Paul E. Tracy - Böcker

Based on a comprehensive study of three counties in Texas, this work examines the idea of differential handling of minority youth offenders. Traditional wisdom indicates that minorities are over-represented in the juvenile justice system due to racism and discrimination within the system itself. The author refutes this logic by challenging current studies and examining the results of the Texas study. The findings suggest that minorities are represented in the juvenile justice system in greater numbers than their majority offender counterparts due to their greater involvement in criminal activity, not to any differential treatment they may receive at crucial decision points within the system.Allegations of racial bias against the juvenile justice system are often supported by the federal government, which suggests that minorities continue to be targeted more frequently for arrest, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment merely because they are persons of color. Drawing on new research, the author addresses racial disparity in the juvenile justice system and contends that previous research suffers methodological and statistical analysis problems, resulting in the mischaracterization of the issue of racial bias. The present study argues that most minority juveniles receive different case outcomes because of the severity of their current offense, and both the length and severity of their prior delinquency careers. Tracy's research ultimately indicates that rather than being discriminatory, the juvenile system is, instead, reacting to a particular type of delinquent using legally permissible guidelines.

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.

This volume describes the findings of a longitudinal, birth cohort study of juvenile delinquency in Puerto Rico. Carried out under the auspices of the Puerto Rican Senate's Special Crime Commission, the book represents a new type of birth cohort study, based on the classic work done in Philadelphia. The authors have traced Puerto Rican children born in 1970, both male and female, through the greater San Juan police departments, charting the incidence of delinquency and the number of recurring offenders. These findings are compared to the Philadelphia studies of 1945 and 1958.The book begins its examination with a discussion of the background for the current study. Literature on juvenile delinquency in Puerto Rico is reviewed, official statistics are cited, and a discussion of the birth cohort and the importance of longitudinal studies is provided. Chapter 2 addresses the prevalence of delinquency, and chapter 3 details its incidence, severity, and types of offenses. Succeeding chapters cover such areas as age and delinquency, delinquent recidivism, and police and court dispositions. The volume concludes with a section on cohort comparisons, a summary of the findings, and some policy implications and suggestions for legislation. A group of appendices is also included. This work will be an important addition for courses in criminology and sociology, as well as a valuable resource for college and university libraries.

Delinquency in a Birth Cohort, published in 1972, was the first criminologi­ cal birth cohort study in the United States. Nils Christie, in Unge norske lovorertredere, had done the first such study as his dissertation at the University of Oslo in 1960. Professor Thorsten Sellin was the inspiration for the U.S. study. He could read Norwegian, and I could a little because I studied at the University of Oslo in my graduate years. Our interest in pursuing a birth cohort study in the United States was fostered by the encouragement of Saleem Shah who awarded us a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to begin our birth cohort studies at the University of Pennsylvania by investigating the delinquency of the 1945 cohort. We studied this group of 9,945 boys extensively through official criminal history and school records of their juvenile years. Subsequently, we followed up the cohort as adults using both adult arrest histories and an interview of a sample of the cohort. Our follow-up study was published as From Boy to Man, From Delinquen­ cy to Crime in 1987.

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.