This field study features intensive personal interviews of more than four hundred young people who have left home and school and are living on the streets of Toronto and Vancouver. The study examines why youth take to the streets, their struggles to survive there, their victimization and involvement in crime, their associations with other street youth, especially within "street families," their contacts with the police, and their efforts to rejoin conventional society. Major theories of youth crime are analyzed and reappraised in the context of a new social capital theory of crime.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is an important actor in the American gun debate. While popular explanations for the group's influence often focus on the NRA's lobbying and campaign donations, it receives lesser attention for the mass mobilization efforts that make these political endeavours possible. On Target explores why the NRA is so influential and how we can understand the group's impact on firearms policy in the United States. The book looks at how the NRA both draws upon and shapes historical meta-narratives regarding the role of firearms in America's national identity and how this is part of a larger effort to expand the community of gun owners. Noah S. Schwartz demonstrates how the NRA portrays a vision of the past through events such as its annual meeting; communications such as American Rifleman magazine and NRA TV; and points of contact including the National Firearms Museum. Based on fieldwork in Indiana and Virginia, including participant observation at NRA events and firearm safety classes, thematic analysis of audio-visual material, and interviews with NRA executives and members, On Target sheds light on the ways in which the NRA tells stories to build and mobilize a politically motivated network of gun owners.

"[Gangs in America's Communities] is one of the most comprehensive treatments of gangs in the marketplace. . . . I highly recommend its adoption as you will not be disappointed and, most importantly, neither will your students." -Elvira White-Lewis, Texas A&M University-Commerce Gangs in America's Communities, Third Edition blends theory with current research to help readers identify essential features associated with youth violence and gangs, as well as apply strategies for gang control and prevention. Authors Dr. James C. Howell and Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths introduce readers to theories of gang formation, illustrate various ways of defining and classifying gangs, and discuss national trends in gang presence and gang-related violence across American cities. They also offer evidence-based strategies for positioning communities to prevent, intervene, and address gang activity. New to the Third Edition: A series of new case studies document the evolution of numerous gangs in large cities, including the community aspect, evolutionary nature, and how cities influence levels of violence. New discussions highlighting the role of social media, insights into how gangs use it to recruit members, and the response from law enforcement. Current nationwide gang trends are discussed to encourage readers to analyze and interpret the most recent statistics for which representative data is available. Updated macro and micro gang theories enable readers to explore a recent encapsulation of leading developmental models. New discussions around female gang members offer readers potentially effective programs for discouraging females from joining gangs-along with highly regarded delinquency prevention and reduction programs that have the potency to be effective in reducing gang crimes among young women. A comprehensive gang prevention, intervention, and suppression program in Multnomah County, Oregon shows how theory was successfully applied to reduce gang activity in a local community. New research on "gang structures" and their rates of crime illustrate the connections between violent crimes and the amount of violent offenders within a gang. Additional discussion of distinguishing features (e.g., typologies) of major gangs, and numerous examples of gang symbols, tattoos, and graffiti has been added to help readers identify and differentiate various types of gangs.

Individuals who have committed a number of crimes over their lifetimes have had complex, multi-faceted life experiences often characterized by extreme disadvantage and victimization. Those who are formally designated as "high-risk" by the Canadian criminal justice system often have a record of violent or sexual crimes. As a result, they are usually subject to additional monitoring in the community after completing a prison sentence. Pathways to Ruin? disentangles the numerous elements and pathways that lead to high rates of reoffending by focusing on developmental periods of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The book uses a case-study approach to consider individuals' entire crime pathway by examining the circumstances and factors that contribute to assumptions or official designations of "high-risk" behaviour. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot and Tamara Humphrey overhaul society's popular crime narratives and instead draw on sociological and criminological perspectives to identify historical, social, and personal contexts that appear to increase the likelihood of reoffending. They also consider how negative life experiences may be addressed to circumvent trajectories of serious offending. Reducing the social distance that the "law-abiding" public may feel towards marginalized groups, Pathways to Ruin? details how legal systems could better serve these individuals, and acknowledges the many missed opportunities for compassion.

Victim awareness and the needs of victims of crime are a major societal concern. What Have I Done? is a photocopiable resource and downloadable online content to encourage empathy in young people who commit crimes or hurt others through their actions. It is designed to be used directly with young people who have committed a specific crime or caused harm and distress to others through their actions, and challenges the young person to face the harm they have caused and consider what they can do to help put things right. The course is flexible and interactive, and can be used on an individual basis or with small groups, and is suitable for young people with limited literacy. The exercises are challenging, and aim to be engaging through the use of creative arts, film, role-play and discussion. Clear guidance is provided for the course leader, and evaluation is built into the course, including a psychometric test. A downloadable online content to help stimulate discussion is also included. What Have I Done? will be ideal for victim empathy work in Youth Offending Teams and Young Offender Institutions, and can equally be used in schools, children's homes, youth groups and any context with young people. The programme is measurable, featuring pre- and post-programme empathy scales, and is suitable for young offenders subject to a youth rehabilitation order.

R U Listenin'? challenges men to reflect on their personal and emotional behaviour and uses prison life as an analogy to help them rethink their perspectives. Aimed at professionals working with men who are challenging the boundaries of society or any man who feels frustrated by his life, the book offers detailed illustrative case studies, structured exercises and topics for discussion, which can be used by the individual or in a group context. These features are identified in the text by pictorial icons, making the book easy to navigate. The exercises are imaginative and challenging, encouraging men to develop social and communication skills and an understanding of how the structures of society work. The author also suggests exercises and techniques for dealing with challenging groups, which are ideal for use by group facilitators. This book provides positive guidance for troubled men and is an essential tool for professionals working with young offenders and men with challenging behaviour.

Juvenile Justice for the 21st Century provides students with engaging articles and the latest research on emerging topics within the field. This anthology provides readers with valuable information on the current issues facing contemporary youths and the professionals who work with them on a daily basis. The text is composed of one original piece and seven research articles that cover issues related to race, substance abuse, LGBTQ identity and community, mental health, technology, and reentry success. Individual topics include minority disproportion in the system, the impact of juvenile mental health court on recidivism rates among youth, the overrepresentation of LGBTQ youth within the child welfare to juvenile justice crossover population, and more. The text recognizes the critical role of treatment and rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system and underscores the importance of leveraging current research to guide effective practices and approaches. Featuring timely, scholarly information, Juvenile Justice for the 21st Century is an ideal supplementary text for courses within criminal justice and sociology, especially those with focus on juvenile justice and delinquency issues.

Young minority men are often portrayed in popular media as victims of poverty and discrimination. A Dream Denied delves deeper, investigating the social and cultural implications of the "American dream" narrative for young minority men in the juvenile justice systems in Boston and Chicago. This book connects young male offenders' cycles of desistance and recidivism with normative assumptions about success and failure in American society, exposing a tragic disconnect between structural reality and juvenile justice policy. This book challenges us to reconsider how American society relates to its most vulnerable members, how it responds to their personal failures, and how it promises them a better future.

Juvenile Delinquency in American Society: Race, Class, and Politics examines juvenile delinquency and the juvenile justice system as they are influenced by matters of race and ethnicity. Rooted in current research, the book explores how race and racism play a role in which youth are arrested, which are adjudicated delinquents in juvenile courts, and which end up in residential facilities, juvenile detention centers, or adult prisons. The content is organized into four primary units covering the historical context of race, theories of race and delinquency, the social context of race and delinquency, and current issues in juvenile justice. Specific topics include the impact of race on the social construction of adolescence, measures and correlates of delinquency, social process, life course, and critical theories, the school-to-prison pipeline, and corrections and punishment in the modern era. With its thoughtful exploration of a critical issue, Juvenile Delinquency in American Society is designed to serve as a primary text in college and university courses in criminal justice and juvenile justice. It can also be used to provide in-service training for professionals at all levels within the juvenile justice system.

Building upon the success of the first edition, this second - and substantially revised - edition of Youth Crime and Justice comprises a range of cutting-edge contributions from leading national and international researchers. The book: Situates youth crime and youth justice within historical and social-structural contexts; Critically examines policy and practice trends and their relation to knowledge and 'evidence'; and Presents a forward looking vision of a rights compliant youth justice with integrity. An authoritative and accessible book, Youth Crime and Justice (2nd ed) provides a coherent, comprehensive and fully up-to-date analysis of contemporary developments and debates. A must for researchers, teachers, students and practitioners.

Over the last two decades, researchers have made significant discoveries about the causes and origins of delinquency. Specifically, we have learned a great deal about adolescent development and its relationship to decision-making, about multiple factors that contribute to delinquency, and about the processes and contexts associated with the course of delinquent careers. Over the same period, public officials have made sweeping jurisprudential, jurisdictional, and procedural changes in our juvenile justice systems. The Oxford Handbook of Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice presents a timely compilation of state-of-the-art critical reviews of knowledge about causes of delinquency and their significance for justice policy, and about developments in the juvenile justice system to prevent and control youth crime. The first half of the handbook focuses on juvenile crime and examines trends and patterns in delinquency and victimization, explores causes of delinquency-at the individual, micro-social, and macro-social levels, and from natural and social science perspectives-and their implications for structuring a youth justice system. The second half of the handbook concentrates on juvenile justice and examines a range of issues-including the historical origins and re-invention of the juvenile court; juvenile offenders' mental health status and considerations of trial competence and culpability; intake, diversion, detention, and juvenile courts; and transfer/waiver strategies-and considers how the juvenile justice system itself influences delinquency. The Oxford Handbook of Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice provides a comprehensive overview of juvenile crime and juvenile justice administration by authors who are all leading scholars involved in cutting-edge research, and is an essential resource for scholars, students, and justice officials. "Many volumes of this sort aspire to such balance, but this one succeeds. For those looking for a one-stop approach to the primary debates in this important subfield, this is the place to start shopping."-CHOICE

Innocent people are regularly convicted of crimes they did not commit. A number of systemic factors have been found to contribute to wrongful convictions, including eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, informant testimony, official misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence. In Miscarriages of Justice in Canada, Kathryn M. Campbell offers an extensive overview of wrongful convictions, bringing together current sociological, criminological, and legal research, as well as current case-law examples. For the first time, information on all known and suspected cases of wrongful conviction in Canada is included and interspersed with discussions of how wrongful convictions happen, how existing remedies to rectify them are inadequate, and how those who have been victimized by these errors are rarely compensated. Campbell reveals that the causes of wrongful convictions are, in fact, avoidable, and that those in the criminal justice system must exercise greater vigilance and openness to the possibility of error if the problem of wrongful conviction is to be resolved.

Young Criminal Lives is the first cradle-to-grave study of the experiences of some of the thousands of delinquent, difficult and destitute children passing through the early English juvenile reformatory system. The book breaks new ground in crime research, speaking to pressing present-day concerns around child poverty and youth justice, and resonating with a powerful public fascination for family history. Using innovative digital methods to unlock the Victorian life course, the authors have reconstructed the lives, families and neighbourhoods of 500 children living within, or at the margins of, the early English juvenile reformatory system. Four hundred of them were sent to reformatory and industrial schools in the north west of England from courts around the UK over a fifty-year period from the 1860s onwards. Young Criminal Lives is based on one of the most comprehensive sets of official and personal data ever assembled for a historical study of this kind. For the first time, these children can be followed on their journey in and out of reform and then though their adulthood and old age. The book centres on institutions celebrated in this period for their pioneering new approaches to child welfare and others that were investigated for cruelty and scandal. Both were typical of the new kind of state-certified provision offered, from the 1850s on, to children who had committed criminal acts, or who were considered 'vulnerable' to predation, poverty and the 'inheritance' of criminal dispositions. The notion that interventions can and must be evaluated in order to determine 'what works' now dominates public policy. But how did Victorian and Edwardian policy-makers and practitioners deal with this question? By what criteria, and on the basis of what kinds of evidence, did they judge their own successes and failures? Young Criminal Lives ends with a critical review of the historical rise of evidence-based policy-making within criminal justice. It will appeal to scholars and students of crime and penal policy, criminologists, sociologists, and social policy researchers and practitioners in youth justice and child protection.

One of the key premises for creating a separate criminal justicesystem for juveniles was that juveniles were not the same as adults,and could therefore be rehabilitated. Despite this premise, stilllargely held today, the rate of recidivism for juveniles is dismal.The history of a supposedly rehabilitative juvenile justice systemin the United States is a failed history of incarceration, muchlike that of adult corrections. Rehabilitation by incarcerationhas proven to be an ineffective and unsustainable strategy. Arobust amount of research shows that treating juveniles closer tohome, in fact in their communities, is the most effective tool forrehabilitating juvenile offenders. This book not only makes an argument for juvenile justice withina young person's community; it provides a model. Tarrant CountyJuvenile Services has been an exception to the national normfrom the beginning. This book will trace the history of Texas'soldest juvenile probation department and the legacy left by theleaders of this agency from its inception. The reader will take awayvivid pictures of the leaders who transformed the system, andreal-life examples of the key concepts underlying an effective andsustainable juvenile justice system, with accountability both forjuvenile offenders and for their communities.

From the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century juvenile reformatories served as citizen-building institutions and a political tool of state racism in post-emancipation America. New South advocates cemented their regional affiliation by using these reformatories to showcase mercies which were racialized, gendered, and linked to sexuality. Southern Mercy uses four historical examples of juvenile reformatories in North Carolina to explore how spectacles of mercy have influenced Southern modernity. Working through archival material pertaining to race and moral uplift, including rare photos from the private archives of Samarcand Manor (the State Home and Industrial Manor for Girls) and restricted archival records of reformatory racial policies, Annette Bickford examines the limits of emancipation, and the exclusions inherent in liberal humanism that distinguish racism in the contemporary "post-race" era.

Juvenile Justice: Youth and Crime in Australia (fifth edition) is about youth and crime in Australia, and the institutions and agencies associated with the administration of juvenile justice. It provides an accessible overview to the main concepts and issues of Juvenile Justice and critically analyses the associated principles, policies and practices. The fifth edition presents students with clear information across a broad range of areas, examining historical and theoretical developments, social dynamics, and the systems in which juvenile justice operates. Each section raises key issues and perspectives necessary to gaining a critical understanding of young people, crime and justice.

Since its implementation in 2003, the Youth Criminal Justice Act has been the subject of intense political and scholarly debate. A complicated mixture of provisions intended to provide harsher punishments for serious violent crimes while encouraging positive, non-punitive interventions in less serious cases, its impact on the youth justice system remains controversial. Implementing and Working with the Youth Criminal Justice Act across Canada provides the first comprehensive, province-by-province analysis of how each Canadian jurisdiction has implemented the Act in accordance with its own history, traditions, and institutional arrangements. Drawing on in-depth interviews with probation officers, counselors, educators, and social workers, the contributors use the experiences of practitioners to offer a new analytical perspective on a complicated and contentious aspect of the Canadian justice system. Their conclusions provide vital policy and program information for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers concerned with Canada's youth justice systems.

This book provides a comprehensive, cutting-edge look at the problems that impact the way we conduct intervention and treatment for youth in crisis today-an indispensable resource for practitioners, students, researchers, policymakers, and faculty working in the area of juvenile justice. Understanding Juvenile Justice and Delinquency provides a concise overview of the most compelling issues in juvenile delinquency today. It covers not only the range of offenses but also the offenders themselves as well as those impacted by crime and delinquency. All of the chapters contain up-to-date research, laws, and data that accurately frame discussions on youth violence, detention, and treatment; related issues such as gangs and drugs; the consequences for scholars, teachers, and students; and best practices in intervention methods. The book's organization guides readers logically from the broader definitions and parameters of the study of juveniles to the more specific. The volume leads with an explanation of the relationship between victimization and juvenile behavior and sets up boundaries of the arenas of delinquency-from the family to the streets to cyberspace. The book then focuses on more specific populations of offenders and offenses, including recent, emerging issues, offering the most accurate information available and cutting-edge insight into the issues that affect youth in custody and in our communities. Provides insights into juvenile justice from contributors and editors who have extensive experience in teaching, researching, and writing on the subject Represents an ideal teaching text for courses in juvenile justice-a staple topic in all criminology and criminal justice college programs Presents analysis and evaluation of techniques used and programs employed, enabling readers to be better advocates for law and policy impacting youth Includes discussion questions appropriate for classroom settings and lists of additional resources, related websites, and supporting films that guide students in investigating the subject further Supplies updated data and information on policy and law that will serve as a vital resource for students writing papers or scholars teaching in the field of juvenile justice

By the close of the twentieth century, the United States became known for its reliance on incarceration as the chief means of social control, particularly in poor communities of color. The carceral state has been extended into the public school system in these communities in what has become known as the ""school-to-prison pipeline."" Through interviews with young people suspended from school, Weissman examines the impact of zero tolerance and other harsh disciplinary approaches that have transformed schools into penal-like institutions. In their own words, students describe their lives, the challenges they face, and their efforts to overcome those challenges. Unlike other studies, this book illuminates the students' perspectives on what happens when the educational system excludes them from regular school. Weissman draws attention to research findings that suggest punitive disciplinary policies and practices resemble criminal justice strategies of arrest, trial, sentence, and imprisonment. She demonstrates how harsh school discipline prepares young people from poor communities of color for their place in the carceral state. An invaluable resource for policy makers, Prelude to Prison presents recommendations for policy, practice, and political change that have the potential to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

This book applies modern object relations theory-particularly the concept of intersubjectivity as articulated by Thomas Ogden-to a population for which the "treatment du jour" is increasingly cognitive-behavioral. Taking his lead from the delinquent adolescents in his practice, Dr. Brodie presents a treatment approach based on respect rather than condescension. Adolescents are related to as people, rather than as transitory objects passing through a 'stage.' Rather than judging their feelings and behaviors as "aberrant," the author views them as having emerged out of the complex matrix of his patients' lives. Adolescence and Delinqucney: An Object Relations Theory Approach is less an attempt to apply object relations theory to a particular population than it is an attempt to illuminate the seamlessness of theory and application. Theory and case examples are presented in a dialectical relationship, psychological theory having no meaning other than an attempt to understand real people, and the people we work with are unintelligible outside some systematic frame of reference.

To date, knowledge of the everyday world of the juvenile correction institution has been extremely sparse. Compassionate Confinement brings to light the challenges and complexities inherent in the U.S. system of juvenile corrections. Building on over a year of field work at a boys' residential facility, Laura S. Abrams and Ben Anderson-Nathe provide a context for contemporary institutions and highlight some of the system's most troubling tensions. This ethnographic text utilizes narratives, observations, and case examples to illustrate the strain between treatment and correctional paradigms and the mixed messages regarding gender identity and masculinity that the youths are expected to navigate. Within this context, the authors use the boys' stories to show various and unexpected pathways toward behavior change. While some residents clearly seized opportunities for self-transformation, others manipulated their way toward release, and faced substantial challenges when they returned home. Compassionate Confinement concludes with recommendations for rehabilitating this notoriously troubled system in light of the experiences of its most vulnerable stakeholders.

Since the world's first juvenile court was founded in Chicago, our legal system has recognised a separate mandate to rehabilitate youth with an approach that is different than adults. Today, all 50 states and the District of Columbia and the federal government have two distinct systems for dealing with adults and juveniles, and corrections systems kept pace by developing different systems for dealing with the youth. While the majority of youth arrested for criminal acts are prosecuted in state juvenile justice systems, a significant proportion of youth are handled by adult criminal justice agencies. This book examines the issues, impacts and options facing corrections when they manage youth in the adult system, with a focus on raising awareness of these issues, and finding the best ways to curb juvenile delinquency in correctional settings.

* Real life stories with expert analysis * Case studies and comment * Provides a valuable perspective on youth offending * Contains key messages about youth crime The voices of young offenders-the real life stories behind the worrying and sometimes tragic lives of those who get into trouble with the law. Setting these within the context of descriptions of youth justice policy, Jackie Worrall conveys to her readers an understanding of how and why young people become offenders going far beyond that to be gleaned from everyday rhetoric and theory. Why Did You Do It? contains raw, first-hand accounts of young people involved in crime. These stories cast a different light on youth offending to that so often portrayed by the media, making this new and insightful work a valuable resource for anyone trying to grasp the social, penal or criminological implications of youth crime. What are the traps that can ensnare young people as they grow up and the triggers which can so easily see them onto the wrong side of the tracks? In Why Did You Do It? Jackie Worrall sets out their explanations, examines a critical phase in their lives and dissects the political mantra, over-tidy solutions and off-the-cuff responses. Review 'Having worked with offenders for decades, Jackie Worrall's experience and knowledge is unparalleled' Paul McDowell, CEO, Nacro. Author Dr Jackie Worrall was born in London and read law at Warwick University before working as a probation officer in Birmingham and Warwickshire. In 1982, she joined Nacro, the crime reduction charity, as manager of a youth training scheme. During her career she took on a variety of crime-related responsibilities for Nacro, culminating in her role as that organization's Director of Policy and Public Affairs-and hence her unrivalled knowledge and experience when dissecting the explanations or excuses in this book. Foreword With a Foreword by Paul MacDowell, Chief Executive of Nacro.

This exploration of juvenile corrections librarianship provides a complete description of these specialized services, addresses unique challenges in this library environment, and promotes intellectual and social growth for at-risk youth. The facts regarding juvenile corrections are grim. In California alone, 13,000 youth are housed as wards of the state. Rearrest rates for young people in detention and correction facilities range from 77 to 90 percent. The good news is youth corrections librarianship has the potential to improve the situation. This book fills a gap in the literature on corrections librarianship, which is focused almost solely on adult prisons. Programs for juvenile offenders require significantly more emphasis on education and rehabilitation than adults. There is also greater urgency in delivering needed services to youth offenders. Literacy: A Way Out for At-Risk Youth provides librarians in juvenile detention facilities with tools to face their unique challenges, such as collaborating with corrections staff and encouraging youth to maintain their connection to the library after release. The author's recommendations for reader's advisory, collection development, and other services are geared toward helping teens cope with their problems and develop better decision making skills. Provides a brief history of juvenile detention and juvenile detention libraries in the United States Describes and explains current service models in juvenile detention center libraries Includes demographic charts, process maps, and historical photographs Supplies bibliographic references following each chapter

A veteran teacher gives an "inside" view of the lives of juveniles sentenced as adults
David Chura taught high school in a New York county penitentiary for ten years--five days a week, seven hours a day. In these pages, he""gives a face to a population regularly demonized and reduced to statistics""by the mainstream media. Through language marked by both the grit of the street and the expansiveness of poetry, the stories of these young people break down the di-visions we so easily erect between us and them, the keepers and the kept--and call into question the increasing practice of sentencing juveniles as adults.