Questions for JDCC Chapter 23

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Juvenile Delinquency Questions for JD:CC Chapter 23: “Strategies of Deterrence and Incapacitation” 1. What is the “most common criticism of the juvenile court and correctional system,” according to the authors? A common criticism of the juvenile court and the correctional system is that neither is tough enough, especially in dealing with serious offenders. 2. The authors give evidence that even juveniles who commit serious offenders are often not given severe sanctions. What are some reasons for this? Juvenile courts cannot be expected to sanction a juvenile without good evidence that he or she committed an offense. Juvenile courts and correctional staff are often limited, which makes it difficult to formally process and impose meaningful sanctions on most juvenile offenders. Also, most juvenile courts are still at least partly guided by a philosophy that emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment. 3. What do “graduated sanctions” consist of? Graduated sanctions consist of immediate sanctions in the community for first-time, nonviolent offenders; intermediate sanctions in the community for more serious offenders; and secure care programs for the most violent offenders. Youths should move between different levels of the continuum through a well-structured system of phases. At each level, offenders should understand that they will be subject to more severe sanctions if they reoffend. 4. What are blended sentences? Blended sentences are when a juvenile starts in a juvenile correctional facility until they reach adulthood, when they are then transferred to an adult correctional facility. 5. With the reduction of confidentiality of juvenile proceedings, the authors write, “There is now less concern with protecting juvenile offenders and more concern with protecting society from juvenile offenders.” 6. When did “the adoption of get-tough policies” peak? The adoption of get-tough policies peaked during the 1980s and 1990s, partly as a response to the large increase in serious juvenile violence from the mid-1980s to early 1990s. 7. Does increasing the severity of punishment appear to increase specific deterrence? Why? (The authors give four reasons.) Increasing the severity of punishment appears to increase future offending. Some reasons include that the juvenile justice system does not punish in an effective way, many juveniles are not very responsive to punishment, there are several major causes for an individual’s delinquency, and punishments may sometimes backfire and increase the likelihood of subsequent crime. 8. The authors point to “data indicating that punishments are effective in reducing subsequent offending when they are combined with” what? They would need to be combined with carefully selected rehabilitation programs in order for the punishments to be effective. 9. Describe restorative justice in two-three sentences. Then, does data suggest that victims and offenders prefer restorative justice or traditional court processing? Restorative justice has a range of objectives, but one of its central objectives is to sanction offenders in a more effective manner and that these sanctions should not be excessive and should noy isolate offenders from conventional society. These sanctions should allow offenders to repair the harm they
have done, restore their ties with conventional others, and address at least some of the causes of their delinquency. Data suggests that both victims and offenders much prefer restorative justice to traditional court processing, and some data suggests that the approach may reduce subsequent rates of offending. 10. While get-tough approaches focus on increasing the SEVERITY of punishment, research on general deterrence suggests that increasing the certainty of punishment is likely to be more effective in reducing crime. 11. They write that increasing the above “cannot easily be achieved.” What three things does it involve, according to the authors? It involves the strategy of “rotating crackdowns” which has the potential for reducing crime over the long term, community policing has some potential for increasing the certainty of punishment, and providing more resources to juvenile courts and correctional agencies so they can impose meaningful sanctions on a higher percentage of juvenile offenders. 12. What is the logic of incapacitation to reduce delinquency? The logic is that if you lock up offenders, they cannot commit crime on the street, which means that crime is reduced even if no one is deterred from committing crime. 13. The research on possible incapacitation effects is complicated, but the authors write that effects appear to be limited at best. What do they write about “selective incapacitation”? It is difficult for juvenile justice officials to accurately distinguish high-rate for low-rate offenders. Although there have been several efforts to develop techniques for distinguishing offenders, there are still a lot of mistakes made and there are ethical issues to consider. 14. “Incapacitation carries a heavy price tag .” 15. There is a sentence in the Summary part of this section that bears repeating. After writing, “But incapacitation should not be our major strategy for responding to delinquency,” what is the next sentence? “To the extent possible, incapacitation should be limited to serious and high-rate offenders, efforts should be made to improve the conditions of confinement, and some attempt should be made to rehabilitate juveniles during their confinement.”
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