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.

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.

As juvenile justice dominates the headlines, the time has come to reexamine the history of this controversial institution. In Transforming Juvenile Justice, Steven L. Schlossman traces the evolution of the idea that young lawbreakers, or potential lawbreakers, merit special treatment. He closely examines the Milwaukee Juvenile Court and the Wisconsin State Reform School to reveal how Progressive theory--the belief that rehabilitation and careful oversight should replace punishment of delinquent youth--played out in practice. Since its original publication in 1977, Schlossman's history of the juvenile justice system contributed to the debate on the delinquency problem and remains a landmark study today. In an engaging new introduction for this fresh edition of his classic, Schlossman reveals his sources of inspiration and relates his discovery of the rare records that offered an exclusive glimpse into the Milwaukee court's day-to-day operations. His account of the changing definitions of delinquency and reformers' attempts to remedy it offers insights on dilemmas that continue to plague American society.

What should we do with teenagers who commit crimes? In this book, two leading scholars in law and adolescent development argue that juvenile justice should be grounded in the best available psychological science, which shows that adolescence is a distinctive state of cognitive and emotional development. Although adolescents are not children, they are also not fully responsible adults.

Recriminalizing Delinquency examines attempts to transfer jurisdiction over juveniles accused of violent crime to criminal court.

Of indorsements [sic] of work incorporated in bill -- Practical results -- Come conclusions of criminology -- Remedy -- Morality chief element in education -- Inmates of institutions should be studied thoroughly -- The same training for normal and abnormal -- Palliative measures not sufficient -- About three-fourths are reformed -- Hopeless cases very few -- Actual conditions of weakling classes -- Study of causes first, then remedy -- the study of criminals should begin with the young -- The child inclined toward evil -- Younger criminals in court. Study of juvenile criminals: some physical defects ; Decay of family life and increase of child crime ; Young criminals and heredity ; Young murders by nature ; Little girl assassins ; Cases of girl incendiaries ; Reform of juvenile criminals ; Reform of wayward youth ; Unruly, vagabond, and criminal children ; A reformatory as a laboratory ; Statistics of child suicide ; Post-mortems of suicides ; Statistics of juvenile crime ; Reformatory statistics in the United States ; Statistics of young criminals in the United States ; Statistics of prisoners in the United States ; Psychophysical and anthropometrical instruments of precision ; A study of Emile Zola as illustrating method ; More pleasure than pain the world ; A sadistic murder ; Stigmata of degeneration ; anarchism ; Questionnaire ; Recent literature on child crime, suicide, and on stigmata of degeneration ; Resolution adopted by the Sixth International Congress of Criminal Anthropology or Europe as to the treatment of juvenile crime -- Pathosocial, educational, and psychophysical works by author -- Index.

In shifting responsibility to the counties for hundreds of California¿s youth offenders, the state recognized that its juvenile justice system cannot be reformed without radical change. Though prompted by cost concerns, the realignment of responsibilities to the counties was the right policy move. Many counties have demonstrated that they can provide programs and treatment to youth offenders who need to turn their lives around in settings that allow them to reintegrate more successfully into their communities. Contents of this report: Juvenile Justice in California; Realignment Leadership and Oversight; Juvenile Offenders Remaining at the State Level; Conclusion; The Study Process; Appendices. Sidebars and Charts.