By Gillian Hunter, Claire Ely, Carmen Robin-D’Cruz and Stephen Whitehead

This report details the findings of a research project which was jointly undertaken by the Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) and the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck, with funding from the Nuffield Foundation.

The project examined current practice in the youth court, including how the court was meeting the needs of vulnerable young people. Specifically, we were interested in understanding current youth court practice and exploring the potential impact of practices aligned with problem-solving justice – an evidence-based approach which seeks to hold people accountable and to help them to proactively engage with the court to address the factors driving their offending.

Background In the last 10 years, there has been a 75% decline in cases coming into the youth court, caused by both falls in youth crime and the youth justice system’s success in diverting eligible cases away from court. However, while there are currently fewer court-involved young people, they tend to have more significant welfare and other needs as well as more serious offending profiles than they did a decade ago. Having fewer court-involved young people to work with gives the youth justice system a golden opportunity to concentrate its energies on further reducing reoffending and preventing future harm. To that end, the Carlile Inquiry in 2014 (in which the current Lord Chancellor participated), the Taylor Review in 2016 and the Lammy Review in 2017 all advised that youth court practice should become more ‘problem-solving’, to better address children’s underlying welfare needs. Missed opportunities Our research follows on from these reviews. It looks specifically at current youth court practice through the lens of evidence-led problem-solving justice. It does this by focussing on the procedural fairness of youth court hearings; the specialism of youth court practitioners; how multi-agency youth offending services provide collaborative interventions and supervision to court-involved children and young people; the extent to which youth courts engage in judicial monitoring post-sentence; and the operational environment surrounding youth court practitioners. Fieldwork was conducted in three sites across England, comprising five youth courts and associated youth offending services, between February and October 2019. During our research, we came across many dedicated practitioners who were committed to improving the support for children and young people appearing in court, and we saw examples of creative and innovative practice being developed locally. One site was trialling a form of post-sentence judicial monitoring (of the type recommended in the Carlile and Taylor reviews) to provide informal, YOS-managed review hearings for young people on Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YROs). A second site was preparing to pilot a similar approach, in which magistrates, in partnership with the YOS, will hold informal, monthly reviews of YROs. However, we also observed practice which fell short of what is recommended for the youth court: long delays, especially in cases coming to court; lack of availability of professionals with the required specialisms for youth court; limited services to respond to children and young people’s speech, language and communication or mental health needs; limited engagement by children’s services (understandable given their resource constraints); and generally, a more difficult operational environment, resulting from the twin impacts of constant court modernisation (including court closures and mergers) and reductions in funding. What we found far too often was an over-burdened system in which practitioners struggled to deliver the services required of them by national government. As a result, vulnerable children and young people coming before the court are not always receiving the treatment they need – making it all the more likely they will offend again. Time to get it right What our research has shown is that youth courts need to be enhanced to change outcomes for the vulnerable young people who appear there. We are very aware that the Carlile, Taylor and Lammy review teams have been here before us. Our research has walked in their footprints and, sadly, we have seen that their calls for significant reform have remained largely unanswered. We think it is time to get it right. 1. Tackle pre-court delays and maximise diversion opportunities pre-court There is urgent need for action to address the delays between offences and the commencement of court proceedings. These delays impact on everyone, including victims, witnesses and defendants. A key problem is delayed charging decisions by the police, which were also shown to disrupt children and young people’s own rehabilitative efforts. While we found strong support for out-of-court resolution of children and young people’s cases (and strong support for victim involvement and restorative justice in these disposals), we also found evidence of cases still coming to court that should have been resolved out of court. We recommend that (i) Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the National Police Chief’s Council and the Home Office develop a protocol which limits the amount of time children and young people can be kept under investigation before a charging decision is made (though there may need to be exclusions for the most complex cases); (ii) we recommend that the Youth Justice Board should publish clear national guidance on effective, evidence-based point-of-arrest diversion and out-of-court disposal practice.

Centre for Justice Innovation, 2022. 48p.

By \The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform

Utilizing interviews and data from law enforcement, probation and parole, and community-based organizations, NICJR has conducted detailed analyses of gun violence in several cities throughout the country. Although youth account for only a small proportion of the population involved in nonfatal injury shootings and homicides,² YDII is based on the premise that risk factors for gun violence were likely already present during the pre-teen and adolescent years. If specific experiences and measurable characteristics can predict who will become a victim or suspect in a shooting later in life, these data can be used to guide intervention strategies to prevent the violence.

But what risk factors did the young adult shooting suspect possess at the age of 13? NICJR will select at least five jurisdictions to conduct data analysis and a longitudinal cohort assessment of young people between the ages of 18-25 who have been convicted of homicide or attempted homicide. The study will trace their backgrounds and contacts with the juvenile justice, child welfare, education, and other systems and attempt to identify a common pattern of combined risk factors that predict future gun violence. After the completion of the data analysis and longitudinal assessment to identify the series of risk factors that is predictive of future gun violence involvement, the goal of YDII is to help jurisdictions track these risk factors in youth in real time, most likely through the school system. When any young person reaches the threshold of this series of risk factors, the project team will engage that young person and their family in an array of intensive community-based services and supports

Oakland, CA: NICJR, 2022. 17p.

By Charles M. Katz , Hyunjung Cheon , Kayla Freemon , Lidia E. Nuno˜

In this study, the authors examine the prevalence of self-reported delinquency, drug use, and gang membership among school-attending youth in nine English-speaking Caribbean nations including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. We also examine the frequency of these problem behaviors by gender and ethnicity. In doing so, we seek to gain an understanding of the extent and variation of delinquency and associated problems across the region and among subpopulations. The sample comprises more than 18,000 school-aged youth attending 306 schools. Our findings suggest that while offending varies significantly within and across the English-speaking Caribbean, youth engage in a disproportionate amount of violence when compared to other offense types, and though the current study is not cross-regional, youth appear to engage in substantially higher rates of violence than youth in other regions. Self-reported offending was higher among males than females for every offense type, though females in some nations reported more delinquency than males in other nations. In some of the study nations, there were no significant relationships between ethnicity and problem behaviors; however, in other nations, Afro-Caribbean, mixed, and youth from “other” ethnic backgrounds were significantly more likely to report problem behaviors than East Indian youth. Implications for future research are discussed.

Children and Youth Services Review. Volume 144, January 2023, 106758

By Magnus Lofstrom, Brandon Martin, and Deepak Premkumar, with research support from Andrew Skelton

California has seen increases in some crime over the last decade, including notable jumps in homicides, auto theft, and most recently retail theft, as well as a slow gradual uptick in aggravated assaults. While these recent increases have dominated headlines, longer-term trends in fact point toward significant overall decreases in crime since the 1990s that appear to be concentrated among juveniles and young adults.

In this report, we examine these long-term changes, focusing specifically on whether younger generations are less likely to be criminally active, as measured by violent crimes, than past generations—or if drops in offending have affected all age groups. One of the most robust relationships in criminology is between age and crime: criminal offending increases in adolescence, peaks in the late teens or early 20s, and then continually decreases. This relationship is the foundation for the well-known “age-crime curve,” which underlies predictions and risk assessments about future offending.

Drawing from unique, individual-level data on arrests in California between 1980 and 2020, we use arrests for violent felonies as our measure of criminal offending because these offenses have not been directly targeted by the numerous reforms implemented in the state over the past several decades and arrests for these crimes are subject to less law enforcement discretion.

Between 1990 and 2010, the age-crime curve in California generally follows historical patterns, with peaks in crime during the late teen years or early 20s; these curves follow these patterns but have gradually shifted downward, reflecting declines in violent crime during this period. However, the most recent age-crime curves differ from earlier, well-established state and national patterns in ways that are consistent with generational shifts in criminal offending. →

The violent felony arrest rate for young adults (ages 18–22) dropped by more than 50 percent over the last 25 years, from 1,712 per 100,000 residents in 1994 to 840 in 2019. The drop is even more notable as the rate for adults in their late 30s and older increased over the same period. This steep decline is the driving factor behind the most recent shift in the age-crime curve. After representing about 25 percent of violent felony arrests among adults for decades, young adults now account for 16 percent of these arrests. →

We see reductions in violent criminal offending beginning with individuals born in the early 1990s. For those born in 1993 and later, the violent felony arrest rate is 20 to 25 percent lower than in previous generations. →

The decrease in violent criminal offending among younger generations is driven by fewer individuals arrested for violent felonies. However, the number of offenses each individual is arrested for in a year has increased by about 5 percent, a notable deviation from decades-long levels. This increase has not been limited to any single generation but represents a broader increase over the last decade. →

While our study does not aim to identify the reasons behind these shifts, nor the extent to which they apply to other offenses, the decrease in criminal offending coincides with changes in some teen behavior; for example, measures of risky behavior, like alcohol consumption and drug use, have declined among more recent generations. Future work to determine specific contributing factors and whether the changes are persistent would have great value and policy relevance.

Even without knowing the root causes, several policy implications follow from our findings. The decrease in crime among younger generations suggests the possibility of lower future capacity needs for the criminal justice system. But although there has been a drop in the number of offenders arrested, the frequency of offending is up somewhat, pointing toward the potential need for new and/or alternative approaches to reduce crime among a plausibly more challenging-to-rehabilitate offender population. Lastly, but importantly, our results also suggest that risk assessment tools—which are widely used by criminal justice agencies—need to be adjusted to account for declines in offending among younger generations to reduce inaccurate predictions.

San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California 2023. 27p.

By Tirion Havard

This briefing focuses on serious youth violence within the context of organised crime groups involved in county lines drug dealing. The Government has made “rolling up county lines” a priority for the police in recent years. What is county lines drug dealing? County lines drug dealing describes organised crime groups (OCGs) who supply drugs to suburban areas including market and coastal towns. County lines drug dealers use dedicated mobile phones or “deal lines” to assist in the transport of drugs. This type of drug dealing is strongly associated with the coercion of children and vulnerable people. The dealers uses children and vulnerable people to move drugs, money and sometimes weapons between their hometown and the costal and market towns they are dealing in. In 2020 the NCA said exploitation in county lines drug dealing was “the most frequently identified form of coerced criminality, with children representing the vast majority of victims”. In 2021 they said that “at least 14.5%” of modern slavery referrals were related to county lines activity. The NCA says “violence at street level is often linked to drugs supply” and “continues to be associated” with county lines drug dealing. The Government has concluded that “changes to the drugs market, like the (emergence of the) county lines model of exploitation, is partly fuelling” serious violence.

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, 2022/ 27p.

By the National Center for Juvenile Justice

The National Center for Juvenile Justice has released "Juvenile Court Statistics 2020." This report describes delinquency and status offense cases handled between 2005 and 2020 by U.S. courts with jurisdiction over juvenile populations. National estimates are presented on 508,400 delinquency cases and 57,700 petitioned status offense cases handled in 2020. The report also tracks caseload trends from 2005 to 2020. Data include case counts and rates, juvenile demographics, and offenses charged. This report draws on data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, funded by the National Institute of Justice with support from OJJDP.

Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2023. 114p.

By Josh Rovner

 Youth arrests and incarceration increased in the closing decades of the 20th century but have fallen sharply since that time. Public opinion often lags behind these realities, wrongly assuming both that crime is perpetually increasing and that youth offending is routinely violent. In fact, youth offending is predominantly low-level, and the 21st century has seen significant declines in youth arrests and incarceration. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities fell from 109,000 to 25,000—a 77% decline.  

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 9p.

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.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs , 2022. 24p.

By The Pew Charitable Trusts

A growing body of research demonstrates that for many juvenile offenders, lengthy out-of-home placements in secure corrections or other residential facilities fail to produce better outcomes than alternative sanctions. In certain instances, they can be counterproductive. Seeking to reduce recidivism and achieve better returns on their juvenile justice spending, several states have recently enacted laws that limit which youth can be committed to these facilities and moderates the length of time they can spend there. These changes prioritize the use of costly facilities and intensive programming for serious offenders who present a higher risk of reoffending, while supporting effective community-based programs for others.

Philadelphia, PA: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2015. 8p.

By The National Juvenile Justice Network and the Texas Public Policy Foundation

This report presents information on nine States that have adopted policies within their juvenile justice systems aimed at reducing the incarceration rate of youth in the United States. The nine States singled out for their efforts include California, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Using data collected by Federal agencies, this report presents details on national and State incarceration trends, with specific focus on the nine States. The analysis found that the decrease in youth incarceration rates is associated with changes in State policies since 2001 that have focused on increasing the availability of evidence-based alternatives to incarceration; requiring intake procedures that reduce use of secure detention facilities; closing or downsizing youth confinement facilities; reducing schools' overreliance on the justice system to address discipline issues; disallowing incarceration for minor offenses; and restructuring juvenile justice responsibilities and finances among States and counties. The nine States identified in this report were selected as a result of adopting at least four of the six policy changes, exceeding the national-average reduction in youth confinement for the period 2001-2010, and experiencing a decline in youth arrests for the same period.

Washington, DC: National Juvenile Justice Network; Austin, TX: Texas Public policy Foundation, 2013. 54p.

By Clare Sharp, Judith Aldridge and Juanjo Medina

This study examined the prevalence of involvement in "delinquent youth groups" and the nature of the delinquent and criminal behavior of members of such groups (individually and as groups) among youth ages 10 to 19 in the general household populations of England and Wales. The most common DYG delinquent activity as a group was using drugs. Other common group activities were threatening or frightening people, making graffiti, damaging property, and using force or violence. The most common feature of a DYG was having an area or place the group "called its own." These findings were obtained from an analysis of the 2004 Offending, Crime, and Justice Survey. It included questions that assessed levels of involvement in DYGs among individuals between the ages of 10 to 19. The survey was designed to measures offending in the "general household population;" consequently, it was unlikely to obtain information from serious offenders/groups involved in more serious criminal activities. 5 figures, 27 tables, 53 references, and appended questionnaire

London: Home Office, 2006. 68p.

ByJames P. Lynch

The fact that our assessment of current trends in juvenile offending is based largely on arrest data reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by local law enforcement agencies raises a fundamental question about the capacity of such data to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of the myriad challenges that face today’s youth and our society. The information that this Bulletin offers on trends in juvenile violent offending over the past two decades, however, comes from a different source: the victims of those offenses. Thus, unlike the data derived from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, which drive traditional assessments, the information provided by the National Crime Victimization Survey— and featured in these pages—is not limited to cases that come to the attention of local law enforcement officials, primarily through arrests. By comparing the pictures of trends in juvenile violent offending that these diverse data sources provide, we can begin to answer the critical question posed above and to determine whether our present understanding of juvenile offending accurately reflects the nature of those crimes—and not merely the nature of its origins.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2002. 20p.

By Marty Langley and Josh Sugarmann

The gun violence epidemic is devastating for America’s youth. VPC research helps educate the public on youth gun violence victimization, and we work directly with policymakers, gun violence prevention groups, and community leaders to move toward effective solutions.

For five consecutive years, the VPC published Lost Youth, a series of reports that put a spotlight on youth victims of gun violence in California county by county. The primary goal of these reports is to offer localized information on youth homicide victimization on the county level to better inform citizens, advocates, service providers, and policymakers.

By comparing on a county-by-county level the homicide rates for youth and young adults in California, it is our goal to add a new, ongoing context for presenting information and measuring progress on gun violence against youth, while at the same time helping to support discussion, analysis, policy development, and action. Above all, this work is conducted in the belief that information aids in the development of sound prevention strategies — on the local, state, and national levels.

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2015. 36p.