Despite the fact that media bombard the public with the notion that sex offenders are everywhere-and could be just next door-official sources show that official sex offense rates have been steadily declining over the past 10 years. Yet, when a juvenile is accused of a sexually-based crime, media attention is swift and relentless. The truth about juvenile sex offenders is often, therefore, misunderstood. In many cases, such offenders are victims themselves. Here, Gibson and Vandiver reveal the truth about juvenile sex offenders and what can be done to help them and to prevent the cycle of abuse that leads to such tragic outcomes. This book sets the records straight about juvenile sex offending. It provides accurate, up-to-date statistics, real life cases, and information about offender characteristics, victim characteristics, family factors, social issues, media involvement, and other related areas. It offers explanations for juvenile sex offending from a variety of perspectives and reviews legal and criminal responses to the problem. Included are discussions of female offenders, punitive measures to prevent repeat offenses, and other steps the federal government and individual states are taking to address the problem. The authors conclude with advice on how to protect children from becoming victims and how to prevent sexual offending in the first place.

How vengeance has replaced rehabilitation in our prisons--and its terrible costs.

In this dramatic expose of U.S. penitentiaries and the communities around them, Sasha Abramsky finds that prisons have dumped their age-old goal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. The new "ideal," unknown to most Americans, is a punitive mandate marked by a drive toward vengeance.

Surveying this state of affairs -- life sentences for nonviolent crimes, appalling conditions, the growth of private prisons, the treatment of juveniles--Abramsky asks: Does the vengeful impulse ennoble our culture or demean it? California's Three Strikes law typifies the politics that exploit the grief of victims' families and our fears of violent crime. Brilliantly researched and compellingly told, AMERICAN FURIES shows that the ehtos of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" has enormous social costs.

Moving backwards from the murders they committed through their adult lives, relationship histories, and their childhoods, the author sought to understand what motivates the men to kill. The patterns he found reveal that the murders were neither impulsive crimes of passion nor were they indiscriminate. "Why Do They Kill?" is the first book to profile different types of wife killers, and to examine the courtship patterns of abusive men. The author shows that wife murders are not, for the most part, "crimes of passion," but culminations of lifelong predisposing factors of the men who murder, and that many elements of their crimes are foretold by their past behavior in intimate relationships.

Key turning points of these relationships include the first emergence of the man's violence, his blaming of the victim, her attempts to resist, his escalation, her attempts to end the relationship, and his punishment for her defiance. Critical perspective on the men's accounts comes from interviews with victims of attempted homicide (standing in for the murder victims) who survived shootings, stabbings, and strangulation. These women detail their partner's escalating patterns of child abuse, sexual violence, terroristic threats, and stalking. The section on help-seeking patterns of victims helps to dispel notions of ilearned helplessnessi among victims."

Most Americans readily support rehabilitation for convicted offenders - after all, on the face of it, many of these people have been dealt a bad hand, or at least have made poor choices, and surely would mend their ways if only they had access to enlightened forms of treatment, vocational training, or other programs. Yet an objective assessment of the research literature reveals that the majority of these rehabilitative programs have little or no lasting impact on recidivism. In this monograph, David Farabee critically reviews the most common forms of offender rehabilitation and outlines their underlying assumptions about the causes of crime (e.g., drug use, poor education, limited vocational skills, etc.). He contends that fundamental principles of deterrence, such as closer monitoring of parolees, swift application of sanctions, and indeterminate community supervision - the completion of which would be tied to the offender's performance - are in the long run far more humane than the progressive approaches that are becoming more popular today.

A refined young lady stands proudly in front of the mirror in her bedroom remembering the teachers and parents who told her she'd never amount to anything. She herself even doubted, at one time, that she would ever overcome her addictions. It's the '80s: Stefany reaches puberty and begins to compare her lifestyle to other people she comes in contact with. She is faced with the cruelties of childhood and begins looking for an outlet. Media influence, gang activity is on the rise, and the pregnancy rate is the highest in their district. Stefany's teachers notice a change in her behavior when she walks into her eighth-grade class with makeup on her face, tight jeans and a nasty attitude. Society is rapidly changing for the worst. Young ladies were acting out more aggressively than the young men, and parents couldn't prepare for what was to come. ************ Stefany's downfall is a chain reaction. Reverend Sowell is sickly and Mrs. Sowell cannot control her. After her father's death, her sister Elaine, living in North Carolina, suggests to their Mother that she put their apartment building up for sale, and move Stefany there. The change is good, however, she picks up some of her old bad habits, despite her family's efforts to steer her in the right direction. She eventually gets a job, graduates from high school, and is accepted into a historically black university where she faces more challenges. Stefany eventually develops self -love and continues striving for success. She finally matures and goes back to her church roots. Through her transformation, she discovers what really matters in life. *Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Youth Justice is a key area of the current governments criminal justice policy in England and Wales. It has been the subject of an inordinate amount of recent legislation seeking to enhance the criminal courts powers to punish and prevent offending and re-offending by young people. This legislation attempts to prevent offending through criminal justice measures and there is little attempt to use non-criminal or civil law procedures to achieve the same result. This book seeks to challenge that focus and to question why delinquency in young people has been so firmly criminalized in this jurisdiction. The book addresses the consequences of criminalization in terms of the effectiveness of the measures used as well as the implications for the social construction of youth and childhood and our attitudes towards the young. Criminalization of young peoples behaviour results in them being labeled as criminal,losing identity as an individual, losing their childhood through the process of taking adult responsibility for their actions and, in policy terms, becoming viewed as a crime problem rather than as a product of failing social policy regarding employment, education and youth culture. At a society level it is contended that the identification of young people with criminal activity and the negative public image that results creates a culture of fear and distrust which may in turn create further possibilities for criminalization of their behaviour. A comparative perspective in this work examines welfare-based responses to youth crime in other European jurisdictions and questions whether the criminal justice process is an appropriate context in which to deal with young peoples problematic behaviour. This book has been shortlisted for the 2007 SLSA Book Prize.

When David Dow took his first capital case, he supported the death penalty. He changed his position as the men on death row became real people to him, and as he came to witness the profound injustices they endured: from coerced confessions to disconcertingly incompetent lawyers; from racist juries and backward judges to a highly arbitrary death penalty system.
It is these concrete accounts of the people Dow has known and represented that prove the death penalty is consistently unjust, and it's precisely this fundamental--and lethal--injustice, Dow argues, that should compel us to abandon the system altogether.
"An honorably dispassionate and logical broadside against a shameful practice." --Kirkus Reviews
"Dow reveals the dirty little secret of American death-penalty litigation: procedure trumps innocence . . . [His book] is insightful and full of the kinds of revelations that may lead readers to reconsider their stand on the death penalty." --Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune
"Dow's book leaves all else behind. It is powerful, direct, informative, and told in compelling human terms. He makes us see that the issue is not sentiment or retribution or even innocence. It is justice." --Anthony Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning former columnist for the New York Times
David R. Dow is professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center and an internationally recognized figure in the fight against the death penalty. He is the founder and director of the Texas Innocence Network and has represented more than thirty death row inmates. Regularly quoted in publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post, Dow lives in Houston, Texas.

Howard Williamson's 'Five Years' was a ground-breaking study of youth, poverty and crime in the 1970s. At its close, the boys he interviewed were left with few prospects and bleak futures. Twenty-five years later, Williamson returns to find out the sort of men these boys have become and narrates their stories in this extraordinary book.Of the original group of sixty-seven boys, seven are dead -- not one of natural causes. Williamson tracked down half of those remaining. Here they tell of their personal, family and social relationships, legal and illegal work, their experiences of the criminal justice system, and money. Contrary to what one might expect, their lives are startlingly diverse.The Milltown Boys Revisited is a riveting account of life on the edge during the Thatcher and Blair governments. It tells stories of dignity, human betterment and escape, of fatalism on the margins of criminal and drug cultures, and also of getting by in difficult circumstances. It is as much a celebration of individual resilience as an account of risk and vulnerability in the lives of the dispossessed.

Volume 31 of "Crime and Justice" presents a global view on youth justice systems, examining Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and an aggregation of Western countries. The systems are addressed in five sections, which discuss the relevance of a separate youth justice system, age limitations, historical stability and changes, welfare concerns, and a comparative look at current laws as written and administered.
Contributors:
Hans-Jorg Albrecht
Anthony Bottoms
James Dignan
Anthony N. Doob
Carl-Gunnar Janson
Josine Junger-Tas
Britta Kyvsgaard
Allison Morris
Julian V. Roberts
Jane B. Sprott
Lode Walgrave

Criminal justice professionals and the media have noted the rise of juvenile crime rates nationwide and a growing surge in youth violence. This in turn has highlighted the debate over juvenile transfers to adult courts. Proponents of treating violent juvenile offenders as adults argue that juvenile offenders should be held accountable and receive punishment that is appropriate to the seriousness of their offences and that society must be protected by their removal from law abiding communities. They urge that young offenders must be held accountable for both lesser and more serious crimes, especially when the former offences, if unpunished, may lead offenders to commit the latter. Opponents of treating violent juveniles offenders as adults argue that harsh punishment of juvenile offenders is counterproductive, creating recidivism. Their contention is that youths who are committing crimes should still be tried in juvenile courts rather than adult courts, for a greater effect. This informative book presents all the current issues, problems, ideas, as well as some background on the controversies surrounding juvenile crime.

This informative book is an update of The Report of the LEAA [Law Enforcement Assistance Administration] Task Force on Women, published in October 1975. It evaluates the 1975 recommendations made on issues that the criminal justice field should examine to ensure that women and girls are treated fairly in the criminal justice system. Female offenders, female crime victims, and female criminal justice professionals remain substantially neglected populations in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Despite the gains made by women since 1975, current evidence shows that: Although the nature and composition of female offenders have changed, the special needs of the burgeoning adult and juvenile offender populations often remain overlooked; Although assistance to crime victims has improved, the need remains for a firm commitment from the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems to change the way these systems respond to women and girls who have been, or potentially could be, victims of crime; Although opportunities for female criminal justice professionals have improved, gender bias and inequality still exist within the criminal justice field and women's progress through the ranks continues to be slow.

Robert Lindner's 1944 classic Rebel Without a Cause follows the successful analysis and hypnosis of a criminal psychopath, Harold. In full transcriptions of their forty-six sessions, Lindner takes his patient into the depths and recesses of his childhood memories. Plumbing the free-associative monologues for clues to unlock the causes of Harold's criminal behavior, Lindner portrays a man cut off from himself and unable to attach to others. Following the threads uncovered in the sessions, Lindner reveals to Harold long-hidden incidents from his infancy and childhood that served to propel him toward a troubled and chaotic adulthood, full of armed robbery, break-ins, and random sexual encounters. With care and diligence, patient and analyst begin to excavate events from Harold's childhood and reconstruct them as a foundation for analysis, allowing Harold to confront his demons. Heralded as a classic upon its publication, Rebel Without a Cause is the tale of a masterful analysis that is still relevant today, against the complex issues of sanity, rehabilitation, and crime that resonate in our legal system.

Behold the horrendous truths and hidden horrors that will surround you when you enter behind those so called walls of justice. And its overwhelmingly corrupt police, prosecutors, judges, courts, attorneys, and politicians. Who together steal your life, liberty, and property.

What type of women are sent to prison? How are these women prosecuted, and what are their crimes? This text traces the changing patterns of women's crime and punishment in a representative state from 1835 to 2000. Drawn from primary sources, the voices of female prisoners emerge poignantly as individuals tell their stories. Illinois - a large, industrial state with an ethnically and racially diverse population - provides the setting for exploring the interactions of gender, race and class in the justice system. From early times, women's prisons in Illinois reflected the dominant national models and trends in penology. Both typical and progressive, Illinois prisons provide information on factors affecting female incarceration, such as race, ethnicity, marital status, age, education and occupation. L. Mara Dodge tracks incarcerated women from the time they entered the criminal justice system and analyses the changes in penology. Assessing the "reformatory" approach of 1930s penology, she focuses on the Illinois State Reformatory for Women at Dwight - a "model" reformatory embodying the cottage-life ideal of Progressive Era reformers. Here, Dodge finds, female prisoners, while in theory being introduced to gentler ways of living, in fact were subjected to levels of surveillance and control more intensive than those of male prisons. Evidence shows that such reformatories succeeded not so much in creating more docile and dutiful subjects as in stirring resistance and fostering a powerful inmate subculture.

An uncompromising look at the rise of violent crimes by America's children and the steps parents, teachers and mentors can take to save our children.

Geese Theatre UK was formed in 1987 and is renowned across the criminal justice field. Members of the company devise and perform issue-based plays and conduct workshops and training in prisons, young offender institutions, probation centres and related settings. The company has worked in virtually every prison and each probation area in the UK and Ireland - and also works with youth offending teams. The "Geese Theatre Handbook" explains the thinking behind the company's approach to applied drama with offenders and people at risk of offending, including young people. It also contains over 100 exercises with explanations, instructions and suggestions to help practitioners develop their own style and approach. The materials can be readily adapted to other settings including conflict resolution, restorative justice and interpersonal skills training.The handbook is a key resource for: Offending behaviour groupworkers; Probation officers; Youth workers; Youth offending teams; Prison officers; Social workers; Criminologists; Community workers; Forensic psychologists; Psychotherapists; Community theatre workers and actors; Drama teachers; Drama-in-education and theatre-in-education practitioners; Drama therapists and other creative arts therapists; Adventure therapists; Group and individual therapists and counsellors; Mental health professionals; Psychodramatists; Sociodramatists; Professional team builders; Team supervisors; Family therapists; Staff training and development officers; Conflict resolution workers; And special needs workers and teachers.

The years 1907-1913 mark a crucial transitional moment in American cinema. As moving picture shows changed from mere novelty to an increasingly popular entertainment, fledgling studios responded with longer running times and more complex storytelling. A growing trade press and changing production procedures also influenced filmmaking. In Early American Cinema in Transition, Charlie Keil looks at a broad cross-section of fiction films to examine the formal changes in cinema of this period and the ways that filmmakers developed narrative techniques to suit the fifteen-minute, one-reel format. Keil outlines the kinds of narratives that proved most suitable for a single reel's duration, the particular demands that time and space exerted on this early form of film narration, and the ways filmmakers employed the unique features of a primarily visual medium to craft stories that would appeal to an audience numbering in the millions. He underscores his analysis with a detailed look at six films: The Boy Detective; The Forgotten Watch; Rose O'Salem-Town; Cupid's Monkey Wrench; Belle Boyd, A Confederate Spy; and Suspense.

Written by Mark Umbreit, internationally known for his work in restorative justice, this indispensable resource offers an empirically grounded, state-of-the-art analysis of the application and impact of victim offender mediation, a movement that has spread throughout North America and abroad. The Handbook of Victim Offender Mediation provides practical guidance and resources for offering victim meditation in property crimes, in minor assaults, and, more recently, with crimes of severe violence, including with family members of murder victims who request to meet the offender.

A major collection of writings about the transforming power of education in British prisons. Prison(er) Education comprises key essays by leading prison education practitioners, academics and prisoners, including new work on how to evaluate the 'success' of education within prison by Dr Ray Pawson of Leeds University, and Stephen Duguid of Simon Fraser University, Canada. A major challenge to penal policy-makers to accept the value of education - beyond 'basic skills', and at a time when prison regimes have come to be dominated by cognitive thinking skills courses. Edited by two leading experts on prison education in the United Kingdom - Professor David Wilson of the University of Central England (a former prison governor and co-presenter of BBC TV's Crime Squad), and Dr Anne Reuss of the University of Abertay (who previously taught at HM Prison Full Sutton). Weaving anecdote, research and evaluation, Prison(er) Education presents for the first time a comprehensive account of education inside British prisons. At the heart of the book lies the question 'Who is prison education for: prison or prisoners?' This book is a major challenge to penal policy-makers to accept the value of education - beyond 'basic skills', and at a time when regimes have come to be dominated by cognitive thinking skills courses. Weaving anecdote with solid research and evaluation, the book presents for the first time in Britain a comprehensive account of education inside prisons. Reviews 'Highly authoritative ...a major challenge': Inside Time 'This book will be of interest to anyone working in the Prison Service, and to educators in general...Non-academic staff will recognise the conflicts, constraints, and challenges, that teachers and learners face...': Sally Bishens, Prison Service Journal 'A diverse, informative survey...of great importance in more ways then can easily be listed': Michael McMullan, Justice of the Peace Editors Prison(er) Education is introduced and concluded by David Wilson and Anne Reuss (who also contributes a chapter on 'Conducting Research in Prisons') with their vision of the direction education in prison should take in the years to come. David Wilson is professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research at the University of Central England in Birmingham. A former prison governor, he is editor of the Howard Journal and a well-known author, broadcaster and presenter for TV and radio, including for the BBC, C4 and Sky Television. He has written three other books for Waterside Press: The Longest Injustice: The Strange Story of Alex Alexandrowicz (with the latter), Images of Incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama (with Sean O'Sullivan) (2004), and Serial Killers: Hunting Britons and Their Victims 1960-2006 (2007). Dr Anne Reuss lectures in the Sociology Department of the University of Abertay in Scotland. Prior to taking up this appointment, she taught degree level sociology to prisoners at HMP Full Sutton, which formed the basis of her doctoral dissertation - now regarded as the benchmark of research in this field.

Crime and the closely-related issues of youth culture and unemployment, are among the most important social concerns facing post-apartheid leadership in South Africa. This is a textured social history of African youth gangs in the Johannesburg/Soweto area from the emergence of a "juvenile delinquency crisis" in the 1930s through to the student-led uprising of 1976. The gang subculture emerged in a context of social deprivation and stunted mobility. Young urban men, out of school and unemployed, coalesced into gangs to create a world with its own rules, style and status structures. Drawing on powerful street and neighbourhood identities, gangs provided young males with companionship, a sense of security, and dignity. The book also depicts the relationship between political organizations and gang constituencies. Gangs were extremely difficult to mobilize on a formal level. Although in some respects politicized, and sympathetic to political campaigns, youth gangs found the respectable methods and intellectual discourse of political organizations alienating. While sensitive to the plight of black urban youth, the ANC recoiled from mobilizing the volatile and potentially violent gangs. Other liberation movements, such as the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement, made concerted attempts to appeal to the gangs but, ultimately, they were forced to dissociate themselves.

In the late nineteenth century, prisoners in Alabama, the vast majority of them African Americans, were forced to work as coal miners under the most horrendous conditions imaginable. Black Prisoners and Their World draws on a variety of sources, including the reports and correspondence of prison inspectors and letters from prisoners and their families, to explore the history of the African American men and women whose labor made Alabama's prison system the most profitable in the nation.

To coal companies and the state of Alabama, black prisoners provided, respectively, sources of cheap labor and state revenue. By 1883, a significant percentage of the workforce in the Birmingham coal industry was made up of convicts. But to the families and communities from which the prisoners came, the convict lease was a living symbol of the dashed hopes of Reconstruction.

Indeed, the lease--the system under which the prisoners labored for the profit of the company and the state--demonstrated Alabama's reluctance to let go of slavery and its determination to pursue profitable prisons no matter what the human cost. Despite the efforts of prison officials, progressive reformers, and labor unions, the state refused to take prisoners out of the coal mines.

In the course of her narrative, Mary Ellen Curtin describes how some prisoners died while others endured unspeakable conditions and survived. Curtin argues that black prisoners used their mining skills to influence prison policy, demand better treatment, and become wage-earning coal miners upon their release.

Black Prisoners and Their World unearths new evidence about life under the most repressive institution in the New South. Curtin suggests disturbing parallels between the lease and today's burgeoning system of private incarceration.

Alex Alexandrowicz spent 22 years in custody protesting his innocence. This book explains how something which began with a plea bargain in the belief that he would serve a 'short' sentence turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare. His 'Prison Chronicles' are placed in perspective by Professor David Wilson. The Longest Injustice contains the full story of Anthony Alexandrovich - known universally as 'Alex'. Principally, the book is about his 29-year fight against his conviction as a seventeen-year-old for aggravated burglary, wounding with intent, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Twenty-two of these years were spent in prison where Alex was a discretionary life sentenced prisoner, and where he steadfastly maintained his innocence. He continues to do so after release, and is taking his case through the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which was set up in 1995 to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice. Alex's own recollections are supplemented by analysis of the dilemma facing people in British prisons who are determined to maintain their innocence, and the book highlights the considerable disincentives and disadvantages to them of doing so. Authors Alex Alexandrowicz spent 22 years in some of Britain's most notorious gaols much of this time as a Category A high security prisoner. His Prison Chronicles are a first hand account in which he explains why he believes he was wrongly convicted (a matter currently with the Criminal Cases Review Commission) and vividly recreates his experiences of the early years following his arrest. Institutionalised by the system and apprehensive of the outside world he now lives alone in Milton Keynes where he continues the long fight to clear his name from a flat which has grown to resemble a prison cell. David Wilson is professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research at the University of Central England in Birmingham. A former prison governor, he is editor of the Howard Journal and a well-known author, broadcaster and presenter for TV and radio, including for the BBC, C4 and Sky Television. He has written three other books for Waterside Press: Prison(er) Education: Stories of Change and Transformation (with Ann Reuss) (2000) , Images of Incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama (with Sean O'Sullivan) (2004), and Serial Killers: Hunting Britons and Their Victims (2007).