NCJ Number
93299
Editor(s)
S H Decker
Date Published
1984
Length
159 pages
Annotation
Since the early 1960's juvenile justice policy research has shifted its focus from describing formal characteristics of juvenile justice system operation to analyzing effects of particular policies. These essays explore new analytic approaches as well as unanticipated results of major policy changes toward expansion of due process for juveniles, decriminalization of status offenses, and expansion of social control.
Abstract
The shift in research orientation coincided with the initial intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court's Kent (1966) and Gault (1967) decisions in the area of juvenile justice and the resulting increase in the complexity of juvenile justice policy. The first section of this essay collection, on evaluation strategies in juvenile justice, presents two techniques for analyzing processes within the juvenile justice system, a historical analysis of attempts at juvenile justice policy formulation by the Federal Government, and a multigoal evaluation technique for juvenile justice programs. Changes in the jurisdiction of the juvenile court are the focus of the second section. A study on abolishing court jurisdiction over status offenders finds that due process rights may be jeopardized as the result of reduced treatment when juveniles are removed from court jurisdiction. In a study of Washington State's attempt to remove runaways from the justice system, the author documents the failure of the court-mandated social service network for runaways to resolve the tension between the just deserts model and society's obligation to intervene on behalf of juveniles. Two chapters in the final section on diversion address whether diversion actually expands the number of juveniles under social control. They conclude that there is no support for the net-widening hypothesis and that juvenile court jurisdiction over minor legal matters is retained even with diversion. A final study finds that extralegal characteristics of juveniles are more related to diversion decisions than are legal criteria. References and tables are supplied for each chapter.