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This chapter harnesses Western conceptions of justice, traditional justifications of social control, and existing social inequalities to frame and fully understand the racial and ethnic disparities which constitute the U.S. juvenile justice system.

Juvenile justice system disparities are framed within the theoretical contexts of Western conceptions of justice, traditional justifications of social control, and social inequality. The chapter’s perspective is based on these concepts of justice, social control justifications, and evidence from scholarly research on juvenile justice system disparities.

Overall, the U.S. juvenile justice system’s racial and ethnic disparities violate fundamental concepts of justice, traditional justifications of social control, and exacerbate existing social inequalities.

Through its utilization of Western conceptions of justice and social control justifications, this chapter offers a relatively unique framework for the examination of the U.S. juvenile justice system’s racial and ethnic disparities. While recognizing the overall quality and significance of disparities research, the chapter asks the reader to take a step back, and look at and think about the broader justice and inequality contexts.

This chapter explores the provision of library services to children residing in juvenile justice facilities. The small body of scholarly literature published on the topic over the last 50 years is examined, followed by a description of the findings of a recent Australian survey of juvenile justice library provision in that country. Australia presents a very poor example of the provision of library services to children living in correctional detention. A contrast to the Australian context is provided through a case study of the library service to the South Carolina Birchwood School, in the United States. Housed in the South Carolina Juvenile Justice Centre, the Birchwood School library is presented as an example of better practice and an illustration of what can be achieved by a juvenile justice facility library when it is sufficiently staffed and funded. Opportunities for further research are identified and conclusions are drawn regarding the need for libraries in juvenile justice facilities.

Despite the existence of minimum age laws for juvenile justice jurisdiction in 18 US states, California has no explicit law that protects children (i.e. youth less than 12 years old) from being processed in the juvenile justice system. In the absence of a minimum age law, California lags behind other states and international practice and standards. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this policy brief, academics across the University of California campuses examine current evidence, theory, and policy related to the minimum age of juvenile justice jurisdiction.

Existing evidence suggests that children lack the cognitive maturity to comprehend or benefit from formal juvenile justice processing, and diverting children from the system altogether is likely to be more beneficial for the child and for public safety.

Based on current evidence and theory, the authors argue that minimum age legislation that protects children from contact with the juvenile justice system and treats them as children in need of services and support, rather than as delinquents or criminals, is an important policy goal for California and for other national and international jurisdictions lacking a minimum age law.

California has no law specifying a minimum age for juvenile justice jurisdiction, meaning that young children of any age can be processed in the juvenile justice system. This policy brief provides a rationale for a minimum age law in California and other states and jurisdictions without one.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a term used to describe the pathway traveled by students from public schools to incarceration in secure juvenile detention and correctional programs. It begins with students who are marginalized by the education system because of their academic and behavioral issues. The pipeline leads from school failure and disciplinary exclusion to involvement with the juvenile justice system. Youth who are ethnic minorities (especially those who are African-American or Hispanic) as well as those with educational disabilities (especially those with learning and behavioral disorders) are significantly overrepresented in data sets representing key points along the pipeline (e.g., students with poor academic achievement, high rates of suspension, expulsion, and dropout) as well as their high rates of incarceration. From his personal perspective and experience with the juvenile justice system, the author attempts to explicate the pipeline, and to describe efforts to impact it positively.

Framed by the intersectionality perspective and results from prior research, we examined the effects of race/ethnicity, gender, probation violations, and type of violation on juvenile justice case outcomes in a Mid-Atlantic state.

Bivariate and multivariate analyses in the form of logistic regression were used to assess the extent race and ethnicity, gender, probation violations, and the type of violation, individually and in combination, impact case outcomes.

The findings indicate that the race/ethnicity of the youth, his or her gender, and whether involved in a probation violation and to some degree the type of violation, individually and in some cases, jointly, effect juvenile justice decision making. These relationships often involve receiving both harsh and lenient outcomes. We interpret the results as evidence that stereotyping plays out differently when race/ethnicity and gender intersect.

The study contributes to the general literature by (1) examining the neglected combination effects of race/ethnicity and gender with increased social control within juvenile justice proceedings; (2) including Hispanic youth; and (3) looking at the interrelationships among race/ethnicity and gender with the treatment of probation violators.

In this chapter, I examine the juvenile justice system and incarceration practices in Turkey. The study focuses on the basic agents and the legislation of the juvenile justice system and the current status of juvenile incarceration. This study also reveals the problems of the functionality of the system. I conclude with policy recommendations for successful implementation of the juvenile justice system and prevention of recidivism.

I discuss concepts in the juvenile justice system of Turkey and highlight the function and problems of each agent of the system. I focus on problems of the juvenile justice system and its reflection on high rates of recidivism of juveniles.

Overall, the leniency of the juvenile justice system is associated with high rates of juvenile recidivism in Turkey. Infrastructure insufficiencies have limited the standardization of services and practices. The delayed response and perceived leniency of the justice system promoted juveniles’ continuation on a crime trajectory.

Few scholars have examined the functionality of the juvenile justice system, its problems, and its reflection on high rates of juvenile recidivism in the Turkish case.

The purpose of this paper is to make evidence-based recommendations for improving the responses of criminal justice agencies to juvenile burglary offenders.

The paper first analyzes what is known about factors relevant to young offenders’ initiation into burglary and subsequent persistence in that offense. It then evaluates research regarding juvenile justice interventions that can mitigate those factors in order to prevent youth from becoming involved in burglary or to encourage desistance in juvenile burglars.

Effective early intervention with juvenile burglars is vital, as burglars often begin committing this crime in their early teens and quickly develop expertise in the offense. Evidence supports the importance of positive mentoring, substance abuse programs, some forms of restorative justice and multi-modal interventions with education and employment components, while waiving these youth to adult court appears to offer little benefit over less punitive approaches.

This work delivers an original contribution by providing an analysis of existing burglary and juvenile justice research that may be useful to policymakers, law enforcement and other justice practitioners.

Using administrative, longitudinal data on felony arrests in Florida, we exploit the discontinuous increase in the punitiveness of criminal sanctions at 18 to estimate the deterrence effect of incarceration. Our analysis suggests a 2% decline in the log-odds of offending at 18, with standard errors ruling out declines of 11% or more. We interpret these magnitudes using a stochastic dynamic extension of Becker’s (1968) model of criminal behavior. Calibrating the model to match key empirical moments, we conclude that deterrence elasticities with respect to sentence lengths are no more negative than − 0 . 13 for young offenders.