Juvenile Delinquency Test 1

Front 1

At-risk youths

Back 1

Young people who are extremely vulnerable to the negative consequences of school failure, substance abuse, and early sexuality. In the U.S., about 24% of the population under age 17, or about 75 million youths, are at-risk.

Front 2

Most significant problems of youth

Back 2

1. Child poverty

2. Health problems/inadequate health care

3. Parental separation and divorce

4. Foster care system

5. Inadequate education

6. Child abuse and neglect

7. Social media and the internet (cyberbullying, cyberstalking, sexting)

Front 3

What is the single most effective prevention strategy against adult poverty?

Back 3

High school graduation.

Front 4

Cyberbullying

Back 4

The willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text. About 25% of youth has been the target of cyberbullying.

Front 5

Juvenile delinquency

Back 5

Participation in illegal behavior by a minor who falls under a statutory age limit.

Front 6

Juvenile justice system

Back 6

The segment of the justice system, including law enforcement officers, the courts, and correctional agencies, that is designed to treat youthful offenders.

Front 7

Paternalistic family

Back 7

A family style wherein the father is the final authority on all family matters and exercises complete control over his wife and children. (C.E. 700-1500).

Front 8

Parens patriae

Back 8

The power of the state to act on behalf of the child and provide care and protection equivalent to that of a parent.

Front 9

Child savers

Back 9

Nineteenth-century reformers who developed programs for troubled youth and influenced legislation creating the juvenile justice system; today some critics view them as being more concerned with control of the poor than with their welfare.

Front 10

Illinois Juvenile Court Act (1899) provisions

Back 10

1. A separate court was established for delinquent and neglected children.

2. Special procedures were developed to govern the adjudication of juvenile matters.

3. Children were to be separated from adults in courts and in institutional programs.

4. Probation programs were to be developed to assist the court in making decisions in the best interests of the state and the child.

Front 11

What motivated reformers to seek a separate juvenile justice system?

Back 11

1. Children should not be held as accountable as adult transgressors.

2. The objective of the juvenile justice system is to treat and rehabilitate rather than punish.

3. Disposition should be predicated on analysis of the youth's special circumstances and needs.

4. The system should avoid the trappings of the adult criminal process with all its confusing roles and procedures.

Front 12

Best interests of child

Back 12

A philosophical viewpoint that encourages the state to take control of wayward children and provide care, custody, and treatment to remedy delinquent behavior.

Front 13

Status offender

Back 13

A child who is subject to state authority by reason of having committed an act forbidden to youth and illegal solely because the child is underage.

Front 14

Waiver (also known as bindover or removal)

Back 14

Transferring legal jurisdiction over the most serious and experienced juvenile offenders to the adult court for criminal prosecution.

Front 15

Detention hearing

Back 15

A hearing by a judicial officer of a juvenile court to determine whether a juvenile is to be detained or released while proceedings are pending in the case.

Front 16

What is the most significant case for juveniles ad why?

Back 16

In Re Gault. Instilled in juvenile proceedings the development of due process standards at the pretrial, trial, and post-trial stages of the juvenile process.

Front 17

Petition

Back 17

Document filed in juvenile court alleging that a juvenile is a delinquent, a status offender, or a dependent and asking that the court assume jurisdiction over the juvenile.

Front 18

What is the most common sentence in the JJS?

Back 18

Probation.

Front 19

What do states have to provide for juveniles?

Back 19

Suitable rehabilitation programs that include counseling, education, and vocational services.

Front 20

Differences between juvenile justice system and adult system

Back 20

1. Juveniles have a petition filed against them, they aren't indicted for a crime.

2. Secure pretrial holding facilities are called detention centers rather than jails.

3. Criminal trial is called a hearing instead.

4. Primary purpose of juvenile procedures are protection and treatment, not punishment.

5. Age determines jurisdiction in juvenile court, rather than the nature of the offense.

6. Juveniles can be apprehended for acts that would not be criminal if committed by adults (status offenses).

7. Juvenile court procedures are private and informal.

8. Juvenile proceedings are not considered criminal.

9. Courts can't release identifying information about juveniles to the press.

10. Parents are highly involved in juvenile process.

11. Standard for arrest is less stringent for juveniles.

12. Juveniles are released into parental custody, adults are given the opportunity for bail.

13. Juveniles have no constitutional right to a jury trial.

14. Juveniles can be searched in school without probable cause or a warrant.

15. Juvenile's record is generally sealed when the age of majority is reached.

16. A juvenile court cannot sentence juveniles to county jails or state prisons.

Front 21

Three major methods of measuring juvenile delinquency?

Back 21

1. UCR

2. NCVS

3. Self-reported

Front 22

Uniform Crime Report

Back 22

Most widely used source of national crime and delinquency statistics.

Front 23

Who compiles the UCR?

Back 23

The FBI complies statistics sent from more than 17,000 police departments.

Front 24

UCR groups offenses into what two categories?

Back 24

Part I offenses (homicide and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, arson, and motor vehicle theft) and Part II offenses (all other crimes other than Part I offenses, i.e. vandalism, liquor law violations, and drug trafficking).

Front 25

What three methods does the UCR use to express crime data?

Back 25

1. The number of crimes reported to the police and arrests made – raw data.

2. Crime rates per 100,000 people are calculated: Crime Rate = (# of Reported Crimes)/(Total US Population) x (100,000 population).

3. Changes in the number and rate of crimes over time.

Front 26

UCR strengths/weaknesses

Back 26

1. Data are collected from records from police departments across the nation, crimes reported to police, and arrests.

2. Strengths of the UCR are that it measures homicides and arrests and that it is a consistent, national sample.

3. Weaknesses of the UCR are that it omits crimes not reported to police, omits most drug usage, and contains reporting errors.

Front 27

Each month law enforcement agencies report how many crimes were cleared. What two ways are crimes cleared?

Back 27

1. When at least one person is arrested, charged, and turned over to the court for prosecution.

2. By exceptional means, when some element beyond police control precludes the physical arrest of an offender (deceased, offender leaves country).

Front 28

Disaggregated

Back 28

Analyzing the relationship between two or more independent variables (such as murder convictions and death sentence) while controlling for the influence of dependent variable (such as race).

Front 29

National Crime Victimization Survey

Back 29

The ongoing victimization study conducted jointly by the Justice Department and the U.S. Census Bureau (for the Bureau of Justice Statistics) that surveys victims about their experiences with law violation. The survey provides information about victims, offenders, and crime. Conducted annually.

Front 30

NCVS strengths/weaknesses

Back 30

1. Data are collected from a large national survey.

2. Strengths of the NCVS are that it includes crimes not reported to the police, uses careful sampling techniques, and is a yearly survey.

3. Weaknesses of the NCVS are that it relies on victims' memory and honesty and that it omits substance abuse.

Front 31

Self-report surveys

Back 31

Ask adolescents to describe, in detail, their recentand lifetime participation in criminal activity. Example: Monitoring The Future (50,000 8th, 10th, 12th grade students).

Front 32

Self-report surveys strengths/weaknesses

Back 32

1. Data are collected from local surveys.

2. Strengths of self-report surveys are that they include unreported crimes, substance abuse, and offenders' personal information.

3. Weaknesses of self-report surveys are that they rely on honesty of offenders and omit offenders who refuse or are unable, as a consequence of incarceration, to participate (and who may be the most delinquent).

Front 33

"Missing cases" phenomenon

Back 33

May measure only non-serious, occasional delinquents. Miss kids who are home-schooled, dropped out, expelled, suspended, institutionalized, detained, etc.

Front 34

Dark figures of crime

Back 34

Incidents of crime and delinquency that go undetected by police.

Front 35

Delinquency arrest trends

Back 35

Juveniles are responsible for 11% of Part I violent crime arrests and about 19% of property crime arrests. Majority committed by 14-17 year olds (6% of population).

Front 36

Correlates of delinquency

Back 36

1. Time and place

2. Gender

3. Race

4. Social class

5. Age

Front 37

When/where do most delinquent acts occur?

Back 37

3-6 p.m. on weekdays when teens are out of school, during the summer. In large urban areas, in the western and southern states rather than the midwest and northeast.

Front 38

Are males or females more delinquent?

Back 38

Males. Serious violent crime is four to one, and property crime is two to one, male to female.

Front 39

Racial threat theory

Back 39

As the size of the African American population increases, the amount of social control imposed against African Americans by police grows proportionately.

Front 40

What is the source of racial threat?

Back 40

When white residents overestimate the population of minorities living in their neighborhood, a circumstance that leads to false perceptions of disorder and produces community wide fear.

Front 41

Aging-out process

Back 41

The tendency for youths to reduce the frequency of their offending behavior as they age. Aging out is thought to occur among all groups of offenders.

Front 42

Age of onset

Back 42

Age at which youths begin their delinquent careers. Early onset is believed to be linked with chronic offending patterns.

Front 43

Two factors associated with higher recidivism rate

Back 43

1. The seriousness of the original offense.

2. The severity of the punishment.

Front 44

What is the primary function of the JJS?

Back 44

Rehabilitation.

Front 45

Who is responsible for a significant amount of all delinquent and criminal activity?

Back 45

Chronic offenders.

Front 46

What are some trends of victimization?

Back 46

Teens tend to be victimized by their peers (16-25), victimization is mostly intraracial, most teens are victimized by those they are acquainted with, most likely to happen during the day, most sexual abuse occurs in the home.