Juvenile Crime and Bullying

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

The Handbook of Measurement Issues in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Publication Date

4-29-2016

Abstract

The prevalence of juvenile delinquency has the capacity to not only garner public attention but mobile resources in the war on crime. Driven in part by a perennial fear of youth, successive generations seem to "rediscover" the delinquency problem, redefine it at epidemic levels, and invest significant resources to fix the problem. The challenge, however, is that conclusions about the prevalence of delinquency is hampered by limitations in available data. This chapter will describe the primary ways of measuring juvenile delinquency and address their limitations. The chapter will address how society's emotional and political responses to juvenile delinquency present challenges when interpreting data sources both between communities and across time. Special emphasis is given to the contemporary problem of bullying, a dimension of juvenile delinquency, which has been recognized as a contemporary problem among young people. Policymakers are encouraged to consider a broad cross-section of crime measures when drawing conclusions about trends in delinquency, and also to recognize that changes in laws and how laws are enforced can impact data in important ways.

First Page

49

Last Page

68

DOI

10.1002/9781118868799.ch3

ISBN

9781118868799,9781118868782

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