Status Offenders Research Articles

Avoiding Out-of-Home Placement of High-Risk Status Offenders through the Use of Intensive Home-Based Family Preservation Services

This article describes the values and program components of an intensive home-based family preservation service program called Homebuilders, which was designed to treat status-offending youths in danger of imminent out-of-home placement and their families. Data indicated that 87% of 687 youth referred to Homebuilders avoided placement for 12 months after service intake. These results are discussed with respect to program replication, other client populations, and future research directions.

Status Offender Legislation and the Courts

Abstract The records of 558 juveniles sheltered at a short-term residential facility from April 1980 to February 1985 were examined to determine the effect of Senate Bill 623 (MRAI) on status offenders. It was found that the dispositions of clients under the new MRAI legislation were not significantly different from earlier dispositions under the old MINS statute. Judicial circumvention of the Juvenile Court Act, through criminal contempt convictions for non-criminal behavior, is discussed as well as judicial ideological commitments to punishment for truancy and related ideological commitments to punishment for truancy and related status offenses. These commitments represent a major barrier to legislative reform in juvenile justice.

Status offender legislation and the courts

Status offender legislation and the courts

Juvenile Status Offenders' Perceptions of Life Change Events

Juvenile Status Offenders' Perceptions of Life Change Events

Law Enforcement, Social Justice, and the Legacy of Milton Eisenhower

The new policy advocated by the Eisenhower Foundation is well illustrated by the neighborhood, education, and employment opportunity extended to high-risk young people by the Dorchester Youth Collaborative in Boston. But such promising programs, and other state and local initiatives, require far more resources than they now are receiving from Washington. The challenges that lie ahead include continued deinstitutionalization of status offenders, reform of a correctional system in which minority youth are assigned to public institutions and whites are placed in private facilities, and effective control of handguns.

The Nature and Correlates of Psychological/Emotional Functioning among a Sample of Detained Youths

This study explores the relationships between a sample of detained juveniles' specific problems and their psychological orientations. It was proposed that for youths who are in trouble with the law, specific behavioral difficulties (e.g., substance abuse) would be associated with the youths' psychological orientation to a deviant lifestyle. Analysis of a sample of 145 status offender and juvenile delinquent cases revealed a significant positive association among “antisocial” orientation and physical abuse, illicit drug use, repeated placements in secure detention, and self-derogation. These relationships held when controlling for the effects of gender, age, and ethnicity. These results support the view that specific behavior problems are related to a valuation of a deviant lifestyle. The implications of these results for service providers are discussed.

Incidence of placement in group homes for juvenile status offenders.

Incidence of placement in group homes for juvenile status offenders.

The competent community revisited: A case study of networking in policy implementation

This case study analyzes an attempt to develop the ability of community organizations and groups to coordinate their efforts in implementing state legislation for the deinstitutionalization of status offenders. The intervention was carried out by a “networker,” whose responsibilities closely resembled those associated with the “ombudsman” role proposed by Sarason and Lorentz (1979). Using a strategy emphasizing locality development (Rothman, 1968), the networker organized community meetings where organizations concerned with the legislation were brought together for the purpose of resource exchange. A variety of collaborative projects involving shared resources resulted from these networking meetings. The implications of the intervention for developing community competence are discussed, with special attention being paid to the roles that intangible resources and commitment to the geographical community play in networking. The need for comparative research on network development that goes beyond the casestudy approach is also addressed.

Podstawowe kierunki rozwoju systemu penitencjarnego w Polsce

Podstawowe kierunki rozwoju systemu penitencjarnego w Polsce

Work Environment Correlates of Staff Stress in a Youth Detention Facility

We intensively interviewed 53 staff members of a state-operated regional children's detention center, located in a large, metropolitan, southern city. The center houses both delinquent and status offender youths, incarcerated on a variety of charges ranging from truancy to homicide. Staff stress was related to key features of their work environment. Concern about detainee acting out behavior, the perceived frequency of detainee “problem” behavior while in the facility, and the felt need for substance abuse services for detainees and better educational/recreational programs related positively to staff stress. Implications of these findings for developing a more realistic view of the nature and impact of the detention center experience for both detainees and staff are drawn.

The Washington State Juvenile Justice System Reform: A Review of Findings

Although many states have altered their juvenile justice systems during the past decade, none has undertaken a reform as far-reaching or complex as that implemented by the state of Washington in 1978. The intent of the Washington system is to hold juveniles accountable for their crimes and, simultaneously, to hold the system accountable for what it does to juveniles. Rehabilitation has been replaced as the fundamental philosophy of the court by a "justice" or "just deserts" model which emphasizes fairness, uniformity and proportionality in the court's response to juvenile offenses. This article summarizes the results of a federally-funded assessment of the reform. The legislation, which included intake and sentencing guidelines based on seriousness of offense, prior offenses and age of the youth, produced many changes in decision-making. The practice of informally adjusting cases at intake, for example, was completely eliminated, and sentences were considerably more uniform and more proportionate in the post-reform era. The overall level of sentence severity, however, was actually reduced at least during the first two years after the law went into effect. Status offenses were removed from court jurisdiction without any noticeable net-widening effect but with considerable relabeling. The effect of these changes on recidivism of offenders or status offenders was almost impossible to determine because of the confounding between changes in system processing and changes in actual behavior of the youths.

Decreasing Court Appearances of Juvenile Status Offenders

This study of first-time juvenile status offenders showed a significant decrease in court appearances of two groups who received special treatment compared to the control group. Treatment included intervention counseling, informal unofficial probation, and appropriate referrals to other community agencies.

Why Deinstitutionalizing Status Offenders is Pointless

A program to remove status offenders from secure facilities is evaluated in terms of both immediate objectives and underlying philosophy. We find only mixed success, at best, in achievement of immediate goals, while a critical examination of philosophical assumptions behind the national deinstitutionalization movement reveals inherent confusions and contradictions that make pointless any program that attempts deinstitutionalization without decriminalization and divestiture.

From status to delinquent offenses: Escalation?

An important issue in juvenile justice today is whether the juvenile court should maintain or abandon its present legal jurisdiction over status offenders. Arguments in favor of retaining such jurisdiction are often based on the relatively untested assumption of career “escalation”—the idea that juvenile misbehaviors, if left untreated, will increase in seriousness with age from status offenses to more serious forms of delinquency. However, our analysis of self-reported surveys from a national panel of boys indicates that patterns of juvenile misbehaviors are more likely to be stable or constant over time than to increase in seriousness. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Race and the Impact of Juvenile Deinstitutionalization

In a study of 32,000 referrals to juvenile court, the effects of a program to deinstitutionalize status offenders on detention decisions, intake screening, and final dispositions were examined. Although the results of a general comparison of preprogram and postprogram court actions showed relatively little change in court policies, the data did indicate a slight general trend toward less use of secure detention, a greater use of informal hearings, and a lower rate of juveniles placed on probation or in institutions. Differential treatment based on race was evident throughout the 5-year period. Whereas the rate of secure detention of black juveniles declined overall, it increased for black status offenders, especially females. There was a substantial decrease in the use of formal hearings and in the severity of final dispositions for all cases involving black juveniles.

Extralegal Factors in Felony Sentencing: Classes of Behavior or Classes of People?

The radical‐conflict perspective of criminology stresses that legal sanctions are applied more against classes of people than classes of behavior. To test this proposition we took a class of behaviors–sex offenses–and a class of people–designated “normal primitives”–in an attempt to determine which of the groups accounted for more of the variance in sentence severity. We found that although sex offenders enjoyed considerably higher social status than did normal primitives, sex offender status accounted for more than eight times the amount of variance in sentence severity than did normal primitive status after controlling for legally relevant variables. These findings cast doubt on class‐based models of sentencing.

Divesting Status Offenses from Juvenile Court Jurisdiction

Most states and locales that have sought to deinstitutionalize status offenders have restricted or prohibited secure confinement, but have permitted the juvenile court to maintain jurisdiction over status offenses. This article examines Washington state's experiences with a different deinstitutionalization strategy (divestiture of court jurisdiction). The results indicate that divestiture is successful in eliminating coercive control over status offenses, but that relabeling and discretion permits approximately half of the status offenders to be referred to court. In one area, the probability that a runaway would have delinquency charges filed and sanctions applied increased under the divestiture law. Delinquents who had a history of running away were given more severe sentences than were “pure” delinquents in both the pre- and postreform systems.

Delinquents and status offenders: a comparison on selected family and social variables.

While juvenile delinquents (JDs) and status offenders (CINS) are considered distinctive legally and treated as though they were different in the juvenile justice system, there is little empirical evidence to support either differences or similarities psychologically. The present study examines intake and outcome data based on 96 JDs and CINS cases who remained in the community. The two groups' family structure, recidivism, and grade termination in school were found to be more similar than dissimilar. However, there was a tendency toward a more negative relationship between CINS and their mothers than between JDs and their mothers, while relationships with fathers were similar for the two groups. Significant, and perhaps related, findings were that more parents of CINS than JDs had previously been involved in psychotherapy and that CINS were removed from home with greater frequency than JDs. Family structure was found to be related to removal from home. Suggestions for treatment are offered.

Offense Specialization and Escalation among Status Offenders

Founded on the concept of parens patriae,' the juvenile court system has traditionally been allowed wide latitude to intervene in the lives of youths, ostensibly in their best interests. For most of its existence, the juvenile court has sanctioned juveniles who have run away from home, disobeyed their parents, or engaged in other status offenses2 in much the same manner as juveniles charged with committing serious crimes.3 In recent years, disillusionment with the policies and practices of the juvenile court has become widespread, precipitating a major controversy over the power and jurisdiction of the court.4 In turn, this controversy has become enmeshed in the broader and more complex issue of the legal status

“Who Signs the Complaint?” Relational Distance and the Juvenile Justice Process

This paper investigates the role of “relational distance” between complainant and offender as a determinant of legal sanctions in juvenile status offender cases. After reviewing evidence suggesting that greater relational distance is associated with harsher sanctioning, I develop the case for an alternative “relational resource” hypothesis, which emphasizes that conflicts among proximate parties entail an intrinsic loss of resources for the accused. This hypothesis is supported by status offense data from four decision points in the juvenile justice system which show, with some variation across decision points, that youth who are the subject of parent-initiated complaints fare consistently worse than youth accused by the police. The available evidence suggests that this is not explained by the possibility that parental accusations only occur when behavior is especially serious. Analyses of temporary detention and court disposition data reveal higher-order interactions that suggest that the impact of the complainant's identity is partially contingent on the formality of agency procedures and on the family's circumstances.