NCJ Number
112179
Date Published
1988
Length
219 pages
Annotation
This book addresses the divergent reform agendas that have shaped American juvenile justice systems during the last two decades, examining national trends in juvenile justice and intensively investigating the change process in New York State's juvenile corrections system.
Abstract
The book opens with a review of the history of American juvenile justice systems, with particular attention to the major nationwide reform agendas since the late 1960's. This is followed by a discussion of the relevant theoretical and empirical developments in the study of corrections as an open system, including a review of a number of studies of criminal law and correctional policy formation. Testing and extending the theory of social reform developed by Ohlin, et al. in their study of Massachusetts' juvenile justice reform, the book investigates the change process in New York State's juvenile corrections system, since this State has been a forerunner for both liberal and conservative national reform trends. This analysis focuses on what juvenile justice policies have changed, who has changed them and why, and what has been the effect on juvenile corrections and ultimately on youth. The analysis suggests that many factors -- as broad as cultural shifts in prevailing political ideology and as narrow as the individual initiative of an agency head -- have shaped policy and procedure at specific times. The study also provides a case study of an organization in relation to its environment during a period of unprecedented and often contradictory demands for change in juvenile corrections. 18 tables, 21 figures, 200 references, and 120-item bibliography.