Juvenile Detention Research Articles

From Laggard to Innovator: Barbara Fruchter and the 1970s-Era Movement to Deinstitutionalize Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice

Abstract: Using diverse archival sources and oral history interviews, this essay examines how volunteer activist women in the 1970s galvanized support to pass major legislative reforms that made Pennsylvania a model for how to implement the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974 at the state level. Horrified by conditions they witnessed on a tour of a nearby juvenile detention center, three Philadelphia area women created a broad-based coalition—centered in the Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) of Pennsylvania—to improve local conditions of confinement and spearhead novel policies to transform juvenile justice statewide. Focusing on Barbara Fruchter, JJC cofounder and de facto leader of the state’s deinstitutionalization campaign, this essay probes how a now well-accepted idea in juvenile justice—treating the great majority of delinquent youth in small community-based rather than large institutional programs—was first envisioned and introduced into American juvenile justice a half-century ago.

Effective family‐based program options for justice‐involved youth

AbstractFamilies play a significant role both in youth's development of criminal behavior and in their desistance of criminal behavior. Nonetheless, programming for families of justice‐involved youth is limited. This article describes two family‐based programs found in the National Institute of Justice CrimeSolutions database. Among 19 programs for families, only the Functional Family Therapy and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Adolescents are documented as effective in helping justice‐involved youths and their families. The discussion proposes how these programs could be used to harness services under special education law for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities who are overrepresented in juvenile correctional facilities.

Institutionalised violence and child imprisonment in England and Wales: a case for abolition

This article focuses on youth custody and the imprisonment of children. It applies an abolitionist, anti-carceral lens to exploring this injustice. In doing so the article critically explores the imprisonment of children and young people in England and Wales and the institutionalised violence to which these children are subject. It presents a case study of the youth secure estate, using document analysis focused on two recent reports of Werrington Young Offenders Institution, undertaken by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons in 2022. These reports are drawn upon to support the key critical arguments, concerning the imprisonment of children, presented within this article. Such arguments are centred on the failure of the state to afford legitimate safety and protection to children imprisoned in these institutions, and the deplorable role of the state in directly causing and perpetuating a range of harms against children, including ‘cultural, physical and institutionally structured violence’ (Scott, 2020: 58). Finally, the article will present a framework for abolitionist alternatives to the imprisonment of children which will ultimately serve to ensure their safety and protection.

Developing an alternative curriculum for mathematics teaching in a detention faculty adopting an ethnomathematics perspective

In Greece, as more or less all over the world, the curriculum is a matter of central authority and teachers can only apply it in their classrooms, without any connection to the whole curriculum development process. Students’ population in prison schools, and especially young prisoners, often show school denial, poor performance, academic inadequacy, and failure, leading to low self-esteem (Mallett, 2014). Common barriers to participation are lack of motivation —often because of the absence of any means for meaning-making and identity formation in prison— and previous negative education experiences (Liebling, 2011) especially in secondary school when they frequently begin to truant. Working, as teacher, for long time in the secondary school of a youth detention center in Greece, I faced the challenge to reconsider the formal curriculum. Following an ethnomathematics perspective, an alternative curriculum is developing aiming to meet young prisoners’ needs and expectations as a matter of social justice, taking into consideration the need of techniques and strategies that can help to untangle and respond to above structures as part of ongoing research, policy, and practice. The young detainees following the official curriculum applied in the mainstream classes are faced with various problems, such as lack of appropriate schoolbooks, the need to motivate and successfully address educational, psychological and environmental difficulties, and the need for developing a framework for alternative teaching practices and materials based on a multicultural education with the teaching and learning of mathematics, as is the case in the field of ethnomathematics is dictated.

Psychopathy Scores Predict Recidivism in High-risk Youth: A Five-year Follow-up Study

Psychopathic traits have been associated with rearrest in adolescents involved in the criminal legal system. Much of the prior work has focused on White samples, short follow-up windows, and relatively low-risk youth. The current study aimed to evaluate the utility of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) for predicting general and violent felony recidivism in a large sample of high-risk, predominantly Hispanic/Latino, male adolescents (n = 254) with a five-year follow-up period. Results indicated higher PCL:YV scores and lower full-scale estimated IQ scores were significantly associated with a shorter time to felony and violent felony rearrest. These effects generalized to Hispanic/Latino adolescents (n = 193)—a group that faces disproportionate risk of being detained or committed to juvenile correctional facilities in the U.S. These results suggest that expert-rated measures of psychopathic traits and IQ are reliable predictors of subsequent felony and violent felony rearrest among high-risk male adolescents.

First Nations Voices in Child Protection Decision Making: Changing the Frame

First Nations children in Australia remain vastly over-represented in the child protection (CP) and out-of-home care (OOHC) systems, and in juvenile detention and adult incarceration systems. To change this, we need to tackle the problem at the source; by maintaining our efforts for the implementation of First Nations rights, so that self-determination and cultural safety are embedded into the child protection system from a family’s first contact and by constantly identifying opportunities in the current system to keep our children safe. Using policy and research literature, this paper identifies the principal barrier to change as the continuing failure of settler governance to recognise the fundamental importance of First Nations rights, including the need to embed self-determination and a specific, First Nations cultural framework into the child protection system. The article also offers personal reflections on the essential role of self-determination in keeping our children safe, drawing on Aunty Glendra Stubbs’ experiences in community-based advocacy and support of families for nearly three decades. Her reflections are linked to the literature and First Nations advocacy that support the findings and opportunities for change proposed in this paper.

A Statewide Evaluation of the Implementation of Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Guidelines in Juvenile Detention Centers.

This study aimed to explore suicide prevention in juvenile detention centers by conducting a case study of one state. Qualitative data from semistructured interviews were synthesized from 10 juvenile detention centers. Analytical techniques included thematic and content analysis and the integration of quantitative information and qualitative themes to illustrate key differences in suicide prevention practices and center characteristics among facilities with varying frequencies of crisis stabilization calls and critical incidents. Although the use of many suicide prevention practices was reported across the sample, the quality with which those practices were implemented was highly variable. The analysis suggests that facilities with higher-quality implementation of suicide prevention practices may have had leaders who acknowledged that their facility plays a role in suicide prevention. Moreover, preliminary evidence suggests that the quality of suicide prevention implementation may be associated with the number of crisis stabilization calls and critical incidents (i.e., variables related to suicidality) a facility experiences. Clear conceptualization of a juvenile detention center's role in suicide prevention may lead to better outcomes in suicide prevention implementation. High-quality implementation may reduce suicidality exhibited by youths in juvenile detention and save lives.

At the Edge of Space: The Archaeology of Boundaries within a Landscape for Young Convicts

Within a landscape, boundaries are the physically or socially defined lines that mark the limits of spaces. They can appear static and binary, and therefore analytically restricted. Yet it is argued here that while space is often analyzed in archaeology to inform social, economic, or institutional interpretations of a landscape, the analysis of boundaries is a complimentary method that captures movement, control, and prohibition mechanisms. Analyzing boundaries is shown to reveal aspects of change – sometimes diachronic and sometimes ephemeral – and a malleability that is often linked to materiality. The examination of the early nineteenth-century historical boundaries of Point Puer, a juvenile convict prison (1834–49) located in lutruwita/Tasmania, Australia, is used as a case study to illustrate their common archaeological forms. It is reasoned that the analysis of boundaries contributes dynamic interpretations of historical landscapes by theorizing boundaries as spatial frameworks to examine social and experiential elements of space.

Racism and violence in policing: Perspectives from a juvenile prison.

Following recent events involving racism and violence in policing, the current study sought to understand factors associated with support for related social movements and worries about personal, family, and peer safety.Data were from 78 currently incarcerated young people (M = 16.5 years; 31% Black) and 20 juvenile prison staff (M = 40.3 years; 72% Black) via online surveys. A comparable proportion of young people (47.3%) and staff (47.4%) reported participating in the Black Lives Matter movement. Among young people, prior experiences with police were significantly associated with support for social movements and worries about safety concerning racism and violence in policing. Among staff, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and racial and ethnic identity were significantly associated with social movement support and worries about safety. Civic education and interventions to promote racial and ethnic identity may promote support for systemic change and buffer against worries about racism and violence in policing.

A Research-Based Literacy Instruction MTSS for Juvenile Correctional Facilities

A major challenge for juvenile correctional facilities (JCF) is providing literacy instruction to a transitory student population with a wide range of literacy abilities. The purpose of this study was to identify unique literacy profiles of students in long-term JCF taking into consideration their reading abilities, language abilities, intelligence quotient (IQ), disability classification, age, and grade level. Using latent profile analyses with a sample of 370 in the southeastern United States, we identified three distinct classes. Three ability groups of students (average literacy abilities, below-average literacy abilities, substantially below-average literacy abilities) were identified. Thirty-six percent performed at the average level, 55% performed below grade level; and 8% had substantial literacy deficits with an overrepresentation of students with emotional disturbance (ED) and specific learning disability (SLD). Findings provide the foundation for an evidence-based multi-tiered system of supports literacy framework within JCF. Instructional implications concerning the provision of English Language Arts in JCF are provided.

Hyperincarceration and human rights abuses of First Nations children in juvenile detention in Queensland and the Northern Territory

ABSTRACT Hyperincarceration of First Nations peoples (both children in juvenile detention and adults in prisons) is a feature common to British settler colonial states. This article focuses on hyperincarceration of one population sub-group in one settler colonial state: children in Australian juvenile detention facilities. The treatment of First Nations children in Australian juvenile detention violates a number of Treaty obligations to which Australia has voluntarily committed. The article will focus on the treatment in two Australian jurisdictions – the Northern Territory and Queensland – where there have been high-profile instances of mistreatment that have garnered international and national attention and criticism. The treatment in these jurisdictions demonstrates the inconsistency between the international human rights law requirements and current legislation and policy. It argues that mistreatment that violates human rights law is directly contributed to by the hyperincarceration of First Nations children in juvenile detention, which is on a worsening trajectory.

From Our Cell to Your Block: Hip Hop and Podcasting as a Youth Participatory Action Research Intervention

This narrative inquiry explores the experiences of youth in a school within a juvenile detention facility, who participated in a hip hop and podcasting small-group counseling intervention. Specifically, youth wrote and recorded a podcast consisting of a hip hop song, interviews with their peers, and staff reflections on the youth’s experience. Salient results from this study offered that the hip hop podcasting group supported youth in emotionally processing their experience of being incarcerated.

An Artiture of Formerly Incarcerated Tongan Students in Community College

This article is taken from my dissertation study that explored the lived experiences of three Tongan Americans, each of whom were incarcerated in juvenile hall and are now attending college as a part of a transition program into local community colleges. The study introduced a Tongan version of the school-prison nexus by highlighting the ways in which the education and the justice systems work to ignore the dual culture realities of Tongans living in the United States. Adopting and fusing Fa‘avae’s (2016) talanoa and Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’ (1997) portraiture methodologies, I co-created a new approach Artiture—in collaboration with Taniela Petelo, my cousin, a Tongan-based international artist—to explore the following question: What are the challenges Tongan students face when they attend college after being incarcerated in the juvenile justice system? Findings from this Artiture highlighted intersections of family, history, cultural obligations and expectations, and the impact on Tongan Americans who deal with what Vakalahi (2009) calls “dual culture” (pg. 1259).

183. Advancing the Health of Juvenile Justice Involved Youth: The Efficacy of a Peer Health Education Curriculum at a Juvenile Detention Facility

183. Advancing the Health of Juvenile Justice Involved Youth: The Efficacy of a Peer Health Education Curriculum at a Juvenile Detention Facility

Adolescents' life between violence and discipline. Medical care in the "Jugendhäuser" juvenile detention centers in East Germany in the 1960s-1980s.

In 1952-1989, special juvenile detention centers, called Jugendhäuser, were established in the German Democratic Republic. There, juvenile delinquents had to not only complete their sentences, but they were also supposed to be re-educated into conscious socialist personalities through a system of collective education proposed by Soviet pedagogue Anton Makarenko. Among twelve Jugendhäuser in East Germany, the ones in Halle and Dessau were considered to have the most severe conditions due to the praxis of mental and physical violence. For the first time, based on the personal files of former juvenile prisoners and archival documents of medical services, we reconstruct a picture of the health status of prisoners and medical care in both these Jugendhäuser. We analyzed personal files of juvenile prisoners from the Archive of the Correctional Facility in Halle and unpublished documents from the Saxony-Anhalt State Archive, Magdeburg Department, the State Archive in Leipzig and the Stasi Records Archive in Halle. For the examination of these sources, we implemented the historical-critical method. The Jugendhäuser had a system of outpatient and inpatient treatment. Although the medical services rated the level of health care as good at those detention centers, numerous complaints from juveniles, as well as cases of failure to provide assistance, indicated certain deficiencies. Cases of violence in juvenile prisons were common, especially in the Jugendhaus Halle. Brawls between inmates led to injuries and sometimes even to deaths. Fear of beatings resulted in desperate acts such as self-harm, suicide and escapes from prison. The health status of young prisoners in the Jugendhäuser in Halle and Dessau was negatively affected by violence and often by lack of medical care. The prevalence of violence can be attributed to challenges of the penal system as well as deficiencies of the medical services. Since repressive means were used to overcome the violence, such efforts were not successful. The medical services did not offer specialized care for juveniles with mental and learning disorders or those who required psychological or even psychotherapeutic support. Physical health issues were also often ignored due to the stigmatization of sick juveniles as malingerers.

Examining body mass index and health-related fitness marker progression of incarcerated minority youth engaged in a sport-leadership program

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a sport-leadership program on minority incarcerated young adults’ health-related fitness markers.Design/methodology/approachThis study occurred at an all-male juvenile detention center. A total of 41 participants in this study were obtained from a sample of 103 incarcerated young adults. Data collection entailed body mass index (BMI) evaluation, cardiovascular endurance tests and 1-min pushups and situps at two different time periods (before and after three months). A 2 × 2 mixed factorial analysis of variances was used to test for differences among the within subjects’ factors (time [pre × post]) and between subjects’ factors (groups [flex × control]) for the above-mentioned dependent variables.FindingsOver the course of three consecutive months of engagement, preliminary indications demonstrated participants had a slight reduction in BMI and significant increases in cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength. Contrarily, during this same time period, non-participating young adults exhibited significant increases in BMI and decreases in cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength.Originality/valueIntegration of sport-leadership programs is generally not free but can be a low-cost alternative for combatting many issues surrounding physical activity, weight gain and recreational time for those incarcerated.

Competencies for Training Juvenile Services on Justice-Involved Youth with Traumatic Brain Injury

Research indicates young individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in juvenile justice settings lack essential support, mainly due to staff members' insufficient knowledge and skills in TBI-related areas stemming from a lack of relevant professional development. This study aimed to improve services for justice-involved youths with TBI in juvenile correction facilities by establishing empirically validated core competencies tailored to their needs. Through a Delphi study involving experts in juvenile services, juvenile corrections, TBI, transition services, and professional development, we identified and refined a set of 44 competencies distributed across six domains: knowledge (12 competencies), screening (6 competencies), eligibility (3 competencies), assessment (4 competencies), intervention (10 competencies), and community reentry (9 competencies).

Aggressive behavior among Italian justice-involved juveniles: the impact of attachment, discipline, and moral disengagement

ABSTRACT Our research investigates the influence of family attachment, perceived parental discipline, time spent with parents, and moral disengagement on aggressive behaviors among 234 justice-involved juveniles from Italian Youth Detention Centers (14–25 years old). Participants fulfilled the Socio-demographic Questionnaire, Moral Disengagement Scale-short version, Attachment Style Questionnaire, and the Aggression Questionnaire. The stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed a positive association between moral disengagement and insecure-avoidant attachment with aggressive behavior. The time spent with parents and the perceived severe discipline was negatively associated with aggressive behavior. Results provided suggestions for future research and directions in preventing criminality among juveniles.

Menu provision in a young offenders institution, comparison with dietary guidelines, and previous menu allocation: a cross-sectional nutritional analysis.

Objective: This study aimed to assess and comparatively analyse two menus from a Young Offenders Institution (YOI). One menu from 2019, and one from 2022, with the objective of identifying any improvements in meeting dietary guidelines. Design: Cross-sectional and comparative analysis. Setting: United Kingdom, a YOI in Northern England. Participants: YOI Menus. Results: Analysis of 30 dietary components identified that 25 exceeded the dietary guidelines (P < 0.05) for the 2022 menu, with five failing to meet the guidelines (P < 0.05). When compared to the 2019 menu, the 2022 menu showed improvements in saturated fat, sodium, and vitamin D. Despite the improvement, vitamin D levels remained below dietary guidelines (P < 0.01). Salt and energy content were reduced in the 2022 menu (P < 0.05); however, they were still above the dietary guidelines (P < 0.01). Free sugars were significantly above dietary guidelines for both menus, with no significant change between the 2019 and 2022 menu (P = 0.12). Conclusion: The 2022 menu has demonstrated progress in alignment with meeting dietary guidelines, particularly in reducing calories, fat, saturated fat, salt, sodium, and chloride, as well as increasing vitamin D. Despite improvements, calories, free sugars, salt, saturated fat, sodium, and chloride are still exceeding dietary guidelines, posing as potential health risks.

Improving adolescent sleep in long-term Juvenile correctional settings: case examples with clinical, research, and policy implications.

Poor sleep during adolescence is a public health concern that may be especially important to address among youth in juvenile correctional facilities, who tend to experience greater mental health challenges, substance use disorders, and traumatic stress exposure. However, evidence for addressing sleep in correctional settings is limited. Using de-identified composite clinical cases, this paper describes challenges and opportunities for addressing sleep disorders (i.e. insomnia) and promoting sleep health (i.e. improving duration, regularity, and behaviors) among adolescents in long-term juvenile correctional facilities. These clinical cases highlight common presenting problems and underscore the need for integrated sleep and mental health interventions as well as adaptations to enhance feasibility and efficacy of behavioral sleep treatment and sleep health promotion in juvenile correctional contexts. We conclude by summarizing clinical, research, and policy implications for addressing adolescent sleep problems and promoting sleep health and well-being in these contexts.