American Juvenile Justice

Second Edition

Franklin E. Zimring

Illuminates the core principles of modern juvenile justice and relates those principles to practice
Introduces students to the process of deriving specific juvenile justice policies from broad legal theories and from the facts about crimes committed by the young
Section introductions highlight the main themes and guide students through the work

New to this Edition:

Four new chapters with examinations on important topics including examinations on the elected use of juvenile courts over criminal court, punitive sex offender registration for juveniles, and appropriate tactics for juvenile justice reform
One important addition to chapter 11, which describes and evaluates the three major US Supreme Court decisions on sentences of life without the possibility of parole for persons under 18
Pulls together two decades of wildly inconsistent predictions of massive youth crime waves and explains why none of them happened

American Juvenile Justice

Second Edition

Franklin E. Zimring

Description

American Juvenile Justice is a definitive volume for courses on the criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an introduction of the creation of adolescence, presenting a justification for the category of the juvenile or a period of partial responsibility before full adulthood. Subsequent sections include empirical investigations of the nature of youth criminality and legal policy toward youth crime. At the heart of the book is an argument for a penal policy that recognizes diminished responsibility and a youth policy that emphasizes the benefits of letting the maturing process continue with minimal interruption. In this updated and expanded second edition, Zimring has included four new chapters with examinations on important topics including, US Supreme Court decisions of life sentences for minors, the elected use of juvenile courts over criminal court, punitive sex offender registration for juveniles, and appropriate tactics for juvenile justice reform.

American Juvenile Justice

Second Edition

Franklin E. Zimring

Introduction

Part I Adolescence: Social Facts and Legal Theory
one Childhood and Public Law before the Revolution
two Modern Adolescence as a Learner's Permit
three The Problem of Individual Variation
Conclusion to Part I

Part II - A Rationale for American Juvenile Justice
four The Common Thread: Diversion in Juvenile Justice
five Penal Proportionality for the Young Offender: Notes on Immaturity, Capacity, and Diminished Responsibility
six The Central Mission of Separate Juvenile Courts

Part III - The Adolescent Offender
seven Kids, Groups and Crime
eight Two Patterns of Age Progression
nine American Youth Violence-A Cautionary Tale

Part IV - Policy Problems in Modern Juvenile Justice
ten Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification-How Should Juvenile Courts Respond?
eleven Juvenile or Criminal Court? A Punitive Theory of Waiver
twelve Reducing the Harms of Minority Overrepresentation in American Juvenile Justice
thirteen Choosing a Coherent Policy toward Juveniles and Guns
fourteen The Hardest of the Hard Cases: The Young Homicide Offender
fifteen Strategy and Tactics in Juvenile Justice Reform

Notes and References
Index

American Juvenile Justice

Second Edition

Franklin E. Zimring

Author Information

Franklin E. Zimring is the William G. Simon Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or co-author of many books on topics including deterrence, the changing legal world of adolescence, capital punishment, the scale of imprisonment, and drug control. His books include The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment (voted a Book of the Year by the Economist), When Police Kill, and The City That Became Safe.