By Sophia Falkner

Policy Exchange’s report, Knife Crime in the Capital , reveals the real injustice that at least four out of five gang related homicide victims and perpetrators in London are black or ethnic minority.

It confirms that the Metropolitan Police is losing a battle against knife crime that is out of control in some parts of London, with young black and ethnic minority men by far the most likely to be stabbed or commit knife crime. Black people in London, it shows, are five times more likely to be hospitalised than white people due to a stabbing.

The report analyses a decade of knife crime data, revealing how a combination of drill music, social media, tit-for-tat revenge attacks and a failure in police strategy are causes of dozens of deaths and hundreds more injuries every year.

London: Policy Exchange, 2021. 63p.

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 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 Richard A Mendel

Diverting youth from juvenile court involvement should be a central focus in efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities and improve outcomes in our nation’s youth justice systems. Clear evidence shows that getting arrested in adolescence or having a delinquency case filed in juvenile court damages young people’s futures and increases their subsequent involvement in the justice system. Compared with youth who are diverted, youth who are arrested and formally petitioned in court have far higher likelihood of subsequent arrests and school failure. Pre-arrest and pre-court diversion can avert these bad outcomes. Research shows that Black youth are far more likely to be arrested than their white peers and far less likely to be diverted from court following arrest. Other youth of color – including Latinx youth, Tribal youth, and Asian/Pacific Islander youth – are also less likely than their white peers to be diverted. The lack of diversion opportunities for youth of color is pivotal, because greater likelihood of formal processing in court means that youth of color accumulate longer court histories, leading to harsher consequences for any subsequent arrest. Expanding diversion opportunities for youth of color therefore represents a crucial, untapped opportunity to address continuing disproportionality in juvenile justice.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 38p.

By Liz Kroboth, Sukhdip Purewal Boparai and Jonathan Heller

In 2017, Los Angeles County established an Office of Youth Diversion and Development to advance a collaboratively designed pre-booking diversion initiative that prevents youth from getting formally arrested or referred to probation during encounters with law enforcement. Human Impact Partners and the Los Angeles (LA) County Office of Youth Diversion and Development (YDD) partnered to develop this evaluation framework to assess and prevent racial inequities in this program. LA County’s pre-booking diversion program is part of a broader effort to reduce mass incarceration of Black and Brown youth . In LA County and across the US, Black and Brown youth are arrested and detained by law enforcement at disproportionately greater rates compared to White youth. Organizing by local youth advocates and policy changes at the local, state, and national level have created opportunities for community-based pre-booking diversion in LA County to reduce the excessive and unfair criminalization and incarceration of Black and Brown youth and equitably improve outcomes for youth.

Oakland, CA: Human Impact Partners, 2019. 54p.

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 Karen Bullock and Nick Tilley

This report describes analysis and strategy development for a project aiming to reduce shootings in South Manchester. It attempts to apply problem-oriented policing principles to shootings and other serious violence associated with gangs, principally in South Manchester. Its broad approach follows that of an apparently very effective project in Boston, Massachusetts, which was associated with a rapid and sustained reduction in shootings. The project is one of a number being funded by the targeted policing initiative, part of the government’s three-year crime reduction strategy. Based on a range of quantitative and qualitative data, this report identifies some of the proximate causes of shootings in Manchester. On the basis of the analysis a strategy, involving police and partners, is sketched out. The strategy comprises a mix of preventative and enforcement based activities, some of which are adapted from the Boston model and some of which are tailored to the specific issues identified in Manchester.

London: Home Office, 2002. 68p.

By G.K. Lieten , Talinay Strehl

This brief studies the phenomenon of street children in two cities in Peru. It looks at some of the conceptual issues and, after analysing why children are in the street and what behaviour and which aspirations they exhibit, deals with the policy issues and lessons to be learned. This brief investigates when and why the transition from children on the street (street-working children) to children of the street (street living children) takes place and elucidates how they survive. It explains the fluidity and the risks involved in any type of child street life.

Cham: Springer, 2015. 66p.

By Kristina E. Gibson

Street outreach workers comb public places such as parks, vacant lots, and abandoned waterfronts to search for young people who are living out in public spaces, if not always in the public eye. Street Kids opens a window to the largely hidden world of street youth, drawing on their detailed and compelling narratives to give new insight into the experiences of youth homelessness and youth outreach. Kristina Gibson argues that the enforcement of quality of life ordinances in New York City has spurred hyper-mobility amongst the city’s street youth population and has serious implications for social work with homeless youth. Youth in motion have become socially invisible and marginalized from public spaces where social workers traditionally contact them, jeopardizing their access to the already limited opportunities to escape street life. The culmination of a multi-year ethnographic investigation into the lives of street outreach workers and ‘their kids’ on the streets of New York City, Street Kids illustrates the critical role that public space regulations and policing play in shaping the experience of youth homelessness and the effectiveness of street outreach.

New York: New York University Press, 2011. 288p.

By Michael W. Flamm

In the mid-1960s, amid a pervasive sense that American society was coming apart at the seams, a new issue known as 'law and order' emerged at the forefront of national politics. First introduced by Barry Goldwater in his ill-fated run for president in 1964, it eventually punished Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats and propelled Richard Nixon and the Republicans to the White House in 1968. In this thought-provoking study, Michael W. Flamm examines how conservatives successfully blamed liberals for the rapid rise in street crime and then skillfully used law and order to link the understandable fears of white voters to growing unease about changing moral values, the civil rights movement, urban disorder, and antiwar protests. Liberals, Flamm argues, were by contrast unable to craft a compelling message for anxious voters. Instead, they either ignored the crime crisis, claimed that law and order was a racist ruse, or maintained that social programs would solve the "root causes" of civil unrest. By 1968, this seemed increasingly unlikely and contributed to a loss of faith in the ability of the government to do what it was above all sworn to do-protect personal security and private property.

New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 294p.

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 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 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.

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 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.,