This page is about the nation's juvenile population who are involved (or about to be involved) with criminal justice agencies or social system affiliates. It begins with a glossary of terms in Juvenile Law, and then provides some short answers to typical questions. Toward the end of this page, there is an alphabetical list of Internet resources that may be helpful to people researching juvenile topics.

JUVENILE LAW: A GLOSSARY OF TERMS

ABANDONMENT-The most common legal grounds for termination of parental rights, also a form of child abuse in most states. Sporadic visits, a few phone calls, or birthday cards are not sufficient to maintain parental rights. Fathers who manifest indifference toward a pregnant mother are also viewed as abandoning the child when it is born.

ABUSE--Term for acts or omissions by a legal caretaker. Encompasses a broad range of acts, and usually requires proof of intent.

ADJUDICATION--The phase of a delinquency hearing similar to a "trial" in adult criminal court, except that juveniles have no right to a jury trial, a public trial, or bail.  ROR, or Release on Recognizance, is never used in juvenile systems.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE--Any of the processes involving enforcement of care, custody, or support orders by an executive agency rather than by courts or judges.

ADOPTION--A legal relationship between two people not biologically related, usually terminating the rights of biological parents, and usually with a trial "live-in" period. Once an adoption is finalized, the records are sealed and only the most compelling interests will enable disclosure of documents.  Since 1997, most states have tried to move toward a system of permanent, adoptive placements, rather than letting children languish in foster homes.

BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD RULE--Legal doctrine establishing court as determiner of best environment for raising child. An alternative to the parens patriae doctrine.

BREED v. JONES (1975)--Case allowing second prosecution in adult court for conviction in juvenile court, based on idea that first conviction was a "civil" matter, thus not protected by the 5th Amendment.

CASE LAW--Law established by the history of judicial decisions in cases decided by judges, as opposed to common law which is developed from the history of judicial decisions and social customs.

CHILD PROTECTION ACTION--The filing of legal papers by a child welfare agency when its investigation has turned up evidence of child abuse. This is a civil, rather than criminal, charge designed to take preventive action (like appointment of a guardian ad litem) for at-risk children before abuse occurs.

CHILD SUPPORT--Legislated via 42 U.S.C. Sections 651-669, and otherwise known as Title IV-D, Title IV-A, Title IV-E, or Non IV-D which leaves most details up to the states, but mandates certain things states must do. "Four dee" agencies are the state institutions responsible for enforcing child support obligations. To continue to receive federal funds. states must process at least 50% of its paternity cases.

CHILD VICTIMS' AND CHILD WITNESS' RIGHTS--A 1990 federal law allowing courts to take extraordinary steps in protecting the emotional health of any child called to testify in a courtroom.

CHINS (CHild In Need of Supervision)--Term applied to status offenders adjudicated in juvenile court.

CIVIL PROTECTION ORDER--A form of protective custody in which a child welfare or police agency order an adult suspected of abuse to leave the home.

CUSTODIAL CONFINEMENT--Court order for placement in a secure facility, separate from adults, for the rehabilitation of a juvenile delinquent.

DELINQUENCY PROCEEDING--Court action to officially declare someone a juvenile delinquent. A "delinquent" is defined as under the age of majority who has been convicted in juvenile court of something that would be classified as a crime in adult court.

DEPENDENT--Anyone under the care of someone else. A child ceases to be a dependent when they reach the age of emancipation which varies by state law, and even then, some states allow for continued treatment as a dependent.

DISPOSITION--Phase of delinquency proceeding similar to "sentencing" phase of adult trial. The judge must consider alternative, innovative, and individualized sentences rather than imposing standard sentences.

DIVERSION--An alternative to trial decided upon at intake to refer the child to counseling or other social services; applicable to about 50% of all cases.

EMANCIPATION--Independence of a minor from his or her parents before reaching age of majority (18). Usually requires court permission, but practices vary, except that all jurisdictions recognize marriage as the equivalent of emancipation. Usually requires parental consent, but again, practices vary.

EQUAL PROTECTION--14th Amendment clause requiring government to treat similarly situated people the same or have good reason for treating them differently. Compelling reasons are considered to exist for treating children differently.

FAMILY IMMUNITY DOCTRINE--Legal doctrine preventing unemancipated children from suing their parents.

FAMILY PURPOSE DOCTRINE--Legal doctrine holding parents liable for injuries caused by a child's negligent driving or other actions.

FOSTER CARE--Temporary care funded via Federal-State pass-through and arranged by a child welfare agency in order to allow receipt of adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical treatment for anyone raising a child that is not their own.

GUARDIAN AD LITEM--Phrase meaning "For the Proceeding" referring to adults who look after the welfare of a child and represent their legal interests; usually volunteers who are also officers of the court. If the GAL is not an attorney, they must hire one for the child, but some states are starting to allow GALs to do the actual legal work. GALs are also responsible for medical care of the child.

GUARDIANSHIP--Court order giving an individual or organization legal authority over a child. A guardian of the person is usually an individual and the child is called a ward. A guardian of the estate is usually an organization, like a bank, which manages the property and assets of a child's inheritance. Guardians are usually compensated for their services.

ILLEGITIMACY--Being born to unmarried parents. The law assumes legitimacy via a married mother's husband, whether or not this is the true father. Illegitimacy status limits inheritance rights.

IN LOCO PARENTIS--Teachers, administrators, and babysitters who are viewed as having some temporary parental rights & obligations.

IN RE GAULT (1967)--Case that determined the Constitution requires a separate juvenile justice system with certain standard procedures and protections, but still not as many as in adult systems.

INTAKE--Procedure prior to preliminary hearing in which a group of people (intake officer, police, probation, social worker, parent and child) talk and decide whether to handle the case formally or informally.

JUDGMENT--Any official decision or finding of a judge or administrative agency hearing officer upon the respective rights and claims of parties to an action; also known as a decree or order.

KENT v. U.S. (1966)--Case requiring a special hearing before any transfers to adult court.

MATERNAL PREFERENCE RULE--Legal doctrine granting mothers custodial preference after a divorce.

NEGLECT--Parental failure to provide a child with basic necessities when able to do so. Encompasses a variety of forms of abuse that do not require the element of intent.

PARENS PATRIAE--Legal doctrine establishing "parental" role of state over welfare of its citizens, especially its children. A 19th century idea first articulated in Prince v. Massachusetts (1944). The case of Deshaney v. Winnebago County (1989)limited the extent by which government can exercise parens patriae power.

PAROLE--Release of a juvenile delinquent from custodial confinement prior to expiration of sentence; sometimes called aftercare.

PATERNITY--Result of lawsuit forcing a reluctant man to assume obligations of fatherhood. Blood and DNA tests showing a 98 or 99 percent likelihood are the standard. State laws vary widely in terms of statutes of limitations and when paternity actions will not be allowed (estoppel).

PLEADING--In juvenile court, a plea of "not guilty" will move the case to adjudication, and a plea of "guilty" or "nolo contendere" will result in waiver of the right to trial. State procedures vary widely in how intelligent and voluntary pleas are accepted.

PRELIMINARY HEARING--The bringing of a juvenile before a magistrate or judge in which charges are formally presented. Similar to an arraignment in adult court, and also called "advisory hearings" or "initial appearances" in some state juvenile justice systems.

PREVENTIVE DETENTION--Keeping a juvenile in custody or under a different living arrangement until the time when an adjudication can take place. Upheld in Schall v. Martin (1984), but the right to speedy trial requires the dropping of charges if an unreasonable amount of time is spent in preventive detention.

PROBATION--A period of time, not to exceed two years, in which an adjudicated delinquent is released back into society and supervised as to their conformity to certain conditions. Probation orders impose a wide variety of conditions. Unlike adults, juveniles cannot reject probation and request incarceration.

PROTECTIVE CUSTODY--Emergency, temporary custody by a child welfare agency, police agency, or hospital for reasons of immanent danger to the child. A hearing must be held for the benefit of the parents within a few days.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PARENT DOCTRINE--Legal doctrine granting custody to the parent whom the child feels the greatest emotional attachment to.

RESTITUTION--A disposition requiring a defendant to pay damages to a victim. The law prohibits making restitution a condition of receiving probation. Poor families cannot be deprived of probation simply because they are too poor to afford restitution. Some states do not allow families to pay restitution.

RULE OF SIXTEEN--Federal and state laws that prohibit anyone under age 16 from employment.

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION ACT of 1977--Legislation prohibiting production, transportation, sale, or possession of child pornography, including via computer modem. Penalties of life imprisonment in cases of selling or buying.

STANFORD v. KENTUCKY (1989)--Case in which it was determined constitutional to execute juveniles between the ages of 16-18, but unconstitutional if they committed crimes while under age 16. Won by a narrow majority, as in the 1988 case of Thompson v. Oklahoma which relied upon "standards of decency".

STATUS OFFENSE--An activity illegal when engaged in by a minor, but not when done by an adult. Examples include truancy, curfew, running away, or habitually disobeying parents.

STEPPARENT--A spouse of a biological parent who has no legal rights or duties to the child other than those which have been voluntarily accepted.

SURROGATE PARENT--A parent who provided an egg, sperm, or uterus with an intent of giving the child up for adoption to specific parties.

TENDER YEARS DOCTRINE--Legal doctrine that unless the mother is "unfit", very young children should be placed in custody with their mother following a divorce.

TERMINATION HEARINGS--Process for legally severing the parent-child relationship. Initiated by the filing of a petition in family court, and almost always brought forth by a child welfare agency. Requires a finding of "unfitness" and a determination of the best interests of the child.

UNFIT PARENT--A temporary or permanent termination of parental rights in the best interest of the child usually for reasons of abandonment, abuse, or neglect, but also including mental illness, addiction, or criminal record. Poverty alone and character flaws are prohibited by law from being indicators of "unfitness".

WAIVERS OF JURISDICTION--A court action "certifying" the youth as eligible for trial as an adult because it appears rehabilitation is unlikely or the crime was particularly atrocious.

ESSAY:
Has there been an increase in juvenile ruthlessness?

    Although numbers can be obtained from different sources (see Related Mega-Site: Crime Data), it is generally agreed that about two and a half million persons under the age of eighteen are arrested by police every year in the United States. Many more cases go unreported by citizens or unfounded by police. Most juvenile crime is increasingly committed at younger ages and frequently marked by brutality and gratuitous violence. In the last 15 years, the number of juvenile offenders under the age of 15 increased 94%. For the same period, below are specific trends given FBI counts:
 

Simple Assault --- up 98% Aggravated Assault --- up 64% Carrying a Weapon --- up 50% Murder --- up 39% Robbery --- up 37% Auto Theft --- up 17% Arson --- up 17% Vandalism --- up 15% Larceny-Theft --- up 11% Burglary --- down 17% Rape --- down 20%

    The numbers do show an increase in generalized, interpersonal violence, but they cannot shed light on the qualitative nature of "ruthlessness," a term that entered popular vocabulary after the "wilding" spree in 1989, when a gang of New York youths brutalized a woman jogger in Central Park. However, new, daring offense patterns have emerged -- carjacking, foreign tourist murder, pizza delivery murder, school shootings, and mall shootings, to name just a few. School violence, for example, is still a rare event, but some surveys report that about 270,000 guns are taken to school each day. Every year, teachers report more and more incidents of verbal and physical abuse, as well as disruptive behavior. Likewise, managers of fast-food establishments that regularly hire young people report more incidents of unruliness and workplace violence. An interesting temporal pattern exists with juvenile crime, in that it occurs between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (the so-called "Danger Zone") which is between when school lets out and parents get home.

    The good news is that each generation seems to be getting more lawful.  According to Howe & Strauss (2000), the so-called "millennials" are much more non-criminal and conventional.  However, they are not without their problems, but every generational cohort has had problems.  Below is a listing of those cohorts.

• 1901 - 1924 the G.I. generation

• 1925 - 1942 the silent generation

• 1943 - 1960 the baby boomers

• 1961 - 1978 the generation Xers

• 1979 - 1989 the millennials

    The millennials have the following characteristics: other than being somewhat well-traveled, they have lived sheltered lives.  Not that those lives haven't been busy, but they have been coddled by parents and teachers (in a "Baby on Board" to "Everyone Gets an Award" environment).  They require frequent positive reinforcement and are a real pain to teachers because they are always bugging teachers about how to get an A (nothing less will do).  They're not really interested in "earning" a A, only with the justice (or litigation) issues associated with why they "deserve" an A.  They are fuzzy on certain things like intellectual property (plagiarism is OK to some extent), but it's not that they are unethical, but that they easily spot loopholes in everything that doesn't have ironclad, specific guidelines for it.  They have difficulty taking criticism.  They love technology (and expect Powerpoint).  They tend to have a herd mentality and prefer group rather than individual activities.    

    So why then should "ruthlessness" matter? How would it be defined? Is it only media hype? After all, crimes by juveniles have always appeared to lack motive, to be random, to be sometimes filled with a hatefulness that defies reason, to be part of senseless "exploratory" adolescent behavior. One cannot generalize from isolated incidents of rare events, but it seems that whether out of compassion or concern for the world of tomorrow, at least some inquiry should begin into juvenile mental states and increasingly violent behavior.

What causal factors contribute to juvenile problem behavior?

    Over the years, criminologists have put forth a wide variety of motives for what causes crime. People who deal with young people cite the following root conditions: poverty, family factors, the environment, media influence, and declining social morality. These will be taken up in order:

Poverty

    Although it is considered passé to say poverty causes crime, the fact is that nearly 22 percent of children under the age of eighteen live in poverty. Poverty, in absolute terms, is more common for children than for any other group in society. Ageism, they say, is the last frontier in the quest for economic equality. Adolescents from lower socioeconomic status (SES) families regularly commit more violence than youth from higher SES levels. Social isolation and economic stress are two main products of poverty, which has long been associated with a number of D-words like disorganization, dilapidation, deterioration, and despair. Pervasive poverty undermines the relevance of school and traditional routes of upward mobility. The way police patrol poverty areas like an occupying army only reinforces the idea that society is the enemy whom they should hate. Poverty breeds conditions that are conducive to crime.

Family Factors

    One of the most reliable indicators of juvenile crime is the proportion of fatherless children. The primary role of fathers in our society is to provide economic stability, act as role models, and alleviate the stress of mothers. Marriage has historically been the great civilizer of male populations, channeling predatory instincts into provider/protector impulses. Economically, marriage has always been the best way to multiply capital, with the assumption being that girls from poorer families better themselves by marrying upward. Then, of course, there are all those values of love, honor, cherish, and obey encapsulated in the marriage tradition. Probably the most important thing that families impart to children is the emphasis upon individual accountability and responsibility in the forms of honesty, commitment, loyalty, respect and work ethic.

    There may be other ways to accomplish these things, but the traditional vehicle for them, marriage, has been in sharp decline over the last four decades. In 1996, the number of children being raised in single-parent families rose to about 18 million. Divorce accounted for most of this, and it is generally accepted that about 50% of American marriages end in divorce. The American divorce rate is the highest of any known society in history. Another contributing factor is the number of out-of-wedlock children. This rate is running at about 33% of all childbirths, and at a higher 68% for African American babies (32% for Latinos, 21% for whites). Political pundits claim these figures show "the breakdown of the family structure," and put words like "unwed" and "mother" together to create convenient scapegoats, but social scientists argue against any automatic conclusions about the effects of family breakdown.

    Most of the broken home literature, for example, shows only weak or trivial effects, like skipping school or home delinquency. Another area, the desistance literature, shows only that children from two-parent families age-out of crime earlier. In fact, there is more evidence supportive of the hypothesis that a stepparent in the home increases delinquency, or that abuse and neglect in fully-intact families lead to a cycle of violence. To complicate matters, there are significant gender, race, and SES interaction effects. Females from broken homes commit certain offenses while males from broken homes commit other kinds of offenses. Few conclusions can be reached about African American males, but tentative evidence suggests stepparenting can be of benefit to them. SES differences actually show that the broken home is less important in producing delinquency among lower-class youth than youth from higher social classes. Most research results are mixed, and no clear causal family factors have emerged to explain the correlation between fatherlessness and crime, but it is certainly unfair to blame single mothers, their parenting skills, or their economic condition for what are obviously more complex social problems.

The Environment

    Unless we are willing to believe that testosterone (a male stimulation-seeking hormone) causes crime, the only feasible explanations left are environmental ones. The heredity-environment debate in explaining juvenile crime is shaped by divided opinions about what factors are really important: genetic tendencies, birth complications, and brain chemicals, on one side; and being a victim of abuse, witnessing domestic battering, and learned behaviors, on the other side. The idea that all behavior is learned behavior is associated with environmental explanations. Sure, everyone has a potential for violence, but we learn how to do it (in all its different forms) from observing others do it. In fact, most of us are suckers for observing violence, glamorizing it to the point where we like more and different forms of it everyday, in the news, on TV shows, in action movies. So when you're talking about reducing the need to see violence on TV, you're really talking biology or psychology. The study of environmental factors, on the other hand, is concerned primarily with social considerations. While violence may be part of everyone's behavioral repertoire, the temptations (triggers, cues) to do it are embedded (lodged, locked, firmly put in place) with social networks (relationships and situations) that more or less make this kind of behavior seem acceptable at the moment.

    The unfortunate truth is that, in many places, there are a growing number of irresistible temptations and opportunities for juveniles to use violence. Brute, coercive force has become an acceptable substitute, even a preferred substitute, for ways to resolve conflicts and satisfy needs. Think of it as the schoolyard bully who says "Meet me in the parking lot at 4:30". Under circumstances like these, the peer pressure and reward systems are so arranged that fighting seems like the only way out.

    Now think for a moment about the crucial importance of peer groups: whether there are people who would respect you for standing up to fight, or whether there are people important to you that would definitely not approve of your fighting. What environmental learning theorists are saying is that there are fewer and fewer friends available to help you see the error of your ways in deciding to fight.

    Most of the recent research in this area revolves around "neighborhood" factors, such as the presence of gangs, illicit drug networks, high levels of transiency, lack of informal supports, etc. Gang-infested neighborhoods, in particular, have no effective means of providing informal supports that would help in resisting the temptations to commit crime. Such neighborhoods would more likely have an informal encouragement policy, with five or more places where you could buy a gun and drugs available to give you the courage to use the gun. Firearms- and drug-related homicides have increased over 150% in recent years, and the clearest drug-violence connection is for selling drugs because illicit drug distribution networks are extremely violent.

    In such neighborhoods, families, school authorities, and even community organizations are often incapable of providing any protection for children. There are no peer-level social supports to reinforce the conventional lifestyles that these agencies want their children to emulate. The reality of street life, its illicit economy, and quick and easy pathways to success and prestige through violence and crime all offer rewards that offset the risks associated with these activities. And, even if a child experiences the risks of street life firsthand, like by getting shot or stabbed, this only reinforces the child's desire for more exposure to the learning of street life, to do better next time by listening more closely to delinquent peers and not to the advice of legitimate authorities. Victimization and perpetration go hand in hand. This is what is meant when criminologists say that the best predictor of future delinquency is past behavior, or age of onset. The strongest (primacy) effect is when violence is modeled, encouraged, and rewarded for the first time. It determines the type of friends one chooses, which in turn, determines what behaviors will be subsequently modeled, established, and reinforced.

Media Influence

    Popular explanations of juvenile crime often rest on ideas about the corrupting influence of television, movies, music videos, video games, rap/hip hop music, or the latest scapegoat du jour, computer games like Doom or Quake. The fact is that TV is much more pervasive, and has become the de facto babysitter in many homes, with little or no parental monitoring. Where there is strong parental supervision in other areas, including the teaching of moral values and norms, the effect of prolonged exposure to violence on TV is probably quite minimal. When TV becomes the sole source of moral norms and values, this causes problems. Our nation's children watch an astonishing 19,000 hours of TV by the time they finish high school, much more time than all their classroom hours put together since first grade. By eighteen, they will have seen 200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders. Every hour of prime time television carries 6-8 acts of violence. Most surveys show that around 80% of American parents think there is too much violence on television.

    Most of the scientific research in this area revolves around tests of two hypotheses: the catharsis effect, and the brutalization effect; but I am giving this area of research more credit than it deserves because it is not that neatly organized into two hypotheses. Catharsis means that society gets it out of their system by watching violence on TV, and brutalization means we become so desensitized it doesn't bother us anymore, but there are also "imitation" hypotheses, "sleeper" effects, and lagged-time correlations. The results of research in this area are too mixed to give any adequate guidance, and it may well be that social science is incapable of providing us with any good causal analysis in this area. Only anecdotal evidence of a few cases of direct influence exist.

    Since the early 1990s, a number of films, music videos, and rap music lyrics have come out depicting gang life, drugs, sex, and violence. Watching or listening to these items gives you the feeling that the filmmakers or musicians really know what they're talking about and tell it like it is, but there have been unfortunate criminogenic effects. In 1992, for example, 144 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. That year, four juveniles wounded Las Vegas police officers and the rap song, Cop Killer, was implicated. At trial, the killers admitted that listening to the song gave them a sense of duty and purpose. During apprehension, the killers sung the lyrics at the police station. Another case involved a Texas trooper killed in cold blood while approaching the driver of a vehicle with a defective headlight. The driver attempted a temporary insanity defense based on the claim he felt hypnotized by songs on a 2 Pac album, that the anti-police lyrics "took control, devouring [him] like an animal, compelling his subconscious mind to kill the approaching trooper". Two of the nation's leading psychiatrists were called as expert witnesses in support of this failed defense.

Social Morality

    It has become prevalent, especially among the slacker generations, GenX and Gen13, to join the old WWII generation in self-righteous, totally gratuitous Sixties-bashing, as if all our social problems, especially our declining social morality, started with the free-for-all, "any thing goes" hippie movement of the 1960s. This time period is often blamed for giving birth to rising hedonism, the questioning of authority, unbridled pursuit of pleasure, the abandonment of family responsibility, demand for illicit drugs, and a number of other social ills. Sometimes, even the AIDS epidemic is blamed on the 1960s, although such accusers are off by about two decades.

    To sixties-bashers, today's juvenile "super predators" are nothing but a long line of troubled youngsters who have grown up in more extreme conditions of declining social morality than the generation before them. Their thinking is that each generation since the sixties has tried hard to outdo one another in expressing the attitude that "nothing really matters", culminating in the present teenage regard for angst and irony so common in contemporary culture.

    I remember the sixties, with all its collective violence, drug-crazed looniness, challenges to authority, and more social causes than you could possibly join in on. Maybe I'm biased, but I just don't see a connection between the idealism and cynicism of that period and the vacant, stone-cold, remorseless irony of today's juvenile offenders. In fact, I wish today's generations had more idealism and cynicism, but I understand that as a whole, they are facing some difficult challenges. They grew up with nothing but sound bites instead of reasoned discourse about social problems, they learned from AIDS that sex kills and you should always use a condom, they got MTV and syndicated talk shows as entertainment fodder, they continue to be exploited in low-paying McJobs and are told that this service sector is the fastest growing part of the economy, they are told that Social Security will probably not be there for them, and they are the first generation in American history to probably do worse economically than their parents.

How should juveniles-in-trouble be handled?

    Approaches to the problem generally fall into two camps: the public health solution, and the law enforcement solution. Advocates of the public health approach tend to see juveniles today as victims of an anti-youth culture. The problem is not just parents failing children, but a whole attitude among adult society that is increasingly hostile, angry, and punishing toward youth. It's also not just poverty, per se, among children, but the relative deprivation of living in a society of affluence in which self-esteem is tied to achieving affluence. People are only hosts, not causes, of social problems, according to the public health model. The real enemies (if there need to be enemies at all) are the environment (broad social forces that shape their way through culture) and the agent (the means of violence, firearms and access to weapons). Intervene, and then trace the pathology back to its source. The source often turns out to be low SES families and neighborhoods where there have been few prevention programs, poor economic and educational opportunities, and no way to reintegrate released offenders back into the community.

    The law enforcement solution looks at the problem in terms of what needs to be done to improve investigation, arrest, prosecution, and conviction. Advocates of this approach perceive that a nationwide crackdown, "get tough on juvenile crime" program is what this country needs, but they are also just as likely to want the delivery of real rehabilitation programs in juvenile prisons, at least when we are better able to separate the minor offenders from superpredators. For the most part, however, the belief is that it is society's duty to punish, not rehabilitate, and boot camps, life terms, and even executions are in order for juveniles if they deserve it. They should serve time as adults, and face the ultimate punishment, no matter what the age. Troubled neighborhoods can be made safer by municipal curfews. Some of the more common law enforcement solutions, and how they work, are outlined below:

Waivers of Jurisdiction

    Waivers of jurisdiction transfer a case from juvenile to adult court. The effect is to deny some offenders the rights and protections that have evolved in juvenile law. All states provide for some type of waiver mechanism, and most set a lower age limit (13 and 14 in a handful of states; 17 and 18 in most). Kent v. U.S. (1966) has become the settled law on how to properly conduct waivers.

Execution of Juveniles

    A large majority of states (about 35) permit the execution of juveniles regardless of age. The U.S. is unique in this because no other nation in the world executes anyone under age 18. About 300 juveniles have already been executed in the U.S., the youngest being a 13-year-old in 1927. The Supreme Court in 2002 is rethinking the issue.

Scared Straight Programs

    Jails and detention centers are places that mix juveniles and adults together who are both non-adjudicated and/or awaiting trial. Schall v. Martin (1984) allows preventive detention under some circumstances. Many youth placed in this status are only guilty of minor violations. They are troubled youth or status offenders. They are usually released after only a few days, but victimization or suicide may, and has, occurred. Few places run the kind of full-blown Scared Straight program that Rahway prison (and Beevis & Butthead) made famous in the 1980s. It is generally accepted that these kind of programs don't work and have backlash effects.

Parental Accountability Laws

    Also called Parental Duty Laws, a number of states have experimented with subjecting the parents of children to arrest. Florida, for example, imposes a 5-year sentence on parents of children who find and use guns left around the house. California prosecutes mothers if it can be proven that parental neglect led to their child becoming a gang member. Most of the teeth in these laws have been removed with the provision of parenting classes as a way out for parents.

Curfews

    Many cities, like Atlanta and New Orleans, require anyone under the age of 17 to be off the streets by 11 P.M. Any teenager found in a public place during curfew hours is held at a police-designated truancy center until a parent or guardian claims them. Parents who are determined to be aiding and abetting curfew violators are subject to fines and community service.

    Other ideas exist, at least for school shootings.  The CDC defines a school-related killing as happening on campus, at an off-campus function, or on the way to and from school.  February leads the months of such happenings, with one school shooting every four days. September follows with one every six days.  December and June are the quietest months.  Overall, there is one school shooting every seven days in America. Anyway, CDC epidemiologists conclude that school shootings are highest after calendar breaks, during the stressful start of those semesters when students are adjusting to new teachers, classrooms, topics, and classmates.  The knee-jerk conservative reaction involves armed guards and metal detectors.  Metal detectors and weapon searches may add insult to injury.  A similar recommendation is more regimen and student uniforms, such as white shirts and black slacks.  Strict No Weapons enforcement has resulted in some ridiculous instances of children sent home (and even prosecuted) for small keychain knives and extra-sharp pencils. Strict No Name-calling enforcement has been proposed and implemented in some jurisdictions. Some suggest forbidding TV to cover school shootings, as if the media would honor these kind of gag orders.  Other ideas involve doing away with compulsory secondary education all together and expanding the options for home schooling. One could also tinker with the establishment of 24-hour toll-free hotlines where students can phone in tips. Some advocate doing away with the celebration of achievements based on strength or beauty, such as athletics and cheerleading. The most grandiose idea is building more schools, smaller schools. Taxes would have to be raised, but smaller schools should have more warmth and security. If you look around, the whole trend in school construction is to build big, and corrections learned its lesson about this during the 1980s.

JUVENILE CORRECTIONS

    The total number of juveniles in custody for the U.S. is about 42,000. Most of these youth are held in semisecure facilities (such as youth centers or training schools) designed to look less like prisons and more like high schools. Each state, however, has at least one maximum security facility for juveniles. The rest of the population in custody are housed in a variety of halfway houses, boot camps, ranches, forestry camps, wilderness programs, group homes, and state-hired private facilities.

    The average facility is small, holding about 40-50 residents. However, there are a vast number of smaller, cottage-like facilities, where the average number held is only about 10-15. Then, there are the maximum security institutions, which hold on average, somewhere between 200-400 inmates. There are about 70 such maximum security facilities across America. All correctional institutions for juveniles are staffed at a much greater ratio than for adult correctional facilities. Often, the number of staff outnumber the amount of juveniles in custody. The following table provides information (1994 data) and links to state resources, from those with the fewest amount of juveniles in custody to those with the greatest amount of juveniles in custody:

INTERNET RESOURCES:

ABA's Juvenile Justice Center -- the American Bar Association; an excellent place to start research.
ACLU Fact Sheet on the Juvenile Justice System -- a classic piece, first published in 1996.
A.L.I.E. Foundation -- a non-profit that provides bloodhounds to police departments and travels to schools to teach children safety & awareness against abduction.
American Judges Association -- a group with an interest in Juvenile Justice that usually has one or two publications at its web site.
Anger & Violence on campus -- a look at the psychology of school shooting and its possible prevention
Ansell & Associates -- Providers of a program to help organize and implement life skill training sessions, teen conferences, youth leadership training, and mentoring projects.
At Risk Children and Youth -- Explains what makes a child at risk and some of the solutions being offered.
At Risk Youth -- Resources for professionals, students, and parents looking to help at-risk youth.
Body Modification E-zine -- Piercing, Tatooing, Scarification and other rituals of the youth culture.
Center for the Prevention of School Violence -- A prominent resource site with excellent newsletters and research briefs, from NCSU.
ChildAlert -- Links to organizations for missing, abducted, and runaway children.
Children Missing Organization -- Profiles of missing children, children located, a web ring with faces of abductors and a web ring for sites about missing children.
Children's Protection and Advocacy Coalition (CPAC) -- Working for children's rights and safety; they have a pretty good article on pedophiles.
Child Quest International -- Devoted to the protection and recovery of missing, abused and exploited children.
Child Support Enforcement -- A glossary of acronyms and terms
Compulsive Gambling among Youth -- News report from the Christian Science Monitor; also see the North American Training Institute for more info on addictions prevalent among youth.
Desire Street Ministries -- A program aimed at youth, focused on tutoring, community assistance, Bible study, mentoring, and leadership training.
DivorceInfo.com -- excellent resource on divorce and family law
Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute -- Their Juvenile Justice law page.
Eric Databases on Juvenile Delinquency -- Search ERIC with keywords of your choice, or use this more user-friendly search wizard which also explains what ERIC is..
The Federal Government and Juvenile Crime -- Analysis prepared by the Criminal Justice Center of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Focos Counseling -- etherapy and online counseling
Gangs in School -- An article from the Eric Clearinghouse database.
The Great Youth Offenders Act Debate -- Ongoing dialogue about the 1999 Canadian crackdown.
Greg Garner's Gang Page -- An interesting collection of links on this home page.
Guide to the Juvenile Courts -- From the Cook County (IL) State's Attorney.
Help for Troubled Teens -- Treatment centers and specialty schools
Help My Teen -- Solutions for parents of troubled teens
How to Talk to Your Kids About School Violence -- website for Dr. Ken Druck's book
How Tough Should Juvenile Justice Be? -- Online article from the Christian Science Monitor.
Island Youth Program -- A rehabilitation program around Galveston, TX.
Just for Teens - a peer support forum
Justice for Kids and Youth -- The Justice Department's kidspage; it's cute and devoted to crime prevention.
Juvenile Boot Camps: Cost and Effectiveness Vs. Residential Facilities - From the Koch Crime Institute which is a good site to bookmark because they have other articles, a newsletter, and a regularly updated web page.
Juvenile Crime Evidence and Public Perceptions -- An excellent collection of resource materials from the University of Michigan.
Juvenile Information Network -- A site dedicated to the improvement of juvenile correctional facilities, from the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators..
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse -- Descriptions of juvenile justice programs nationwide.
Juvenile Justice Magazine -- Excellent online magazine geared for today's professional.
Juvenile Justice Resources -- A listing of resources with phone numbers.
Juvenile Justice Trainer's Association --Their home page and some links.
Juvenile Murders -- Special Report from the Washington Post with lots of links.
Kid's Law -- A practical guide to juvenile justice.
Lifting the Veil: Examining the Child Welfare, Foster Care, and Juvenile Justice System -- Lots of reports and commentary, mostly from a critical perspective, but well-researched in terms of case law.
Links to Anti-Child Pornography Sites -- Where and which law enforcement agency to report Child Porn to when you see it (Note: please don't take it upon yourself to search out child porn on behalf of law enforcement).
Kim Kassner's EmpowerMind -- Teaching children with learning differences to learn
Koch Crime Institute -- Dedicated to studying the criminal and juvenile justice system and identifying ways to reduce and prevent crime, especially juvenile crime.
Manual to Combat Truancy -- Analyzes the reasons for truancy.
Media Literacy -- Extensive set of links and resources for research into the effects of television on youth today.
Mothers Against Gangs -- A public interest nonprofit group.
National Campaign to Reduce Youth Violence -- A grassroots group dedicated to the reduction of violent television programming for children who have begun collecting some literature and resources.
National Guard Youth Challenge Program -- Information about this program.
National Center for Juvenile Justice -- Research Division of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children -- Premiere national organization that spearheads efforts to locate missing children.
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges -- Their home page with links to their research, newsletter, archives, and other reports.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service -- Their Juvenile Justice page (and this link may take you to a copy of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act).
National Institute on the Education of At Risk Students -- Provides research activities to improve the education of students at risk because of limited English proficiency, poverty, race, geographic location, or economic disadvantage.
National Youth Gang Center -- Extensive resource site for data & discussion, maintains an expanding body of critical knowledge about gangs and effective responses to them.
National Youth Network -- A mission to educate parents of troubled teens on treatment, education, and family solutions.
NEXUS Solutions -- Program of youth mentoring, involving churches, and other youth groups; specializes in abuse prevention, employee/volunteer screening, and risk management.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention -- The home of federal leadership on the control of juvenile crime and system improvement.
Parent Resources - home to a number of other great websites
Parent's Resources on Parenting, Domestic Violence, Abuse & Trauma -- Kathy's page.
President's AntiGang and Youth Violence Prevention Strategy -- Archive of excerpts and text from the 1997 legislation.
Protect Our Children -- Tips on what to do if a child is missing or sexually exploited.
Rand Corp. -- This think tank has many links, including the excellent online book, Diverting Children From a Life of Crime.
SELF Youth Center -- SELF stands for Self Education Law enforcement Family
Three Springs Adolescent Treatment Programs - providers of treatment
Throwawaykids.org -- motto: No More Throwaway Kids
TopFlightAcademy -- A residential treatment center
TRAK System -- Helps police find missing & abducted children and investigate other crimes.
Troubled Teen 101 -- articles on many topics of interest.
Truancy Program Targets Problems Before They Start -- A pro-active prevention program.
U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services -- Extensive site with government publications.
Virginia Youth Violence Project -- Academic info on school violence with tables and charts.
When Your Child is Missing: A Family Survival Guide -- A Justice Dept. publication.
Year in the Life of Juvenile Court -- A juvenile justice home page by the author of No Matter How Loud I Shout.

Selected References and Bibliography
Agnew, Robert. (1990). "Adolescent resources and delinquency" Criminology 28:535-65.
Arnest, Lauren. (1998.) Children, young adults, and the law: A Dictionary. Santa Barbara: ABC/CLIO.
Baron, A. & Wheeler, E. (1994). Violence in our schools, hospitals & public places. Ventura: Pathfinder.
Bender, David & Bruno Leone. (eds) Juvenile crime: Opposing viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press.
Canter, Rachelle. (1982). "Family correlates of male and female delinquency" Criminology 20:149-67.
Cloward, Richard & Lloyd Ohlin. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity. New York: Free Press.
DiIulio, J. (1995). "The coming of the super-predators." Weekly Standard (November 27): 23.
Easterbrook, G. (2003). The progress paradox: How life gets better while people feel worse. NY: Random.
Elikann, P. (2002). Superpredators: The demonization of our children by the law. NY: De Capo Press.
Elliott, Delbert, David Huizinga & Suzanne Ageton. (1985). Explaining delinquency and drug use. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Emmons, R. & McCullough, M. (Eds.) (2004). The psychology of gratitude. NY: Oxford Univ. Press.
Ewing, C. (1990). Children who kill. Lexington: DC Heath and Co.
Gardner, H. (2003). The unschooled mind. NY: Basic Books.
Gedatus, G. (2000). Violence at school. NY: LifeMatters Press.
Gerler, E. (Ed.) (2004). Handbook of school violence. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
Grapes, B. (2000). School Violence. Westport, CT: Greenhaven Press.
Howe, N. & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials rising. NY: Vintage.
Kadison, R. & DiGeronimo, T. (2004). The campus mental health crisis and what to do about it. NY: Jossey-Bass.
Kilpatrick, W. (1993). Why Johnny can't tell right from wrong. NY: Touchstone Books.
Kitwana, B. (2004). Why white kids love hip hop. NY: Basic Books.
Kornhauser, Ruth. (1978). Social sources of delinquency. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Loeber, Rolf & Magda Stouthamer-Loeber. (1986). "Family factors as correlates and predictors of juvenile conduct problems and delinquency" Pp. 29-149 in M. Tonry & N. Morris (eds.) Crime and justice: An annual review. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Marr, N. & Field, T. (2001). Bullycide. UK: Success Unlimited Books.
Menhard, F. (2000). School violence: Deadly lessons. NY: Enslow Publishers.
Monk, Richard. (1996). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in crime and criminology. Guilford: Dushkin.
Moore, M. (ed.) (2002). Deadly lessons: Understanding lethal school violence. NY: Joseph Henry Press.
Newman, K. (2005). Rampage: The social roots of school shootings. NY: Basic Books.
Rankin, Joseph & Edward Wells. (1994). "Social control, broken homes, and delinquency" in G. Barak (ed) Varieties of criminology: Readings from a dynamic discipline. Westport: Praeger.
Sampson, Robert & John Laub. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
Shaw, Clifford & Henry McKay. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Strauss, W. (1993). 13th gen: Abort, retry, ignore, fail? NY: Vintage Books.
Vold, George & Tom Bernard. (1986). Theoretical criminology. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Wallerstein, J. (2001). The unexpected legacy of divorce. NY: Hyperion.
Wells, Edward & Joseph Rankin. (1991). "Families and delinquency: A meta-analysis" Social Problems 38:71-93.

Last updated: Apr 14, 2009
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