This

is a hopeful but complicated era for those with ambitions to reform the

juvenile courts and youth-serving public institutions in the United States. As advocates plea for major reforms, many fear the public backlash in

making dramatic changes. Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice

provides a look at the recent trends in juvenile justice as well as suggestions

for reforms and policy changes in the future. Should youth be treated as adults

when they break the law? How can youth be deterred from crime? What factors

should be considered in how youth are punished?What role should the police have in schools?

This essential volume, edited by two of the leading

scholars on juvenile justice, and with contributors who are among the key

experts on each issue, the volume focuses on the most pressing issues of the

day: the impact of neuroscience on our understanding of brain development and

subsequent sentencing, the relationship of schools and the police, the issue of

the school-to-prison pipeline, the impact of immigration, the privacy of juvenile records, and the need for national

policies—including registration requirements--for juvenile sex offenders. Choosing

the Future for American Juvenile Justice is not only a timely collection, based

on the most current research, but also a forward-thinking volume that

anticipates the needs for substantive and future changes in juvenile justice.