Search Results

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.

This chapter dissects the effectiveness of antidelinquency efforts—from national to local levels. In the 1950s, the decade of delinquency, the United States committed fully to curbing juvenile delinquency in a way comparable to the Progressive-era child-saving efforts, which led to the establishment of the juvenile court system. Shifts in youth behaviors dominated popular discourse at midcentury, and youth crime emerged to the forefront. Considering that youth criminality intersected race, class, gender, and region, as confirmed by the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1953, many people took interest in prevention efforts. In New York City, various agencies and organizations, both formal and informal, put forth efforts to combat youth crime as they saw fit—some more successfully than others—and they ranged from large institutional endeavors, such as the Harlem YMCA, to on-the-ground organizing by the youths themselves, such as the Harlem Young Citizens Council. Even with all the crime and delinquency prevention efforts that emerged, the number of youths arrested, especially black youths, continued to rise, and although this pointed to a function of policy and practice as opposed to changes in behaviors, it reestablished race as the basis of youth criminality.