NCJ Number
147696
Date Published
1992
Length
63 pages
Annotation
This third in a series of juvenile justice oversight hearings focuses on the activities of youth gangs and how programs can help prevent the violence perpetrated by youth gangs.
Abstract
One panel of witnesses consists of Robert Odom, executive director of the Social Development Commission in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and James Garbarino, president of Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development. A second witness panel is composed of Anthony J. Maggiore, Office of the Milwaukee County District Attorney; and Deborah Prothrow-Stith, assistant dean of the School of Public Health of Harvard University. Robert Odom offers two recommendations for inclusion in the revision of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act as areas for research and demonstration. These are demonstrations of integrated, communitywide systems to address the gang issue and a test of the strategy of prevention and early intervention through "Teaching Children To Be Children Centers." James Garbarino compares the experiences of juveniles in many urban neighborhoods to those of children living in war zones. He recommends a strategy that goes beyond law enforcement or social services, as he advocates a "peacekeeping" model similar to that of the United Nations in foreign war zones. Anthony Maggiore documents the involvement of youth in violent crimes in Milwaukee for 1990 to show the seriousness of the problem and recommends preventive strategies. These include job programs, early identification of at-risk youth, the promotion of child bonding programs, repeat offender programs, and teen pregnancy prevention programs. Deborah Prothrow-Stith proposes a violence-prevention strategy for use in the public schools. Questions and answers and the statements of some senators on the subcommittee are included in the report.