Dean G. Rojek

Reforming the Juvenile Justice System: The Diversion of Status Offenders

Diversion has emerged as one of the most popular reform tactics in the juvenile justice system. An analysis of a two-year diversion program for status offenders revealed significant conceptual and operational ambiguity. The notion of a progression of a delinquent career from status to criminal offenses was not supported. The utilization of community-based programs in place of the juvenile court resulted in agency competition for clients and lengthy treatment programs for status offenders. Finally, the impact of specialized treatment for status offenders on behavioral and attitudinal measures was not significant. It was concluded that diversion programs developed exclusively for status offenders may be predicated on faulty assumptions.

Youthful Drug Use and Drug Subcultures

Drug involvement is such an intensely social behavior that it lends itself to the notion of a subcultural existence. The social aspects of drug involvement generate a value system that is different from the dominant order. Using a longitudinal sample of college students, the findings indicate two distinctively different types of drug use, marijuana-only versus illicit drug involvement, that correspond to a subcultural or contracultural phenomenon. The elements of a subculture or contraculture are amenable to empirical measurement and can be differentiated from the dominant value system. Marijuana use reflects a type of subculture activity that maintains ties to the conventional order. Illicit drug use, on the other hand, is a contracultural activity, representing a pronounced break with the dominant culture.

The Disturbed Violent Offender.@@@Murder: An Analysis of Its Forms, Conditions and Causes.

A unique study providing evidence that murder is predictable and the exceptionally high murder rate in the United States is reduceable. Part I examines 50 case histories and an analysis of 912 homicides from an original study made in Erie County (Buffalo), New York. Part II discusses multicide, serial killers, and mass murderers. Part III covers assassinations and executions and a final part presents conclusions.