Adolescents are developmentally distinct from adults in ways that merit a tailored response to juvenile crime. Normative adolescent brain development is associated with increases in risk taking, which may include criminal behavior. Juvenile delinquency peaks during the adolescent years and declines in concert with psychosocial maturation. However, current U.S. approaches to juvenile justice are misaligned with youth's developmental needs and may undermine the very psychosocial development necessary for youth to transition out of crime and lead healthy adult lives. In this article, I discuss empirically supported and efficacious responses to juvenile crime in the United States, as well as opportunities for further developmental reform of the juvenile justice system. Developmentally appropriate responses to juvenile crime prioritize community-based corrections and engage youth's social context in the rehabilitative process. The juvenile justice system shares the responsibility to prepare youth to live fulfilling, productive adult lives; that responsibility can be achieved by partnering with developmental scientists to inform juvenile justice practice and policy.

Purpose: Despite a common conceptual root, research applying legitimacy theory addresses any number of more or less distinct behaviours, attitudes, and processes. Although this variety in approaches has complicated theoretical development, we argue that it is critical to addressing the breadth of the construct. To address this state of affairs, we offer the Concentric Diagram of Legitimacy as an organizing tool for the literature. The diagram roots itself in the dialogue of legitimacy , and argues that legitimacy theory is fundamentally comprised of five key theoretical propositions. Proposition 1 addresses the link between authority and acquiescence directly while the remaining propositions link organizational support (Proposition 2) and public approval (Proposition 3) with authority, and interactions (Proposition 4) and the social context (Proposition 5) with acquiescence.

Despite surging interest in legal socialization, it is unclear how youth develop legal cynicism. The present study examined two socialization mechanisms for youth legal cynicism: perceptions of police treatment and maternal legal cynicism. Additionally, we assessed the degree to which an adolescent’s legal cynicism predicts reoffending. Youth and their mothers (338 dyads, total N = 676) were interviewed following their son’s first arrest. Path modeling tracked the associations between youths’ perceptions of police treatment, youths’ and mothers’ legal cynicism, and youth reoffending. Results suggest that youths’ legal cynicism derives from their own perceived treatment by police and not from mothers’ legal cynicism. Additionally, youth who perceived the police to have treated them more fairly reported less legal cynicism and in turn reoffended less. Findings advance our understanding of the etiology of legal cynicism and can inform best practices for police interactions with youth.