Despre compatibilitatea caracterului general al măsurilor de siguranță cu regimul răspunderii penale a minorului. Între coerența normativă și realitățile aplicării sale practice

This study examined the relationship of age and gender with risk of arrest among adolescents and young adults who were intensive adolescent users of public mental health services. Data were obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) and juvenile and criminal courts. Participants were youths receiving DMH adolescent case management services sometime in 1994-1996 who were born between 1976 and 1979 (781 males and 738 females). They were cross-matched to document arrests between age seven and 25. The study examined age at first arrest, age-specific risk, and the relationship between arrest history and arrest risk by gender and age. Most males (69%) and almost half the females (46%) were arrested by age 25. First arrest was most common before age 18. As in the general population, males' arrest patterns were more concerning than those of females, although patterns were of concern in both groups. Most female arrestees had multiple arrests, many as adults. No gender differences were observed for several factors, including risk of first arrest over age 18. Risk was far greater for those arrested in the previous year than for those never arrested. Findings justify concerns of public mental health systems regarding justice system involvement of adolescent clients. Risk of first arrest was significant from early adolescence through age 24, indicating a need for arrest prevention into young adulthood. The heightened arrest risk at all ages among those who were recently arrested demarcates a population in need of immediate intervention.

Although studies reveal substantial mental health treatment needs among youths in the juvenile justice system, far less is known about young offenders transferred to adult criminal court. This statewide study examined the mental health needs of young offenders who committed serious crimes and were transferred to adult court and subsequently incarcerated in a prison for adults. Sixty-four boys aged 16 and 17 years who were incarcerated in the Texas adult correctional system completed the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2), a mental health screening measure widely used in the juvenile justice system. Scores from the youths in adult prison were compared with those of a matched sample of youths in juvenile correctional facilities, drawn from the MAYSI-2 normative data. Youths in adult prison reported substantial symptoms of mental health problems. Most youths surveyed (51%) scored above the highest clinical cutoff (the "warning" range) on at least one MAYSI-2 subscale. For every clinical subscale except suicide ideation, the majority of youths (54% to 70%, depending on the subscale) scored above the "caution" range. Juveniles in adult prison reported higher rates of symptoms than did those in juvenile correctional facilities (effect sizes ranged from d=.18 to d=.65, depending on the subscale). Although the mental health needs of youths in the juvenile justice system are well documented, this study reveals that mental health treatment needs appear to be even more pronounced in the small subgroup of youths transferred to the adult criminal justice system and incarcerated in adult prison.

Youth with involvement in foster care and the juvenile justice system, often called dual-status youth, are at increased risk for negative outcomes as they transition into adulthood, including homelessness, and involvement in the adult criminal justice system. Increase of interest in the phenomenon of youth dual involvement within the last decade, reveals focus on challenges associated with the dual-status population, the importance of multi-system collaboration, and foster care factors contributing to juvenile delinquency. This study aims to build on the current literature, through exploration of how dually-involved youth make sense of their experiences in the juvenile justice and foster care systems; and what youth believe are their unique challenges of being in two systems? This phenomenological study engaged ten individuals in Houston, Texas, between the ages of 18 and 24 years old, and previously involved in the juvenile justice and foster care systems. Research subjects participated in-depth, semi-structured, and audio-recorded interviews, disclosing their experiences in two systems. Interviews were transcribed and entered in the qualitative analytical program, Atlas.ti, where common themes of participant responses were extracted. Accounts from participants highlighted three key experiences: (1) experiences of and leading to dual involvement, (2) traumatic experiences, and (3) absence of normalcy. Study results are categorized based on their pathways to dual-involvement. This current study offers rich insights into how dually-involved youth make sense of their experiences in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Implications for enhanced service provision among child welfare and juvenile justice professionals are offered.

Mental Health and the Juvenile Justice System: Where Has History Taken Us?

PROTOCOL: The impact of juvenile system processing on delinquency

One form of legal protection for children is to realize the fulfillment of the rights and obligations of the child itself. Especially for children in conflict with the law, their problem solving process requires special attention. This study aims to analyze the application of diversion in restorative justice for children who are in conflict with the law in the juvenile criminal justice system. The type of research conducted is descriptive research with the type of normative legal research related to the application of diversion in restorative justice in the criminal justice system. The results showed that the application of diversion in restorative justice in the system of applying diversion to children in conflict with the law in the juvenile justice system, is the implementation of a system in restorative justice to provide justice and legal protection to children in conflict with the law without ignoring the child's criminal responsibility. Diversion is not a peaceful effort between children in conflict with the law and the victim or his family, but a form of punishment for children in conflict with the law in an informal way. The recommendation in this study is that law enforcement officers in carrying out their duties of investigating, prosecuting, examining and determining case decisions at court trials should prioritize the application of diversion as an alternative to the application of imprisonment. Massive socialization of diversion is needed to the community.

This research delineates the concept of Juvenile Delinquency and unfurls the rudimentary underpinnings, requisites and contours of the Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan. In the second half of 20th century, the concern for protection of best interest of juveniles has attracted attention under international conventions and national legislation, whose overarching and overriding aim is to deal and manage this crucial issue of juvenile delinquency while keeping in view the ‘best interests of the child’ and ‘safeguard of their fundamental rights’. However, unfortunately some basic shortcomings persist in the overall Criminal Justice System of Pakistan to which Juvenile Justice System is a part, inter alia, overcrowding and inhuman conditions of detention centers, incapacitated staff of the prisons, callousness, abuse and exploitation at the hands of police, pathetic prosecution system and an overwhelmed judicial system whose eventualities culminate in problems for pre-trial offenders awaiting their trials, a fragile probation and parole system and lack of other diversionary measures to detention that can help reduce a great chunk of prisoners from already brimmed prisons. Juvenile Justice System particularly focuses upon not bringing the juvenile offenders encounter formal Criminal Justice System rather puts emphasis on alternate measures for the rehabilitation, re-socialization, and re-integration of the juveniles into the society. This research elaborately seeks to highlight the issues surrounding Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan and puts forward certain recommendations for the improvement of the said System with the aim of assisting policy and law makers to establish practicable strategies, translating Juvenile Justice System ‘on paper’ to ‘in practice’. For conduct of research doctrinal method has been employed with analytical and critical approach.

Egyptian society is heavily rooted in ancient traditions and religious practices. Islam is the cornerstone of Egypt's social, intellectual, and political cohesion, offering the logical force that bonds communities into a broad nation. Since independence, the Egyptians have modeled the criminal justice system on the existing religious and colonial ideological influences. Despite being one of Africa's largest countries, only a few scholars have examined the Egyptian juvenile justice system. The chapter will explore various aspects of the juvenile justice system in Egypt, its history, organization, and contemporary issues in juvenile justice. The chapter highlights the age of majority and criminal responsibility, trends and statistics of youth crimes, and custodial and non-custodial treatment of young offenders. Through the comparison with western juvenile justice systems, the chapter intends to offer policy implications for the existing problems that youth face and suggest future research areas on youth crime and the juvenile justice system.

In this section authors from various European countries report the recent case law in their jurisdiction in the field of private patrimonial law, that is decisions on the law of property, juridical acts, the law of obligations, contract law and prescription. The ERPL started this section in 2003. The section aims to give readers an overview of what is happening in the most recent European case law. We have asked the national reporters to report the juridical essence of the decisions given by the highest courts in their country. These national reports are integrated in one general report that arranges the decisions by subject, so that readers can easily find out whether decisions on their special interest were given in any European jurisdiction or whether decisions on one subject have been taken in various European jurisdictions. In principle, this section does not relate the facts of the decision, nor the personal opinion of the reporter. Discussions on the most important decisions of European courts can be found in ERPL?s case note section. The recent case law section gives overviews of decisions published in periods of four months. The period of January-April is published in the fourth issue, the period from May to August is published in the sixth issue, the period from September to December is published in the second issue of the next year. In this issue, we publish decisions of high courts taken from May to August 2005. As yet, some decisions can only be found on the internet. Therefore, at the end of this section we have listed web sites where one can find European high court decisions. The Board of Editors of the ERPL wants to thank the national contributors to this report, who worked very hard to have their reports ready in time. Ross Macdonald from Dundee University (Scotland) has edited the national reports.

In this section authors from various European countries report the recent case law in their jurisdiction in the field of private patrimonial law, that is decisions on the law of property, juridical acts, the law of obligations, contract law and prescription. The ERPL started this section in 2003. The section aims to give readers an overview of what is happening in the most recent European case law. We have asked the national reporters to report the juridical essence of the decisions given by the highest courts in their country. These national reports are integrated in one general report that arranges the decisions by subject, so that readers can easily find out whether decisions on their special interest were given in any European jurisdiction or whether decisions on one subject have been taken in various European countries. In principle, this section does not relate the facts of the decision, nor the personal opinion of the reporter. One can find discussions on the most important decisions of European courts in ERPL?s case note section. The recent case law section gives overviews of decisions published in periods of four months. The period of January-April is published in the fourth issue, the period from May to August is published in the sixth issue, the period from September to December is published in the second issue of the next year. In this issue, we report decisions of high courts taken from January to April 2004. As yet, some decisions can only be found on the internet. Therefore, at the end of this section we have listed web sites where one can find European high court decisions. The Board of Editors of the ERPL wants to thank the national contributors to this report, who worked very hard to have their reports ready in time. Further, the Board considers itself very fortunate that Mr. Ross MacDonald (University of Dundee, Scotland) has been willing to edit the contributions and, by doing so, contribute substantially to the quality of this section.

The juvenile justice system was developed in the late 19th century as a separate justice system for juvenile offenders. Although the juvenile justice system was initially distinct from the criminal justice system and firmly focused on rehabilitation, a series of court cases over the past 50+ years gradually reduced some of the differences between the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The result was a more adversarial context for the disposition of juvenile cases. In recent years, however, several cases from the Supreme Court of the United States and some state courts have acknowledged key differences between adolescent and adults, which has led to a dramatic shift in how juvenile offenders are handled in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Now more than ever, it appears that both societal and political factors are supporting and stimulating student mobility in all its shapes and forms, most notably through various initiatives on the European level. The Bologna Process, the European Qualifications Framework and the Lisbon Recognition Convention are all examples of this commitment undertaken by the Member States of the EU as well as other European nations. However, upon taking a closer look at the practical reality, we see that many obstacles remain to exist. As EU law currently stands after the Forster and Morgan and Bucher judgments, mobile students do not have a right to maintenance grants, neither from their host state or their home state. Furthermore, the European Court of Justice has – albeit reluctantly – allowed an exception to the principle of equal treatment on grounds of nationality with regards to access to higher education in the Bressol case. Although the recent, somewhat more restrictive attitude of the European Court can be defended and perhaps even welcomed, it does illustrate the need for a discussion and potential action on the European level by the political institutions. This contribution includes a discussion of the recent ECJ case law on student mobility and some reflections on the desirability, feasibility and potential form and content of such future action.

Premeditated murder is a serious crime that raises specific issues when committed by a child, particularly in relation to criminal responsibility and sentencing restrictions in the juvenile justice system. This study analyzes the criminal responsibility of children as perpetrators of premeditated murder based on the Criminal Code and Law Number 11 of 2012 concerning the Juvenile Criminal Justice System (SPPA Law). The method used is normative legal research with a regulatory, conceptual, and case approach through the examination of norms and relevant court decisions. The results of the study show that children can be held criminally responsible as long as they meet the age requirements and the elements of guilt and premeditated murder can be legally proven. However, the process and punishment of children are subject to a special regime that emphasizes child protection, rehabilitation, and punishment as a last resort (ultimum remedium), with restrictions on the type of sanctions and the length of punishment in accordance with the provisions of the UU SPPA. Thus, the application of the norms of the Criminal Code and the UU SPPA in court decisions needs to ensure a balance between legal certainty, a sense of justice, and the goal of child development.

This study examines risk and protective factors for delinquent, diverted, and high-risk adolescent girls to inform the development of effective mental health prevention and intervention programs. Delinquent, diverted, and high-risk adolescent girls (N = 159) involved or at risk of involvement with the juvenile justice system, who were receiving home-based or community-based open or closed residential services, completed a written, self-administered, structured questionnaire. A majority of the girls reported moderate to severe depression, but only about one-third hod received mental health specialty services. Girls in the community-based closed residential settings had significantly higher levels of depression, experienced more negative life events, reported more sexual abuse, more often had special education status, were more likely to come from families who received welfare, had more disruptions in living situations, exhibited more delinquent behavior, and used more negative coping behaviors than did girls in the other programs. Key words: girls; intervention; juvenile justice; mental health; prevention ********** In the United States, the number of adolescent girls involved in the juvenile justice system during the past decade has increased significantly (American Bar Association [ABA] & National Bar Association [NBA], 2001). Most of this increase can be attributed to changes in arrest policies and practices--such as charging girls involved with family conflicts with assault and increasing arrests for curfew, loitering, and drug abuse violations--rather than to changes in girls' offense patterns (ABA & NBA). Despite this troubling trend, many girls in the justice system have mental health problems and need services (Petrila, 1998). Adolescent girls from racial and ethnic minority groups living in impoverished conditions are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system (ABA & NBA). This article presents results from a survey of 159 girls, the majority of whom are lowqncomc African Americans in three types of placements for girls at risk of involvement or involved with the juvenile justice system. We focused on risk and protective factors to inform the development of mental health services. The incidence of mental disorders among youths in the juvenile justice system is two to three times higher than in the general population (Lexcen & Redding, 2000; Petrila, 1998). About 73 percent of these youths reported mental health problems at intake (Cocozza & Skowyra, 2000), and many have multiple mental heahh problems (Lexcen & Redding). In a randomly selected, stratified sample of 1,829 youths arrested and detained in Cook County, Illinois, Teplin and colleagues (2002) found that two-thirds of the boys and three fourths of the girls met diagnostic criteria for one or more psychiatric disorders. Almost one-half of the girls in this study had a substance use disorder, and rates for many disorders were higher among girls and older adolescents. Youths with mental health problems enter the juvenile justice system at earlier ages and report significant family problems at the time of admission (Dembo et al., 1998). According to the National Mental Health Association and National GAINS Center fbr People with Co-Occurring Disorders in the Justice System (1999) and Coalition for Juvenile Justice (2000), mental health services for youths in the juvenile justice system are fragmented and inadequate. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK For the present study, we used a risk-focused approach (Hawkins, Arthur, & Catalano, 1995; Pollard, Hawkins, & Arthur, 1999), which asserts that delinquency can be prevented by reducing risk factors and promoting protective factors. Risk factor was defined as any influence that increases the probability of onset, digression to a more serious state or maintenance of a problem condition (Fraser, 1997, pp. 10-11). A protective factor is an internal or external force that helps an individual resist or ameliorate risk (Fraser). …

Preface Chapter 1: Juvenile Justice: Myths and Realities Summary Review Questions Chapter 2: Data Sources Understanding the Contours of Juvenile Crime Juvenile Court Statistics Juveniles Taken Into Custody Self-Reported Delinquency Surveys Qualitative Data Sources Summary Review Questions Chapter 3: The Historical Legacy of Juvenile Justice The House of Refuge (1825-1860) The Growth of Institutionalization and the Child Savers (1850-1890) Juvenile Delinquency and the Progressive Era The Child Guidance Clinic Movement The Chicago Area Project The Mobilization for Youth Institutional Change and Community-Based Corrections Changes in Juvenile Court Law The Emergence of a Conservative Agenda for Juvenile Justice Summary Review Questions Chapter 4: The Current Juvenile Justice System The Flow of Cases Through the Juvenile Justice System Summary Review Questions Chapter 5: Juvenile Justice and the American Dilemma Disproportionate Minority Representation and the Juvenile Justice Process Youths of Color in Confinement: The National Picture and State Differences Youths in Prison Beyond Black and White Donde Esta la Justicia? Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: The Burden of Invisibility Native American Youths: Outsiders in Their Own Land In Search of Answers Summary Review Questions Chapter 6: Young Women and the Juvenile Justice System Gender-Specific Juvenile Justice Services What Works for At-Risk Young Women Other Promising Gender-Specific Approaches Conclusions Summary Review Questions Chapter 7: Is There a Science of Prevention? The Politics of Prevention Building a Foundation for Prevention Programming Implementing Effective Community Prevention Models Interrupting the Cycle of Violence The Cost-Effectiveness of Prevention Is There a Science of Prevention? Summary Review Questions Chapter 8: What Works in Juvenile Justice Summaries of Program Evaluations and Meta-Analyses A Graduated System of Sanctions and Interventions Summary Review Questions Chapter 9: The Gang Busters: Does Getting Tough Reduce Youth Crime? The Gang Busters The Impact of Juvenile Corrections The Boot Camp Frenzy Transferring Juveniles to the Criminal Justice System Summary Review Questions Chapter 10: Redeeming Our Children Evolving Standards of Juvenile Justice Contemporary Standards of Juvenile Justice Seeking Balance and Restorative Justice The Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders Our Children and Other People's Children Summary Review Questions References Index About the Author