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.

MOVING THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT MESSAGE: TURNING A VAGUE IDEA INTO A MORAL IMPERATIVE Peter L. Benson and Karen Pittman THE CONTAGION OF AN IDEA In the past fifteen years, countless programs, agencies, funding initiatives, profes sionals, and volunteers have embraced the term "youth development. " Linked more by shared passion than by formal membership or credentials, these people and places have contributed to a wave of energy and activity not unlike that of a social movement, with a multitude of people "on the ground" connecting to a set of ideas that give sustenance, support, and value to increasingly innovative efforts to build competent, successful, and healthy youth. There are several particularly interesting dimensions to this movement. First, the youth development idea has the potential to draw people and organizations to gether across many sectors. Conferences and initiatives using youth development language attract increasingly eclectic audiences, bringing together national youth organizations, schools, city, county, and state agencies, police and juvenile jus tice workers, clergy, and committed citizens. Perhaps embedded in the youth de velopment idea is a philosophy or a "way" that has created an intellectual and/or spiritual home for actors across many settings. However this happens, it is clear that one of the powerful social consequences of the youth development idea is a connecting of the dots-the weaving within and across city, county, state, and of a tapestry of new relationships.

Traditionally juvenile justice is problem-focused - youth are classified by the seriousness of the offense, the level of risk to the public and their service needs and treatment, such as behaviour modification, cognitive therapies and interventions, aims to reduce the effects of these problems. It is designed to protect the public by incarcerating or closely supervising the youth involved. Some practitioners are adopting a different perspective - focussing on what is right with youth rather than what is wrong. This report summarizes a study of six juvenile justice programs that are using a strength-based, positive youth development perspective.

This edited text focuses on positive approaches to youth development that are rapidly supplanting the traditional deficit-oriented, problem-reduction approach. The book addresses the question; what does it take to create a community that will promote the positive opportunities that can optimize the development of all young people? The book draws together the perspectives of top names and programs in positive youth development, thus assuring readers of authoritative, cutting-edge coverage.

"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.

The first volume of this SpringerBrief presents a series of papers compiled from a conference about how after-school programs may be implemented to promote positive youth development (PYD) hosted by Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. This volume reviews the importance of after-school programs for PYD and discusses key components of effective after-school programs. It also discusses issues related to the evaluation and measurement of quality in after-school programs. In addition, the brief presents suggestions for how researchers, policy makers, and practitioners can move the field forward and maximize the potential of after-school time and programs for promoting positive youth development for children and adolescents. Topics featured in this brief include: The history of the relationship between after-school programs and positive youth development. Specific features of programs that are important for advancing positive youth development. Issues in and approaches to measuring quality in after-school programs. The Quality, Engagement, Skills, Transfer (QuEST) model and its use for measuring effective after-school programs. A case study evaluation of the Girls on the Run program. After-School Programs to Promote Positive Youth Development, Volume 1, is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.