Juvenile Justice System: Youth Services Annotated Review

Introduction: The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline

Source: CDF. (2007). America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline. The Children's Defense Fund.

Summary: America is still a country in which underprivileged children are discriminated against and "pipelined" into a life of problems and failure rather than success and good health. Something must be done; it is the responsibility of all adults to rally together and take action to correct this far-reaching, systematic, and cyclic problem. The main steps that must be taken are: work together to change the norms and values of society; replace punishment and incarceration with early intervention and firm commitments to children; begin this commitment with guaranteed prenatal, health, and mental health coverage for everyone; ensure every child eligible for Head Start programs is able to participate; permanently connect every child to a caring parent or mentor; instill a solid academic work ethic and make sure all children can read by the 4th grade; put an end to poverty in America; reduce the numbers of children entering government welfare, juvenile, and justice systems; replace guns and violence with nonviolence; put an end to the abuse and neglect of children; put an end to hunger; create jobs with a living wage; make affordable housing available to everyone; and provide quality after-school and summer programs to help keep kids out of trouble.

Critique: This report from the non-profit Children's Defense Fund is a dramatic call to action for adults. Rife with statistics, examples, and biographical sketches, it gives a compelling look into the lives of underprivileged children in America. Placing the blame squarely on adults, it offers many suggestions for working together to change society and improve the outlook for children who are poor, abused, neglected, or victims of discrimination.

The report does offer some practical positive advice — for example, that parents should not strive for perfection, only honesty and being a good role model; that adults must stop "talking right and doing wrong" in all areas of their lives; and that the problem must be broken down into manageable pieces before it is tackled. On the other hand, the writing is highly judgmental, scolding, biased, emotional, negative, and depressing. This tone may be necessary to make the point and rally supporters, but it may not be the most effective strategy for all audience members. Countering the negativity with more positive examples of change and removing references to God altogether would likely strengthen the report's appeal.

In addition, the report's scope is simply too broad to be fully effective. After reading many pages of harrowing statistics about children and their futures in America, the report begins to sound more like propaganda than an informative piece. Sadly, its expectations are not realistic. They are bold and highly worthwhile hopes, of course, but asking to end all child poverty by 2015 is not feasible. The authors would have produced a much more effective report by taking their own advice and breaking down the monumental task of saving America's underprivileged children into reasonable, progressive tasks. By introducing one strategy for improvement per report and replacing the scolding tone with concrete, practical steps that everyone can take, they would be far more successful in motivating supporters to actually take action.

Conduct Disorder and Personality Disorders in Juvenile Offenders

Source: Eppright, T., Kashani, J., Robison, B., & Reid, J. (1993). Comorbidity of conduct disorder and personality disorders in an incarcerated juvenile population. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 150(8), 1233.

Summary: Children with conduct disorder cost government and society excessive time and money. To date, relatively few studies have been carried out to determine the rate of different personality disorders among juveniles with conduct disorder. This article describes the results of one such study. In sum, among all children diagnosed with conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder was the only frequently coexisting disorder; among girls, there was a notable incidence of conduct disorder with borderline personality disorder. Other personality disorders occurring less frequently with conduct disorder include narcissistic, paranoid, passive-aggressive, and dependent types. The authors note the significance of finding antisocial personality present in children under the age of 18, since it is not generally considered diagnosable until later in life. The pool of subjects with conduct disorder was drawn from 100 randomly selected juvenile offenders ranging in age from 11 to 17.

Critique: While concise and informative, with apparently sound scientific methods used to gather statistics, this article does not attempt to discuss the findings further or draw conclusions about what future actions should be taken. Knowing that there is a high correlation between one or more personality disorders and conduct disorder among juveniles might seem somewhat obvious, but the results of this study deserve further investigation. More specifically, what kind of testing should be administered to problem children in school, and what kinds of interventions would be appropriate at such a young age? These are important practical questions the article leaves unanswered.