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Did Changes In Juvenile Sanctions Reduce Juvenile Crime Rates? A Natural Experiment, Franklin Zimring, Stephen Rushin

Franklin E. Zimring

This essay examines whether state statutory changes to the juvenile justice system during the 1990s contributed to the subsequent decline in juvenile homicide rates. Between 1985 and 1993, juvenile crime rates soared in the United States. Many prominent scholars and politicians argued that this uptick in youth crime was just the beginning of a forthcoming wave of juvenile violence. In response, between 1992 and 1997, forty-seven states enacted statutory changes that made the juvenile justice system more punitive. Between 1993 and 2010, juvenile crime declined markedly, leading some to conclude that that the punitive statutory changes caused the decline in …