Diversion in youth justice is a subject of enduring interest. It concerns the processes by which decisions are made about whether or not to prosecute young offenders, and this book explores the continuing debates and historical developments which shape these processes. The treatment of young offenders is a contentious subject, and this book provides a comprehensive review of out of court decision-making in the context of wider arguments about how we should deal with the crimes of the young. This book follows a broadly historical structure, exploring the development of ideas and approaches to agency decision-making at the point of prosecution. This leads to the identification of a number of distinctive ‘models’ of diversion, reflecting both specific periods of time and particular philosophies of intervention with young people in trouble with the law. Based on this classification, this book explores the implications for wider debates about childhood, crime and punishment and how these relate to theories of social control. This, in turn, leads to the conclusion that diversionary ideas and practices act as a kind of barometer for wider developments in the governance of youth. This is one of the very few books that focuses exclusively on diversion as a feature of youth justice, and it provides a range of original and contemporary insights into this subject area which remains of considerable interest in this field, both academically and in practice. The ideas outlined here will contribute to new thinking in youth criminology, as the discipline responds to a prolonged period of apparent liberalisation in the treatment of young offenders which has yet to be fully understood or properly theorised.

This book provides an empirically grounded, theoretically informed account of recent changes to the youth justice system in England and Wales, focusing on the introduction of elements of restorative justice into the heart of the criminal justice system, and the implementation of referral orders and youth offender panels. Taken together, this amounts to the most radical overhaul of the youth justice system in the last half century, fundamentally changing the underlying values of the system away from an 'exclusionary punitive justice' and towards an 'inclusionary restorative justice'. The book explores the implications of these changes by using the lens of a detailed study of the implementation of referral orders and youth offender panels to explore wider issues about youth justice policy and the integration of restorative justice principles. It draws upon the findings of an in-depth study of the pilots established prior to the national rollout of referral orders in April 2002. The book will be essential reading not only for those involved in the task of implementing the new youth justice, but others with an interest in the criminal justice system and in restorative justice who need to know about the far reaching reforms to the youth justice system and their impact.

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.

This book explores the journey of young people through a Secure Training Centre and, more generally, the criminal justice system in the UK. It examines the extent to which young people have been failed by the system at every stage of their lives, with incarceration used as a means of removing ‘the problem’ from society. To explore this process, the authors utilise an integrated theoretical framework to develop a new rehabilitative approach focused on developing positive outcomes for young people. The book deploys a social impact measurement methodology to evaluate the experience and outcomes of youth justice interventions at a Secure Training Centre. Such an approach provides a fresh perspective on the youth justice debate which has traditionally utilised outcome data to measure immediate impact relating to recidivism and is therefore not focused on the young person holistically. Using a social impact framework to evaluate youth justice, underpinned by an integrated theoretical framework, allows for assessment to be made which place the young person at the centre of evaluation.

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.

Young Offenders provides one of the most in-depth studies of young males seeking, if often failing, to find a life beyond crime and punishment. Through rich interview data of young offenders over a ten year period, this book explores the complex personal and situational factors that promote and derail the desistance process.

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.