Kimberly Kempf-Leonard – författare

In Our Children, Their Children, a prominent team of researchers argues that a second-rate and increasingly punitive juvenile justice system is allowed to persist because most people believe it is designed for children in other ethnic and socioeconomic groups. While public opinion, laws, and social policies that convey distinctions between "our children" and "their children" may seem to conflict with the American ideal of blind justice, they are hardly at odds with patterns of group differentiation and inequality that have characterized much of American history. Our Children, Their Children provides a state-of-the-science examination of racial and ethnic disparities in the American juvenile justice system. Here, contributors document the precise magnitude of these disparities, seek to determine their causes, and propose potential solutions. In addition to race and ethnicity, contributors also look at the effects on juvenile justice of suburban sprawl, the impact of family and neighborhood, bias in postarrest decisions, and mental health issues. Assessing the implications of these differences for public policy initiatives and legal reforms, this volume is the first critical summary of what is known and unknown in this important area of social research.

It takes courage to do research on crime and delinquency. Such ideas belittle the contributions of past research and leave us vulnerable to theories, programs, policies, and research agendas that may have only tenuous connections to research of any kind.

The experiences of minority youths in the juvenile justice system are strikingly different from those of their white counterparts. In response to the overrepresentation of minority youths in confinement, Congress amended the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act to require states to investigate the imbalance and develop action plans to fix problem situations. In this carefully edited volume, the contributors note the extent and sources of disparate treatment of youths within juvenile justice and identify the need to respond to this bias. Findings from research and provocative analysis of topics such as racial difference in encounters with police, in urban juvenile court, in confinement and punishment, and among groups within juvenile justice awaken the reader to the variety of racial bias in the system. The authors also offer creative and practical policy recommendations and strategies for overcoming racial inequity in the juvenile justice process. Practitioners and researchers in juvenile justice, criminology, corrections, policing, sociology, and ethnic studies will find the cross-section of information in the volume enlightening. The material presented also ideally fits supplementary text needs for coursework dealing with race and crime. "This volume delivers a full and complete view of one of the most critical issues in juvenile justice. Rousing and informative, the book comes highly recommended." --Barry Krisberg, Ph.D., President, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, San Francisco

It takes courage to do research on crime and delinquency. Such research is typically conducted in an atmosphere of concern about the problem it addresses and is typically justified as an attempt to discover new facts or to evaluate innovative programs or policies. When, as must often be the case, no new facts are forthcoming or innovative programs turn out not to work, hopes are dashed and time and money are felt to have been wasted. Because they take more time, longitudinal studies require even greater amounts of courage. If the potential for discovery is enhanced, so is the risk of wasted effort. Long-term longitudinal studies are thought to be especially risky for other reasons as well. Theories, issues, and sta­ tistical methods in vogue at the time they were planned may not be in vogue when they are finally executed. Perhaps worse, according to some perspectives, the structure of causal factors may shift during the execu­ tion of a longitudinal project such that in the end its findings apply to a reality that no longer exists. These fears and expectations assume an ever-changing world and a corresponding conception of research as a more or less disciplined search for news. Such ideas belittle the contributions of past research and leave us vulnerable to theories, programs, policies, and research agendas that may have only tenuous connections to research of any kind.