Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Book excerpt: Traces the progress toward resolving critical juvenile justice and delinquency issues, and to provide cutting-edge intervention strategies to effectively rehabilitate juvenile offenders and prevent delinquency. The 21 chapters in this book are divided into four sections. Part I provides an overview of juvenile delinquency and the juvenile justice system. In this section, we examine historical, political, legal, and arrest delinquency trends and consider comprehensive community planning as one strategy for improving the juvenile justice system. Part II explores early crime prevention strategies, effective programs to reduce antisocial behavior and school bullying, and the powerful relationship between school performance and juvenile delinquency. Part III examines and critiques a range of developmental, familial, and sociological theories that are commonly used to explain and understand juvenile delinquency. Finally, in Part IV, we examine a range of juvenile justice treatment and policy alternatives, including mental health screening and assessment, suicide prevention, evidence-based intervention models, police responses and strategies to delinquency, drug and mental health courts, therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice, female delinquency, and community-based after-care.