In addition to an overview of the area, it contains chapters in the following sections:

• Relevant Law (focusing on important legislation and on U.S. Supreme Court decisions from Kent and Gault to Eddings, Roper, Graham, and Miller-Jackson, and on the relevant legal theory of preventive justice for adolescents)
• Human Development (describing research on adolescent development and brain development as they apply to behavior in the juvenile justice context)
• Patterns of Offending (including evidence about offending in juveniles and the persistence vs. desistance into adulthood)
• Risk Factors for Offending (evidence about risk factors for juvenile offending including Risk-Need-Responsivity theory, juvenile psychopathy, substance abuse, gangs, and trauma/adverse experience, as well as threat assessment and bullying prevention in schools)
• Forensic Assessment (assessing risk, needs/amenability, and sophistication-maturity as part of legal decisions on commitment, transfer, and reverse transfer, as well as legal decisions on Miranda waiver capacity and competence to stand trial)
• Interventions (evidence on risk-reducing interventions, both in the community and in residential placement, including for specialized offending of sexual offenders)
• Training and Ethics (including the updated MacArthur curriculum on adolescents in the juvenile justice system and an analysis of the ethical issues particular to juvenile justice)