Juvenile detention facilities confine more youths than do any other type of institution in the United States. Essentially jails for juveniles who have been arrested and are awaiting trial, these centers tend to be overcrowded, inadequately staffed, and expensive to operate. Juvenile justice officials and state and local policymakers throughout the country are desperately trying to determine the proper use of these facilities and, more important, how to bring detention systems under control. The eleven essays in this collection assess today's juvenile detention system, bringing to light problems and inefficiencies and suggesting strategies for improving conditions and eliminating these problems. The authors of these essays pull together data on national trends in detention policies and practices and examine specific cases to paint a grim picture of a system badly in need of reform. They also provide practical summaries of reform targets and strategies, and case studies of successful reform attempts, thus offering clear and much needed guidance toward possible solutions to the nation's juvenile detention crisis.

Court officials must balance the interests of public safety with the needs of youth when making decisions about which program to place a juvenile offender and which level of restriction is required. Juvenile offenders who commit serious and/or violent crime may require confinement to protect public safety and intensive supervision and intervention to become rehabilitated. On the other hand, many offenders can be effectively rehabilitated through community-based supervision and intervention. Secure detention differs from secure confinement both in terms of the reasons a youth is being held and in the range and intensity of programs available to an offender in each setting. Secure detention refers to the holding of youth, upon arrest, in a juvenile detention facility (e.g., juvenile hall) for two main purposes: to ensure the youth appears for all court hearings and to protect the community from future offending. In contrast, secure confinement refers to youth who have been adjudicated delinquent and are committed to the custody of correctional facilities for periods generally ranging from a few months to several years. These confinement facilities have a much broader array of programs than detention facilities.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.