Description

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It is often said that a teen "old enough to do the crime is old enough to do the time," but are teens really mature and capable enough to participate fully and fairly in adult criminal court? In this book—the fruit of the MacArthur Foundation Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice—a wide range of leaders in developmental psychology and law combine their expertise to investigate the current limitations of our youth policy. The first part of the book establishes a developmental perspective on juvenile justice; the second and third parts then apply this perspective to issues of adolescents' capacities as trial defendants and questions of legal culpability. Underlying the entire work is the assumption that an enlightened juvenile justice system cannot ignore the developmental psychological realities of adolescence.

Not only a state-of-the-art assessment of the conceptual and empirical issues in the forensic assessment of youth, Youth on Trial is also a call to reintroduce sound, humane public policy into our justice system..

Contributors: Richard Barnum, Richard J. Bonnie, Emily Buss, Elizabeth Cauffman, Gary L. Crippen, Jeffrey Fagan, Barry C. Feld, Sandra Graham, Thomas Grisso, Colleen Halliday, Alan E. Kazdin, N. Dickon Reppucci, Robert G. Schwartz, Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Ann Tobey, Jennifer L. Woolard, Franklin E. Zimring

About the Author

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Thomas Grisso, a clinical psychologist, is professor of psychiatry and coordinator of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is the author or coeditor of several books, including Youth on Trial, also published by the University of Chicago Press.



Robert G. Schwartz is the executive director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.

Praise For…

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"This major contribution to the field of juvenile justice opens a door that has needed opening. . . . Thanks to Grisso, Schwartz, and their colleagues and the MacArthur Network, perhaps there ultimately will be a kinder, gentler nation, at least as far as juvenile offenders are concerned."

— Alan M. Goldstein

"It is refreshing to read a publication that is truly original, innovative, and challenging, addressing as it does all aspects and all stages of the impact of the legal process on adolescents."

— Susan Bailey

“After meticulously presenting competency and development issues faced by youth . . . the book moves to a solution-focused orientation that will be appreciated by academicians and practitioners. Readers interested in mental health issues of youths are provided a litany of literature, data, research, and tools that offer a better understanding and approach to a fairer justice process for juveniles. The book refreshingly becomes a ‘how to’ manual for lawyers, judges, parents, and even youth interested in applying the developmental perspective. . . . A must-read for any student of juvenile justice, as it is a prelude to the inclusion of developmental psychology into the juvenile justice field."
— Everette B. Penn