March 8, 2011

Juvenile justice: Online resource

I stumbled across this fantastic resource for anyone interested in issues and trends in juvenile justice. The authors include Laurence Steinberg, Elizabeth Cauffman, Thomas Grisso, and other distinguished leaders in the field. Each article presents solid evidence on an aspect of juvenile justice, much of it in contradiction to what policymakers and the general public believe:

For example, contrary to widespread belief, as Elizabeth Cauffman notes, the causes of crime among male and female offenders are far more similar than different; as Peter Greenwood points out, there is no truth to the notion that, when it comes to delinquency prevention, "nothing works"; and, as explained by Alex Piquero, the causes of disproportionate minority contact are far more complicated than is often claimed both by those who insist that disparities in contact with the system are entirely due to racial bias on the part of the system and by others who contend that the disparities simply reflect racial differences in criminal involvement.

Making these resources available for free to the public is The Future of Children, a joint project of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. The mission of The Future of Children is to translate the best social science research about children and youth into information that is useful to policymakers, professionals, and members of the general public.

Click on the below links to go to the full articles, which are available in html and pdf versions for viewing, downloading, or printing. 

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