Studies indicate that "... A higher than average incidence of delinquency occurs among youngsters of the poorest social standing and with the lowest performance at school..." (Jarvelin et al., 1994, p. 230) Similarly, studies also note that neighborhood influences on development was determinant on factors such as "...collective socialization, peer-group influence, and institutional capacity." (Sampson, Morenoff & Gannon-Rowley, 2002. p 443) Generally studies like the above present a negative picture of

This is particularly important when making decisions about court processes and sentencing practices in the juvenile court. The ability of youth to recognize that sanctions will drastically increase in the adult system is ample reason to justify the use of punishment in the juvenile system. Under a model that focuses on punishment, sentencing will need to be harsh enough to deter the youth from continued behavior but not so harsh

Conclusion There are many factors that increase the prevalence of juvenile crime and juvenile violence. Ethnic diversity is also much greater in urban areas, and the correlation between juvenile violent crimes and such diversity can be attributed largely to attempts at group identification -- i.e. gangs -- when other support structures are lacking (Osgood & Chambers 2003). Thus, though urbanization faces more than its share of juvenile violent crime proportionately speaking,

356). To date, there has been a great deal of reluctance to adopt a harm reduction approach in the United States for two fundamental reasons: The first reason stems from the argument that if harm were reduced for users the result would be an increase in the prevalence of drug use and, therefore, increased harm to society in terms of health care costs and violent crime. Those taking this position present

Rehabilitation for Juvenile Offenders Discipline, punishment and prisons are in many ways as old as the history of humanity. Nearly every society has had some form of confinement or some method of punishing those who break the laws of society. The modern world, however, has experimented heavily with the concept and notion of discipline and punishment, along with the programs and methodologies inherent within these two things. However, the issue

The problem of determining the right approach is compounded by the effects of the culture of violence to which many young offenders are exposed. In some cases, it is possible to reform their behavior but in other cases, juvenile offenders already take on the hardened attitude normally associated with adult offenders. As a result, some juveniles are too far gone to reach through non-punitive methods by the time they reach