By Barry Goldson

This article analytically excavates youth justice reform (in England and Wales) by situating it in historical context, critically reviewing the competing rationales that underpin it and exploring the overarching social, economic, and political conditions within which it is framed. It advances an argument that the foundations of a recognisably modern youth justice system had been laid by the opening decade of the 20th Century and that youth justice reform in the post-Second World War period has broadly been structured over four key phases. The core contention is that historical mapping facilitates an understanding of the unreconciled rationales and incoherent nature of youth justice reform to date, while also providing a speculative sense of future prospects.

Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 59(3): 317-334, 2020

By Holly Maclean, Fiona Dyer, Nina Vaswani, Deena Haydon, Maria Galli, Anthony Charles, Tim Bateman, & Ursula Kilkelly 

In 2021, in light of the commitment made by the Scottish Government to incorporate UNCRC into Scots Law, CYCJ convened a group of children’s rights experts from across England, Ireland, Jersey, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to consider the implications and challenges of UNCRC incorporation across their separate jurisdictions. 

‘Rights Respecting Justice for Children in Conflict with the Law’ shines a light on the discussions that took place within this forum. This briefing paper provides an overview of talking points within the group across the period May 2021 – September 2023, highlighting both the most pressing concerns for children’s rights across the nations, and the similarities and differences in policy and practice.

Glasgow: Children and Young People's Centre for Justice, 2024. 17p.

By  Laceé N. Pappas &  Amy L. Dent 

By Amber Krushas , Zachary Hamilton, Alex Kigerl , Xiaohan Mei  

Purpose: While risk instruments are consistently used to aid classification and supervision decisions, needs as sessments guide intervention efforts for individuals under supervision. At the core of the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) model and the General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning (GPCSL) theory, dynamic needs scoring allows agencies to identify change in needs over time. Yet, few studies have assessed the potential impact of changes among needs items. To overcome this limitation, the current study assesses how needs score change may influence recidivism propensity among youth. Methods: Using multi-level frailty models, the current study examines how changes in youth needs assessment scores influence time-to-recidivism among a large (N = 42,922), multi-state sample of justice-involved youth assessed with the Modified Positive Achievement Change Tool (MPACT). Results: Findings demonstrate that youth with increased needs scores and those that remained the same at reassessment had a greater propensity for recidivism, compared to those that decreased scores. Conclusions: Policy implications identify the effectiveness of the MPACT in measuring youth change, its utility for case management, and the needs domains most associated with recidivism reductions.   

Journal of Criminal Justice 90 (2024) 102146 

By Colleen Sbeglia, Imani Randolph, Caitlin Cavanagh, and Elizabeth Cauffman

When youth commit crimes, their parents may be held legally responsible for their actions. Parental legal culpability laws were developed to ensure justice for victims of crime but also deter juvenile delinquency. However, it is unclear if parental culpability has these desired effects or if it instead contributes to disparities that already exist in the justice system. This review provides a psychological perspective on parental legal culpability, highlighting the different types of offenses that parents may be held responsible for, including vicarious tort liability, status offenses, and criminal responsibility. Given the significant public discourse around certain types of crime, we also include focused discussions about parental culpability for youth violence and cybercrimes. We then consider the unintended consequences that may arise as a result of parental sanctions, from exacerbating racial and ethnic inequalities to imposing financial burdens that may put families at risk for further justice involvement. Finally, we discuss challenges to the efficacy of parental culpability laws, with recommendations for areas of continued research.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 403 - 416

By Christopher Slobogin and Mark R. Fondacaro

In this book, Slobogin and Fondacaro present their vision for a new juvenile justice system, founded on the evidence at hand and promoting the principles of rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The authors develop their juvenile justice policy proposals effectively by carefully addressing the problems with past policy approaches.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 224p.

By Josh Rovner

The United States incarcerates an alarming number of children and adolescents every year. Disproportionately, they are youth of color. Given the short- and long-term damages stemming from youth out of home placement, it is vital to understand its true scope. In 2019, there were more than 240,000 instances of a young person detained, committed, or both in the juvenile justice system.1 However, youth incarceration is typically measured via a one-day count taken in late October.2 This metric vastly understates its footprint: at least 80% of incarcerated youth are excluded from the one-day count. This undercount is most prevalent for detained youth, all of whom have been arrested but have yet to face a court hearing.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 27p.

By Antoinette Davis, Andrea Gentile and Caroline Glesmann

Over the past three decades, States have enacted legislation making it easier to transfer youth to the adult criminal justice system. Although the process occurs with male and female youth, this document specifically addresses the challenges of transferring girls to adult court and correctional systems. Mechanisms developed to move youth into adult systems include Judicial Waiver/Transfer Laws, Prosecutorial Direct Filing, Statutory Exclusion Provisions, the “Once an Adult, Always an Adult” Provisions and Age of Jurisdiction Laws. When making those transfer decisions, less consideration may be given to the idea that adult jails and prisons are not designed for the confinement of youth, and as a result most are not equipped to meet the inherent and specific needs of adolescents.

While not intended as a research document, this bulletin highlights challenges when transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system for administrators and the individual justice involved girls. It is hoped that the audience for this document will extend beyond that of adult and juvenile correctional administrators and reach other related stakeholders who are involved in the decision-making regarding the transfer of juveniles to the adult criminal justice system

Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2016. 16p.

By Peter Greenwood

Over the past 15 years, evidence-based practice in juvenile justice has moved from a concept to a full blown practice in a number of states. They have used research based principles and programs to: - completely reorganize their system for treating juveniles -reduce crime and recidivism -and saved money in the process. Evidence-Based Practice in Juvenile Justice describes the major players in this transformative process, the particular role they play in moving research to practice, and provides recommendations for applying this research in other locations. It will be of key interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice with a focus on Juvenile Justice or Juvenile Delinquency, or related fields such as Public Policy and Social Work, as well as policy-makers, and practitioners working in the juvenile justice system.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2014. 118p.

By Cara H. Drinan

In 2003, when Terrence Graham was sixteen, he and three other teens attempted to rob a barbeque restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. Though they left with no money, and no one was seriously injured, Terrence was sentenced to die in prison for his involvement in that crime.

As shocking as Terrence's sentence sounds, it is merely a symptom of contemporary American juvenile justice practices. In the United States, adolescents are routinely transferred out of juvenile court and into adult criminal court without any judicial oversight. Once in adult court, children can be sentenced without regard for their youth. Juveniles are housed in adult correctional facilities, they may be held in solitary confinement, and they experience the highest rates of sexual and physical assault among inmates. Until 2005, children convicted in America's courts were subject to the death penalty; today, they still may be sentenced to die in prison-no matter what efforts they make to rehabilitate themselves. America has waged a war on kids.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 241p.,

Edited by Donna M. Bishop, Scott H. Decker and Josine Junger-Tas

This comprehensive reference work presents an in-depth analysis on the juvenile justice systems of 19 different countries, both in EU-member states (old and new) and in the United States and Canada. The book is the result of research conducted by a group of outstanding scholars working in the field of juvenile justice. The book reflects a collective concern about trends in juvenile justice over the past two decades; trends that have begun to blur the difference between criminal and juvenile justice. The last chapter highlights similarities and differences between the various systems, identifying three clusters of countries with a similar approach to juvenile justice. In particular, differences are found between the Anglo-Saxon countries, and continental Europe. The former have a more formal "justice" approach, with a strong emphasis on the accountability of juveniles, "just desert" principles, and retribution, while the latter still operate on a "welfare" philosophy. Two special systems, the Scottish Hearing system and the Scandinavian model, are presented as well.

New York: Springer, 2008. 549p.

Edited by Gordon Bazemore and Mara Schiff

This book, based on a large-scale research project funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides an overview of the restorative justice conferencing programs currently in operation in the United States, paying particular attention to the qualitative dimensions of this, based on interviews, focus groups and ethnographic observation. It provides an unrivalled view of restorative justice conferencing in practice, and what the people involved felt and thought about it. The book looks at four structural variations in the face-to-face form of restorative decision making: family group conferences, victim-offender mediation/dialogue, neighborhood accountability boards, peacemaking circles. The authors address two issues that have received limited research emphasis in restorative justice: the lack of clear and consistent standards, and the absence of testable theories of intervention that reflect what has become a rather diverse practice. In response the authors conclude with a proposed structure for principle-based evaluation designed to test emerging theories of restorative decision making.

Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2005. 400p.

Edited by Nancy Dowd

Children and youth become involved with the juvenile justice system at a significant rate. While some children move just as quickly out of the system and go on to live productive lives as adults, other children become enmeshed in the system, developing deeper problems and or transferring into the adult criminal justice system. Justice for Kids is a volume of work by leading academics and activists that focuses on ways to intervene at the earliest possible point to rehabilitate and redirect--to keep kids out of the system--rather than to punish and drive kids deeper. Justice for Kids presents a compelling argument for rethinking and restructuring the juvenile justice system as we know it. This unique collection explores the system’s fault lines with respect to all children, and focuses in particular on issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation that skew the system. Most importantly, it provides specific program initiatives that offer alternatives to our thinking about prevention and deterrence, with an ultimate focus on keeping kids out of the system altogether.

New York and London: New York University Press, 2011. 325p.

By Charles Puzzanchera and Sarah Hockenberry

This bulletin describes the official juvenile court referral histories of more than 160,000 youth born in 2000 from 903 selected United States counties. Using data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, this bulletin focuses on the demographic and case processing characteristics of youth referred to juvenile court and the proportion of the cohort that was referred to juvenile court more than once, as well as histories defined as serious, violent, and chronic. More than 60% of youth in the cohort did not return to juvenile court after their first referral. A small percentage of youth (7%) were initially referred to juvenile court for a violent crime. Males are still more likely to return to juvenile court than their female peers. Black and American Indian youth were most likely to be referred more than once.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 2022. 23p.

By Simon I. Singer

Recriminalizing Delinquency presents a case study of legislation that redefines previous acts of delinquency as crimes, and delinquents as juvenile offenders. It examines one state's response to violent juvenile crime through waiver legislation that transfers jurisdiction over juveniles from juvenile court to criminal court. It focuses on the creation, implementation, and effects of waiver legislation that lowered the eligible age of criminal responsibility to thirteen for murder and fourteen for other violent offenses.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 243p.

By Martin Kalb

In the lean and anxious years following World War II, Munich society became obsessed with the moral condition of its youth. Initially born of the economic and social disruption of the war years, a preoccupation with juvenile delinquency progressed into a full-blown panic over the hypothetical threat that young men and women posed to postwar stability. As Martin Kalb shows in this fascinating study, constructs like the rowdy young boy and the sexually deviant girl served as proxies for the diffuse fears of adult society, while allowing authorities ranging from local institutions to the U.S. military government to strengthen forms of social control.

New York: Berghahn Books, 2016. 285p.

By Nadia Mozaffar, Kate Burdick, Maura McInerney, Kristina Moon, Katherine Dunn, Stephanie C. Burke and Naomi E. Goldstein

On any given day across the country, more than 48,000 youth are confined to juvenile justice facilities, where they are held for weeks, or even months at a time/

These youth are held in facilities that not only take them away from their homes, but also their schools. And while these facilities provide classes to prevent young people from falling behind in their schoolwork, many return to their schools to discover that they did not receive full academic credit for their work, that there is no record of their credits or that their credits will not count toward graduation. In other words, they discover that despite their best efforts to succeed, the juvenile justice system failed them. In fact, research spanning the last 20 years — including anecdotal reports from youth, families, advocates and others — describes rampant credit transfer problems. What’s more, the research in this report confirms that it continues to be a problem on a national scale, despite recently expanded mandates under the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act, federal laws requiring states to have procedures for timely assessment and transfer of credits. This report, Credit Overdue: How States Can Mitigate Academic Credit Transfer Problems for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System, is the first of its kind to analyze this problem from a national perspective, including the consequences youth experience due to the system's failure. The report also examines the legislative solutions necessary to ensure youth receive the academic credits they are due.

Philadelphia, PA: Juvenile Law Center, Education Law Center-PA, Drexel University and the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022. 54p.

Edited by Rolf Loeber and David P. Farrington

What makes a juvenile delinquent develop into an adult criminal? What defines-cognitively, developmentally, legally-the transition from juvenile to adult and what determines whether patterns of criminal behavior persist? In most US states and Western nations, legal adulthood begins at age 18. This volume focuses on the period surrounding that abrupt transition (roughly ages 15-29) and addresses what happens to offending careers during it. Edited by two leading authorities in the fields of psychology and criminology, Transitions from Juvenile Delinquency to Adult Crime examines why the period of transition is important and how it can be better understood and addressed both inside and outside of the justice system. Bringing together over thirty leading scholars from multiple disciplines in both North America and Europe, this volume asks critical questions about criminal careers and causation, and whether current legal definitions of adulthood accurately reflect actual maturation and development. The volume also addresses the current efficacy of the justice system in addressing juvenile crime and recidivism, why and how juveniles ought to be treated differently from adults, if special legal provisions should be established for young adults, and the effectiveness of crime prevention programs implemented during early childhood and adolescence. With serious scholarly analysis and practical policy proposals, Transitions from Juvenile Delinquency to Adult Crime addresses what can be done to ensure that today's juvenile delinquents do not become tomorrow's adult criminals.

Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 416p.

By B.C.M. van Hazebroek

We know that most persistent offenders who cause considerable damage to society showed delinquent behavior in childhood. However, the long-term development of childhood arrestees is not well understood as longitudinal data are largely lacking. Dothese high-risk children develop long-term offense patterns? Or are even the youngest children with a police contact capable of growing into law abiding adults? Or is it both? And, in case of the latter, which childhood arrestees stop showing delinquent behavior, and which children persist in crime into early adulthood? By providinginsight into the long-term development of offending of childhood arrestees, and uncovering its explanatory factors, the current thesis improves our understanding of the delinquent development in this high-risk offender group.The current thesis reveals that, in contrast to popular belief, childhood arrestees are not predestined to develop persistent delinquent behavior, as most children are not re-arrested between the age of 12 and 25. Recidivists display heterogeneity in their re-offense patterns, with only a small group of children developing into persistent offenders. Accounting for simultaneous risk exposure across life domains proved necessary to explain why childhood arrestees follow one trajectory over another. Problems in multiple life domains were found to predict persistent offense patterns.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2021. 198p.