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Crime is an age-specific phenomenon (16 – 25)
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Limited preventative and curative capabilities,
and justice intervention tends to make it worse
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Takes a community raise a child, but
sometimes even the communities fail
The children today love luxury. They show
bad manners, contempt for authority, they
show disrespect for elders and love chatter
in place of exercise. They no longer rise
when their enter the room. They contradict
Their parents and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates
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Steady crime/delinquency rates in some realms
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Violent crime surge in the post-World War II era:
 Past feeling case studies (Columbine, Virginia Tech)
 Oppositional culture of the streets/Code of the Streets
 Fullerton High study
 Gang activity (male and female)
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Protect society
 Arrest
 Prosecute
 Incarcerate
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The interest of the child
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Halfway houses
Attention Centers
Counseling
Volunteer programs
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Parens Patriae
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Status Offenses (laws that apply only to juveniles)
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Juvenile Court
 Hearing v Trial
 Adjudicated v Convicted
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Juvenile Prisons/Training Schools
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Juvenile Probation and Parole
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Juvenile/Youth-based police bureaus
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Treatment in the best interest of the child (future tense
orientation)
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Formerly until 21 years old
Currently, until the 18th birthday
Minimum age is generally 8
Juvenile can be tried in adult court:
 Every state has different rules/procedures
 Relatively rare occurrence (7,500/year or about
.3% of the cases)
In re Gault: juvenile court proceedings must possess the
elements of basic fundamental fairness; juveniles have
the right:
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to a proper hearing
to advance notification of that hearing and its purpose
to be present at the hearing
to confront/cross examine the accuser
to be represented by legal counsel at the hearing
to present evidence
against self-incrimination
to a formal ruling based on information presented in court
to an appeal
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In re Winship: the standard proof in a juvenile
court adjudication is beyond a reasonable doubt
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McKeiver v Pennsylvania: there is no right to a
jury trial for juveniles being adjudicated in
juvenile court
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Seriousness of the offense
Prior record
Demeanor
Social class
Basic demographics:
 Age
 Race
 Gender
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Wolfgang – cohort of 10,000 boys born in
Philadelphia in 1945:
 1/3 moderate levels of delinquency
 6% responsible for ½ of the crimes and 2/3 of the violent
crime
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Current research:
 6 to 10 % are persistent life course offenders
 50% moderate levels (sporadic youthful ventures)
 90% mild levels
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Why the persistence, why the desistence?
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Lack legitimate roles
Non-conformity
Peer pressure
Lack of self control/hedonism
Biological factors
Educational disparity
Blank time issues
Entertainment exposure
Poverty
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Insufficient positive family impacts:
 Parental indifference
 Parental violence
 Divorce
 Illegitimacy
 Single parent homes
 Blank time (again)
Oppositional culture of the streets
Chance game
Immigration
1. Individual factors - low intelligence, low employability coefficient,
poor school performance, limited involvement in positive
extracurricular activities, hyperactivity,
impulsiveness and risk taking, early antisocial behavior (including
aggression and bullying), few bonds to conventional society
(friends, girlfriends, parents, teachers, ministers, coaches).
2. Family factors - poor parental supervision, harsh and/or
inconsistent discipline, physical abuse, child neglect, low parental
involvement, parental conflict, broken/divorced families, single
parent families, criminal parents, delinquent siblings.
3. Socio-economic factors - low family income, lack of
roots/stability (high mobility coefficient), rent vs. own home, high
aggregate socio-economic inequity coefficient in the
community, limited opportunity structures
4. Peer factors - delinquent peers, peer rejection,
low popularity
5. Neighborhood factors - high crime
neighborhoods, high delinquency/high crime
schools, high aggregate socio-economic
inequity coefficient in the community, limited
community-wide opportunity structures
6. Biological factors - poor nutrition, hormonal
imbalance
Decrease the impacts of the risk factors
while simultaneously increasing the
impacts of the protective factors in all of
these areas (bonds to conventional society,
extracurricular involvement, improve
academics, improve nutrition, improve
parenting, provide opportunities, reduce the
aggregate socio-economic inequity
coefficient), and the seriousness of crime
will be reduced/diminished in the
aggregate.
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Eliminate the entire juvenile justice sub-system and
try kids in adult court:
 Abolish status offenses
 Abolish juvenile court
 Abolish the parens patriae orientation
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Adopt the Blended Sentencing model
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Transform juvenile prisons into education and
training centers with an employment focus
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Increased socio-economic opportunity structures
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Increase support for Project Head Start
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Increase support for Outward Bound:
 Develops confidence, self-assurance, teamwork,
selflessness
 Expensive, some discrimination issues,
transferability concerns
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Do NOT adopt Scared Straight programs
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Boot camps (mixed findings)
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Diet/nutrition/bio-criminological interventions
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Home Detention
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Self sentencing
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Volunteer programs
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No mixed incarceration
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Youth oriented public relations law enforcement
officer programs (Officer Friendly)
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Greater use of probation
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Greater use of Community Courts/Teen Courts
(victim-offender mediation modeling)
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Curfews are ineffective and are empirically invalid
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Bus ticket model
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Punishment for parents
 Face criminal charges
 Fines
 Community service
 Shaming
1. Internal conversion of the treated (fertile ground)
2. Proper timing/zeitgeist (palatable environment)
3. Good program (good seed)
4. Capable program personnel
(knowledgeable and skilled farmer)
5. Dedicated and persistent program personnel
(hard working farmer)
If any one of these is missing, the program fails/the crops
fail.
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Ultimate answers lie outside the justice system
(religion, schools, families)
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Justice systems are designed to buy time, not to serve
as the foundations of a society:
- more is being asked of the justice system than it
was designed to do, and it is swaying under that
weight
- the justice system, which is so poorly designed,
functions as well as it does due to the diligence
and dedication of the professionals who fill its ranks
The key in this struggle is dedication and persistence
Things are hopeless, but we must be determined to
make it otherwise, with dedication and persistence
 Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of
persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common
than unsuccessful individuals with talent. Genius will
not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
alone will not. The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence is singularly omnipotent.
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