Many students learn about criminal justice from introductory texts that are crowded with descriptions of criminal justice systems across the country in an attempt to reach a national market. Examples of police departments, court structures, and corrections agencies are drawn from major urban areas that bear little resemblance to the majority of jurisdictions within North Carolina. These texts contain current events of major media interest but not those most relevant to North Carolina. The majority of graduates from colleges and universities in North Carolina with criminal justice degrees will work in North Carolina's criminal justice system, yet the typical curriculum provides very little information about that particular system. North Carolina's Criminal Justice System surveys criminal justice in the state, including crime patterns and trends, the state constitution, state and local lawmaking, prosecution and defense, police agencies, court structure and criminal procedure, corrections, juvenile justice, and victim services. The book also covers the presence of federal law enforcement in North Carolina. Knepper explains how each aspect of North Carolina's system developed as it did, and how North Carolina's system developed as it did, and how North Carolina's institutions and practices compare with the rest of the nation. It also charts African-American firsts, from the first black correctional administrator to the first black justice on the state supreme court. North Carolina's Criminal Justice System provides essential information for anyone planning a career in the state's criminal justice system, and for professionals currently working within an agency who could benefit from an understanding of related agencies and services. It is specifically designed to provide NC criminal justice students with essential knowledge of the state's system. The book can be used as a main text or as a supplement. A teacher's manual is also available.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

The Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act: N.C. Juvenile Delinquency Process flowchart is a visual resource that illustrates the many pathways that a juvenile delinquency case can follow in North Carolina. The flowchart incorporates the new legal provisions under the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA) that expand juvenile court jurisdiction to include most offenses committed by youth at ages 16 and 17 as well as new mechanisms for transferring a subset of those cases to superior court. Full discussion of all the new JJRA provisions can be found in the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Implementation Guide.

"Author Anne M. Corbin examines the unique role of defense counsel in juvenile courts, demonstrating the commonplace presence of role conflict, even among defenders in jurisdictions that clearly define this role, and showing the nature, extent, and impact of that role conflict on juvenile justice system stakeholders, processes, and policy"--

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.

This book analyzes North Carolina's criminal law on self-defense and other defenses involving defensive force, such as defense of others and defense of habitation. It explains the rules governing the use of defensive force and includes extensive citations to relevant North Carolina case law. The book also discusses issues that commonly arise in the trial of self-defense cases, including evidentiary issues, burdens of proof, and jury instructions.