American justice systems are among the most punitive in the world. Young people who come into conflict with the law should be diverted into community-based programs, instead of being adjudicated by courts and sent to systems of incarceration. Research demonstrates the ineffectiveness of incarceration as a means of delinquency control and the ways it actually worsens juveniles’ circumstances.

As prison abolition has made its way into the dominant discussions about mass incarceration issues in the United States, it seems that the role of abolitionist movements in the juvenile justice system has been almost entirely absent. With prison abolition energies spent on adult incarceration, incarcerated juveniles are left with incremental policy reform that fails to address fundamental problems of juvenile detention facilities. Of the 54,000 incarcerated minors, black teenagers are arrested at five times the rate of white teenagers, and Latino teenagers are arrested two to three times the rate of white teenagers. This thesis asks the research question of whether or not prison abolitionist frameworks can be applied to the juvenile justice models in Los Angeles. Unless the abolitionist movement makes a presence in the juvenile reform efforts, the system will criminalize the childhoods of black and brown youth from low-income backgrounds and the pipeline from schools to juvenile detention centers to adult prisons will continue to perpetuate. There is a need for dreams and imagination in the abolitionist movement against the juvenile prison system in Los Angeles County. The push for a future utopian alternative system will abolish the juvenile detention center system and restructure models of rehabilitation that are specifically designed for targeted communities in Los Angeles.

This is an exploratory study which focuses on the types of information that deputies assigned to the Department of Public Safety, Multnomah County, Oregon, consider important when making a decision regarding the disposition of a juvenile offender. This empirical study developed as a result of participant observation. The authors spent one year working with deputies as part of police-social worker teams. During the course of the year it became apparent that police use a considerable amount of discretion when determining the disposition of a juvenile offender. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate systematically: the types of information that deputies believed play the most significant role in the decision-making process in general, the types of information that deputies used when determining which disposition to apply toward a juvenile charged with a particular offense, the personal and occupational characteristics of the individual deputy that might have had a bearing on the dispositions he applied toward a juvenile, if there was agreement between the types of information deputies generally believed were important to disposition of cases and the types of information deputies actually utilized when making a decision in particular cases, if there was agreement among officers with respect to the disposition of a juvenile in particular cases, and the relationship among types of information deputies believed were important in particular cases, the dispositions they applied toward juveniles in that case and the nature of the case presented.

Juvenile offenders have numerous factors that contribute to their delinquency, including family dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse, negative peer influences, and social cognitive development. One area of social cognitive development linked to deviant behavior is attributional biases. Based on the prior research of Daley and Onwuegbuzie (2004), the purpose of the present concurrent mixed methods study was to explore the differences in the frequency of violence attribution errors among juvenile delinquents; the extent that peer-victimization, self-esteem, and demographic variables predict violence attribution errors among juveniles; and the differences in the types of violence attribution errors between incarcerated (high-risk) and probation (low-risk) juvenile delinquents. The results indicated juvenile offenders made violence attribution errors more than 50% of the time when evaluating the behavior of others, suggesting that the low-risk offenders are at major risk of committing high-risk offenses in the future. The results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that 5 variables (i.e., attitude towards the violent acts of others, verbal victimization, attacks on property, social relationships, and morals) statistically predicted the number of violence attribution errors a youth made (F [21, 88] = 2.28,p = .004). Further, with regard to the typology of reasons for violence attributions, the same 7 emergent themes were extracted for all 3 offender samples: self-control, violation of rights, provocation, irresponsibility, poor judgment, fate, and conflict resolution. Findings are discussed relative to the literature on attributional bias and offender behavior.

When a family starts to dissolve it frequently comes to the attention of the court or the welfare department and what happens once its members enter the system can be of critical importance. While the number of adults incarcerated is expected to increase slightly, the alarming fact is that if we continue to confine juveniles at the same rate an increase of 70% between 1965 and 1975 can be expected. These data suggest that we should investigate alternatives to detention, not only because of the increasing pressures of space available but, more importantly, because juvenile detention has shown itself to be very expensive and ineffective.

The aim of this study is to report selected perceptions and attitudes of adolescents placed in the “attention home” at Hood River, Oregon, as an early aid towards improved understanding and treatment, and program assessment.

Concerned by the increase in the average daily populations at Maclaren School for Boys and Hillcrest School for Girls, Children's Services Division has requested research related to children who have been released from child care centers and private institutions. Child care centers were originally developed as alternatives to the state institutions. As children were diverted to various child care centers, the populations of these two institutions decreased, and plans were made to merge the two schools, thus closing Hillcrest. With the increase in populations at both schools, this is no longer feasible. As much time and effort is spent in placing children outside of the state schools, C.S.D. would like to have some measure of how effectively its workers are diverting children from the correctional system. A speculation exists among many C.S.D. workers that youngsters are not staying in these child care centers long enough to benefit from the varied programs the centers offer. With these factors in mind, a research design was developed which would cover these variables: 1. The child's placement 2. His length of stay (including dates of placement and release) 3. His disposition upon release 4. His living situation one year following his release

Exoneration from crime has been studied among adults, but exoneration of juveniles (i.e., persons under age 18) has not been analyzed as a separate entity, despite distinct legal systems and developmental considerations. Wrongful conviction, while not always indicative of innocence, devastates lives of convicted individuals and their families, while increasing public mistrust and sometimes failing to convict truly guilty individuals. This devastation, as well as vulnerability to wrongful conviction, is significantly increased for youth who miss out on crucial developmental years, milestones, and opportunities. In the current study, I examined differing and intersecting contributors (i.e., individual characteristics, crime characteristics, legal system processes) associated with juvenile exoneration. My sample, retrieved in August of 2023 from the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE, 2023b), included 293 juvenile exonerees. Interesting findings regarding sentence length emerged, with significant associations with age and race. Older exonerees and Black and other racially minoritized exonerees typically received lengthier sentences. Future research analyzing sentencing decisions is warranted to promote equitable treatment of all navigating legal systems. Similarly, Black exonerees were more likely to experience mistaken witness identification, which is in line with previous research. Contrary to prediction on false confessions, 17-year-old exonerees were more likely to falsely confess than younger counterparts, raising questions about what factors make youth more susceptible to falsely confess in real-world settings. Additionally, interesting findings emerged for time before exoneration, with violent crimes tending to endure longer periods before exoneration than sexual and other non-violent crimes. Considerations related to exoneration and crime type are discussed. Geographic location was also analyzed, and US regions were significantly associated with time before exoneration, official misconduct, and false confessions. Interestingly, the Northeast and Midwest regions tended to be associated with more negative outcomes (i.e., longer time before exoneration, more official misconduct, more false confessions). Official misconduct was further analyzed, with significant relationships between crime type and witness tampering, crime type and interrogation misconduct, age and interrogation misconduct, crime type and prosecutorial misconduct, and age and prosecutorial misconduct. Discussion on these relationships with official misconduct are included, as well as implications for future research.

<p>The papers purpose is to examine how the Botkyrka and Huddinge municipalities implement their juvenile law offenders' programs. The paper briefly and concisely outlines the history of juvenile offenders and the social services programs dealing with them. We focus on how two municipalities’, Huddinge and Botkyrka, implement these programs. The municipalities belong to the same judicial district,”Södertörns tingsrätt”. The paper has a qualitative approach with interviews with those responsible for the programs. Recent year’s criticism has been directed towards the lack of control and structure of the application of the program within the municipalities. This paper's conclusion is that implementations of the program vary a great deal between Huddinge and Botkyrka. However, it also shows that Huddinge and Botkyrka are making an effort to remove these differences between their respective programs. On the basis of the analysis of the material, this paper concludes that the programs can be seen as a creation of a mesosystem that include the young and partly its microsystem. Participation in the program will hopefully have a positive influence on the other systems that the young offenders are a part of. The control of that the young is managing its punishment is done by supervision. Trough this supervision the behavioural pattern of the young is influenced. The power and force to change the young offenders, and give them possibilities to change, to deploy and evolve lie within in the use of words and conversation.</p>

The papers purpose is to examine how the Botkyrka and Huddinge municipalities implement their juvenile law offenders' programs. The paper briefly and concisely outlines the history of juvenile offenders and the social services programs dealing with them. We focus on how two municipalities’, Huddinge and Botkyrka, implement these programs. The municipalities belong to the same judicial district,”Södertörns tingsrätt”. The paper has a qualitative approach with interviews with those responsible for the programs. Recent year’s criticism has been directed towards the lack of control and structure of the application of the program within the municipalities. This paper's conclusion is that implementations of the program vary a great deal between Huddinge and Botkyrka. However, it also shows that Huddinge and Botkyrka are making an effort to remove these differences between their respective programs. On the basis of the analysis of the material, this paper concludes that the programs can be seen as a creation of a mesosystem that include the young and partly its microsystem. Participation in the program will hopefully have a positive influence on the other systems that the young offenders are a part of. The control of that the young is managing its punishment is done by supervision. Trough this supervision the behavioural pattern of the young is influenced. The power and force to change the young offenders, and give them possibilities to change, to deploy and evolve lie within in the use of words and conversation.