The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), and other program offices, comprise the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) branch of the Department of Justice.
Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person who commits a crime and is under a specific age. Most states specify a juvenile delinquent, or young offender, as an individual under 18 years of age while a few states have set the maximum age slightly different. In 2021, Michigan, New York, and Vermont raised the maximum age to under 19, and Vermont law was updated again in 2022 to include individuals under the age of 20. Only three states, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin still appropriate the age of a juvenile delinquent as someone under the age of 17. While the maximum age in some US states has increased, Japan has lowered the juvenile delinquent age from under 20 to under 18. This change occurred on April 1, 2022 when the Japanese Diet activated a law lowering the age of minor status in the country. Just as there are differences in the maximum age of a juvenile delinquent, the minimum age for a child to be considered capable of delinquency or the age of criminal responsibility varies considerably between the states. Some states that impose a minimum age have made recent amendments to raise the minimum age, but most states remain ambiguous on the minimum age for a child to be determined a juvenile delinquent. In 2021, North Carolina changed the minimum age from 6 years old to 10 years old while Connecticut moved from 7 to 10 and New York made an adjustment from 7 to 12. In some states the minimum age depends on the seriousness of the crime committed. Juvenile delinquents or juvenile offenders commit crimes ranging from status offenses such as, truancy, violating a curfew or underage drinking and smoking to more serious offenses categorized as property crimes, violent crimes, sexual offenses, and cybercrimes.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) is a charitable foundation focused on improving the well-being of American children and youth.
The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that focuses on crime prevention through research and development, assistance to state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies, including law enforcement, corrections, and juvenile justice through grants and assistance to crime victims.
NISMART or the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children, was a research project supported by the United States Department of Justice. It was enacted to address the 1984 Missing Children's Assistance Act. This required the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to conduct periodic national incidence studies to determine the actual number of children reported missing and the number recovered. The first study, NISMART-1 in 1988 categorized the various missing children reports and estimated the number of missing and recovered children in each. In 1999, a second study dubbed NISMART-2 was initiated. The two studies cannot be compared against each other due to categorizing techniques being distinct in each study. Also, NISMART-2 interviewed youth directly whereas NISMART-1 did not.
In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC), juvenile detention, juvenile jail, juvenile hall, or more colloquially as juvie/juvy, also sometimes referred as observation home or remand home is a prison for people under the age of majority, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting trial or placement in a long-term care program. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (JJDPA) is a United States federal law providing formula grants to states that follow a series of federal protections on the care and treatment of youth in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems.
The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
John J. Dilulio Jr. is an American political scientist. He currently serves as the Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion, and Civil Society and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (UJC) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels. Established on December 27, 1979, BJS collects, analyzes, and publishes data relating to crime in the United States. The agency publishes data regarding statistics gathered from the roughly fifty-thousand agencies, offices, courts, and institutions that together comprise the U.S. justice system.
Regina B. Schofield is a former United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs.
The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth(TCCY) is a Tennessee state agency with a primary mission of advocacy for improving the quality of life for Tennessee children and families. The policy-making body of TCCY is a 21-member commission whose members are appointed by the governor. At least one member is appointed from each of Tennessee's nine development districts. Five youth advisory members meet the federally mandated composition required for a state advisory group. The agency has its headquarters on the 9th floor of the Andrew Jackson Tower in Downtown Nashville.
Reclaiming Futures is a non-profit organization aimed at assisting teenagers out of trouble with drugs, alcohol and crime. It began in 2001 with $21 million from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As of 2010 it operates with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. As of 2010 the group is based at the Regional Research Institute for Human Services of the Graduate School of Social Work at Portland State University in the United States, and operates in 26 communities across the U.S.
Juvenile delinquency in the United States refers to crimes committed by children or young people, particularly those under the age of eighteen.
The National Gang Center (NGC) is a coordinated project of three federal agencies, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
The Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs is a group within the executive branch of the U.S. government, and is responsible for promoting healthy outcomes for all youth, including disconnected youth and youth who are at-risk. The Working Group also engages with national, state, local and tribal agencies and organizations, schools, and faith-based and community organizations that serve youth.
The California Council on Criminal Justice (CCCJ) is an entity of the government of California that acts as the supervisory board concerning federal grants by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and an advisory board for other requirements of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968. It was created by the Deukmejian-Moretti Act of 1967.
The United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, which reflects the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone. As of 2006, approximately 500,000 youth were brought to detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. As of 2013, around 40% were incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.
Jerry Regier is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services As of August 2017. He provides leadership on policy analysis and development in human services and on research under the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) for Secretary Mike Leavitt.
Community Crime Prevention relates to interventions designed to bring reform to the social conditions that influence, and encourage, offending in residential communities. Community crime prevention has a main focus on both the social and local institutions found within communities which can influence crime rates, specifically juvenile delinquency.
