Juvenile justice reform and restorative justice : building theory and policy from practice /

Juvenile justice in the US was hobbled through much of the 20th century by correctional schema that did not produce the desired results. Florida Atlantic University criminologists Bazemore and Schiff present an in-depth analysis of so-called "restorative justice" programs for youth--a new and more contemporary approach to deal with youth crime that may yet be a prescription for qualified success. Their book combines a readable text balanced by the wisdom of extensive research and practice. As a result of the law-and-order era of juvenile justice reforms in the 1990s, restorative justice intervention began to gain credence in certain youth correctional circles where the traditional approaches had become both academically and politically suspect. By contrast, restorative justice practice and procedure "challenges the role of punishment and treatment as the primary currencies of intervention." Advocates of restorative justice strongly contend "that the complex problems of youth crime and deviant behavior cannot be resolved by policies based on offender-driven services and surveillance alone." Based on research supported by the National Institute of Justice and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this book should be required reading for all those interested in exploring a different slant in the ongoing quest for recidivism reduction in juvenile law. ^BSumming Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. C. Watkins Jr. emeritus, University of Alabama