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 Richard A. Mendel

Backed with an array of research, the case against America’s youth prisons and correctional training schools can be neatly summarized in five words: dangerous, ineffective, unnecessary, wasteful and inadequate. This report highlights successful reform efforts from several states and provides recommendations for how states can reduce juvenile incarceration rates and redesign their juvenile correction systems to better serve young people and the public.

Baltimore, MD: Annie B. Casey Foundation, 2011. 51p.

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 Barry Holman and Jason Ziedenberg

Despite the lowest youth crime rates in 20 years, hundreds of thousands of young people are locked away every year in the nation’s 591 secure detention centers. Detention centers are intended to temporarily house youth who pose a high risk of re-offending before their trial, or who are deemed likely to not appear for their trial. But the nation’s use of detention is steadily rising, and facilities are packed with young people who do not meet those high-risk criteria—about 70 percent are detained for nonviolent offenses.

Detained youth, who are frequently pre-adjudication and awaiting their court date, or sometimes waiting for their placement in another facility or community-based program, can spend anywhere from a few days to a few months in locked custody. At best, detained youth are physically and emotionally separated from the families and communities who are the most invested in their recovery and success. Often, detained youth are housed in overcrowded, understaffed facilities—an environment that conspires to breed neglect and violence.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 24p.

By Chelsea Parsons, Maggie Thompson, Eugenio Weigend and Giovanni Rocco

On February 14, 2018, 14 students and three staff members were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, by a single shooter armed with an assault rifle. This horrific massacre galvanized the nation’s attention to the issue of gun violence, particularly as it affects young people in this country. However, the scope of gun violence as it affects America’s youth is much vaster than this most recent mass shooting. Gunfire has officially overtaken car accidents as one of the leading killers of young people in the United States. As of publication time, since the beginning of 2018, 820 teens ages 12 to 17 have been killed or injured with a gun. As mass shootings become more common and more deadly, a staggering 57 percent of teenagers now fear a school shooting. The epidemic of gun violence against America’s youth is more than just a disturbing data point. For each bullet fired, there are multiple stories of lives changed forever. When he was just 6 years old, Missouri State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. saw his brother shot in front of their neighbor’s home. Nevada activist Mariam El-Haj witnessed the shooting of her mother by her estranged father, who then turned the gun on Mariam. Oregon youth mentor Jes Phillip’s siblings have all had close calls—she has three younger sisters who were present at the Reynolds High School shooting in Troutdale, Oregon, and two bullets landed next to her brother’s bed when they came through her family’s apartment wall during a neighborhood shooting. Nineteen year-old student Eli Saldana, a member of the Native American community living in Chicago, was shot on his walk home from work. These stories of gun violence are all too common among young Americans. The United States’ gun violence epidemic disproportionately ravages young people, particularly young people of color. In short, gun violence is shattering a generation.

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2018. 25p.

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 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.

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 Celia Brackenridge, Kari Fasting, Sandra Kirby andTrisha Leahy

UNICEF has long recognized that there is great value in children’s sport and play, and has been a consistent proponent of these activities in its international development and child protection work. Health, educational achievement and social benefits are just some of the many desirable outcomes associated with organized physical activity. In line with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF has also been a strong advocate of children’s right to leisure and play and to have their voices heard in the planning and delivery of the sport activities in which they are involved. During recent years, however, it has become evident that sport is not always a safe space for children, and that the same types of violence and abuse sometimes found in families and communities can also occur in sport and play programmes. Child athletes are rarely consulted about their sporting experiences, and awareness of and education on child protection issues among sport teachers, coaches and other stakeholders is too often lacking. Overall, appropriate structures and policies need to be developed for preventing, reporting and responding appropriately to violence in children’s sport.

Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2010. 54p.

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 Aaron Kupchik

By comparing how adolescents are prosecuted and punished in juvenile and criminal (adult) courts, Aaron Kupchik finds that prosecuting adolescents in criminal court does not fit with our cultural understandings of youthfulness. As a result, adolescents who are transferred to criminal courts are still judged as juveniles. Ultimately, Kupchik makes a compelling argument for the suitability of juvenile courts in treating adolescents. Judging Juveniles suggests that justice would be better served if adolescents were handled by the system designed to address their special needs.

New York: New York University Press, 2006. 211p.

By Ruth Dean and Melissa Thomson

Presents an overview of the problem of teenage prostitutes, including some of the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and what can be done to prevent it

San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998. 96p.

By Claire Alexander

. In scrutinizing the discourse on ‘gangs’ in media reports and speeches made by politicians, the author demonstrates that the racialization of gun and knife-enabled crime is the consequence of casual labelling. Referring to a speech by Tony Blair in February 2007, in which he uses words ‘black kids’, ‘gangs’, ‘criminal cultures’ and ‘the black community’, the author shows how it effectively ‘serves to collectivize the problem as one specific to, arising from and potentially encompassing, the black community as a whole’. …Targeting gangs and using civil injunctions will perpetuate the problem by drawing more young black people into the justice system. This is happening while the over-representation of young black people in the criminal justice system and experiences of disadvantage and discrimination in other areas remains to be addressed. … There are better ways of dealing with it: involving young people from under-privileged groups in positive activities from an early age, supporting parents with limited resources and supervising and supporting young offenders caught up in the criminal justice system

London: Runnymede Trust, 2008. 24p.

By Judith A. Aldridge and Juan Medina-Ariza

When we began planning this research seven years ago, in the UK there was: (1) increasing media attention toward gangs; (2) some historical or outdated research accounts suggesting gangs have long existed in the UK; (3) a denial, nonetheless, by many academics, practitioners and policy makers of a gang problem, resulting in inadequate theoretical understanding and policy treatment; and (4) emerging indications that between the media hype and this denial, changes around gangs were taking place.

Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council, 2008. 23p.

By Robert McLean

After many years of decline, reported levels of youth violence and gang culture in Britain began to increase again in 2014, and have continued to do so since, particularly in England and Wales. This has happened against the backdrop of deindustrialisation, and as the result of a lack of local community investment, as well as the continuing issues associated with the profiling and criminalisation of young working-class men, particularly those from ethnic minority communities. This document comprises two parts. Part I reviews contemporary literature on gang culture and highlights the most pertinent findings, which were used to brief conversations at the Cumberland Lodge Conference on ‘Understanding and Policing Gangs’ in June 2019. Part II draws upon those conference conversations and presents key themes that cut across the various panel discussions. It also outlines recommendations that emerged from both the conference discussions and a follow-up consultation to further scrutinise the findings, held in October 2019. These recommendations seek to outline ways in which gang culture might be addressed in the UK, and how communities might be better policed.

Windsor, UK: Cumberland Lodge, 2020. 80p.

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 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 Patricia E. Campie, Anthony Petrosino, et al.

The Massachusetts Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) commissioned a review of the evidence underlying effective programs designed to reduce serious violence among targeted groups of young offenders. A Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) methodology was used to identify and determine the effectiveness of rigorous evaluation studies of programs most similar to the SSYI intervention. A review of the implementation science literature complemented the evidence review to determine what characteristics organizations should demonstrate in order to produce optimal results from their SSYI efforts. Taken together, the guidance from evaluations of effective programs and the characteristics of high quality implementation provide SSYI with valuable insight on enhancing and improving violence prevention efforts moving forward.

Boston: Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, 2013. 50p.

By Jon Bannister, Jon Pickering, Susan Batchelor, Michele Burman, Keith Kintrea and Susan MccVie

Background and Aims 1. Recent years have witnessed growing concern about the existence of youth gangs and the engagement of their members in violent conflict involving knives and other weapons. However, there is limited reliable evidence relating to the nature, form and prevalence of youth ‘gangs’ and knife carrying in Scotland. Recognising these information shortfalls, the research reported here set out to: • Provide an overview of what is known about the nature and extent of youth gang activity and knife carrying in a set of case study locations. • Provide an in-depth account of the structures and activities of youth gangs in these settings. • Provide an in-depth account of the knife carrying in these settings. • Offer a series of recommendations for interventions in these behaviours based on this evidence. 2. The research was conducted in 5 case study locations, namely: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire. There were two major data collection components. First, the research interviewed those engaged in the delivery of services designed to manage and challenge problematic youth behaviours, inclusive of youth gangs and knife carrying. Second, the research gained access (via these services) to a large sample of young people. Despite the intention to interview distinct samples of gang members and knife carriers, most of the young people identified through this methodological approach held some form of group affiliation.

Edinburgh: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, 2010. 90p.