Evidence Based Policy and Practice in Youth Justice is a significant collection that critiques the existing evidence base about the causes and prevention of youth offending in Australia and promotes the further development of this evidence base. It draws on Australian evidence wherever possible, highlighting international evidence where Australian evidence is not available or is conflicting.Youth advocates, politicians, people interested in working with youth, along with existing practitioners in a diverse range of fields require an understanding about the nature of youth offending and 'what works' to prevent offending. The book is organised according to three broad themes that:provides up-to-date knowledge about the system and major approaches for understanding youth offendingexplores the usefulness of alternative approaches to prevent offending, andidentifies the techniques necessary to establish an evidence base to influence decisions and promote changeThere is no quick fix to youth offending. Policy makers and practitioners need to critically examine the available evidence and select responses that are most likely to be effective for reducing offending, recognising the multiple contexts in which young people experience risk. This work provides the necessary information and promotes further development of the evidence base so that youth justice systems can better meet the needs of young Australians.

"The lessons in this book remind us that we can and that we must do better, for the sake of our children, their futures, and the sake of our nation. . . . This volume is a call to action, and I encourage everyone who reads it to take steps to ensure that all America's children are given an equal chance to succeed. We must all work together to replace the cradle-to-prison pipeline with a pipeline to responsible, productive adulthood." From the Foreword by Marian Wright Edelman, JD, President and founder, Children's Defense Fund, Washington, DC "Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice appears at a critical time, when promising juvenile justice reforms are underway in so many jurisdictions across the United States. Sherman and Jacobs, and their impressive array of expert authors, fill a significant gap in the literature, making the current body of juvenile justice research and experience accessible to policy makers, researchers, and funders, and doing so through a practical and positive lens." Patrick McCarthy, President and Chief Executive Officer, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD "Most people have narrow views of what it means to be a delinquent youth. In Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, Sherman and Jacobs have diligently collected essays from the top experts in the juvenile justice field who tell an empirically based and powerful narrative of who is really in the delinquency system. As this book makes clear, until we ask and answer the right questions, we will remain unable to help the youth most in need." Alexander Busansky, President, The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Oakland, CA A comprehensive reference presenting a rehabilitative, youth- and community-centered vision of juvenile justice Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice brings together experts in juvenile justice, child development, and public health to explore the intersections between juvenile justice and needed development of programs and policies that look out for the health and well-being of the youth who enter this system. This timely book provides a usable framework for imagining juvenile justice systems that emphasize the welfare of juveniles, achieved primarily through connections within their communities. A must-read for professionals working in juvenile courts and within juvenile justice agencies, Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice reflects both the considerable advances and the challenges currently evident in the juvenile justice system, with an emphasis on the development and implementation of policies that can succeed in building a new generation of educated young people able to embrace their potential and build successful futures.

How can evidence-based skills and practices reduce re-offending, support desistance, and encourage service user engagement during supervision in criminal justice settings? How can those who work with service users in these settings apply these skills and practices? This book is the first to bring together international research on skills and practices in probation and youth justice, while exploring the wider contexts that affect their implementation in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Wide-ranging in scope, it also covers effective approaches to working with diverse groups such as ethnic minority service users, women and young people.

The exciting new edition of this well-loved textbook offers a fully expanded and revised account and analysis of the youth justice system in the UK, taking into account and fully addressing the significant changes that have taken place since the second edition in 2007. The book maintains its critical analysis of the underlying assumptions and ideas behind youth justice, as well as its policy and practice, laying bare the inadequacies, inconsistencies and injustices of practice in the UK. This edition will offer an important update in light of intervening changes, as reflected in a change of government and shifting patterns of interventions and outcomes. This book will be an important resource for youth justice practitioners and will also be essential to students taking courses in youth crime and youth justice.

Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks. Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century. It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.

What knowledge and skills do you need to practise effectively as a professional within the youth justice system? What values should inform your work with children and young people subject to criminal justice sanctions? These are the central questions addressed by the editors and contributors in this comprehensive new text. The Youth Justice Handbook provides an essential resource for practitioners in youth justice as well as those who are studying the subject as part of their training or an academic course. Its aim is to equip practitioners in youth justice and the wider children’s workforce with an understanding of key theoretical concepts from a range of disciplines that might inform and enhance their work. It encourages a critical interrogation of the ideas that underpin practice by drawing on social constructionist approaches to issues such as ‘child development’, ‘crime’ and ‘punishment’ and related concepts. It provides a descriptive account of current practice in areas such as community corrections and incarceration, examining the evidence base for this and suggesting – where appropriate – alternative strategies. The key objective of the Handbook is to provide students with the confidence to critically reflect on the ideas and debates that currently influence the work undertaken with young people as well as those that may shape practice in the future. By equipping them with the basic skills of analysis and an understanding of key themes and developments, it aims to further promote their progression as reflective practitioners and autonomous learners. The Youth Justice Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach, and contains chapters from leading experts in the field which draw on original research and practical experience of working in the area. It is divided into five parts: • Contexts of childhood and youth • Research, knowledge and evidence in youth justice • Policy, possibilities and penal realities in youth justice • Reflective practice • Widening contexts

"An evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy can go a long way toward ensuring that the best available research is considered in decisions that bear on the public good. However, the term "evidence-based" is characterized by a great deal of rhetoric. Indeed, there remains a marked disjuncture between calls for "evidence-based" policy and an understanding of what it means for policy to be "evidence-based." The calls for evidence-based policy nonetheless provide a powerful foundation for propelling a movement toward bringing about rational, cost-effective, and humane policies for the betterment of society. This handbook showcases the state of research on evidence-based crime and justice policy and the challenges that impede its creation and use. The volume has three core objectives: to promote new and productive ways to think about evidence-based policy; to demonstrate how research can contribute to and guide evidence-based policy in juvenile justice, criminal justice, and alternatives to system responses; and to identify strategies that can increase reliance on evidence-based policy. To meet these objectives, each chapter is guided by several central questions: What do we know about evidence-based policy and practice in crime and justice? How can we improve knowledge of evidence-based policy and practice? How can we promote more use of evidence-based policy and practice? Taken as a whole, the volume emphasizes the critical need for policies that are grounded in high-quality research, that address critical research gaps, and that fully acknowledge the limitations of what extant research can do to inform policy decisions"--