juvenile justice system topics for research paper

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Risk and protective factors and interventions for reducing juvenile delinquency: a systematic review.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. inclusion criteria, 2.2. exclusion criteria, 2.3. data sources and search strategy, 2.4. risk of bias assessment, 4. discussion, 5. limitations, 6. conclusions, author contributions, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Aazami, A.; Valek, R.; Ponce, A.N.; Zare, H. Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review. Soc. Sci. 2023 , 12 , 474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

Aazami A, Valek R, Ponce AN, Zare H. Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review. Social Sciences . 2023; 12(9):474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

Aazami, Aida, Rebecca Valek, Andrea N. Ponce, and Hossein Zare. 2023. "Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review" Social Sciences 12, no. 9: 474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

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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.

• 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?

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 .

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:

• 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.
• 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.

190 Best Essay Examples on Juvenile Justice

The impact of media on juvenile delinquency.

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Methodologies Used to Measure Acts of Juvenile Delinquency

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Developing Solutions to the Juvenile Delinquency Problem

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Net Widening in the Juvenile Justice System

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Single Parenthood and Juvenile Delinquency in Modern Society

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The Issue of Juvenile Delinquency

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Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Intervention

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Children’s Rights: Article 12 of UNCRC

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• Words: 1179

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The youth criminal justice act in teresa robinson’s case, the youth justice strategy action plan 2019–21.

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The Community Policing Impact on Juvenile Crime

• Words: 4227

“Palaszczuk Government Releases…” by Di Farmer

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Transferring a Defendant to an Adult Court

• Words: 1116

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• Words: 2246

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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

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• Words: 2475

Indeterminate Sentencing: To Be or Not to Be?

• Words: 2275

Juvenile Justice System of USA

• Words: 2916

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.

• Words: 1149

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

• Words: 3686

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, juvenile diversion programs.

• Words: 1155

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.

• Words: 1571

Juvenile Courts and Their Objective

Punishments for juvenile offenders.

• Words: 1159

The Practice of Sealing Juvenile Court Records

• Words: 1402

Juvenile Treatment: The High Scope Perry Preschool Project

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Leadership Fostering Collaboration Within the Department of Juvenile Justice

• Words: 1094

Juvenile Delinquency: Three Levels of Prevention

Boot camp versus traditional incarceration, day treatment centers and juvenile delinquency, processing juvenile offenders: reasons for acceleration, ethical observations of criminal justice system, intake officers in juvenile court system.

• Words: 1981

Juvenile Justice and Defence Attorney’s Role

Court unification and juvenile delinquency, discussion about uniquely juvenile offenses, prevent juvenile delinquency in the usa, offending increase among the imprisoned teenagers.

• Words: 1176

Juvenile Correction Facility Design

Juvenile delinquency: risk assessment.

• Words: 1612

Juvenile Justice Systems and Processes

Juvenile crime statistics.

• Words: 1013

Court Decisions that Influence Juvenile Justice System

Life without parole and juvenile delinquency, restorative justice program, juvenile delinquency and reasons that lead to it, the rise of juvenile delinquency and the influence of drugs.

• Words: 1375

Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders

Juvenile court philosophy, understanding the causes of juvenile crime.

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Youth Justice Conferencing as a Government Hybrid Technique

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Features of Conviction of Juvenile Offenders

Juvenile detention and desistance from offending.

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Alternatives to Juvenile Detention Centers

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Court Sentencing: Juvenile Status and Unemployment

Chapter 1 of shaw’s “the jack roller: a delinquent boy’s own story”.

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

• Words: 1036

Criminology: Bring Community Justice To Corrections

The concepts of nature and nurture in modern psychologist to explain juvenile delinquency, the evolving definition of juvenile, juvenile delinquency in the united states, intake report: diversionary strategies, juvenile delinquency and the importance of socialization, the heavy metal music preference and delinquency, theories and suggestions on juvenile delinquency.

• Words: 2428

good research paper writing is our form of justice

Juvenile Justice Research Paper Guide & Sample Topics

Crimes committed by adolescent children and left untreated might lead up to a life which is devoted to antisocial activities and crime. Hence the juvenile justice sector plays a significant role in maintaining a civilized society while ensuring that children grow up in the right way. But how can one develop a research paper of such a vast area? How can one narrow down the broad topics in this sector, such as delinquencies, to gain a perfect thesis to work with? Well, this article has the answers to these questions and more. In this article, we shall go through how to write a Juvenile Justice Research paper. We shall also outline some Juvenile Justice Paper topics to help you kick start your Juvenile Justice research writing journey. Hence, without further ado, let us get right into it.

How to write a Juvenile Justice Research paper

To develop an incredible Juvenile research paper, you should follow the following steps:

• Familiarize yourself with the set assignment

Though this might sound obvious, it is pretty essential. Diving into the research paper head-on without processing what the assignment is about might cause drastic effects. Hence ensure you go through your assignment, reviewing every instruction.

• Choose a topic

After understanding what you are being asked, it is now time to choose a topic for your paper. Selecting a topic can be pretty challenging due to the vastness of the Juvenile Justice curriculum and current trends of the same. Hence you need to brainstorm and consider the following:

• The topic should be pretty interesting for you
• It should align with the set guidelines by your instructor
• It should be an engaging topic

As per research, different people implement different research methodologies to gather content for their papers. However, while researching, you should always stay focused on your topic and follow the following guides:

• Find resources that are reliable
• Avoid information ignorance
• Research organization

Different individuals implement varying research organizations. However, the assignment can also dictate how you arrange your work.

• Develop a thesis

A thesis is defined as a pretty short statement which you put forth for your reader to understand what your paper is about.

Your entire paper will be based on this thesis. You hence have to think it out a lot. It also has to align with the topic.

• Develop an outline

Your juvenile justice research paper outline acts as a guide. It helps keep you on track as you write your paper. By outlining different stages of your paper, you get to identify your paper’s weak and strong points.

It is now time to write; as you do so, refer to your research to stay on track. Avoid plagiarism at all costs. If you quote someone or something, ensure you provide a cite for your source.

• Editing your content

Organize your work to fit in with the provided guidelines as per:

• The structure
• Organization
• Grammar editing

Unnecessary grammar mistakes can make you lose marks. Hence to avoid this, ensure you reread and fix any grammatical errors in your paper.

• Reread your juvenile justice system paper

Human is to error; hence rereading your paper can help you catch any mistakes before submission. You can also ask a friend to reread your work; this increases the level of accuracy.

And with that, you have a complete Juvenile justice research paper.

Incredible ideas for juvenile justice research paper and topics that will amaze you

Juvenile justice research paper topics.

• Correlation between adolescent crime and sexual abuse
• Adolescent males and Recidivism
• Alcohol effect on the juvenile Delinquency
• Single-parented families and how this affects the juvenile Delinquency
• Schools’ suspension effects on the juvenile Delinquency

Juvenile justice system research paper

Here are some great topics on the Juvenile system:

• The various changes that have occurred in the system
• Whether juvenile trials should be handled in an adult-like trial manner
• How blacks in the Juvenile Justice system are not supported efficiently
• Confidentiality issues in the Juvenile system
• Adverse outcomes of juvenile trials being carried out in an adult-like manner

To gain a firmer understanding of tackling a juvenile justice research paper. You can always search for an example of a research paper on juvenile justice system online. By going through these examples, you can appropriately implement the topics and guidelines in this article to ace that test.

Writing a juvenile justice system research paper is not an easy feat, however, by implementing the writing guidelines and topics provided in this article. You can make the process more fun and less strenuous.

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Juvenile Delinquency in India: An Analysis

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Juvenile Justice Research-to-Practice Implementation Resources

Family engagement and involvement, evidence-based programs and services, additional resources, acknowledgments.

family engagement

The Juvenile Justice Research-to-Practice Implementation Resources provide juvenile justice agency managers, staff, and other practitioners with concrete strategies, tools, examples, and best-practice models to help them implement research-informed policies and practices and improve outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system.

Access the available resources on Family Engagement and Involvement and Evidence-Based Programs and Services below.

Research shows  that youth who have supportive caregivers have better outcomes than youth with less supportive caregivers. This is true across the juvenile justice, child welfare, behavioral health, and education systems. Youth whose caregivers do not provide consistent structure and support are at far greater risk of engaging in continued delinquent behavior and suffering poor behavioral health, education, and employment outcomes into adulthood. But practitioners often struggle to implement  family engagement and involvement policies  and practices effectively. Below are suggested strategies, tools, examples, and best-practice models from across the country that juvenile justice agency managers, staff, and other practitioners may consider adopting to effectively implement family engagement practices and promote positive outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system.

Identifying family members or other supportive adults who can promote positive outcomes for youth

Strategy 1: Define “family” broadly.

Family should be understood to include traditional and non-traditional caregivers and other supportive adults. The family and youth should name those who are considered family.

Strategy 2: Identify family members and other supportive adults using visual tools, questionnaires, and other models developed by the field.

• Employ  Family Finding , an approach borrowed from the child welfare field, which seeks to connect all youth to supportive adults.
• Refer to  Six Steps to Find a Family: A Practice Guide to Family Search and Engagement , which supports practitioners in identifying and engaging family and other supportive adults for youth both in the community and in out-of-home placements.
• Use  genograms  and  eco-maps , visual tools that help practitioners facilitate conversations with youth and family members.
• Complete the  Family Case Management Flowchart , which uses a broad definition of “family” to facilitate the identification of both family relationships and community supports.
• Work with the  Juvenile Relational Inquiry Tool (JRIT) , a series of questions designed to help practitioners identify family members and other supportive adults and build a rapport with them.

Supporting families in navigating the juvenile justice system and remaining involved with their children

Strategy 1: Establish a culture of alliance with families who have children in the juvenile justice system.

• Train staff  to ensure that all practitioners who work with youth have the skills to communicate with families in a way that recognizes and validates their experience, culture, concerns, and needs.
• Carry out  family-focused policies and practices  across the juvenile justice continuum.

Strategy 2: Educate families about their children’s experience in the justice system.

• Supply  family guides  to introduce family members to the structure, procedures, staff roles, and terminology of the juvenile justice system and how they may advocate for and support their children within that system.
• Develop a parents of incarcerated children  “bill of rights,” a short resource that educates parents on their rights and opportunities to be involved with their children who are under system supervision.

Strategy 3: . Provide peer supports.

• Enlist  family engagement specialists  or family advocates, people who help families understand the system and stay connected to their children, and whose own children may have been in contact with the juvenile justice system.
• Organize  parent  and  peer  support groups and family councils, which bring together multiple families of youth in the juvenile justice system to learn from and support each other, as well as inform juvenile justice policy and practice.

Strategy 4:  Outreach to families.

• Consider  recommendations related to the treatment of families throughout the case continuum , a roadmap for practitioners working with the families of youth at different stages of involvement with the juvenile justice system.
• Consult  Families Unlocking Futures: Solutions to the Crisis in Juvenile Justice , which provides an overview of recommendations from families of incarcerated youth on how to effectively engage and involve them.
• Develop  scripts  for staff who are initiating outreach to a youth’s family or caregivers prior to meeting in person.

Engaging families to play an active role in youth’s case planning and treatment

Strategy 1: Involve families in supervision and service decisions.

• Implement  family team meetings ,  Family Group Decision Making , or  Effective Practices in Community Support for Influencers , models that include youth’s caregiver networks in collective decision making on case planning, services, and supervision.
• Adopt the evidence-based  Functional Family Probation  model, wherein probation officers engage with and provide case management to the families of youth who are under community supervision.
• Introduce  Functional Family Therapy ,  Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care , or  Multi-Systemic Therapy , three programs with strong evidentiary support that aim to provide intensive, in-home family therapy.

Strategy 2:  Provide opportunities for family contact with youth placed in facilities.

• Implement flexible and inclusive family visitation hours and  policies , which increase youth’s contacts with supportive adults and lead to  positive outcomes .
• Offer  transportation assistance  to families in order to promote more frequent contact with children who are placed in residential facilities.
• Use  communication technology , which helps support—but should not replace—family contact when in-person meetings are difficult to arrange.
• Consider requiring family contact and engagement as part of  supervision policy  and practice for youth in the community and in facilities.
• Hold family days, graduations,  performances , Mother’s/Father’s Day gatherings, and youth celebration events to bring families together and connect them with their children.

Establishing and tracking family engagement performance measures

Strategy 1:  Solicit family input on agency policies, practices, and outreach efforts.

• Establish family and youth advisory groups who are tasked with regularly reviewing agency policies and practices and ensure that they are family friendly.
• Administer  family surveys  to assess and continually improve upon the agency’s family engagement efforts.
• Conduct  focus groups  with youth in the juvenile justice system and their families to gain valuable insights on how to improve family engagement.

Strategy 2:  Hold staff accountable for family outreach and support.

• Consider taking part in Performance-based Standards (PbS) for Youth in Correction and Detention Facilities, a program that requires participating agencies to survey families and youth to gather feedback about facility conditions, staff, services, and overall satisfaction with their experiences.
• Formally  assess  juvenile performance with regard to family engagement at all points across the juvenile justice continuum.

Programs and services are considered evidence based when they have demonstrated effectiveness through scientific research and evaluation. Both  research  and field experience  show  that implementing evidence-based programs and services with fidelity correlates to reduced recidivism rates and improved outcomes for youth. Once juvenile justice agencies and contracted service providers institute such programs and services, however, they often encounter challenges in identifying the appropriate services and implementing them properly, consistently, and in ways that lead to better outcomes for youth. Among other approaches to these challenges, there are opportunities for state policymakers to enact legislation and funding incentives to encourage the adoption of effective service approaches at the state and local levels. Below are suggested strategies, examples, and best-practice models from across the country that state policymakers, juvenile justice agency administrators and managers, staff, and other practitioners may consider adopting to promote and effectively implement evidence-based programs and services with fidelity.

Identifying, funding, and promoting evidence-based programs and services

Strategy 1: Consult resources in the field to identify programs and services that have been shown by research to reduce recidivism and improve other outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system.

• Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development  is a clearinghouse of programs with the best evidence of improving outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system.
• The National Institute of Justice’s  CrimeSolutions.gov  assesses program research to rate the effectiveness of juvenile justice programs and practices to improve outcomes for youth and adults.
• The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s  Model Programs Guide  contains information about evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs.
• The  Results First Clearinghouse Database , developed by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, summarizes the effectiveness of various program and service interventions as rated by eight national research clearinghouses.
• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s  National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices  is an online registry of more than 350 substance use and mental health interventions that is searchable by age range, population, and other criteria.

Strategy 2: Require the use of programs and practices that are evidence based.

• Tennessee’s  evidence-based law  requires state agencies to ensure that all state funds for juvenile justice programs are spent only on evidence-based programs.
• Washington State’s  weighted funding formula  provides additional funding to local juvenile justice systems that place youth in evidence-based programs and services.
• Oregon  requires  that all agencies receiving state dollars spend a percentage of funds on evidence-based programs and services, and submit reports assessing state-funded programs.

Strategy 3: Provide or increase funding for evidence-based programs and services.

• Wraparound Milwaukee, a managed care program operated by the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division,  pooled funding  from multiple child-serving systems in Milwaukee County and the state Medicaid Agency to finance evidence-based programs and services for youth in the juvenile justice system.
• The Louisiana Department of Health  amended  its state Medicaid plan to cover evidence-based programs for youth in the community such that juvenile justice agencies may leverage the plan to increase service availability.
• Targeted RECLAIM , an initiative of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, funds local jurisdictions to use model and evidence-based programs to divert eligible youth who have committed felonies from state custody into effective community-based alternatives.
• Louisiana’s  Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Program  funds evidence-based programs in the community through contracts wherein funding is tied to program performance.
• Federal funding opportunities  support the adoption and implementation of evidence-based programs and services for youth in the juvenile justice system.
• North Carolina has a  state statute  that funds training and technical assistance opportunities for evidence-based juvenile justice programs and practices.

Strategy 4: Ensure that competitive requests for services and service provider contracts require the use of programs and services that are evidence based.

• The  Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council  and the  Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency  released requests for proposals to support the implementation and expansion of evidence-based programs and services.
• The Dallas County, Texas, Juvenile Department’s  contracts  with service providers outline clear guidelines for the use of evidence-based programs and services.

Matching youth to services based on their assessed risk of reoffending and criminogenic needs

Strategy 1: Develop registries of service providers that specify their program model and target population.

• The Nebraska Judicial Branch has a  website  that lists registered service providers and identifies the array of programs and treatment available to youth in regions across the state.

Strategy 2: Adopt standardized case-planning and service-matching policies, tools, and templates.

• The Utah Juvenile Court, in collaboration with the Utah Division of Juvenile Services, developed a  case planning toolkit  that establishes detailed performance criteria for conducting and using risk and needs assessments to match youth with appropriate services.
• The Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice uses a  service matrix  to link youth to programs and services based on the results of screening and assessment.
• The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice’s  disposition matrix  provides guidance on using risk level and the seriousness of the offense to match adjudicated youth with the appropriate placement.

Providing agency staff and service providers with sufficient training and oversight, and enacting quality assurance measures

Strategy 1: Establish standards of service quality and assess adherence to program models.

• The Washington State Institute for Public Policy developed a set of  quality control standards  for the state’s evidence-based juvenile justice programs.
• The  Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol  and the  Correctional Program Checklist  tools identify standards of effective programs and assess how closely programs and services adhere to these standards.
• The Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Delinquency and Court Services Division implemented a  Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Cycle  for assessing department programs and community services.
• The Pennsylvania  EPISCenter  instituted a  Program Developer’s Fidelity Verification Rating and Checklist  to assess whether programs adhere to the developer’s model.

Strategy 2: Train and oversee agency staff and service providers in implementing evidence-based programs and services with fidelity.

• The West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety established the  Justice Center for Evidence-Based Practice , which supports research, effective planning and coordination, and the use of evidence for informed decision making.
• The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice’s  Evidence-Based Practices Implementation for Capacity Resource Center  assists agencies serving juvenile and adult justice populations in developing, implementing, and sustaining evidence-based practices.
• The Milwaukee DHHS’s Delinquency and Court Services Division  trains  community-based service providers on quality assurance.
• The Connecticut Center for Effective Practice (CCEP)—a division of the  Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut  jointly funded by Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families and the Court Support Services Division of the state judicial branch—provides information on best practices in child mental health and helps implement evidence-based practices through training, evaluation, and expansion of effective models of practice. One of CCEP’s functions is to administer training and quality assurance for all of the state’s Multisystemic Therapy programs, which provide intensive, in-home family therapy for youth who have become involved with the juvenile justice system.
• The Pennsylvania  EPISCenter  provides counties and service providers with (1) resources, training, and technical assistance for program selection and start-up, (2) model adherence and quality assurance, and (3) data collection and outcome measurement.

Collecting, using, and reporting data on service provider outcomes to guide service and funding decisions

Strategy 1: Set target outcomes and performance standards for services provided to youth in the juvenile justice system.

• The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has  monitoring and quality improvement standards  for its various programs and services, including detention, residential placement, and probation and community interventions.
• Performance-based Standards (PbS)  for Youth Correction and Detention Facilities is a program that encourages agencies and facilities to use national standards and outcome measures to improve services for youth who are incarcerated.
• The Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol emphasizes  four areas of information  that are critical for demonstrating program effectiveness: service category, quality of service delivery, amount of service (i.e. dosage), and risk level of youth served.

Strategy 2: Establish policies, systems, and tools for service providers to collect and report data on youth progress and outcomes in services.

• The Utah Division of Juvenile Justice Services (JJS)  requires  contracted service providers to report on the outcomes of youth in their programs. JJS then analyzes these data, summarizes them in a  graphical report , and supplies the report to service providers. Download a  sample report spreadsheet .
• The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency requires data collection and reporting from providers that are receiving Violence Prevention Program funds. Download a  sample data collection spreadsheet .
• The Pennsylvania EPISCenter has developed resources to support standardized and valid data collection, including a  guide  and a corresponding data collection and analysis tool for providers that have adopted Aggression Replacement Training, an evidence-based program that trains youth on social skills, anger control, and moral reasoning. Download the  EPISCenter’s data collection and analysis tool .
• Per  state legislation , the Texas Juvenile Justice Department collects supervision and service outcome data from local probation agencies and reports biannually on these data.
• The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has a  comprehensive data system  for department staff and contracted service providers that links prior history, risk-based referrals, services received, and outcomes for every juvenile who enters the system.

Strategy 3: Institute formal service review, accountability, and improvement processes.

• The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice developed an  accountability system  for each provider that contracts with the department for service delivery to youth.
• The Milwaukee County DHHS requires that providers develop an annual  action plan  for program improvement.
• The Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol in Pennsylvania features a performance improvement  guide  for juvenile justice service providers and a corresponding  downloadable performance improvement plan template .

For additional resources on applying research in juvenile justice practice, please see the Bridging Research and Practice Project to Advance Juvenile Justice and Safety .

These products are the result of a collaborative effort among CSG Justice Center staff and juvenile justice experts, practitioners, and advocates from across the country. The CSG Justice Center is grateful for the support and leadership of staff at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Thanks to these advisors and partners who generously gave their time and expertise*:

• Grace Bauer, Executive Director, Justice For Families • Shay Bilchik, Director, Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University • Stephanie Bradley, Director, Principal Investigator, The Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support Center • John DeWitt, Director of the Bureau of Research and Evaluation, Utah Division of Juvenile Justice Services • Dan Edwards, President, Evidence-Based Associates • Peter Greenwood, Executive Director, Association for Advancement of Evidence-Based Practices • Samantha Harvell, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute • Dan Jackson, Executive Director, Nebraska Family Support Network • Mark Lipsey, Director, Peabody Research Institute; Research Professor, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University • Ned Loughran, Executive Director, Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators • Wendy Luckenbill, Senior Recovery and Resilience Specialist for Children, Youth, and Their Families, Community Care Behavioral Health • De Shell Parker, Administrative Coordinator, Quality Assurance, Delinquency and Court Services Division, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Department of Health and Human Services • Stephen Phillippi, Director, Institute for Public Health and Justice, Louisiana State University • Ryan Shanahan, Research Director, Vera Institute of Justice • Cara Stirts, Deputy County Attorney, Douglas County, Nebraska, Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Division • Michael Umpierre, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University • Clay Yeager, Senior Consultant, Evidence-Based Associates

* All titles reflect the positions held at the time of project involvement.

The CSG Justice Center is especially grateful to the following organizations for their permission to publish supplemental documents as part of the  Juvenile Justice Research-to-Practice Implementation Resources : Delinquency and Court Services Division, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Department of Health and Human Services; Utah Division of Juvenile Justice Services; Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support Center; Justice For Families; Institute for Public Health and Justice, Louisiana State University; Division of Youth Services, Missouri Department of Social Services; Dallas County, Texas, Juvenile Department; and Douglas County, Nebraska, Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Division.

On March 9, 2024, President Joe Biden signed a $460 billion spending package for Fiscal Year 2024, allocating funding for multiple state and local justice system grant programs within the Department of Justice.

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• v.41(1); 2017 Feb

Juvenile delinquency, welfare, justice and therapeutic interventions: a global perspective

Susan young.

1 Imperial College London, London, UK

2 Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, UK

Richard Church

3 South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

This review considers juvenile delinquency and justice from an international perspective. Youth crime is a growing concern. Many young offenders are also victims with complex needs, leading to a public health approach that requires a balance of welfare and justice models. However, around the world there are variable and inadequate legal frameworks and a lack of a specialist workforce. The UK and other high-income countries worldwide have established forensic child and adolescent psychiatry, a multifaceted discipline incorporating legal, psychiatric and developmental fields. Its adoption of an evidence-based therapeutic intervention philosophy has been associated with greater reductions in recidivism compared with punitive approaches prevalent in some countries worldwide, and it is therefore a superior approach to dealing with the problem of juvenile delinquency.

Recent years have seen sustained public and academic interest in criminality and mental health, with attention often focused on antisocial behaviour by children and adolescents. The scale of the problem of juvenile delinquency has provoked mixed responses from governments and the media across the world, with calls for improved rehabilitation and support for juvenile offenders competing with voices advocating more punitive approaches. 1 Meanwhile, decades of rigorous academic scrutiny have shed light on the complex and diverse needs of children who come into conflict with the law. 2 – 5 Much of the growing body of literature on juvenile offenders shows considerable overlap between criminological, social and biomedical research, with a consensus emerging around the significance of a developmental understanding of the emergence of juvenile delinquency.

Importantly, juvenile offenders have consistently been identified as a population that suffers from a markedly elevated prevalence and severity of mental disorder compared with the general juvenile population. 6 , 7 Meeting the needs of these young offenders presents practical and ethical challenges concerning treatment and management, including liaison with other agencies.

What is juvenile delinquency?

Who counts as juvenile.

Juvenile delinquency is a term commonly used in academic literature for referring to a young person who has committed a criminal offence, although its precise definition can vary according to the local jurisdiction. The specific reasons underlying these differences are unclear, but they may arise from the lack of an agreed international standard. 8

A ‘juvenile’ in this context refers to an individual who is legally able to commit a criminal offence owing to being over the minimum age of criminal responsibility, but who is under the age of criminal majority, when a person is legally considered an adult. The minimum age of criminal responsibility varies internationally between 6 and 18 years, but the age of criminal majority is usually 18 years.

In some cases individuals older than 18 years may be heard in a juvenile court, and therefore will still be considered juveniles; indeed, the United Nations (UN) defines ‘youth’ as between 15 and 24 years of age. The term ‘child delinquents’ has been used in reference to children below the age of 13 who have committed a delinquent act, 9 although elsewhere ‘children’ are often defined as being under 18 years of age. The term ‘young offenders’ is broad, and can refer to offenders aged under 18 years or include young adults up to their mid-20s.

What is a crime?

A ‘delinquent’ is an individual who has committed a criminal offence. Delinquency therefore encompasses an enormous range of behaviours which are subject to legislation differing from one jurisdiction to another, and are subject to changes in law over time. Whereas acts of theft and serious interpersonal violence are commonly considered to constitute criminal offences, other acts including alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour in young people are tolerated to very differing degrees across the world. Sometimes these differences arise as a consequence of historical or cultural factors, and they may be underpinned by traditional religious laws, such as in some Middle Eastern countries. Some offences may be shared between jurisdictions but be enforced to differing standards – for instance, ‘unlawful assembly’, often used to prevent riots, is applied in Singapore to young people meeting in public in groups of five or more as part of police efforts to tackle youth gangs. Furthermore, ‘status offences’ – acts that would be permissible in adults but criminalised in children, such as consumption of alcohol or truancy – not only vary between jurisdictions, but contribute to discontinuity when comparing juvenile delinquency with adult populations in the same jurisdiction.

Lack of clarity can also arise in jurisdictions where a young offender is processed via a welfare system rather than a youth justice process. Countries with a high minimum age of criminal responsibility may not technically criminalise young people for behaviour that would normally be prosecuted and therefore classed as ‘delinquent’ elsewhere.

Not all incarcerated juveniles are ‘delinquent’, since some may be detained pre-trial and may not be convicted of an offence. Even if convicted, it would be wrong to assume that every ‘juvenile delinquent’ meets criteria for a diagnosis of conduct disorder; offences vary considerably and may not be associated with a broad repertoire of offending behaviour. Also, most ‘juvenile delinquents’ do not pose an immediate risk of violence to others, and the vast majority of convicted juveniles serve their sentences in the community.

To meet the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder requires evidence of a persistent pattern of dissocial or aggressive conduct, such that it defies age-appropriate social expectations. Behaviours may include cruelty to people or animals, truancy, frequent and severe temper tantrums, excessive fighting or bullying and fire-setting; diagnosis of conduct disorder can be made in the marked presence of one of these behaviours. 10

Overall, the term ‘juvenile delinquent’ is used extensively in academic literature, but requires some care. It can be a potentially problematic term, and in some contexts can strike a pejorative tone with misleading negative assumptions. For several years the UN has used the phrase ‘children in conflict with the law’ to describe the breadth of the heterogeneous group of individuals under the age of 18 who have broken the law or are at risk of doing so.

General principles of juvenile justice

Welfare v. justice models.

The sentencing of an individual convicted of a criminal offence is largely driven by three key considerations: retribution (punishment), deterrence and rehabilitation. In the case of juvenile offenders the principle of rehabilitation is often assigned the greatest weight. 11

Special consideration for juveniles within the criminal justice system is not a new concept. In Roman law, the principle of doli incapax protected young children from prosecution owing to the presumption of a lack of capacity and understanding required to be guilty of a criminal offence. Most countries have some provision for special treatment of children who come into conflict with the law, however, the degree to which this is provided varies across the world. 1 , 12 In some countries a ‘welfare’ model prevails, which focuses on the needs of the child, diagnosis, treatment and more informal procedures, whereas other countries favour a ‘justice’ model, which emphasises accountability, punishment and procedural formality.

Belgium is frequently cited as an example of a country with a strong welfare process, supported by a high minimum age of criminal responsibility of 18 years. Similarly, France built a strong welfare reputation by placing education and rehabilitation at the centre of youth justice reforms in the 1940s. New Zealand in 1989 established the widely praised system of Family Group Conferencing as an integral part of youth justice, with a focus on restoration of relationships and reduction of incarceration that would be considered part of a welfare approach. In contrast, the UK and the USA have traditionally been associated with a justice model and low age of criminal responsibility – 10 years in England and Wales, and as low as 6 years in several US states.

Within welfare or justice models, a young person may at some point be ‘deprived of liberty’ – defined as any form of detention under official authorities in a public or private location which the child is not permitted to leave. Locations in which children may be deprived of liberty include police stations, detention centres, juvenile or adult prisons, secure remand homes, work or boot camps, penitentiary colonies, locked specialised schools, educational or rehabilitation establishments, military camps and prisons, immigration detention centres, secure youth hostels and hospitals. 13

Between the less and more punitive systems

The UN supports the development of specialised systems for managing children in conflict with the law. When the first children's courts were set up in the USA in the 1930s, they were widely praised as a progressive system for serving the best interests of the child. Although informality was championed as a particular benefit, in the 1960s substantial concerns arose about due process and the protection of the legal rights of minors. The subsequent development of formal juvenile courts occurred in the context of a continuing ethos of rehabilitation of young people, with a move away from incarceration of juveniles in the 1970s, especially in Massachusetts and California. However, following a marked peak in juvenile offending statistics during the 1980s and 1990s, public and political opinion swung firmly in a more punitive direction. This was accompanied by legal reforms that increased the severity of penalties available to juvenile courts and lowered the age threshold for juveniles to be tried in adult criminal courts.

When the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force in 1990, the USA was not a signatory owing to 22 states permitting capital punishment of individuals who had committed their crimes as juveniles. It is reported that 19 juvenile offenders were executed in the USA between 1990 and 2005. Although this number may represent a small percentage of the total who faced the death penalty in the USA during that period, the practice was widely criticised by international bodies and organisations. 14 A landmark ruling in the US Supreme Court 15 outlawed the execution of juvenile offenders in the USA, but to date a small number of countries worldwide still implement this practice, sometimes as a result of religious laws.

However, it would be wrong to assume that welfare systems are automatically preferable to a juvenile justice approach, since welfare arrangements can be equally coercive in terms of deprivation of liberty of juveniles. They may lack due process, safeguards for obtaining reliable evidence from young people, processes for testing evidence, and procedures for scrutiny or appeal following disposal.

Trends in youth crime

The USA witnessed a dramatic increase in arrest rates of young people for homicide and other violent crimes in the 1980s and 1990s, sometimes referred to as the ‘violence epidemic’. 16 The ensuing moral panic led to harsh and punitive policy changes in juvenile justice and, although official statistics document a subsequent fall of 20% in court case-loads between 1997 and 2009, victimisation surveys have indicated a degree of continuity in high levels of offending, consistent with a reported increase in juvenile offending between 2000 and 2006. 17

In common with the USA and several other high-income countries, the UK also experienced a rise in juvenile offending in the 1980s and 1990s, but figures from the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales appear to indicate a general improvement in recent years. Between 2009/2010 and 2014/2015 a 67% reduction has been observed in the number of young people entering the juvenile justice system for the first time, a 65% reduction in the number of young people receiving a caution or court disposal and a 57% reduction in the number of young people in custody. 18 These figures support an overall decrease in juvenile offending noted since the early 1990s. 19

Youth crime figures from Australia have documented a 4% reduction in the overall number of young offenders in 2013/2014, 20 although the number of violent offences committed by young people in the urbanised and densely populated region of Victoria has increased by 75% between 2000 and 2010. 21

The Nordic countries have witnessed an increase in the number of law-abiding youths from 1994 and 2008. 22 In Sweden, both objective levels of juvenile crime 23 and self-reported involvement in juvenile crime 24 have fallen between 1995 and 2005. Similarly in Finland, where, despite fluctuating trends in juvenile drug use, juvenile property and violent crime is reported to have decreased between 1992 and 2013. 25

To summarise, whereas regional and annual trends in juvenile offending are observed and expected, a global trend characterised by decreased juvenile offending appears to have emerged in recent years. Indeed, UN data from a sample of 40 countries lend support to this conclusion, indicating a decrease in the proportion of juveniles suspected (10.9% to 9.2%) and convicted (7.5% to 6%) of crime between 2004 and 2012, respectively. 26

Juvenile gang membership

Influence on crime involvement.

One of the features of urbanisation across the world has been the rise of youth gangs, groups of young people often defined by geographical area, ethnic identity or ideology; recent reports indicate a rise in groups with extremist views. Explanatory models for the rise in youth gangs include factors such as economic migration, loss of extended family networks, reduced supervision of children, globalisation and exposure to inaccessible lifestyle ‘ideals’ portrayed in modern media.

Authorities in Japan attributed a surge in serious youth crime in the 1990s primarily to juvenile bike gangs known as ‘bosozoku’, who were deemed responsible for over 80% of serious offences perpetrated by juveniles, putatively bolstered by a crackdown on yakuza organised crime syndicates. 27 Although difficult to quantify, gang involvement appears to feature in a large proportion of juvenile offences, and there is evidence that gang membership has a facilitating effect on perpetration of the most serious violence including homicide. 28

Mental health

Compared with general and juvenile offender populations, juvenile gang members exhibit significantly higher rates of mental health problems such as conduct disorder/antisocial personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 29 Gang members, compared with non-violent men who do not belong to a gang, are far more likely to utilise mental health services and display significantly higher levels of psychiatric morbidity, most notably antisocial personality disorder, psychosis and anxiety disorders. 30 Gang membership has also been positively correlated with an increased incidence of depressed mood and suicidal ideation among younger gang members. 31 Prevalence of ADHD is significantly greater in incarcerated youth populations (30.1%) than in general youth population estimates (3–7%), 32 therefore it may be reasonable to expect a similarly increased prevalence in juvenile gang members. ADHD has also been associated with a significantly increased risk of comorbid mood/affective disorder. 33

Forensic child and adolescent psychiatric services

Increased awareness of constitutional and environmental factors that contribute to juvenile offending has strengthened a public health perspective towards the problem, and in the UK entry into the youth justice system has been adopted as an indicator of general public health. 34

Dictionaries frequently define ‘forensic’ as meaning ‘legal’, implying a relationship with any court of law. Indeed, many forensic psychiatrists, particularly in child and adolescent services, undertake roles that encompass multiple legal domains relevant to mental health, including criminal law, family and child custody proceedings, special educational tribunals, and immigration or extradition matters.

Specialist forensic psychiatric services vary considerably between countries, 35 but usually forensic psychiatrists assess and treat individuals in secure psychiatric hospitals, prisons, law courts, police stations and in the community under various levels of security, supervision and support. In some countries there has been a trend towards forensic psychiatrists working almost exclusively with courts of law, providing independent specialist opinion to assist the court.

In the UK, forensic child and adolescent psychiatry has emerged as a clinical subspecialty. Some services are based in specialist secure hospitals for young people and cater for the relatively small number of high-risk young offenders with the most severe mental disorders. In the absence of such specialist resources, young people may be managed in suboptimal environments such as juvenile prisons, secure residential placements or secure mental health wards for adults, or even fail to receive treatment at all.

In light of growing evidence-based interventions for juvenile offenders within a public health framework, 36 the role of child and family mental health services may increase over time. Aside from direct clinical roles, practitioners in forensic child and adolescent psychiatry are also well placed to work with a wide range of partner agencies on the planning and delivery of broader interventions for the primary and secondary prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Prevalence of mental health problems among juvenile offenders

Rates of mental health problems among juvenile offenders are significantly higher than in their non-offender peers, with two-thirds of male juvenile offenders in the USA suggested as meeting criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder. 37 One in five juvenile offenders is estimated to suffer severe functional impairment as a result of their mental health problems. 38 Paradoxically, these needs are often unmet, 39 , 40 despite evidence of increased contact with mental health services, particularly among first-time juvenile offenders. 41 , 42 Of additional concern are the reported associations between mental health problems and mortality in incarcerated juveniles, 43 including an elevated suicide rate for males. 44 Mental health problems must be a target in interventions for juvenile offenders; however, treatments which focus solely on clinical problems are unlikely to result in benefit for criminogenic outcomes. 45 There is therefore a clear need for effective interventions which address both the clinical and criminogenic needs of these individuals.

Evidence-based treatments for mental health problems

Treatment of ptsd.

Estimates regarding the prevalence of PTSD among juvenile offenders suggest that 20 to 23% meet the clinical criteria, 46 , 47 with prevalence rates significantly higher among females than males (40% v . 17%). 46 Moreover, with 62% experiencing trauma within the first 5 years of life 47 and up to 93% experiencing at least one traumatic event during childhood or adolescence, 48 this should be a target for intervention.

Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is regarded as the most effective intervention for adults with PTSD 49 and also has demonstrated efficacy for juvenile non-offenders. 50 , 51 There is limited evidence suggesting a significant reduction in self-reported symptoms of PTSD following group-based CBT in male juvenile offenders, 52 and of an adapted version of CBT, cognitive processing therapy, 53 also resulting in a significant reduction in self-reported symptoms of PTSD and depression compared with waitlist controls. 54

A trauma-focused emotion regulation intervention (TARGET) has received preliminary empirical support for use in this population. TARGET resulted in nearly twice as much reduction in PTSD symptom severity as treatment as usual (TAU), 55 in addition to significant reductions in depression, behavioural disturbances and increased optimism. 56

Mood/anxiety disorders and self-harm

Juvenile offenders in the UK present with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders (67% of females, 41% of males), self-harm (11% of females, 7% of males) and history of suicide attempts (33% of females, 20% of males). 57 Similarly high prevalence has also been observed cross-culturally, namely in the USA, 37 , 58 Switzerland 59 and Finland. 60

Despite such high prevalence, there appears to be a paucity of high-quality evaluations regarding the effectiveness of interventions for juvenile offenders with mood and/or anxiety disorders, or problems with self-harm. However, the limited evidence that is available suggests that group-based CBT may aid symptom reduction. 61 Recovery rates for major depressive disorder following group-based CBT are over double those for a life skills tutoring intervention (39% v . 19%, respectively), although no significant difference was noted at 6- or 12-month follow-up. CBT also resulted in significantly greater improvements in self- and observer-reported symptoms of depression and social functioning. 62

However, group-based CBT is not reported to be significantly different from TAU in reduction of self-harm, 63 whereas individual CBT is not significantly different from TAU in outcomes for depression, anxiety, conduct disorder or PTSD. 64 Yet recruitment to and retention in intervention seems good, suggesting that CBT is feasible to implement in juvenile offender populations. 64

Evaluations of alternative interventions have posited muscle relaxation as effective in improving juvenile offenders' tolerance of frustration. 65 Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) has also been reported to significantly reduce incidences of physical aggression in a juvenile offender population 66 and among juvenile non-offenders expressing suicidal ideation. 67 It significantly reduced serious behavioural problems and staff punitive actions among juvenile offenders within a mental health unit, although no similar significant reductions were observed for those without mental health problems. 68

Evidence-based treatments for conduct disorder: family approaches

Relationships with family and peers are recognised as key factors in the criminogenic profile of juvenile offenders. 69 Multisystemic therapy (MST) is a family-focused intervention targeting characteristics related to antisocial behaviour, including family relationships and peer associations, 70 with evidence from US and UK studies suggesting MST is a beneficial intervention for juvenile offenders. When compared with conventional services offered by juvenile offending services, MST was associated with a significant reduction in the likelihood of reoffending, 71 maintained 2 and 4 years post-treatment. 72 , 73 Offenders engaging in MST are reported to be significantly less likely to become involved in serious and violent offending. 73 , 74 Significant improvements have also been observed in both self- and parent-reported delinquency, 74 family relations and interactions, 73 and home, school, community and emotional functioning. 71 A cost offset analysis of MST among UK juvenile offenders suggested that combining MST and conventional services provides greater cost savings than conventional services alone, as a result of its positive effects on recidivism. 75 Qualitative impressions of MST from juvenile offenders and their parents indicate that key components of a successful delivery of MST include the quality of the therapeutic relationship and ability to re-engage the offender with educational systems. 76

Some evidence also exists regarding the efficacy of MST when delivered to non-offender antisocial juvenile populations outside the USA and the UK. Compared with TAU, MST resulted in a significantly greater increase in social competence and caregiver satisfaction, and a significant reduction in referrals for out-of-home placements, in Norwegian juveniles exhibiting serious behavioural problems. 77 However, no significant difference between MST and TAU was reported in outcomes for antisocial behaviour and psychiatric symptoms in Swedish juvenile offenders. 78 MST was also found to have no significant benefit over TAU in outcomes including recidivism in a sample of Canadian juvenile offenders. 79 These differing outcomes have been posited as the result of barriers in transferring MST from US and UK populations owing to differing approaches to juvenile justice between countries (i.e. a welfare v . justice approach). 78 The heterogeneous nature of studies concerning MST in juvenile offender populations prevent a firm conclusion being drawn as to its superiority over alternative interventions, although this does not diminish the positive outcomes which have been observed. 80

Substance misuse

Motivational interviewing represents a promising approach for juvenile offenders, particularly as a treatment for substance misuse. 81 Group-based motivational interviewing has received positive feedback from participants when implemented with first-time juvenile alcohol or drug offenders, 82 and compared with TAU, juvenile offenders in receipt of motivational interviewing have greater satisfaction and display lower, though not statistically significant, rates of recidivism at 12-months post-motivational interviewing. 83 There is therefore preliminary evidence for the acceptability and feasibility of motivational interviewing for substance-misusing juvenile offenders, but future research regarding long-term outcomes is warranted. To date, motivational interviewing for difficulties faced by juvenile offenders beyond that of substance misuse does not appear to have received much research attention. Juvenile offenders are known for their difficulty to engage in rehabilitative services, therefore further investigation of the effectiveness of motivational interviewing in encouraging engagement is warranted.

Preliminary investigations have also developed a conceptual framework for the delivery of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) to incarcerated substance-misusing juveniles, with qualitative impressions suggesting this is a potentially feasible and efficacious intervention. 84 Although literature regarding the effectiveness of MBI in juvenile offenders is scarce, qualitative feedback has indicated positive reception of this style of intervention, with particular improvements in subjective well-being reported by juvenile participants. 85

Employment and education

Engaging juvenile offenders with education and skills-based training is an important component of successful rehabilitation, with positive engagement in meaningful activities associated with improvements in areas such as self-belief 86 and protection against future participation in criminal activities. 87 It is concerning therefore that an evaluation of the use of leisure time over a 1-week period by probationary juvenile offenders in Australia indicated only 10% of this time was spent engaging in productive activities, such as employment or education, with 57% used for passive leisure activities, a level 30% higher than that of their non-offender peers. 88

Efforts to engage juvenile offenders in vocational and/or occupational activities have shown benefits in a number of areas. A specialised vocational and employment training programme (CRAFT) emphasising practical skills was evaluated against conventional education provision to juvenile offenders in the USA. Over a 30-month follow-up period, those engaged in CRAFT were significantly more likely to be in employment, to have attended an educational diploma programme and to have attended for a significantly longer period of time. 89 Benefits have also been reported with regard to risk of reoffending, with an after-school programme in the USA incorporating practical community projects, educational sessions and family therapy resulting in a significant reduction in recidivism at 1-year follow-up. 90

Qualitative investigations of US juvenile offenders suggest there is not a lack of interest in pursuing education among this population, but rather a disconnection with educational systems when education providers are perceived not to care about students' progress. 91 Ensuring education providers are perceived as proactive and caring in this regard may therefore be an important consideration for efforts to engage juvenile offenders with educational systems. Significant barriers to engagement include difficulties in obtaining accurate information regarding the offender's educational history, in addition to identifying community-based education providers willing to accept previously incarcerated juveniles on their release. 92

Language and communication

Difficulties with language and communication skills appear to be prevalent among juvenile offenders, with estimates of those falling into the poor or very poor categories ranging from 46 to 67%; overall, up to 90% of juvenile offenders demonstrated language skills below average. 93 Specifically, high rates of illiteracy are reported in this population, 94 with evidence to suggest that an awareness of such problems among juvenile offenders themselves is associated with dissatisfaction and poor self-esteem. 95 These difficulties may act as barriers to engagement in therapeutic interventions, particularly those delivered in group settings, as well as re-engagement with educational systems. Awareness of the challenges these young people face with regard to confidence and ability to communicate is important, and potential involvement of a speech and language therapist could be considered. Preventing deficits in language and communication through effective schooling and appropriate support in the early years of life may serve as an aid to effective engagement in rehabilitative interventions, and may also mitigate the risk of engagement in criminal activities in the first instance.

Delivery of therapeutic services

Common challenges to a therapeutic youth justice pathway.

There are common obstacles to smooth care pathways between different parts of systems, such as in transitions between secure settings and the community, between prisons and secure psychiatric settings, and between child and adult services. In some jurisdictions individuals can only be treated pharmacologically against their will in a hospital setting, a safeguard which limits the extent to which individuals can be treated in prison, but there is still great scope for intervention by prison mental health teams in juvenile prisons.

Factors associated with good outcomes

A meta-analysis has revealed three primary factors associated with effective interventions for juvenile offenders: a ‘therapeutic’ intervention philosophy, serving high-risk offenders, and quality of implementation. 96 These findings are consistent with factors posited as correlating with good outcome in residential centres for troubled adolescents and juvenile offenders: good staff-adolescent relations, perception of staff as pro-social role models, positive peer pressure, an individualised therapeutic programme approach, developmentally appropriate programmes and activities, clear expectations and boundaries, and placement locations which allow for continued family contact. 97 , 98

In the community, coercive styles of engagement have been found to be less successful at achieving adherence among juvenile offenders than a client-centred approach. 99

Factors associated with poor outcomes

‘Scared Straight’ programmes expose juveniles who have begun to commit offences to inmates of high-security prisons, yet these approaches have been discredited due to evidence that risk of recidivism may in fact increase following such exposure. 100 Similarly poor outcomes have been observed in programmes modelled on military boot camps, in which harsh discipline is considered to be of therapeutic benefit, 101 and initiatives such as curfew, probation and hearing juvenile cases in adult court were also shown to be ineffective in reducing recidivism. 13

Over recent years it has been repeatedly demonstrated that exposure to juvenile court itself appears to have a detrimental effect on juvenile offending. 102 – 104 This may be partially explained by effects of labelling, stigma and negative self-image associated with a criminal conviction, but also the practical consequences of sentences, including assortment of delinquent peers in community or prison sentences. Incarceration presents several additional harms, including disturbance of care and pro-social relationships, discontinuity in education, association with delinquent peers, and exposure to violence. Half of detained young offenders in the UK reported victimisation during their current prison term, 57 while 12% of incarcerated youth in the USA reported sexual victimisation in the previous year. 105 International agreements state that deprivation of liberty (such as juvenile prison) should be used as a last resort and for the shortest time necessary, so should be reserved for the highest-risk offenders. The cost of juvenile antisocial behaviour is known to be high, and to fall on many agencies. 106 The current climate of austerity in public services demands that any interventions should be not only effective, but also cost-effective, raising a clear challenge – and opportunity – for the implementation of interventions for this population of vulnerable young people. For example, parenting programmes have demonstrated sustained benefits for this population, 107 , 108 with economic analysis indicating gross savings of £9288 per child over a 25 year period. 109 Considered together with wider costs of crime, these gross savings exceed the average cost of parenting programmes (£1177) by a factor of approximately 8 to 1.

Conclusions

Many argue that we have a long way to go before arriving at ‘child friendly’ juvenile justice. 110 Around the world there are variable and inadequate legal frameworks that are not age-appropriate, there is a lack of age-appropriate services and establishments, and a lack of a specialist workforce, leading to challenges around training and supervision to work with this vulnerable population. In the UK and other high-income countries worldwide, forensic child and adolescent psychiatry is a multifaceted discipline incorporating legal, psychiatric and developmental fields. This approach has navigated clinical and ethical challenges and made an important contribution to welfare and justice needs by its adoption of an evidence-based therapeutic intervention philosophy.

Declaration of interests S.Y. has received honoraria for consultancy, travel, educational talks and/or research from Janssen, Eli Lilly, Shire, Novartis, HB Pharma and Flynn Pharma.

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Youth Justice

NIJ works closely with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to support high-quality, rigorous research, evaluations, and statistical analyses related to juvenile justice, as well as preventing and responding to juvenile delinquency and victimization. This research provides information about the risk and protective factors that contribute to or deter youth’s involvement in the juvenile justice system. It also helps the field understand adolescent behaviors, system responses, and the interventions that are most likely to promote positive youth outcomes.

On this page, find links to articles, awards, events, publications, and multimedia related to juvenile justice. 

• Five Things About Youth and Delinquency
• Tip Lines Can Lower Violence Exposure in Schools
• The Roles of Trauma and Mental Health in Preventing Domestic Radicalization and Violent Extremism

Events and Trainings

• Redefining Trauma-Informed Assessments for Teen Dating Violence: An Introduction to the VIP Study
• NIJ Virtual Conference on School Safety 2021 - Recording
• Applying the Latest Research to Prevent Bullying: Empowering Schools to Change Behavior and Attitudes

Recent Publications

• Assessing the Acute Effects of Exposure to Community Violence among Adolescents: A Strategic Comparison Approach
• Characteristics of Cases Judicially Waived from Juvenile Court to Criminal Court
• View related awards
• Find sites with statistics related to: Juvenile justice

Beyond NIJ...

OJJDP marks the 50th anniversary of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) marks the 50th anniversary of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act, with the year-long observance "Looking Back, Moving Forward: Celebrating 50 Years of the JJDPA" . Throughout 2024, OJJDP will observe the Act's golden anniversary with several events, culminating with the National Conference on Youth Justice in November. 

Find Programs and Practices focused on juveniles

The first step in knowing what to do is knowing what works … and what hasn’t.

Seeking statistics?

Access OJJDP's Statistical Briefing Book (SBB) for information and data on juvenile crime and victimization and to learn more about youth involved in the juvenile justice system.

Good Research Topics for Juvenile Justice

The Effects of Racism in Schools

Researching juvenile justice will deepen your understanding of the correctional system and juvenile offenders. A report released by the National Center for Juvenile Justice in 2013 indicated that between 1985 and 2010, the courts adjudicated about 40 million crimes committed by youth under age 18. Start by narrowing the topic down to an aspect of juvenile justice that particularly interests you. A good topic is one that you think will keep you focused and engaged in your research.

Teen Courts

Research is needed to better understand why some teen courts are more effective than others and which models work best, according to a 2011 article in the "NYSBA Journal." Teen courts are correctional diversion programs that adjudicate first-time juvenile offenders who commit minor, nonviolent offenses. Compare and contrast teen courts in different cities examining their effectiveness and structure. Note whether sanction completion and recidivism rates are lower in teen court models made up exclusively of peers versus teen court models in which a court judge oversees the proceedings.

Youth Gangs

Investigate youth involvement in gangs, defined by the National Crime Prevention Council as a group with a shared identity that’s involved in crime, particularly graffiti, property destruction, drugs and shootings. Explore reasons why increasing numbers of teenage girls are joining gangs, are reported by the NCPC. Find theories that posit reasons why certain adolescents are attracted to the gang lifestyle. Identify commonalities in the backgrounds of youth gang members, such poverty, substance use, history of abuse or exposure to violence growing up. Study programs aimed at dissuading at-risk youth from joining gangs.

Violent Juvenile Offenders

Research the psychology of children and teens accused of murder, rape, kidnapping and school violence. Investigate a possible link with untreated mental disorders. Analyze the causes of antisocial behavior and predictors of youth violence, such as early substance use, aggression and conflictual parental relationships. The authors of “Serious & Violent Juvenile Offenders” suggest that early intervention is the most effect approach to addressing this serious societal problem. Determine what strategies are most helpful in identifying potentially dangerous youth and what community treatment programs are effective.

Investigate possible causes of truancy, such as peer influences, inconsequential school attendance policies, dislike of school or peers, teen pregnancy or mental health issues. Evaluate different models of truancy intervention programs that have effectively reduced absenteeism, improved grades and increased graduation rates. For instance, you might compare a court-ordered intervention program that assigns a social worker to assist a truant's family, with a mentoring program that pairs a truant student with a supportive older peer or a positive adult role model. Also assess the effectiveness of school penalties for truancy, including detention and suspension.

Related Articles

What Are the Problems & Solutions of Bullying in School?

Does Peer Pressure Highly Influence Students?

List of Research Topics on Poverty Alleviation

Strategies for Promoting Positive Behaviors in High School

Drugs & How They Affect Teens in School

Advantages & Disadvantages of Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Causes & Effects of Truancy

Famous Colleges & Universities for Psychology Studies

• Serious & Violent Juvenile Offenders; Rolf Loeber and David P. Farrington, Editors
• National Institute of Justice: Targeted Truancy Interventions

Dr. Mary Dowd is a dean of students whose job includes student conduct, leading the behavioral consultation team, crisis response, retention and the working with the veterans resource center. She enjoys helping parents and students solve problems through advising, teaching and writing online articles that appear on many sites. Dr. Dowd also contributes to scholarly books and journal articles.

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Research & Statistics

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) supports high-quality, rigorous research, evaluations, and statistical analyses across a range of juvenile justice topic areas. These activities are central to OJJDP's mission to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and victimization.

OJJDP’s research provides information about the risk and protective factors that contribute to or deter youth’s involvement in juvenile justice systems. It also helps the field understand adolescent behaviors, system responses, and the interventions that are most likely to promote positive youth outcomes.

OJJDP uses this information to prioritize issues, guide the development of policies and programs, and inform training and technical assistance. OJJDP also uses the latest tools and resources to disseminate juvenile justice data, statistics, and research findings and make these findings more accessible and applicable to local needs and issues.

Looking for what works?

Visit OJJDP's Model Programs Guide (MPG) for evidence-based program, literature reviews, implementation guides, topical summaries, and more.

Seeking statistics?

Access the Statistical Briefing Book (SBB) for juvenile justice information and learn more about youth involved in juvenile justice systems.

Guidance for OJJDP Research Grantees

OJJDP awards that include research activities and those made under solicitations funded with OJJDP research funds have additional research-specific special conditions and grant requirements.

Research grantees should work with their assigned program manager on specific questions. The OJJDP Research Grantee Guidance web page outlines the general policies and procedures of those conditions.

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data

The Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, and OJJDP sponsor the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD).

NACJD facilitates research in criminal and juvenile justice through the preservation, enhancement, and sharing of computerized data resources; through the production of original research based on archived data; and through specialized training workshops in quantitative analysis of crime and justice data.

DOJ and OJJDP priorities guide the research, including:

• Data collections and analyses that provide national statistics, descriptive data, and information about trends in delinquency,  victimization, and juvenile justice systems.
• Basic research that explores the pathways and causes of delinquency and victimization, including longitudinal studies.
• Evaluations that increase understanding of what works (and what does not work) in preventing and reducing delinquency, victimization, and risk behavior and promoting positive developmental outcomes.

Efficacy of Juvenile Justice System in India: An Analytical Approach

10 Pages Posted: 12 Apr 2023

Simran Mandhyan

Ajeenkya d y patil university, school of law.

Date Written: March 26, 2023

The juvenile justice system in India is designed to provide care, protection, and rehabilitation to children in conflict with the law. The system is guided by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which aims to create a child-friendly justice system that is in line with the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite the existence of this legal framework, the efficacy of the juvenile justice system in India has been the subject of much debate. One of the main criticisms of the system is that it is often ineffective in rehabilitating juvenile offenders and preventing them from reoffending. There have also been concerns raised about the lack of resources and infrastructure available to the juvenile justice system. This has led to overcrowding in juvenile homes and inadequate facilities for rehabilitation. Furthermore, there have been instances where juveniles have been subject to abuse and mistreatment within the juvenile justice system. This raises questions about the ability of the system to protect the rights of children in conflict with the law. Despite these challenges, there have also been positive developments in the juvenile justice system in India. For example, the system has started to focus more on restorative justice and diversion programs, which aim to address the root causes of juvenile delinquency and provide support to young people to help them avoid criminal behavior.

Keywords: Juvenile, Juvenile Justice Act, Redemption

JEL Classification: K40

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Simran Mandhyan (Contact Author)

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Juvenile Justice Research Paper

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Juvenile Justice Research Paper Examples:

• Community Treatment in Juvenile Justice Research Paper
• Juvenile Justice Institutions Research Paper
• Juvenile Court Research Paper
• Juveniles in The Adult System Research Paper
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Juvenile Justice History and Philosophy

Ideological changes in the cultural conception of children and in strategies of social control during the nineteenth century led to the creation of the first juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. Culminating a century-long process of differentiating youths from adult offenders, Progressive reformers applied new theories of social control to new ideas about childhood and created the juvenile court as a social welfare alternative to criminal courts to respond to criminal and noncriminal misconduct by youths.

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The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision In re Gault , 387 U.S. 1 (1967), began to transform the juvenile court into a very different institution than the Progressives contemplated. Progressives envisioned an informal, discretionary social welfare agency whose dispositions reflected the ‘‘best interests’’ of the child. In Gault , the Supreme Court engrafted formal due process safeguards at trial onto juvenile courts’ individualized treatment sentencing schema, although the Court did not intend to alter the juvenile court’s therapeutic mission. In the decades since Gault , judicial decisions, legislative amendments, and administrative changes have modified juvenile courts’ jurisdiction, purposes, and procedures. These changes have transformed the juvenile court and fostered a procedural and substantive convergence with adult criminal courts.

The Origins of The Juvenile Court

Prior to the creation of juvenile courts, the common law’s infancy defense provided the only special protections for young offenders charged with crimes. The common law conclusively presumed that children younger than seven years of age lacked criminal capacity, while those fourteen years of age and older possessed full criminal responsibility. Between the ages of seven and fourteen years, the law rebuttably presumed that offenders lacked criminal capacity. If found criminally responsible, however, states executed youths as young as twelve years of age. Historically, when the criminal justice system confronted a child offender, it faced the stark alternatives of criminal conviction and punishment as an adult, or acquittal or dismissal. Jury or judicial nullification to avoid excessive punishment excluded many youths from any controls, particularly those charged with minor offenses.

To avoid these unpalatable alternatives, in the early to mid-nineteenth century, the first age-segregated institutions—the House of Refuge—appeared in cities on the East Coast, and by mid-century, reformatories and youth institutions spread to the rural and Midwestern regions of the country. By the end of the century, the juvenile court appeared in Cook County (Chicago), spread to other major urban centers, and completed the process of separating the systems of social control of youths from adults.

Many legal features incorporated into the juvenile court first appeared in the laws creating the houses of refuge. Refuge legislation embodied three legal innovations: a formal agebased distinction between juvenile and adult offenders and their institutional separation; the use of indeterminate commitments; and a broadened legal authority, parens patriae , that encompassed both criminal offenders and neglected and incorrigible children. The legal doctrine of parens patriae —the right and responsibility of the state to substitute its own control over children for that of the natural parents when the latter appeared unable or unwilling to meet their responsibilities or when the child posed a problem for the community—originated in the English chancery courts to protect the crown’s interests in feudal succession and established royal authority to administer the estates of orphaned minors with property. In 1838 parens patriae entered American juvenile jurisprudence to justify the commitment of a child to a house of refuge. In Ex parte Crouse, 4 Whart. 9 (Pa. 1838), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected legal challenges to the peremptory incarceration of troublesome youths, noting that ‘‘The object of the charity is reformation . . . To this end, may not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it be superseded by the parens patriae , or common guardian of the community? It is to be remembered that the public has a paramount interest in the virtue and knowledge of its members, and that, of strict right, the business of education belongs to it . . . . The infant has been snatched from a course which must have ended in confirmed depravity; and not only is the restraint of her person lawful, but it would be an act of extreme cruelty to release her from it’’ (4 Whart. at 11 (Pa. 1838)).

The Progressive Juvenile Court

Economic modernization at the end of the nineteenth century transformed America from a rural agrarian society into an urban industrial one. Industrialization rapidly displaced the household economy and separated work from the home. Industrial modernization encouraged migration from the rural countryside and immigration from foreign countries to urban manufacturing centers. These population changes weakened informal systems of social control based in extended families, communities, and churches. Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe flooded into the burgeoning cities to take advantage of new economic opportunities, and they crowded into ethnic enclaves and urban ghettoes. The ‘‘new’’ immigrants’ sheer numbers, as well as their cultural, religious, and linguistic differences hindered their assimilation and acculturation, and posed a significant nation-building challenge for the dominant Anglo-Protestant western Europeans who had arrived a few generations earlier.

Changes in family structure and functions accompanied the economic transformation. A reduction in the number and spacing of children, a shift of economic functions from the family to other work environments, and a modernizing and privatizing of the family substantially modified the roles of women and children. The ideas of childhood and adolescence are socially constructed. Culminating a trend that began centuries earlier, during this modernizing era the upper and middle classes promoted a new ideology of children as vulnerable, corruptible innocents who required special attention and preparation for life. The new vision of childhood led parents and others to differentiate and isolate children from adults, altered child-rearing practices, and imposed on parents the responsibility to protect the child from engagement with the wider society and simultaneously to mold, shape, and prepare her to realize her potential in it.

Modernization and industrialization sparked the Progressive movement that addressed social problems ranging from economic regulation to criminal justice and political reform. Progressive reformers believed that professionals and experts could develop rational and scientific solutions, and that benevolent government officials could intervene to remedy social and economic problems. Social changes associated with modernization, such as urbanization and immigration, posed problems of cohesion, social control, and assimilation. As informal social controls weakened, Progressive reformers placed increased reliance on formal organization to govern, to maintain order, and to oversee social change. Progressives attempted to ‘‘Americanize’’ the immigrants and poor through a variety of agencies of assimilation and acculturation to become sober, virtuous, middle-class Americans like themselves. The Progressives coupled their trust of state power with the changing cultural conception of children and entered the realm of ‘‘child-saving.’’ In his study of the Progressive era and policies, historian Robert Wiebe wrote that ‘‘If humanitarian progressivism had a central theme, it was the child. He united the campaigns for health, education and a richer city environment, and he dominated much of the interest in labor legislation. . . . The most popular versions of legal and penal reform also emphasized the needs of youth. . . . The child was the carrier of tomorrow’s hope whose innocence and freedom made him singularly receptive to education in rational, humane behavior. Protect him, nurture him, and in his manhood he would create that bright new world of the progressives’ vision’’ (p. 169). Child-centered reforms, such as juvenile court, child labor, social welfare, and compulsory school attendance laws both reflected and advanced the changing imagery of childhood and Progressives’ special concerns about poor and immigrant children.

Ideological changes in theories of crime causation led Progressives to formulate new criminal justice and social control policies. At the turn of the century, Progressive criminal justice reformers aspired to scientific status and sought to strengthen the similarities between the causal determinism of the natural sciences and those of the social sciences. Criminology borrowed both its methodology and vocabulary from the increasingly scientific medical profession. Positive criminology rejected ‘‘free will,’’ asserted a scientific determinism of deviance, redirected criminological research scientifically to study offenders, and sought to identify the factors that caused crime and delinquency. Reformers assumed that criminal behavior was determined rather than chosen, reduced actors’ moral responsibility for their behavior, and tried to change offenders rather than punish them for their offenses.

A growing class of social science professionals adopted medical analogies to ‘‘treat’’ offenders and fostered the ‘‘Rehabilitative Ideal’’ in criminal justice policies. A flourishing ‘‘Rehabilitative Ideal’’ requires a belief in the malleability of human behavior and a basic consensus about the appropriate directions of human change. The ‘‘rehabilitative’’ ideology permeated many Progressive criminal justice reforms such as probation and parole, indeterminate sentences, and the juvenile court, and fostered open-ended, informal, and highly flexible policies.

The juvenile court combined the new conception of children with new strategies of social control to produce a judicial-welfare alternative to criminal justice, to remove children from the adult process, to enforce the newer conception of children’s dependency, and to substitute the state as parens patriae . The juvenile court’s ‘‘Rehabilitative Ideal’’ rested on several sets of assumptions about positive criminology, children’s malleability, and the availability of effective intervention strategies to act in the child’s ‘‘best interests.’’

Progressive ‘‘child-savers’’ described juvenile courts as benign, nonpunitive, and therapeutic, although modern writers question whether the movement should be seen as a humanitarian attempt to save poor and immigrant children, or as an effort to expand state social control over them. The legal doctrine of parens patriae legitimated intervention and supported the view that juvenile court conducted civil rather than criminal proceedings. Characterizing intervention as a civil or welfare proceeding, rather than criminal, fulfilled the reformers’ desire to remove children from the adult justice system and allowed greater flexibility to supervise, treat, and control children. Because reformers eschewed punishment, the juvenile court’s ‘‘status jurisdiction’’ enabled them to respond to noncriminal behavior such as smoking, sexual activity, truancy, immorality, or living a wayward, idle, and dissolute life. Juvenile courts’ status jurisdiction reflected the social construction of childhood and adolescence that emerged during the nineteenth century, and authorized pre-delinquent intervention to forestall premature adult autonomy and enforce the dependent position of youth. Girls appeared in juvenile courts almost exclusively for the status ‘‘offense’’ of ‘‘sexual precocity,’’ and they often received more severe dispositions than did boys involved in criminal misconduct. Sexually active young women exercised the ultimate adult prerogative and posed a fundamental challenge to Victorians’ sexual sensibilities and Progressives’ construction of childhood innocence.

The juvenile court’s ‘‘Rehabilitative Ideal’’ envisioned a specialized judge trained in social sciences and child development whose empathic qualities and insight would aid in making individualized dispositions. Judicial discretion, local diversity, and informal processes fostered many versions of juvenile courts that differed substantially in philosophy and practice. In a system of discretionary justice, neither procedural rules nor legal formalities constrained the judge. Social service personnel, clinicians, and probation officers would assist the judge to decide the ‘‘best interests’’ of the child. Progressives assumed that a rational, scientific analysis of facts would reveal the proper diagnosis and prescribe the cure. The factual inquiry into the child’s social circumstances accorded minor significance to the specific crime because the offense indicated little about his or her ‘‘real needs.’’ Because the reformers acted benevolently, individualized their solicitude, and intervened scientifically, they saw no reason to circumscribe narrowly the power of the state. Rather, they maximized discretion to diagnose and treat, and focused on the child’s character, social circumstances, and lifestyle rather than on the crime.

By separating children from adults and providing a rehabilitative alternative to punishment, juvenile courts rejected the criminal law’s jurisprudence and procedural safeguards such as juries and lawyers. Because parens patriae theory rested on the idea that the court helped the child rather than tried or punished the youth for a crime, no reasons even existed to determine a child’s criminal responsibility. Court personnel used informal procedures and a euphemistic vocabulary to eliminate any stigma and implication of an adult criminal proceeding. They provided informal, confidential and private hearings, limited access to court records, ‘‘adjudicated’’ youths as ‘‘delinquent’’ rather than convicted them of crimes, and imposed ‘‘dispositions’’ rather than sentences. Theoretically, a child’s ‘‘best interests,’’ background, and welfare guided dispositions. Because a youth’s offense provided only a symptom of his or her ‘‘real’’ needs, courts imposed indeterminate and nonproportional dispositions that potentially could continue for the duration of minority.

Procedure and substance intertwine in the juvenile court. Procedurally, juvenile courts used informal processes, confidential hearings, and a euphemistic vocabulary to obscure and disguise the reality of coercive social control. Substantively, juvenile courts used indeterminate, nonproportional sentences, emphasized treatment and supervision rather than punishment, and purportedly focused on offenders’ future welfare rather than on past offenses. Despite their benevolent rhetoric, however, the Progressive ‘‘childsavers’’ who created the juvenile court deliberately designed it to discriminate, to

‘‘Americanize’’ immigrants and the poor, and to provide a coercive mechanism to distinguish between their own and ‘‘other people’s children.’’

Juvenile courts resolved many cases informally and used probation as the disposition of first resort for the vast majority of delinquents. Juvenile court legislation and practice systematized and expended the use of probation as an alternative to institutions for younger offenders. Probation officers functioned as intermediaries to provide the court with information about the child and to supervise those youths whom the court returned to the community. Reformers envisioned probation as an alternative to dismissal rather than to confinement and used it to expand the scope of formal control over youths.

While probation constituted the disposition of first resort, Progressive reformers relied on institutional confinement as a disposition of last resort. Their feelings of tenderness did not cause them to shrink from toughness when required. The indeterminate and discretionary powers they exercised quickly to release some ‘‘rehabilitated’’ offenders also resulted in the prolonged incarceration of other ‘‘incorrigible’’ youths. Progressives’ willingness to incarcerate some delinquents reflected their elevation of the power of the court over the family and their determination to save poor and immigrant children. They expanded the cottage-plan model in youth reformatories, used surrogate cottage parents to create a ‘‘normal’’ family environment within the institution, and attempted to promote a child’s adjustment and development. They relabeled reformatories as ‘‘vocational schools’’ or ‘‘industrial training schools’’ to emphasize their nonpenal character and added academic and vocational education to their ‘‘rehabilitative’’ program. In the 1920s and 1930s the rising influences of psychology and psychiatry prompted institutional administrators to engraft a hospital therapy regime onto the family and school models. Social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists regarded the hospital-child guidance clinic model as especially appropriate for juvenile institutions where staff diagnosed and cured delinquency.

While psychologisms and rehabilitative rhetoric lent symbolic legitimacy to the juvenile courts and its institutions, practical programs and clinical personnel never approached juvenile justice reformers’ therapeutic aspirations or claims. Progressives’ rehabilitative rhetoric functioned to assert the incompetence of children, to define a relationship of dependency between juveniles and the state, to legitimate institutional practices to an uncritical public audience, and to obscure the reality of correctional practices. Historians conclude that with only a few notable exceptions, such as Denver’s Ben Lindsey, most juvenile court judges and probation personnel were mediocre and their programs ineffective. Probation staff rarely possessed the resources, services, or expertise necessary to assist young people. Institutions seldom provided conditions conducive to reform and rehabilitation, and most incarcerated delinquents’ institutional experiences remained essentially custodial and punitive.

In their pursuit of the ‘‘Rehabilitative Ideal,’’ the Progressives situated the juvenile court on a number of cultural, legal, and criminological fault lines. They created several binary conceptions for the juvenile and criminal justice systems: either child or adult; either determinism or free-will; either dependent or responsible; either treatment or punishment; either social welfare or just deserts; either procedural informality or formality; either discretion or rules. Juvenile court reforms since In re Gault have witnessed a shift from the former to the latter of each of these binary pairs in response to the structural and racial transformation of cities, the rise in serious youth crime, and the erosion of the rehabilitative assumptions of the juvenile court.

The Constitutional Domestication of The Juvenile Court

During the 1960s, the Warren Court’s civil rights decisions, criminal due process rulings, and ‘‘constitutional domestication’’ of the juvenile court responded to broader structural and demographic changes taking place in America, particularly those associated with race and youth crime. In the decades prior to and after World War II, black migration from the rural south to the urban north increased minority concentrations in urban ghettos, made race a national rather than a regional issue, and provided the political and legal impetus for the civil rights movement. The 1960s also witnessed increases in youth crime by the baby boom-generation that continued until the late 1970s. During the 1960s, the rise in youth crime and urban racial disorders provoked cries for ‘‘law and order’’ and provided the initial political impetus to ‘‘get tough.’’ Republican politicians seized crime control and welfare as wedge issues with which to distinguish themselves from Democrats in order to woo white southern voters, and crime policies for the first time became a central issue in national partisan politics. As a result of ‘‘sound-bite’’ politics, since the 1960s, politicians’ fear of being labeled ‘‘soft-on-crime’’ has led to a constant ratchetingup of punitiveness and changed juvenile justice ideology and practice.

These macro-structural and demographic changes eroded the rehabilitative premises of the Progressive juvenile court and undermined support for discretionary, coercive socialization in juvenile courts. A flourishing ‘‘rehabilitative ideal’’ assumes human malleability, the existence of effective techniques to change people, and a general agreement about what it means to be rehabilitated. Progressives believed that the new social sciences and the medical model of deviance provided them with the tools to reform people and that they should socialize and acculturate poor and immigrant children to become middleclass Americans like themselves. By the time of Gault , the Progressives’ consensus about state benevolence, the legitimacy of imposing certain values on others, and what rehabilitation entailed and when it had occurred all became matters of intense dispute. The decline in deference to professionals and the benevolence of experts led to an increased emphasis on procedural formality, administrative regularity, and the rule of law.

During the turbulent 1960s, several forces combined to erode support for the rehabilitative enterprise and caused the Supreme Court to require more procedural safeguards in criminal and juvenile justice administration: left-wing critics of rehabilitation characterized governmental programs as coercive instruments of social control through which the state oppressed the poor and minorities; liberal became disenchanted with the unequal and disparate treatment of similarly situated offenders that resulted from treatment personnel’s exercise of subjective clinical discretion; and conservatives advocated a ‘‘war on crime’’ and favored repression over rehabilitation. In the 1960s, the issue of race provided the crucial linkage between distrust of governmental benevolence, concern about social service personnel’s discretionary decisionmaking, urban riots and the crisis of ‘‘law and order,’’ and the Supreme Court’s due process jurisprudence.

The Warren Court’s due process decisions responded to the macro-structural and demographic changes, and attempted to guarantee civil rights, to protect minorities from state officials, and to infuse governmental services with greater equality by imposing procedural restraints on official discretion. The Supreme Court’s Gault decision and later juvenile court cases mandated procedural safeguards in delinquency proceedings, focused judicial attention initially on whether the child committed an offense as prerequisite to sentencing, and demonstrated the linkages between procedure and substance in the juvenile court. In shifting the formal focus of juvenile courts from ‘‘real needs’’ to legal guilt, Gault identified two crucial disjunctions between juvenile justice rhetoric and reality: the theory versus the practice of ‘‘rehabilitation,’’ and the differences between the procedural safeguards afforded adult defendants and those available to juvenile delinquents. Gault held that juveniles charged with crimes who faced institutional confinement required basic procedural safeguards including advance notice of charges, a fair and impartial hearing, assistance of counsel, an opportunity to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and the privilege against self-incrimination.

In In re Winship , 397 U.S. 358 (1970), the Court concluded that the risks of factual errors and unwarranted convictions and the need to protect juveniles against government power required states to prove delinquency by the criminal law’s standard of proof ‘‘beyond a reasonable doubt’’ rather than by the lower ‘‘preponderance of the evidence’’ civil standard of proof. In Breed v. Jones , 421 U.S. 519 (1975), the Court posited a functional equivalence between criminal trials and delinquency proceedings, and held that the constitutional ban on double jeopardy precluded adult criminal reprosecution of a youth following a delinquency adjudication.

In McKeiver v. Pennsylvania , 403 U.S. 528 (1971), however, the Court denied to juveniles the constitutional right to a jury trial and halted the extension of full procedural parity with adult criminal prosecutions. In contrast with its analyses in earlier decisions, the McKeiver Court reasoned that ‘‘fundamental fairness’’ in delinquency proceedings required only ‘‘accurate fact-finding,’’ a requirement that a juvenile court judge acting alone could satisfy as well as a jury. Unlike Gault and Winship , which recognized that procedural safeguards protect against governmental oppression, the Court in McKeiver denied that delinquents required such protection and instead invoked the stereotype of the sympathetic, paternalistic juvenile court judge. Unfortunately, McKeiver did not analyze or elaborate upon the differences between treatment as a juvenile and punishment as an adult that warranted the procedural differences between the two systems.

Together, Gault, Winship , and McKeiver precipitated a procedural and substantive revolution in the juvenile court system that unintentionally but inevitably transformed its original Progressive conception. By emphasizing criminal procedural regularity in the determination of delinquency, the Supreme Court shifted the focus of juvenile courts from paternalistic assessments of a youth’s ‘‘real needs’’ to proof of commission of criminal acts. By formalizing the connection between criminal conduct and coercive intervention, the Court made explicit a relationship previously implicit and unacknowledged. Providing delinquents with even a modicum of procedural justice in juvenile courts also legitimated greater punitiveness. Thus, Gault ’s procedural reforms provided the impetus for the substantive convergence between juvenile and criminal courts, so that for most purposes, contemporary juvenile courts function as a scaleddown extension of the criminal justice system. It is an historical irony that race provided the initial impetus for the Supreme Court to expand procedural rights to protect minority youths’ liberty interests, and now juvenile courts’ increasingly punitive sanctions fall disproportionately heavily on minority offenders.

The Gault decision represents a procedural revolution that failed and that produced unintended negative consequences. Delinquents continue to receive the ‘‘worst of both worlds’’— neither the solicitous care and regenerative treatment promised to children nor the criminal procedural rights of adults. McKeiver denied delinquents criminal procedural equality with adults, but the Court could not compel states to deliver social welfare services. Although youths lack procedural parity with adult defendants, providing delinquents with any procedural safeguards at all legitimated more punitive sanctions. Once states grant a semblance of procedural justice, however inadequate, it becomes easier for them to depart from a purely ‘‘rehabilitative’’ model of juvenile justice.

Juvenile courts’ increased procedural formality in the decades since Gault also provided the impetus to adopt substantive ‘‘criminological triage’’ policies. The ‘‘triage’’ process entails deinstitutionalizing and diverting noncriminal status offenders out of the juvenile system at the ‘‘soft’’ end of the court’s clientele, waiving serious offenders into the criminal justice system for prosecution as adult at the ‘‘hard’’ end, and punishing more severely the residual, middle-range of ordinary criminal-delinquent offenders. Recent ‘‘get-tough’’ waiver and sentencing policies reflect juvenile courts’ broader jurisprudential changes from rehabilitation to retribution. The overarching themes of these legal and operational changes include a shift from individualized justice to just deserts, from offender to offense, from ‘‘amenability to treatment’’ to public safety, and a cultural and legal reconceptualization of youth from innocent and immature delinquents into responsible and autonomous offenders. The substantive and procedural convergence between juvenile and criminal courts eliminates many of the conceptual and operational differences in strategies of social control for youths and adults. With the juvenile court’s transformation from an informal rehabilitative agency into a scaled-down criminal court, some question the need for a separate justice system for young offenders whose only distinction is its persisting deficiencies.

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