Juvenile Justice
- “Scared Straight” Programs are Counterproductive – Several studies maintain that such programs may actually increase the probability of offending by participating youths.
- An Empirical Evaluation of Juvenile Awareness Programs in the United States: Can Juveniles be “Scared Straight”? – The results of this study indicate that juvenile awareness programs that use confrontational techniques do not work.
- An Evaluation of Juvenile Offenders Placed at Rite of Passage – This report builds upon CJJC’s previous evaluation of juvenile offenders sent to out-of-state placements by the Division of Youth Corrections, which was conducted in 2000.
- Correctional Boot Camps: Lessons from a Decade of Research – Random assignment evaluations found no significant differences in recidivism rates between boot camp participants and comparison groups. In some cases, boot camp graduates had higher rates of recidivism
- Cures that Harm: Unanticipated Outcomes of Crime Prevention Programs – This review highlights the importance of recognizing the possibility for doing harm when intentions are good. The author concludes with recommendations for scientifically credible evaluations to promote progress in the field of crime prevention.
- How to Turn Around Troubled Teens – In a 2010 review of 69 controlled studies, criminologists revealed that such programs produced little or no overall improvement in offender recidivism.
- Mandated Treatment and Its Impact on Therapeutic Process and Outcome Factors – The impact of legal coercion on the therapeutic relationship and feelings of stigma is widely regarded as negative and detrimental for treatment outcomes.
- Orphanages, Training Schools, Reform Schools and Now This? – While juvenile incarceration rates have been reduced since that time, many serious problems continue to plague youth programming – such as inhumane conditions in facilities, youth treated as and intermingled with adult prisoners, and physical and sexual abuse.
- Prison Policy Initiative – On this page, the Prison Policy Initiative has curated all of the research about youth in the criminal justice system that we know of.
- Rehabilitating the ‘drugs lifestyle’: Criminal justice, social control, and the cultivation of agency – This study examines rehabilitative practice within a residential drug treatment facility that works closely with the criminal justice system.
- Sexual Victimization Reported by Youth in Juvenile Facilities, 2018 – This report defines sexual victimization as any forced or coerced sexual activity with another youth or any sexual activity with facility staff that takes place in a juvenile correctional facility.
- Sticker Shock: Calculating the Full Price for Youth Incarceration – For nearly a decade and a half, the vast majority of states have made substantial progress in reducing reliance on incarceration to address behavior by the nation’s youth.
- The Comparative Costs and Benefits to Reduce Crime – This review of the ten existing evaluations of juvenile boot camps indicated that, relative to comparison groups, juvenile offenders in these programs had higher, not lower, subsequent recidivism rates.
- The Dangers of Detention: The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities – Despite the lowest youth crime rates in 20 years, hundreds of thousands of young people are locked away every year in the nation’s 591 secure detention centers.
- The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story – In a perverse twist of justice, many girls who experience sexual abuse are routed into the juvenile justice system because of their victimization.
- What makes youth run or stay? A review of the literature on absconding – This literature review focuses on why youth abscond from out-of-home care.