Juvenile crime control programs

The General Assembly appropriated additional funding so that all localities could implement programs and services to meet the needs of juveniles involved in the juvenile justice system. As a component of the legislation, all localities were required to expend an amount equal to the sum of their fiscal year expenditures for pre-dispositional and post-dispositional block grant alternatives to secure detention.

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There is some evidence that juvenile court judges may be more likely than juries to convict. For example, a study by Greenwood et al. Furthermore, judges try hundreds of cases every year and consequently may evaluate facts more casually and less meticulously than jurors who focus on only one case.

Judges may have preconceptions of the credibility of police and probation officers and of the juvenile in question. In contrast, jurors hear only a few cases and undergo careful procedures to test bias for each case. Also, judges are not required to discuss the law and evidence pertinent to a case with a group before making a decision, and they are often exposed to evidence that would be considered inadmissible in a jury trial Feld, , From their inception, juvenile courts had authority not only over children and adolescents who committed illegal acts, but also over those who defied parental authority or social conventions by such acts as running away from home, skipping school, drinking alcohol in public, or engaging in sexual behavior.

These children and adolescents were deemed to be out of control and in need of guidance. Criticism of treating these status offenders whose acts were considered problematic only because of their status as children the same as children and adolescents who had committed criminal acts grew during the s.

The juvenile courts also had jurisdiction over abused and neglected children who had committed no offense. In , in response to reported abuses in. The Act provided federal leadership in the reform of the treatment of status offenses and nonoffenders.

It required states that received federal formula grants to remove noncriminal status offenders and nonoffenders e. The provisions for the deinstitutionalization of status offenders led to a decrease in the numbers of status offenders held in detention facilities and institutions by the early s Krisberg and Schwartz, ; National Research Council, ; Schneider, a.

Schneider b , however, found that some children and adolescents who, prior to the move to deinstitutionalize status offenders, would have been charged with a status offense, were subsequently being charged with minor delinquent offenses e.

Therefore, Schneider asserted, they were still coming to the court at the same rate, but as delinquents rather than status cases. Amendments to the act in weakened the deinstitutionalization mandate somewhat by allowing detention and incarceration of noncriminal juveniles for violating a valid court order.

Status offenders who did not comply with treatment ordered by the court could become criminal delinquents by virtue of being charged with criminal contempt of court. Young people who might formerly have been processed through the juvenile justice system for status offenses may now be institutionalized in other facilities, such as private mental health and drug and alcohol treatment facilities.

Very little is known about the number of youngsters confined to such institutions, the length of their institutionalization, or the conditions of their confinement. Concern over housing juveniles with adult criminals led to other requirements under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.

Sight and sound separation of juveniles and adults in detention and correctional facilities and removal of juveniles from adult jails and lockups were mandated.

In , the act was amended to require states to address disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles. At the same time the federal agenda and the voices of reformers were calling for deinstitutionalization procedures and more prevention, the states seemed to be moving in the opposite direction Schwartz, Between and , lawmakers in nearly half the states enacted some form of tougher legislation with regard to handling serious and chronic juvenile offenders.

In a handful of states, provisions included making it easier to prosecute juveniles in adult court by lowering the age of judicial waiver three states ; excluding certain offenses from juvenile court juris-. The impact of these reforms was an increase in the detention rate on any given day by more than 50 percent between and In response to public concern over crime, in particular violent crime, committed by children and adolescents, almost all states now have made these kinds of changes to the laws governing their juvenile justice systems since the early s.

These changes are described following a description of the current juvenile justice system processes. Juvenile justice systems vary greatly by jurisdiction. The organization of courts, case processing procedures, and juvenile corrections facilities are determined by state law. Most juvenile courts have jurisdiction over criminal delinquency, abuse and neglect, and status offense delinquency cases. Criminal delinquency cases are those in which a child has committed an act that would be a crime if committed by an adult.

Status offense delinquency cases are acts that would be legal for an adult, but are not allowed for juveniles, such as truancy, running away, incorrigibility i.

Some courts also have responsibility for other types of cases involving children, such as dependency, termination of parental rights, juvenile traffic cases, adoption, child support, emancipation, and consent cases e. Before any court processes come into play, a juvenile must be referred to the court. Referrals may be made by the police, parents, schools, social service agencies, probation officers, and victims.

Law enforcement agencies account for the vast majority—86 percent in —of delinquency referrals Stahl et al. They have a great deal of contact with youthful offenders and at-risk youth, perhaps more than any other officials do in the justice system.

Most of these contacts are undocumented and of low visibility Goldstein, ; only a fraction reach the attention of juvenile court judges or youth detention authorities. An analysis by panel member Steven Schlossman of Los Angeles juvenile court from to found that 63 percent of referrals were from police.

There is scant empirical data on police encounters with juveniles Black and Reiss, ; Lundman et al. A study by Sealock and Simpson , based on an analysis of Philadelphia birth cohort data in which police contacts with juveniles from through were recorded, is one of the few that deals with juveniles ' encounters with police.

To further understand the nature of police interactions with juveniles, the panel commissioned an analysis by Worden and Myers of the data involving juveniles from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods, a multimethod study of police patrols in two cities Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida. The study involved systematic social observations of patrol officers in the field by trained observers who accompanied officers during their entire work shifts.

Observations were based on spatial and temporal sampling, with shifts representing all times of the day and all days of the week. Data were gathered during summer in Indianapolis and summer in St. Observers recorded more than 7, encounters involving approximately 12, citizens.

Of these encounters, involved one or more citizens a total of who appeared to be under 18 years of age and who were treated by the police as suspected offenders. Consistent with past research, most of the encounters involved incidents of relatively low seriousness; 55 percent were for public disorder e. Less than one-tenth of the encounters concerned violent crimes.

It appears that police may be initiating more of the encounters than in the past. Worden and Myers reported that previous research primarily conducted in the s and s found that the majority of police encounters with juveniles resulted from a request from a victim or complainant, and only one-quarter to one-third of encounters were initiated by the police themselves. In the study, half of the encounters with juveniles were initiated by the police. This finding may indicate an increase in proactive policing, although direct comparisons with past research are hindered by differences in measurement and sampling.

The existence of a juvenile curfew in Indianapolis gave police in that city authority to stop juveniles after hours and contributed to a high percentage 61 compared with 37 percent in St. Petersburg of their encounters with juveniles being police-initiated.

Worden and Myers found that only 13 percent of the encounters ended with the arrest of the juvenile s. Table shows the frequency with which each disposition in these encounters was the most authoritative that the police took.

The categories are listed from least. As the table shows, dispositions were similarly distributed in police encounters with adults. Worden and Myers analyzed factors that affected the likelihood of arrest in juvenile encounters with police. Arrests were significantly more likely when there was strong evidence against a suspect and when the offense was a serious one. The likelihood of arrest more than doubled when a juvenile showed disrespect for the police officer. Possession of a weapon also increased the likelihood of arrest.

Female juveniles were significantly less likely to be arrested, independent of other factors, including seriousness of offense. Once a juvenile is taken into custody, it appears as if police are less likely now to deal informally with him or her than in the past. About 22 percent of juveniles taken into custody by police were handled informally within the department and released in , compared with 45 percent in Federal Bureau of Investigation, ; 69 percent of juveniles taken into police custody in ended up in juvenile court and 7 percent in criminal adult court.

Although there are many differences among juvenile courts in case processing, there are stages that they all must go through: intake, petitioning, adjudication, and disposition. Figure provides a simplified view of case flow through the juvenile justice system. Cases that are referred to the court are screened through an intake process, in which charges are delineated. In some systems, this process is done within the. Information on the Worden and Myers analysis of differences by race appears in Chapter 6.

Source: Adapted from Snyder and Sickmund The intake screening determines whether a case should not be filed because of insufficient evidence, resolved by diversion to a program or specified set of conditions, or should proceed to formal processing in the juvenile court i.

Depending on state law, a decision to waive a case to criminal court may also be made at intake processing. If a case proceeds to formal handling, a petition is filed and the case is scheduled for an adjudicatory hearing in the juvenile court, or the case may be waived to criminal court. At the adjudicatory hearing, which establishes the facts of the case similar to a trial in criminal court , the juvenile may be judged to be delinquent similar to a finding of guilty in criminal court and scheduled for a disposition hearing; the juvenile may be found not guilty, and the case may be dismissed; or the case may be continued in contemplation of dismissal.

In the latter event, the juvenile may be asked to take some action prior to the final decision being made, such as paying restitution or receiving treatment. If a juvenile has been. Dispositions include commitment to an institution, placement in a group or foster home or other residential facility, probation, referral to an outside agency or treatment program, imposition of a fine, community service, or restitution. At any point during the process, some juveniles may be held in a secure detention facility.

In , juveniles were detained in 18 percent of criminal delinquency cases processed by the juvenile courts Snyder and Sickmund, Juvenile courts also vary by the extent of services for which they are responsible.

Some courts oversee only the adjudication process, while others provide a full array of preadjudication and postdisposition services. In over half the states, juvenile courts administer their own probation services, and many are responsible for detention and intake as well Torbet, Some researchers have expressed concerns regarding certain juvenile justice procedures.

As mentioned previously, the lack of a right to a jury trial may have consequences for the outcome of a trial. Also at issue is legal representation for juveniles.

As in adult court, juveniles have the right to be represented by an attorney. The majority of states, however, allow juveniles to decide independently to waive their rights to an attorney without having had legal counsel prior to the decision U. General Accounting Office, b. Studies from to found that the majority of juveniles were not represented by an attorney, including the majority of youths who received out-of-home placement Feld, Rates of representation varied between urban and rural jurisdictions, and among states and within states U.

Also of possible concern are the quality and impact of attorney representation. Some studies suggest that there are grounds for concern about the effectiveness of defense counsel in juvenile trials, possibly because of inexperience and large caseloads Feld, Studies also indicate that presence of counsel in juvenile courts is related to differences in pretrial detention, sentencing, and case-processing practices Feld, One study U.

General Accounting Office, b found that, in general, while unrepresented juveniles were as likely as represented juveniles to be adjudicated as delinquents, they were less likely to receive out-of-home placement for certain crimes than juveniles with attorneys. Juvenile courts processed nearly 1. Figures and show how criminal and status delinquency cases, respectively, were handled by the courts in , the most recent year for which data are available. A total of 56 percent of the criminal delinquency cases that were referred to juvenile courts in were formally handled by the court petitioned ; that is, these cases appeared on the official court calendar in response to the filing of a petition, complaint, or other legal instrument.

Over the past 10 years, there has been an increase in the percentage of cases from 47 percent in to 56 percent in handled formally for all juveniles, regardless of age, race, or gender. Criminal delinquency cases involving older juveniles, males, and blacks, however, are more likely to be petitioned than those involving younger juveniles, females, and whites or other races, respectively Stahl et al. Arguably, formal handling of cases can be considered more punitive than release or diversion to other systems.

Therefore, the increase in formal handling of juveniles who come into contact with the police or who are referred to juvenile court may be interpreted as a system that is becoming more punitive. Diversion covers a wide range of interventions that are alternatives to initial or continued formal processing in the system Kammer et al. The idea behind diversion is that processing through the juvenile justice system may do more harm than good for some offenders Lundman, First offenders or minor offenders may be diverted to an intervention at intake processing or prior to formal adjudication.

Juveniles may be diverted from detention while awaiting adjudication and disposition. After adjudication, minors may be diverted from incarceration by being placed on probation or given some other sanction or intervention. Source: Stahl et al. A true diversion program takes only juveniles who would ordinarily be involved in the juvenile justice system and places them in an alternative program.

The array of interventions covered under the term diversion makes it difficult to generalize about them or their effects. Some researchers have found significantly lower recidivism rates among diverted juveniles than among controls who received normal juvenile justice system processing e.

For an overview of studies discussed in this section, see Table Other research has found no difference in recidivism rates between juveniles diverted from the juvenile justice system and those who remained in it Rausch, ; Rojek and Erickson, or more recidivism among diverted juveniles Brown.

Individual, parent, and family counseling, referrals to other services as needed. Diversion without treatment; diversion with referral to community agency various treatments. Average of 2 days diverted not treatment ; average of 88 days diverted with referral. No differences in arrests of self-reported delinquency between diverted with or without referral; no differences in arrests among diverted groups and comparison groups of samples drawn of arrested status offenders before diversion program was implemented.

Mediation group had lower recidivism and less serious subsequent offenses than comparison, although not statistically significant. Mediation victims more satisfied than comparisons with process; no difference in satisfaction of offenders with justice system treatment. Mediation offenders more likely to complete their restitution than comparisons. Family therapy; problem-focused interventions within family, peer, school, and neighborhood; other strategies as relevant e.

Treatment group less likely to be rearrested and, if rearrested, had longer time to rearrest. Average: 24 hours of treatment for multisystemic therapy group; 28 hours for individual therapy controls. Treatment group less likely to be rearrested and, if rearrested, had longer time to rearrest and less serious offenses. Fewer arrests and days incarcerated among juveniles in treatment foster care than in group care. The variety in findings may be due to the types of juveniles involved and the types of treatment and services provided.

For a diversion program to be successful, it may have to provide intensive and comprehensive services Dryfoos, ; services that include the juveniles' families and take into account community, school, and peer interactions Henggeler et al. Elliott and colleagues found that whether intervention occurred in the juvenile justice system or in another program, juveniles experienced increases in their perception of being labeled as delinquent and increases in self-reported delinquency.

It is even possible that some diversion programs are more intrusive than traditional juvenile justice processing. Frazier and Cochran b found that juveniles in the diversion program they studied were actually in the system longer and had at least as much, if not more, official intervention in their lives than those not diverted.

One well-studied intervention for both juveniles diverted from incarceration as well as for juveniles at various stages of processing in the juvenile justice system is multisystemic therapy. Multisystemic therapy is a family- and community-based treatment derived from theories and research that trace the development of antisocial behavior to a combination of individual, family, peer, school, and community factors and their interactions.

The intervention is not limited to the adolescent or the family but includes work on the intersections between various systems, such as family-school and family-peer interactions. Treatment is individualized to meet the needs of the adolescent and his or her family using empirically based treatment models, such as cognitive behavioral therapies, behavioral parent training, and structural family therapy Henggeler, In addition, attention is paid to treatment fidelity through supervision of and support for treatment providers.

A study that randomly assigned serious, violent juveniles either to multisystemic therapy or to the usual juvenile justice system processing Henggeler et al. Borduin and colleagues found that juvenile offenders randomly assigned to multisystemic therapy, at four years after treatment, had better family relations and fewer psychiatric symptoms and were significantly less likely to be rearrested than those randomly assigned to individual therapy.

A meta-analysis of family-based treatments of drug abuse found that multisystemic therapy had one of the largest effect sizes of all treatments reviewed Stanton and Shadish, A promising approach for youngsters for whom home-based programs have failed is multidimensional treatment foster care see, e. Reid, This approach recruits, trains, and supports foster care families to implement a structured, individualized program for each youngster. Juveniles are placed in the foster care family for six to nine months, during which time their appropriate behavior is reinforced, they are closely supervised, and their peer associations are carefully monitored.

Foster care families have daily contact with program staff to work out difficulties and review program plans. Juveniles also receive individual skill-focused treatment. Other components of the program include frequent visits with and weekly family therapy for biological parents or guardians to prepare them for after care and coordination with school and other needed service systems after their children return to their homes.

Chamberlain and Reid compared chronic delinquent boys with an average of 13 prior arrests and 4. Boys in treatment foster care were more likely to complete treatment and less likely to be rearrested or to spend time incarcerated than boys assigned to the group home.

Victim-offender mediation is one increasingly popular form of diversion. A national survey discovered 94 victim-offender programs dealing with juveniles in , 46 of which were dedicated exclusively to them Umbreit and Greenwood, The programs ranged from having 1 to case referrals, with a mean of cases.

Referrals to victim-offender mediation are typically for vandalism, minor assaults, theft, and burglary Umbreit and Greenwood, The vast majority of mediation cases are first-time offenders. Typically, mediation occurs prior to adjudication. Some pressure appears to be mounting to include more serious cases in mediation programs Umbreit and Greenwood, Whether more serious or complicated cases can be handled through mediation remains to be seen.

Studies have consistently shown that victims tend to be more satisfied with the process of mediation than with court processes Coates and Gehm, ; Marshall and Merry, ; Umbreit, ; Umbreit and Coates, , This may be because victims are included in the mediation process only if they volunteer to do so.

Two comparison groups were devised—the first of victims and offenders who had been referred to the mediation process but did not participate and the second victims and offenders who had not been referred to mediation in the same jurisdiction as the mediation sample, and matched on age, race, sex, and offense.

Over 90 percent of mediations resulted in a restitution plan agreed to by both victims and offenders Neimeyer and Shichor, ; Umbreit and Coates, and significantly more juvenile offenders completed the agreed-on restitution than did those whose restitution was ordered by the court Umbreit and Coates, Findings on recidivism for juveniles who have been part of mediation programs are mixed.

Schneider reported a significant reduction in recidivism among offenders in a mediation program. Other studies have found small but statistically nonsignificant reductions in recidivism among mediation program participants Marshall and Merry, ; Umbreit and Coates, Victim-offender mediation programs are one part of a larger diversion movement in juvenile justice that has been gaining attention worldwide —the restorative justice model. Under a restorative justice model, victims are given the opportunity to come face to face with the offender to negotiate restitution.

In addition, restorative justice programs keep youth in the community and maintain community safety by community-based surveillance practices designed to limit the opportunities for juveniles to reoffend and strengthen rather than sever their connections with the community.

These practices include monitored school attendance, monitored employment attendance, monitored program attendance, supervised community work service, supervised recreation, adult mentors and supervisors, training offenders' families to provide appropriate monitoring and disciplinary practices, day reporting centers, electronic monitoring, house arrest, and random drug testing.

Placement in a secure facility is reserved for those juveniles who continue to offend or who pose a high risk to others. For a more complete discussion of restorative justice, see Bazemore and Umbreit, ; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, The restorative justice model is currently being evaluated in Australia.

On balance, the research on diversion and intensive probation discussed in below suggests that some community-based interventions can serve the needs of many juvenile offenders without added danger to the community.

There also may be advantages to keeping juveniles in a less restrictive setting. Well-structured and well-run programs with appropriate services have the potential for improving the lives of diverted juveniles and their families and maintaining community safety. Figures and , which illustrate juvenile court processing of criminal delinquency and petitioned status delinquency cases, respectively, do not include the percentages of detained juveniles, because reported.

Juveniles may be detained at any stage during the court process if it is believed that they pose a threat to the community, will be at risk if returned to the community, or may fail to appear at an upcoming hearing. Children and adolescents may also be detained for evaluation purposes. Juveniles who have been adjudicated delinquent and sentenced to incarceration may also be kept in secure detention until a placement in a long-term facility can be made.

In , 18 percent , cases 6 of the 1. The percentage of criminal delinquency cases that result in detention has remained fairly stable over the past 10 years, and the percentage of status delinquency cases that result in detention has dropped. However, because the overall number of criminal delinquency cases coming to the court has increased, the number of cases that result in secure detention has increased, even though the percentage of cases detained has remained steady.

Research consistently shows that juveniles who have been in detention are more likely to be formally processed and receive more punitive sanctions at disposition than those not placed in detention, after controlling for demographic and legal factors, such as current offense and history of past offenses Frazier and Bishop, ; Frazier and Cochran, a; McCarthy and Smith, Researchers have been unable to determine the variables that affect the initial decision to detain a juvenile, however.

For example, Frazier and Bishop , in an analysis of initial detention decisions, could explain less than 10 percent of variance in the decisions. Therefore, there may be unidentified factors related to the initial decision to detain that affect the impact of detention on eventual court dispositions. It is important to remember that the court statistics do not refer to the number of juveniles detained, but only to the number of cases in the course of a year, one juvenile may be detained in several cases.

Based on one-day censuses of detention centers, it appears that the rate of detention of juveniles increased by 68 percent from the mids to the mids Wordes and Jones, The average length of detention in the mids was 15 days Wordes and Jones, Of all juvenile cases resulting in detention in , 26 percent were for person offenses, 38 percent were for property offenses, 21 percent were for public order offenses, 12 percent for drug law violations, and 3 percent.

For comparison purposes, about 37 percent of the adult felony cases in the 75 most populous counties in the United States result in pretrial detention Hart and Reaves, Misdemeanor cases do not usually result in detention. Males are detained at a rate six times higher than females, and blacks are detained at eight times the rate of whites Wordes and Jones, The two generally accepted uses of preadjudication detention are to ensure that a juvenile will show up for his or her hearing and to prevent reoffending prior to adjudication.

However, detention is also used as punishment, protection, and as a place to keep juveniles when more appropriate placements are unavailable Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Intake workers and juvenile judges have a great deal of discretion in deciding whether to place a juvenile in detention. Several studies found evidence that detention rates varied in direct proportion to the availability of detention facilities Kramer and Steffensmeier, ; Lerman, ; Pawlak, Anecdotal evidence suggests that whether a juvenile in crisis is kept in detention or sent to a mental health facility may depend on whether the juvenile's family has health insurance to cover private psychological or psychiatric treatment.

The result of the use of detention for such diverse reasons is that a juvenile who has run away from an abusive home may be placed in detention alongside a juvenile awaiting trial for violent crimes. Detention can be quite disruptive to children's and adolescents' lives.

It separates them from their families, friends, and support systems, and it interrupts their schooling. Although some detention centers have many services in place to assess and treat physical and mental health problems and behavioral problems and to provide educational services, the scope and quality of services varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

In addition, many detention centers have become overcrowded, jeopardizing their ability to provide services. Nearly 70 percent of children in public detention centers are in facilities operating above their designed capacity Smith, Overcrowded conditions have been found to be associated with increased altercations between juveniles and staff and increased injuries to juveniles Wordes and Jones, Even under the best of circumstances, providing services to an ever-changing, heterogeneous group of young people can be difficult.

The average length of stay in juvenile detention centers is 15 days, but many youngsters may be there for only a few days, while some are there for much longer periods Parent et al. For marginal students, even a few days of school missed because of detention may increase their educational difficulties. The negative effects of being in detention and the overcrowded conditions in many detention centers have led to investigations of alternatives to detention.

Table summarizes the evaluations of alternatives to detention programs discussed in this section. A study in North Carolina Land et al. The programs varied from site to site, but all were characterized.

Land and colleagues found the programs to provide less restrictive options to secure detention in a cost-effective manner without compromising public safety. Over three-quarters of the cases served by the alternative programs successfully avoided secure detention. The vast majority 80 to 90 percent of the cases that failed in the alternative program and were sent to secure detention were for technical program violations, not for new offenses. Less than 5 percent of all alternative placement admissions committed new offenses while in the program.

The Annie E. Five urban jurisdictions—Cook County, Illinois Chicago ; Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Multnomah County, Oregon Portland ; New York City; and Sacramento County, California —were awarded grants to establish programs to eliminate the inappropriate or unnecessary use of detention, reduce the number of delinquents who fail to appear for court or who commit a new offense, develop alternatives to secure detention rather than adding new detention beds, and to improve conditions and alleviate overcrowding in secure detention facilities.

The final evaluation of the programs in Chicago, Portland, and Sacramento, by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, was due in Preliminary indications from the evaluation are that the programs achieved significant reductions in admissions to detention and alleviated overcrowding without increasing failure-to-appear rates or pretrial crime rates Rust, After adjudicatory hearings, cases in juvenile court are scheduled for disposition hearings, in which the sanction is determined.

Juveniles may be put on probation, placed in a correctional institution or other out-of-home placement, sent to treatment or other programs, or given some other sanction, such as paying restitution or performing community service. The most common disposition is probation; over half of the cases adjudicated delinquent were placed on probation in ; 28 percent of those adjudicated delinquent in were sent to out-of-home placement.

Males were more likely than females to be placed 29 and 22 percent of adjudicated delinquency cases involving males and females, respectively and females were more likely to be put on probation 53 and 59 percent for males and females, respectively.