1. Policing Juveniles
Class 22

2. POLICING
Historically, police always have had significant influence on juvenile crime
Allocation of police resources to particular types of crime and particular neighborhoods
Police influence charging decisions, with collateral effects on case disposition
Police help shape discourse on juvenile crime
Police are most frequent and intense form of interaction of adolescents with law, police influence socialization via attributions of procedural fairness and legitimacy

3. Trends in Policing
(Post 1950) Strategies for policing youth crime changed over time
Social work model
Watchman model
Significant changes beginning in 1970s
Criticisms of police tactics from the preceding decade led to adoption of reactive model, retreat from preventive activities,
No differentiation of youth crime from other serious crime
Emergence of widespread gang activity in 1980s led to creation of specialized units for gangs
Enforcement, prosecution

4. Current Era
Policing more closely with emerging theory and integrated in law reform movements
“Broken Windows” theory and “Order Maintenance” approaches
“Zero Tolerance” policies and practices
Influences of these theories on juvenile enforcement
Chicago Gang Ordinance
Theoretical bases?
Not just OMP or BW, but disruption of social networks and elimination of opportunities for criminal activity
Social norms – social influence model

5. Competing Theories of Policing
Differentiation in styles of policing
Boston
Interaction of ministers and police
Replication efforts nationally
San Diego and Chicago CAPS program
Deliberative “street level” democratic experiments
New York
Broken Windows and Order Maintenance

6. Only Boston has an adolescent-specific model
Targeted at gang violence
Neighborhood-specific
Developmental message with attention to interventionist and preventive principles
Causal Claim
Several publications claiming reduction is statistically significant, keyed to timing of intervention (1994)
Competing theoretical explanations within Boston
Deterrence
Legitimacy and compliance

8. The Gang Ordinance S1735 and CGO Frameworks 3 or more persons
“Loitering” and other collective behavior that may contribute to enumerated (serious) crimes
Temporal frame (continuity of behaviors within a five-year span)
Spatial component (Chicago – public place)

9. Issues
Balance of interests of “law abiders” versus “law breakers” within community
Liberty v order
Reinforced by social science
Reflection of will of citizens to establish constitutional thresholds for police action necessary to ensure their safety
“Courts should adjust the level of constitutional scrutiny applied to a policing technique based on the breadth of its impact on liberty in the community”
Rejects claim that the generalized impact of a statute or ordinance paramount within a jurisdiction
Rejection of case law of the preceding decades
Prior to Court challenge, over 45,000 “move on” orders were issued, and a comparable number of arrests made for violation of these orders.
Effects on crime rates? Violence rates? Drug selling?

10. Constitutional Questions
Theory
OMP, Broken Windows
Social norms, social influence dynamics
Restore and strengthen social organization
Constitutional Questions
Vagueness (Papachristou)
“Without an apparent purpose” clause
Original form did not include paragraph 3, the list of enumerated offenses, and targeted broad range of behaviors (e.g., appearance of drug dealing)
Revised statute narrows specific crime list, similar to S.1735.
Assumes that all behavior of gang members is gang behavior
Search (Terry)
Orders could translate into searches or frisks
Reduces “reasonable suspicion” standard that regulates police detention of citizens
Equal protection
Neighborhood boundaries
Adequacy of democratic process for threshold setting

11. Operational Questions
Knowledge by police of who is a gang member?
Imperfect knowledge, subject to bias or stereotyping
Mitigated by police training and managerial oversight?
Theoretical Questions
Validity of Broken Windows Theory and other causal claims
The alternative configuration of a social norms claim from the Boston experience
Collateral consequences for adolescent perceptions of law and legal actors
Legitimacy, legal socialization effects

12. Implications for the Next Epidemic of Juvenile Crime
Do police matter?
Does what police do matter?
Or, does it only the concentration of police matter?
Deterrence perspectives
What will you do when you are on the City Council and an ordinance is proposed?