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You are a juvenile probation officer who is assigned to the intake unit. On Friday afternoon a 15-year-old juvenile is brought to the intake unit by a police officer for stealing a DVD player worth $250 from a local department store. The officer states that the juvenile has been cooperative since the arrest, and the officer has never arrested this juvenile before. You check the county records to obtain the delinquency history of this juvenile. You discover that two years ago the juvenile was taken into custody for running away from home and was released to the custody of his parents. After looking at the juvenile’s prior history, you contact the juvenile’s parents. The parents do not seem concerned that their son has been taken into custody and make the remark that they expected this to occur sooner or later. The parents also tell you that the juvenile has begun to skip school but has not been arrested for this behavior.

1 What do you do with the case? Do you petition the case to juvenile court, handle the matter informally by placing the juvenile on informal probation, or dismiss the case altogether? What factors led you to make your decision? Look at chapter 9, in the Intake and Decision to Detain…pages 258-262 (of the 3rd edition).

2 What is the role of plea bargaining? Is this necessary?

3 Read the Focus on Practice box for Juveniles in Adult Jails on p. 261 (3rd ed.). Do you think juvenile offenders should be held in adult facilities at all (even with the provisions of the JJDP Act)? Explain fully.

4 List 5 key facts or research findings from the chapter (CH 10) and cite the page number (do not use vocabulary words or key summaries already listed at the end of the chapter).