CASE OF THE DAY

1. CASE OF THE DAY • “Confinement for 2 Athletes in Sex Abuse of Teammates”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/nyregion/15haze.html • “Hazers off easy” http://www.nydailynews.com/01-15-2004/news/story/155111p-136355c.html • Turning a deaf ear to victims' pleas, a judge sentenced two football players from Long Island's Mepham High School to at least four months in juvenile facilities for sexually torturing younger teammates.

2. Another Case of the Day • $250,000 Bail Set in Boston for Boy, 12, Found with Gun,” 2005 WLNR 13360631 • Officers heard loud bang, stopped three boys, one of whom was holding an object in a bandana, found gun wrapped in it • Case referred by police to Boston Juvenile Court • Kid had no prior court record • Judge overrode prosecution request for $5,000 bail • Family unable to post bail, kid detained • Citing serious problem with guns, Judge wanted to “send message” about the Court’s concern for safety • Judge considered “all factors in child’s life” plus “side factors” that might indicate threat

3. FACTS ABOUT JUVENILE CRIME: TRENDS AND PATTERNS

4. Why Should Statistics Matter? • Law and policy on juvenile crime often are reactions to perceived and real changes in the nature of juvenile crime. There has always been a realist component to the jurisprudence of juvenile justice, and its sensitivity to juvenile crime problems is shown in the rapid pace of law change, particularly with respect to boundaries and punishment schedules • E.g., when did NYS lower its age of jurisdiction to 16? Why? • Juvenile law is constantly shifting according to the social construction of adolescence, and there is a constant tension between normative components of “child saving” ideology and the realpolitik of juvenile crime. • Expansion of waiver laws following juvenile gun homicide epidemic of late 1980s

5. Measuring Juvenile Crime • What are the most useful sources of information about juvenile crime? • Crimes reported to the police • Arrests of juveniles • Court statistics • Victim surveys • Self-reports of delinquent behavior • The newspapers

6. What are the most useful indicia of juvenile crime? • All crimes? Violent crimes? Homicides? Gun homicides? • The “Superpredator” phenomenon • Crimes committed in groups? • Drug gangs • Absolute versus comparative levels of juvenile • Share of all crime committed by juveniles? • Is time important? • Length of an epidemic cycle? • Prevalence versus incidence? (number of repeat offenders versus total number of offender versus total number of crimes committed by juveniles? • Collateral Dimensions of Juvenile Crime • Drinking and drug use • School offenses

13. How Reliable are These Data? • What is the correlation between arrest and self-reports? • How reliable are official records in measuring crime? • Does the correlation vary by age? Type of crime? Gender? Race?

16. Social Dimensions of Youth Crime • Cross-age victimization is rare, generally goes upward • Violence: crimes among adolescents and young adults are most often same-race, same-age • Age peaks vary by type of crime – much earlier for property crimes, much later for violent crimes, especially for homicide

18. Temporal Trends • In THE GREAT VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC (1985-96), most of the increase and decline was among: • Adolescents 13-17 • Non-white victims • Gun homicides (for all age groups) • Arrests, not necessarily victimization • Urban areas • Drug Arrests • Among adolescents, All have since declined, some more rapidly than others

23. LEGISLATIVE AND SOCIAL RESPONSES • Newspapers claims that there is a juvenile crime wave….SUPERPREDATORS…that led to legal mobilization and sustained “criminalization” even during the period when crime has declined • What evidence do you marshal? What facts do you develop to counteract the sensationalism that invariably accompanies such claims? • Legislators claim that new crime waves call for tougher laws • Does the opposite hold true? Should law and policy be aligned with crime trends?