Archive
Bullying in Schools: An Overview
Bullying in Schools: An Overview (PDF)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Highlights Researchers from the National Center for School Engagement conducted a series of studies to explore the connections between bullying in schools, school attendance and engagement, and academic achievement. This bulletin pro vides an overview of the OJJDP-funded studies, a summary of the researchers’ indings, and recommendations for policy and practice.
Following are some of the authors’ key findings:
- Bullying is a complex social and emotional phenomenon that plays out differently on an individual level.
- Bullying does not directly cause truancy.
- School engagement protects victims from truancy and low academic achievement.
- When schools provide a safe learning environment in which adults model positive behavior, they can mitigate the negative effects of bullying.
- ny interventions to address bullying or victimization should be intentional, student-focused engagement strategies that it the context of the school where they are used.
Juvenile Arrests 2009
Contrary to the popular perception that juvenile crime is on the rise, the data reported in this bulletin tell a different story. As detailed in these pages, juvenile arrests for violent offenses declined 10% between 2008 and 2009, and overall juvenile arrests fell 9% during that same period. Between 1994—when the Violent Crime Index arrest rates for juveniles hit a historic high—and 2009, the rate fell nearly 50% to its lowest level since at least 1980. Arrest rates for nearly every offense category for both male and female and white and minority youth were down in 2009.
Although such trends are encouraging, they should not lead to a misplaced sense of compla cency. Juvenile crime and violence continue to plague many communities across the country. During the first decade of the 21st century (2000–2009), juvenile arrests for robbery rose 15%, and arrests for murder were unchanged. Clearly, our work is not finished.
Children’s Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence and Other Family Violence
Children’s Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence and Other Family Violence (PDF)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
This bulletin discusses the data on exposure to family violence in the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), the most comprehensive nationwide survey of the incidence and prevalence of children’s exposure to violence to date, sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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More than 1 in 9 (11 percent) were exposed to some form of family violence in the past year, including 1 in 15 (6.6 percent) exposed to IPV between parents (or between a parent and that parent’s partner). One in four children (26 percent) were exposed to at least one form of family violence during their lifetimes. Most youth exposed to family violence, including 90 percent of those exposed to IPV, saw the violence, as opposed to hearing it or other indirect forms of exposure. Males were more likely to perpetrate incidents that were witnessed than females, with 68 percent of youth witnessing only violence by males. Father figures were the most common perpetrators of family violence, although assaults by mothers and other caregivers were also common.
Reducing Drinking Among Underage Air Force Members in Five Communities
Reducing Drinking Among Underage Air Force Members in Five Communities (PDF)
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
In 2006, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provided grants to five communities with local Air Force bases to implement the agency’s Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) initiative. This bulletin presents findings from an evaluation of EUDL activities in these communities. The study in this bulletin focused on comparing the rates of problem drinking in each of the EUDL communities to five control communities and the Air Force overall. The following are some of the key findings of the evaluation:
- Although all sites showed some success, sites that implemented their interventions early, had task forces on underage drinking at the program’s onset, collaborated with local partners, and followed guidance from the federal agencies sponsoring the evaluation had the best results.
- The two Arizona communities that implemented the EUDL initiative following the practices cited above saw the highest reductions in junior enlisted members at risk for problem drinking.
- EUDL communities located in urban areas had more success finding alternative activities to drinking than communities in rural areas.
- The percentage of Air Force enlisted personnel at risk for a drinking problem decreased 6.6 percent from 2006 to 2008.
Federal Resources on Missing and Exploited Children: A Directory for Law Enforcement and Other Public and Private Agencies (Sixth Edition)
Federal Resources on Missing and Exploited Children: A Directory for Law Enforcement and Other Public and Private Agencies (Sixth Edition) (PDF)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Describes the federal services, programs, publications, and training sessions that address child sexual exploitation issues, child pornography, child abduction, Internet crime, and missing children cases.
Guide for Implementing or Enhancing an Endangered Missing Advisory
Guide for Implementing or Enhancing an Endangered Missing Advisory (PDF)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (DoJ)
The unauthorized absence of a child from the home is a family crisis that requires immediate and collaborative attention. Over the past two decades the AMBER Alert Program has grown into a nationally coordinated effort under the Office of Justice Programs, which has significantly improved the strategies and the methods for recovering endangered and abducted children. More than 500 children have been returned home as a result of AMBER Alert plans, which have been established in every state.
Despite such progress, however, gaps remain in the recovery of missing children whose cases do not meet the strict criteria for AMBER Alert and of missing adults, whose cases are not covered by AMBER Alert. To assist communities in closing these gaps, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has initiated a project to help states, communities, and law enforcement agencies develop a strategy in which the Endangered Missing Advisory (EMA) plays a crucial role.
This guide provides AMBER Alert coordinators, law enforcement, and public safety professionals with an effective and efficient way to implement an EMA plan. It offers recommendations to assist law enforcement in developing strategies to recover missing children and adults and includes relevant findings to inform policymakers’ efforts to address the problem.
Highlights From Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders
Highlights From Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
This fact sheet presents an overview of some major findings from the Pathways to Desistance Study, a project that followed 1,354 serious adolescent offenders for 7 years following their convictions. The primary findings of the study to date deal with the decrease in self-reported offending over time by most serious adolescent offenders, the relative inefficacy of longer juvenile incarcerations in decreasing recidivism, the effectiveness of community-based supervision as a component of aftercare for incarcerated youth, and the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment in reducing both substance use and offending by serious adolescent offenders.
+ Full Document (PDF)
Youth’s Characteristics and Backgrounds: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement
Youth’s Characteristics and Backgrounds: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (PDF)
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) is the third component in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s constellation of surveys providing updated statistics on youth in custody in the juvenile justice system. It joins the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census, which are biennial mail surveys of residential facility administrators conducted in alternating years. SYRP is a unique addition, gathering information directly from youth through anonymous interviews. This bulletin series reports on the first national SYRP, covering its development and design and providing detailed information on the youth’s characteristics, backgrounds, and expectations; the conditions of their confinement; their needs and the services they received; and their experiences of victimization in placement.
