Juvenile Justice 4th Edition Chapter 6

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Juvenile Justice 4th EditionChapter 6

• Serious, Chronic, and Violent Juvenile Offenders

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Student Objectives

• Students will know
• When youth violence begins and ends
• What the predictors of youth violence are
• The hazards of labeling a youth a psychopath
• What should we do with youths who have conduct
  disorders

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Objectives Cont

• The difference in youths who carry guns for
  protection vs those for sport
• of youths arrested for violent crimes in 2000
• Has juvenile arrests for violent crime increased
  or decreased from 2000 to 2001
• If school crime and violence are increasing or
  decreasing
• The serious consequences for bullying
• Is it common for a school shooter to provide a
  warning of impending violence

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Objectives Cont..

• How street gangs acquire their power
• What activities gangs participate in
• The basic functions that are served by youth
  gangs
• How contemporary gangs can be classified
• How public health and juvenile justice view
  violence

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Introduction

• Youth Violence has been approaching us at a very
  quick pace for the past 2 decades. Popular terms
  from the 90s originated such as juvenile super
  predator or coming blood bath or crime time
  bomb
• Violence is a high-visibility, high priority
  concern in every area of society. If affects the
  rich and poor communities alike. Since 1993
  there has been a slight decrease but the problem
  has not been resolved.
• For every youth arrested since the 1990s 10 were
  engaged in some kind of violent behavior that
  could have seriously injured or killed someone
  else.

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Definitions to remember

• Serious juvenile offender- has been convicted of
  a part 1 offense as defined by the FBI
• Serious child delinquent- between ages 7 and 12
  and has committed one or more homicides, agg
  assaults, robberies or rapes or serious arsons
• Chronic Juvenile offender- has a record of 5 or
  more serious charges
• Violent Juvenile offender- Has been convicted of
  a violent part 1 crime against another person
  instead of property who has prior offenses.

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Chronic Juvenile Offenders

• Generally chronic offenders are from low-income
  families
• Are rated troublesome by teachers and peers
• Are between the age of 8 and 10 and have poor
  school performance
• Are delinquent before age 13 and have a sibling
  convicted of a crime
• Offenders who are 10 and under will have more
  violent offenders in adolescence

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Overlap of Serious Chronic and Violent Offenders

• There are certain risk factors for recidivism
  that have been identified
• Males and juveniles from lower socio-economic
  status are at higher risk
• Offense history meaning earlier contact with the
  law
• Juveniles who have been physically or sexually
  abused
• Those raised in a single parent family
• A history of special education classes
• The strongest predictor was the age at 1st
  contact with the law

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Violent Offenders

• The Surgeon General identifies 2 trajectories for
  youth violence
• Youths who become violent before about age 13
  generally commit more crimes and more serious
  crimes for a longer period.
• Serious violence is a lifestyle that includes
  drugs, guns, precocious sex, and other risky
  behaviors

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Violent Adolescent Females

• Generally get involved with the justice system
  due to status offenses
• Violence among females is usually due to
  victimization, substance abuse, economic
  conditions

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Predictors of Youth Violence

• Include the following
• Exposure to violence
• Early aggressive behavior
• Early delinquency
• And animal abuse

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Other Predictors of Youth Violence

• Violent youths who share common experiences such
  as weak bonding to caretakers in infancy,
  ineffective parents, lack of supervision,
  inconsistent discipline, highly punitive or
  abusive treatment, failure to reinforce positive
  behavior.

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Psychopaths

• Lack in conscience
• Have no feelings of guilt
• They do not know right from wrong
• Can be charming in casual personal contacts
• Make glib promises and resolutions
• Meanwhile they may be stealing from the company
  they work for or the person they are talking to
• They never see their responsibility for anything
  that goes wrong
• They have normal intelligence

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Psychopaths Cont

• Despite the ability to learn the never learn the
  lessons of their own experiences
• The have no concern for the consequences they
  will face because of a bad act or decision
• See page 174 for more accurate description

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Labeling someone a psychopath

• There are concerns about labeling someone a
  psychopath as we will soon get a wave of
  superpredators
• You must use caution not to brand a juvenile as a
  psychopath because they are more likely to be
  viewed as incorrigible, less likely to receive
  rehabilitative dispositions and more likely to be
  transferred to adult courts and adult jails

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Gang Defined

• The media, the public, and the community use the
  term gang more loosely. They describe a gang
  as (a group of individuals, mostly inner city
  youth, who are highly organized, heavily involved
  in the drug trade, and very dangerous.
• Gangs are complicated by social class, economics,
  ethnic loyalty.

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Definition Continued

• Gangs can be describes as a group of people that
  form an allegiance for a common purpose and
  engage in unlawful or criminal activity.
• A Minnesota statute describes gang as
• Has primary activities
• In committing crimes
• Has a common name or common identifying sign and
  includes members who engage in a pattern of
  criminal activity

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Street Gang

• Street Gang- A street gang is a group of
  individuals who meet over time, have identifiable
  leadership, claim control over a specific
  territory, and engage in criminal behavior
• Gang name and recognizable symbols
• A geographic territory
• Regular meeting pattern
• An organized and continuous course of criminality

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Street Gangs

• Engage in criminal activity either individually
  or collectively
• They create fear and intimidation in the
  community
• The membership is adult and juvenile

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Youth Gang

• A youth gang is a subset of a street gang
• The youth gang may be a juvenile clique within a
  gang
• Adolescents and adults interact frequently with
  one another and are frequently involved with
  illegal activities
• In comparing, street gangs have significantly
  more criminal behavior than youth gangs

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History of Gangs

• Organized groups for crime and antisocial
  behavior go back to colonial times
• John Hancock who signed the Declaration of
  Independence amassed a fortune smuggling goods
  with his organized group
• Street gangs began operating in the US around
  1820
• Irish Americans organized a gang known as the
  Forty Thieves which murdered, robbed, and
  mugged

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History Cont.

• Gangs came from areas that were overcrowded
• Substandard Housing
• Poor and non-existent health care
• Broken Homes
• Little to no chance of employment
• Rural Gangs also developed in the 1800s

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History Cont.

• Jessie and Frank James started their crime in the
  1800s
• 1920s and 1930s came the rise of criminal
  syndicates, the Mafia and Cosa Nostra
• Gangsters became famous (John Dillinger, Machine
  Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie Parker, Clyde
  Barrow, George Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker and
  her son all relied heavily on extortion,
  intimidation, and robbery to gain power and
  wealth

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History Cont.

• Economic boom in California in the 1920s brought
  thousands of Mexican immigrants to the area
• These young men began to identify with a
  particular neighborhood in the 20s and 30s.
• They were the forerunners to the modern Chicano
  gangs of East Los Angeles
• There were clashes with the police and the local
  press began to stereotype gang members
• LAPD made sweeps through neighborhoods and this
  caused the gangs to band together tighter

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History Cont.

• African-American gangs developed in Southern
  California almost a decade later
• The most popular were the Bloods and Crips
• Like their Mexican counterparts the
  African-Americans came from rural areas (mostly
  the south)
• They were from families with close family ties
  that were church based
• In the 1960s these youth found themselves
  alienated from their old rural values

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History Cont..

• They were racially locked out of the dominant
  Anglo culture and economically locked out of the
  African-American middle class
• The Watts riots of 1965 gave the African-American
  gangs very negative publicity
• The rest of society saw young black males in a
  very different negative image
• African-American youth saw themselves differently

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Taken from 1960s life magazine
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Life Magazine 1965
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(No Transcript)
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States In Terms of Gang Membership

• California currently has more gang members than
  the next 9 states behind California in membership
• There are 254,618 gang members in California
• Number 10 state is Minnesota with 12,328 with the
  other 8 states in between having higher numbers

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Migration of Gangs

• Gangs move within a city or town, from city to
  city, from country to country and from state to
  state for a variety of reasons
• Family
• Divorce and Separation
• Parole and Probation
• Drug Sales
• Search for a better life
• School Expulsion

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Current Scope of the Gang Problem

• There was a rapid proliferation of youth gangs in
  the U.S. from 1980 to the mid 1990s
• The Office of Juvenile Justice National Gang
  Youth Center surveyed 2000 law enforcement
  agencies
• 49 described their situations as getting worse

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Scope Continued

• The Los Angeles and Chicago gangs have now
  invaded other untouched areas of the country
• Youth gangs in the 1980s and 1990s are much more
  numerous, more prevalent, and more violent than
  in the 1960s
• Gangs have gone to the small towns and
  communities because there is less competition for
  the drug market which means more money and power

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The End

• The End