Juvenile Crime and Punishment. Steven D. Levitt. It can be argued that harsher punishments reduce juvenile crime, but evidence does not always support this view. Over the last two decades juvenile violent crime has grown almost twice as quickly as that of adults. This paper finds that changes in relative punishments can account for 60 percent of that differential.
Juvenile offenders are at least as responsive to criminal sanctions as adults.
There does not, however, appear to be a strong relationship between the punitiveness of the juvenile justice system that a cohort faces and the extent of criminal involvement for that cohort later in life. Another interesting site that gives condensed explanations of advertising technique terminology.