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21 J. Offender Rehab. 1 (1994)

handle is hein.journals/wjor21 and id is 1 raw text is: YOUNG VICTIMS, YOUNG OFFENDeRS. Pp. 1-9. © 1994 by The Haworth Pres,. Inc. All rights reserved. OVERVIEW: CRIME, CHILDREN, AND ADOLESCENTS NATHANIEL I. PALLONE Rutgers University ERIC WORKOWSKI Rutgers University ABSTRACT As an overview to the substantive papers in this volume, this essay reviews data concerning the rate of offending and the rate of victimization among children and adolescents, along the way deploring the lack of comprehensive national data on victimization. It is seen that children and adolescents are at substantially greater risk, on the basis of statistical incidence, for the commission of nuisance offenses than for serious offenses. Implications for correctional rehabilitation are suggested. That criminal offenses committed by and against children and youth constitute collectively and individually a national disgrace is an unexceptionable proposition. Fueled by the latest headlines depicting atrocities - from the mindless gang-rape of the Central Park Jogger through the sexually motivated kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas - the impression that the dimensions of that disgrace enlarge exponentially seems inescapable. As British criminologists Jane Morgan and Lucia Zedner (1992, p. 21) recently put it: In the literature on crime, children and youth are far more likely to be viewed as offenders than as victims. It is well known that juvenile offenders contribute significantly to the total volume of recorded crime, but only in the 1990s is it being recognized that young people, especially those of school age, figure disproportionately as victims.