Ted Gest
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195103434
- eISBN:
- 9780199833887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195103432.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Violent crime is committed disproportionately by young men, but government never has conducted a coherent, aggressive campaign against serious juvenile delinquency. The fragmentation has been evident ...
More
Violent crime is committed disproportionately by young men, but government never has conducted a coherent, aggressive campaign against serious juvenile delinquency. The fragmentation has been evident since the late 1960s, when federal authority was divided between health and justice agencies. A 1974 law created a federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to take charge. The law set progressive standards, but the administration of Ronald Reagan tried to kill the agency in the early 1980s and downgraded it after Congress refused to end funding. The Reagan Justice Department did forge an alliance with the MacArthur Foundation to start a long‐term study of juvenile crime's causes. Meanwhile, a steady increase in arrests of juveniles prompted to require that more teen suspects be tried in adult courts, even when studies showed the tactic ineffective in preventing repeat criminality. Congressional Republicans helped enact a large “juvenile accountability” program designed to provide federal aid to programs that got tough on young lawbreakers. Some measures failed on a broad scale, such as ‘boot camps’ aimed at instilling more discipline in delinquents. Despite many promising crime prevention programs, the Congress under Republicans control starting in 1995 generally refused to fund them. Juvenile crime arrests declined sharply since the mid‐1990s, but there was no solid proof of what caused the change, whether government programs, the improved economy, or a lower number of teens in the population.Less
Violent crime is committed disproportionately by young men, but government never has conducted a coherent, aggressive campaign against serious juvenile delinquency. The fragmentation has been evident since the late 1960s, when federal authority was divided between health and justice agencies. A 1974 law created a federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to take charge. The law set progressive standards, but the administration of Ronald Reagan tried to kill the agency in the early 1980s and downgraded it after Congress refused to end funding. The Reagan Justice Department did forge an alliance with the MacArthur Foundation to start a long‐term study of juvenile crime's causes. Meanwhile, a steady increase in arrests of juveniles prompted to require that more teen suspects be tried in adult courts, even when studies showed the tactic ineffective in preventing repeat criminality. Congressional Republicans helped enact a large “juvenile accountability” program designed to provide federal aid to programs that got tough on young lawbreakers. Some measures failed on a broad scale, such as ‘boot camps’ aimed at instilling more discipline in delinquents. Despite many promising crime prevention programs, the Congress under Republicans control starting in 1995 generally refused to fund them. Juvenile crime arrests declined sharply since the mid‐1990s, but there was no solid proof of what caused the change, whether government programs, the improved economy, or a lower number of teens in the population.
Jerry Flores
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520284876
- eISBN:
- 9780520960541
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284876.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
Caught Up follows the lives of 50 Latina girls in “El Valle” Juvenile Detention Center and “Legacy” community school located 40 miles outside of Los Angeles, CA. Their path through these two ...
More
Caught Up follows the lives of 50 Latina girls in “El Valle” Juvenile Detention Center and “Legacy” community school located 40 miles outside of Los Angeles, CA. Their path through these two institutions reveals the accelerated fusion of California schools and institutions of confinement. For example, the connection between both of these sites is a concerted effort between Legacy Community School and El Valle administrators to provide young people with wraparound services. These well-intentioned services are designed to provide youth with support at home, at school and in the actual detention center. However, I argue that wraparound services more closely resemble a phenomenon that I call wraparound incarceration, where students cannot escape the surveillance of formal detention despite leaving the actual detention center. For young people in Legacy school, returning to El Valle became an unavoidable consequence of wraparound services.Less
Caught Up follows the lives of 50 Latina girls in “El Valle” Juvenile Detention Center and “Legacy” community school located 40 miles outside of Los Angeles, CA. Their path through these two institutions reveals the accelerated fusion of California schools and institutions of confinement. For example, the connection between both of these sites is a concerted effort between Legacy Community School and El Valle administrators to provide young people with wraparound services. These well-intentioned services are designed to provide youth with support at home, at school and in the actual detention center. However, I argue that wraparound services more closely resemble a phenomenon that I call wraparound incarceration, where students cannot escape the surveillance of formal detention despite leaving the actual detention center. For young people in Legacy school, returning to El Valle became an unavoidable consequence of wraparound services.
