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Teens are often seen as challenging social mores. They are frequently perceived to engage in activities considered by adults to be immoral, including sexual behavior, delinquent activities, and low-level forms of violence. Yet the vast majority report surprisingly high levels of religiosity. Ninety-five percent of American teens aged 13-17 believe in God or a universal spirit, and 76% believe that God observes their actions and rewards or punishes them. Nearly half engage in religious practices, such as praying alone or attending church or synagogue services.

Adolescents' religious beliefs are clearly important to them. Yet, the law does not know how to approach adolescents' religious rights and needs. In Not by Faith Alone, Roger J. R. Levesque argues that teens' search for meaning does not always serve adolescents or society well. Religious doctrines and institutions are not all "good," with violence linked to religious beliefs, for example--particularly racial/ethnic and sexual orientation harassment--becoming an increasing concern.

Not by Faith Alone is the first attempt to integrate research on the place of religion in adolescent development and to discuss the relevance of that research for policies and laws which regulate religion in their lives. Levesque asks how religion, broadly defined, influences the development of teens' inner moral compasses, and how we can ensure that religion and the apparent need for "religious" activity lead to positive outcomes for individual adolescents and for society.

This textbook offers a foundation for understanding adolescents' rights by articulating the complexity, breadth, and challenging nature of laws regulating adolescents. It showcases the Supreme Court's key interpretations of the Constitution as it relates to adolescents' rights. Chapters examine relevant legal systems and the social contexts that legal systems control. In addition, chapters discuss constitutional issues and their nuances through actual cases that often offer alternative interpretations of constitutional rules. The textbook guides readers through both well accepted and often ignored conceptions of adolescents' rights. It offers readers unfamiliar with the law the tools they need to understand the importance of adolescents' constitutional rights and how they can contribute to developing them. Topics featured in this text include: The role of parents and family systems in conceptualizing adolescents' rights. The complexities of providing health care to adolescents. Religious freedom and adolescents' rights relating to religion. The flaws of child welfare systems. The challenge of developing rights specifically for juveniles and delinquent youth. Juvenile court systems and the differential treatment of adolescents. The difference between the juvenile court system and the criminal court system. Adolescents' media rights. Adolescents and Constitutional Law is an essential textbook for graduate students as well as a must-have reference for researchers/professors and related professionals in developmental psychology, juvenile justice/youth offending, social work, psychology and law, family studies, constitutional law, and other interrelated disciplines.

This book reviews broad social changes affecting youth development and the inconsistency of the legal system in updating its approach to adolescents' rights. Legal experts examine current adolescent protections and offer research-based proposals for revising laws that underserve or criminalize youth under the rubric of protection. Focusing on the key areas of technology and media, education, and personal relationships, chapters discuss legal responses to a range of challenges impacting young people, including sexual exploitation, the right to privacy, military family issues, and the school-to-prison pipeline. The book's nuanced concept of legal protection credits youth with greater competence than currently afforded, in hope that adolescents can take more ownership of their evolving lives in a rapidly changing society. Topics featured in this volume include: How to balance freedom of expression with adolescents' right to data protection. The sexualization of media and its effects on youth attitudes and behaviors. The rising phenomenon of teenage sexting. Protecting students' sexual identity in private schools. Youth sex and labor trafficking and possible solutions to alleviate the widespread crime. Adolescents, Rapid Social Change, and the Law is a must-have resource for researchers and professors, clinicians and related professionals as well as graduate students in developmental psychology, family studies, public health, educational policy and politics, and social policy.

Teachers make a difference. As someone who grew up in one of the po- est and rural areas of a poor state and ended up attending elite graduate and professional schools, I have much to credit my public school teachers. My teachers sure struggled much to teach an amazingly wide variety of students from different backgrounds, abilities, and hopes. Given that re- ity, which undoubtedly repeats itself across the United States and globe, one would think that I should be quite hesitant to criticize a system that produces countless grateful students and productive citizens. I agree. The pages that follow surely can be perceived as yet another attack on already much maligned schools that do produce impressive outcomes despite their limited resources, increased obligations, and the sustained barrage of attacks from competing interest groups. Some may even view the text as an affront to the inalienable rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Others surely could understand the analysis as another assault on our decentralized legal and school systems that should retain the right to balance the needs of communities, parents, schools, and students. I clearly did not intend, and do not see the ultimate result, as yet another diatribe on the manner teachers, parents and communities treat students.

There is much controversy about the dangers of a free media when it comes to children and adolescents. Many believe that this constitutional right should be amended, altered, or revoked entirely to prevent the young from being negatively influenced. Graphic violence, sexual content, and the depiction of cigarette smoking have all come under fire as being unacceptable in media that is geared toward adolescents, from television and movies to magazines and advertising. Yet not much has been written about the developmental science behind these ideas, and what effects a free media really has on adolescents.
This book presents a synthesis of all current knowledge about the developmental effects of a free media on adolescents. Levesque first presents a full analysis of research studies into the media's effects on adolescents in four key areas: sexuality, violence, smoking, and body image. All findings are assessed within the context of normal adolescent development. Levesque then discusses how this knowledge can be used to inform current standards for the regulation of free speech with regard to adolescents. Both legal restrictions and less formal regulatory bodies (schools, parent groups, etc.) are reviewed to present a full picture of the ways in which a free media is constrained to protect adolescent's development.

Explores the shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims of discrimination, particularly relating to minority youths' rights to equal treatment In the wake of the civil rights movement, the legal system dramatically changed its response to discrimination based on race, gender, and other characteristics. It is now showing signs of yet another dramatic shift, as it moves from considering difference to focusing on neutrality. Rather than seeking to counter subjugation through special protections for groups that have been historically (and currently) disadvantaged, the Court now adopts a "colorblind" approach. Equality now means treating everyone the same way. This book explores these shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims, particularly relating to minority youths' rights to equal treatment. It integrates developmental theory with work on legal equality and discrimination, showing both how the legal system can benefit from new research on development and how the legal system itself can work to address invidious discrimination given its significant influence on adolescents-especially those who are racial minorities-at a key stage in their developmental life. Adolescents, Discrimination, and the Law articulates the need to address discrimination by recognizing and enlisting the law's inculcative powers in multiple sites subject to legal regulation, ranging from families, schools, health and justice systems to religious and community groups. The legal system may champion ideals of neutrality in the goals it sets itself for treating individuals, but it cannot remain neutral in the values it supports and imparts. This volume shows that despite the shift to a focus on neutrality, the Court can and should effectively foster values supporting equality, especially among youth.

This book reviews broad social changes affecting youth development and the inconsistency of the legal system in updating its approach to adolescents' rights. Legal experts examine current adolescent protections and offer research-based proposals for revising laws that underserve or criminalize youth under the rubric of protection. Focusing on the key areas of technology and media, education, and personal relationships, chapters discuss legal responses to a range of challenges impacting young people, including sexual exploitation, the right to privacy, military family issues, and the school-to-prison pipeline. The book's nuanced concept of legal protection credits youth with greater competence than currently afforded, in hope that adolescents can take more ownership of their evolving lives in a rapidly changing society. Topics featured in this volume include: How to balance freedom of expression with adolescents' right to data protection. The sexualization of media and its effects on youth attitudes and behaviors. The rising phenomenon of teenage sexting. Protecting students' sexual identity in private schools. Youth sex and labor trafficking and possible solutions to alleviate the widespread crime. Adolescents, Rapid Social Change, and the Law is a must-have resource for researchers and professors, clinicians and related professionals as well as graduate students in developmental psychology, family studies, public health, educational policy and politics, and social policy.

Dramatic cases of child abuse and neglect are featured with tragic regularity in the news. The stories vividly demonstrate both the urgent need for improved child protection services and the unwieldiness and ineffectiveness of the systems charged with the task. To complicate matters further, the original intent of child welfare policy is becoming increasingly obscured as legal responses to child maltreatment become more complex, intrusive, and even contradictory.

Fueled by a consistent narrative and a lucid ethical stance, Child Maltreatment and the Law analyzes the increasing role legal systems play in family life and traces rapidly evolving legal concepts as they apply to child protection. This unique volume helps readers:

• Navigate the various layers of legal regulation federal and state involved in child protection and family life.
• Identify variations and discrepancies in definitions of maltreatment and legal responses.
• Critique the relationships and boundary disputes between the criminal and civil justice systems and agencies dedicated to children s welfare.
• Analyze controversies (e.g., removing children from maltreating families) and other prime areas for possible reform.

Child Maltreatment and the Law is a must-read for psychologists, developmentalists, sociologists, social workers, criminologists, and researchers focusing on family life as well as policymakers and advocates working within the legal system. The book is particularly useful for courses relating to child welfare law or child abuse and neglect.

Teachers make a difference. As someone who grew up in one of the po- est and rural areas of a poor state and ended up attending elite graduate and professional schools, I have much to credit my public school teachers. My teachers sure struggled much to teach an amazingly wide variety of students from different backgrounds, abilities, and hopes. Given that re- ity, which undoubtedly repeats itself across the United States and globe, one would think that I should be quite hesitant to criticize a system that produces countless grateful students and productive citizens. I agree. The pages that follow surely can be perceived as yet another attack on already much maligned schools that do produce impressive outcomes despite their limited resources, increased obligations, and the sustained barrage of attacks from competing interest groups. Some may even view the text as an affront to the inalienable rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Others surely could understand the analysis as another assault on our decentralized legal and school systems that should retain the right to balance the needs of communities, parents, schools, and students. I clearly did not intend, and do not see the ultimate result, as yet another diatribe on the manner teachers, parents and communities treat students.

This textbook offers a foundation for understanding adolescents' rights by articulating the complexity, breadth, and challenging nature of laws regulating adolescents. It showcases the Supreme Court's key interpretations of the Constitution as it relates to adolescents' rights. Chapters examine relevant legal systems and the social contexts that legal systems control. In addition, chapters discuss constitutional issues and their nuances through actual cases that often offer alternative interpretations of constitutional rules. The textbook guides readers through both well accepted and often ignored conceptions of adolescents' rights. It offers readers unfamiliar with the law the tools they need to understand the importance of adolescents' constitutional rights and how they can contribute to developing them. Topics featured in this text include: The role of parents and family systems in conceptualizing adolescents' rights. The complexities of providing health care to adolescents. Religious freedom and adolescents' rights relating to religion. The flaws of child welfare systems. The challenge of developing rights specifically for juveniles and delinquent youth. Juvenile court systems and the differential treatment of adolescents. The difference between the juvenile court system and the criminal court system. Adolescents' media rights. Adolescents and Constitutional Law is an essential textbook for graduate students as well as a must-have reference for researchers/professors and related professionals in developmental psychology, juvenile justice/youth offending, social work, psychology and law, family studies, constitutional law, and other interrelated disciplines.

An empirical look at the U.S legal system's effectiveness in addressing school segregation reveals that segregation persists and even surpasses levels experienced before the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, lawmaking continues as though segregation is a thing of the past. The negative effects of racial and ethnic disparities in schooling are well documented, but legal analysts increasingly interpret the law as a system that operates independently of research findings clearly pointing to disparities. For their part, researchers continue to document experiences of segregation without considering the legal system's basic concerns. The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity examines the sources of the disconnect between scientific findings on school segregation and how the U.S. legal system addresses it; evaluates these sources' empirical and legal foundations; explains why they persist; and reveals what can be done about them. Roger Levesque, a scholar with expertise in children's rights, family law, and adolescence, provides an overview of how the legal system approaches inequality based on racial/ethnic status. He presents an analysis of the empirical findings relating to the implementation of laws that would address racial disparities in schooling and educational outcomes. Finally, Levesque challenges jurisprudential claims that the developmental sciences do not offer important and useful tools to guide responses to differential treatment and circumstances based on race. This book will appeal to individuals interested in legal responses to schooling's place in society, discrimination, diversity, inequality, and more broadly, civil rights. The text will also appeal to developmentalists interested in prejudice, discrimination, and social development, and researchers, scholars, and students in law and psychology, law and education, law and human development, and law and society.

Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law provides a foundation for understanding privacy rights and how they relate to adolescents. Roger Levesque argues that because privacy is actually an inherently social phenomenon, the ways in which adolescents' privacy needs and rights are shaped are essential to society's broader privacy interests. A close look at empirical understandings of privacy, how it shapes development, and how privacy itself can be shaped provides important lessons for addressing the critical juncture facing privacy rights and privacy itself. Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law provides an overview of the three major strands of privacy rights: decisional, spatial, and informational, and extends current understandings of these strands and how the legal system addresses adolescents and their legal status. Levesque presents comprehensive and specific analyses of the place of privacy in adolescent development and its outcomes, the influences that shape adolescents' expectations and experiences of privacy, and ways to effectively shape adolescents' use of privacy. He explains why privacy law must move in new directions to address privacy needs and pinpoints the legal foundation for moving in new directions. The book charts broad proposals to guide the development of sociolegal responses to changing social environments related to the privacy of adolescents and challenges jurisprudential analyses claiming that developmental sciences do not offer important and useful tools to guide responses to adolescents' privacy. Lastly, Levesque responds to likely criticisms that may hamper the development of sociolegal stances more consistent with adolescents' needs for privacy as well as with societal concerns about privacy.

Dramatic cases of child abuse and neglect are featured with tragic regularity in the news. The stories vividly demonstrate both the urgent need for improved child protection services and the unwieldiness and ineffectiveness of the systems charged with the task. To complicate matters further, the original intent of child welfare policy is becoming increasingly obscured as legal responses to child maltreatment become more complex, intrusive, and even contradictory. Fueled by a consistent narrative and a lucid ethical stance, Child Maltreatment and the Law analyzes the increasing role legal systems play in family life and traces rapidly evolving legal concepts as they apply to child protection. This unique volume helps readers: (1) Navigate the various layers of legal regulation - federal and state - involved in child protection and family life. (2) Identify variations and discrepancies in definitions of maltreatment and legal responses. (3) Critique the relationships and boundary disputes between the criminal and civil justice systems and agencies dedicated to children's welfare. (4) Analyze controversies (e.g., removing children from maltreating families) and other prime areas for possible reform. Child Maltreatment and the Law is a must-read for psychologists, developmentalists, sociologists, social workers, criminologists, and researchers focusing on family life as well as policymakers and advocates working within the legal system. The book is particularly useful for courses relating to child welfare law or child abuse and neglect.

Explores the shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims of discrimination, particularly relating to minority youths' rights to equal treatment In the wake of the civil rights movement, the legal system dramatically changed its response to discrimination based on race, gender, and other characteristics. It is now showing signs of yet another dramatic shift, as it moves from considering difference to focusing on neutrality. Rather than seeking to counter subjugation through special protections for groups that have been historically (and currently) disadvantaged, the Court now adopts a "colorblind" approach. Equality now means treating everyone the same way. This book explores these shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims, particularly relating to minority youths' rights to equal treatment. It integrates developmental theory with work on legal equality and discrimination, showing both how the legal system can benefit from new research on development and how the legal system itself can work to address invidious discrimination given its significant influence on adolescents-especially those who are racial minorities-at a key stage in their developmental life. Adolescents, Discrimination, and the Law articulates the need to address discrimination by recognizing and enlisting the law's inculcative powers in multiple sites subject to legal regulation, ranging from families, schools, health and justice systems to religious and community groups. The legal system may champion ideals of neutrality in the goals it sets itself for treating individuals, but it cannot remain neutral in the values it supports and imparts. This volume shows that despite the shift to a focus on neutrality, the Court can and should effectively foster values supporting equality, especially among youth.

Psychological science now reveals much about the law's response to crime. This is the first text to bridge both fields as it presents psychological research and theory relevant to each phase of criminal justice processes. The materials are divided into three parts that follow a comprehensive introduction. The introduction analyses the major legal themes and values that guide criminal justice processes and points to the many psychological issues they raise. Part I examines how the legal system investigates and apprehends criminal suspects. Topics range from the identification, searching and seizing to the questioning of suspects. Part II focuses on how the legal system establishes guilt. To do so, it centres on the process of bargaining and pleading cases, assembling juries, providing expert witnesses, and considering defendants' mental states. Part III focuses on the disposition of cases. Namely, that part highlights the process of sentencing defendants, predicting criminal tendencies, treating and controlling offenders, and determining eligibility for such extreme punishments as the death penalty. The format seeks to give readers a feeling for the entire criminal justice process and for the role psychological science has and can play in it.