32 2 Police and Law Enforcement—-Juvenile ForensicsPolice officers confront all sorts of troubled youths. For example, some adoles-
cents engage in underage drinking, join gangs, are truant, or become suicidal. How
do police officers in their crime control interventions promote the rehabilitation of
the adolescent? How do officers promote the aims of punishment?
Law enforcement personnel deal directly with youth gang members. What kind
of antigang police tactics are used to inhibit membership? What sort of antigang
control strategies are adopted to curb juvenile violence? What perceptions do non-
gang-affiliated adolescents have about these police interventions?
Juveniles in general also harbor attitudes and beliefs about law enforcement and
social control practices. Where do these adolescent perceptions come from? Can
these beliefs and attitudes be changed in any meaningful way?
Police officers also find themselves responding to youths who engage in some
very physically and emotionally debilitating behavior. Addressing child sexual ex-
ploitation (e.g., adolescent female prostitution) is perhaps one of the most difficult
forms of police intervention imaginable. How do officers cope with the sexual
victimization of children? How do the principles of rehabilitation or retribution
operate with this forensic problem? Are these youths hard-core criminals or unsus-
pecting victims?
The field of policing deviant, risky, and/or illicit juvenile conduct is by far more
complex than is described in the pages that follow. In addition, the perceptions
adolescents engender regarding law enforcement behavior and practices are also
more intricate and subtle than the space limits of this chapter allow. However, what
is clear is the important role of psychology and the psychological sciences at the
crossroads of policing and juvenile justice. As the individual sections of Chapter 2
repeatedly point out, improving relations between officers and (wayward) youths is
certainly needed. The impact of such efforts potentially could improve juvenile re-
cidivism rates and foster better, more meaningful police—community ties. One facet
to this more civic-minded agenda entails additional research. The manner in which
troubled youths, adolescent gangs, juvenile attitudes and beliefs, and child sexual
exploitation relate to policing is not well developed in the overlapping crimino-
Jogical and psychological literature. Thus, as the material developed in this chapter
recommends, the future success of juvenile justice and law enforcement necessitates
more cross-disciplinary efforts along these and similar lines of scholarly inquiry.
DEALING WITH TROUBLED YOUTHS
Introduction
The youth of today are faced with a variety of problems that put them at risk. These
problems include underage drinking and driving, drug abuse, pregnancy, suicide,
truancy, gang activity, and prostitution. It is not uncommon to pick up a newspaper