NCJ Number
129625
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 37 Issue: 2 Dated: special issue (April 1991) Pages: 262-280
Date Published
1991
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article describes the varied calls for policy reform in the juvenile justice systems in the United States since the 1960s and presents data on the differential trends in juvenile incarceration across the 50 states from the mid-1970s to 1987.
Abstract
These trends are examined in view of shifts in juvenile arrests, changes in the overall crime rate, and a number of political, bureaucratic, and social structural factors hypothesized to bring about changes in juvenile incarceration rates. In general, the increase in the juvenile incarceration rate relates to increases in the adult incarceration rate. This finding, together with the negative relationship between crime rates and juvenile incarceration rates, suggests that these increases are responsive to political choices of more punitive crime control policies. Further support is provided by the finding that states with more conservative political traditions appear, on the basis of increased juvenile incarceration rates, to have adopted such punitive policies. Juvenile corrections policy appears to be affected more by political choices than by shifts in crime rates, and these political choices are determined at least in part by political traditions, social structure, and the characteristics of the correctional system. 2 appendixes, 7 notes, and 43 references (Author abstract modified)