A National Survey of Probation Staff of the Needs, Services and Barriers of Female Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings

Abstract

Despite a growing awareness and documentation of the growing proportion of justice-involved girls and their unique needs over the last three decades, federal efforts to disseminate gender-responsive priorities have largely been unsuccessful. The purpose of this national, cross-sectional survey of juvenile justice staff was to describe the current implementation of gender-responsive programming, the degree to which it is empirically supported, the needs of justice involved girls, and the training needs of juvenile justice staff for working with this population. Two-hundred juvenile justice staff from the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) responded to this 24-item online survey across 28 U.S. states. The large majority (97%) agreed girls have unique needs, while 94% thought they needed gender-responsive programming. Seventy-percent of respondents endorsed local gender-responsive programming, although most services were offered post-adjudication, and few were empirically supported. Probation staff identified multiple training and programmatic needs to support their work with justice-involved girls.