Performance monitoring is crucial for well-adapted behavior. Offenders typically have a pervasive repetition of harmful-impulsive behaviors, despite an awareness of the negative consequences of their actions. However, the link between performance monitoring and aggressive behavior in juvenile offenders has not been closely investigated. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investi...

An unresolved but clinically important issue in the literature on juvenile delinquency is to what extent juvenile sex offenders resemble non-sex offenders with respect to individual, familial, and environmental characteristics. The current article reviewed published studies (1995-2005) comparing sex offenders with non-sex offenders. The 17 articles meeting the inclusion criteria suggest that di...

Little is known about the youth who are deeply entrenched in our juvenile justice system. Why do some violent juvenile offenders alter their lives in a more positive direction after committing serious crimes? Why do some violent juvenile offenders continue to commit crimes? If research finds that there are different pathways that violent juvenile offenders take, then perhaps interventions used ...

Those seeking to deter young offenders from further delinquency will benefit from the information provided in these pages. Recently reported findings of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s) Study Group on Very Young Offenders confirm the seriousness of early offending behavior. Study Group researchers report, for example, that the risk of becoming a more serious...

A cross-sectional study examining the oral language abilities and social skills of male juvenile offenders is described. Fifty juvenile offenders and 50 non-offending controls completed measures of language processing and production, and measures of social skill and IQ. Information about type of offending, substance use histories and learning/literacy problems was also gathered.Young offenders ...

I n a context where more than 1,000,000 American adolescents are processed by juvenile courts annually and approximately 160,000 are sent to residential placements, this paper examines “what works” and “what doesn’t work” in reducing the criminal behavior of juvenile offenders and presents examples of government initiatives that have successfully promoted the adoption, implementation, and susta...

In 2000, the Washington State Legislature initiated a pilot rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders sentenced to a state juvenile justice institution. The program focuses on offenders with “co-occurring” substance abuse and mental health disorders. Offenders with both of these conditions are known to pose a high risk for committing new crimes upon re-entry to the community. The overall go...

The treatment of juveniles within the criminal justice systems is a matter of great variety in the 11 European countries studied comparatively. The study focuses on the age of criminal responsibility, ways to divert juvenile offenders from the criminal justice system or avoid criminal justice responses to them, juvenile proceedings and special reactions and sanctions. In spite of different appr...