By Marian Gewirtz and  Bosco Villavicencio, Jr

This report describes the processing of 16- and 17-year-old arrestees during the third year of New York State’s Raise the Age (RTA) Law. The law, which went into effect for 16-year-olds on October 1, 2018, and for 17-year-olds on October 1, 2019, raised the age of criminal responsibility in the State and changed how these Adolescent Offenders (AOs) are processed. Arrests from October 2020 through September 2021 are compared with arrests from October 2019 through September 2020 (year 2), October 2018 through September 2019 (year 1, the first year of the implementation of RTA for 16-year-olds and the year prior to implementation for 17-year-olds. Data is also presented for October 2017 through September 2018 (pre-RTA). RTA Arrests ● There were 1,364 arrests of 16-year-olds and 2,002 arrests of 17-year-olds in the third year of RTA. The number of arrests was lower in year 3 than in year 2, especially for 16-yearolds. ● The volume of arrests of 16- and 17-year-olds decreased markedly when they became eligible for RTA. The number of arrests continued to decline for both age groups and for VFO (violent felony offenses), non-VFO felony offenses and especially for misdemeanors. Prosecution ● The percentage of felony arrests prosecuted as felonies declined for both age groups and both VFO and non-VFO charges since implementation of RTA. However, the decrease was greater for 16-year-olds and for cases with non-VFO charges. ● There were far fewer cases for 16- and 17-year-olds prosecuted in adult court with felony charges after RTA was implemented. The decrease was steeper for 16-year-olds than for 17-year-olds. The number decreased from 1,111 in year 1 to 863 in year 2 and 668 in year 3 for 16-year-olds but declined from a high of 992 down to 894 for 17-year-olds. Arraignment ● About half of AO cases were removed to Family Court at arraignment in year 3, up from 44% for both age groups in year 2 and only 25% at arraignments for 16-year-olds in year 1 (17-year-olds were not yet eligible). The rate of removal was higher for cases with nonVFO charges than for those with VFO offenses. ● In the third year of RTA, youths were released at arraignment (ROR, under supervision or with other non-monetary conditions) in more than nine of every ten non-VFO cases but in little more than seven of every ten VFO cases. Adult Court Outcomes ● Most RTA case for both ages were removed to Family Court (84% to 90% across the ages and time periods), but the rates were higher for non-VFO cases (91% to 97%) than for cases with VFO charges (79% to 86%). ● In year 3, more than six of every ten VFO cases were removed at arraignment or the following day as were nearly nine of every ten non-VFO cases. Yet a month or more elapsed from arraignment to removal for one in ten AO cases.  Sentencing ● More than half of the sentences in AO cases included jail or prison time (55%) ranging from time already served pretrial (6% of sentences) to four years or more (10% of sentences).  

New York: New York City Criminal Justice Agency 2023. 44p.

By Keith Finlay, Michael Mueller-Smith, Brittany Stree

Children’s indirect exposure to the justice system through biological parents or coresident adults is both a marker of their own vulnerability and a measure of the justice system’s expansive reach in society. Estimating the size of this population for the United States has historically been hampered by inadequate data resources, including the inability to observe nonincarceration events, follow children throughout their childhood, and measure adult nonbiological parent cohabitants. To overcome these challenges, we leverage billions of restricted administrative and survey records linked with Criminal Justice Administrative Records System data and find substantially larger exposure rates than previously reported: prison, 9% of children born between 1999–2005; felony conviction, 18%; and any criminal charge, 39%. Charge exposure rates exceed 60% for Black, American Indian, and low-income children. While broader definitions reach a more expansive population, strong and consistently negative correlations with childhood well-being suggest that these remain valuable predictors of vulnerability. Finally, we document substantial geographic variation in exposure, which we leverage in a movers design to estimate the effect of living in a high-exposure county during childhood. We find that children moving into high-exposure counties are more likely to experience post-move exposure events and exhibit significantly worse outcomes by age 26 on multiple dimensions (earnings, criminal activity, teen parenthood, mortality); effects are strongest for those who moved at earlier ages

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 4, November 2023, Pages 2181–2224, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad021

By Ruby Whitelaw and Ross Gibson

Consideration of the role that secure care and Young Offenders Institutions (YOI) play in the lives of children deprived of their liberty has featured in both the Independent Care Review (2020) and the Scottish Ministers Programme for Government (2022). Both have indicated that there should be no under 18s held within a YOI by 2024, mandating instead that these children should be placed in “small, secure, safe, trauma informed environments that uphold the totality of their rights” (The Promise, 2020:91). This is likely to be reflected in the forthcoming Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill which will create the legislative changes to achieve this ambition. The Independent Care Review’s successor organisation, The Promise, has stated that it is time to “rethink the purpose, delivery and infrastructure of Secure Care, being absolutely clear that it is there to provide therapeutic, trauma informed support” (The Promise, 2020: 4). These developments are in keeping with the secure care strategic boards findings and recommendations (Secure Care Strategic Board, 2018). To inform the debate and discussion surrounding this task, the authors gathered information and evidence on the needs and circumstances of children who experience secure care or YOIs; we reviewed publicly available data and analysed a tranche of new, as yet unpublished, data gathered in recent secure care censuses. This has culminated in a report that can, we hope, inform the development of future provision for children who experience a deprivation of liberty due to the nature of their behaviour, or the risks they are exposed to. This report will consider whether, for all intents and purposes, the children placed within YOI are distinguishable from those entering secure care. The level of adversity experienced by both groups of children are considerably higher than within the general population, and broadly similar across both cohorts. Each face a range of complex and dynamic circumstances that are known to correlate with adverse outcomes over the short, medium and long term. Both cohorts of children have often demonstrated acts of significant harm, with secure care already providing care, support and supervision to children who have caused acts of grave and significant harm. There is considerable evidence that secure care and YOIs offer a wide array of resources, services, interventions, and programmes designed to meet the needs of the children within their care. The range of opportunities afforded provide an opportunity for services to learn from each other. However, the role of secure care and YOI must also be considered in light of the Scottish Parliament’s unanimous support for the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 1. This defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. Any changes to secure care or YOI provision are therefore a matter of children’s rights, and secure and custodial settings must strive to achieve the best possible outcomes for those in their care. This is particularly relevant given the Scottish Government has repeatedly committed to making Scotland the best place in the world for children to grow up (Scottish Government, 2022). Amongst other developments within academia, Scotland has benefited from longitudinal studies which have provided consistent and clear findings regarding the trajectory of those children who come into conflict with the law. The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime has repeatedly shown that involvement with formal judicial systems can adversely affect the process of desistance, and that most children who come into conflict with the law will end such behaviours by early adulthood according to McAra and McVie (2007, 2022). Findings from this long-running study have heavily influenced Scotland’s Whole System Approach; this calls on practitioners to utilise community alternatives to secure care and custody whenever possible, and to develop robust risk management strategies. These recent policy developments, the conclusions reached within The Promise and the earlier work done by stakeholders and partners combine to create a compelling portrait: the secure and child custodial estate must be seen through the prism of children’s rights. To assist colleagues across the children’s rights and justice landscape to best consider how to achieve these aims, CYCJ sought to gather information and evidence about secure care, and the use of YOIs for under 18s. We hope that this report can inform future developments in these services, promote the respective visions of The Promise and Scotland’s Youth Justice Strategy (2021) and contextualise the challenge set by The Promise. As we prepare to the end of the practice of holding children within YOIs, this report is designed to help key stakeholders to be ready for the next steps in secure care provision, including the development of alternatives to secure care. The Promise clearly sets out that prison is no place for Scotland’s children; to make that possible we require a clearer picture of their needs and the supports that are currently available. The report begins by setting out the purpose of secure care and shares previously unpublished data gathered as part of the secure care census in 2018 and 2019 (See Gibson, 2020, 2021, 2022). It outlines current provision within secure care and the demand for the service, whilst also exploring the approach taken to children and their families. It then discusses YOI provision - its purpose, function, and governance arrangements - as well as demand and approaches to children. Using data from the 2019 Scottish Prison Service prisoner surveys, the report illustrates the range of life experiences of children placed within YOIs.

Glasgow: Children and Young People's Centre for Justice, 2023. 39p.

Edited by Malcolm W. Klein, Hans-Jürgen Kerner, Cheryl L. Maxson and Elmar G. M. Weitekamp

The Eurogang Paradox is the first comprehensive collection of original research reports on the status of street gangs and problematic youth groups in Europe, as well as a set of special, state-of-the-art reports on the current status of American street gang research and its implications for the European gang situation. Seven American papers are joined with reports from England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Holland, Belgium, France, and Slovenia. Summary chapters by the American and European editors provide overviews of the street gang picture: the associated issues and problems of definition, community context, comparative research procedures, and implications for prevention and intervention. Professionals and students will find these papers easy to comprehend yet fully informative on comparative street gang studies.

Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2001. 335p.

By Ko-lin Chin

In Chinatown Gangs, Ko-lin Chin penetrates a closed society and presents a rare portrait of the underworld of New York City's Chinatown. Based on first-hand accounts from gang members, gang victims, community leaders, and law enforcement authorities, this pioneering study reveals the pervasiveness, the muscle, the longevity, and the institutionalization of Chinatown gangs. Chin reveals the fear gangs instill in the Chinese community. At the same time, he shows how the economic viability of the community is sapped, and how gangs encourage lawlessness, making a mockery of law enforcement agencies.Ko-lin Chin makes clear that gang crime is inexorably linked to Chinatown's political economy and social history. He shows how gangs are formed to become "equalizers" within a social environment where individual and group conflicts, whether social, political, or economic, are unlikely to be solved in American courts. Moreover, Chin argues that Chinatown's informal economy provides yet another opportunity for street gangs to become "providers" or "protectors" of illegal services. These gangs, therefore, are the pathological manifestation of a closed community, one whose problems are not easily seen--and less easily understood--by outsiders.Chin's concrete data on gang characteristics, activities, methods of operation and violence make him uniquely qualified to propose ways to restrain gang violence, and Chinatown Gangs closes with his specific policy suggestions. It is the definitive study of gangs in an American Chinatown.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 248p.

By Efi Avdela

This book examines how the intensive discussions about the issue of juvenile delinquency in the new international organizations (United Nations, World Health Organization, Council of Europe), which emerged after the end of the Second World War, internationalized the anxieties generated in the fifties and sixties by its purported increase in Europe and beyond. Greece, a regular member-state, anxious to ensure international legitimacy in the aftermath of the Civil War, presented abroad an embellished picture of the measures undertaken at home for the prevention and containment of juvenile delinquency, sidestepping the strong moralism and the juridical formalism that dominated both official and unofficial approaches.

Gottingen: V&R unipress GmbH, (Vienna University Press), 2019.

By Efi Avdela.

The United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Place of Greece. This book examines how the intensive discussions about the issue of juvenile delinquency in the new international organizations (United Nations, World Health Organization, Council of Europe), which emerged after the end of the Second World War, internationalized the anxieties generated in the fifties and sixties by its purported increase in Europe and beyond. Greece, a regular member-state, anxious to ensure international legitimacy in the aftermath of the Civil War, presented abroad an embellished picture of the measures undertaken at home for the prevention and containment of juvenile delinquency, sidestepping the strong moralism and the juridical formalism that dominated both official and unofficial approaches.

Göttingen: Vienna University Press, 2018. 55p.