Juvenile Justice E-Book

Francine Sherman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1452

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

"The lessons in this book remind us that we can—and that we must—do better, for the sake of our children, their futures, and the sake of our nation. . . . This volume is a call to action, and I encourage everyone who reads it to take steps to ensure that all America's children are given an equal chance to succeed. We must all work together to replace the cradle-to-prison pipeline with a pipeline to responsible, productive adulthood." —From the Foreword by Marian Wright Edelman, JD, President and founder, Children's Defense Fund, Washington, DC

"Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice appears at a critical time, when promising juvenile justice reforms are underway in so many jurisdictions across the United States. Sherman and Jacobs, and their impressive array of expert authors, fill a significant gap in the literature, making the current body of juvenile justice research and experience accessible to policy makers, researchers, and funders, and doing so through a practical and positive lens." —Patrick McCarthy, President and Chief Executive Officer, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD

"Most people have narrow views of what it means to be a delinquent youth. In Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, Sherman and Jacobs have diligently collected essays from the top experts in the juvenile justice field who tell an empirically based and powerful narrative of who is really in the delinquency system. As this book makes clear, until we ask and answer the right questions, we will remain unable to help the youth most in need." —Alexander Busansky, President, The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Oakland, CA

A comprehensive reference presenting a rehabilitative, youth- and community-centered vision of juvenile justice

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice brings together experts in juvenile justice, child development, and public health to explore the intersections between juvenile justice and needed development of programs and policies that look out for the health and well-being of the youth who enter this system. This timely book provides a usable framework for imagining juvenile justice systems that emphasize the welfare of juveniles, achieved primarily through connections within their communities.

A must-read for professionals working in juvenile courts and within juvenile justice agencies, Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice reflects both the considerable advances and the challenges currently evident in the juvenile justice system, with an emphasis on the development and implementation of policies that can succeed in building a new generation of educated young people able to embrace their potential and build successful futures.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword: Justice for America's Children

Preface

Introduction

The Architecture of the Volume

Basic Premises

Section I: Framing the Issues

Section II: Understanding Individual Youth

Section III: Understanding the Contexts of Youth

Section IV:Working for Change

References

Contributors

Section I: Framing the Issues

Chapter 1: A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Core Concepts

The Effects of Immaturity on Teen Behavior

The Effects of Trauma on Teen Behavior

The Effects of Learning Disabilities on Teen Behavior

Strengths of Young People and Their Environments

Vignettes of Youth in Juvenile Justice

References

Chapter 2: Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Characteristics and Patterns of Involvement

The Historical Legacy of the Juvenile Justice System

How Juvenile Cases Are Processed

Offense Trends

Risks to, and Strengths of, System-Involved Youth

The Demographics of System-Involved Youth

Juvenile Justice System Reform

References

Chapter 3: The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Overview

Physical Health

Mental Health and Substance Abuse

Factors Relating to Delinquency and Health Status

Conclusion

References

Chapter 4: Children's Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

Child, Parent, and State

Children's Needs-Based Rights

Children's Autonomy-Based Rights

The Juvenile Court and Child-Serving Systems

Conclusion

References

Chapter 5: A Vision for the American Juvenile Justice System: The Positive Youth Development Perspective

Juvenile Justice and Views of Youth Behavior and Development: Past and Current Perspectives

The Contemporary Study of Adolescence and the Emergence of the Positive Youth Development (PYD) Perspective

Toward a PYD Framework Vision for Juvenile Justice

References

Section II: Understanding Individual Youth

Chapter 6: Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice

Framing the Disparities Discussion

A Historical Legacy of Disparities

The Myth of Race Neutrality in Policy and Practice

The Urge to Provide and Protect: Low-Risk, High-Need Youth

Conclusion

References

Chapter 7: The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace's Story

System-Involved Girls: Characteristics and Predictors of System Involvement

Grace's Case Study

Gender-Specific and Gender-Responsive: Guiding Principles

Gender-Responsive Principles in Grace's Case

Conclusion

References

Chapter 8: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth and the Juvenile Justice System

The Development of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Adolescents

Social Stigma and Associated Risks to Well-Being for LGBT Youth

LGBT Youth and the Juvenile Justice System

Harmful Policies and Practices Directed at LGBT Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Recommendations

Conclusion

References

Chapter 9: Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System: Toward Developmentally and Socioculturally Based Provision of Services

Who and Where They Are: A Brief Demography of Adolescents in the Juvenile Justice System

Adolescent Parents and Risk for Entry Into the Juvenile Justice System

The Impact of the Juvenile Justice System on Adolescent Parents and Parenting Processes

Adolescents, Identity Processes, and Confinement

Implications for Enhanced Policies and Services for Adolescent Parents in the Juvenile Justice System

Conclusion

References

Section III: Understanding Youth in Context

Chapter 10: Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

A Brief Historical Note

Family Engagement With the System: What Is Done Versus What Is Known

The Relationship of Research to Practice and Policy

Barriers to Participation

The State as Parent, Reprised: Can It Do the Job?

Conclusion

References

Chapter 11: Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships

Family Violence and Adolescent Criminal Behavior

Implications for Intervention

Conclusion

References

Chapter 12: Making a Place for Youth: Social Capital, Resilience, and Communities

Adopting a Resilience Lens

Where Social Capital Fits

Social Capital and Youth

Social Capital and Peers

Considering Social Capital Within a Juvenile Justice Context

Conclusions

References

Chapter 13: The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

An Ecological Perspective on the Human Rights of Children

Creating Stronger Social Support Networks

Conclusions

References

Chapter 14: The Right to a Quality Education for Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Characteristics of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

The Federal Requirements for a Quality Education for Delinquent and Detained Youth

Education of Youth Before, During, and After Confinement in Juvenile Delinquent Facilities

Conclusions

References

Chapter 15: Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

Research

Theoretical Frame and Methodology

Criminalization: Prison, Schooling, and the Making of a Predator

A Menace to Society

Reentry: “And We Can't Save a Kid”

Conclusion

References

Chapter 16: The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

Introduction

CSEC and Girls: Critical Perspectives

CSEC: Incidence and the Experience

Commercial Sexual Exploitation and the Law

A Comprehensive Response

Conclusion

References

Chapter 17: How American Government Frames Youth Problems

The Role of Federalism in Framing Youth Issues

The Tunnel Problem, or “Problem Solved!”

Limited Information Flow, or “I Didn't Know About the Problem”

Diffusion of Responsibility, or “It's Not My Problem”

Unloading Cases and Shifting Burdens, or “It's Your Problem Now”

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Emerging Lessons

References

Chapter 18: Youth Perspectives on Health Care

A Developmental Context

The Ecological Framework: A Theoretical Model for Understanding Youth's Relationship to the Health-Care System

Methods

Findings

Conclusions

References

Section IV: Working for Change

Chapter 19: Youth–Led Change

Hyde Square Task Force

Youth and Developmental Systems

Youth and Systemic Change

Aligning Systems for Positive Change

Youth Development and the Hyde Square Task Force

A Theory of Change: Intersecting and Reinforcing Virtuous Cycles

Conclusion

References

Chapter 20: The End of the Reform School?

A Brief History of the Reform School

Impact of Reform Schools on Their Wards

Evidence-Based Practices and Programming Approaches

Smaller Is Better

Less Is More

Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)

The End of the Reform School?

References

Chapter 21: Collaboration in the Service of Better Systems for Youth

Juvenile Justice: One System or Many?

Collaboration: The New Imperative

Juvenile Justice Collaborations in Service of Systems Change

Dimensions of Effective Collaboration: Recommended Practices

Conclusion

References

Chapter 22: Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

Juvenile Justice Agencies and Their Data Systems

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative

Challenges to Using a Data-Driven Approach to Decision Making

Important Considerations When Using a Data-Driven Approach to Decision Making

Future Directions for Data Systems Development and Implementation

References

Chapter 23: Establishing Effective Community–Based Care in Juvenile Justice

Determining What Works: Evolving Standards

What Works and What Doesn't

What Works

A California Illustration: Developing a List of What Works

Challenges and Obstacles to Implementing Evidence-Based Practice

Conclusions

References

Chapter 24: Better Research for Better Policies

The Research Marketplace

Types of Research

Judging Evidence

Evaluating Policies Versus Programs

Making Research Accessible

Protecting Research From Sponsors and Consumers

Research Versus Quality Improvement

Conclusion

References

Afterword

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act Reauthorization

Youth Promise Act

Prison Rape Elimination Act Standards and Juveniles

About the Editors

Author Index

Subject Index

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Juvenile justice: advancing research, policy, and practice/edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBNs 978-0-470-49704-3; 978-1-118-10586-3; 978-1-118-10585-6; 978-1-118-10587-0; 978-1-118-09337-5

1. Juvenile justice, Administration of–United States. 2. Juvenile corrections–United States. 3. Juvenile

delinquents–United States. I. Sherman, Francine T., 1955- II. Jacobs, Francine H.

HV9104.J864 2011

364.630973—dc22

2011014932

Foreword: Justice for America's Children

Marian Wright Edelman

President, Children's Defense Fund, Washington, DC

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (c. 1940)

Has America turned her back on her most vulnerable children?

America is the richest nation in the world. We rank #1 in gross domestic product (GDP), and we have more billionaires than any other country. Surely, a nation so blessed will take care of its children, who are its greatest treasure, its future, and its most vulnerable population.

Yet the gap between rich and poor in America is greater than in any other major industrialized nation1 and is growing wider, dooming millions of children to the fate of growing up poor—if they survive infancy. Today, tens of thousands of poor babies in rich America enter the world with multiple strikes against them: born without prenatal care, at low birth weight, and to a teen, poor, and poorly educated single mother and absent father. Many are funneled from birth into what the Children's Defense Fund calls “the cradle-to-prison pipeline,” which traps children into life paths marked by abuse, illness, school failure and suspension, detention, incarceration, and, too often, early death. Others become trapped in the pipeline to prison later in life.

At crucial points in a poor child's development, more risks pile on—the loss of a parent, sibling, or friend; low teacher expectations; fa]mily or neighborhood violence; gang involvement—making a successful transition to productive adulthood significantly less likely and involvement in the criminal justice system significantly more likely. For children of color, who are disproportionately poor, the odds of youth detention and eventual incarceration as adults greatly exceed those for White children. Black children are 3 times as likely as White children to be poor. A Black boy born in 2001 is more than 5 times as likely as a White boy born that same year to be incarcerated at some point during his lifetime.

And, in the past 20 years, sentencing for juveniles in our nation has become increasingly harsh and punitive and there has been an increase of 72% in the number of children held in America's juvenile detention centers;2 thousands of children are held in adult prisons.

As a number of the chapters in this important volume illustrate, the experiences of detained and incarcerated children in America are rarely rehabilitative. Children and teens who go through our nation's juvenile justice system are condemned to long terms at large youth detention centers and adult prisons only to languish in cells surrounded by thick walls and razor wire. Too often, they are locked down for long periods of the day with no real opportunities for rehabilitation, treatment, or education. Many youth become hardened criminals while incarcerated, and at the end of their sentences they are released into communities that don't have adequate resources to reintegrate them.

Tragically, instead of helping disadvantaged youth become responsible adults, the juvenile justice system today has become a major feeder into the cradle-to-prison pipeline, leading young people into the adult criminal system. That pipeline runs through economically depressed neighborhoods and failing schools; across vacant lots where playgrounds and health facilities should be; and in and out of broken, understaffed child welfare agencies. By the time many children get arrested and are brought before a juvenile court, they have been provided far too little loving and thoughtful adult support—only to face purported child-serving systems that treat them unjustly.

The high number of cases that juvenile courts administer—an estimated 1.6 million cases each year nationwide—is attributable to the fact that we, the adults, have let our most vulnerable children down. We don't pay attention to early warning signs, such as a drop in grades or a reluctance to go to school, that indicate poor children need help; we don't provide them with adequate mental health services or other counsel; and we have permitted the increasing criminalization of children at younger and younger ages for behaviors that used to be handled by families, churches, teachers, and community organizations. We seem to have forgotten that children are children, and that our job as adults is to guarantee their safe passage to successful, productive adulthood by guiding them, nurturing them, protecting them, and teaching them.

It was not always so. America's juvenile justice system was once regarded as one of the most enlightened in the world. It was founded over 100 years ago on the principle that children, unlike adults, are still developing and that many of their perceptions, actions, and reactions are immature responses to an increasingly complex world. The early American juvenile justice philosophy taught that, with the proper guidance, children can learn new behaviors and attitudes as they mature. The emphasis was on rehabilitation, not punishment and retribution. In order to grow into responsible and caring adults, it was believed, youthful offenders need support, treatment, and care.

The editors of this volume and authors of individual chapters urge us to remember that the children involved in our juvenile justice system are, first and foremost, children. Like all children, they need the love and guidance of adults—in their families, in their neighborhoods, in their communities—to develop their considerable potential and to thrive. And like all children, they need a nurturing school environment, the attention of caring and talented teachers who know their students can learn, and a rigorous curriculum that gives all students the skills to succeed in college and the workplace. The fact that risk factors such as poverty, discrimination, and personal tragedy add stress to their young lives and increase their chances of becoming trapped in the cradle-to-prison pipeline should not cause us, the adults in their lives, to lower our expectations for their success or, worse, write them off or abandon them. Indeed, their increased vulnerability should make us redouble our efforts to give them the support and care they sorely need. Repeatedly, in the chapters of this volume, we are reminded that deficit- and punishment-based approaches to juvenile justice only feed the pipeline to prison and that when we identify children's strengths and build on those strengths intentionally and consistently, we can help children in the juvenile justice system grow and thrive.

In the pages that follow, you will meet children involved in the juvenile justice system who would have benefited from a coordinated, caring, and developmentally appropriate system of support. There is Marco, a young boy who initially did well in school and loved science but whose grades dropped when he became sad and fearful in middle school because he was terrorized by gang violence in his neighborhood and witnessed the murder of a friend; no adults picked up on signs of his stress or bothered to check in with him to see what was going on. As his fears grew, Marco succumbed to pressure to join a gang “for protection” and, before long, he was charged with being an accessory to a crime in a drive-by shooting.

You also will hear from Grace, an intelligent and outspoken young girl of color who, shortly after her placement in a foster home (a placement she perceived as punishment), was charged with assault on a public employee and “disturbing school assembly.” After Grace's expulsion from school, she was shuttled among foster homes, residential placements, and secure detention, as the Department of Family Services and the Department of Juvenile Justice struggled over control of her case. And you will visit a juvenile justice detention center school where children 13–20 years old are regarded as “predators” by the adults in charge of their care and whose “sentences” are extended when they fall asleep in class.

The authors place such stories in the context of the latest research and recommend best practices on child development that emphasize the importance of an environmental, developmental approach that builds on a child's strengths. The chapter on youth-led change introduces us to youth who have discovered, within themselves, immense resources not only to change themselves but to transform their communities, creating “virtuous cycles” (instead of “vicious cycles”) that serve as positive feedback loops building on increasing strengths.

The lessons in this book remind us that we can—and that we must—do better, for the sake of our children, their futures, and the sake of our nation. Incarceration should not be our society's first or primary response to youth in trouble. Judges need to look for opportunities to offer poor, young, and minority defendants the same second chances most privileged youth can count on. These include alternatives to incarceration such as restitution, community service, electronic monitoring, drug rehabilitation treatment, or placement in a “staff secure” (but not locked) community corrections facility. These youth in trouble must get the education, special education, mental health treatment, and other services they need. We must ensure that systems intended to support children actually help them, instead of serving as entryways into the cradle-to-prison pipeline. And as the final chapter in this volume makes abundantly clear, child welfare, juvenile justice, and education systems all need to collaborate to design individualized systems of support that build on each child's strengths.

There is already good work under way in a number of states and communities, and you will read about that work throughout this volume. Committed leaders and staff are working to rid the system of the abusive and punitive treatment of youth in custody that now too often pushes them into the adult criminal justice system. Reforms in Missouri's juvenile justice system, often now referred to as the Missouri Model, have replaced large training schools and detention facilities with small group programs located as close to youth’s homes as possible. These small programs offer a broad range of therapeutic interventions and are staffed by highly trained and educated staff who understand that constructive reform is best accomplished through positive behavioral supports and that the use of force must be kept to a minimum. The Missouri Model is being used to promote juvenile justice reforms in Louisiana; New Mexico; San Jose, California; and Washington, DC, and other jurisdictions are waiting in line. States such as California, Texas, and New York are also making progress in establishing alternatives to secure confinement. The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, begun by the Annie E. Casey Foundation 15 years ago, has reduced the number of youth in detention and in some places also reduced the number of juvenile arrests.

The goal of these and other reforms is to create throughout our nation a juvenile justice system that will give children the support they need to grow into thoughtful, confident, caring, and productive adults as they transition to the community. We must bring to scale the reforms already under way that build on the strengths of children, youth, and families; provide children and youth with individualized and comprehensive services in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their needs; promote evidence-based approaches; and assist and support the successful return of youth to their communities. These new approaches recognize the usefulness and importance of tracking outcomes for youth and responses to the new reforms over both the short and long term.

At the same time, we must take action to address the root causes of a child's involvement with the juvenile justice system so that we might keep children and youth from ever entering the system. We must eliminate child poverty, assure every child comprehensive health and mental health coverage and the early childhood experiences and education required to meet their individual needs, and offer families the supports needed to keep their children safe and in nurturing communities.

This volume is a call to action, and I encourage everyone who reads it to take steps to ensure that all America's children are given an equal chance to succeed. We must all work together to replace the cradle-to-prison pipeline with a pipeline to responsible, productive adulthood.

Notes

1. OECD Report (2009), Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries, notes that “the United States is the country with the highest inequality level and poverty rate across the OECD, Mexico and Turkey excepted.”

2. Myers, D. M., & Farrell, Anne F. (2008). Reclaiming Lost Opportunities: Applying Public Health Models in Juvenile Justice. Children and Youth Services Review 30, 1159–1177.

Preface

Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs

The idea for this book grew out of our 5-year collaboration on the Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP; first the Girls’ Health Passport Project), which was an effort to develop a system of continuous health-care access for girls, and then boys and girls, committed to the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. Fran Sherman was the principal investigator of the core project to develop and implement MHPP, and Fran Jacobs and her team at Tufts University, of its evaluation. Through many hours of discussion, debate, and mutual education explicating MHPP goals and teasing out ways to evaluate them, we each discovered new, more critical ways of thinking about our own fields, along with new connections among the worlds of law, policy, and the social sciences. The experience was both refreshing and challenging.

For us, that concrete, almost daily collaboration reinforced our belief in interdisciplinary conversations and understandings of juvenile justice and broader youth policy. It also reinforced the importance of looking behind practice (however successful you think you are being) to understand how, and the extent to which, it reflects current theory and research on the one hand, and is approaching attainment of its goals, on the other. That iterative process of doing and analyzing and then redoing and reanalyzing, is key to the development of sound and innovative juvenile justice policy and practice moving forward, and was practiced, as well, in the development of this volume. In that spirit, we hope this book will stimulate both interdisciplinary conversations among students, academics, policy makers and practitioners, and links among practice, research, and theory to develop programs and policies promoting positive development for youth and their communities.

We have both benefited from the support and dedication of talented students and colleagues. I (Fran Sherman) am grateful to the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project clinic and seminar, which gives me the invaluable, daily opportunity to see juvenile law and policy through the fresh eyes and quick minds of second- and third-year law students; to Rebecca Vose and Tony DeMarco, my JRAP colleagues, who have made my work life both stimulating and fun and have been so generous with their time, giving me time to work on this volume, and Judy McMorrow, who has provided thoughtful and consistent counsel and friendship through all of my 26 years at Boston College Law School. I also want to thank my national juvenile justice colleagues, many of whom have contributed to this volume, who demonstrate the power of vision, leadership, devotion, and intentionality in implementing smart and effective juvenile justice practices and policies. The many youth and, particularly young women, whom I have represented over 30 years, are an ongoing inspiration and education, and are, of course at the core of this volume.

Likewise, I (Fran Jacobs) have much appreciated the support and encouragement of colleagues in both of my departments at Tufts—the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning—many of whom, from distinct and distantly flung perches in the worlds of child development and public policy, have had encouraging words to share about the worthiness of this book. Rachel Oliveri, Ila Deshmukh Towery, Jessica Greenstone, and Claudia Miranda-Julian expertly helped us convert what was learned in the course of the MHPP evaluation into broader lessons for juvenile justice policy. And Maryna Vashchenko and Jessica Dym Bartlett provided expert substantive consultation and patient editorial intervention. At Boston College Law School, Classie Davis, Celeste Laramie, Kori Burnham, Lauren Whillhoite, Hilary Jaffe, Coleman Peng, Dan Maltzman, Mary Ann Neary, and Chester Kozikowski all provided important research and administrative support.

A number of foundations supported the Girls’ Health Passport Project and the Massachusetts Health Passport Project in some way, and through that support helped stimulate the thinking behind this volume. They are: The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, The Boston Foundation, the Florence V. Burden Foundation, The Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, and the Gardiner Howland Shaw Foundation. We are grateful for their support and for the encouragement and insight provided by our grant administrators in each and every case. I (Fran Sherman) have greatly appreciated the support and fellowship I have received over the years from my colleagues at the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. The many lessons I have learned from them are woven through this volume. We both thank our universities, Boston College Law School and Tufts University, respectively, for providing us with essential research leave and support to work on this volume. We are also grateful to Marian Wright Edelman for her foreword to this volume; her career as an advocate for children is unparalleled and stands as an inspiration.

My (Fran Sherman) boundless love, gratitude, and respect go to my three children, Leah, Sarah, and Jake Tucker for their warmth, kindness, intelligence, and senses of humor. This book and so much of my work, which is centrally about ways to support youth, is dedicated to my children for the way they honor their many gifts and opportunities. They are my inspiration, and I look forward to continuing to watch their adult lives unfold. And most of all, my gratitude and love go to my husband, Scott Tucker—my best friend, most solid support, and biggest booster.

My (Fran Jacobs) deep gratitude goes to my family—first and foremost to my husband Barry Dym—and then to my children (Jessica and JJ Bartlett, and Gabriel Dym and Rachael Kaplan) and grandchildren (Molly and Jake Bartlett, and Eli Aaron Dym) for having the patience to see me through this process, and the good sense to avoid me on those crunch writing days. My 91-year-old mother, Miriam Jacobs, kept up on the progress of this project, celebrating with me the completion of each phase. This book, about children and families and the help that every one of them needs and deserves, pays tribute to them all.

Introduction

Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1986) observed that the history of social policy in the United States reflects fairly predictable cycles, completed in 30 years or so, between liberalism and conservatism—“public purpose and private interest” (p. 31). These cycles of national involvement with issues of social concern invigorate our politics with new energy and ideas; their seeds are sown, during previous cycles, as forays of innovation that eventually coalesce. And although it can appear at the “end” of a cycle, that policy has not advanced much, if at all, in fact the process is recursive. For better or worse, we never do return precisely to where we were, and every so often, the change in policy direction is bold, significant, and permanent. Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s witnessed this transformational progress in civil rights, women's rights, and the rights of persons with disabilities.

And then there is juvenile justice policy. It is often noted that our national disposition toward delinquent youth and our approach to addressing their deeds and needs vacillate, unsurprisingly, and in the regular cycles that Schlesinger described, between punishment and rehabilitation. Modest changes are often consolidated before the pendulum swings once again in the opposite direction; reformers at either end tool up, readying themselves to undo or modify what has been codified in the “down” cycle.

The prediction of the “coming of the super-predators” by John Dilulio (1995, November 27), then a professor at Princeton University, in the mid-1990s, may represent the apogee of the pendular swing of that time, the midpoint of that cycle. Broadly speaking, with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and the procedural due process revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, juvenile justice policy had become more rehabilitative in orientation. Rates of juvenile crime arrests increased over the 1980s, however, and the population of juvenile offenders became increasingly racialized. The rise in juvenile violent crime arrests during the 1980s was a complex, multidetermined phenomenon (Zimring, 1998), however, and by 1994 juvenile violent crime arrests had already begun their long decline (Puzzanchera, 2009). Nonetheless, Dilulio capitalized on, and catalyzed, the growing sentiment among Americans that these youth were too dangerous to have in our midst. They were depraved, thoroughly incorrigible, and therefore needing to be removed from society to protect the rest of us.

We know the end of this story: That onslaught never materialized—and indeed, juvenile crime statistics have evidenced steady improvement over the ensuing years (Puzzanchera, 2009). Nonetheless, the late 1990s witnessed a flurry of state legislation that expanded punitive approaches for juveniles, including making it easier to transfer youth to the adult correctional system.

Meanwhile, reformers were preparing for the next cycle to emerge, and that cycle is, indeed, upon us. There are many recent signs of progress toward a more rehabilitative posture in juvenile justice. The Supreme Court's decisions in Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Graham v. Florida (2010) struck down the juvenile death penalty entirely and juvenile life without parole in nonhomicide cases based, in part, on grounds of child development and neuroscience. On the front end of the system, detention reform has significant national momentum, helping jurisdictions to be more accountable to youth and communities and reduce the use of secure detention to cases of greatest community and flight risk. On the back end of the system, led by the Missouri Model, states are reducing their reliance on secure youth institutions and building networks of community-based youth programs on principles of positive youth development. Around the country there is increasing use of evaluation—and evidence-based practices in juvenile justice systems—reflecting a more thoughtful and hopeful approach to meeting the goals these systems set for themselves.

With greater interdisciplinary engagement, new ways to understand and support youth in the system have emerged. Positive youth development, ecological developmental theory, family systems theory, and new research on adolescent brain development, for example, are infiltrating programming and policy discussions in juvenile justice as well as the law. This is a moment of hope and possibilities; and perhaps these new possibilities will even direct us toward transformational changes in juvenile justice.

The Architecture of the Volume

The organization of this volume, reflecting the forward-facing trends previously noted, is ecological in structure, considering youth in the juvenile justice system within the context of their families, communities, and the multiple public systems that influence them, and are influenced by them as well. Although most of its chapters are scholarly in tone and content, other authors approach their topics with an activist orientation—a mix of perspectives we sought out from the volume's inception. Chapter authors represent a broad range of disciplines and perspectives, also necessary, in our view, to engage meaningful juvenile justice policy.

Following this ecological road map, Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice is divided into four sections: The first, “Framing the Issues,” offers an introduction to the core elements of the juvenile justice system—the youth, the proposed developmental lens (positive youth development) through which to consider their behaviors and the system's responses to them, and the law that undergirds and directs the system operations. Next, in “Understanding Individual Youth,” we provide more in-depth portraits of subgroups of these youth, according to characteristics that appear to influence their experiences in the systems—race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and family circumstances. Next, in “Understanding Youth in Context,” we open the lens and examine aspects of family, community, and formal and informal systems particularly relevant to youth's system involvement. Finally, in “Working for Change,” we highlight some of the most promising innovations in juvenile justice; combined they offer a vision for the future of juvenile justice system policy.

Basic Premises

Although the chapters in this volume present a range of opinions and approaches to collecting and validating evidence, certain underlying premises are represented in the book—obvious to us, but worth mentioning—that contribute to the volume's overall point of view.

Youth have a set of legal rights that are central to the structure and operation of effective and successful public systems and of society as a whole. The juvenile justice system is first a legal system, with youth involvement triggered by an alleged law violation. Youth do not lose their rights when they enter this system; rather, in significant ways, their rights are appropriately enhanced in counterpoint to the risk the system poses to them. The rights of system-involved youth, and of children generally, have a long history in the United States and can be understood to advance youth's needs and autonomy. Youth law can also be understood ecologically, with children's rights in relationship with those of their parents and the state. When the legal system works properly, it both respects and protects youth.

The course of development is malleable, at least into early adulthood. While early experiences are core to a child's development, a substantial, accumulating body of theory and research—reflected in recent Supreme Court and other court decisions—concludes that this developmental trajectory is not set by adolescence. Youth in the juvenile justice system, therefore, are still maturing, making them amenable to rehabilitation and, using value language, redeemable.

This course of development is also multidetermined, involving millions of transactions and “inputs.” Urie Bronfenbrenner, the developmental psychologist who coined the term ecological development for use in his field, imagined the child as the core piece in a collection of nested, Russian dolls—at the center of a set of concentric circles of influence, including families; communities; informal and formal, governmental and nongovernmental institutions and organizations; and societal values and beliefs. Youth are both shaped by and shape their environments, and interventions to affect individual development need to factor these contexts, centrally, into the equation.

The juvenile justice system is in the position both to improve and to degrade the functioning and future prospects of youth in its custody. Even assuming a benign or helping orientation, the juvenile justice system as presently structured (a back-end, after-the-fact, residual system) is not well-situated to achieve its rehabilitation goals; there is a poor match between what youth need and what the system can provide. Given the awesome legal power it holds, system reformers are increasingly proposing adoption of the “First, do no harm” dictum—involvement only or primarily with those youth whose actions clearly demonstrate imminent risk to public safety.

Juvenile justice system reformers understand that much of the essential work for youth occurs at local levels. It follows, then, that efforts should be directed at families and communities as the primary vehicles for positive change for youth. The juvenile justice process should be used to intentionally engage these levels of youth ecology with, for example, positive youth development models of juvenile defense, expanded diversion, probation as brokers of community services, reduced use of secure detention and treatment, and expansion of community- and family-focused treatment at the back end of the system.

The most promising juvenile justice policy includes respectful, authentic engagement of the full range of its participants. Although theory and research, and the wisdom of practitioners, are important cornerstones of juvenile justice policy, so are the beliefs, opinions, strategic recommendations, and visions for the future of system-involved youth, their parents and family members, their neighbors, and other members of the community. This input is critical to developing services that youth and families actually use, and to redressing the long-standing sense of disregard that these individuals have experienced.

Interdisciplinarity in research, practice, and policy is critical to the development of a well-functioning system. Juvenile justice (like most of youth policy) is a naturally interdisciplinary field and should be intentionally approached as such. Practitioners, scholars, and advocates in law, developmental psychology, and sociology must make their work comprehensible across disciplines. Demystifying these disciplines for use by one another contributes to essential cross-system collaboration.

Policy is also normative, informed by values. Research can get us only so far; at a certain point the decision is about the kind of society in which we want to live—inclusive or exclusive; more or less equitable, with more or less of a generous civic impulse. Effective juvenile justice systems are self-reflective in this way, asking themselves what they stand for, how they want to be viewed, and the result is as much values-based as evidence-based. We argue that this is as it should be.

Confronting issues of race and poverty is critical to any real progress—the beachhead to claim during this cycle. The juvenile justice system cannot be fixed until it deals with the issues of race and poverty that undergird it and give it its present shape. The disproportionate minority contact (DMC) mandate, and federal and state policy behind it, acknowledge the racial impact of much of juvenile justice policy, a fact that we are only beginning to address.

Section I: Framing the Issues

We begin this volume, and this section, with an introduction to five system-involved youth whose developmental trajectories Beyer analyzes in Chapter 1 using a strengths/needs-based developmental framework. Based on years of clinical practice, she argues that adolescent delinquent behavior results, in part, from immature thinking and the effects of trauma and learning disabilities, all common in this population. These factors, in addition to the youth's strengths, seen within the context of their families, peers, schools, neighborhoods, and cultural communities, must be considered at all points of the juvenile justice decision-making process.

In Chapter 2, Holsinger, as a criminologist, bases her portrait of youth in the juvenile justice system on nationally available data that detail their demographic characteristics, and the characteristics of the offenses that trigger and sustain their system involvement. The chapter includes an overview of the history, development, and current operations of the juvenile justice system, providing a shapshot of the youth involved at each of its phases.

In Chapter 3, Braverman and Morris, both physicians, introduce these youth as health-care providers might encounter them: often high-risk, underserved young people with a host of unaddressed health, dental, and mental health needs. After presenting the youth's profile from this vantage point, the authors conclude that the factors that predispose these youth to poor health outcomes are not a unique combination of risks, but rather are shared by other disadvantaged young people in the United States.

The final two chapters in this section provide theoretical and empirical scaffolding for the remainder of the book. In Chapter 4, Sherman and Blitzman, lawyer and judge, respectively, provide an overview of U.S. children's law, framed both in terms of autonomy-based and needs-based rights, and by the legal dynamic among child, parent, and state. They highlight the law of juvenile justice and child welfare systems, and also examine law relevant to education and health care, two central institutions for children. The chapter proceeds ecologically, acknowledging that children's lives, including their legal lives, are related to their families, communities, and the social institutions surrounding them.

Finally, in Chapter 5, applied developmental scientist Lerner and his colleagues argue that the contemporary juvenile justice system is predicated on a deficit view of the youth in its custody, and as such demonstrates a counterfactual and counterproductive understanding of the nature of adolescent development. The authors provide an alternative lens—the positive youth development (PYD) perspective—that capitalizes on contemporary theory and research on adolescent development and has profound implications for the transformation of juvenile justice policy and programs.

Section II: Understanding Individual Youth

In Chapter 6, Bell and Mariscal, both lawyers and advocates, begin with an overview of the history, causes, and current status of racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system, placing contemporary federal policies purporting “race neutrality,” but actually disadvantaging Black and Latino youth, in the context of a deep historical legacy of systemic racism. They then examine promising policies and practices for reducing these disparities, arguing that despite its history, the juvenile justice system should strive to, and might achieve, fairness and equity for all young people.

In Chapter 7, Sherman and Greenstone—from a legal and developmental perspective, respectively—describe the experiences of “Grace,” a teenage girl involved with multiple public systems, including juvenile justice. Through detailed analysis of primary interview data with Grace and others responsible for her care and supervision, and of court case material, they shed light on how Grace's actions were interpreted and the responses they evoked. Their case study includes recommendations for implementing gender-responsive principles across these systems.

In Chapter 8, Garnette, Irvine, Reyes, and Wilber (as lawyers, researcher, and system administrator) follow with a discussion of the experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in the juvenile justice system. The authors offer a framework for understanding healthy adolescent development within this population, and particular ways it can go awry, and present data on the often harmful effects of arrest and detention for LGBT youth. The chapter concludes with policy and program recommendations for addressing their needs.

Finally, in Chapter 9, Pinderhughes and colleagues, from a cultural/developmental perspective, present the challenges to development—particularly identity development—and thus to parenting, encountered by the diverse population of incarcerated teen parents who are involved with the juvenile justice system. The authors recommend that the system adopt a more strengths-based orientation to these young parents, including facilitating contact with their own children during their confinement; this approach would increase the likelihood for continued engagement with their children after their confinement ends.

Section III: Understanding the Contexts of Youth

The first two chapters in this section focus on families. In Chapter 10, Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, and Kaplan—representing a combination of policy, developmental, and clinical expertise—detail the current state of family involvement in juvenile justice, proposing explanations for why there is evidence of so little. They argue that more and broader participation is a critical feature of any juvenile justice system that seeks or claims to be “reformed,” and review some promising approaches to engaging families in the positive development and rehabilitation of their children.

Chapter 11 focuses on the significant percentage of system-involved youth who have experienced and/or perpetrated, violence in their families. Baker, Cunningham, and Harris—clinical and developmental psychologists—usefully identify “signposts” of the effects of family violence, for example, compromised school success or mental health, substance abuse, and early home leaving. They argue for greater attention to the role that family violence plays in the lives of delinquent youth, in the service of designing more effective prevention and intervention programs.

Chapters 12 and 13 focus on communities as a context for the development of system-involved youth. In Chapter 12, Hawkins, Vashchenko, and Davis combine their expertise in urban policy, social work, and developmental psychology to offer a framework, rooted in resilience and social capital theory, with which to generate support for youth reentering their communities after incarceration. The authors suggest that juvenile justice reentry programs and policies, and those designed to prevent criminal activity in the first place, would do well to assess a youth's access to positive as opposed to negative social capital, and then optimize opportunities to build on the former.

In Chapter 13, Bruyere and Garbarino—from a developmental perspective—discuss the effect of risk accumulation, community violence, and other trauma on youth, some of whom go on to become involved with the juvenile justice system. The chapter then argues for ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, seeing it as providing critically needed guidance for community development to support this population and reduce the need for future juvenile incarceration.

Moving to the systems that interact with delinquent youth, and with other public youth-serving systems, the next two chapters examine the role of education before, during, and after incarceration. In Chapter 14, Boundy and Karger (lawyers who focus on educational policy) provide a detailed discussion of the two most relevant federal laws—Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—which together require states to provide a quality public education to school-age youth, with and without disabilities, including those in delinquent facilities. Despite these guarantees, they find the education of these youth is seriously compromised throughout. The chapter concludes with research-based practices, targeted at implementing effective teaching, learning, and planning for transition, meant to thwart this school-to-prison pipeline.

In Chapter 15, Vaught, a scholar of urban education, brings an ethnographic lens to the issue of race, education, and juvenile justice, using a Critical Race framework to examine how institutional schooling practice and policy function—in one school within a juvenile prison—to hinder, complicate, and even likely scuttle altogether, community reentry for incarcerated young men. The dynamics explored here serve as a local window onto national education policy, raising issues of fairness about, for example, zero-tolerance policy, and policies that assure the quality of the schooling offered to system-involved youth.

Sherman and Goldblatt Grace, from the perspectives of law, public health, and social work, examine the system's response to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in Chapter 16, focusing here on girls. They describe the issue and then examine the range of international, federal, state, and local laws and policies, aimed at aiding and enhancing prosecution of perpetrators of CSEC (i.e., pimps, johns), and at providing protection and services to its victims. They show that, as state and local authorities implement practice and policy for this population, those two goals—law enforcement and victim protection—may conflict, creating practices that serve neither goal fully and yielding results contrary to sound public policy and research. The chapter concludes with a recommended comprehensive response to CSEC.

In Chapter 17, Ross and Miller bring youth policy and criminal justice together, and shift to providing a view of the landscape of government systems involved with youth issues. They argue that the structure of American government, combined with bureaucratic service delivery systems, lead to fragmented and, at times, inconsistent policies concerning youth, including youth caught up in the juvenile justice system. A number of solutions to these problems are offered, and the chapter concludes on a hopeful note: that efforts to address service fragmentation are improving the circumstances for some of these system-involved youth.

This section concludes with Chapter 18, Oliveri and colleagues’ (developmental psychologists) qualitative study of the complex relationships among system-involved youth and the multiple systems meant to help them maintain good health. Beginning with a detailed review of the literature on health-care access and utilization among this population, the chapter then analyzes primary data collected from youth regarding their health behaviors and preferences, and their use of health care. Its findings are useful to those working across public sectors interested in improving the health status of these youth.

Section IV:Working for Change

With Chapter 19, Dym and colleagues (psychologists and community activists) launch this section devoted to promising efforts to reform the juvenile justice system, with a case study of a youth-led community development program—the Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) in Boston, Massachusetts. Youth at HSTF, with the support and encouragement of staff, initiate, design, and implement advocacy projects to improve their own circumstances and transform their community. HSTF is nationally recognized as a model for community-based youth development, acting as an antidote to the forces that pull youth toward involvement in the juvenile justice system.

We move from program-specific innovation to focus on systemwide reform in Chapter 20. Schiraldi, Schindler, and Goliday (experienced system administrators) thoughtfully advocate for systemwide reform to eliminate the training school and its mind-set, in favor of a graduated, primarily community-based approach to juvenile justice premised on the tenets of positive youth development. After reviewing the troubled history of the reform school, and the promising alternatives now available, they argue that this route is the most likely to be able both to support youth and protect and enhance communities.

In Chapter 21, Farrell and Myers (developmentalists interested in service systems’ operations) identify collaboration as the “new imperative” across youth-serving systems. They present the advantages of, and potential barriers to, collaboration, and offer suggestions for increasing service providers’ organizational capacities to engage in this way. After recommending the development of principles and guidelines for evaluating systems change efforts, Farrell and Myers conclude that systems providing services to at-risk and incarcerated youth must find ways to communicate, cooperate, and share accountability for outcomes.

Chapters 22, 23, and 24 focus on the significant contributions that relevant, reliable, and accessible information can make to systems reform. In Chapter 22, Schneider and Simpson, experienced data system consultants to child-serving public agencies, highlight how the quality, availability, and use of data can either promote or impede agencies’ abilities to plan, operate, and evaluate wisely. The authors review the role that data systems have played historically in these agencies, and the current status, overall, of their information systems; they then provide a detailed analysis of the technical, logistical, and resource-related challenges to be addressed before agencies can shift to data-driven decision making, using three JDAI (Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative) jurisdictions as successful case examples.

In Chapter 23, Greenwood and Turner, experienced consultants on evidence-based practices for juvenile justice systems, review the current state of evidence-based practice, enumerating its demonstrable benefits, and noting the challenges it may pose for agencies adopting it. The chapter then provides the framework by which the Blueprints for Violence Prevention project validates program models as promising or efficacious, and includes an overview of successful programs. The authors conclude with examples of the implementation of such programs in selected jurisdictions.

Finally, in Chapter 24, Butts and Roman draw on their extensive experience as program and systems evaluators to provide a clear-eyed review of the research approaches that inform evidence-based policy. Although they support the increasing intention, and practice, of using evidence to inform policy, they caution against overreliance on it, detailing the limitations of currently available methods and products of research and evaluation for the tasks juvenile justice systems have at hand. The authors conclude with recommendations for enhancing the applicability of research in this context.

The volume concludes with an afterword from U.S. Representative Robert “Bobby” Scott of Virginia. Congressman Scott, a national spokesperson for youth and families in the juvenile justice system, notes prospective federal legislation that focuses increasing attention on less advantaged children, and exhorts the federal government to continue to demonstrate its leadership by enacting a number of pending federal bills and initiatives, such as the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and the Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education) Act.

In reflecting both the exciting advances and the considerable challenges currently evident in the juvenile justice system, Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice aims to make a modest contribution to the movement toward a rehabilitative, youth and community-centered vision of juvenile justice.

References

Dilulio, J. (1995, November 27). The coming of the super-predators. Weekly Standard.

Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile arrests 2009. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Schlesinger, A., Jr., (1986). Cycles of American history. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.

Zimring, F. (1998). American youth violence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Contributors

Linda L. Baker, PhD

Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System

London, Ontario, Canada

Jessica Dym Bartlett, MSW, LICSW

Tufts University

Medford, MA

James Bell, JD

W. Haywood Burns Institute

San Francisco, CA

Marty Beyer, PhD

Independent Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Consultant

Cottage Grove, OR

Honorable Jay Blitzman, JD

Massachusetts Juvenile Court