Barry Krisberg

Reinventing juvenile justice

Reinventing Juvenile Justice History of the Control and Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States The Contemporary Juvenile Justice System Its Structure and Operation Taking Youth Into Custody and the Influence of Gender and Race What Works with Juvenile Offenders The Massachusetts Experiment Future Directions for Juvenile Justice Opportunities and Barriers

The Unmet Promise of Alternatives to Incarceration

A careful review of the research literature on alternatives to incarcera tion suggests that their promise of reducing the prison population has remained largely unmet. For each of the reform strategies reviewed, the nonincarcerative options were transformed, serving criminal jus tice system values and goals other than reducing imprisonment. Sen tencing alternatives, such as restitution and community service, were found to enhance the sanctions of probation and fines instead of re placing incarceration. Similarly, postincarceration release programs, such as work release and work furlough, often escalated the level of control over clients and served primarily to control populations within prison systems. Increasing the availability of community correctional facilities has not reduced populations in secure confinement. Com munity correction legislation appears less likely to reduce incarcera tion than to change the location of imprisonment from the state in stitutions to county jails. Moreover, initial declines in state prison commitments can be neutralized by modifying over time other sen tencing or release policies that increase prison populations. Although community correction legislation may have redistributed correctional costs and shifted decision making from state to local levels, it is ques tionable whether it has made a long-term contribution to reduced im prisonment. Progress in alternatives will remain frustrated until re forms are more carefully implemented and until proponents of alter natives are willing to test their ideologies through rigorous research. Furthermore, a new political consensus must emerge outside the crim inal justice system in which the values of punishment and public safe ty are rationally balanced with fiscal constraints and competing claims for public revenue.

The Watershed of Juvenile Justice Reform

This article presents an overview of current policy debates surrounding reform in the juvenile justice system. New data on trends in juvenile crime and the justice system are also presented. These data reveal that while juvenile arrests have declined, the juvenile justice system has become more formal and restrictive and more oriented toward punishment. The authors also present their views of policy implications and potential remedies.

Rethinking Juvenile Justice

Data on juvenile arrests, court processing, and admissions to juvenile correctional facilities offer important information to help rethink juvenile justice policy directions of the last decade. Most striking is the progress in reducing the involvement of status offenders within the juvenile justice system between 1974-1979. Less encouraging is that similar progress was not achieved in the case of delinquent offenders. Moreover, the primary consequence of the removal of status of fenders from the juvenile justice system is the large decline in female admissions to public correctional facilities whereas male admissions were either stable or actually increased from 1974-1979. Also interesting is the levelling off of rates of Part 1 juvenile arrests from 1974-1979: this directly contradicts public perceptions of a steady and alarming increase in serious youth crime.

Incarceration in the United States: The Extent and Future of the Problem

The purpose of this article is to summarize and interpret the most current data on imprisonment in the United States. These data will be examined in light of other criminal justice and national trends affecting prison population growth. Of special importance will be analysis of historical and projected trends in the use of American prisons. This will include an examination of the methods used to forecast future incarceration rates in light of changing criminal justice policies and other factors believed to influence prison population growth. The authors conclude that despite a projected national trend of a leveling off of prison admissions, prison populations will continue to rise, reflecting the effects of sentencing reforms aimed at increasing prison terms.

The Effectiveness of Supervised Pretrial Release

Whether to release from jail defendants charged with serious felony crimes continues to be a topic of considerable national debate. In this study, an experimental design with random assignment was used in three cities (Miami, Milwaukee, and Portland) to test whether defendants denied initial pretrial release can be later screened and released under close supervision without adversely affecting arrest and failure to appear rates. The results are generally positive with approximately 90% of the defendants not being arrested or becoming fugitive. These success rates were superior to rates for other forms of pretrial release. We also present suggestions on how a model Supervised Pretrial Release (SPR) should be structured and operated by local jurisdictions.

How Do You Eat an Elephant? Reducing Mass Incarceration in California One Small Bite at a Time

While most states are considering reducing the impact of mass incarceration in their prison systems, few states have faced a larger challenge than California, and few states have reduced their convict and parole population as much as California. Federal court intervention and a series of legislative and voter-initiated reforms in California have changed the landscape in one of the nation’s largest criminal justice systems. This article draws on a variety of data sources to explore a potentially historic moment in the quest to end mass incarceration; it remains to be seen whether the public debate over appropriate punishments changed among criminal justice interest groups, such as corrections officers, law enforcement, prosecutors, the judiciary, victim advocates, and liberal and conservative spokespersons. Has the fear of crime among the citizenry changed, and has the public embraced a different response to lawbreakers? There have been important law changes that reduce some felonies to lesser crimes and incentives to punish offenders in local corrections rather than state prisons (known as Realignment), but genuine reductions in mass incarceration will require even more actions. Based on my review of California trends in crime, punishment, and public opinion, I argue that even while there will likely be more progress in decriminalizing drug crimes and other nonviolent crimes, public attitudes toward more serious offenders will be decisive in forecasting the future of mass imprisonment and the California prison gulag. At present, California is pursuing an incremental approach to reducing the numbers in prison for very serious crimes. Reform of prisons is likely to consist of small bites of change in sentencing and parole policies.