Teen gangs are a hot issue in the United States. This volume shows the international scope of the phenomenon today. Gang activity in 14 countries, including the United States, is discussed within the larger framework of social and economic conditions. Each chapter explains the nature of the gang activity in that country; touches on the causes, such as poverty, marginalization, and self-identity problems; and heavily emphasizes the responses, including education and community-based intervention. Students and researchers will find a wealth of current information on teen gangs to mine and use for comparisons.

The complexities and tragedies arising from teen violence are problems faced on every continent in the world. Fourteen case studies of carefully selected countries, representative of every region of the world, are presented in this absorbing volume that is the first to examine the causes and possible solutions for the problem of teen violence around the world. Students and teachers can make cross-cultural comparisons to discover how the problem is viewed in different countries, how the problem is changing, which factors seem to contribute to the rate of teen violence in almost all of the countries and which are unique to specific countries. Readers can also take a fascinating look at the various solutions to the problem that have been proposed and tested throughout the world.

Each chapter is divided into similar subsections, so students can easily compare specific topics among different countries and cultures. They will find that the perception of teen violence in different countries does not always reflect the reality. They can discover how such factors as drug use, family dynamics, and educational settings play an important role in teen violence across many different cultures, while also discovering the unique settings and situations that contribute to violence in unfamiliar cultures. This world view will help build better understanding of how social issues affect all societies.

The news of teenagers and even younger children committing ever more serious and violent crimes continues to shock and baffle. The escalating psychological and social toll of youth crime is being paid by all from victims to offenders to parents and siblings to teachers and to the community as a whole. "Adolescent Reputations and Risk" looks beyond traditional theories to examine, from a solid empirical basis, the motivation and values that make some young people choose antisocial over positive behavior, resulting in potent new insights and possible solutions to this ongoing problem.

Synthesizing 15 years of research with delinquent youth, this volume describes the volatile dynamic of child and adolescent social worlds, emphasizing reputation enhancement and goal-setting as bases underlying deviant behavior. In innovative and accessible terms, "Adolescent Reputations and Risk" addresses delinquency throughout the course of childhood and adolescence, offers the first detailed explanation of delinquency by integrating goal-setting and reputation enhancement theories, provides evidence analyzing deviant trends in goal-setting and reputation enhancement terms among primary and high school students, answers key questions on topics such as impulsivity, drug and inhalant use, early-childhood psychopathy, links between ADHD and aggression, and the psychology of loners and includes current data on interventions for at-risk youth, including family and school methods, cognitive-behavioral therapy, wilderness and boot camp programs, and interactive multimedia strategies.

This volume is an essential resource for clinical child, school, and counseling psychologists; social workers; and allied education and community mental health professionals and practitioners."

Very little is known about young British male Muslims who offend. Qasim gained unique first-hand insight into the multifaceted lives of a group after spending 4 years studying them. He unwraps their lives, explores their identities and explains what role religion and Pakistani culture play in their criminal behaviour.

Based on a comprehensive study of three counties in Texas, this work examines the idea of differential handling of minority youth offenders. Traditional wisdom indicates that minorities are over-represented in the juvenile justice system due to racism and discrimination within the system itself. The author refutes this logic by challenging current studies and examining the results of the Texas study. The findings suggest that minorities are represented in the juvenile justice system in greater numbers than their majority offender counterparts due to their greater involvement in criminal activity, not to any differential treatment they may receive at crucial decision points within the system. Allegations of racial bias against the juvenile justice system are often supported by the federal government, which suggests that minorities continue to be targeted more frequently for arrest, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment merely because they are persons of color. Drawing on new research, the author addresses racial disparity in the juvenile justice system and contends that previous research suffers methodological and statistical analysis problems, resulting in the mischaracterization of the issue of racial bias. The present study argues that most minority juveniles receive different case outcomes because of the severity of their current offense, and both the length and severity of their prior delinquency careers. Tracy's research ultimately indicates that rather than being discriminatory, the juvenile system is, instead, reacting to a particular type of delinquent using legally permissible guidelines.

This book examines the role and practical dynamics of governmental environmental law enforcement agencies and individuals who combat environmental crime. It will inform researchers about the 'real world' experiences of practitioners and provide an intellectual space for practitioners to examine critically what it is they do and why.

This book examines the conciliatory institutions that operate within criminal law in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. Despite having the same legal traditions, the two countries have taken very different political and social roads over the past century. Taking these important factors into account, the book compares the conciliatory mechanisms that have emerged in the two countries, particularly focusing on the influence of Confucian tradition in current criminal reconciliation practices. By drawing upon in-depth interviews with multiple experts in the area, the role of tradition in the discipline of modern Xingshi Hejie is explored, alongside an analysis of the reasons that lead victims and offenders to choose this conciliatory procedure. The book offers a fascinating account of this feature of criminal justice in China and Taiwan, and will be of particular interest to scholars interested in comparative approaches to criminology and criminal justice.

Violence of any kind is hard for most people to understand, but crimes against children and crimes committed by children are perhaps the most difficult to comprehend. Child abuse and neglect is a problem with generational effects. Women who were sexually abused in childhood, for example, are more likely than non-abused women to be harsh with their children, withhold affection, or even accept the sexual abuse of their own children by a spouse or lover. Yet children are not always merely the victims of aggression. They also perpetrate violent crimes in the form of bullying, assault, and homicide, as well as crimes on property, such as vandalism. Moffatt addresses the two sides of this cycle of violence, including examples from clinical case studies and treatment options. Moffatt details crimes against children, ranging from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, sexual and physical abuse, neglect, filicide, and infanticide. He addresses aggression committed by children against other people, property, and self, including self-mutilation and suicide. Written for both professional and lay audiences, counselors, teachers, psychologists, law enforcement, medical professionals, and therapists will benefit from the psychological discussions about causes and effects of aggression.

Will 'what works' in one country work in another? This unique collection examines the cross-cultural transfer of skills and expertise, drawing out the opportunities and challenges involved in taking penal practices from one country to another.

This book explores the factors at the individual, institutional and systemic levels which contribute to children's home residents coming to the attention of the youth justice system, and the consequent implications for policy and practice. Perspectives are drawn from both young people and professionals in the care and youth justice systems.

Rehabilitation and Probation in England and Wales, 1900-1950 draws on a wide range of archive material to describe the arrival of a modern probation service. Focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, it describes the debates, conflicts and compromises that resulted in the creation of a state sponsored, centrally controlled, professional, secular, social work and psychological based agency. Following a chronological structure, Ray Gard explores the arrival of the so-called period of 'penal optimism', showing how rehabilitation arrived in the courts of England and Wales. The book uses archive and original material to give voice to those devising and implementing policy, revealing an uneven path to a modern probation system.

Honorable Mention, 2014 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems 2012 Best Book Award, Latino/a Sociology Section, presented by the American Sociological Association 2012 Finalist, C. Wright Mills Book Award presented by the Study of Social Problems A classic ethnography that reveals how urban police criminalize black and Latino boys Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California in the 1980s and 90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men, who now face punitive policies in their schools, communities, and a world where they are constantly policed and stigmatized. Rios followed a group of forty delinquent Black and Latino boys for three years. These boys found themselves in a vicious cycle, caught in a spiral of punishment and incarceration as they were harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages, even before they had committed any crimes, eventually leading many of them to fulfill the destiny expected of them. But beyond a fatalistic account of these marginalized young men, Rios finds that the very system that criminalizes them and limits their opportunities, sparks resistance and a raised consciousness that motivates some to transform their lives and become productive citizens. Ultimately, he argues that by understanding the lives of the young men who are criminalized and pipelined through the criminal justice system, we can begin to develop empathic solutions which support these young men in their development and to eliminate the culture of punishment that has become an overbearing part of their everyday lives.

In this book, renowned profiler Dr. Richard Kocsis presents a distinct approach to profiling called Crime Action Profiling or CAP. The volume explains the scope and methodology employed in the studies that the author has undertaken over the past decade and a half. CAP adopts the view that profiling essentially represents a psychological technique that has its foundations in the disciplinary knowledge of forensic psychology.

"Tried as an adult." The phrase rings with increasing frequency through America's courtrooms. In Michigan, an 11-year-old is charged with first-degree homicide in the shooting death of a playmate. A mentally disabled boy in Florida faces armed robbery and extortion charges that could bring 30
years in prison for stealing $2 worth of food. Faith in childhood, and its corollary that separate courts are required for children because they are developmentally different from adults, appears to be vanishing. Almost forgotten in this climate--in which a New York Times' headline boldly announced
that the "Fear of Crime Trumps the Fear of Lost Youth"--is the fact that the juvenile court is one of America's most influential legal inventions.
Long before the crimes of the young became a national preoccupation, Americans struggled with many of the same questions posed by today's aggressive sentencing of minors. What is the legal status of children? Does a particularly horrific crime merit a commensurately severe response, regardless of
the age of the offender? Who belongs in juvenile court, and what is its exact purpose?
In his engaging narrative history of the rise and workings of America's first juvenile court, David S. Tanenhaus explores the fundamental and enduring question of how the law should treat the young. Sifting through almost 3,000 previously unexamined Chicago case files from the early twentieth
century, Tanenhaus reveals how children's advocates slowly built up a separate court system for juveniles, all the while fighting political and legal battles to legitimate this controversial institution. In the process, the juvenile court became a catalyst for thedevelopment of the American welfare
state, the medicalization of child rearing, and the beginnings of innovative community organizing programs.
Today, as America's treatment of juvenile offenders becomes increasingly draconian, the United States, once a leader in the international crusade to secure justice for children, is now in this respect effectively a rogue nation. Harkening back to a more hopeful and nuanced age Juvenile Justice in
the Making provides a valuable historical framework for thinking about youth policy.

The popularity of television shows and movies like Profiler, CSI, and The Silence of the Lambs has made the concept of criminal profiling familiar to most Americans. Though such dramas follow the general approach of real-life criminal investigative analysis, artistic license often results in a simplistic and sensationalistic image of the complex work of profilers. In this compilation of expert articles internationally recognized homicide investigators, most of them pioneers in developing the science and the art of profiling, share their insights gained from years of experience tracking the perpetrators of some of the most notorious crimes.
Among the subjects discussed are:
dealing with hostage situations
child abduction and murder in the David Meirhofer case
interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer
autoerotic murder
the challenges of creating psychological profiles
the use of forensic linguistics to track the Unabomber
assaultative eye injury ("enucleation")
geographic profiling
A must for readers of true crime, forensic investigations, and murder mysteries, this unique collection of revealing articles offers a chilling and unparalleled glimpse into the workings of the criminal mind.

Every day children exiled to prison are exposed to abusive and neglectful treatment, yet their plight is hidden. Based on wide-ranging research and first-person interviews, this passionately argued book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation and progress in the care and treatment of vulnerable children elsewhere, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody including hunger, denial of fresh air, cramped and dirty cells, strip-searching, segregation, the authorised infliction of severe pain, uncivilised conditions for suicidal children and ever-present violence and intimidation. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close. Providing a compelling manifesto for urgent and radical change, this book should be read by everyone who cares about child protection and human rights.

'Offender management' for probation means continuing commitment to constructive work with individuals who break the law but in a changing multi-agency context. Providing a comprehensive introduction to criminal justice work, this book negotiates the structures set by law and policy and allows readers to think critically about roles, accountabilities and professional skills and judgement. Looking at key areas of practice and law, including youth justice, human rights and safeguarding children, the book will be essential for students and practitioners in criminal justice and probation studies.

This volume brings together a wide range of case studies from across the globe, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, to explore the complex ways in which historical understandings of childhood and juvenile delinquency have been constructed in a global context.

In the lean and anxious years following World War II, Munich society became obsessed with the moral condition of its youth. Initially born of the economic and social disruption of the war years, a preoccupation with juvenile delinquency progressed into a full-blown panic over the hypothetical threat that young men and women posed to postwar stability. As Martin Kalb shows in this fascinating study, constructs like the rowdy young boy and the sexually deviant girl served as proxies for the diffuse fears of adult society, while allowing authorities ranging from local institutions to the U.S. military government to strengthen forms of social control.

A series of essays considering the use of social groupwork with offenders in carceral and community settings

Handbook of Conceptualization and Treatment of Child Psychopathology evaluates and illustrates the integration of conceptualization and treatment of child and adolescent psychopathology. Organized into seven parts, this book first discusses the issues of conceptualization and developmental considerations in treatment. Subsequent part delineates treatment models and specific interventions for disruptive behavior disorders. Parts III-VI elucidate mood, anxiety, eating and substance use disorders. The last part covers firesetting, trichotillomania, elimination disorders, schizophrenia, sleep problems, and dissociative disorders. This handbook is an educational tool for graduate students and a resource for psychologists, psychiatrists, school counselors, social workers, and other mental health practitioners who treat children and adolescents and their families.

Attempts to understand serial murder tend to focus on individual cases rather than the social context in which they occur. In contrast, this book sets the case of nineteenth-century serial killer Mary Ann Cotton in its full social context. Drawing from historical records of Cotton's court appearances, it shows how institutions such as the family, economy, and religion shaped the environment she inhabited.

This book discusses the relationship between juvenile disability and delinquency, including characteristics of youth with disabilities, how disability relates to delinquency, and its impact during a youth's involvement with the juvenile justice system. The book details the relationship between developmental, cognitive, psychological, and educational disorders-specific conditions including ADHD, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder-and delinquency in light of both their overrepresentation among youth offenders and the uninformed handling of these youth within the court system. Case studies illustrate the complexities in the processing and placement of these youth offenders, as well as highlight the barriers to delinquent youth receiving appropriate treatment, and their increased risk of reoffending. From this robust knowledge base, the authors make expert recommendations for improving the juvenile justice system at the practice and policy levels to better serve this population. This authoritative volume: * Identifies characteristics and risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency. * Reviews evidence relating developmental, mental health, and other disorders to juvenile offending. * Describes the implications of disabilities in key areas such as offending, risk assessment, competency, and outcomes. * Examines the role of disability law in the juvenile justice system. * Offers guidelines for professionals to use this knowledge in their work. Juvenile Delinquency and Disability is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology, criminology and criminal justice, child psychiatry, educational policy and politics, developmental psychology, and social work.

Based on current research supported by the MacArthur Foundation, Zimring determines in American Youth Violence the facts about current and predicted rates of youth violence and analyses policy responses to serious youth violence that have proliferated in the USA. The first part of the book reports on trends in youth violence and demography and evaluates arguments about future trends that have been published recently. Zimring then identifies problems in current youth violence that courts must address and discusses the legal issues involved.

Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and nurses working with young offenders will welcome this collection of original chapters which represent the state of the art in this field. Although it is increasingly recognized that the treatment of offenders has an important role in the rehabilitation process, a clinical approach to working with offenders has to be grounded in sound theory, good supporting research evidence and solid experience. This volume continues the tradition of this important series by placing the discussion of best practice with offenders within both a rigorous scientific context and its institutional and social environment. The first part of the book examines the conceptual basis of a clinical approach to working with young offenders, together with research on the developmental aspects of delinquency, as well as the empirical evidence of work to reduce reoffending. The second section deals with the institutional context of treatment and interventions designed to divert young offenders away from the criminal justice system. The third and fourth parts, the core of the book, present reviews of important approaches to treating young offenders, alongside accounts of work with specific types of offence, including substance abuse and sex offences. Throughout the book the concern is to demonstrate the link between empirical evidence and research and the growth of good theory and practice. The overall message is that a clinical approach can pay real dividends in working constructively with even the most demanding of young people who commit serious crimes.