Publications on Delinquency & Crime

Many young people in the District of Columbia are failing to make a successful transition to adulthood. Their challenges include poor preparation for the high-skills labor market and long-standing health problems. Recent District government efforts have centered around school reform and early childhood, but these areas are not sufficient to improve the well-being of older youth. This report provides comprehensive data indicators and analysis on the state of older youth (age 12-24) in the District and examines the role of area nonprofits that work with young people, their families, and neighborhoods.

From health and housing to school achievement and employment, a new report from the Urban Institute provides the most comprehensive source of data on the state of teenagers and young adults in the District of Columbia.

This report presents interim findings of the Urban Institute's evaluation of the Gang Reduction Program (GRP), a $10 million, multi-year, federal initiative to reduce gang crime in Los Angeles, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; North Miami Beach, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia. The evaluation found substantial variation in collaboration levels among partners in each site, but each site achieved significant implementation successes. The effects of GRP in each site were mixed, and only one site, Los Angeles, showed a significant reduction in crime levels. By late 2007, however, three sites had undertaken significant steps towards sustaining GRP beyond the federal funding period.

The Moving to Opportunity program targeted families living in some of the nation's poorest, highest-crime neighborhoods and offered them a chance to move to lower poverty areas. One hope was that, away from concentrated poverty and the risks associated with it–including poor physical and mental health, risky sexual behavior and delinquency–families would fare better. This brief examines how adolescent girls benefited from moving out of high poverty and discusses why girls might have fared so much better than boys.

In this Washington Examiner commentary, John Roman explains why automatically putting juvenile offenders in adult detention is a mistake: it can turn the teenagers into hardened criminals and sends the message that society has written them off.