and 17 declined to less than 1 percent of the inmate population in the 1910s and afterward. This is similar to the percentage of juveniles in adult prisons nationally today (Strom, 2000).

Racial and ethnic minority groups (black, Hispanic, Chinese, Hawaiian, American Indian, Japanese) were represented among the mid-teens committed to San Quentin and Folsom prisons, but only in two decades was there notable overrepresentation of any group: the Chinese in the 1870s, at the height of anti-Chinese period in California; and Hispanics in the 1930s, a period of severe deprivation and outmigration of Mexicans from California following large-scale immigration in the 1920s. Overall, race does not appear to have been a significant factor in influencing commitment patterns to state prison. Whites, not minorities, constituted the overwhelming majority of both mid-teen and adult offenders sent to San Quentin and Folsom prisons between the 1870s and the 1930s (see Table 5-6 ).

Just as today, a substantial percentage of juveniles in San Quentin and Folsom prisons were sentenced for property offenses (burglary and theft) rather than violent offenses against persons (murder, robbery, assault, rape). Over two-thirds of 14- and 15-year-olds in these two state prisons in the late 19th century were sentenced for property crimes. In the early 20th century—when the share of juveniles in adult prison declined considerably—a new pattern of commitment began to emerge. Their offense profile became significantly more violent; it became as common for juveniles sent to San Quentin or Folsom to have committed a person offense as a property offense. Nonetheless, half of the juveniles who were sent to these state prisons had been committed for property rather than person offenses.

The average length of sentence for juveniles committed to San Quentin and Folsom prisons in the 19th century was 3.5 years (compared to under 2 years for reform schools), much shorter than the 6.8 year national average for juveniles in state prisons in 1997 (Strom, 2000). By the 1920s to

TABLE 5-6 Race Distribution (Weighted Percentages) by Decade for Those Under 18 and Those Age 18 and Older in San Quentin and Folsom Prisons

1930s, the average sentence length for juveniles more than doubled to 8 years, more comparable to today's average.

CONCLUSIONS

The origin of the juvenile court reflects an abiding tension between safeguarding children and protecting society. This tension has been present historically and continues to be present today in the policy debates dealing with the juvenile justice system. The balance between rehabilitative goals and concerns about the best interests of the child, on one hand, and punishment, incapacitation, and protecting public safety, on the other, has shifted over time and differed significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Given the local nature of juvenile justice in the United States, there has never been a single dominant vision of how to deal with delinquent children in law or in practice. The delinquency jurisdiction of the

juvenile courts today, as in the past, continues to include both children who break criminal laws and children who commit status delinquency offenses.

Policies of the last decade have become more punitive toward delinquent juveniles, but especially toward juveniles who commit violent crimes. Punitive policies include easier waivers to adult court, excluding certain offenses from juvenile court jurisdiction, blended juvenile and adult sentences, increased authority to prosecutors to decide to file cases in adult court, and more frequent custodial placement of adjudicated delinquents. The great majority of recent changes in juvenile justice law and practice have not been evaluated. Research to date shows that juveniles transferred to adult court may be more likely to recidivate than those who remain under juvenile court jurisdiction. Furthermore, there are negative effects of detention and incarceration of juveniles on behavior and future developmental trajectories. Detained and incarcerated juveniles have higher rates of physical injury, mental health problems, and suicide attempts and have poorer educational outcomes than do their counterparts who are treated in the community. Detention and incarceration also cause severe and long-term problems with future employment, leaving ex-offenders with few economic alternatives to crime. Recent research also demonstrates that many serious as well as nonserious offenders can be treated in the community without endangering public safety.

At the same time that laws have become more punitive, innovative approaches to providing services within the juvenile justice system have been introduced. In addition, a fair amount of evaluation research on some programs has been undertaken. Contrary to those who claim that rehabilitative efforts are a waste of time because nothing works, efforts at diverting children and adolescents from detention or incarceration and providing services for them in the community show some promise. Research on treatment programs in correctional institutions suggests that cognitive-behavioral, skill-oriented, and multimodal programs have the best results in terms of recidivism reduction. Research on intensive after-care programs is less conclusive, but it seems clear that delinquent juveniles require more than just intensive surveillance and control to affect rates of future offending and help them successfully reintegrate into society. Experiments with the restorative justice model point to ways in which juvenile offenders can be held responsible for their offenses, make restitution to victims, and receive services aimed at reintegrating them into society.

Information about the number of juveniles in custody—in detention or juvenile correctional facilities—is very poor. Data on the conditions under which juveniles are incarcerated and the types of services available to them are minimal. From the available data, it appears that the rate of juveniles placed in custodial institutions has increased substantially in

the past two decades, leading to widespread overcrowding in detention and correctional facilities. The average length of stay, nationally, in public custodial institutions appears to have decreased. There is a great deal of variety by state, however, in average length of stay in long-term public facilities, with some states reporting average stays that are well above the national norm. The trend toward privatization of juvenile correctional facilities may further complicate understanding of juveniles in custody.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Being placed in secure detention disrupts a young person's life and increases the juvenile's likelihood of receiving formal processing and punitive sanctions. Secure detention and correctional facilities have become increasingly crowded, impairing their ability to provide adequate services to their heterogeneous populations. Overcrowded conditions also increase the risk of injury to both staff and juveniles. Research on alternatives to secure detention and confinement have found them to pose no greater risks to the public than secure detention or confinement. In addition, alternatives to detention or confinement tend to be less costly.

Recommendation: The federal government should assist the states through federal funding and incentives to reduce the use of secure detention and secure confinement, by developing community-based alternatives. The effectiveness of such programs both for the protection of the community and the benefit of the youth in their charge should be monitored.

Research has shown that treating most juvenile offenders within the community does not compromise public safety and may even improve it through reduced recidivism. Considering the negative effects of detention and incarceration, community-based treatment should be expanded. Evaluation components should be built into program delivery with the goal of improving services, expanding the use of programs that work, and ending support for programs that are shown to be ineffective. Replication of programs that have been found successful, such as treatment foster care or multisystemic therapy, is particularly important to advancing knowledge about what works and for whom.

Recommendation: Federal and state funding should be provided to replicate successful research-based community-based treatment programs for all types of offenders with continuing evaluations to ensure their safety and efficacy under the specific circumstances of their application.

OJJDP sponsors a biennial Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement that provides minimum information. This instrument identifies juveniles in custody on the specific date of the survey and therefore over samples juveniles in long-term confinement. Furthermore, neither this instrument nor the newly designed Juvenile Residential Facility Census (begun in October 2000), which collects basic data on size, structure, security arrangements, and ownership of facilities designed to house juveniles, as well as information about the provision of health care, education, substance abuse treatment, and mental health treatment in those facilities, yields information about children or youth housed in jails, adult institutions, or mental hospital facilities. OJJDP is planning a Survey of Youth in Residential Placement that will help to inform the public about conditions of confinement. It should be a matter of public accountability for facilities that hold juveniles in secure confinement to report on a regular basis on the conditions under which those juveniles are kept and the types of services provided.

Recommendation: The Congress should provide adequate funds to OJJDP and the Bureau of Justice Statistics in order to assure proper data collection on conditions of confinement as well as new funds to develop national data collection systems to measure the number and characteristics of children and adolescents outside the juvenile jurisdictions, those transferred to criminal court, and those held in adult prisons or jails.

Despite the large amount of descriptive literature about the juvenile justice system, little research has identified how different laws regarding juvenile crime or different practices in confinement affect juveniles in the juvenile justice system. For example, do behavioral modification programs used in secure facilities have an influence on behavior of juveniles after release? Are there long-term effects of isolation used as punishment for disobedient juveniles in confinement? Are there special benefits for particular educational programs carried out in juvenile institutions? Studies of a variety of policies and practices should be undertaken, with evaluations of psychological, educational, and physical effects on the juveniles, as well as measures of recidivism.

Recommendation: The federal government should assist the states in evaluating the effects of correctional policies and practices such as the use of behavior modification programs, physical restraints, and isolation on incarcerated juveniles, as well as determining the effectiveness of educational and psychological programming in correctional facilities.

The American Correctional Association has set minimum standards that facilities for juveniles should meet, but there is little information on the extent to which these standards are met, nor have the standards been evaluated to determine their impact on incarcerated juveniles. An evaluation of these standards in conjunction with on-going work by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention on performance-based standards in juvenile corrections would lead to the development of standards that improve outcomes for juveniles who are incarcerated.

Recommendation: Congress should provide funds for an independent evaluation of the adequacy of the American Correctional Association standards for juvenile detention and correctional facilities to ensure that the needs of juveniles in these facilities are met. The evaluation should include both short- and long-term effects on juveniles. States should be encouraged to adopt those parts of the standards that prove to be effective.

Knowledge about the operations of the juvenile justice system and the effects of a juvenile's involvement with the system is completely inadequate. Much remains to be learned at all stages of processing in the system, from the interaction of juveniles and the police, to the factors considered by various juvenile justice system personnel in decision making, to the effects of juvenile justice system involvement on juveniles' development and future life course. Many areas of juvenile justice system policy currently must rely on anecdotal evidence and best guesses.

Recommendation: Congress should provide funding for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in collaboration with other relevant federal agencies (such as National Institute for Mental Health, National Institute on Child Health and Human Development), to develop a research agenda with the goal of expanding knowledge needed for policy making in the following areas:

How police decisions and current police practices affect the number, type, and outcomes of juveniles in the system;

The nature of decisions made in juvenile court by various professionals, including probation officers, judges, prosecutors, and other key actors;

The extent, systemic effects, costs, and cost-effectiveness of the various possible dispositions of juvenile cases;

Long-term effects of transferring juveniles to adult court and incarcerating them in adult facilities;

The effect of using informal sanctions for juveniles committing first offenses if they are not serious crimes.

The benefits and disadvantages of secure confinement versus providing services in the community; and

Identifying appropriate treatments for female juveniles.

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 adolescents—trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistance—the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with age—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.

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What Is Juvenile Justice?

Juve­nile jus­tice in the Unit­ed States is a col­lec­tion of state and local court-based sys­tems whose pur­pose is to respond to young peo­ple who come into con­tact with law enforce­ment and are accused of break­ing the law. As part of the legal process, juve­nile courts hear those cas­es to deter­mine whether the youth vio­lat­ed the law and, if so, decide on a prop­er response. State and local juve­nile cor­rec­tions agen­cies (includ­ing pro­ba­tion and res­i­den­tial cus­tody) man­age the reha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grams, ser­vices and sanc­tions pro­vid­ed to help young peo­ple stop fur­ther delin­quent behavior.

Juve­nile vs. adult jus­tice system

Com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty is a shared goal, but unlike the adult court sys­tem, the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem does not rec­og­nize pun­ish­ment as a legit­i­mate pur­pose. Rather, its stat­ed goal is to help young peo­ple avoid future delin­quen­cy and mature into law-abid­ing adults. Toward that end, the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem has tra­di­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of court-involved youth.

How many young peo­ple are in the juve­nile jus­tice system?

Nation­al esti­mates of the num­ber of cas­es processed by juve­nile courts each year are col­lect­ed by the Nation­al Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice. In 2021 , the most recent year for which data are avail­able, about 437 , 000 young peo­ple were referred to juve­nile courts nation­wide for delin­quent offens­es that vio­late the crim­i­nal code, and anoth­er 51 , 500 for sta­tus offens­es (such as run­ning away, con­sum­ing alco­hol or skip­ping school) that would not be ille­gal if com­mit­ted by adults. 1

Of the delin­quen­cy cas­es, 244 , 000 ( 56 %) were for­mal­ly processed in court, of which 118 , 000 were adju­di­cat­ed delin­quent (akin to a guilty con­vic­tion in adult court). Among youth who were adju­di­cat­ed delin­quent, the largest share ( 77 , 000 ) were placed on pro­ba­tion , while oth­ers ( 33 , 000 ) were removed from home and placed in cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tions or oth­er res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. 2

The Cen­sus Bureau sur­veys res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties for juve­niles to obtain a sin­gle-day nation­al count of young peo­ple who are con­fined in insti­tu­tions based on a sta­tus or delin­quen­cy offense. Accord­ing to the most recent sur­vey avail­able, on Oct. 27 , 2021 , there were just under 25 , 000 youth held in res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties, includ­ing 11 , 000  in pre­tri­al deten­tion and more than 13 , 000 com­mit­ted to res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. 3

The 2021 num­bers of juve­nile court cas­es and of con­fined youth are the low­est ever record­ed in these data sources, due in part to the effects of the COVID- 19 pandemic. 

What are the steps or stages in the juve­nile jus­tice system?

The juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem is a mul­ti­stage process: ( 1 ) delin­quent behav­ior, ( 2 ) refer­ral, ( 3 ) intake/​diversion, ( 4 ) transfer/​waiver, ( 5 ) deten­tion, ( 6 ) adju­di­ca­tion, ( 7 ) dis­po­si­tion, ( 8 ) juve­nile cor­rec­tions and ( 9 ) aftercare.

Delin­quent Behavior

Intake or diversion, trans­fer or waiver, adju­di­ca­tion, dis­po­si­tion, juve­nile cor­rec­tions (includ­ing pro­ba­tion and res­i­den­tial custody), pro­ba­tion, does diver­sion from the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem work.

Not all delin­quen­cy cas­es referred to the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem are for­mal­ly processed in court. Some are dis­missed, oth­ers are divert­ed (han­dled infor­mal­ly out­side the jus­tice sys­tem) and still oth­ers are trans­ferred for pros­e­cu­tion in adult crim­i­nal courts.

Research com­par­ing the out­comes for the youth under dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios has yield­ed two pri­ma­ry findings:

• Diver­sion — han­dling cas­es out­side the jus­tice sys­tem — typ­i­cal­ly leads to bet­ter out­comes than for­mal pro­cess­ing in juve­nile court. The pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence indi­cates that youth whose cas­es are for­mal­ly processed in juve­nile court typ­i­cal­ly have worse out­comes than sim­i­lar youth whose cas­es are han­dled infor­mal­ly, both in terms of future involve­ment in the jus­tice sys­tem and suc­cess in edu­ca­tion and employ­ment. This is espe­cial­ly true for youth accused of low­er-lev­el mis­be­hav­ior and those who do not have a long his­to­ry of past arrests. 7 8
• Trans­fer or waiv­er to adult court does not reduce rates of sub­se­quent jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment and may increase them. Some stud­ies have found that trans­fer has a neu­tral effect on sub­se­quent jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment, 9 10 while oth­ers show that trans­fer leads to worse out­comes. 11 12

Prob­lems in America’s juve­nile jus­tice system

Though America’s juve­nile courts were found­ed on noble ideals, they have suf­fered from seri­ous flaws and endem­ic abus­es since their found­ing at the turn of the pre­vi­ous century.

• Wide­spread vio­lence and mal­treat­ment in juve­nile facil­i­ties. Since the first juve­nile refor­ma­to­ries were cre­at­ed in the 19 th cen­tu­ry, facil­i­ties ded­i­cat­ed to hous­ing and reha­bil­i­tat­ing youth have been prone to some­times hor­rif­ic abus­es. The Casey Foun­da­tion has iden­ti­fied sys­temic or recur­ring vio­lence in juve­nile cor­rec­tions facil­i­ties across the nation. This trou­bling evi­dence shows that large, con­ven­tion­al juve­nile cor­rec­tions facil­i­ties — or plain­ly stat­ed, youth pris­ons — are inher­ent­ly prone to abuse.
• Per­va­sive over­re­liance on con­fine­ment, even for youth accused of minor mis­be­hav­ior pos­ing min­i­mal risk to pub­lic safe­ty. In 1974 , when Con­gress first enact­ed the Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Act , more than 640 , 000 youth were admit­ted to juve­nile deten­tion or cor­rec­tions facil­i­ties, and the dai­ly pop­u­la­tion of youth in con­fine­ment was 79 , 000 . 13 Back then, an esti­mat­ed 20 % of all boys in juve­nile facil­i­ties and 70 % of all girls were con­fined for sta­tus offens­es , not delin­quen­cy. 14
• 35 % of youth referred to juve­nile courts for delinquency;
• 39 % of youth for­mal­ly peti­tioned in court;
• 40 % of youth placed in pre­tri­al detention;
• 42 % of youth com­mit­ted to res­i­den­tial place­ment; and
• 52 % of youth waived to stand tri­al as adults in crim­i­nal court. 15
• Fail­ure to pro­tect young people’s legal rights. Because the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem was estab­lished to serve and sup­port youth rather than pun­ish them, the courts his­tor­i­cal­ly oper­at­ed with few pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards to pro­tect young people’s rights. This often led to egre­gious mal­treat­ment of young peo­ple, includ­ing lack of legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, no pre­sump­tion of inno­cence or right to ques­tion one’s accusers and harsh pun­ish­ment (includ­ing incar­cer­a­tion) for behav­iors that would nev­er result in sim­i­lar sanc­tions if com­mit­ted by adults. The U.S. Supreme Court addressed many of these flaws in a series of deci­sions in the 1960 s and  1970 s.

How has the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem made progress?

America’s juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem has made encour­ag­ing progress in recent times, at least through 2021 . These gains include:

• A nation­al move­ment for deten­tion reform. Launched in 1992 , the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive ® ( JDAI ) has helped juris­dic­tions through­out the coun­try sharply reduce reliance on pre-tri­al deten­tion through core strate­gies, such as greater use of objec­tive deci­sion mak­ing and effec­tive alter­na­tives to deten­tion. JDAI ® has reached more than 300 coun­ties in 40 states nation­wide, home to rough­ly one-third of the nation’s ado­les­cents. Many of JDAI ’s eight core prin­ci­ples for deten­tion have become stan­dard prac­tices through­out the nation. In recent years, JDAI ’s focus has expand­ed to oth­er parts of the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing reduc­ing the use of con­fine­ment fol­low­ing adju­di­ca­tion and trans­form­ing juve­nile pro­ba­tion practices.
• Bet­ter under­stand­ing about ado­les­cent behav­ior and brain devel­op­ment. Break­throughs in brain imag­ing tech­nolo­gies and behav­ioral sci­ence show that the human brain doesn’t ful­ly devel­op until age 25 . From ado­les­cent brain devel­op­ment research , we under­stand why ado­les­cents are more prone than adults to risk-tak­ing and law-break­ing behav­iors, and why most will age out of these behav­iors nat­u­ral­ly with­out any inter­ven­tion from the court. This research has spurred a series of Supreme Court deci­sions out­law­ing the death penal­ty and life with­out parole sen­tences for crimes com­mit­ted dur­ing ado­les­cence, as well as new laws in many states to raise the max­i­mum age of the juve­nile court’s juris­dic­tion because they see clear ben­e­fits of keep­ing youth out of the adult crim­i­nal jus­tice system.
• New evi­dence on what works. Over the past four decades, schol­ars have amassed evi­dence about what does and doesn’t work to steer young peo­ple away from delin­quen­cy, includ­ing both gen­er­al prin­ci­ples and strate­gies for how to inter­vene effec­tive­ly with youth and spe­cif­ic evi­dence-based inter­ven­tion pro­gram mod­els with proven suc­cess in reduc­ing young people’s reof­fend­ing rates. 17 18 Schol­ars also have doc­u­ment­ed the pow­er­ful effects of ear­ly child­hood trau­ma in the lives of many youth who become enmeshed in the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, and they have devel­oped prac­tices that help youth address and heal from trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences in their lives. 19
• A big drop in juve­nile incar­cer­a­tion. Since juve­nile con­fine­ment peaked in 1999 at more than 107 , 000 young peo­ple, the num­ber of young peo­ple held in res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties as a result of delin­quent con­duct has declined steadi­ly. By 2021 , the last year for which data are avail­able, total con­fine­ment on a sin­gle day was under 25 , 000 — down 77 % from the 1999 high. While much of the decline was due to sub­stan­tial reduc­tion in juve­nile arrests, espe­cial­ly for seri­ous vio­lent offens­es, many states have begun to lim­it the use of con­fine­ment , espe­cial­ly for less seri­ous offens­es. 20 21 Many state have been clos­ing large juve­nile cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tions (some­times called train­ing schools, but more accu­rate­ly described as youth pris­ons). From 2000 to 2020 , the num­ber of juve­nile facil­i­ties hous­ing more than 100 young peo­ple fell by more than 80 % from 264 to 44 , and the num­ber of youth housed in these large facil­i­ties fell 91 %. 22 Over the same peri­od, the share of young peo­ple housed in over­crowd­ed facil­i­ties (where the num­ber of youth exceeds the num­ber of per­ma­nent beds) fell from 20 % in 2000 to just 2 % in  2020 .

What are some chal­lenges with the juve­nile jus­tice system?

While it has made progress, our nation’s juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem still faces urgent chal­lenges such as:

• Racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties are get­ting worse. Where­as Black youth nation­wide were con­fined at four times the rate of white youth in 2001 , by 2021 the Black rate of con­fine­ment had grown to 4 . 7 times the rate for white youth. 23
• The Unit­ed States locks up more young peo­ple than oth­er coun­tries do. Accord­ing to the 2019 Unit­ed Nations Glob­al Study on Chil­dren Deprived of Lib­er­ty, the U.S. youth con­fine­ment rate was four times high­er than Cana­da and Mex­i­co; 10 times high­er than cen­tral and east­ern Europe; and 12 times high­er than west­ern Europe. 24
• Cor­rec­tion­al con­fine­ment facil­i­ties remain dan­ger­ous and prob­lem­at­ic, rather than reha­bil­i­ta­tive. Sys­temic or recur­ring mal­treat­ment of con­fined youth had been doc­u­ment­ed in the juve­nile cor­rec­tions facil­i­ties of 29 states plus the Dis­trict of Colum­bia in research from 2000 through 2015 .
• Juve­nile pro­ba­tion, the most com­mon response to delin­quen­cy, often does not oper­ate accord­ing to best prac­tice. In 2021 , rough­ly 142 , 000 young peo­ple were placed on some form of juve­nile pro­ba­tion . Yet research finds that pro­ba­tion is inef­fec­tive in revers­ing delin­quent behav­ior and has espe­cial­ly poor results with youth at low risk of re-arrest. Many com­mon prac­tices in pro­ba­tion are prob­lem­at­ic or counterproductive.
• Far too many U.S. youth are arrest­ed and referred to court, and far too few of those youth are divert­ed from court fol­low­ing arrest or refer­ral. Also, there is far too lit­tle invest­ment in effec­tive com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven diver­sion inter­ven­tions to assist youth who are suf­fer­ing with trau­ma, fam­i­ly crises and seri­ous behav­ioral health chal­lenges and to pre­vent their slide into seri­ous delinquency.

Time Lag for Fed­er­al Data is Two Years or More. What are More Cur­rent Indications?

Nation­al data for 2022 and 2023 are not yet avail­able, but more recent data from Casey’s Month­ly Youth Deten­tion Sur­vey sug­gest that juve­nile court involve­ment and youth con­fine­ment have increased since 2021 . In fact, most juris­dic­tions cov­ered by that sur­vey had more young peo­ple in deten­tion at the start of 2024 than they did four years ear­li­er (before the pan­dem­ic). That increase was caused by the fact that those admit­ted to deten­tion are stay­ing much longer than they did before the pan­dem­ic — not by more young peo­ple being admit­ted to deten­tion. Youth of col­or, espe­cial­ly Black youth, have suf­fered the most from these changes. Before the pan­dem­ic, Black youth in the juris­dic­tions cov­ered by the sur­vey were about six times more like­ly than white youth to be in deten­tion, sim­i­lar to the 2019 nation­al aver­age. But by ear­ly 2024 , they were about eight times more like­ly to be detained, a high­er dis­par­i­ty ratio than has ever appeared in the nation­al data going back to  1997 .

Addi­tion­al resources on juve­nile justice

• Juve­nile detention
• Jue­nile incarceration
• Juve­nile probation
• Diver­sion and prevention

1 . Hock­en­ber­ry, Sarah., &  Puz­zanchera, Charles. ( 2024 ). Juve­nile Court Sta­tis­tic   2021 . Pitts­burgh, PA : Nation­al Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice. Retrieved from https://​www​.ncjj​.org/​p​d​f​/​jcsre… 2 . Puz­zanchera, C., Slad­ky A., and Kang, W. ( 2023 ) Easy Access to Juve­nile Court Sta­tis­tics:  1985 – 2021 ” Online. Retrieved from https://​www​.ojjdp​.gov/​o​j​s​t​a​t​b​b​/​e​z​ajcs/   3 . Puz­zanchera, C., Sludgy, T.J., and Hang, W. ( 2023 ). ​ “ Easy Access to the Cen­sus of Juve­niles in Res­i­den­tial Place­ment.” Retrieved from https://​www​.ojjdp​.gov/​o​j​s​t​a​t​b​b​/​e​z​acjrp  4 . Data from Nation­al Youth Sur­vey ana­lyzed by Hawkins, D., Smith, B., &  Cata­lano, R. ( 2002 ). Delin­quent behav­ior.  Pedi­atrics in Review ( 23 ) 11 : 382 – 392 . And, Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine. ( 2019 ). The promise of ado­les­cence: Real­iz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for all youth. Wash­ing­ton, DC : The Nation­al Acad­e­mies Press. https://​doi​.org/​ 1 ​ 0 ​.​ 1 ​ 7 ​ 2 ​ 2 ​ 6 ​/​ 25388 ↩ 5 . Blad, E., &  Har­win, A. ( 2017 , Jan­u­ary 24 ). Black stu­dents more like­ly to be arrest­ed at school. Edu­ca­tion Week . Retrieved from www​.edweek​.org/​e​w​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​ 2 ​ 0 ​ 1 ​ 7 ​/​ 0 ​ 1 ​/​ 2 ​ 5 ​/​b​l​a​c​k​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​s​-​m​o​r​e​-​l​i​k​e​l​y​-​t​o​-​b​e​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​.​h​t​m​l​#​g​r​a​phics ↩ 6 . Puz­zanchera, C., Sludgy, A., and Hang, W. ( 2023 ). Easy Access to Juve­nile Court Statistics 7 . Kauff­man, E., Beard­slee, J., Fine, A., Frick, P.J., Stein­berg, L. ( 2020 ) Cross­roads in juve­nile jus­tice: The impact of ini­tial pro­cess­ing deci­sion on youth 5  years after first arrest. Devel­op­ment and Psy­chopathol­o­gy 1 – 14 .   https://​www​.cam​bridge​.org/core… 8 . Wil­son, H. A., &  Hoge, R. D. ( 2013 ). The effect of youth diver­sion pro­grams on recidi­vism: A meta-ana­lyt­ic review.  Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Behav­ior, 40 ( 5 ), 497 – 518 . https://​doi​.org/​ 1 ​ 0 ​.​ 1 ​ 1 ​ 7 ​ 7 ​/​ 0 ​ 0 ​ 9 ​ 3 ​ 8 ​ 5 ​ 4 ​ 8 ​ 1 ​ 2 ​ 4 ​ 51089 ↩ 9 . Zane, S. N., Welsh, B. C., &  Mears, D. P. ( 2016 ). Juve­nile trans­fer and the spe­cif­ic deter­rence hypoth­e­sis: A sys­tem­at­ic review and meta-analy­sis. Crim­i­nol­o­gy and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, 15 ( 3 ), 901 – 925 . https://www.doi.org/ 10 . 1111 / 1745 – 9133 . 12222 ↩ 10 . Mul­vey, E. P., &  Schu­bert, C. A. ( 2012 , Decem­ber). Trans­fer of juve­niles to adult court: Effects of a broad pol­i­cy in one court.  Juve­nile Jus­tice Bul­letin . Wash­ing­ton, DC : U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice. Retrieved from https://​ojjdp​.ojp​.gov/​s​i​t​e​s​/​g​/​f​i​l​e​s​/​x​y​c​k​u​h​ 1 ​ 7 ​ 6 ​/​f​i​l​e​s​/​p​u​b​s​/​ 2 ​ 3 ​ 2 ​ 9 ​ 3 ​ 2 .pdf ↩ 11 . Jor­dan, K. L. ( 2012 ) Juve­nile trans­fer and recidi­vism: A propen­si­ty score match­ing approach. Jour­nal of Crime and Jus­tice, 35 ( 1 ), 53 – 67 , https://​www​.doi​.org/​ 1 ​ 0 ​.​ 1 ​ 0 ​ 8 ​ 0 ​/​ 0 ​ 7 ​ 3 ​ 5 ​ 6 ​ 4 ​ 8 ​X​.​ 2 ​ 0 ​ 1 ​ 1 ​.​ 6 ​ 32133 ↩ 12 . Hahn, R., McGowan, A., Liber­man, A., Cros­by, A., Fullilove, M., John­son, R., … &  Lowy, J. ( 2007 ). Effects on vio­lence of laws and poli­cies facil­i­tat­ing the trans­fer of youth from the juve­nile to the adult jus­tice sys­tem: A report on rec­om­men­da­tions of the Task Force on Com­mu­ni­ty Pre­ven­tive Ser­vices.  Mor­bid­i­ty and Mor­tal­i­ty Week­ly Report: Rec­om­men­da­tions and Reports, 56 ( 9 ), 1 – 11 . Retrieved from www​.cdc​.gov/​m​m​w​r​/​p​r​e​v​i​e​w​/​m​m​w​r​h​t​m​l​/​r​r​ 5 ​ 6 ​ 0 ​ 9 ​a​ 1 .htm ↩ 13 . Nation­al Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Infor­ma­tion and Sta­tis­tics Ser­vice. ( 1979 ). Chil­dren in cus­tody: A report on the juve­nile deten­tion and cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty cen­sus of 1975 Wash­ing­ton, DC : U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice, Law Enforce­ment Assis­tance Admin­is­tra­tion. ↩ 14 . Dein­sti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of Sta­tus Offend­ers: Hear­ing Before the Sub­com­mit­tee on Juve­nile Delin­quen­cy of the U.S. Sen­ate. Com­mit­tee on the Judi­cia­ry, 95 th Cong. 2 ( 1977 ). State­ment of William J. Ander­son, Deputy Direc­tor, Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment Divi­sion Gen­er­al Account­ing Office. Retrieved from www​.gao​.gov/​a​s​s​e​t​s​/​ 1 ​ 0 ​ 0 ​/​ 9 ​ 8 ​ 5 ​ 5 ​ 6 .pdf ↩ 15 . Puz­znchera, C., Slad­ky, A., and Hang, W. ( 2023 ) Easy Access to Juve­nile Court Sta­tis­tics   ↩ 16 . Leiber, M. J., &  Peck, J. H. ( 2013 ). Race in juve­nile jus­tice and sen­tenc­ing pol­i­cy: An overview of research and pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions. Law &  Inequal­i­ty: A Jour­nal of The­o­ry and Prac­tice, 31 ( 2 ). Retrieved from http://​schol​ar​ship​.law​.umn​.edu/​l​a​w​i​n​e​q​/​v​o​l​ 3 ​ 1 ​/​i​ss 2 / 2 ↩ 17 . Mendel, R. (June 28 , 2023 ). Effec­tive Alter­na­tives to Youth Incar­cer­a­tion . Retrieved from  https://www.sentencingproject.… 18 . Mendel, R. (Nov. 9 , 2023 ). Sys­tem Reforms to Reduce Youth Incar­cer­a­tion: Why We Must Explore Every Option Before Remov­ing Any Young Per­son from home. Retrieved from   https://www.sentencingproject.… ; ↩ 19 . Buff­in­g­ton, K., Dierkhis­ing, C. B., &  Marsh, S. C. ( 2010 ). Ten things every juve­nile court judge should know about trau­ma and delin­quen­cy . Reno, NV : Nation­al Coun­cil of Juve­nile and Fam­i­ly Court Judges. Retrieved from www​.ncjfcj​.org/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​t​e​n​-​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​e​v​e​r​y​-​j​u​v​e​n​i​l​e​-​c​o​u​r​t​-​j​u​d​g​e​-​s​h​o​u​l​d​-​k​n​o​w​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​t​r​a​u​m​a​-​a​n​d​-​d​e​l​i​n​q​uency ↩ 20 . Dur­nan, J., Olsen, R., Harvell, S. ( 2018 ). State-led juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems improve­ment: Imple­men­ta­tion progress and ear­ly out­comes . Wash­ing­ton, DC : Urban Insti­tute. Retrieved from www​.urban​.org/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​s​t​a​t​e​-​l​e​d​-​j​u​v​e​n​i​l​e​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​s​y​s​t​e​m​s​-​i​m​p​r​o​v​ement ↩ 21 . The Nation­al Juve­nile Jus­tice Net­work &  the Texas Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Foun­da­tion. ( 2013 ). The come­back states: Reduc­ing juve­nile incar­cer­a­tion in the Unit­ed States . Retrieved from www​.njjn​.org/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​i​g​i​t​a​l​-​l​i​b​r​a​r​y​/​C​o​m​e​b​a​c​k​-​S​t​a​t​e​s​-​R​e​p​o​r​t​_​F​I​N​A​L.pdf ↩ 22 . Puz­zanchera, C., Hock­en­ber­ry, S., Slad­ky, T.J., and Kang, W. ( 2022 ) ​ “ Juve­nile Res­i­den­tial Facil­i­ty Cen­sus Date­book.” Retrieved from   https://​www​.ojjdp​.gov/​o​j​s​tatbb… ; ↩ 23 . Puz­zanchera, C., Slad­ky, T.J., and Kang, W. ( 2023 ). ​ “ Easy Access to the Cen­sus of Juve­niles in Res­i­den­tial Place­ment.” ↩ 24 . Nowak, M. ( 2019 ). The Unit­ed Nations glob­al study of chil­dren deprived of lib­er­ty . Gene­va: Office of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights. Retrieved from www​.ohchr​.org/​E​N​/​H​R​B​o​d​i​e​s​/​C​R​C​/​S​t​u​d​y​C​h​i​l​d​r​e​n​D​e​p​r​i​v​e​d​L​i​b​e​r​t​y​/​P​a​g​e​s​/​I​n​d​e​x​.aspx ↩

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How St. Louis' juvenile justice system often harms the kids it intends to help

Ta’janette Sconyers, a psychologist hired to work with youth at the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center, found herself grappling with her own anxiety and despair over conditions inside the facility. It got so bad that she took a leave to protect her mental health.

Finally, in 2019, she simply resigned, becoming part of the turnover at the detention center, which seemed to do so little to provide youth with treatment, rehabilitation or even sunshine and fresh air.

“They said it was a revolving door. But I always asked, did anyone ever take the time to figure out why the door kept revolving,” says Sconyers.

Sconyers specializes in treating the effects of anxiety, trauma and OCD, and those were also some of the issues she diagnosed and treated while working at the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center on Enright Avenue.

It’s one of 18 juvenile detention centers in Missouri operated by the circuit courts that hold minors accused of crimes and deemed threats to public safety. Administrators say rehabilitation and treatment are the goals for the approximately 2,000 youth in the state who funnel in and out of the detention centers annually.

If a youth is found guilty of a crime, the courts can commit them to a more permanent secure facility operated by the state’s Division of Youth Services, which has about 20 residential facilities and housed more than 1,200 youth last year. Youth can also end up at state facilities if they are repeatedly caught committing crimes. While legal terminology refrains from referring to these institutions as youth jails and prisons, they are still forms of incarceration, Sconyers points out.

Many of the youth never spoke to her, although some would check to make sure she was around every day. Others would open up to her about why they made the decision they did — money and a dissociation from their actions, she says.

But Sconyers ultimately concluded that her attempts to make a difference were futile.

“I felt I had more of a chance of helping them by not being a part of the system,” says Sconyers, who resigned from the facility in 2019 and is now in private practice. “If people’s basic needs aren’t being met, how do you think I’m going to be able to sufficiently address their trauma?”

A series of escapes in recent years has changed the policies at St. Louis area detention centers. It’s one reason why St. Louis area facilities, most which have outside recreational areas, have stopped allowing detained youth to use them.

Amanda Sodomka, who led the city's juvenile detention center as chief juvenile officer for the 22nd Circuit Court until a recent promotion, says the city’s juvenile facility is working on upgrades to the doors and a higher fence in order to consider allowing youth outside again.

“We have very smart youth,” says Sodomka. “It poses enough risk, we just can’t have them outside right now.”

Yet, Sconyers says the lack of fresh air was one of many things that disturbed her. Some youth were only there for days, but others for months or years as their cases played out. She and other staffers attempted multiple times to organize letting youth go out for even a few minutes each day, but those efforts were always shot down.

“Judges aren’t paying attention to what works to rehabilitate juveniles, they’re paying attention to public perception."

And that was even before her facility saw an unprecedented number of escapes, as did many other St. Louis area detention facilities. Juvenile administrators and staff point to the recent “Raise the Age” state law that requires 17-year-olds not to be tried as adults, which went into effect in 2021. Data from the Missouri Supreme Court confirms most of the escapes from the juvenile detention facilities were from youth just a year shy of being legal adults.

News reports about the system’s failures, like escapes, can spark outrage and prompt reactive policies, says c, a juvenile justice expert who also co-directs the law and psychiatry program as a professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.

“Judges aren’t paying attention to what works to rehabilitate juveniles, they’re paying attention to public perception,” says Vincent, who sees a concerning national trend. Lack of activities and more time in cells mean, she says, “You’re going to see an increase in aggression in facilities.”

For a system designed to provide rehabilitation, the juvenile justice framework has left many of the people who interact with it frustrated. Parents say they are left in limbo and often feel hopeless once their child is in the system. Some juvenile officers feel neglected by administrators and also say youth are given few resources to help them deal with their trauma.

For one youth who escaped and was recaptured, his accountability and rehabilitation process started once he received help outside of the system. Sconyers says those stories don’t have to be rare.

“It’s a powerful thing. It didn’t always happen for a lot of different reasons, but it’s possible,” says Sconyers. “People benefit from trauma work when it’s something they choose to do — when it’s something they have the capacity to do, when they are able to moderately engage with it, when it’s controllable for them, when it’s on their terms.”

Inside the juvenile system

The majority of youth who find themselves in the juvenile system are accused of misdemeanor offenses. That’s true both in Missouri and nationwide.

It’s the minority — those charged with felony offenses — who are typically brought to the court’s juvenile detention center. Their intake process mirrors jail, with a full strip search, shower and change of clothes. The brown, green or orange jumpsuits they are assigned are based on factors such as high risk or trauma.

Each new detainee then waits in a small room with a sliver of light beaming from a small rectangular prism. A metal frame, board, sheet and sink are all they have during the hours they are processed in.

After they are processed, the regimen begins. Calls are limited. Lunches are isolated: one youth to a table. While school is mandated, Sconyers says it often seemed to consist of students watching movies, a claim echoed by other officers.

But that’s not always the climate, says Amanda Williams, who runs day-to-day operations at the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center as its superintendent. Youth have limited time out of their cells but are incentivized to earn more. The center has received multiple grants for arts and recreational activities, even if volunteers are sparse. Still, every day isn’t a crisis, she insists.

“Majority of the kids who come in here, they don’t give us a problem,” says Williams.

But some of the same juveniles cycle in and out of the detention center throughout their youth, says an officer at the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center who spoke under the condition of anonymity. “Simply because the detention center has never done anything to help these kids out,” the officer says.

Last fall, a group of parents whose children were incarcerated at the juvenile detention facility in Clayton banded together to demand better treatment of their children, transparency and an investigation into the facility. They said youth were forced to urinate and defecate on themselves or in containers they ate from because no one let them out of their cells in a timely way. They said fights were common and staff members turned to physical restraints to control the youth.

Other officers confirm some of the allegations, saying the safety and well-being of juveniles, as well as staff, are at risk.

The unnamed officer doesn’t sugarcoat the situation. He says officers are sometimes attacked by the youth detainees. “We’re not dealing with model citizens,” he says.

He says he remembers every youth who comes through the doors in Clayton. He tries to give them a realistic view of the situation they’re in.

But, he says the system can’t help delinquent youth if it's complacent with problems such as low morale in staff, bullying by administration and a lack of services, programs and activities for youth awaiting decisions on their criminal cases.

The people running the county’s juvenile system declined several requests for an interview. In an email, a spokesperson said, “Juvenile records are generally closed records, meaning they cannot be shared or discussed outside of court proceedings. … And for security purposes, St. Louis County Courts cannot comment on internal detention center policies and Human Resource matters."

In the city, volunteers have come to talk to youth or help them write, play or teach yoga. But, the county officer says, the majority of the time the youth are just sitting.

“Playing cards and Uno is not going to do anything here,” he says.

While juvenile detention centers in Missouri are under the jurisdiction of the courts, putting them under the purview of the state, they are funded locally. Last fall, the St. Louis County Council leveled some of its only power over the courts and called for juvenile officials to attend a budgetary meeting. Juvenile administrators took the opportunity to request additional funding to address problems related to short staffing.

St. Louis County Councilman Ernie Trakas questioned county juvenile administrators about allegations of physical, verbal and sexual assault on youth by staff. But they denied knowing of any wrongdoing. He then wrote a letter asking Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to investigate.

Bailey has not responded publicly to the request, and the St. Louis County Council has not addressed the issue since.

Officers at the county detention center have received new walkie-talkies and emergency buttons. But workers still face attacks by their young charges, and the administration often forces staff to work 16-hour shifts and tries to boost morale with gift cards, the officer says.

Even so, it’s hard to get staffers to speak up about systemic issues, the officer says. “You are talking about people that need to eat. They’re not going to push the envelope.”

Catch and release

When a youth is arrested or detained by law enforcement in Missouri, a juvenile officer submits a referral to the court, similar to the warrant process for adults.

Referrals can result in a formal decision, which comes with either detention or intense supervision, such as GPS monitoring from the courts. The decision can also be informal, which might mean diversion-related alternatives, community service, referrals to treatment services or voluntary recommendations by the court. More than 90% of decisions for referrals in the St. Louis area are informal.

Until last year, the overall number of law referrals to the court had decreased dramatically, with about a 71% drop from 2011 to 2021.

But data shows St. Louis County and city police together referred almost twice as many youth to the courts in 2023 as 2022. Last year saw the highest number of juvenile referrals in the county since 2016 and in the city since 2015.

The most common charge for youth in the state, as well as the St. Louis area, is property damage, followed by assault. The number of youth accused of homicide has more than tripled in the past 10 years, but still comprises less than 1% of all juvenile charges.

Despite the decline in juvenile referrals in the past decade, and the uptick in the past year, the pattern holds steady: More than 60% of the time when youth are referred to the court, their charges are rejected or no action is taken on the referral. The only involvement with the system is the initial contact with police.

St. Louis County and city police together referred almost twice as many youth to the courts in 2023 as 2022.

In 2012, about 184 youth in the St. Louis area were incarcerated on a daily basis. These days, that’s dropped to about 136 youth on a given day, according to the most recent data from state and court-run facilities.

Experts say that’s a good thing. “When you incarcerate kids, it slows their development and progress of their maturity, their ability to regulate their own behavior and their sense of responsibility,” says Vincent.

Yet advocates and experts say the practice of taking no action after a referral — sometimes called “catch and release” — does nothing to rehabilitate the youth or address their needs, essentially the purpose of the juvenile system. Without good interventions, some youth escalate.

And the next time, they may well end up in a detention center. Prior referrals are considered a risk factor by the courts and can increase the chances of a juvenile official ordering a youth to be detained.

“We factor in history. If we have a youth who has multiple referrals to the court, we would treat or recommend a different course than someone’s first referral,” says Sodomka.

Sometimes parents aren’t even aware their children have been given referrals. Qunshea Jennings’ son was fighting charges at the juvenile facility but he was certified as an adult, transferred to the county jail on his 18th birthday. During the certification hearing, she heard about referrals from incidents when he was 12 that contributed to his sentence.

“This is affecting my son’s life and I never even knew about it,” says Jennings. “All these officers had interacted with my son and wrote him up.”

Some officers say they use juvenile interactions to get through to youth before it’s too late. Northwoods Police Chief Dennis Shireff says he feels the area is in a state of emergency when it comes to juvenile crime but doesn’t support constantly detaining youth. Instead, he tries to work with parents in situations that could result in tickets, summons and arrests.

“Nobody’s watching them, giving them guidance. Instead of giving them guidance, most people think that it's easy to just lock them up. But when they’re done doing whatever little time they do, they become more of a criminal,” he says.

For many youth, being incarcerated is the only type of structure they’ve received, says Jeff Esparza, the attorney who leads the public defender’s office for youth in the St. Louis area. However, considering the harm from the system, Esparza says, the intervention needs to happen before it’s too late.

“I don’t know why it has to be the threat of a cage over your head before we can intervene with a kid who has a mental health or substance abuse problem,” says Esparza. “Jail is a horrible place, and I don’t want my clients there.”

Navigation difficulties

Embarrassed. That’s what Karmahn Leach and many other parents said they felt when their children started getting in trouble. That’s how many parents say they felt when trying to navigate the juvenile system to support their child as best as they could.

“Not knowing my rights. His rights. What was supposed to happen. What’s next for my child? I know I’m going to be judged for it, but I need someone to talk to,” says Leach.

One day when Leach’s son was about 15, he was picked up in a stolen car and brought home, a classic catch-and-release.

“He’d get picked up or brought home and say, ‘They let me go,’” says Leach.

Soon he ended up in the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center, where he was held for months and never let outside. One thing Leach noticed: His skin got lighter.

In his younger years, his mom says teachers described him as bright and an old soul. But after being diagnosed with ADHD and other learning disorders, things took a turn.

“On medication he was an A/B student. Off medication it was Ds and Fs,” says Leach.

Over time it got worse. He became too active in class, and he was cited time and again for wandering around the hallways. Citations turned into suspensions. Somehow, Leach says her son found refuge at the Vinita Park Police Department, where he’d help with chores.

After she moved out of Vinita Park, her son’s interactions with the police turned negative. Leach now has one son incarcerated and one whose charges are pending. She started a nonprofit, Shine Bright Like a Diamond Youth & Young Adults, so that other parents wouldn’t end up in her situation.

One way she helps is by connecting parents to the services they need by working with advocates like Janis Mensah, a former member of the city’s civilian jail oversight board and juvenile volunteer with Metropolitan Congregations United.

“A lot of parents come to us not knowing even how to parent and address their youth’s issues. They come to the system thinking it will help in some type of way, not knowing the system just makes things worse,” Mensah says.

One parent, Mensah recalls, called the police when her daughter took her car for a joy ride. Her daughter ended up being detained in a youth facility. “We want a system that allows everyone to have a better quality of life and we know this system does not,” Mensah says. “It harms youth. It harms guards. The workers who have turnover cycling through that position.”

Exactly 99.5% of youth in Missouri and nationwide are not “offenders” or cited for breaking the law. Vincent says while that may seem obvious, it’s important to note in light of the rhetoric around youth crime. Even in Missouri, nearly 80% of youth who are cited for a law violation don’t reoffend.

Data shows more than 90% of juvenile referrals in St. Louis and the county stem from municipal police departments. Among such referrals, Black youth in the city are six times more likely to be committed to detention facilities than white ones. In the county the rate for Black youth is four times higher than white ones.

Black youth comprise only about 15% of Missouri’s population, but they experience a disproportionate rate of referrals, diversion, detention center sentences and certifications. Black youth also have a longer average and median stay in juvenile detention facilities than white youth.

In Missouri, administrators assess youth looking at risk factors that include parental incarceration, attitude, behavioral issues, school attendance, age at first referral and the nature of the referrals themselves. Black youth are assessed at a higher risk level than their white counterparts, state data shows.

Nearly every state uses risk assessments to determine the outcomes of juvenile referrals, says Vincent. While “risk assessments” can have a negative connotation, Vincent says they can be helpful and that judges who follow risk assessments have a lesser chance of racial bias. It comes down to the factors that are used. They shouldn’t rely heavily on factors like their parents’ incarceration or previous referrals, she says.

Often, a complete risk assessment for a youth is done only after a judge or juvenile administrator has already made a decision on their case.

“Low-risk kids end up on probation, and judges are setting conditions about the services kids should get without any information about the risk factors, which tells you what services they need,” says Vincent. “The accountability level needs to be in line with the level of risk for reoffending. Most of those kids, you’re never going to see those kids again.”

In St. Louis, one way Mensah and Leach started to combat this practice was by creating social biographies for youth in the system for judges. These social bios tell a judge about a youth’s background, family support and needs — an idea Vincent applauds.

Leach says that though she’s just getting started, the people affected by the system have to come together. She’s talked to incarcerated youth who are ready to help serve when they are released.

“They just want someone they can trust,” she says. “Other people like me. No one’s going to make me feel ashamed of what I’ve been through.”

Escaping from it all

One teen injured his spine trying to jump out of the St. Louis detention center in 2021. Months before, a youth who escaped from the city’s juvenile detention facility was killed while running away from police on Interstate 70.

Statewide, the number of escapes from Missouri juvenile detention centers are difficult to decipher, as some statistics include runaway data and juvenile detention facilities are not required to report escapes or attempted escapes.

Data released by the Missouri Supreme Court shows 12 escapes from the St. Louis city facility since 2021, but media reports total 15 (the detention center confirms the number at 15). St. Louis County did not report any, but media reports say two escaped. Officers at the county facility say those have been the only escapes in recent times. The Missouri Hills facility on the Bellefontaine campus in North St. Louis County operated by the state's Division of Youth Services has also had nine escapes since 2021.

“They don’t take responsibility for how often that happens,” says Mensah. “That’s not acceptable.”

All Christian Lett could think about was getting away. That’s why he fled the police and crashed a stolen car that police spiked during the chase. He learned to steal cars after being taught by someone a few years older than him. After losing his brother through violence, he turned to anyone who could be a mentor, friend or teach him how to provide.

Transitioning from roaming the streets to being incarcerated at the Hogan Street facility was a big adjustment, he says. Phone calls were never more than about 15 minutes, and time with family was restricted.

“You’re not seeing the rotation of the sun and moon,” says Lett. “All we know is what time breakfast comes and if breakfast comes it must be another day.” He spent both his 17th and 18th birthdays incarcerated at St. Louis juvenile facilities.

At 17, Lett escaped the facility, but his recapture happened just months later. His second attempt was thwarted, and he assaulted a guard trying to escape. The guard ended up hospitalized.

This time, Lett landed in “adult jail” at the City Justice Center. It wasn’t until he started working with the Freedom Community Center that he thought he could turn his life around. (Full disclosure: The author has done some consulting work for the Freedom Community Center.)

The nonprofit provides a number of wrap-around services to justice-involved people, including therapy, court management, transportation, housing and job assistance. After FCC staff advocated for his release, a judge allowed the organization to serve as Lett’s sponsor, ensuring to the courts he’ll be law-abiding while his case plays out. Lett completed FCC’s six-week program centered in restorative and transformative justice techniques, and remained involved with the organization’s advocacy. He now works in the restaurant industry, and one day, hopes to be a chef.

He often speaks in third-person when addressing his past — remorseful but accountable, he says. His friends, hangout spots and, most importantly, his mentality all changed, he says.

That’s the dissociation Sconyers, the psychologist, worked to address with youth.

“We isolate the behaviors and we don’t look at whether the context and conditions these kids live in are appropriate for their survival,” says Sconyers.

This month Lett turned 20. No longer a teenager, he’s aware his young family members and friends look up to him.

“Instead of showing them the wrong way, having them watch me do stupid and lame things, I have choices and I’m choosing to do better. Not to do those things,” says Lett.

Now on probation, Lett says an intervention was necessary and speaks candidly about his transformation. By no means was it overnight, and Lett remains on probation working diligently to remain a success story.

“I never had anything against that man,” Lett says of the guard he assaulted. “All I wanted to do was get out. The way I went about it was lame, just wrong. I’m not in those circumstances and I just don’t move like that anymore.”

Services is a euphemism

Both courts and municipal governments invest in resources for youth crime prevention as well as programs outside the detention system. Some of the city’s violence prevention programs offer youth a safe place to hang out at night. Some judges assign youth charged with crimes to neighborhood accountability boards.

Kirsten Petty volunteers with the Gravois Park Neighborhood Accountability Board. She and other volunteers assist youth with their school work, community service, job opportunities and the youth’s life and decision-making skills.

“It’s the kids from our own neighborhoods. We see them in the community or when walking our dogs,” says Petty.

She’s seen success stories of teens who went from failing classes to having straight As. She’s also seen cases of youth caught stealing because they wanted to help feed their families. Typically, she’s working with youth accused of nonviolent offenses, but in recent years that’s changed. They’ve had cases where youth have been cited for assaulting their teachers.

But sometimes the charges just don’t make sense. For example, she once learned that a youth facing a weapons offense was trying to take a weapon from someone who was threatening their family.

“There’s definitely been a few times where we wondered, ‘Why are we getting this? Why is this a case?’” says Petty.

Sodomka, the chief juvenile officer of the St. Louis City Juvenile Court, highlights one of the restorative justice models the court has gradually rolled out. For youth found guilty of tampering with or stealing vehicles, if they complete community service, the victim receives restitution, sometimes in the form of a deductible from the courts. But in order to make that work, Sodomka notes, “We have to have buy-in from the family.”

Not all youth are afforded true support. Sometimes providing “services” can mean simply writing down the phone number to a nonprofit or treatment facility. That’s why the head juvenile public defender, Esparza, says “services and programs are more of a euphemism.”

An analysis of state data shows the greatest number of youth in the system were assigned to “monitoring.” Programs around victim services and restorative justice were the second highest category.

In February, St. Louis approved a federal grant for more than $450,000 for a nightwatch court program targeting youth. The program allows juvenile court officers and St. Louis police officers to team up and check in to ensure youth are at home during curfew hours.

Esparza has frequently seen juvenile officers charge youth with low-level offenses or violations, such as truancy or skipping school, in order to connect them to services. He typically sees it with children in the foster care system or child abuse and neglect cases.

“If all you’ve got is a screwdriver, everything is a screw,” says Esparza. “Minor crime turns into a bigger one and bigger one, then all of a sudden they are facing certification [to be charged as an adult].”

Other monitoring options for youth are also problematic, Esparza says. Batteries for youth assigned to GPS monitoring are unreliable and require youth to sit against a wall for hours to charge.

As a public defender, he's representing youth who are indigent. He says it's rare for a child to have stable housing. He’s seen youth given violations for not charging their GPS monitor when their parents couldn't pay the electric bill.

“Our kids are dealing with the problems of poverty,” says Esparza.

State-run facilities can provide treatment services for youth who have behavioral, mental and substance abuse needs to be addressed. For court-run juvenile facilities, available options for treatment vary by the court.

Data from annual reports shows it's needed. More than 30% of youth surveyed in detention centers had moderate to severe substance abuse issues, and more than 45% of youth served by the state system in 2023 had serious or significant issues with substance abuse.

Sodomka says she’s met with the police department and mayor’s office to strategize for best solutions for services with and without court intervention. “I think we’re all in agreement that there’s a gap.”

But Amanda Williams, the superintendent running day to day activities at the city’s juvenile detention center, says they can’t do everything. Kids do get visits to the dentist and an initial health screening, but, she says, “We aren’t a treatment facility.”

The center has a hallway that resembles a sunroom that connects to a recreational area for the youth, but as far as plans to utilize the space, “Those are ongoing conversations we are having,” says Sodomka.

But Esparza says staff needs are trumping the needs of youth. “Traumatized children in cages, not getting the right amount of exercise, risk factors for depression and anxiety, and you’re turning that up at a detention facility,” says Esparza. “What they’re trying to do is make their job more manageable.”

But there are examples of officials choosing to divert away from the system. He cites cases where he’s seen city and county prosecutors turn down cases to avoid putting a child in the system because of obvious lack of evidence or seriousness of the charge.

“Some people are trying really hard. And some are getting it right a lot more than you expected,” says Esparza.

“But it’s not good enough. A lot of kids are getting screwed. It’s not a problem that can be fixed by placing a few people here and there.”

‘Everything is a screw’

The Hogan Street Regional Youth Center in St. Louis is one of three maximum security juvenile commitment facilities run by the state. It’s where youth can be committed up until they are 21 if found guilty of a crime.

Scott Odum, director for the Missouri Division of Youth Services, says the St. Louis facility faced a number of challenges as the pandemic echoed across the labor market, such as staff shortages. But vacancies have since dropped in the past year from 29 to 13%, he says.

But Hogan has also experienced a high number of escapes, similar to the city juvenile detention facility just two miles west.

“This work is always going to be hard,” Odum says. “We could have an incident there tomorrow. That is always on the menu and it’s possible. It’s the things that keep me up at night.”

Odum says it was not just the escapes, but other security concerns and much-needed repairs that prompted the department to make plans to close the facility. The cost of repairs, a little more than $4 million, would have been more than half of the cost of renovating or purchasing a new building.

The new facility will stand on 10 acres of land already owned by the state for long-term developmental and disability care. Unlike Hogan, it will operate on one floor for security purposes. Capacity will be up to about 36 youth, around the same number Hogan housed at its prime, which now has about 30 beds. The new space will include a basketball court and fenced-in space for outdoor recreational activity.

But there’s still no enforcement mechanism to ensure youth will be allowed outside.

“We have to change that,” says Missouri State Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, D-St. Louis.

Bosley sought to make an amendment to a public safety bill to require that youth in detention be given time outside, according to juvenile justice guidelines. But Bosley says the proposal failed to gain traction.

Last session, two hearings were held, but the legislature had little discussion before approving HB 19, a bill to appropriate $7.2 million for the new Division of Youth Services facility to replace Hogan.

A number of parents and advocates provided witness statements pleading with the legislature to not pass the bill. They asked instead for youth to have hygiene products, programs to help with emotional trauma, better-trained staff and rehabilitation programs that prevent incarceration and recidivism.

“Building a shiny new jail for kids may be an easy way to create the appearance of supporting vulnerable youth and their communities, but is this actually a solution that the communities affected have called for?” one statement asked.

“What they need is therapy, proper education, public services, job training, and ultimately our support. With a new jail, there will just be more incentive to fill it with our children,” read another. “Our current jails are not working. Why would this one be different? Let us not make the same mistake again.”

After the funding bill was passed by the House and Senate, Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed it into law.

In that same bill, Parson vetoed $750,000 for an educational supply store in St. Louis County, $13 million in improvements for the Riverview Gardens School District, $3 million for a community center in Kirkwood and $100,000 for improvements to a community center in Wellston.

In his veto messages, Parson writes that the programs were a local responsibility with minimum statewide impact.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the St. Louis region saw more youth committed to state detention centers than anywhere else in the state, accounting for more than 25% of all Missouri youth committed.

Each bed at facilities like Hogan costs around $112,295 annually.

This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund , which seeks to advance journalism in St. Louis.

Delinquent: For youths facing discretionary bindover, a juvenile judge decides their fate, but for John, the waiting game has consequences

• Published: May. 13, 2024, 8:00 a.m.

Unlike mandatory bindovers, discretionary transfers require a juvenile judge’s approval, based on a hearing to determine whether youth can be rehabilitated in the juvenile system. Many consider discretionary bindovers a fairer form of justice. But for some accused juveniles, like John, the waiting game leaves them in limbo. (Illustration by Andrea Levy, Advance)

• John H. Tucker, cleveland.com
• Kaitlin Durbin, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – John stands nearly six feet in cleats, with long, thick arms, making it easy to understand why college football coaches showed interest.

Not long ago, he was a senior wide receiver at a suburban high school with strong route-running skills and aspirations to play at the next level. But after that 2022 season, his life dramatically changed.

Last March, at 17, John was accused of shooting into a Cleveland Heights house. A bullet flew into a bedroom occupied by two teens, police reported. No one was hurt. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office charged John with several felonies, including felonious assault, and requested to transfer him to adult court, a process called bindover.

He formally denied – juvenile court’s term for pleading not guilty – committing the shooting, and his case is pending.

“Everything happens for a reason, but–” John pauses. It’s not easy to make sense or find meaning in the situation John finds himself in and how ruinous it might be for his future.

John is one of more than 50 juvenile offenders – referred to by middle name or pseudonym – who spoke to The Plain Dealer/cleveland.com about their recent experiences within the Cuyahoga County juvenile justice system, which puts more children behind bars than any other county in Ohio. Their stories, told over six weeks, illustrate influences that led them to crime, escalations from petty misdemeanors to violent acts and barriers that delayed or blocked their way out, sometimes despite interventions.

Delinquent: Our System, Our Kids

• Delinquent: Read all the stories from Week 2; mandatory bindovers have risen in Cuyahoga, but some Ohio legislators want to eliminate them May. 12, 2024, 6:35p.m.
• Delinquent: Lou, serving 25 years to life, wrestles with the inner demons many young people face in adult prison – sometimes causing new harm May. 10, 2024, 8:00a.m.
• Delinquent: Will, caught up in the streets from young age, needed adult prison to reform, he says May. 9, 2024, 8:00a.m.
• Delinquent: After bindover, some kids, like Parnell, get adult time that could have been served in the juvenile system - ‘We’re setting them up for failure,’ advocates say May. 8, 2024, 8:00a.m.

SEE ALL STORIES FOR DELINQUENT: OUR SYSTEM, OUR KIDS

Last week, we explored the controversial subject of mandatory bindover. That’s the process of sending kids who are accused of committing the most severe offenses straight into the adult system, without the benefit of a juvenile judge’s input.

This week, we focus on the process of discretionary bindover – when prosecutors request the transfer of a kid to the adult docket, and the decision is left in the hands of a judge. Some advocates argue that no child should be sent to adult court without the approval of a juvenile judge, who considers the full scope of the kid’s life and prospects for rehabilitation. But the approach is not without its complexities. Making an informed decision about a youth’s case takes time. And when a kid is left languishing – rudderless and without treatment for months, while waiting for a judge’s decision – more bad things tend to happen.

John, unfortunately, is our example.

John’s shooting charges didn’t qualify for mandatory bindover. Prosecutors felt the severity still warranted adult sanctions, and they asked a juvenile judge to agree.

Unlike mandatory bindovers, which are required for juveniles in certain situations involving high-level felony charges, discretionary bindovers can be requested for any juvenile as young as 14, who is accused of a felony. The judge decides whether transfer is appropriate, based on an investigation into the child’s social history, education and family situation, as well as a mental health examination by the court’s diagnostic clinic.

The judge uses that information to weigh factors for and against transfer to the adult docket, during what’s called an amenability hearing. If the judge determines the child is not amenable to care and rehabilitation within the juvenile system – which runs until an offender’s 21st birthday – and if public safety might require adult sanctions, they transfer the case to adult court.

If transferred, youth face the traditional criminal process and adult sanctions, including the possibility of adult prison. If they are deemed amenable, however, they remain in juvenile court, where, if found delinquent, they could face probation, youth prison, or something in between.

Many believe the discretionary process is a fairer form of juvenile justice than mandatory bindover.

“It’s like a scalpel; it’s individualized, witnesses are brought in, there’s evidentiary hearings and lots of structure,” says Hunter Hurst, director of the Pittsburgh-based National Center for Juvenile Justice. The organization is the research arm of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, which was founded, incidentally, by a Cuyahoga County judge in 1937.

Juvenile judges are considered experts on youths, while “prosecutors may be more political,” Hurst adds, speaking on behalf of himself and not his organization. In mandatory bindover situations, “We’re giving them the power to make this really awesome decision about an awful situation with a 10th or 11th grader whose mind is still developing.”

Discretionary bindover chart Plain Dealer/cleveland.com

In practice

A Plain Dealer/cleveland.com analysis of amenability orders between 2019 and 2022 found that, in Cuyahoga, judges were asked to consider discretionary bindover in 407 cases. Those orders are not public records, but Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court agreed to provide them to help explain how judges decide transfer.

In 226 of those cases, or 56%, judges granted the bindover, transferring a total 146 juveniles to the adult system, the analysis showed. (Numbers do not match because juveniles can be transferred on more than one case.) The remaining cases were either withdrawn or denied.

Now, a judge would decide John’s future, too.

While there are advantages to evaluating the life circumstances of each juvenile before deciding how to prosecute them, there are drawbacks, too. The thorough investigations involved in the discretionary bindover process can extend for months, leaving kids in a state of uncertainty, straddling the juvenile and adult justice systems.

Unlike kids who spend an average 225 days awaiting bindover in juvenile jail, John was released to home detention. But life was still challenging. He wasn’t allowed to leave home for anything but work – not even to take out the trash, he says. He finished high school online.

His judge, Kristin Sweeney, had said his performance back in his community would reflect his commitment to reform and could factor into whether he stays in juvenile court or is sent to adult court. In July, he was accused of a new crime – victim intimidation – for posting case material on Instagram. But Sweeney kept John at home. He took her advice and deactivated his social media accounts.

Judge Kristin Sweeney Kaitlin Durbin

John vowed to make the most of his time in home detention, while he awaited his amenability hearing.

His ankle monitor beeped when the power was low, interrupting sleep. But he stayed positive, working six days a week as a gas line flagger and traffic controller at construction sites. He used his earnings to reimburse his grandfather for a used car and to pay half his attorney’s fees. When time permitted, he grunted through basement workouts with a grungy weight machine to maintain strength for the college workouts he still hoped to join.

During a hearing last October, Sweeney seemed impressed with his progress. It persuaded her to release him from his ankle monitor. But one misstep, she warned, could set him back significantly and impact the bindover decision.

“You got a whole lot at stake,” she reminded him.

‘That peace feeling’

A few days later, John was lounging at home, his ankle bare as he shook off seven months of cabin fever. His amenability hearing was scheduled for January, three months away. Eager to put the bindover ruling behind him, the 18-year-old planned to resume outdoor football drills, “to see if I still got it,” he jokes.

He admitted to associating with the wrong crowd, leading up to his legal troubles. They were new friends he’d made after he transferred schools his senior year, to increase his prospects of being scouted for football. The impressionable teen started getting into fights.

Legally, his record was clean prior to the shooting, but he recognizes he was heading down a bad path. “If I kept doing what I was doing, I might’ve ended up doing something I can’t come back from,” he allows.

He likely understands how growing up in greater Cleveland puts Black teens like him at higher risk for criminal justice involvement, including bindover. Roughly 30% of the county’s population – youth and adult – is Black, according to U.S. Census data. Yet, 71% of the youth who have faced delinquency charges in the last five years and 92% of those transferred to adult court are Black, a Plain Dealer/cleveland.com analysis showed.

So are the majority of homicide victims , including youths. One of John’s former teammates was murdered. John also recalls a time his grandfather nearly became a victim, after a bullet pierced his windshield, while he drove through Cleveland in broad daylight.

Football, the sport John had played since he was 5, was supposed to be his safety net – a ticket out of Cleveland, where danger was too much of a reality.

“Football is like a getaway from everything,” he explains. “You know if you have a long workday, came home and showered and got into bed and went to sleep? That’s the feeling football gave me, that peace feeling.”

But as his case dragged on, his hope of moving on and playing college ball faded. Interest from coaches nearly fizzled out, and one tentative offer fell through, he says.

He felt stuck – waiting.

‘A dark space’

In early January, with John’s amenability still pending, his mother was anxious. She believed the hearing would hinge largely on John’s psychological evaluation. But there was one problem: John still hadn’t met with a psychologist.

She’d already noticed changes in the three months since his home detention. He’d grown quick to anger, his self-esteem had faltered, and he became reclusive.

John’s mom expected his psychological examination to trigger immediate therapy, based on her conversations with court officials, which could also strengthen his case for amenability. But that process hadn’t even started, and she claims John’s case manager was MIA for months.

“Juvenile court is supposed to be all about treatment,” she says, adding, “When and where are these programs?”

At the same time, John’s construction company cut back on winter hours. He applied for a DoorDash job to fill the void, but it didn’t pay as well.

Depression, he recalls now, “was knocking on the door.”

The 18-year-old still wanted to play college football in the fall, but with his swirling legal issues, it was hard to see a path forward. It had been more than a year since he strapped on shoulder pads.

“I’ve watched my son drop into a dark space because we don’t know if we are going left or right,” his mom says.

New charges

After motivational talks with his mom, John eventually turned a corner, renewing efforts to play college football, far from Cleveland.

“I knew I needed a complete change of environment,” he says.

He picked up old conversations with coaches and applied to schools. For his essay, he argued that football could be lifesaving. He also, finally, met with his court-appointed psychological evaluator, he says.

Suddenly, in January, a warrant was issued for John’s arrest.

A month before, a man walked into a Cleveland police station to report an armed robbery. The two gunmen wore masks, but one looked familiar. The assailants took his car, phone and wallet.

The 20-year-old victim had a phone tracker, so he set out to find his car. Eventually, he spotted it in a parking lot with the headlights on. As he approached, two people exited the car and made a quick move, like they were going to chase him down. They carried weapons that looked like machine guns, the victim would tell police. This time he felt sure he recognized one of them.

The victim turned to run. Suddenly, several shots rang out behind him, he reported. He frantically flagged down a vehicle and waited for police to arrive.

Authorities accused John of being one of the assailants. Now 18, he was indicted in adult court for aggravated robbery, felonious assault and other felonies. He spent several days in jail before posting bond.

He declines to discuss the new charges, though he acknowledges falling back with the wrong crowd after he was freed from his ankle monitor in October.

At some point, however, he says he learned that his psychological evaluator told the court in reports that “He needs to be in college playing football.”

“That sparked a fire under me,” John says.

By March, John had been accepted into college and was working out with the football team seven days a week. In April, spring ball would commence, and he’d don a helmet for the first time since 2022.

His amenability hearing in juvenile court is now scheduled for June. His adult court charges are pending.

Right now, though, John’s keeping his mind on football. He wants to start as a freshman in the fall, and he’s hoping a good batch of early grades might also help at his amenability hearing. He’s majoring in criminal justice.

“My story’s still being written,” he says.

(Coming tomorrow: Desianiah was 15 when she participated in a robbery plot that resulted in murder. The prosecutor wanted to bind her over to adult court, but first a judge had to decide her amenability. She says her history of trauma and mental health issues paved the way to crime – and were supposed to factor into her rehabilitation, too. Instead, she felt overlooked and cast aside: “I wasn’t a bad person, I just messed up.”)

Data Editor Rich Exner and data reporter Zachary Smith contributed to this report.

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The World’s Murder Capital: Insights into the Global Epicenter of Homicide

This essay about the so-called “murder capitals of the world” examines the reality behind this grim title, focusing on cities plagued by extraordinarily high homicide rates. It highlights various urban areas, historically shifting from places like Tegucigalpa and Caracas to more recent examples in Mexico such as Los Cabos and Acapulco. These shifts underscore the impact of local crime dynamics, including drug trafficking and gang violence. The discussion delves into the root causes of high murder rates, such as poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and ineffective policing. Furthermore, the essay explores successful strategies for reducing violence, using Medellín, Colombia as a case study where innovative social programs and community policing have dramatically transformed the city. The role of international support in enhancing local law enforcement, education, and infrastructure to foster long-term stability is also emphasized. Ultimately, the essay calls for a comprehensive approach to transform these cities from symbols of despair into beacons of hope and resilience.

How it works

When discussing the most violent cities globally, terms like “murder capital of the world” often surface, casting a shadow over specific urban landscapes fraught with crime and despair. The concept of a “murder capital” is not merely a sensationalist label but a distressing reality for many communities. These cities, characterized by extraordinarily high homicide rates, demand our attention not just for the stark statistics they represent but for the underlying social, economic, and political issues that fuel such violence.

The city that often comes to mind when discussing homicide rates is Tegucigalpa in Honduras or Caracas in Venezuela.

However, over the years, the specific city holding the infamous title of “murder capital of the world” has shifted, largely due to fluctuations in local crime rates and the effectiveness of law enforcement strategies. Most recently, cities like Los Cabos and Acapulco in Mexico have risen in the ranks, illustrating how drug trafficking, gang wars, and corruption can escalate into widespread violence affecting entire communities.

Understanding why certain cities have high murder rates is complex and multi-faceted. Typically, the root causes include poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and inadequate policing and judicial systems. These factors create a fertile ground for drug cartels and gangs to flourish, often using violence as a means to control territories and settle disputes. The local population, especially the youth, may feel that joining a gang provides a semblance of income, protection, and identity—albeit at a dangerous cost.

Another critical aspect to consider is the role of governmental and international response to these crises. In some cases, a heavy-handed approach, such as deploying the military to combat local gangs, has led to a temporary decrease in murder rates. However, such strategies can also lead to human rights abuses and fail to address the underlying social issues that contribute to the cycle of violence. Effective solutions require a combination of law enforcement to curb immediate threats and long-term strategies aimed at improving the socio-economic conditions of the community.

For instance, Medellín, Colombia, once regarded as the most dangerous city on Earth due to its overwhelming homicide rates in the early 1990s, has seen a dramatic turnaround. This transformation was achieved through innovative social programs, investing in education, and community policing that helped rebuild trust between residents and law enforcement. This holistic approach not only reduced violence but also revitalized the city, showing that change is possible with concerted effort and comprehensive policies.

The international community also plays a pivotal role in addressing these issues. Supporting local governments in reforming law enforcement, providing aid for educational and vocational training, and helping develop infrastructure can all contribute to long-term stability. Furthermore, addressing global demand for drugs and reducing arms trafficking are crucial steps the international community must take to lessen the pressures on these high-crime areas.

In conclusion, while the label “murder capital of the world” highlights the severity of the situation in certain cities, it is a call to action for both local and global leaders to address the multifarious issues leading to such high rates of violence. Understanding and tackling the root causes of crime can transform these cities from murder capitals to places of hope and resilience. Through collaborative efforts, targeted policies, and sustained investment in human capital, communities plagued by violence can achieve lasting peace and prosperity, setting a precedent for others to follow.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The World’s Murder Capital: Insights into the Global Epicenter of Homicide . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-worlds-murder-capital-insights-into-the-global-epicenter-of-homicide/ [Accessed: 13 May. 2024]

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The World’s Murder Capital: Insights into the Global Epicenter of Homicide . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-worlds-murder-capital-insights-into-the-global-epicenter-of-homicide/ [Accessed: 13-May-2024]

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Lawsuit Claims Widespread Sex Abuse at Illinois Youth Detention Centers

Dozens of former juvenile inmates, now adults, say they were abused by Illinois correctional workers. Lawsuits in other states have made similar claims.

By Mitch Smith

Reporting from Chicago

A lawsuit filed on Monday accused Illinois of allowing state workers to systematically abuse juvenile prisoners for decades, the latest in a series of legal cases across the country to assert that youth correctional facilities had long failed to prevent pervasive sexual misconduct by employees.

The Illinois lawsuit, filed in the State Court of Claims by more than 90 former juvenile inmates, described guards sexually abusing teenagers in their cells and staff members using strip searches as opportunities to commit assaults. When other employees witnessed or learned about abuse, the lawsuit said, they often did nothing to stop it.

“The systems are broken,” said Todd Mathews, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who described the lawsuit as a way to “demand justice for every soul scarred by the system’s negligence.”

The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, which was named in the lawsuit, released a statement on Monday saying it “takes seriously the safety of youth in the care of the department.” It said that all allegations of misconduct were investigated but that the department would not comment on active litigation.

The department “has enacted policies and protocols to ensure the safety of youth and staff and identify any possible instances of abuse or misconduct,” the statement said. “I.D.J.J. protocols comply with both state and federal safety standards and I.D.J.J. completes ongoing policy and protocol evaluations.” All staff members working in the department, the statement added, “undergo background checks and training, along with participating in ongoing professional development.”

The Illinois Department of Corrections was also named in the suit. An official at that agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jeffery Christian, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he had been abused at two Illinois youth detention centers where he was held as a teenager. At one, he said, a guard forcibly masturbated him repeatedly when he was 13 or 14. At another, he said, a counselor made repeated sexual comments toward him.

“I want to shed light on what’s going on,” said Mr. Christian, who is now 36 and works in transportation, and who agreed to being named in this article. “I want justice in any form I can get it.”

Lawyers said they hoped the lawsuit would lead to financial compensation for plaintiffs who, years later, remain shaken by the abuse they endured. They also said they hoped the state would agree to implement sweeping changes in its juvenile justice system. The lawsuit claimed that state agencies did not properly supervise, investigate or discipline employees who engaged in abuse.

The lawsuit in Illinois is part of a national wave of litigation. Last week, in cases involving some of the same lawyers, about 150 people sued New York City for abuse they said they had endured while in the city’s custody as minors. Other lawsuits claiming rampant sexual abuse at juvenile detention centers have been filed in California , Maryland and New Jersey , according to media accounts.

The Illinois lawsuit includes detailed claims of sexual abuse that the plaintiffs, who are now adults, say occurred between the 1990s and the 2010s. The allegations involve youth detention centers across the state and were made against workers, both male and female, in a range of jobs. Lawyers involved in the case said they hoped the lawsuit could lead to criminal investigations and charges.

“Our clients more than anything want the sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers to stop,” said one of their lawyers, Jerome Block. He said the plaintiffs “want children not to go through what they went through.”

Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains. More about Mitch Smith