NCJ Number
152942
Journal
Juvenile Justice Digest Volume: 22 Issue: 14 Dated: (July 20, 1994) Pages: 1-5
Date Published
1994
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This is the first of a two-part series on treatment of juveniles in the criminal justice system. This part focuses on juveniles as offenders and victims, and the causes for increasing juvenile crime. Both parts are based on testimony given by Mr. Wilson, Acting Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, before the House Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice.
Abstract
There is a brief look at the statistics concerning juveniles as perpetrators and as victims, including child maltreatment in the family. The article presents five major reasons for the increase in juvenile crime: (1) the increasingly negative impact of social changes over the past two decades (loss of a sense of community, reflected in withdrawal of financial resources and services that benefit the less affluent and decaying cities which lack adequate health care and educational systems); (2) family demographics (increasing divorce, growing birth rate among unmarried women, many of whom are children themselves); (3) firearms (easy availability, proliferation, media violence which desensitizes juveniles and others to the pain of violence, injury and death); (4) gangs (increasingly violent, more involvement in criminal activities); and (5) drugs (use by juveniles, exposure in-utero). Endnotes