Worth up to 20 points
Due: NLT April 24
Length: 750 to 1,000 words

Read the various discussions of the purpose of punishment in our text.
What is the purpose for juveniles? What works?

Then, read the following article.
Is it consistent with the philosophy of the text? Where do they differ?
How are they the same? On balance, what should the philosophy for punishing
juveniles be?

                         PUNISHING JUVENILES


------------------------------

University of Chicago 19-Dec-98

Youths React to Punishment Same as Adult Criminals

Library: LIF-SOC Keywords: JUVENILE DELINQUENTS CRIME MURDER VIOLENCE
PUNISHMENT PRISON JAIL Description: Increased punishment of juveniles
reduces the amount of crime they commit in a way similiar to the
impact punishment has for adults, according to a new paper by a
University of Chicago economist.

December 21, 1998 For Immediate Release Contact: Steven Levitt, (773)
834-1862 William Harms, (773) 702-8356, w-harms@uchicago.edu

Juvenile delinquents respond to punishment just as adult criminals do,
University of Chicago study shows

Increased punishment of juveniles reduces the amount of crime they
commit in a way similiar to the impact punishment has for adults,
according to a new paper by Steven Levitt, Associate Professor of
Economics at the University of Chicago.

"The evidence suggests that juvenile crime is responsive to harsher
sanctions," Levitt writes. "The estimated decrease in crime associated
with incarcerating an additional juvenile is at least as large as the
corresponding reduction in crime for adult offenders."

His article, "Juvenile Crime and Punishment," based on juvenile
statistics between 1978 and 1993, was published in the December issue
of the Journal of Political Economy. It is one of the first major
studies of the impact of punishment on juvenile crime.

Levitt said that the impact of punishment on preventing crime among
juveniles is only one of many considerations politicians and others
must make in determining if changes need to be made in the current
laws.

"Any public policy recommendation must balance the benefits of reduced
crime against the costs associated with holding juveniles, both in the
short term and the long term," he adds.

Financially, it costs much more to detain a juvenile than an adult, he
points out. The average cost of holding a teenager in a juvenile
facility was $33,000 in 1990, the last year data was available. The
average cost of holding a adult prisoner was about $23,000 in 1992,
the most recent year for which data is available.

For his study, Levitt analyzed how crime changes around the age at
which offenders transition from the juvenile courts to the adult
criminal justice system.

In states where punishments for adults and juveniles are comparable,
becoming an adult has little impact on criminal involvement. In states
that punish adults more harshly than juveniles, violent crime drops 25
percent in the first year an individual is treated as an adult by the
courts. Property crime falls 10 to 15 percent in the first year of
adulthood in those states that punish adults more harshly than
juveniles.

Despite differences in punishments among states overall, juvenile
crime has been increasing while adult crime has been decreasing. Over
the period of the study, arrests of juveniles for violent crime rose
three times faster than similar arrests for adults. The divergence in
murder arrests is even more striking. Juvenile murder arrests almost
tripled, whereas adult murder arrests actually declined.

The results of this study provide a partial explanation for those
disturbing trends, Levitt writes. Between 1978 and 1993, punishment
per crime fell by 20 percent for juveniles but increased 60 percent
for adults. "Differences in punishment accounts for more than half of
the observed differences between juvenile and adult violent crime
trends over this period," Levitt says.

Levitt cautioned that politicians need more information before
changing laws regarding juvenile justice. The study was unable to
find, for instance, a direct link between strong juvenile punishment
and reduction in criminal activity among those teenagers when they
became adults. That link needs further study, he said.

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