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Reviewed by:
  • American Juvenile Justice
  • Karl R. Kunkel
American Juvenile Justice By Franklin E. Zimring Oxford University Press, 2005. 246 pages. $49.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).

Franklin Zimring provides a collection of essays dealing with various policy issues in contemporary juvenile justice. In the introductory section, he admits the chapters in this book originally were written by him as individual essays and articles on various topics, then later organized and published as a book-length collection of readings. The work contains four parts – Adolescence: Social Facts and Legal Theory, A Rationale for American Juvenile Justice, The Adolescent Offender and Policy Problems in Modern Juvenile Justice. Each of these parts contains chapters, a total of 13, dealing with a specific issue or perspective.

Zimring displays a keen ability to mesh deeply philosophical principles with empirical findings. The early chapters present philosophical discussions on the historical and personal significance of adolescence including the inherent immaturity of teenagers, an argument that modern adolescence is a "learners permit" (p. 17) for adult responsibilities, the relationship of individual variation in adolescent development to penal proportionality and diminished responsibility for offending behavior, as well as the possibilities for rehabilitation and the particular needs for punishment of juvenile offenders. He also spends significant effort defending the original treatment ideology of the juvenile justice system arguing this underlying philosophy and approach still are relevant in contemporary American society. Subsequent chapters examine specific policy issues including peer influence on juvenile offending and the culpability of kids who simply accompany other offenders, evidence supporting the notion that most youths age out of offending behavior, the role of juvenile policy regarding teen pregnancy, practices involved with waivers of juveniles to the adult criminal court, approaches to dealing with juvenile access to guns, and the complicated matters involved with handling young homicide offenders, among other topics.

I found two chapters particularly interesting. The author provides a deconstruction of policy issues concerning the juvenile "superpreditor" (p. 105) scare of the mid-1990s, and another chapter presents thoughts on policy initiatives for combating minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. Zimring uses strong empirical data demonstrating the prediction by various scholars and policy-makers of a violent future "blood bath" (p. 122), caused by a growing number of increasingly violent kids, had no evidence base [End Page 2360] and, in fact, is not occurring. In another chapter he questions the utility of policies designed to decrease minority overrepresentation through bringing more non-minority youth into the system. He makes a convincing argument that the overall harm to all kids increases as a result of this approach. These sections of the book are extremely insightful, convincing, and demonstrate the author's impressive data analysis skill and theoretical insight.

The book has a few minor shortcomings. First, there is very little substantive discussion of actual recent juvenile policy changes in specific jurisdictions. For example, even though the author extensively discusses increasing waivers to adult court along with the policy of extending the range of sentences available to the juvenile courts, more specific examples of this legislation, along with a brief overview of the social and political history of the contexts that give rise to these changes, would provide an excellent substantive grounding. Changes in juvenile policy are jurisdiction-specific and not sweeping at a national level. Second, the author admits the book is a collection of essays, but fails to provide a summary of common themes or thoughts. Given Professor Zimring's extensive research, it would be interesting to read his overall impressions when drawing conclusions from the collection of readings. Third, this book is written at a very sophisticated level making it a difficult fit for most undergraduate courses in juvenile justice. This text does not provide basic information about the juvenile system, but clearly assumes a fundamental familiarity with the stages, processes, terminology and history of the system. Zimring's writing style often is complex and the discussion is beyond the reading ability of most undergraduates. However, the nature of the material certainly is appropriate for graduate students interested in the philosophical underpinnings, empirical research and policy implications of juvenile justice.

It is clear these shortcomings are minor given the overall contribution this...

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