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Crime, Law and Related Links

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Special Issues (continued):

Juvenile Justice
Death Penalty
Domestic Violence/Violence Against Women
Drugs and Drug Policy
Corporate Criminality

Juvenile Justice, Delinquency and Youth

"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun." Former President Bush, 10.18.2000, St. Louis, MO

The American Bar Assocation's Juvenile Justice Center
BJS, U.S. Department of Education, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2006. Many, many other reports on juvenile justice are available through the juvenile justice section of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
Children Now. The state of children in California
Children's Defense Fund Publications
- America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline Report
- California's Crade to Prison Factsheet

The Children in Prison Project, which advocates for improved prison conditions like better nutrition and education for juvenile inmates (13-15 years old) in adult prisons, received the prestigious Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Project from the Clinical Legal Education Association. You can read this article about them in the New York Times (this article may take a bit to load).

Child Quest International: "dedicated to the protection and recovery of missing, abused and exploited children and at-risk adults."
The Educational Equity Center and The Boys Project look at gender differences in success as measured in various ways (e.g., crime) and seek to correct differences between boys and girls by either directing attention to the needs of boys or by creating gender neutral strategies of education, inclusion, remediation, etc. This is a tricky area because you have to, on the one hand, suggest treating boys and girls differently in a democratic society while at the same time, on the other, implicitly or explicitly saying that there are "essential" differences between boys and girls that can't be changed. Politically it also feels like they're saying that boys should get more attention because girls have and it seems to have worked for the latter.
Logging On and Losing Out: Dealing Addiction to America's Kids. The readily available game of digital poker has lots of consequences.
Principles of Restorative Justice as applied to Juvenile Justice: The Leuven Declaration, see the link under the "System Critique and Reform" section on the next page. Open your mind to alternative principles for transforming the juvenile justice system that do not merely center on punishment and more punishment.
Juvenile justice in California is in a state of chaos at the state level and in its usual differentiated condition at the county level. The California Youth Authority now is the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), and DJJ has been placed under the supervision of a federal court monitor. The Farrell v. Hickman litigation, consent decree and related materials are available on the CDCR web site at this link. Other materials related to this issue, such as the Special Master report, are at the Prison Law Office.
CJCJ's list of juvenile justice resources.
Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children. The latest study on how companies market videos, etc. with violent content to kids under eighteen.
National Report on Juvenile Offenders and Victims 1999, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Planning, is touted as the "most comprehensive source of information about juvenile crime, violence, and victimization..." See a great number of studies at their "Juvenile Justice General" research topic area.
The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States

Human Rights Watch's length list of publications on Children's Rights from around the world.

Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative 2000, by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, in PDF.
Fragile Families and Child Well-Being, at the Columbia School of Public Health
Juvenile Justice from NCJRS

A few links to one of the most popular student paper topics (waiver). Remember to use appropriate citation for sources!

FSU's Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
Gangs in Los Angeles County
Idaho Youth Ranch. This ranch indicates that it uses balanced and restorative justice principles.
The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour
Juvenile Justice Policy in the 21st Century Laurence Steinberg, Prof. of Psychology, Temple University and Donald W. DeVore, Director, Juvenile Services, Connecticut Department of Children and Families An experimental web site from Princeton. A podcast, streaming video, or whatever you'd like.
Island Youth Programs-Texas
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The National Youth Teen Court Page
National Youth Gang Center. We seem to have come a long way. Now we have frequently asked quetions page on gangs from NYGC.
National Youth Network
Restorative Justice: An Annotated Bibliography. Over 500 entries on the Prison Fellowship International web site.
U.S. Justice Fund, Public Opinion on Youth, Crime, and Race: A Guide for Advocates. Building Blocks For Youth
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
UNICEF Annual Reports:

State of the World's Children 2009.

Youth Online Safety Grouping, Interdisciplinary Response to Youths Sexting. One group's recommendation for youth and administrators about how to manage the issue of "sexting" or minors sending nude pictures to one another.
Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General

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Death Penalty

Death Sentences and Executions in 2007 .

Source: Amnesty International
Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty. From the Death Penalty Information Center. For Updated opinion polls take this link. Give Americans a viable alternative to death and they will choose it over execution.
Urban institute, "The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland." Numerous studies have attempted to specify the costs of adjudicating capital cases and, as the General Accounting Office noted many years ago, research usually underestimates it. This study is probably no different but it does provide current data on Maryland's death penalty costs from 1978-99. The lifetime cost of sentencing someone to death averaged three million dollars, $1.7 millon of which is for adjudication costs and $1.3 millon for prison costs. This is nearly three times the cost of not selecting a capital eligible case for the death penalty.
Death Penalty Focus, Californians for a Moratorium on Executions, located in San Francisco, with ten chapters in California. The latest study on the arbitrariness of California's death penalty is at this link.
California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. A Commission recently created by the California State Senate. Its charge:
- To examine the causes of wrongful convictions, and
- to make recommendations and proposals to further insure that the administration of criminal justice in California is just, fair, and accurate.
Illinois Governor Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment. A former republican governor facing flawed and irrevocable decisions.
Before the Needles. An updated link to this venerable page, Rob Gallagher's contribution based on the ESPY Files. The death penalty before lethal injection.
A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, in pdf format. Of every capital conviction and appeal from 1973-1995 (about 5,500 decisions), 68 percent were thrown out on appeal.
Capital Punishment 2009, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Survey of the Federal Death Penalty System, 2000. The latest study of the federal system that finds widespread disparities in death sentences by race and geography.
Staging an Execution: The Media at McVeigh. What was asked, and what wasn't, at Timothy McVeigh's execution. Shot in Indiana, funded by the Center for Comparative Law and Society Studies at UW.
Also, here is an audio file (mp3) of a talk on the subject of televising McVeigh's execution.
Death penalty executions: a continuous count, including the name of dead inmates, race, and type of execution.
The Trial of Sacco & Vanzetti. Historical materials can sometimes help us see the ways in which social context affects how political decisions are reached.
Amnesty International. Reports on the execution of wrongfully convicted and innocent people in the US, around the world, and a wide range of other issues.
Death Penalty readings, The Bruderhof Communities
Critical Criminology's collection, which is very good.
Bureau of Justice Statistics Corrections information on capital punishment
The Death Penalty Information Center. A resource center for the public and media on the death penalty.
Dead Man Talkin' by Dean. A death row inmate at San Quentin writes about life on the row.
Manet and the Execution of Maximilian.

Bedeau's evaluation of the death penalty used to be a free, but now you must pay $3.
Ethics Videos on the Web. Go to Punishment and the Death Penalty. Lots of resources.

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Domestic Violence/Violence Against Women

Bibliographic References for Multicultural Perspectives on Domestic Violence in the U.S. by Natalie J. Sokoloff. This is a detailed and comprehensive bibliography! Never met you, but thank you Natalie S.

Violence in Families: Assessing Prevention and Treatment Programs
A book that examines over a hundred studies on the effects of programs intended to deal with family violence. Definitely worth checking out.
Family Violence Prevention Fund . This organization played a central role in getting the Violence Against Women Act passed in 1994. This site lists up-to-date links on current events in this area, including public policy changes.

Human Rights Watch - Global Report on Women's Human Rights. As the sponsorship and content suggest, this gets at international abridgement of women's rights. This is a lengthy and depressing documentation and criticism of the abuse, prostitution, forced labor, and related oppression of women in many countries.
National Sexual Violence Resource Center. See their Unspoken Crimes: Sexual Assault in Rural America.
Rape as Social Murder. An account of the rape of anthropology professor Cathy Winkler written by Professor Winkler. Originally published in Anthropology Today.
The 1997 and 1998 issues of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Crime in the United States includes special issues on juvenile crime and family violence, respectively.
"Not Part of My Sentence" -- Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody, from Amnesty International.
The Sonoma County Domestic Violence Policy Committee Final Report. This report examines the problem of domestic violence intervention and the criminal justice system in light of public response to the killing of Maria Teresa Macias by her husband. This link takes you to the Table of Contents. This link is repeated below under "Mostly Local."
Cybergrrl has a good list of links.
The Domestic Violence Project. A pretty big collection of studies and articles.

The Women's Studies Resources page is very helpful too.
Men Against Domestic Violence adds some more sources.
Satore Township deals with workplace violence, including domestic violence, and aspires to much more--a kind of watering hole for criminologists and others on the internet.
The Feminist Majority Foundation. See this vast and comprehensive site on feminism, including information directly relevant to criminology--e.g., reproductive rights, and gender apartheid in Afghanistan.
See the section under "Terrorism" to learn about recent ATF data on arsons and bombings of abortion clinics.
The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner SART page. An updated site with an extensive collection on Sexual Assault Response Teams.
Violence Against Women, a national online resource. See the listing of, among others, Marital Rape: New Research and Directions.
See the World Criminal Justice Library Network bibliography. You have to scroll down to "Women and Domestic Violence.'

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The Drug War, Drugs and Drug Policy

The Lindesmith Center - Drug Policy Foundation, now joined together, offers the largest collection of full-text materials on drugs and drug policy, latest news headlines, discussion forums to share insights and ideas with other drug policy reform activists, tools and suggestions for 'taking action' on this issue, sign-up forms for e-mail alert lists, and other membership services.
Drug Wars -- PBS _Frontline. A companion to PBS's excellent "Frontline" on the drug war and Drug-Wars -- NPR is the NPR "All Things Considered" companion to "Frontline."
Stop the Drug War - Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNET). Join their e-mail list to get the latest information on the drug war. The DRCNET site claims to have the world's largest on-line library of drug policy material.

See, for example, "The American Drug Panic of the 1980s." Chapter 12 of Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance by Erich Goode & Nachman Ben-Yehuda.
2004 National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health, with updates, by the Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Here are state level estimates of illicit drugs, cigarettes and alcohol by age, including the brands of cigarettes smoked by Americans.
Take this link to the current and past International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports
Sentencing of drug offenders as a human rights violation. From Human Rights Watch (1997), "Cruel and Usual: Disproportionate Sentences for New York Drug Offenders." See also their 2006 Human Rights Watch Report.
Rockerfeller Drug Laws Have Created Lockdown, USA (Video)
Stop Drugs. Information on drug enforcement, prevention, and treatment by the California Department of Justice and the California Narcotic Officers' Association. The featured drug at this time (12/17/99) is methamphetamine.
Does Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) work? This is certainly enough positive hype out there. Here is an alternative view about the effectiveness of DARE.
Drugs & Crime Facts - Bureau of Justice Statistics data on illegal drugs and the effect on the criminal justice system.
CESAR A free bulletin board administered by the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR). Available via FAX or e-mail.
The Web of Addictions An index of web resources.
The The Marijuana Policy Project.
CJCJ's list of drug resources.
The RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Among other things, see their free summary of a study on the ineffectiveness of mandatory minimums.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse. See their link on Anabolic Steroid Abuse.
Number of HIV-Positive State and Federal Inmates Continues to Decline.
The World Drug Report 2006. Definitely worth checking out.