Objectives: To examine the association between traumatic brain injury (TBI) in delinquent youth and facial emotion recognition (FER) abilities, offending, behavioural difficulties, aggression, empathic sadness and parenting. Participants & Setting: Forty-eight delinquent youth, aged 14 to 19 years, recruited from Youth Offending Teams and Targeted Youth Support. Main Measures: A cross sectional case-control design compared individuals in a TBI versus a non-TBI group on a forced-choice, FER paradigm assessing recognition accuracy to six basic emotions. Self-reported measures of TBI, behavioural difficulties, experience of parenting, reactive and proactive aggression, and empathic sadness. Results: History of TBI was reported by 68.7% of the sample, with 94% including a loss of consciousness. No significant differences were found between TBI and non-TBI groups on FER accuracy. Participants in the TBI group self-reported significantly higher proactive and reactive aggression and lower levels of parental supervision as compared to the non-TBI group. Tendency to incorrectly give ‘anger’ as a response on the FER task was strongly positively associated with proactive and reactive aggression. Conclusions: Future research requires larger samples recruited across settings to further investigate the association between FER abilities and TBI in this population. Findings highlight the need for TBI to be appropriately assessed and managed in delinquent youth, and highlights important aggression differences.

Thesis deals with the legislation of institutional care for delinquent youth and the possibilities of saving measures in response to wrongdoing committed by adolescents or otherwise of a criminal offense a child younger than 15 years. The work also includes analysis of the situation and socio-pathological development of young people after leaving the institutional care. The last part deals with implementation of the Early Intervention System and Youth team as an effective tool in combating children and adolescents crime in the Czech Republic.

Officials in the juvenile and public education systems are working to address the education gap for incarcerated juveniles and to implement turning point programs. The purpose of the phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of previously incarcerated young adults and their perceptions of graduation success and long-term juvenile incarceration. Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, Ryan and Deci's self-determination theory, Merton and Agnew's general strain theory, Homan's theory of exchange, and life course theory informed this study. Research questions were developed to understand the experiences and perceptions of young adults related to graduation success during or after juvenile incarceration. Convenience, purposive, and snowball sampling techniques were used to identify 10 young adults who experienced juvenile incarceration and completed high school with a high school diploma or GED. In-depth interviews were conducted to understand the participants' lived experiences and how they were able to overcome their challenges and succeed academically. A combination of a priori and open coding was used to support inductive analysis. Eight themes were identified: challenges of incarceration, support systems, overcoming patterns, turning points, juvenile justice staff, advice to other young offenders, experiences of incarceration, and graduation success. Recommendations include enhanced training for staff members in schools and facilities and conducting a follow-up study to assess the continued success of young adults in this study. Positive social change contributions include identifying ways incarcerated juveniles can be reengaged in schooling and continuing education to decrease recidivism and enhance productive citizenship.

This study hypothesized that fathers and surrogates (male role models) contribute a unique set of factors that help guide African American male youths (N=496) during their normal developmental stages. This study hypothesized that surrogate caregivers would have an impact on the overall level of delinquent behavior of this population. A path analysis tested direct and mediated effects of exposure to violence on delinquent behavior, with anger/aggression level as a potential mediator for all three levels of caregiver presence or absence as a moderator. In the analysis of archival data from 496 African American male youths, the findings did not support these hypotheses consistently. Exposure to family violence as a mediator consistently predicted level of anger, and level of anger negatively predicted delinquent behavior for the fatherless sample. However, exposure did not have a direct positive effect on delinquent behavior in any of the three samples. Implications of these findings as well as other unpredicted findings with these three groups are explored.

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a descriptive profile of both adjudicated and nonadjudicated adolescents educated in a juvenile center/school for delinquent and/or maladapted youth in order to (a) disclose the characteristics of the contemporary adolescent delinquent educated in a community based facility with both day and residential components, (b) discern any differences in demographic data, scholastic data, handicapping conditions, and delinquent behaviors among handicapped and nonhandicapped adolescents with delinquent or maladaptive behaviors, and (c) discover the prevalence by types of handicaps exhibited by this population since the implementation of Public Law 94-142. The subjects for the study were 102 adolescents educated in a juvenile center/school during September 1, 1981, through August 31, 1982.

The topic of this study is girls and boys in the field of child welfare. The aim has been to trace and describe conceptions of gender, delinquency and social problems in child welfare from the end of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. The sources of data in the study consist of legislative documents, journals and other historical literature representing the professional discourse. Two analytical approaches have been used. First, the sources were employed for descriptions of legislation and the legislative processes in child welfare. Second, the material was analyzed with a discursive approach to elucidate conceptions of gender and their importance in the legislative process and thus in the construction of social problems. Three main periods with different currants of ideas have been identified. In the first period moralism dominated. Thoughts about social problems were based in normative assumptions and scientific influences were rare. Child welfare legislation was deeply influenced by ideas of social control. Young people were to be controlled and disciplined especially through work: Girls through household work and care and boys through paid work. In the second period hygienism, ideas based in hygiene discourses, were the main trend. Genetically based arguments together with discussions about morality and poverty were used to explain social problems, and scientific methods were to be used to discipline and control young people. Proposals for measures take against social problems corresponded to two main lines, a hygienic-medical line and a social pedagogic line. The hygienic-medical line had a considerable influence on actions taken to prevent and deal with social problems. One example was the compulsory care and sterilization of certain young women to prevent them from reproducing. The social pedagogic line comprised parents’ education, the role of the family and sexual education. An increased use of psychological explanations for experiences and behaviour among individuals and groups was seen in the 1930’s; this marked the beginning of the third period, psychologism. During the period of psychologism, science, mainly represented by psychology and psychiatry, gradually achieved a greater impact in those processes where young people were categorized as social problems. If in the previous period external discipline was the means of control, in this period internalized self-discipline was to be the means of adjustment. The study showed that conceptions of girls and boys in child welfare were gendered throughout the first half of the twentieth century. This bias has had an impact on how girls and boys were treated in child welfare services. Discussions about social problems concerning girls were often about sexuality and sexual actions, and discussions concerning boys were about violence and criminality. Social problems among girls were seen above all as moral transgressions and social problems among boys as juridical transgressions. These differing conceptions are of great importance when considering how girls and boys were judged and treated according to the child welfare Acts in existence during the first part of the twentieth century.

This thesis is aimed at the current issues of juvenile justice system, especially the educational measures. The center of attention is the youths responsibility for their illegal acts, alternative process and measures, which are set up against the delinquents. Statistics show how the criminality of young people appears at present and what sanctions are taken against them. The main focus is aimed at the educational measures, which are specific to the type of sanctions imposed on young delinquents. The practical part shows the description of sample cases, where educational measures were imposed on young people. In conclusion is a recommendation and some incentives how to improve the current situation in juvenile justice system.