While rare in schools like Robeson, youth courts are not new. There are now more than 600 teenage courts operating in the United States, according to a study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Washington. Most are run by police and municipal departments and involve neighborhood violations. Sanctions in these courts, like those in Robeson’s, are generally a combination of constructive punishment, like community service, and aid for the defendants, like counseling. Jeffrey Butts, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, estimates that 100 of the country’s teenage courts are in schools. Continue reading New York Times – For Teenagers, a Jury, Judge and Prosecutor of Their Peers

Jeffrey A. Butts, a senior researcher with the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., said that the desire of residents and lawmakers to punish young criminals has outpaced the ability of the courts and the prisons to handle them. “Criminal-court transfer is always popular because the adult system offers a more potent symbol of crime control than does the juvenile court,” Butts said. Continue reading Los Angeles Times – Boy’s Life Term Puts Focus on Youth Punishment

Jeffrey Butts, a senior research associate at the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., said mandatory sentencing laws and a rise in violent crime by juveniles often can lead to startling outcomes. “We end up pushing the envelope on culpability and responsibility,” Butts said. “You can go back 100 years and find cases of kids being executed, but this raises the question of how far we’re willing to go.” Continue reading Los Angeles Times – 14-year-old is Youngest to Get Life Sentence Without Parole

Despite some notorious incidents of school violence in recent years, it is the young who are mainly responsible for the nationwide decline in violent crime since the mid-1990s. An analysis of FBI data by Jeffrey A. Butts of the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, highlights the trend. From 1985 to 1995, notes Butts, violent-crime arrests (for murder, rape, assault, and robbery) in the U.S. rose by 298,670, with youths under 25 accounting for 38% of the increase. In the four years from 1995 to 1999, such arrests declined by 151,460, with that same age group accounting for 51% of the drop. The declines have been especially sharp among those under 18. Continue reading Business Week – The Young and Arrest-Less