Police Pursuing Justice: Reframing Law Enforcement for the Twenty-First Century - Hardcover

by Samantha L. Bennett (Author), Jonathon A. Cooper (Author)

Using the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a case-study, along with two other states as controls, this book examines how BARJ legislation "trickles down" to the law enforcement level through Pennsylvania's Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Strategy (PJJSES) and the Juvenile Justice Act (JJA). This legislation is a direct application of the BARJ model to law enforcement, essentially directing police discretion in the direction of informal dispositions. The decision to dispose formal action (such as, a referral to either juvenile court/probation, criminal court, or adult criminal court) or informal action (for instance, handling the situation within the department and/or releasing the juveniles to parents with a warning), play an integral role in determining which juveniles contact the justice system. To this end, while the overall focus of our volume and research is specifically on the impact of the PJJSES and its 2012 amendments on the number of formal dispositions of juvenile suspects by law enforcement officers, it speaks more broadly to the ability of the BARJ model to affect police officer behavior through influencing their decision-making processes.

Author Biography

Samantha L. Bennett is assistant professor of criminal justice at Muskingum University. Jonathon A. Cooper is dean's associate for academic affairs in the College of Health and Human Services and associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.