Articles in this issue address various causes and ways to prevent juvenile delinquency.
The NIJ Journal is published by the U.S. Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ), with a focus on NIJ’s policy-relevant research results and initiatives. The articles in the current issue span research projects funded by both NIJ and the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The research projects reported in this issue reflect these agencies’ joint commitment to high-quality data relevant to addressing the causes and prevention of juvenile delinquency. For years, OJJDP has sponsored statistical collections committed to obtaining information from residential placement facilities that hold juveniles charged with or adjudicated for law violations. These collections are now managed by NIJ, and the two agencies are collaborating to review and redesign them to ensure they produce the most useful, timely, and reliable statistics available. One article in the current issue discusses this ongoing work. All the articles examine issues related to what does and does not work in juvenile justice policies and practices in juvenile justice and child protection programming. One article addresses the potential of mentoring programs in preventing problem behaviors of at-risk children and youth. Another article examines the interventions needed to address the complex needs of “dual system youth,” who are involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. An article examines how schools can obtain tips and better respond to safety threats. Other articles discuss using science to differentiate between abuse and accidental trauma in children, and how to better understand female genital mutilation and develop effective and coordinated responses to prevent it.
Note: Contact the OJP Response Center at 800-851-3420 to order a hardcopy of this publication.