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Delinquency and Juvenile Justice - Linkages Among Systems

NCJ Number
89333
Editor(s)
J Garofalo
Date Published
Unknown
Length
136 pages
Annotation
Papers focus upon the correlation of deviant juvenile behavior with adverse conditions in the labor market; the cost-effectiveness of the child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice systems in dealing with troubled youth; and the related missions and failures of the public school and juvenile justice systems.
Abstract
The paper dealing with delinquency and the labor market reviews research pertaining to the relation between crime trends and unemployment, and it contends that although research shows a general correlation between crime and unemployment trends, this cannot be said of delinquency because of the inconsistent findings in studies of official data and the absence of inverse correlations in the studies of unofficial data. It is advised that the possibilities of fighting delinquency through employment policies or other economic policies that ameliorate adverse class conditions are on shaky empirical foundations. A second paper concludes that the child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice fields all deal with youth whose personal difficulties make them social-control problems, but not one of the systems has demonstrated effectiveness in changing problem behaviors. Given this circumstance, a policy based on fairness and costs, as well as the least restriction, is recommended when dealing with such youth. The concluding paper identifies and discusses the similar goals and frustrations of the public school and juvenile justice systems in trying to produce positive development in youth. The limitations of the two systems are considered, and activities and a structure are proposed for a public program that will involve adolescents in growth-producing experiences in the community. References are provided for each presentation. For individual entries, see NCJ 89334-36.