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New York City’s "Broken Windows" Reforms

This is a report of a research study on New York City’s Police Reforms of the 1990s from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.  It evaluates the variety of explanations that have been advanced for the sharp decline in crime in New York City in the 1990s. The study conclusions:

-0-  "Broken windows" policing is significantly and consistently linked to declines in violent crime.  

-0-  Over 60,000 violent crimes were presented from 1989 to 1998 because of "broken windows" policing. 

-0-  Changes in the number of young men of high school age were not associated with a decline in violent crime. 

-0-  Decreasing use of crack cocaine was also not associated with a decline in violence. 

-0-  Other changes in police tactics and strategy may also be responsible for some of the City’s drop in crime.

-0-  As implemented by the NYPD, "broken windows" policing is not the rote and mindless "zero tolerance" approach that critics often contend it is. Case studies show that police vary their approach to quality-of-life crimes, from citation and arrest on one extreme to warnings and reminders on the other, depending upon the circumstances of the offense.

The complete report, including references and citations, is 32 pages and downloadable. It was published in December, 2001.

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Early Precursors of Gang Membership: A Study of Seattle Youth - 5 page bulletin from the Seattle Social Development Study, a longitudinal study of youth living in high-crime neighborhoods. Assesses the effects of factors present in the lives of youth at the ages of 10 to 12 on the probability of their later participation in gangs.

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From our research branch in Pittsburgh, the National Center for Juvenile Justice, this new publication by Howard Snyder, Director of Systems Research. This 32-page bulletin describes the extent and characteristics of juvenile arrests, characteristics of victims and perpetrators of homicides committed by juveniles. From the report, these statistics:

• Between 1980 and 1999, the proportion of murders by juveniles that also involved adult offenders increased.
• Between 1980 and 1999, one in four victims killed by juvenile offenders was age 16-19.
• Between 1980 and 1999, a juvenile offender participated in 47% of the murders of 14-year-olds – the age group with the greatest proportion of juvenile -involved murders.
• The overall trend in murders by juveniles between 1980 and 1999 is all firearm related.
• Firearm use increased between 1980 and 1994 for white, black, and male juvenile murder offenders but not for females.

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Partners Against Hate is a clearinghouse of hate-crime related information with both on- and off-line resources.  It is the creation of three hate crime organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Leadership Conference Education Fund, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. The resources at this site include outreach services, public education, and training. The Middle School Hate Crime Prevention Training-of-Trainers trains two-person teams to lead hate crime prevention workshops for both faculty and students at middle schools – at no cost to the participating schools.

• 3,365 children and teen were killed by gunfire
• 1,990 were murdered by gunfire
• 1,078 committed suicide using a firearm
• 214 died from an accidental shooting
• 1,934 were White
• 1,301 were Black
• 605 were Hispanic
• 488 were under age 15
• 153 were under age 10
• 73 were under age 5
• More children and teen died from gunfire than from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined.

This Juvenile Justice Bulletin written by David Finkelhor and Richard Ormrod offers detailed information about overall patterns and victim age groups. It is part of OJJDP’s Crimes Against Children Series. It draws on FBI and other data to provide a statistical portrait of juvenile homicide victimization.

In 1999, some 1800 juveniles, or three per 100,000 of the U.S. juvenile population, were homicide victims. 

Includes information on maltreatment homicides, abduction homicides, and school homicides. Reviews initiatives designed to prevent homicides of children and youth.

According to this newly released study from the Violence Policy Center children and teens in the United States are killed with handguns more often than with all other weapons combined. The study analyzed unpublished Federal Bureau of Investigation homicide data for the five year period 1995 through 1999. During this period nearly one third (32.1%) of child handgun homicide victims were murdered by another child. Other findings:

• An average of two children per day were murdered with handguns in the U.S. from 1995 to 1999.
• Black children had the highest rate of handgun homicide victimization - seven times higher than that of white children.

The report contains both national and state statistics. It ranks states by both rate of child victims murdered by a handgun, as well as rate of child shooters who murdered with a handgun. It also ranks states by the percentage of child homicides in which a handgun was used. 

Data for the top 15 states include race of victim, type of firearm, relationship with offender and circumstances of the homicide. States with the highest rate of child handgun homicide are: Maryland (2.86 per 100,000), Louisiana, Illinois, California, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Texas (1.08 per 100,000).

Mark Soler, president of the Youth Law Center, has written this new report, which summarizes public opinion research on youth and juvenile justice issues. The report, published by the Building Blocks for Youth group, is a guide for juvenile justice system advocates and its youth. It includes information on what the public thinks about kids and juvenile justice and recommendations about how advocates can frame those issues in their work.

The Findings on Youth and Juvenile Crime include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The public is less fearful about crime than in the past.
• The public believes that juvenile crime is increasing.
• The public overwhelmingly believes that youth violence is a big problem facing the country.
• The public is skeptical about depictions of youth and crime in the media.
• Contrary to conventional wisdom, the public does not associate juvenile crime primarily with the poor, but instead see crime as a problem at all socio-economic levels.
• The public believes that youth who break the law will commit other crimes in the future, even if youth have no prior record.

Findings on Youth and the Justice System. This is, again, a partial list of the findings:

• The public has serious concerns about the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system.
• Out of frustration over a broken juvenile justice system, the public supports prosecution of juveniles in adult criminal court for a wide range of offenses.
• The public believes that the nature of the offense is much more important than a youth's prior record or age in determining punishment.
• The public has great concern about what happens to young people in the justice system.
• The public overwhelmingly (90%) supports a focus on prevention and rehabilitation rather than imprisonment, and strongly endorses a variety of rehabilitation programs.

The report includes recommendations for key messages to be emphasized when communicating with the public. It is a lengthy "how to" guide for communication with the public and the media. It provides case examples of campaigns in Maryland and Louisiana to close the Cheltenham and Tallulah facilities in those states. It recommends that local juvenile justice officials use this report and its recommendations to advocate on behalf of their youth and the juvenile court long before scandal or tragedy occurs and they are compelled to react.

Attorney General Janet Reno's announcement December 14 at the National Conference of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For the details go to the Office of Justice Programs Press Release December 14, 2000.

Juvenile Arrests 1999, (downloadable at  NCJRS. See below.) a report from the National Center for Juvenile Justice also released on December 14 reports, in addition to murder, substantial drops in the juvenile arrest rate for other violent crimes:

Forcible rape – down 31% from 1991 to 1999 - lowest level since 1980.

Robbery – down 53% from 1994 to 1999 – lowest level since 1980.

Aggravated assault – down 24% from 1994 to 1999 – lowest level since 1989.

Editorial comments about the this press release and public’s lack of awareness of falling juvenile crime rates and their continued fear of juvenile criminal acts at the Justice Policy Institute site. Read some interesting poll results. Example, adults think kids "committed most crime nowadays." 

Building Blocks for Youth - An alliance of children’s advocates, researchers, law enforcement professionals and community organizers that seeks to protect minority youth in the justice system and promote rational and effective justice policies. 

The initiative’s partners are the Youth Law Center, American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, Communication Works, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Juvenile Law Center, Minorities in Law Enforcement, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and Pretrial Services Resource Center.

Fact Sheets from the reports issued by this group are available at its web site. They include, among others:

• Transfer of Youth to the Adult Criminal Justice System,
• The Problem of Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in the Justice System,
• Facts and Myths about Juvenile Crime and Young Offenders,
• Dangers of Incarcerating Youth with Adult Inmates,
• Prevention Programs that Work.

The Transfer of Youth to the Adult Criminal Justice System Fact Sheet includes the following major findings:

• Most determinations to prosecute juveniles as adults were not made by judges (15%), but instead by prosecutors or legislatures (85%).
• Overall, 82% of cases filed in adult courts involved minority youth.
• Nearly two-thirds of all youth who were detained pretrial were held in adult jails where youth are at serious risk of rape, assault, death, and suicide.
• African American (43%) and Latino (37%) youth were more likely than White youth (26%) to receive a sentence of incarceration (as opposed to split sentences or probation).

Building Blocks for Youth

Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2000 - The third report in a series of annual reports on school crime and safety from the BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics) and the National Center for Educational Statistics. The report shows that more victimizations happen away from school than at school and that the total nonfatal victimization rate for young people declined between 1993 and 1998. Further, the report says that in 1998 students were about two times as likely to be victims of serious violent crime away from school as at school. The entire report is downloadable at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

Inner City PTSD - A recently published study on the effects of crime and violence on adolescent girls who live in the inner city shows that, rather than being hardened to the effects of violence, girls experience trauma and psychological distress. Many of them go on to develop full or partial post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers found that many of the girls had attempted to take control of the chronic violence they are exposed to by becoming more aggressive themselves (including arming themselves) with  consequences such as arrests and school suspensions. The study, Clinica Details Here 

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report Now Available on CD-ROM - Allows you to view the entire 232-page report in a PDF format. It also provides a comprehensive educator's kit that includes statistical information in full-page presentation-ready graphs (also available in Microsoft Powerpoint), data for the graphs (also available in Microsoft Excel), more than 40 source documents in PDF format, and links to government web sites to obtain more information.

The National Report contains baseline information on juvenile population growth trends, patterns of juvenile victimization, and statistics on the processing of cases in the juvenile justice system. It has more than 350 easy-to-read tables, graphs, and detailed maps and statistical analyses in clear non-technical language. To get a free copy:

• visit OJJDP's web site at www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org
• send an email to puborder@ncjrs.org
• call 800-638-8735
• fax 410-792-4358
• or write the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, PO Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000

Fighting Juvenile Gun Violence - (NCJ 182679) OJJDP Bulletin describes the implementation of OJJDP"s Partnerships to Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program at four demonstration sites.  Includes the following information from a study done by the Departments of Justice and the Treasury: 

• The age at which persons most often commit homicide is 18.
• Persons ages 18 to 20 account for 22 percent of homicide arrests.
• Firearms are used in 86 percent of all homicides
• The rise in homicides from the middle 1980's through the early 1990's can be attributed largely to firearm-related murders. 

Youth on Trial - Review the executive summary of a new publication developed by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice that approaches juvenile crime from a direction never seen before. Youth on Trial: A Developmental Perspective on Juvenile Justice, "challenges the choices legislators have made in recent years to push more and more young people into adult court without taking account of the ways in which adolescents really are different from adults. " The book was edited by Thomas Grisso, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.

Youth on Trial demonstrates that a fair and enlightened juvenile justice system must take into account the developmental and psychological facts of adolescence. The book serves as a foundation for applying developmental psychological principles and knowledge to juvenile justice policy:

• Makes the case that the recent transformation of juvenile law has largely ignored the fact that adolescents –- even those who commit serious criminal offenses – are different from adults.
• Affirms the urgent need for more research to guide and informal law, policy, and practice in juvenile law.
• Provides information that lawyers and clinicians can use to improve the quality of their practices for youthful clients.
• Identifies the need for interdisciplinary collaboration among lawyers, judges, clinicians, and social science researchers.