Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Research

In law enforcement, officers generally deal with adult offenders. In most instances, these adult offenders are not new to the criminal justice system. In reality it is quite the opposite, as they have been through the system from juvenile to adulthood. Since the mid-1990's, the United States government, in collaboration with state and local officials, began to research the effectiveness of outreach programs and intervention strategies to reduce juvenile crime, which if past behavior is predicated on future behavior, would reduce adult crime. Many factors need to be taken into consideration when one speaks of curbing child delinquency. This paper will discuss the effectiveness of at-risk juvenile prevention and intervention programs in reduces …show more content…
In 1997 alone, there were 250,000 children (ages up to 12) arrested in the United States (CITE). The uptick in juvenile delinquency was not contained to one specific area, but trending throughout the United States. In order to provide additional information on how to control the epidemic, the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded an initiative to study the behaviors of serious and violent juvenile offenders. The study, referred to as Study Group on Very Young Offenders, began in 1998 and concluded in 2000 (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk 1). The Study Group was created to determine the frequency of juvenile offending, investigate the procedural methods in which juveniles are handled, and determine if the current protocol(s) are effective (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk …show more content…
The Study Group was purposely aimed towards the young offenders. The Study Group evolved around three main categories of children: (1) Serious Child Delinquents- children who have at committed one of the following acts: "homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, rape, or serious arson", (2) Other Child Delinquents, (3) Children showing persistent disruptive behavior- to include at-risk offenders and minor violations such as truancy and incorrigibility (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk 3). The idea behind researching the young offender coincided with the theory that past behavior is predictive of future behavior. For example, if a child is showing disruptive behavior, and said behavior is left undiagnosed/treated, it leaves the child susceptible to chronic offending (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk 4). The Group Study cited more than 20 studies where there is a significant correlation between children showing delinquency traits and later progressing to violent, serious offenders (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk 4). The Group Study research concluded that the majority of chronic offenders developed behavioral issues early in childhood (Loeber, Farrington and Petechuk