Readings in Juvenile Justice Administration
analyzes the judicial, legal, and correctional agencies that respond to delinquent offenders. The articles reveal the diversity and complexity of the juvenile courts and present the current policy debates regarding juvenile justice. They reflect the historical origins and the recent transformation of the juvenile justice system as it moves from a nominally rehabilitative social welfare agency to a more scaled-down criminal justice system for young offenders.
Chapter 1 features a discussion of the origins of the juvenile court system. Chapter 2 examines juvenile justice administration, focusing on the various stages of the process and the sources of organizational diversity. The articles in Chapter 3 look at the quality of procedural justice in juvenile courts. This section examines the conflicts between the procedural rights of juvenile offenders, the traditional conception of the juvenile court as a rehabilitative agency, and the increased severity of sentencing policy in response to recent efforts to get tough and crack down on youth crime. Chapter 4 focuses on alternative strategies that would transfer serious young offenders to criminal courts for prosecution as adults, demonstrating the conceptual and administrative tensions embodied in defining the boundaries between delinquents and criminals, between children and adults, and between treatment and punishment. Chapter 5 analyzes several aspects of sentencing delinquents in juvenile courts. The articles in this section reveal the shifts in juvenile justice jurisprudence, policy, administration, and practices from rehabilitation to retribution and from offender to offense. The final set of articles in Chapter 6 highlight some of the current policy debates about the future of the juvenile court as an institution, exploring the need to maintain a separate juvenile justice system for young offenders. Bringing together some of the most important articles in the field,
is ideal for courses in criminal and juvenile justice.