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Habitual Juvenile Offenders: Guidelines for Judicial

NCJ Number
132776
Date Published
Unknown
Length
18 pages
Annotation
The Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP) is based on the principles of the Integrated Criminal Apprehension Program and enables the juvenile and criminal justice systems to focus additional attention on juveniles who repeatedly commit serious crimes.
Abstract
According to recent statistics, juveniles are responsible for about one-third of all serious crimes committed each year in the United States. Every year, nearly 2,000 juveniles are arrested for murder, 4,000 for rape, and 34,000 for aggravated assault. Discretion and diversion are the two mainstays of the juvenile justice system, and both are relevant to juvenile serious offenders. In most States, jurisdictional elements of the juvenile justice system are the police, prosecutors, judges, probation, parole, and social services. Many of these agencies and officials are not aware of how the others work. Because SHOCAP expands on an interagency model to include more emphasis on the juvenile justice system as a whole, sharing information about juvenile offenders takes away from their "invisibility" and ensures that fewer habitual juvenile offenders will fall through the cracks. Three strategies to better deal with juvenile offenders are examined: (1) authorize the inspection of records of juvenile courts, probation, protective services, prosecutors, schools, and police to develop and maintain habitual offender profiles; (2) refrain from sealing or destroying juvenile records of habitual offenders; and (3) place limits on deferred adjudication, especially for habitual offenders who may also have drug problems. 2 figures