Kids Who Commit Adult Crimes: Serious Criminality By Juvenile Offenders

Kids Who Commit Adult Crimes: Serious Criminality by Juvenile Offenders is an examination of today's serious, chronic, and violent youthful offender. This vital book explores the relationship between youth and serious, violent antisocial behavior in America, examining its antecedents, its onset, and its situational and motivating factors.

From the Editor's introduction: "The increasingly serious nature of juvenile criminal behavior has been felt across the country as youth violence, violent youth gangs, drug-related offenses, and other delinquent and criminal conduct has changed the way we regard minors and delinquent behavior. Recent times have seen an explosion in school tragedies, juvenile homicides, teen battering, date rape, youth family violence, teenage alcohol and drug abuse, and related youthful offenses."

Kids Who Commit Adult Crimes, divided into four parts, takes an incisive look at these issues and more:
-- Part I explores serious juvenile crime, including its magnitude; youth violence; kids, drugs, and crime; school crime and violence; youth gangs and criminality; dating violence; and family violence.
-- Part II examines explanations of juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior from biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives.
-- Part III addresses juvenile crime and the justice system, including the police and juvenile offenders, youths and the juvenile and adult courts, and juvenile offenders in custody and confinement.
-- Part IV examines responses to the problem of serious and violent juvenile offending and its precursors, including federal laws and prevention, intervention, and control strategies.

Kids Who Commit Adult Crimes goes fartherin its examination of youth who commit adult-like violence than other books in the field, with chapters on dating violence and family violence, in addition to school and gang violence, substance abuse issues, and more.