Literature Reviews

Youth curfews are an example of a local policy response to crime and delinquency committed by youths or to an increase in incidents of victimization of youths. While the requirements and restrictions vary by time, place, and age (Hazen and Brank, 2018), the general concept is that keeping youths at home during the late-night to early morning hours will limit their opportunities to commit or...

The juvenile justice system has evolved though four periods since the juvenile courts’ creation more than a century ago: the Progressive Era (1899–1960s), the Due-Process Era (1960s and 1970s), the Get-Tough-on-Crime Era (1980s and 1990s), and the contemporary reaffirmation of the Kids-Are-Different Era (2005 to the present) [Luna, 2017; National Research Council, 2013]. The juvenile justice system evolved to hold youths who offend accountable for...

Historically, girls have been less likely than boys to become involved in the juvenile justice system (Ehrmann, Hyland, and Puzzanchera, 2019; Statistical Briefing Book, 2022). Increases in the proportion of cases involving girls during the 1990s led to increased attention on the needs of girls in the system and on how their needs may differ from boys’. Although girls are still underrepresented in most stages...

Bullying involving children and youth has become a topic of national conversation over the past few decades and is a major focus for schools across the United States and internationally (Gladden et al., 2014; Ybarra et al., 2019). Bullying can cause substantial harm to the children and youth who are victimized, to those who engage in bullying behaviors, and to the bystanders who witness bullying...

In 1979, Hermon Goldstein observed from several studies conducted at the time on standard policing practices that law enforcement agencies seemed to be more concerned about the means rather than the goals of policing. He argued that law enforcement agencies should shift away from the traditional, standard model of policing and that police become more proactive, rather than reactive, in their approaches to crime and...

Youth substance use treatment programs aim to reduce alcohol and illicit drug use, and the misuse of licit drugs, in youths who have been clinically diagnosed with a substance use problem. These programs differ from prevention programs, which aim to promote abstinence in youths to prevent their initial or escalating use.^[1] Treatment programs can take a multitude of approaches, such as court-based, residential-based, and...

There is a large body of evidence examining the relationship between childhood exposure to violence (CEV) and unwanted psychological, behavioral, health, and socioeconomic outcomes (Afifi et al., 2020; Carlson et al., 2019; Farrell and Zimmerman, 2018; Fitton, Yu, and Fazel, 2020; Lippard and Nemeroff, 2020; Polanin et al., 2021; Weissman et al., 2020). This relationship has emerged as an important topic of research, as it...

Youth substance use prevention programs aim to promote abstinence from alcohol and illicit drugs and the misuse of over-the-counter drugs. They differ from treatment programs, which focus on youths who have been clinically diagnosed with a substance abuse problem. A variety of approaches have been developed that work with families, schools, and communities to help children and adolescents develop skills and approaches to prevent or...

In the United States, hate crimes are complex and often underreported crimes (Levin et al., 2007; Kena and Thompson, 2021; Pezella, Fetzer, and Keller, 2019). For a crime to be considered a hate crime there must be a motivation (in part or in whole) to commit the crime based on a bias against a particular social group of people. The bias may be based on race...

Data have shown that youths of color are more likely than white youths to be arrested and subsequently go deeper into the juvenile justice system (e.g., Puzzanchera, 2021; Puzzanchera and Hockenberry, 2013; Sickmund et al., 2021; Sickmund, Sladky, and Kang, 2021). Researchers have examined the contributing factors to these racial and ethnic disparities for decades, often testing hypotheses and theoretical frameworks related to differential offending...