Sex composition of groups has been theorized in organizational sociology and found in prior work to structure female and male members' behaviors and experiences. Peer group and gang literature similarly finds that the sex gap in offending varies across groups of differing sex ratios. Drawing on this and other research linking gang membership, offending, and victimization, we examine whether sex composition of gangs is linked to sex differences in offending in this sample, further assess whether sex composition similarly structures females' and males' victimization experiences, and if so, why. Self-report data from gang members in a multi-site, longitudinal study of 3,820 youths are employed. Results support previous findings about variations in member delinquency by both sex and sex composition of the gang and also indicate parallel variations in members' victimization. These results are further considered within the context of facilitating effects such as gender dynamics, gang characteristics, and normative orientation.
Every state maintains some mechanism by which youths can be tried as adults in criminal courts. While scholars have long debated the inherent benefits or detriments of prosecuting youths as adults, empirical studies of actual outcomes have provided mixed findings and have been limited by problems of selection bias and jurisdictional differences in processing. The current research aims to further inform this literature by capitalizing on a policy change in Connecticut that raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 17 on January 1, 2010, creating a natural experiment to assess the recidivism differences for youths based upon the system of processing: juvenile versus adult court. Findings from a 2-year follow-up reveal that 16-year-olds processed in juvenile courts had substantially reduced rates of recidivism with odds of rearrest that were between .462 and .630 less than for 16-year-olds processed in adult courts dependent on model specification. Keywords juvenile justice, waiver/transfer, age of criminal responsibility, recidivism The last quarter of the 20th century has come to be known as the "get-tough" era of juvenile justice in the United States. A real increase in youth violence in American cities (Sickmund & Snyder, 1999) coupled with media portrayal of these youths as a new breed of "super predator" put enormous pressure on policy makers and law enforcement officers to get tough on adolescent offenders (Butts & Mitchell, 2000; Cook & Laub, 2002). The response was a national movement to change both the purpose and the processing of the juvenile justice system. One of the most notable changes was a proliferation in mechanisms to transfer youths to adult courts for what was intended to be a greater punishment (Feld, 1984; Zimring, 1991). From 1992 to 1995 alone, 40 states and the District of Columbia modified legislation for trying juveniles as adults (Griffin, Torbet, & Szymanski, 1998). These laws lowered age thresholds for processing youths as adults-in some places to as young as 12 years of age-designated large categories of offenses for transfer, and shifted power in transfer
Juvenile delinquency has become an issue of increasing importance to the American public in recent decades. Youth crime and deviance, as a dynamic phenomenon, represents and is determined by contextual social, political, and economic realities. Through the analysis of official police records, as well as self‐report and victimization surveys, we are able to describe the temporal, demographic, and spatial trends in violent, property, drug, and status offenses. This information is useful for developing policies to prevent delinquency as well as designing appropriate law enforcement responses.
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