Juvenile Justice Professionals Research Articles

Implementing the Crossover Youth Practice Model in diverse contexts: Child welfare and juvenile justice professionals' experiences of multisystem collaborations

This study takes advantage of a unique opportunity to observe structural and psychosocial processes of multisystem collaborations primarily from the perspectives of professionals attempting to bring about change in practice with crossover youth. The involvement of maltreated youth in the juvenile justice system is a persistent problem that can compound vulnerable youths' risks for problematic developmental outcomes. Youth outcomes may be improved when professionals in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems communicate and collaborate more effectively in case assessment, planning and management. The Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) is an attempt to translate these and other research findings into practice largely through multisystem collaborations. This study presents an approximately two year-long, ethnographic inquiry into professionals' experiences of CYPM implementation in five diverse counties in a Midwestern state. During individual interviews, participants consistently described structural changes involving improved service provision to youth and families, and procedures and legal mandates for sharing information across departments. They also discussed psychosocial changes including improved professional support, strengthened relationships with other professionals and positive shifts in their ways of thinking and feeling about youth and their families. Participants also experienced implementation challenges including inadequate support and training of front line workers, distinguishing core features of the multifaceted model, and some issues in engaging families and key community stakeholders. Comparative case analyses across five counties suggest that systems change processes vary across and within local contexts. Implications for the implementation of systems change practice models in diverse contexts with professionals serving in various roles are discussed.

I'm Tired of My Child Getting Into Trouble: Parental Controls and Supports of Juvenile Probationers

Examining the relationship between parental controls and supports and the reoffending patterns of juvenile probationers, this study used a convenience sample of 88 parents of court-involved youth in one jurisdiction. Parents completed a questionnaire regarding their utilization of parental controls and supports. Overall, the results indicated that parental supervision, parental reliability, and prior record were significant contributors of reoffending whereas in the parental efficacy models, parental resignation was a significant predictor of offending patterns. These findings have practical implications for juvenile justice professionals.

Collaboration Between Community Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Systems: Barriers and Facilitators

Recent studies have confirmed a high prevalence of youth with diagnosable mental health disorders within the juvenile justice system, as well as the vulnerability of youth in the mental health system who enter the juvenile justice system. This high prevalence of dual system involvement has spawned challenges of collaboration between the mental health and juvenile justice systems to provide needed services to youth and their families. Seventy-two in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 youth and their parents/guardians, mental health professionals from five different community mental health centers, and juvenile justice professionals in urban and rural communities in a Midwest state in the United States. Professionals, youth and parents identified several important factors that facilitated collaboration, as well as a myriad of barriers that needed to be overcome. Findings suggest ways to improve partnerships between the two systems and the development of supportive policies and procedures.

Dealing with the fall-Out: Identifying and addressing the role that relationship strain plays in the lives of girls in the juvenile justice system

Much research has found that girls and boys process strain differently. The purpose of this article, however, is to argue that a particular form of strain—relationship strain—explains why girls commit delinquency. The concept of relationship strain comes from combining key elements of feminist theories with Agnew's (1992) conception of strain which results when there is a presentation of negative or painful stimuli, or a loss of positive valued stimuli. To test our assertion, we examined data from 27 focus groups with delinquent girls, incarcerated women that were system-involved as adolescents and juvenile justice professionals that work with girls. We were interested in knowing what the participants believed got girls into trouble and whether there would be commonalties among their answers. Additionally, we wanted to know if their responses would be related to strain. A quasi-grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data. Findings indicated a great deal of congruency among groups. Nearly everything the focus group participants identified as leading girls into trouble (e.g., abuse and neglect, boyfriends, and fighting) was related to strain and boiled down to one thing—relationships. We concluded that it is likely the attempt to cope with relationship strain that leads to delinquency.

We’ve Had Three of Them: Addressing the Invisibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Gender Nonconforming Youths in the Juvenile Justice System

Two researchers were speaking to a high-ranking probation officer from a large city, trying to convince her to participate in a project on lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning (LGB), and gender nonconforming youths. (1) Her first response was, I've worked in this system for twenty-five years and in all of that time I think we've had three of [these types of youths]. (2) This quote perfectly captures a prevalent myth: the juvenile justice system detains only very few LGB and gender non-conforming youths. Juvenile justice professionals believe this myth because only a handful of LGB and gender non-conforming youths disclose their sexual orientations, act in ways that do not conform to gender norms, (3) or have court cases linked to their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. (4) However, many LGB youths, youths who are questioning their sexual orientations or youths who have non-conforming gender identities enter the juvenile justice system unnoticed. (5) The disproportionate incarceration of youths of color within the juvenile justice system further reinforces the invisibility of LGB and gender non-conforming youths. (6) Many juvenile justice professionals assume that LGB and gender non-conforming youths come from middle class, white families, and therefore, juvenile justice jurisdictions detaining large numbers of youths of color do not serve LGB and gender non-conforming youths. (7) This Article shows that both assumptions are wrong. National survey data presented in this Article shows that fifteen percent of youths in the juvenile justice system are LGB, questioning their sexual orientation, transgender or express their gender in non-conforming ways. Moreover, the data shows that equal proportions of white, African American and Latino youths are LGB and gender non-conforming. (8) Yet, myths around the nonexistence of LGB and gender nonconforming youths in the juvenile justice system persist, presenting numerous challenges to the equitable treatment of such youths. Juvenile justice professionals need to know that LGB or gender non-conforming youths exist within the system, and that LGB or gender non-conforming youths often enter the juvenile justice system for different reasons than straight youths. For example, the findings presented in this Article show that LGB or gender non-conforming youths are more likely than heterosexual youths to enter the juvenile justice system because they run away from home or placement or because of status offenses such as truancy. (9) Juvenile justice professionals need to know the underlying reasons for failure to remain at home, in placement or truancy in order to identify successful alternatives to detention and out-of-home placements or to assign appropriate terms of probation. Yet, gathering information about clients' sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression create a difficult conundrum for juvenile justice professionals. While juvenile justice professionals need to know the reasons that youths have entered the juvenile justice system, many youths do not disclose their sexual orientations or gender identities. Research that uncovers high levels of homophobic reprisal from peers, parents, institutional staff or judges provides one possible explanation for such lack of disclosure: youths may fear further victimization if they disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity. (10) The policy recommendations provided at the end of this Article can help create safe conditions that lead to disclosure about sexual orientation and gender identity, but there will always be youths who prefer to maintain their privacy. (11) Faced with the need to serve LGB and gender non-conforming youths while respecting their privacy, national survey data can help inform practice even when the sexual orientation or gender identity of individual youths are not known in individual instances. By analyzing 2,100 surveys that have been collected from six jurisdictions across the country, this Article: * provides the only existing estimates of the number of LGB and gender non-conforming youths who enter the juvenile justice system; * describes patterns of incarceration for LGB and gender nonconforming youths compared with their heterosexual and gender conforming peers to help juvenile justice professionals understand the social context around the detention of many LGB and gender non-conforming youths; and * offers suggestions to juvenile justice professionals on how to address the needs of LGB and gender non-conforming youths, whether visible or invisible within the juvenile justice system. …

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth (and) Violence

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth (and) Violence

Improving professional judgments of risk and amenability in juvenile justice.

The dual requirement to ensure community safety and promote a youthful offender's positive development permeates policy and frames daily practice in juvenile justice. Balancing those two demands, explain Edward Mulvey and Anne-Marie Iselin, requires justice system professionals at all levels to make extremely difficult decisions about the likely risk and amenability to treatment of adolescent offenders. Mulvey and Iselin point out that although various forms of "structured" decision-making instruments are used widely in other fields, juvenile justice professionals today make limited use of these tools. Instead, they make decisions based mainly on their intuition about whether the adolescent before them is more likely to harm the community or to use justice system services to turn his life around. The reluctance of busy court professionals to use these structured decision-making tools, they say, arises partly from their heavy work load. But it also grows out of the ethos of the juvenile court itself. Restricting an adolescent's freedom or access to interventions based on a tallying of empirical data is antithetical to viewing each adolescent as a unique individual whose life chances may remain intact with developmentally appropriate intervention. Mulvey and Iselin recommend and examine three ways to integrate structured judgment approaches into the juvenile justice system that both capitalize on their strengths and support the court's attempts to provide fair, individualized justice. First, more reliance on actuarial methods at detention and intake would promote more efficient and equitable screening of cases for subsequent court involvement. Second, the use of structured decision making by probation officers could provide more consistent and valid guidance for the court when formulating dispositions. Finally, implementing structured data systems to chart the progress of adolescents in placement could allow judges to oversee service providers more effectively. The challenge for the juvenile system, say the authors, will be to harness the new capacities of the science of decision making and of computer technology to increase the efficiency of its limited resources for the benefit both of the community and of the adolescents in the system.

Reconciling the Differences Between the “Gender-Responsive” and the “What Works” Literatures to Improve Services for Girls

Recent increases in the delinquency and incarceration of girls have prompted juvenile justice professionals to search for effective, gender-specific prevention and treatment strategies. Given the dearth of research on girls' programming, these professionals are often left to sort out discrepancies between two major bodies of literature that address the needs of delinquent girls—the “what works” literature and the “gender-responsive” literature. This article culls the best of what is available within both these bodies of literature and suggests programmatic elements deemed essential for working effectively with girls.

The Impact of Mental Health Treatment Intensity on the Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Youth in a Residential Treatment Facility

This study focused on the growing number of juvenile delinquents who enter the juvenile justice system presenting severe mental health issues that often go undetected by juvenile justice professionals. The sample consisted of 163 court ordered juvenile delinquents at a residential treatment facility in northwestern Pennsylvania. The sample was required to complete two surveys in an attempt to measure presenting mental health symptoms, emotional, and behavioral problems while at the facility, mental health service intensity, and severity of prior delinquent behaviors. This study is intended to examine the impact treatment intensity had on the emotional and behavioral problems the delinquent experiences while at the facility controlling for presenting mental health issues and severity of prior delinquent activity. The results show a not significant relationship between treatment intensity and emotional problems while at the facility. However, greater service intensity was related to the amount of behavioral problems the youth experiences while at the facility. Severity of prior delinquent activity and presenting mental health issues are strong predictors of increased behavioral problems while at the facility, while high levels of mental health symptoms can predict elevated emotional problems.

The Oregon Mental Health Referral Checklists: Concept Mapping the Mental Health Needs of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Thisarticlesummarizesthedevelopmentofcheckliststoidentifythementalhealthneedsof youth in the juvenile justice system. With concept mapping as its base, a 31-item checklist was developed in three parallel forms and assessed on three samples: youth in a locked correctional facility and parents and juvenile justice professionals of adjudicate youth who were sentenced to community service. The instruments appear to have acceptable to very good internal consistency and moderate to strong coefficients of equivalence. Total symptomswereassociatedwithinternalandexternalproblemsforyouth,suggestionsfrom a trusted friend that one might have a mental health problem, and various other mental healthhistoryvariables fortheyouth version. Theinstruments appearto haveacceptableto very good reliability and very good validity for the youth version; furthermore, they are useful in identifying acting-out crises and psychological crises, including harm to self, others, and property. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 5:9‐18 (2005)]

Are Those Cookies for Me or My Baby? Understanding Detained and Incarcerated Teen Mothers and Their Children

ABSTRACTThis article describes the barriers to understanding and meeting the needs of detained and incarcerated teen mothers and their children and suggests strategies for overcoming these barriers. The barriers include impaired research access, insufficient programs and services, and improper conditions of confinement. The author presents a blueprint of girl‐specific strategies for improving services, such as the administration of a needs‐based intake screening and assessment. Exemplary programs from around the nation are cited and their methods described. The article provides a comprehensive plan for systemic change that can be effected by judges, lawyers, program administrators, and other juvenile justice professionals.

Issues in the Seclusion and Restraint of Juveniles: Policy, Practice and Possibilities

The appropriate use of seclusion and restraint (S/R) is an important issue among juvenile justice professionals. Recent newspaper articles have brought the issue to the attention of the United States Senate, law enforcement agencies, and the general public. The result has been a series of investigations and publications by the Senate, law enforcement, and professional associations. Despite the attention this issue has received, professionals have yet to reach a definitive agreement as to what recent legislation and the professional and popular literature regarding the use of S/R. They identify major issues currently under discussion, highlight areas of consensus, and enumerate several dimensions that require further exploration. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of S/R for social work practitioners, including the importance of education and training, monitoring, hiring, policy advocacy, and ongoin research.

Victim Participation in the New Juvenile Court: Tracking Judicial Attitudes Toward Restorative Justice Reforms

Although victims’ rights legislation is now challenging juvenile justice professionals to give crime victims a role in decision making, juvenile courts have traditionally focused primarily on the individual needs and risks of young offenders. Recently, the restorative justice focus on repairing harm has helped to link victim involvement to a broader juvenile court mission that includes victims, as well as offenders and communities, as stake-holders in the justice process. Based on a national survey of U.S. juvenile court judges, as well as qualitative data from focus groups in four states, this article examines attitudes toward crime victim participation at several levels of the juvenile justice system. The impact of individual experience, organizational environment, and professional ideology on these attitudes is examined using multivariate analyses to explain differences in support for the focus on victim involvement as one component of restorative justice. Implications for implementation of restorative justice policy and practice, as well as for future research, are considered.

The Fork in the Road to Juvenile Court Reform

Juvenile justice reform efforts seeking a more criminalized juvenile court and justice system, as well as those aimed at revitalizing the individual treatment mission, have been one-dimensional in their failure to address the multiple justice needs of communities associated with youth crime, and they have been insular in their singular focus on the needs and risks of offenders. In the late 1990s, a growing number of juvenile justice professionals began to embrace a third, more holistic vision for reform based on a normative concern with repairing the harm caused by crime to individuals and relationships and a commitment to victims, communities, and offenders as primary stakeholders in the justice process. This article considers the implications of emerging practice based on a restorative community justice model for systemic reform in the context, content, and structure of juvenile justice and the response to youth crime.

Responding to ADHD youth in the juvenile justice system

Juvenile justice professionals are increasingly faced with the task of understanding the role of psychiatric disorders in contributing to the behavior of juvenile offenders. Attention‐Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one such disorder that presents at a rate well beyond chance levels in youth in the juvenile justice system. This article provides an overview of the current symptom profile, diagnosis, cause and risk factors for ADHD. The interface of the juvenile justice system and youth with ADHD is described in all aspects beginning with detention through adjudication and disposition.

Juvenile justice decision making in a rural hispanic community

The processing of juveniles through the juvenile justice system of a jurisdiction encompassing two rural counties in New Mexico where the numerical majority of the population is Hispanic/Mexican American was examined. The official records of 591 juveniles referred to the Juvenile Probation and Parole Office were analyzed and interviews with all Juvenile Probation and Parole Officers (JPPOs) assigned to this jurisdiction were conducted. The results suggest that (1) juveniles are subject to considerable police surveillance; (2) this rural community relies extensively on formal social control; and (3) the diversity, rather than homogeneity, of this rural community affects the decision making of its juvenile justice professionals.

What's “New” About the Balanced Approach?

AbstractOver the past decade, many juvenile justice professionals became familiar with the “Balanced Approach as a new mission for juvenile probation. In recent months, a number of jurisdictions have adopted the Balanced Approach, by statute or policy, as the mission for their juvenile courts and juvenile justice systems. However, a great deal of misunderstanding persists about the meaning and practical differences between the Balanced Approach and other intervention models. While both quality and consistency of implementation of “balanced” policy and practice vary widely, some juvenile justice managers are using this new mission as a tool or “roadmap” for comprehensive re‐structuring of juvenile justice systems and agencies. This paper argues that when viewed as a guide to systemic, rather than programmatic, reform, the Balanced Approach can be clearly distinguished from both the traditional individual treatment and the new retributive/punitive juvenile justice missions. Six critical differences between the Balanced Approach and these missions are described.

Implementing Detention Intake Reform: The Judicial Response

This study examines several influences on judges' attitudes toward implementation of new detention intake policies in Florida. Based on a statewide survey of all circuit judges on the juvenile bench, the analysis focuses specifically on the relative impact of judges' agreement with the statutory purpose of detention, working relationships with other juvenile justice professionals, and a variety of demographic and occupational variables on support for these reforms. The findings, which indicate that agreement with the statutory purpose of detention exerts the dominant influence, have implications for policy-makers interested in improving the implementation process in juvenile justice.

Controlling School Crime: An Examination of Interorganizational Relations of School and Juvenile Justice Professionals

Abstract Crime in and around schools creates a climate of fear among students and teachers, and disrupts the learning environment. Effective control of school crime demands the cooperative efforts of school and juvenile justice officials. This paper examines the interorganizational relations between school principals, teachers, and juvenile probation officers by comparing survey results from three cities. Findings reveal significant differences onmethods for controlling school crime; and on due process and sharing of school and court records. School and court officials do cooperate in working with students who are under probation supervision; but the extent of their interaction is characterized by a low level of interorganizational relations.

The Jailing of Juveniles in Minnesota: A Case Study

Minnesota is nationally recognized for its enlightened criminal justice policies. It was the first state where policymakers implemented a comprehensive system of sentencing guidelines for adults and developed sound policies regarding the use of imprisonment. As a result, Minnesota has one of the lowest rates of incarceration of adults in the country and is one of only a handful of states with prisons that are not severely overcrowded. Unfortunately, the juvenile justice system in Minnesota has not kept pace with the advances in the adult area. For example, Minnesota has one of the highest incarceration rates for juveniles. This is primarily due to the fact that large numbers of young people are committed for relatively short periods of time to county operated training schools. Also, Minnesota is one of the states where large numbers of juveniles are admitted to county jails and municipal lockups each year. This article takes a close look at the problem of the jailing of juveniles in Minnesota and explores the implications for policymakers, juvenile justice professionals, public interest groups, and child advocates.