By Katherine Hancock

Privatization of juvenile facilities and services has been the norm since the inception of the juvenile justice system. However, little research has been performed examining the impact of privatization on juvenile justice, despite the possible repercussions of this policy for the juveniles served. Prior research on privatization in other fields has tended to find a connection between privatization and outcomes; however, very little research has examined how privatization impacts operations, how operations impact recidivism, and how privatization and operations interact to produce juvenile justice outcomes. This exploratory study, informed by cybernetic systems theory and principal-agent theory, examined the mechanism by which privatization influences juvenile recidivism by exploring the possible mediating effect of facility operations. Using annual juvenile facility evaluation and recidivism data collected by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice through 548 evaluations performed on 158 facilities from 2003-2006, this research examined whether facility operations mediated the relationship between ownership (public, for-profit, and non-profit) and juvenile recidivism. Multilevel analyses were completed using Stata software to account for the clustered nature of the data (facilities nested within provider companies). The results from multilevel regression analyses indicated no relationship between ownership type and either operations or recidivism. However, multilevel regression analyses indicated significant inverse relationships between recidivism and each of four of the operational variables: program management, health care services, security, and intervention management. A mediating relationship was not supported. Results also indicated that both provider company and characteristics of the juveniles served were significant predictors of both operational variables and recidivism. These results suggest that privatization concerns may be more suitably focused on identifying the appropriate provider company rather than on choosing the appropriate ownership type. In addition, during the contract negotiation stage, juvenile justice administrators may wish to incorporate policies and/or incentives into the contract that are related to juvenile characteristics. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida, 2014. 305p.

By Schwarzenbach, Anina

In recent history, various European countries, such as France, have been the scene of recurring violent youth riots targeting the police. Not all countries have, however, been equally affected by the phenomenon. Some countries, such as Germany, have been spared by such large-scale youth riots. Why do some countries witness greater tensions between young people and the police than others? This book aims to understand this discrepancy by shedding light on how young people perceive, experience and relate to the police. Based on an original data set, it investigates the relationship between young people and the police in four cities in Germany and France that present similar structural characteristics, such as their size and ethno-cultural diversity. The relationship is examined in more detail by means of three aspects: young people’s frequency and type of police encounters, their attitudes toward and their willingness to cooperate with the police. The book addresses two main questions: 1. Across countries, are there any common predictors for positive relations between young people and the police? 2. Within countries, is there evidence for profiling practices targeting ethnic and disadvantaged minority juveniles? Which consequences do experiences with institutional discrimination have on young people’s perceptions of and their propensity to cooperate with the police? The book tests the influence of a variety of predictors on the type and frequency of young people’s encounters with as well as their attitudes toward the police. In addition to ethnicity and gender, the analyses consider the possible influence of social and behavioral variables, such as social status and experiences with delinquency, but also prior encounters with the police and neighborhood deprivation. From a theoretical perspective, the book is mainly based on work examining the preconditions of police legitimacy and the consequences of a lack thereof on the citizens’ willingness to act in abidance with the law. The findings suggest that, overall, in both Germany and France, similar predictors shape the relationships between young people and the police. Social status, religious values and norms, identification with the host society as well as prior experiences with crime and the criminal milieu play important roles. There are, however, striking differences between the two countries, too. In Germany, on average, young people with a migration background are checked by the police about as often as those of German descent. Attitudes toward the police are, with few exceptions, consistently positive across gender, age and ethnic backgrounds. In France, the results indicate systematic discrimination of young people of a North African origin by the police. Compared to young people of French descent, the chance of experiencing a “stop-and-search” police encounter is more than twice as high. Finally, the attitudes of young people of North African origin toward the police are significantly worse than those of other young people in France.

Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2020. 371p.

By Caitriona Dowd.

This paper explores the evidence available on the role of work in youth participation in violence, through a study of recent research and evidence in this field. The evidence review considers the role of ‘work’ broadly, seeking to go beyond restricted definitions of waged and formal sector employment or underemployment. It considers the role of formal and informal work, different forms of work, and the various potential roles – both positive and negative – that work may play in youth participation in violence. The study will also employ a broad definition of ‘violence’ – considering youth participation in organised, mass-mobilised conflicts; ‘radicalised’ or ‘extremist’ violent groups; less formal, criminal violence; and, where relevant, interpersonal violence. The deliberately broad definition of violence facilitates a focused analysis of the evidence and research surrounding the role of work in youth engagement in all forms of violence that constitute a disengagement from a peaceful social order, recognising the interlinkages between multiple and varied outward manifestations of violence (for example, criminal, economic, political and interpersonal violence). The study explores the evidence for the role of work in youth violence participation at the intersection of multiple forms of work, multiple forms of violence, and multiple forms of participation, mapping gaps in existing research and evidence, and opportunities for further research and analysis. Attention will be concentrated on research and evidence produced after 2010, building on the work of Cramer (2010) on unemployment and violence.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2017. 30p.

By Gupte, J.; Tranchant, J.-P. and Mitchell, B.

In Maharashtra, state-sponsored programmes that support school dropouts and young offenders in finding employment and integrating into society are severely limited by a lack of resources and capacity. While several government-sponsored schemes do exist, in reality, however, support for school dropouts is largely provided on an ad hoc basis, and predominantly by non-governmental organisations. In this context, we conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of Kherwadi Social Welfare Association’s Yuva Parivartan programme. This is one of the largest non-governmental interventions directed towards school dropouts and juvenile offenders. The overarching evaluation question adopted was ‘Can targeted preventive action and access to employment for school dropouts act as a preventive measure against delinquency and crime?’ The following five programme-specific Sub-Questions (SQ) were used for evaluation purposes: SQ1: Is the Yuva Parivartan (YP) programme effective at imparting on youth a set of prosocial values that are consistent with job-seeking and crime-avoidance behaviours? SQ2: Are the benefits of the YP programme reaching the population who self-report committing a crime? SQ3: Does the YP programme lead to pro-social behavioural changes? SQ4: Is there a relationship between attitudes towards aggressive and/or violent behaviour, entitlement, anti-social intent and employment outcomes? SQ5: Does the YP programme manage to instill a feeling of confidence among the trainees about their future prospects of finding a job?

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2015. 71p.

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By Jaideep Gupte, Dolf te Lintelo and Inka Barnett.

Much of Africa is urbanising fast and its young population is projected to constitute the largest labour force in the world. While urbanisation can be linked closely with economic development, we also know that it is the least developed countries that have younger populations than the rest of the world. This duality implies that understanding the nature of risks and vulnerabilities faced by urban youth, how they are impacted by them, as well as how they respond to and may be resilient against them, continue to be important questions for furthering development in sub-Saharan Africa. A key conceptual debate surrounds how the category of ‘youth’ is understood, as several definitions of the term exist, ranging from age bands to social or cultural framings. In this paper we look to review how the various definitions of ‘youth’ relate to three dominant discourses about poverty and vulnerability in urbanising Africa: (1) food insecurity; (2) unemployment/joblessness; and (3) violence/insecurity. By doing so, we seek to identify if and when these are responsive to youth needs and practical in terms of policy efforts aiming to reduce poverty and vulnerability in urban areas.

Brighton UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2014. 26p.

By Franklin Chase Hoyt.

“This is a book of stories telling of Youth's encounter with the law. It does not pretend to cover any particular phase of child psychology nor is it written with the slightest idea of serving as a manual on juvenile-court work in general. It merely seeks to present, in narrative form, a number of incidents from the records of our Children's Court, and to include only such comments as seem appropriate and necessary to bind these sketches together into one consecutive whole. If this little volume serves, in some slight measure, to stimulate popular interest in the problems of delinquency and neglect, if it leads to a clearer understanding of what can be done to-day to develop and elevate our citizens of to-morrow, and if it helps to suggest a possible improvement in the methods and spirit of modern justice, it will more than achieve the objects for which it has been written. All of these stories are true and all are based upon actual facts and occurrences.”

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. 264p.

By George E. Worthington and Ruth Topping.

A Study of the Procedure in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Many persons interested in problems of social hygiene have felt that in the courts dealing with sex offenders serious administrative inequalities often operate against women delinquents. Some learning of the provision for trial by jury of prostitutes in Chicago, believe this to be an important safeguard against sex discriminations. Indeed, at various times it has been publicly proposed that an effort be made in New York City to secure legislation to permit trial by jury in all classes of sex offenses. The American Social Hygiene Association and the Bureau of Social Hygiene have been repeatedly appealed to for their views on this and other points connected with the courts dealing with sex delinquents. They finally decided to undertake jointly a study of the Morals Court of Chicago, with no preconceived findings to be reached and no propaganda to spread. The American Social Hygiene Association and the Bureau of Social Hygiene.

New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock. 1921, 1925. 474p.

By Mabel Ruth Fernald, Mary Holmes Stevens Hayes, and Almena Dawley.

“The system of penal institutions of any state and the planned of administration of each given institution are determined in part at least by certain conceptions regarding the persons who are handled. These conceptions may be vague and unformulated they may be definite and dogmatically propounded. In either case they form one important element of the determination procedure and become of practical importance The acceptance this point view has become almost universal among those who interest themselves in modern penology from either theoretical or more practical aspects.”

NY Century (1920) 556 pages.

By Arthur Macdonald.

Including stigmata of degeneration being a hearing on the bill (h. R. 16733) to establish a laboratory for the study of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes. Before A Sub-Judiciary Committee Of The United States House Of Representatives.”To find whether or not there are any physical or mental characteristics that distinguish criminal children from other children. Such knowledge would make it possible to protect children in advance and lessen the chances of contamination.”

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1908) 337 pages.

By William Healy.

Text-book of Diagnosis and Prognosis for all Concerned in Understanding Offenders. “While other books on crime and criminals have been written, the intensive study of the individual offender in the intimacy and detail which are shown in this book, is unique and revealing.”

Boston. Little Brown (1918) 848 pages.

By Lewis Hendrix Mounts.

A study of sources of social infection.

University of Iowa (1918) 164 pages.

By Rosemary Barberet, Benjamin Bowling, Josine Junger-Tas, Cristina Rechea-Alberola, John van Kesteren, Andrew Zuruwan.

In 1990 a group of mainly European criminologists embarked on a large comparative study of juvenile delinquency through the use of the self-report method. This methods consists of surveying youths in the general population and asking them directly – in private and in a non-stigmatising manner – about their possible involvement in antisocial and delinquent behaviour. For comparative criminological purposes, it can be seen as superior to other measurements of youth offending, largely because of the common definitions used. Although the self-report method has been used since the 1940s and is judged to be reliable and valid overall by the criminological scientific community, until 1990 no large scale comparative study had ever taken place. This report represents a more intensive analysis of the same data but for three selected European countries: England and Wales, The Netherlands and Spain. These countries represent different regions of Europe and also obtained the support of their respective Ministries of Justice in the funding of fieldwork with relatively large national samples. The authors of the report are the original participants in the self-report study, including its instigator, Josine Junger-Tas. This report received DG XX II funding in 1997-1999 under Action E.II of the ‘Youth for Europe’ programme, and represents a first step in the establishment of a European research agenda on youth offending and deviant behavior. Findings from the analyses reveal broadly similar patterns and correlates in juvenile offending in the three European countries examined, set against different reactions to the same on the part of legal institutions. Social control theory, the core theory used in the study, suggests that the social bonding of youth to prosocial others, commitments, activities and beliefs can be an important way of explaining and preventing youth offending. In a similar fashion, structuring the opportunities available to youth which facilitate offending can also reduce delinquent behavior and its harmful results. The report highlights a number of intriguing differences among the three countries which only substantiates the fact that in terms of juvenile justice policy, European countries have a great deal to learn from each other. The report is divided into ten chapters, each of which details a different aspect of the self-report questionnaire, which appears in the Appendix. The tenth chapter consists of conclusions and research and policy recommendations. An effort was made to use clear and simple language to enable the layperson to grasp the essence of the research, without sacrificing methodological rigour in the analyses, in the tradition of good applied criminological research. It is the hope of the authors that this report will lay the foundation to the establishment, on a European level, of research-based policies aimed at preventing and intervening in the area of juvenile offending.

Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, 2004. 181p.

By A. Dirks.

This dissertation project focuses on forced re-education policies for juvenile delinquents in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) and uses this topic to show the interaction between a 'modernizing' Dutch colonial state and the growth of a colonial civil society, between approximately 1872 and 1942. It uncovers specific government and private initiatives – like state re-education institutes, orphanages, and schools – that attempted to turn young delinquents of Indonesian and (Indo-)European heritage into 'proper' Dutch colonial subjects and citizens. The dissertation shows that a colonial civil society - both European and indigenous - was rapidly developing in the twentieth century and had an undeniable influence on state policies. The book also seeks to understand and reveal the influence of racialized government and private reform policies on the lives of the children that were deemed 'delinquent', their parents and communities.This dissertation focuses on forced re-education policies for juvenile delinquents in the Netherlands Indies (now Indonesia) and uses this topic to show the interaction between a 'modernizing' Dutch colonial state and the growth of a 'colonial civil society', between approximately 1872 and 1945. It explains the development of specific government and private initiatives like state re-education institutes, orphanages, and schools that attempted to turn young delinquents of Indonesian and (Indo-)European heritage into 'proper' Dutch colonial subjects and citizens. The dissertation shows that a colonial civil society was rapidly developing in the twentieth century and had an undeniable influence on state policies. The dissertation reveals the impact of racialized government and private reform policies on the lives of the children that were deemed 'delinquent', their parents and communities.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2011. 384p.

Edited by Josine Junger-Tas and Richard L. Block.

Holland is a European country and part of the Western world. As such it shares many essential features and fundamental cultural values with other European nations and with North America. Moreover a number of important factors of social change have af fected The Netherlands in roughly the same way as they affected other Western societies. These social changes had important consequences for general social behavior of juveniles and for delinquent behavior in particular. They also had considerable impact on the juvenile justice system, not only on its direct functioning but also on its philosophy and approach of young offenders. Two phenomena characterize the evolution in Western societies since World War II, but most particularly from the '60 to the '80. They are: a large increase in juvenile crime and the construction of a 'welfare' model of juvenile justice. Both phenomena will be commented briefly. The increase in juvenile crime started at the same time as economie prosperity began to spread. As early as 1974 there were serious debates in parliament about the increase in crime rates and about fear of crime among citizens. Claims were made for more police on the streets, better education, more welfare and a better housing policy. In the years that followed there was a growing awareness of the crime problem, which may be partly due to the victimization surveys introduced by the Research Centre of the Ministry of Justice, which include the 16 most frequently committed offenses. These offenses cover 60% of all cases coming to the attention of the prosecutor and more than 70% of all cases coming to the attention of the police. Of all offenses, those that have shown the greatest increase since 1975 are vandalism, shoplifting, burglary, autotheft and bicycle theft. In 1983, 35% of the Dutch population of 15 years and older became a victim of one of those 16 offenses. Comparison with other European countries in 1983 showed that in The Netherlands 18% of those interviewed had been victims of a theft or a burglary. This places our country third among eleven, after France and Great Britain with each 20%. Not only individuals but also public agencies and industrial enterprises are victimized. Shoplifting, burglary, vandalism of public buildings or in the public transport system cause large financial losses to local authorities and private industry.

Amsterdam: Kugler Publications, 1988. 245p.

By Janique Kroese.

The aim of this dissertation is to assess the effect of growing up in a single-parent family during childhood and adolescence on adolescents’ involvement in delinquency. More specifically, it investigates whether different types of single-parent families have different effects, and whether these effects depend on parental involvement in crime.

Amsterdam: Free University of Amsterdam, 2022. 204p.

By Ruth Smiley True.

(Other Titles: The Neglected Girl). “The study of juvenile delinquency, Boyhood and Lawlessness, shows clearly the need of special intimate knowledge of social phenomena if their underlying causes are to be understood. It describes the inadequacies of the present system: the innumerable arrests for petty offenses or for playing in the streets, and the failure of the police to bring the ringleaders into court. All this seems so unreasonable to the neighborhood and has so often aroused its antagonism that the influence of the Children's Court is seriously undermined. In fact, the fathers and mothers of its charges look upon it only as a hostile authority in league with the police, while its real purpose is entirely hidden from them. The evidence is clear, too, that both parents and community have failed to understand and provide for the most elementary physical needs of the boys. The same tragic lack of opportunity and care characterizes the lives of the girls. Ruth S. True's portrayal of these lives in The Neglected Girl rests upon close personal acquaintance with a special group of girls who, though they were not brought up on charges in the Children's Court, yet were without question in grave need of probationary care.

New York: Survey Associates, 1914. 430p.

By Paul Drucker and Maurice Beck Hexter.

“The presentation of social case-histories involves problems different from those of legal cases, a difference in which inhere both a strength and a weakness. In legal cases there is an ultimate decision before a supreme judicial body. In social work authoritative procedure and technique have still to be worked out, and, what is more important, there never issues a final decision as to who is right and who is wrong.”

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923. 421p.

By Cyril Burt.

“There is an old tripartite division of the mind, which dis-tinguishes, as relatively independent aspects of our common conscious life, intelligence, emotion, and character. It views a human being as one who knows, and feels, and wills. In considering, therefore, children whose minds are subnormal, it becomes convenient to recognize three classes or types: first, those who are subnormal intellectually; secondly, those who are subnormal emotionally; and, thirdly, those who are subnormal in morality and character—or, in single words, the backward, the unstable, and the delinquent.”

New York: D. Appleton, 1930.619p.

By William Healy and August F. Bronner.

Their making and unmaking : studies in two American cities. “Convinced that the first step toward improvement in the treatment of delinquency is measurement of the effectiveness of methods of treatment, we began several years ago a special research concerning outcomes. Our case studies of a large series of juvenile offenders, the first extensive group studied by scientific methods, we have reviewed in the light of what was done with and for the individual. The work has grown and we have entered into other inquiries concerning the results of treatment in other series and in another city, all for the sake of what might be learned by comparative studies. Such evaluations offer the only possible basis for the shaping of wiser policies for the prevention and treatmentof delinquency and crime.”

New York: Macmillan, 1926. 317p.

By Martin Kalb.

Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942-1973. In the lean and anxious years following World War II, Munich society became obsessed with the moral condition of its youth. Initially born of the economic and social disruption of the war years, a preoccupation with juvenile delinquency progressed into a full-blown panic over the hypothetical threat that young men and women posed to postwar stability. As Martin Kalb shows in this fascinating study, constructs like the rowdy young boy and the sexually deviant girl served as proxies for the diffuse fears of adult society, while allowing authorities ranging from local institutions to the U.S. military government to strengthen forms of social control.

New York; Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2016. 285p.