At a time when the nation is focused on devising new responses to street crime and on reforming the juvenile justice system, this book brings together in a single volume, current and emerging perspectives on the control of crime by and against children and youth. Young Victims, Young Offenders provides you with an overview of established and emerging practices in treating juvenile offenders and adults who prey on children and youth. This book explores the nature and causes of criminal offenses committed by and against juveniles. While children and youth show up statistically as offenders, they also figure disproportionately as victims. The contributing authors consider both of these aspects as they discuss current programs for the treatment of youths who commit or are victimized by criminal offenses. Topics of a wide range are addressed in Young Victims, Young Offenders for people--like you-- who work with our nation’s youth. A sampling of topics includes: How states address child maltreatment through reporting laws and special courtroom procedures Associations between selected psychosocial variables and chronic delinquency Implications of mandatory Child Abuse Reporting Laws on treating offenders The success of diversion during a 20-year period in a youth service bureau Clinical techniques in the treatment of juvenile sex offenders A study on the effectiveness of an intervention program in Iowa for youthful offenders This book is useful for the pre-service student pursuing course work in juvenile delinquency, correctional counseling, probation, parole, and social work. At the in-service level, correctional counselors, probation officers, parole officers, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, correctional administrators, and child care workers can find much to challenge and enhance their effectiveness in their work with young victims and offenders.

At a time when the nation is focused on devising new responses to street crime and on reforming the juvenile justice system, this book brings together in a single volume, current and emerging perspectives on the control of crime by and against children and youth. Young Victims, Young Offenders provides you with an overview of established and emerging practices in treating juvenile offenders and adults who prey on children and youth.This book explores the nature and causes of criminal offenses committed by and against juveniles. While children and youth show up statistically as offenders, they also figure disproportionately as victims. The contributing authors consider both of these aspects as they discuss current programs for the treatment of youths who commit or are victimized by criminal offenses.Topics of a wide range are addressed in Young Victims, Young Offenders for people--like you-- who work with our nation's youth. A sampling of topics includes: How states address child maltreatment through reporting laws and special courtroom procedures Associations between selected psychosocial variables and chronic delinquency Implications of mandatory Child Abuse Reporting Laws on treating offenders The success of diversion during a 20-year period in a youth service bureau Clinical techniques in the treatment of juvenile sex offenders A study on the effectiveness of an intervention program in Iowa for youthful offendersThis book is useful for the pre-service student pursuing course work in juvenile delinquency, correctional counseling, probation, parole, and social work. At the in-service level, correctional counselors, probation officers, parole officers, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, correctional administrators, and child care workers can find much to challenge and enhance their effectiveness in their work with young victims and offenders.

Grounded in the latest clinical and developmental knowledge, this book brings together leading authorities to examine the critical issues that arise when children and adolescents become involved in the justice system. Chapters explore young people’s capacities, competencies, and special vulnerabilities as victims, witnesses, and defendants. Key topics include the reliability of children’s abuse disclosures, eyewitness testimony, interviews, and confessions; the evolving role of the expert witness; the psychological impact of trauma and of legal involvement; factors that shape jurors’ perceptions of children; and what works in rehabilitating juvenile offenders. Policies and practices that are not supported by science are identified, and approaches to improving them are discussed.

This book documents the state of the art on Victim-Offender Mediation with youth offenders in 15 European nations (Austria, Belgium, England and Wales, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden). It provides an up-do date review of current theory and practice and presents a critical discussion of problems and benefits which may help guide future policy decisions and applications. The book informs both those who are interested in evaluating the current state of affairs of Victim-Offender Mediation with youth offenders in Europe, and those who would like to promote Victim-Offender Mediation in their own countries. The common format used in each chapter facilitates comparison across countries. Per country, five areas of investigation are explored and discussed: norms and legislation allowing for the implementation of victim-offender mediation programmes; values and theoretical frameworks of victim-offender mediation; organizational structure of victim-offender mediation services; professional characteristics of mediators; benefits, potential problems, and criticisms of current practice.

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report is the fourth edition of a comprehensive report on juvenile crime, victimization, and the juvenile justice system. The report consists of the most requested information on juveniles and the juvenile justice system in the U.S. Developed by the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of young offenders and victims, and what hap-pens to those who enter the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report offers-to Congress, state legislators, other state and local policy-makers, educators, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens-empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of juvenile crime and victimization and about the justice system's response. The juvenile justice system must react to the law-violating behaviors of youth in a manner that not only protects the community and holds youth account-able but also enhances youth's ability to live productively and responsibly in the community. The system must also intervene in the lives of abused and neglected children who lack safe and nurturing environments. To respond to these complex issues, juvenile justice practitioners, policy-makers, and the public must have access to useful and accurate information about the system and the youth the system serves. At times, the information needed is not available or, when it does exist, it is often too scattered or inaccessible to be useful. This report bridges that gap by pulling together the most requested information on juveniles and the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report draws on numerous national data collections to address the specific information needs of those involved with the juvenile justice system. The report presents important and, at times, complex information using clear, nontechnical writing and easy-to-understand graphics and tables. It is designed as a series of briefing papers on specific topics, short sections designed to be read separately from other parts of the report. The material presented here represents the most reliable information available for the 2010 data year on juvenile offending and victimization and the juvenile justice system. Given the breadth of material covered in this report, a data-year cutoff had to be established. We elected 2010 as a common anchoring point because all the major data sets required for the report were current through 2010 at the time we began writing. Although some newer data are now available, the pat-terns displayed in this report remain accurate.

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.