NCJ Number
187905
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2001 Pages: 13-24
Editor(s)
Jeffrey J. Haugaard
Date Published
February 2001
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines existing social science research relevant to two policy initiatives, the abolition of a separate juvenile justice system as we know it or reducing the role rehabilitation plays in juvenile justice suggesting ways in which both hypothesis construction and research design can be improved.
Abstract
As it begins its second century, the juvenile court stands on somewhat shaky ground. Arguments for the court’s continued existence and appropriateness for juvenile offenders have a strong foundation in law and psychology. Recent policy initiatives threaten to reduce the rehabilitative mission of the juvenile court or eliminate the court entirely. This article lays out a framework for an empirical assessment of these developments. It first evaluates the available and potential empirical support for three hypotheses about juveniles that might justify maintaining a separate, rehabilitation-oriented juvenile justice system: the hypotheses that compared to adults, juveniles are more treatable, less culpable, and less deterrable. On the assumption that the continued existence of a rehabilitation-oriented juvenile court can be justified, it then provides suggestions as to how existing intervention strategies for juveniles could benefit from research attention to several substantive and methodological issues. These include refining outcome criteria and sampling strategies, matching offender and program characteristics, reexamining intervention effectiveness, and focusing on decision makers and resource allocations.