The Juvenile Justice System: a Research Update

Adolescent substance abuse in the juvenile justice system is the subject of Laurie Chassin's excellent article in the Fall 2008 issue of The Future of Children.
But I urge you to check out the entire issue, whose theme is "juvenile justice." Edited by Laurence Steinberg (whose recent book, Rethinking Juvenile Justice, we gave away last March), the journal brings together research from a number of scholars connected with the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

You'll find: 

• research on kids in the justice system with mental health issues;
• a call to do a better job of taking into account what we know about the developmental stage of adolescence in juvenile justice policy and programming;
• a review of what's working in prevention and intervention with juvenile delinquency;
• challenges to the conventional wisdom on disproportionate minority representation;
• information on how risk assessments in the juvenile justice system lag behind the research on how to perform them; and much more. 

It's a great way to bone up on the growing evidence base for all key areas of practice in the juvenile justice system.
Be sure to check out these other posts about the juvenile justice system:

• Juvenile Justice Reform: Fixing the Information Mismatch
• 10 Things Every Juvenile Court Should Know About Trauma and Delinquency
• Juvenile Justice System Research: Introducing the Pathways to Desistance study
• Juvenile Justice Reform: Can We Break Free of the Punishment vs. Rehabilitation Argument?