Our society's preoccupation with crime and fear of crime appears to have shifted its focus to the juvenile offender. Both electronic and print media continuously warn us that juvenile offenders are increasingly younger and more virulent. The demographics of our population suggest that there will only be more juvenile offenders to fear in the near future. All of these concerns arise in a social climate that is characterized by an ever increasing demand for stronger retributive measures against the offender. The belief that only harsh justice will protect us from the ravages of juveniles has become dominant. Increasingly, perceptions and politics, rather than scientific data, dominate policy making with regard to youthful offenders. In Assessing the Youthful Offender: Issues and Techniques, Robert D. Hoge and D. A. Andrews make a restrained, rational, and ultimately persuasive argu ment for the use of standardized psychological assessments in the effective management of youth within juvenile justice systems. They clarify how what we already know about the cause and management of youthful criminal activity can be incorporated into standardized testing and that the information obtained from testing can improve the administration of criminal justice. Moreover, this informa tion is useful whatever the theoretical biases of those who administer the justice system. The efficiency of policies of either retribution, deterrence, or rehabilitation is only enhanced by reliance on data."

Why do youths commit crimes? Delinquency and Crime contains essays by nine leading criminologists that seek to answer this question by describing current theories of crime and the research evidence that supports them. The contributors offer perspectives on antisocial peer socialization, social development, interactional theory, behavior genetics, and community determinants. Each essay explores the practical implication of the authors' theoretical work for crime prevention and control.

Unlike the outcry over street crime committed by males, concerns about women and violence have centered primarily on their roles as victims of sexual and physical violence committed by strangers and by males in intimate relationships. Rarely is violence by women considered in the development or testing of theories of aggression.The book provides a detailed account of the criminal careers of 170 women who committed violent street crimes in New York City, describing their entry into criminal activities, their development into persistent street criminals, and, for some, their eventual transition out of street crime.Unlike other qualitative works in this area, "Casualties of Community Disorder" offers more than cultural analysis. Deborah Baskin and Ira Sommers integrate structural and individual levels of explanation by examining the career patterns of female violent offenders and the relationships of these women to family members and communities. Through the use of census data, analyses of political and economic changes, and ethnographic observations of activities specific to these communities, the authors provide a perspective on the relationship of individual decisions to structural constraints.The research presented here clearly challenges contemporary assumptions regarding female offending. Baskin and Sommers' analysis suggests a complex relationship of social and individual factors that serves as a caution against generic and gender-based generalizations that have been drawn from time-bound, aggregate level data sets and from ethnographies of women's involvement in street hustling. Finally, in "Casualties of Community Disorder, " the street drug and criminal subculture is understood through the words of those who usually are spoken for, studied, and objectified.

In the past forensic psychiatry has been a sub-speciality of general psychiatry without its own, separate identity. However, since the mid-1980s there has been a growing in terest in the application of community care principles to mentally disordered offenders. A new set of attitudes have developed which have enabled the mentally disordered offender to emerge from relative institutional obscurity to a much higher profile in the community. Although numerically small in relation to the general psychiatric population, forensic patients tend to attract the public' s attention by virtue of their greater propensity for troublesome behaviour. Such a group needs expert community support in order to maintain an accepta bie public face. Unfortunately these developments have outstripped the creation of training opportunities for community staff charged with their support and supervision. Most community practi tioners have had to learn 'on the job' with inadequate support and supervision from senior staff, who of ten have less direct experience of working with this client group than themselves. Just such a situation prompted the authors, in 1990, to establish a module on 'Working with Mentally Disordered Offenders in the Community' as part of an MA in Social W ork at the University of Reading. As the course developed it became clear that the topic and content had equal application to other community professionals working in the field."

In this book, Charles R. Acland examines the culture that has produced both our heightened state of awareness and the bedrock reality of youth violence in the United States. Beginning with a critique of statistical evidence of youth violence, Acland compares and juxtaposes a variety of popular cultural representations of what has come to be a perceived crisis of American youth. After examining the dominant paradigms for scholarly research into youth deviance, Acland explores the ideas circulating in the popular media about a sensational crime known as the "preppy murder" and the confession to that crime. Arguing that the meaning of crime is never inherent in the event itself, he evaluates other sites of representation, including newspaper photographs (with a comparison to the Central Park "wilding"), daytime television talk shows (Oprah, Geraldo, and Donahue), and Hollywood youth films (in particular River's Edge). Through a cultural studies analysis of historical context, Acland blurs the center of our preconceptions and exposes the complex social forces at work upon this issue in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Acland asks of the social critic, "How do we know that we are measuring what we say we are measuring, and how do we know what the numbers are saying? Arguments must be made to interpret findings, which suggests that conclusions are provisional and, to various degrees, sites of contestation." He launches into this gratifying book to show that beyond the problematic category of "actual" crime, the United States has seen the construction of a new "spectacle of wasted youth" that will have specific consequences for the daily lives of the next generation.

This handbook is an up-to-date examination of advances in the fields of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice that includes interdisciplinary perspectives from leading scholars and practitioners. * Examines advances in the fields of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice with interdisciplinary perspectives from leading scholars and practitioners * Provides a current state of both fields, while also assessing where they have been and defining where they should go in years to come * Addresses developments in theory, research, and policy, as well as cultural changes and legal shifts * Contains summaries of juvenile justice trends from around the world, including the US, the Netherlands, Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, and China * Covers central issues in the scholarly literature, such as social learning theories, opportunity theories, criminal processing, labeling and deterrence, gangs and crime, community-based sanctions and reentry, victimization, and fear of crime

This book explores the controversial relationship between mental health and offending and looks at the ways in which offenders with mental health problems are cared for, coerced and controlled by the criminal justice and mental health systems. It provides a much-needed criminological approach to the field of forensic mental health. Beginning with an exploration into why the relationship between mental health and offending is so complex, readers will be introduced to a range of perspectives through which mental health and its relationship to offending behaviour can be understood. The book considers the politics surrounding mental health and offending, focusing particularly on the changing policy response to mentally disordered offenders since the mid-1990s. With dedicated chapters concerning the police, courts, secure services and the community, this book explores a range of issues including: * The tensions between the care, coercion and control of mentally disordered offenders * The increasingly blurred boundaries between mental health and criminal justice * Rights, responsibilities, accountability and blame * Risk, public protection and precaution * Challenges involved with treatment, recovery and rehabilitation * Staffing challenges surrounding multi-agency working * Funding, privatisation and challenges surrounding service commissioning * Methodological challenges in the field. Providing an accessible and concise overview of the field and its key perspectives, this book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in mental health offered by criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social work, nursing and public policy departments. It will also be of interest to a wide range of mental health and criminal justice practitioners.

This book critically analyses how men in prison act out their masculine identities. It considers how men negotiate their time in prison, which can involve being placed into a feminine position relative to other men, and particularly looks at the subversion of heteronormative gender positionings through bodies, spaces, time, and relationships. Vulnerability is also taken as a key consideration, and men are shown to act out their masculinities for the benefit of an audience that matters to them. However, that audience is shown to be subject to change at any point in time. Using extensive ethnographic data drawn from adult male prisoners, the book adopts the viewpoint of the individual prisoner as a frame to consider masculinity. It also advances ethnographic research in criminology by reflecting upon the identity of researchers in prisons, particularly the female researcher's gendered identity in such environments. It will be of great interest to scholars of penology, gender and ethnography.

In this up-to-date new Edition, Wright and his team of expert contributing authors incorporate results of the latest studies on sex offender policies in their critical analyses of current laws, and assess the most effective approaches in preventing sex offender recidivism. This provocative book has been updated throughout to reflect the latest research in the fields of criminal justice, law, forensic psychology, and social work. It is the only book on the market that offers such a focused and comprehensive examination of current sex offender laws and policies and what is known about their efficacy. This new and expanded Edition of the book presents alternative models and approaches to sex offense laws and policies, including a brand new chapter on Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs. The authors explore critical, cutting-edge topics, such as sexting, internet sexual solicitation, the death penalty, and community responses to sex offense.

Based on a two-part study, this book examines the courts' interpretation of murder and the management of those serving life sentences for murder. It discusses the law, judges' difficulties in interpreting the law and inconsistencies that occur in various cases. The author suggests that legal reforms should ensure that the stigma attached to murder is maintained. Part two looks at life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for murder. It examines the operation of the Prison Department's policy of managing "lifers", and the possibilities for releasing them without endangering the public.

This book explores the controversial relationship between mental health and offending and looks at the ways in which offenders with mental health problems are cared for, coerced and controlled by the criminal justice and mental health systems. It provides a much-needed criminological approach to the field of forensic mental health. Beginning with an exploration into why the relationship between mental health and offending is so complex, readers will be introduced to a range of perspectives through which mental health and its relationship to offending behaviour can be understood. The book considers the politics surrounding mental health and offending, focusing particularly on the changing policy response to mentally disordered offenders since the mid-1990s. With dedicated chapters concerning the police, courts, secure services and the community, this book explores a range of issues including: * The tensions between the care, coercion and control of mentally disordered offenders * The increasingly blurred boundaries between mental health and criminal justice * Rights, responsibilities, accountability and blame * Risk, public protection and precaution * Challenges involved with treatment, recovery and rehabilitation * Staffing challenges surrounding multi-agency working * Funding, privatisation and challenges surrounding service commissioning * Methodological challenges in the field. Providing an accessible and concise overview of the field and its key perspectives, this book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in mental health offered by criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social work, nursing and public policy departments. It will also be of interest to a wide range of mental health and criminal justice practitioners.

"A marvelous exploration of the connections between culture and behavior in modern America....[The author] deeply illuminates our understanding of the contemporary US."--William M. Tuttle, Jr., University of Kansas

Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century focuses on the evolution and consequences of sentencing policies and practices, with sentencing broadly defined to include plea bargaining, judicial and juror decision making, and alternatives to incarceration, including participation in problem-solving courts. This collection of essays and reports of original research explores how sentencing policies and practices, both in the United States and internationally, have evolved, explores important issues raised by guideline and non-guideline sentencing, and provides an overview of recent research on plea bargaining in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Other topics include the role of criminal history in sentencing, the past and future of capital punishment, strategies for reducing mass incarceration, problem-solving courts, and restorative justice practices. Each chapter summarizes what is known, identifies the gaps in the research, and discusses the theoretical, empirical, and policy implications of the research findings. The volume is grounded in current knowledge about the specific topics, but also presents new material that reflects the thinking of the leading minds in the field and that outlines a research agenda for the future. This is Volume 4 of the American Society of Criminology's Division on Corrections and Sentencing handbook series. Previous volumes focused on risk assessment, disparities in punishment, and the consequences of punishment decisions. The handbooks provide a comprehensive overview of these topics for scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers.

"Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders: A Practitioner's Guide" is a handy resource for forensic practitioners responsible for assessing an managing sexual offenders at risk of recidivism. It covers the risk factors associated with sexual recidivism, evaluates risk assessment approaches and offers guidance on how to conduct forensic evaluations.

Written by an expert author team, "Assessing risk in Sex Offenders: A Practitioner's Guide" examines:

• The characteristics of sexual offenders
• Methodological considerations in measuring predictive accuracy
• Static and dynamic factors
• Structured risk assessments
• Treatment of sexual offenders
• Policy and practices"Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders: A Practitioner's Guide" is an essential resource for clinical and forensic psychologists, forensic psychiatrists, undergraduate and postgraduate students in forensic and clinical psychology, and prison and probation officers.

The criminal justice system now serves as the chief provider of health care services to a significant portion of society. This includes the provision of physical and mental health care for offender populations who require substantial health care resources. To date, little is known or understood with regard to how these services and programs are being delivered. This book addresses the gaps in our knowledge by presenting a range of studies detailing the daily practices that occur in places where criminal justice and public health systems intersect. This includes an assessment of sheriff agency emergency communication systems, a study of problem behaviours and health using a juvenile sample, the challenge of treating mentally ill prison inmates with note of important gender differences, the impact of case management on justice systems, and a review of substance abuse cessation programs among pregnant women currently serving probation and parole sentences. Also included is a policy piece in which the authors call for an integrated model that is neither criminological nor public health specific. These readings provide a range of empirical examples that highlight important successes and challenges facing the criminal justice and public health systems. They suggest that integration and partnerships represent the most efficacious means to reduce critical social problems such as violence, poor health, and criminality. This book was originally published as a special issue of Criminal Justice Studies.

This collection offers a comprehensive review of the origins, scale and breadth of the privatisation and marketisation revolution across the criminal justice system. Leading academics and researchers assess the consequences of market-driven criminal justice in a wide range of contexts, from prison and probation to policing, migrant detention, rehabilitation and community programmes. Using economic, sociological and criminological perspectives, illuminated by accessible case studies, they consider the shifting roles and interactions of the public, private and voluntary sectors. As privatisation, outsourcing and the impact of market cultures spread further across the system, the authors look ahead to future developments and signpost the way to reform in a 'post-market' criminal justice sphere.

Drawing on original research on the effectiveness of a therapeutic community (TC) in reducing recidivism among juvenile male offenders, Correctional Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Communities: Reducing Recidivism Through Behavior Change provides a comprehensive review of the current state of drug treatment for the offending population, especially the link between juvenile offending and substance abuse. The book assesses the factors predicting successful completion of treatment as well as the methodological limitation of previous TC program reviews, and suggests policy implication and routes for future research. Using improvements such as multiple outcome criteria, long-term follow-up, matching groups on risk and needs, and the employment of a standardized instrument to measure program quality, Correctional Rehabilitation assesses the degree to which participation in the TC affects antisocial attitudes and reduces delinquency. Readers will explore how TCs can be designed to influence adolescent drug offenders and ultimately reduce recidivism. This book is essential reading for students, researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders focusing on the development of treatment programs.

Designed as supplemental material for juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice courses, Juvenile Justice and Juvenile Delinquency: Case Studies Workbook fills a void in current textbooks. This workbook provides a hands-on experience that helps students understand the kinds of court hearings that take place in juvenile and family courts. It presents information about actual cases and prompts students to make decisions and design court orders for typical juvenile court cases. The case scenarios range from cases at the juvenile court intake level all the way to cases in which students must decide whether a young person should be waived into the criminal system to be tried as an adult. The book allows students to compare their choices with those of the actual judge or referee, and also gives information as to the outcome for the young person after the court's decision. This information helps students gauge the soundness of their own decisions based on the impacts of the actual decision reached by the judge or referee. Each chapter also contains statistics, facts, court decisions, and information about policies that enable a better understanding of the juvenile justice system. This workbook provides a unique opportunity for students to experience what it is like to face decisions in the juvenile court system. By engaging with the information and cases laid out in a more hands-on manner than offered in typical related textbooks, students will gain a greater appreciation for the decisions juvenile court judges and referees have to make on a daily basis.

This book aims to make the case for and provide some of the resources necessary to reimagine rehabilitation for twenty-first-century criminal justice. Outlining an approach to rehabilitation which takes into account wider democratic processes, political structures and mechanisms of resource allocation, the authors develop a new model of rehabilitation comprising four forms - personal, legal, social and moral. Personal rehabilitation concerns how individuals make their journeys away from offending and towards reintegration and how they can be supported to do so, whilst legal rehabilitation concerns the role of the criminal courts in the process of restricting and then restoring the rights and status of citizens. Moral rehabilitation is concerned with the ethical basis of the interactions between the individual who has offended and the people and organisations charged with providing rehabilitative services. Social rehabilitation explores the crucial contribution civil society can make to rehabilitation, exploring this through the lens of citizenship, community and social capital. Drawing on the conceptual insights offered in the late Stan Cohen's seminal work - Visions of Social Control - and specifically his insistence that modern social institutions can aspire to doing good and doing justice, the authors argue that these values can underpin a moral pragmatism in designing social interventions that must go beyond achieving simply instrumental ends. Reimaging rehabilitation within the context of social action and social justice, this book is essential reading for students and scholars alike, particularly those engaged with criminal justice policy, probation and offender rehabilitation.

This highly topical book integrates theory and practice about children and their education provision in secure accommodation. Bridging the fields of education, health, and youth justice, it provides a unique interdisciplinary perspective outlining the importance of taking a holistic approach to the education and rehabilitation of children who are 'locked up'. The book has brought together contributors from across the UK and beyond to share their academic research, practical knowledge, and experiences working with children and young people. Shedding light on the intricacies and realities of working in the context of secure settings, the book is divided into the following five parts: Contextualising the field Practice insights Case examples and models of practice Inclusion and voice Recommendations from research Children and Their Education in Secure Accommodation unravels the complexity of the topic and offers 'whole-system' perspectives, as well as a child-centred view, on the issue of educating and rehabilitating children and the needs and rights of children in such settings. With unique and valuable insights from those involved in policy or provision, this book will be an essential text for researchers, practitioners, and students in this interdisciplinary field.

Building on the success of the first edition and the growth of research in the field over the past decade, this book offers an authoritative overview of the assessment, treatment, and management of violent and sexual offenders. This new and expanded edition reflects the considerable developments in research and empirical data and captures the increasing breadth of risk assessment approaches, the wider range of empirically based therapies, and the more creative means of considering management. The second edition captures key developments in this area, with new chapters drawing on a range of pressing contemporary issues, such as female offenders, Internet offenders, terrorists, young people involved in harmful sexual behaviour, and protective factors for aggression. There is also extended coverage of the management of offenders within secure settings and in the community, referring to a wider variety of approaches and the incorporation of technology. This book will be of considerable interest to academics, practitioners, and students engaged with understanding and/or treating violence and aggression, sex crime, forensic psychology, and the assessment, treatment, and management of offenders.

A detailed examination of the limitations and pitfalls of pursuing the community-based reform movement in the American criminal justice system. As the extent of America's mass incarceration crisis has come into sharper view, politicians, activists and non-profit foundations from across the political spectrum have united around "community-based" reforms. Many states are pursuing criminal justice reforms that aim to move youth out of state-run prisons and into community-based alternatives as a way of improving the lives of youth caught in the juvenile justice system. In The Myth of the Community Fix, Sarah D. Cate demonstrates that rather than a panacea, community-based juvenile justice reforms have resulted in a dangerous constellation of privatized institutions with little oversight. Focusing on case studies of three leading states for this model of reform-Texas, California, and Pennsylvania-Cate provides a comprehensive look at the alarming on-the-ground consequences of the turn towards community in an era of austerity. Although often portrayed as a break with past practices, this book documents how community-based reforms are the latest in a long line of policy prescriptions that further individualize the problem of delinquency, bolster punitiveness, and reduce democratic accountability. Through contextualizing the community-based reform movement as part of the broader shift away from the centralized provision of public goods in the United States, Cate shows why those committed to addressing the problems of mass incarceration should be wary of the community fix.

Parental Incarceration makes available personal stories by adults who have had the childhood experience of parental incarceration. These stories help readers better understand the complex circumstances that influence these children's health and development, as well as their high risk for intergenerational crime and incarceration. Denise Johnston examines her own children's experience of her incarceration within the context of what the research and her 30 years of practice with prisoners and their children has taught her, arguing that it is imperative to attempt to understand parental incarceration within a developmental framework. Megan Sullivan, a scholar in the Humanities, examines the effects of her father's incarceration on her family, and underscores the importance of the reentry process for families. The number of arrested, jailed, and imprisoned persons in the United States has increased since 1960, most dramatically between 1985 and 2000. As the majority of these incarcerated persons are parents, the number of minor children with an incarcerated parent has increased alongside, peaking at an estimated 2.9 million in 2006. The impact of the experience of parental incarceration has garnered attention by researchers, but to date attention has been focused on the period when parents are actually in jail or prison. This work goes beyond that to examine the developmental impact of children's experiences that extend long beyond that timeframe. A valuable resource for students in corrections, human services, social work, counseling, and related courses, as well as practitioners, program/agency administrators, policymakers, advocates, and others involved with families of the incarcerated, this book is testimony that the consequences of mass incarceration reach far beyond just the offender.

Since 1997 the probation service, an integral component of criminal justice for over 100 years, has been subject to a politically-driven process of modernisation and cultural transformation. This innovative book explores this probation modernisation by using social theories associated with Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Foucault. The book combines this theoretical analysis with empirical research from interviews, which highlights challenges to, as well as support of, the politics of modernisation. This research is unique in providing insights into what representatives of other organisations think about probation - from the outside looking in. This text will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of probation, criminology, criminal and social justice and allied disciplines.

Living in Infamy: Felon Disfranchisement and the History of American Citizenship examines the history of disfranchisement for criminal conviction in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the post-war South, white southern Democrats expanded the usage of laws disfranchising for crimes of infamy in order to deny African Americans the suffrage rights due them as citizens, employing historical similarities between the legal statuses of slaves and convicts as justification. At the same time, our nation's criminal code changed. The inhumane treatment of prisoners, the expansion of the prison system, the public nature of punishment by forced labor, and the abandonment of the idea of reform and rehabilitation of prisoners all contributed to a national consensus that certain categories of criminals should be permanently disfranchised. As racial barriers to suffrage were challenged and fell, rights remained restricted for persons targeted by such infamy laws. Criminal convictions-in place of race-continued the disparity in legal status between whites and African Americans. Decades later, after race-based disfranchisement has officially ended, legislation steeped in a legacy of racial discrimination continues to perpetuate a dichotomy of suffrage and citizenship that is still effecting our election outcomes today.