NCJ Number
143313
Date Published
1978
Length
189 pages
Annotation
A national symposium held in September 1977 brought together more than 200 professionals and citizen leaders to identify crucial policies and assess current attitudes and information regarding serious juvenile offenders, especially those who commit violent crimes.
Abstract
Funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the symposium focused on three major topics: (1) the definition and incidence of serious crime by youth, (2) treatment and control, and (3) legal issues. Individual papers argued that the definition of serious juvenile offenders is relative and therefore arbitrary, examine the issue of how to protect the public while avoiding further damaging the youth, and describe the deficiencies in current treatment and intervention approaches in institutions and the community. They also discuss the growing public demand for more severe penalties for serious juvenile offenders, general support for the traditional juvenile justice precept of individualized treatment, the extent to which juvenile offenders continue criminal behavior into adulthood, and the need to focus juvenile justice resources on youths who have committed multiple serious offenses. Tables, reference lists, and titles and addresses of speaker