Restorative Justice Conference as an Early Response to Young Offenders

Those seeking to deter young offenders from further delinquency will benefit from the information provided in these pages. Recently reported findings of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s) Study Group on Very Young Offenders confirm the seriousness of early offending behavior. Study Group researchers report, for example, that the risk of becoming a more serious offender is two to three times higher for child delinquents (those ages 7–12) than for later onset offenders (Loeber, Farrington, and Petechuk, in press).2 Child delinquents also account for a relatively high proportion of some types of offenses. They represent 1 in 3 juvenile arrests for arson, 1 in 5 juvenile arrests for vandalism, and 1 in 12 juvenile arrests for violent crime (Loeber and Farrington, 2000). For some young offenders, early involvement in status offenses and delinquency is a stepping stone in a pathway to serious, violent, and chronic offending. Communities should not ignore the delinquent acts and problem behaviors of young offenders in the hope that they will “grow out of it” (Loeber, Farrington, and Petechuk, in press). Because such young offenders have a high likelihood of reoffending, communities should develop and implement effective early interventions for very young offenders.