By Marc Hyden and Steven Greenhut 

During periods of surging crime or intense public concern about crime, politicians ramp up their tough-on-crime rhetoric—often focusing their ire on young offenders whom they depict as receiving unreasonably light sentences. Crime-related fears are understandable, but America is at risk of embracing policies—especially regarding juveniles—that may only worsen the problem.

Since the 1990s, the nation has shifted from an incarceration-heavy approach toward juvenile offenders to one that tries to keep them out of the criminal justice system and provide counseling, training and rehabilitation services instead. These innovative programs are yielding positive results in terms of public safety and fiscal policy.

There are two main types of programs: diversion and deflection. Diversion is generally considered to be a formalized effort to divert someone who is already in the criminal justice system. Deflection is a police-led type of pre-arrest diversion. For the purposes of this paper, it includes civil citations; formal pre-arrest diversion to case management or restorative justice; and co-responder or community programs that apply to juveniles. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but the goal of each approach is to find service-based alternatives to the traditional justice system.

A recent R Street Institute study surveyed these varying programs nationwide, which now are rightly a standard part of the criminal justice system. Given their documented success, rather than abandoning these programs amid currently heightened crime fears, policymakers should expand them. In this paper, we outline a path forward by exploring the value of deflection programs; reviewing the public safety and fiscal benefits they offer; and highlighting a case from one jurisdiction that underscores the benefits of the approach.

Washington, DC: R Street, 2022. 7p.

By Sarah Hockenberry; Charles Puzzanchera

Data submitted to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive project (Archive) provide unique insight into the impact of COVID-19 on juvenile court caseloads. The Archive collects juvenile court data from around the nation to create national estimates detailing demographic and case processing characteristics of delinquency and petitioned status offense cases handled in U.S. juvenile courts. The uniqueness of the data collected by the Archive allows for a monthly analysis of court case volume and processing, which provides insight into any changes in case processing characteristics both at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and over time. This bulletin focuses primarily on patterns in case processing activities which occurred in 2020, compared with an average of the case processing characteristics for the prior 3 years (2017-2019), but also displays data through 2021.

  Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice. 2024. 8p.  

By Garner Clancey, Cecilia Drumore and Laura Metcalfe

The University of Sydney and Youth Justice New South Wales signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in July 2021. This MoU builds on various prior collaborative activities between the two organisations and related work in other jurisdictions. This paper reflects on the progress and challenges of collaboration of this kind. Specifically, there has been tentative progress in engaging non-traditional parts of the university in youth justice projects.

The initial stage of the collaboration highlighted challenges, including structures within the university which can frustrate interdisciplinary work. Time lines, staff turnover and resources also impacted this collaboration. We conclude with an outline of what might be achieved through ongoing collaboration and signal the importance of ongoing research to capture data and insights regarding the nature of this relationship as it develops.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 691. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024.

By David B. Wilson, Mark W. Lipsey

Research summary

The primary outcome desired for juvenile delinquency programs is the cessation of delinquent and related problematic behaviors. However, this outcome is almost always pursued by attempting to change intermediate outcomes, such as family functioning, improved mental health, or peer relations. We can conceptualize intermediate outcomes that are related to reduced delinquency as change levers for effective intervention. A large meta-analysis identified several school-related change levers, including school engagement (i.e., improved attendance and reduced truancy), nondelinquent problem behaviors, and attitudes about school and teachers. In addition, family functioning and reducing substance use were also effective change levers. In contrast, effects on youth getting/keeping a job, peer relationships, and academic achievement were not associated with reduced delinquency.

Policy implications

Only a small percentage of rehabilitative programs provided to youth involved in the juvenile justice system have been established as evidence based. Moreover, there are constraints on what local policy makers and practitioners can do regarding the selection, adoption, and implementation of programs from the available lists of evidence-based programs. Adopting programs that focus on effective change levers and avoiding those that concentrate on ineffective ones has the potential to increase the likelihood that a local agency is engaged in effective programming. Based on our data, programs known to improve family functioning, attachment to and involvement in schooling, and reducing substance use are justified by the change lever evidence, even if these programs’ effectiveness in reducing delinquency has not been directly proven. In contrast, programs focusing on vocational skills, academic achievement, and peer relations are less likely to be beneficial. Furthermore, a change lever perspective can help frontline staff select appropriate programs for different juvenile offenders and focus their quality control efforts on those aspects of a program that are likely to be essential to maintaining effectiveness.

Criminology & Public Policy Volume23, Issue2. May 2024.

David C. Pyrooz

This final summary overview describes a research project aimed at evaluating a gang intervention program, led by the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID), which has historically coordinated around two dozen strategies with partners emphasizing prevention, intervention, and suppression. The focus of GRID’s efforts is their use of juvenile and adult multidisciplinary teams (MDT) to facilitate coordination and individual case management of gang-involved youth who have been referred for services. A process and impact evaluation was undertaken between 2019 and 2022, and the project was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework before data collection. The evaluation was guided by two core questions: if the MDT-based approach achieves its stated purpose of providing comprehensive, coordinated services to gang members with fidelity; and if the MDT-based approach achieves its stated goals of producing disengagement from gangs and desistence from crime. The first question was the focus of the process evaluation, and the second question was the focus of the impact evaluation. This report provides details about the evaluation’s methodology and informs that evaluation findings were mixed. Findings showed: there is clear evidence, from the process evaluation, that GRID delivered a range of high-quality services with efficacy; GRID clients were nearly 70 percent less likely to engage in violence than individuals in the control group; and GRID clients were more than three times more likely to claim a current gang status than control group participants.

Boulder, CO: Institute of Behavioral Science , University of Colorado, 2023. 28p.

By Susannah N. Tapp, PhD; Alexandra Thompson; Erica L. Smith; and Lizabeth Remrey

This statistical brief presents findings on crimes involving juveniles, both as victims and as alleged or perceived offenders. It reports on (1) rates of nonfatal violent victimization of juveniles, (2) the number of deaths of juveniles due to homicide, (3) the percentage of nonfatal violent incidents in which the offender was perceived to be a juvenile, and (4) the percentage of persons arrested who were juveniles. Data are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), and the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). For additional information on these data collections and the similarities and differences between the BJS and FBI crime victimization data, including populations and types of crime covered, see Methodology or The Nation’s Two Crime Measures, 2011–2020 (NCJ 303385, BJS, February 2022).

Washington, DC:  U.S. Department of Justice Statistical Brief Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2024, 13pg

By Jennifer Roark

This study, informed by a life course perspective, used a mixed methodological approach to identify the differences in events, motivations, and experiences related to gang affiliation and the differences across (a) system-documented, gang-involved individuals, (b) system-documented gang-involved individuals who have gang-involved family members, and (c) other high-risk youth who are suspected of involvement. The results of this study produced a nuanced understanding of these youth’s lives, especially as it relates to their fathers. As expected, when fathers were identified as having involvement in gangs themselves, youths were significantly more likely to also become members. The overall goal of this research was to identify distinct pathways to gang activity that could inform practitioners and policymakers about useful intervention strategies. This research fills a literature gap about the relationships between and amongst fathers and sons, and how those relationships transmit both criminogenic and protective factors that would encourage or discourage gang affiliation and gang activity. Father gang involvement continued to be a strong predictor of youth gang involvement even when controlling for other social relationships (e.g., peers, siblings, cousins), but not as much as same generation and peer influence. Importantly, fathers were not the sole social influence on a youth’s decision to join a gang. Peer and same generation family (siblings and cousins) gang involvement were as strong or stronger predictors of a youth’s involvement in crime and gangs as were the variables associated with fathers. The findings unexpectedly revealed that an increase in the most logged life events during a three-month timeframe reduced risk of escalation as a youth.

Portland, OR:  Research and Planning, Department of Community Justice Multnomah County Oregon. 2023, 113pg

By Christina Plerhoples Stacy

Over the summer and fall of 2021, the Urban Institute worked with the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services to recruit participants for a cash transfer study aimed at reducing rates of violence among young men in Wilmington. There are two main types of cash transfers: unconditional cash transfers, defined as money provided to people without any stipulations, and conditional cash transfers, defined as money provided to people with certain conditions, such as program attendance or work requirements. 

Washington, DC: Urban Institute. 2023, 39pg

By Ursula Kilkelly, Louise Forde, Emma Hurley, Sharon Lambert, Katharina Swirak, Deirdre Kelleher and Siobhan Buckley

This study was funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) through the Irish Research Council’s COALESCE Strand 1F scheme, designed to harness the resources and expertise of the Irish research system to establish a collaborative alliance between academia and policy makers and to support the successful achievement of Ireland’s policy goals. The purpose of the study was to support the development of effective and evidence-based policy and interventions for young people by combining the knowledge of academic research with the expertise of policy makers. In line with this goal, this report is intended to be a resource for policy-makers, researchers and students interested in understanding the experiences of young people in the Irish youth justice system with evidence that can be used to imagine a progressive future for Irish youth justice law and policy. Aims and Methodology Aims In setting out the scheme, the DCEDIY identified three core questions as the basis for the study: 1. What are the factors associated with involvement in anti-social behaviour, getting into trouble with the Gardaí and/or contact with the youth justice system? 2. What are the factors which may operate in a protective or a preventative way for young people who do not become involved in anti-social behaviour or contact with the Gardaí and the youth justice system? 3. What implications do these findings have for the future development of Irish youth justice policy and youth justice practice? 

Cork: University College Cork, Irish Research Council. 2021, 221pg

By Jaimee Mallion and Jane Wood

Tackling street gangs has recently been highlighted as a priority for public health. In this paper, the four components of a public health approach were reviewed: (1) surveillance, (2) identifying risk and protective factors, (3) developing and evaluating interventions at primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary intervention stages, and (4) implementation of evidence-based programs. Findings regarding the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs for street gang members were mixed, with unclear goals/objectives, limited theoretical foundation, and a lack of consistency in program implementation impeding effectiveness at reducing street gang involvement. This paper proposes that the Good Lives Model (GLM), a strengths-based framework for offender rehabilitation, provides an innovative approach to street gang intervention. Utilizing approach-goals, the GLM assumes that improving an individual’s internal skills and external opportunities will reduce the need to become involved in street gangs. Wrapping the GLM framework around current evidence-based interventions (e.g., Functional Family Therapy) increases client engagement and motivation to change, which is notably poor amongst those at risk of, or involved in, street gangs.

Soc. Sci. 2020, 24pg

Edited by Richard Rosenfeld, Mark Edberg, Xiangming Fang, and Curtis S. Florence

How do economic conditions such as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth impact youth violence? Economics and Youth Violence provides a much-needed new perspective on this crucial issue. Pinpointing the economic factors that are most important, the editors and contributors in this volume explore how different kinds of economic issues impact children, adolescents, and their families, schools, and communities. Offering new and important insights regarding the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and youth violence across a variety of times and places, chapters cover such issues as the effect of inflation on youth violence; new quantitative analysis of the connection between race, economic opportunity, and violence; and the cyclical nature of criminal backgrounds and economic disadvantage among families. Highlighting the complexities in the relationship between economic conditions, juvenile offenses, and the community and situational contexts in which their connections are forged, Economics and Youth Violence prompts important questions that will guide future research on the causes and prevention of youth violence. Contributors: Sarah Beth Barnett, Eric P. Baumer, Philippe Bourgois, Shawn Bushway, Philip J. Cook, Robert D. Crutchfield, Linda L. Dahlberg, Mark Edberg, Jeffrey Fagan, Xiangming Fang, Curtis S. Florence, Ekaterina Gorislavsky, Nancy G. Guerra, Karen Heimer, Janet L. Lauritsen, Jennifer L. Matjasko, James A. Mercy, Matthew Phillips, Richard Rosenfeld, Tim Wadsworth, Valerie West, Kevin T. Wolff Richard 

New York: London: New York University Press, 2013. 341p.

Edited by Franklin E. Zimring and David S. Tanenhaus 

This Is a hopeful but complicated era for those with ambitions to reform the juvenile courts and youth-serving public institutions in the United States. As advocates plea for major reforms, many fear the public backlash in making dramatic changes. Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice provides a look at the recent trends in juvenile justice as well as suggestions for reforms and policy changes in the future. Should youth be treated as adults when they break the law? How can youth be deterred from crime? What factors should be considered in how youth are punished?What role should the police have in schools?

New York; London: New York University Press, 2014. 257p.

By Ieke de Vriesl, Michael Baglivio, and Joan A. Reid

Despite extant literature on individual-level risk factors for sex trafficking among children and adolescents, little is known about the impact of social and ecological contexts on risk of human trafficking victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlates signaling risk of human trafficking victimization at the individual, family, social, and community levels utilizing a sample of 40,531 justice-involved male and female youth, a small fraction of whom were suspected or verified victims of human trafficking between 2011 and 2015 (N = 801, including 699 female and 102 male youth). Using this sample, we examined differences across individual, family, social, and community characteristics of youth involved in the juvenile justice system who have a history of trafficking victimization and youth without such histories. Series of logistic regression analyses were conducted using varying control groups, created through exact matching and randomized matching groups to address sample imbalances. These analyses indicate that, at the individual level, youth who had experienced childhood adversities were more likely to report human trafficking victimization. Sex differences were found regarding risk factors pertaining to the family and broader socio-ecological contexts. Female youth who had witnessed family violence had an antisocial partner or antisocial friends, or resided in a community with a greater proportion of the population being foreign-born or speaking English less than very well were at heightened risk for human trafficking victimization. Little evidence was found for community-level risk factors of victimization in this specific sample of justice-involved youth. These findings encourage more research to unpack the multilevel correlates of victimizations at the individual, family, social, and community levels, recognizing potential differences between female and male youth regarding the factors that put them at heightened risk for juvenile sex trafficking victimizations. Practice and policy should direct awareness and prevention measures to social and ecological contexts.

By Michael John Cahill, Sarah Napier, Dana Thomsen, Micheala McCaig and Heather Wolbers 

This study analyses Australian Bureau of Statistics data to examine trends in the rate of juveniles being proceeded against by police for sexual offences in Australia, from 2008–09 to 2020–21. Over the 13-year period, the rate of recorded sexual offences committed by juveniles per 100,000 population was consistently higher than the rate for adults. While recorded assaultive sexual offences committed by juveniles decreased during this period, recorded non-assaultive sexual offences increased notably, and were still increasing at the end of the study period.

The study highlights the need for increased focus on early intervention (from the age of 13 onwards) and prevention efforts targeting non-assaultive sexual offending by both sexes and assaultive sexual offences by male juveniles in Australia.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024, 16pg

By Richard A. Mendel

   After decades of neglect, the youth justice field is awakening to the importance of diversion in lieu of arrest and formal court processing for many or most youth accused of delinquent behavior. Even amid rising concerns over youth crime nationwide, jurisdictions across the country are heeding the evidence by taking concerted action to address more cases of alleged lawbreaking behavior outside the formal justice system. This momentum to make diversion a centerpiece of juvenile justice reform is encouraging given powerful research showing that youth who are diverted from the justice system are far less likely to be arrested for subsequent offenses and far more likely to succeed in education and employment than comparable youth who are arrested and prosecuted in juvenile court. Greater use of diversion is also essential to reduce the persistent racial and ethnic disparities that pervade youth justice systems. This brief details significant diversion reform efforts of several types.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 22p.

By Richard A. Mendel

This brief provides recommendations for advocates on how best to understand and address the messaging challenge in order to build support for further progress expanding the use of diversion in youth justice. The recent momentum to expand the use of diversion in youth justice is long overdue. However, to reach its potential, advocates must deliver clear, consistent messages to inform the public and persuade public officials. This will require advocates to: ● Develop a clear and simple definition of diversion that makes effective community-based alternatives to the formal justice system understandable and appealing to policymakers and the public. (See Text Box on p.2 for a definition and sample elevator pitch to promote diversion.) ● Craft messages to promote youth diversion that are grounded in evidence of diversion’s benefits and are compelling to persuadable voters as well as elected officials and other policymakers. ● Tailor messages to the political sensibilities and civic culture of the local community, and target messages to specific audiences. ● Develop effective strategies to combat sensationalized, alarmist, poorly contextualized news coverage and political rhetoric that stoke public fears of youth crime and subvert constructive reform efforts. ● Augment arguments and evidence with real-world stories illustrating the benefits of diversion and the harms of formal court processing. Involve youth, families, and community members with direct experience in the youth justice system to tell their stories and highlight the importance of diversion in human terms.

Issue Brief #4

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 7p.

By Richard A. Mendel

Robust data collection and analysis are essential tools in any effort to expand and improve the use of diversion. Without accurate and timely demographic data, advocates cannot highlight disparities in the use of diversion and push effectively for reforms. Without information on which youth are succeeding in diversion, system leaders cannot revise and improve practices to improve outcomes. Lasting progress in diversion from system involvement for youth requires state and local justice systems to set meaningful goals and carefully monitor results. If they are to understand and address disparities, states and localities must collect and analyze data, broken down by race and ethnicity, at every stage of the process. To hone their strategies and document diversion’s benefits as compared to formal justice system involvement, they also must track results – not merely recidivism, but also other outcomes related to youth well-being and success and victim satisfaction with the justice process. Ideally, justice systems should bring together stakeholder teams to review the available data, identify opportunities for expanded use of diversion, uncover decision points where disparities are occurring and their underlying causes, and then brainstorm and implement solutions to achieve equity

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 7p.

Issue Brief #3  

By Richard A. Mendel

   Young people’s likelihood of avoiding future justice system contact and achieving success is affected not only by whether or not their cases are diverted from the justice system, but also by how their cases are handled once diverted. A growing consensus among youth justice experts supports several priorities regarding how best to organize and utilize youth diversion. Move responsibility for diverted youth out of the court system Too often, youth diverted from formal processing in court are overseen by prosecutors or probation officers in a process that can mirror traditional probation supervision. In 2020, the latest year for which data are available, more than 32,000 youth whose cases were not formally processed in court were nonetheless placed on probation caseloads. In practice, this type of informal probation often differs little from formal probation, with a long list of rules and requirements and the threat of returning to court for prosecution if youth don’t meet all expectations imposed on them. Adolescent development research and practical experience suggest strongly that this approach is misguided. Rather, the best practice is to divert youth away from the justice system and empower community partner organizations, as well as schools and families, to address young people’s misbehavior.

Issue Brief #2

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 6p.

By  Sonja E. Siennick, William M. Casey, Brian J. Stults, Jhon A. Pupo, Dequan J. Cowell, Theodore R. Fronczak

This project was a three-year effort to (1) describe states’ current practices regarding the measurement of juvenile recidivism, (2) compare the rates and predictors of different measures of recidivism that varied in terms of marker events, follow-up lengths, and inclusion of adult system information, (3) compare the amount of program- and community-level variation in recidivism across different measures of recidivism, and (4) assist the state of Oregon in exploring potential changes to its current measure of juvenile recidivism. The study was a collaborative effort between Florida State University (FSU), the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ), and the Oregon Youth Authority (OYA). Archival data from FDJJ and OYA offered an opportunity to do what researchers had previously been unable to: analyze several different permutations of a reoffending measure based on the same sets of youth, and assess the robustness of findings across those permutations. The extent and prediction of juvenile reoffending are of considerable research and policy importance.

Tallahassee, FL:  Florida State University, 2023. 93p.

By Aaron H. L. Wong

In 2021, China amended its law on the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR), lowering the MACRof two specified offences to twelve years. As a result,China now has three different levels of MACR for dif-ferent offences. Based on the position in China, thisarticle argues that while lowering the MACR against the international trend can be justified as a necessary measure to tackle serious crimes committed by chil-dren, creating different levels of MACR based on the types of crime is wrong in principle. This article fur-ther considers the classic dilemma in setting an absoluteMACR, which results in either freeing the guilty or convicting the innocent. It is argued that setting a relatively low MACR accompanied by robust safeguards of doli incapax, child immaturity defence, diversion and wider sentencing options would allow a better assessment of children'sculpabilityandbetterservetheinterestsofjus-tice. It is also suggested that lowering the MACR will not unjustifiably undermine children’s rights if the juvenile justice system could ensure only those truly culpable could be convicted and that the option of prosecution is reserved as a last resort.

Howard Journal of Crime & Justice, Pages: 3-21 | First Published: 2024