Burning down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison by Nell BernsteinWhen teenagers scuffle during a basketball game, they are typically benched. But when Will got into it on the court, he and his rival were sprayed in the face at close range by a chemical similar to Mace, denied a shower for twenty-four hours, and then locked in solitary confinement for a month. One in three American children will be arrested by the time they are twenty-three, and many will spend time locked inside horrific detention centers that defy everything we know about how to rehabilitate young offenders. In a clear-eyed indictment of the juvenile justice system run amok, award-winning journalist Nell Bernstein shows that there is no right way to lock up a child. The very act of isolation denies delinquent children the thing that is most essential to their growth and rehabilitation: positive relationships with caring adults. Bernstein introduces us to youth across the nation who have suffered violence and psychological torture at the hands of the state. She presents these youths all as fully realized people, not victims. As they describe in their own voices their fight to maintain their humanity and protect their individuality in environments that would deny both, these young people offer a hopeful alternative to the doomed effort to reform a system that should only be dismantled. Burning Down the House is a clarion call to shut down our nation’s brutal and counterproductive juvenile prisons and bring our children home.
ISBN: 9781595589569
Publication Date: 2014
Children Behind Bars: why the abuse of child imprisonment must end by Carolyne Willow; Benjamin Zephaniah (Foreword by)
Call Number: HV9145.A5W55 2015
ISBN: 9781447321538
Publication Date: 2015-07-15
The Constitutional Rights of Children: in re Gault and juvenile justice by David Spinoza Tanenhaus
Call Number: KF228.G377T36 2011
ISBN: 9780700618132
Publication Date: 2011-09-08
For the Children? : Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State by Erica R. Meiners“Childhood has never been available to all.” In her opening chapter of For the Children?, Erica R. Meiners stakes the claim that childhood is a racial category often unavailable to communities of color. According to Meiners, this is glaringly evident in the U.S. criminal justice system, where the differentiation between child and adult often equates to access to stark disparities. And what is constructed as child protection often does not benefit many young people or their communities. Placing the child at the heart of the targeted criminalization debate, For the Children? considers how perceptions of innocence, the safe child, and the future operate in service of the prison industrial complex. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, with incarceration and policing being key economic tools to maintain white supremacist ideologies. Meiners examines the school-to-prison pipeline and the broader prison industrial complex in the United States, arguing that unpacking child protection is vital to reducing the nation’s reliance on its criminal justice system as well as building authentic modes of public safety. Rethinking the meanings and beliefs attached to the child represent a significant and intimate thread of the work to dismantle facets of the U.S. carceral state. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and building from a scholarly and activist platform, For the Children? engages fresh questions in the struggle to build sustainable and flourishing worlds without prisons.
ISBN: 9780816692767
Publication Date: 2016
Handbook for Evidence Based Juvenile Justice Systems by James C. Howell; Mark W. Lipsey; John J. WilsonThis handbook promotes a comprehensive strategy founded on evidence-based programming for juvenile justice systems to adopt or enhance their current system. The comprehensive strategy is supported strongly by the broad research base that is now available. This strategy recognizes, first, that a relatively small proportion of the juveniles who initially enter the juvenile justice system will prove to be serious, violent, or chronic offenders, but that group accounts for a large proportion of the overall amount of delinquency. An important component of a comprehensive evidence-based juvenile justice system, therefore, is distinguishing these offenders from others and focusing attention and resources on that smaller group. Second, a comprehensive strategy recognizes that serious, violent, or chronic delinquency emerges along developmental pathways that progress from less to more serious profiles of offending. Priority must be given to interrupting these offender careers by calibrating the level of supervision and control of the juveniles’ behavior to their level of risk. The third major component of a comprehensive strategy, therefore, is effective intervention programs that are capable of reducing the recidivism of those juveniles at risk for further delinquency. The Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders is an administrative framework that supports a continuum of services that parallel the development of offender careers. This framework emphasizes evidence-based programming specifically on recidivism reduction, and supports protocols for developing comprehensive treatment plans that match effective services with offender treatment needs along the life-course of delinquent careers, as they move from intake onward, to probation, community programs, confinement, and reentry. Juvenile justice systems will benefit from incorporation of a comprehensive strategy as provided in the handbook.
ISBN: 9780739187081
Publication Date: 2014
Implementing Juvenile Justice Reform: The Federal Role by Prioritized Plan to Implement a Developmental Approach in Juvenile Justice Reform Committee; Committee on Law and Justice; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research CouncilIn the past decade, a number of state, local, and tribal jurisdictions have begun to take significant steps to overhaul their juvenile justice systems - for example, reducing the use of juvenile detention and out-of-home placement, bringing greater attention to racial and ethnic disparities, looking for ways to engage affected families in the process, and raising the age at which juvenile court jurisdiction ends. These changes are the result of heightening awareness of the ineffectiveness of punitive practices and accumulating knowledge about adolescent development. Momentum for reform is growing. However, many more state, local, and tribal jurisdictions need assistance, and practitioners in the juvenile justice field are looking for guidance from the federal government, particularly from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in the Department of Justice. Implementing Juvenile Justice Reform identifies and prioritizes strategies and policies to effectively facilitate reform of the juvenile justice system and develop an implementation plan for OJJDP. Based on the 2013 report Reforming Juvenile Justice, this report is designed to provide specific guidance to OJJDP regarding the steps that it should take, both internally and externally, to facilitate juvenile justice reform grounded in knowledge about adolescent development. The report identifies seven hallmarks of a developmental approach to juvenile justice to guide system reform: accountability without criminalization, alternatives to justice system involvement, individualized response based on needs and risks, confinement only when necessary for public safety, genuine commitment to fairness, sensitivity to disparate treatment, and family engagement. Implementing Juvenile Justice Reform outlines how these hallmarks should be incorporated into policies and practices within OJJDP, as well as in actions extended to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to achieve the goals of the juvenile justice system through a developmentally informed approach. This report sets forth a detailed and prioritized strategic plan for the federal government to support and facilitate developmentally oriented juvenile justice reform. The pivotal component of the plan is to strengthen the role, capacity, and commitment of OJJDP, the lead federal agency in the field. By carrying out the recommendations of Implementing Juvenile Justice Reform, the federal government will both reaffirm and advance the promise of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
ISBN: 9780309303477
Publication Date: 2014
Juvenile Delinquency, Crime and Social Marginalization : Social and Political Implications by Miguel Basto Pereira; Ângela da Costa MaiaThis book examines the psychosocial, legal, and familial factors at play in the persistencein crime and social marginalization in adults with a history of juvenile delinquency,setting out the political and social implications, and delineating new lines of research. Presenting, for the first time, a summary of the main findings and conclusions of ThePortuguese Study on Delinquency and Social Marginalization (PSDSM), this studyaddresses the following topics: the role of youth psychosocial factors on desistancefrom crime during adulthood in individuals with a history of juvenile delinquency;the relationship between serious adverse childhood experiences (e.g., having livedwith a person with mental illness, physical abuse, emotional neglect) and juvenilejustice involvement, persistence in crime, and psychosocial problems; the mechanismsinvolved in the link between serious childhood adversity and delinquency; the role ofthe juvenile justice system on psychosocial problems and persistence in crime duringyoung adulthood; and finally the relation between adult psychosocial problems andcriminal indicators in individuals with official record of juvenile criminal offenses. Findings from PSDSM have resulted in an extensive list of political and social recommendations for child protection services, justice system, mental health services, schools and universities. This timely title explores these findings and recommendations.
ISBN: 9781787436121
Publication Date: 2017
Justice for Girls?: stability and change in the youth justice systems of the United States and Canada by Jane B. Sprott; Anthony N. Doob; Franklin E. Zimring (Foreword by)
Call Number: HV9104.S67 2009
ISBN: 9780226770048
Publication Date: 2009-12-01
Juvenile Arrest in America: Race, Social Class, and Gang Membership by Mike TapiaTapia studies how race, social class, and gang membership interact to shape arrest patterns for American youth. With differences in delinquency level controlled for the various subgroups of youth in the study, a critical test of labeling theory is executed. Modeling how social class and gang membership condition race effects lends more clarity to the contours of arrest risk for Americas youth. Gang membership and social class also interact in surprising and interesting ways. Some findings are paradoxical, even counterintuitive. The insights obtained will inform the ongoing federal research initiative known as Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) in new and exciting ways.
ISBN: 9781593324780
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Juvenile Crime by Greenhaven Press Editors; Louise I. Gerdes (Editor)Through a balanced collection of articles from a variety of sources, this book explores many aspects of juvenile crime in the United States. Topics covered include the seriousness of the juvenile crime problem, the causes of juvenile crime and violence, the treatment of juvenile offenders by the criminal justice system, and policies that may help reduce juvenile crime. Essay sources include the Campaign for Youth Justice, National Juvenile Justice Network, Ted Nugent, Carmela Lomonaco, Tia Kim, and Lori Ottaviano.
Call Number: HV9104.J833 2012
ISBN: 9780737757316
Publication Date: 2012
Latino Young Men and Boys in Search of Justice: Testimonies by Frank de Jesús Acosta; Henry A. J. RamosIn “Message to My Seventeen-Year-Old Self,” Roberto Martínez, a California Correctional inmate, writes that he wishes he would have taken school more seriously. “Prison ain’t anything like the thug life lies romanticize it to be; it doesn’t make you a man.” In this compelling collection of first-person testimonials—essays, poetry and letters—Latino men and boys who have been or are incarcerated write movingly about their past and future. The book also incorporates essays by community advocates seeking criminal and juvenile justice system reform. Leaders of organizations including Barrios Unidos, Homeboy Industries, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice and National Compadres Network contribute pieces that address issues such as culture-based healing and violence prevention. Many use artistic expression as a form of healing, and this volume includes a wide variety of art, from poetry to drawings, tattoos and murals. Acclaimed author and former gang member Luis J. Rodríguez writes in his foreword that the disproportionate number of young men of color in the justice system is rooted in economic, political and historical factors. He asserts that the United States’ punitive laws and practices—including three-strike laws, gang and gun enhancements, zero tolerance and school removals—have fueled a massive prison industrial complex, and ultimately, more gangs and violence. With the publication of this collection of first-person testimony and articles by system reform advocates, editors Frank de Jesús Acosta and Henry A.J. Ramos seek to humanize disadvantaged Latino young men and call attention to the need for a restorative rather than punitive justice system. This volume confirms that—for both the Latino community and the country as a whole—the “school-to-prison pipeline” must be closed now.
ISBN: 9781558858213
Publication Date: 2016
The School-To-Prison Pipeline: A Comprehensive Assessment by Christopher A. MallettThe only text to fully address the causes, impact, and solutions to the school-to-prison pipeline The expanded use of zero tolerance policies and security measures in schools has exponentially increased arrests and referrals to the juvenile courtsoften for typical adolescent developmental behaviors and low-level misdemeanors. This is the first truly comprehensive assessment of the "school-to-prison pipeline"a term that refers to the increased risk for certain individuals, disproportionately from minority and impoverished communities, to end up ensnared in the criminal justice system because of excessively punitive disciplinary policies in schools. Written by one of the foremost experts on this topic, the book examines school disciplinary policies and juvenile justice policies that contribute to the pipeline, describes its impact on targetedboth intentionally and unintentionallychildren and adolescents, and recommends a more supportive and rehabilitative model that challenges the criminalization of education and punitive juvenile justice. The book outlines effective policies, interventions, and preventative efforts that can be used to improve school climates and safety. The author includes specific recommendations for delinquency, detention, and incarceration prevention. The text incorporates a vast store of empirical knowledge from all relevant fields of study and includes research citations for more in-depth study. Case examples illuminate the plight of adolescents enmeshed in these systems along with effective interventions. The book is a vital resource for undergraduate and graduate students of social work and criminal justice as well as for juvenile court and school personnel and policymakers. Key Features: Provides a comprehensive assessment of the school-to-prison pipeline Recommends a supportive and rehabilitative model that decriminalizes education and challenges punitive juvenile justice Written by one of the foremost national experts on this topic Identifies the major risk factors for involvement in the pipeline About the Author: Christopher A. Mallett, JD, PhD, MSW, is Professor and BSW Program Director, School of Social Work, Cleveland State University. He is licensed in Ohio as an attorney and independent social worker. His research focuses on children and adolescents with disabilities and their involvement with the mental health system, school districts (special education), child welfare, and juvenile courts, with a focus on the impact of comorbid problems and juvenile justice system outcomes.
Second Chance Kids by Ken DornsteinA fight over the fate of juveniles in prison for murder, following a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
Call Number: DVD KF9780 .S436 2017
ISBN: 9781531702229
Publication Date: 2017
When Kids Get Life by Ofra BikelThe United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be sentenced to life without parole. This program profiles the cases of five juveniles sentenced in Colorado to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It explores whether juveniles should receive sentences that, in effect, end any possibility of life outside of prison.
Call Number: DVD HV9105.C6W474 2007
ISBN: 9780793693627
Publication Date: 2007
Streaming Video
The Cradle to Prison PipelineSNCC 50th Anniversary Conference Volume 31 - The Cradle to Prison Pipeline FEATURED SPEAKERS Benetta Standly (ACLU Florida) Crystal Mattison (Children's Defense Fund Freedom School Program) Carmen Perez (The Gathering for Justice) Carrie Richburg (Pen or Pencil) "The one and only thing this nation guarantees our children is a prison bed if they get into trouble," says Crystal Mattison of the Children's Defense Fund Freedom School Program who can hardly hold back her tears. CDF numbers reveal a grim reality: one third of the prison population is Black; one sixth is Latino. One point seven million children have a parent in prison. Fourth grade reading scores are being used to project prison needs in some states. Every day 192 children are arrested for violent crimes; 393 are arrested daily on drug charges. This panel traces the path to prison that many minority children begin traveling in early childhood. Another panelist, Carmen Perez, now involved with The Gathering for Justice organized by Harry Belafonte, vividly portrays the gang world that surrounded her childhood in a community outside of Los Angeles, saying how "lucky" she was to have someone "invest" in her. The panelists discuss inspiration from SNCC in their efforts to tackle the issues confronting them today.
Juvenile JusticeFRONTLINE explores whether children who commit serious crimes should be tried as juveniles or adults. The program shows what can happen to young offenders who reach the "end of the line" in the juvenile court system and how these children can be rehabilitated to prevent future criminal behavior.
Lost for LifeLost for Life is a documentary about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole. All are guilty of first-degree murder. The film examines the sometimes unanswerable questions: What is justice when a young person kills? Can a horrific act place a life beyond redemption? Are there alternatives for kids like these? Or do we simply dispose of them?
Restorative Justice in School and Community SettingsSchools, communities, and justice systems in the US and internationally are increasingly turning to restorative justice as an alternative to a traditional punitive approach. Restorative justice recognizes the healing and restorative power of community and works to increase understanding of the impact of actions. David Anderson Hooker provides an introduction to restorative justice, including its goals, pillars, principles, and practices. A demonstration of restorative justice—as it applies to a high school with escalated student conflict—shows a community coming together for healing, responsibility, and forgiveness.