Study Outline for Exam

The on Friday exam will be composed of two types of questions: 1) short answer questions testing your knowledge of the reading and 2) essay questions on the reading and class discussions testing your understanding by asking you to summarize, explain, integrate, and draw conclusions from this material. The following outline of concepts and ideas covered in the reading and in class should serve to guide your study and review for the exam. Adequate preparation for the exam requires more than simply knowing in a general way what each topic on the outline refers to. Instead, it requires knowledge in detail about the reading and class material related to the topic that will allow to explain, to illustrate, and to discuss the implication of the topic.

I. What is delinquency and how much of it is there?

A. Definition of delinquency and critical issues

1. Legal age of criminal responsibility

2. Minimum age

3. Held responsible

4. The law—crimes and status offenses

B. Adolescence as a social construction

1. The position of youth before the emergence of childhood and adolescence

2. Factors involved in the invention of adolescence and its meaning

3. Implications for the definition of delinquency

C. Measuring Deliquency

1. Official data

2. Self report studies

3. Garden variety and serious delinquency

4. Conclusions about the distribution of garden variety and serious delinquency

II. Explaining delinquency: Gang Theories

A. Social structural factors—changes in the urban economy

B. Neighborhood characteristic—social disorganization

C. Neighborhood dynamics

D. Social support and the three kinds of capital

E. The formation of delinquent subcultures: Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin

F. Kinds of youth violence

III. Explaining delinquency: Peers and Crime

A. Factors bringing youth together

1. Social structure

2. Historical and cultural variation

3. Changing peer relations in the U.S.

B. Delinquency and groups

1. Features of delinquent groups

2. Do groups matter: selection versus socialization

C. Peers and delinquent contact

1. Factors intrinsic to groups

2. Factors related to compliance

3. Factors related to learning

D. Peer groups and other features of crime

1. Explaining the relationship between age and crime: Warr gives evidence that this relationship is explained by peer relationships

2. The contest between parents and peers

3. Peer groups and gender differences in crime

E. Explaining garden variety and serious delinquency

IV. An Overview of the Juvenile Court

A. Stages in the process

B. The juvenile justice funnel—evidence of the efficiency of social control

V. The Original of the Juvenile Court (You should be familiar with the nature and goals of the original court as explained by Feld.)

A. Underlying assumptions and values

B. Rehabilitative ideal

C. Status jurisdiction

D. Juvenile court organization and organization

VI. Juvenile Justice Reform and its Limits

A. The social historical context of the juvenile court reform

1. Baby Boom

2. African American urban migration, racial conflict and civil rights

3. The crisis of legitimacy and the critique of the rehabilitative ideal

4. The Warren Court’s decisions: accurate fact finding and protection of the individual from the oppressive power of the state: Gault and Winship

B. Models of the Juvenile Justice System

1. Crime control and due process

2. Protectionist and liberationist

C. Current procedures and policies and the juvenile justice system models (What is the current situation and what is Feld’s position on each?)

1. Gault-the right to attorney, the right against self incrimination, the right to cross examine and call witnesses

2. Waiving the right against self incrimination and the right to attorney

3. The nature of defense provided to young people

4. Preventive detention

5. The right to a jury trial and to a public trial

NOTE: Material from No Matter How Loud I Shout will not be included on this exam.