Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice

Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Justice Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice

Edited by

FRANCINE T. SHERMAN and FRANCINE H. JACOBS

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. 

Copyright # 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If legal, accounting, medical, psychological, or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. In all instances where John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or all capital letters. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration. For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our Web site at www.wiley.com. 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 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To all the children, families, advocates, practitioners, and policy makers involved with juvenile justice, acknowledging the critical roles you play in creating a more humane and effective system

Contents

Foreword

Justice for America’s Children

xi

Marian Wright Edelman Preface

xv

Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Introduction

xvii

Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Contributors

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SECTION I Framing the Issues

1

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

3

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

24

Kristi Holsinger Chapter 3 The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

44

Paula Braverman and Robert Morris Chapter 4 Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

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Francine T. Sherman and Hon. Jay Blitzman Chapter 5 A Vision for the American Juvenile Justice System: The Positive Youth Development Perspective

Richard M. Lerner, Michael D. Wiatrowski, Megan Kiely Mueller, Christopher M. Napolitano, Kristina L. Schmid, and Anita Pritchard vii

92

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CONTENTS

SECTION II Understanding Individual Youth Chapter 6 Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice

109 111

James Bell and Raquel Mariscal Chapter 7 The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

131

Francine T. Sherman and Jessica H. Greenstone Chapter 8 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth and the Juvenile Justice System

156

Laura Garnette, Angela Irvine, Carolyn Reyes, and Shannan Wilber Chapter 9 Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System: Toward Developmentally and Socioculturally Based Provision of Services

174

Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Karen T. Craddock, and LaTasha L. Fermin

SECTION III Understanding Youth in Context Chapter 10 Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

197 199

Francine H. Jacobs, Claudia Miranda-Julian, and Rachael Kaplan Chapter 11 Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships

223

Linda L. Baker, Alison J. Cunningham, and Kimberly E. Harris Chapter 12 Making a Place for Youth: Social Capital, Resilience, and Communities

245

Robert L. Hawkins, Maryna Vashchenko, and Courtney Davis Chapter 13 The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

Edmund Bruyere and James Garbarino

267

Contents

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

ix

286

Kathleen B. Boundy and Joanne Karger Chapter 15 Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

310

Sabina E. Vaught Chapter 16 The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

331

Francine T. Sherman and Lisa Goldblatt Grace Chapter 17 How American Government Frames Youth Problems

352

Timothy Ross and Joel Miller Chapter 18 Youth Perspectives on Health Care

369

Rachel Oliveri, Ila Deshmukh Towery, Leah Jacobs, and Francine H. Jacobs

SECTION IV Working for Change Chapter 19 Youth-Led Change

389 391

Barry Dym, Ken Tangvik, Jesus Gerena, and Jessica Dym Bartlett Chapter 20 The End of the Reform School?

409

Vincent Schiraldi, Marc Schindler, and Sean J. Goliday Chapter 21 Collaboration in the Service of Better Systems for Youth

433

Anne F. Farrell and Diane M. Myers Chapter 22 Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

Stan Schneider and Lola Simpson

456

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Chapter 23 Establishing Effective Community-Based Care in Juvenile Justice

477

Peter W. Greenwood and Susan Turner Chapter 24 Better Research for Better Policies

505

Jeffrey A. Butts and John K. Roman Afterword

527

Congressman Robert (Bobby) Scott About the Editors

531

Author Index

533

Subject Index

551

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)

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; family 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

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 cradleto-prison pipeline,’’ which traps children into life paths marked by abuse, illness, school failure and suspension, detention, incarceration, and,

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.

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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,

AMERICA’S CHILDREN

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-toprison 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

Foreword: Justice for America’s Children

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

xiii

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

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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;

AMERICA’S CHILDREN

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.

Preface F R A N C I N E T. S H E R M A N

AND

F R A N C I N E H. J A C O B S

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 xv

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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 F R A N C I N E T. S H E R M A N

AND

F R A N C I N E H. J A C O B S

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 superpredators’’ 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, xvii

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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.

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.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE VOLUME

BASIC PREMISES

The organization of this volume, reflecting the forward-facing trends previously noted, is ecological in structure, considering youth in the

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

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Introduction

to us, but worth mentioning—that contribute to the volume’s overall point of view. &

&

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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

&

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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-thefact,residualsystem)isnotwell-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, systemreformersare 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

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INTRODUCTION

&

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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 longstanding 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

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less of a generous civic impulse. Effective juvenile justice systems are selfreflective 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/needsbased 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 decisionmaking 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

Introduction

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 highrisk, 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

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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

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INTRODUCTION

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 systeminvolved 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

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Introduction

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 healthcare 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

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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 communitybased 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 resourcerelated 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.

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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

Jeffrey A. Butts, PhD City University of New York New York, NY Karen T. Craddock, PhD Education Development Center, Inc. Newton, MA Alison J. Cunningham, MA Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System London, Ontario, Canada

Marty Beyer, PhD Independent Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Consultant Cottage Grove, OR

Courtney Davis, MPP New York University New York, NY

Honorable Jay Blitzman, JD Massachusetts Juvenile Court Lowell, MA

Barry Dym, PhD Boston University School of Management Boston, MA

Kathleen B. Boundy, JD Center for Law and Education Boston, MA

Marian Wright Edelman, LLB Children’s Defense Fund Washington, DC

Paula Braverman, MD Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati, OH

Anne F. Farrell, PhD University of Connecticut Stamford, CT

Edmund Bruyere, MS Loyola University Chicago, IL

LaTasha L. Fermin, MA Tufts University Medford, MA

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CONTRIBUTORS

James Garbarino, PhD Loyola University Chicago, IL

Angela Irvine, PhD National Council on Crime and Delinquency Oakland, CA

Laura Garnette, MPA County of Santa Clara Probation Department San Jose, CA

Francine H. Jacobs, EdD Tufts University Medford, MA

Jesus Gerena Family Independence Initiative/Hyde Square Task Force, Inc. Boston, MA

Leah Jacobs, MA, MSW University of California Berkeley, CA

Lisa Goldblatt Grace, LICSW, MPH My Life My Choice/Justice Resource Institute Boston, MA Sean J. Goliday, PhD CSR, Inc. Arlington, VA Jessica H. Greenstone, MS Tufts University Medford, MA Peter W. Greenwood, PhD Association for the Advancement of Evidence-Based Practice Agoura, CA

Rachael Kaplan, MSW, LICSW Clinical Social Worker Brookline, MA Joanne Karger, JD, EdD Center for Law and Education Boston, MA Richard M. Lerner, PhD Tufts University Medford, MA Raquel Mariscal, JD Senior Consultant/Annie E. Casey Foundation Watsonville, CA Joel Miller, PhD Rutgers University Newark, NJ

Kimberly E. Harris, PhD Centre for Children & Families in the Justice System London, Ontario, Canada

Claudia Miranda-Julian, MS, LICSW Tufts University Medford, MA

Robert L. Hawkins, PhD New York University New York, NY

Robert Morris, MD University of California Los Angeles, CA

Kristi Holsinger, PhD University of Missouri Kansas City, MO

Megan Kiely Mueller, MA Tufts University Medford, MA

Contributors

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Diane M. Myers, PhD Assumption College Worcester, MA

Stan Schneider, MA Metis Associates New York, NY

Christopher M. Napolitano, MA Tufts University Medford, MA

Congressman Robert (Bobby) Scott, JD U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC

Rachel Oliveri, MA Tufts University Medford, MA

Francine T. Sherman, JD Boston College Law School Newton, MA

Ellen E. Pinderhughes, PhD Tufts University Medford, MA

Lola Simpson, MS Metis Associates New York, NY

Anita Pritchard, PhD Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL

Ken Tangvik, EdD Hyde Square Task Force, Inc. Boston, MA

Carolyn Reyes, MSW, JD Legal Services for Children San Francisco, CA

Ila Deshmukh Towery, PhD The New Teacher Project Boston, MA

John K. Roman, PhD The Urban Institute Washington, DC

Susan Turner, PhD University of California Irvine, CA

Timothy Ross, PhD Action Research Partners Brooklyn, NY

Maryna Vashchenko, EdM Tufts University Medford, MA

Marc Schindler, JD Venture Philanthropy Partners Washington, DC

Sabina E. Vaught, PhD Tufts University Medford, MA

Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, MSW Department of Probation New York, NY

Michael D. Wiatrowski, PhD Center for Democratic Policing Williamsburg, VA

Kristina L. Schmid, MA Tufts University Medford, MA

Shannan Wilber, JD Legal Services for Children San Francisco, CA

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

S ECTION I

FRAMING THE ISSUES

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

1

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System MARTY BEYER

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arco is a serious 14-year-old whose parents, born in Mexico, have been stably employed for many years. Although his family is close, Marco has faced numerous family problems, including the death of his grandmother who took care of him, and his parents’ preoccupation with the problems of his older siblings, leading to his feeling sad and unloved. Because his parents worked so hard, it felt ungrateful for him to disparage them. Marco’s parents had high aspirations for their children. When his older siblings dropped out of school and had children as teenagers, the pressure was on Marco to be the one to graduate high school. Marco did well in school and particularly loved science. But he found his teachers were overly critical of him—in his view, because they knew his siblings, who had been problem students in the same school, and because some had racist attitudes. When his grades started dropping in eighth grade, the school did not initiate any special supports. He started spending time with dropouts, was suspended, and then arrested for a fight in school; he was diverted from the juvenile justice system but received no services. His parents’ disapproval and his own feeling that he was a school failure were difficult for Marco to bear. For several years, Marco had been increasingly terrorized by gang violence in his neighborhood. He witnessed the murder of a friend and worried every time he walked down the street. Marco had been seriously threatened three times in the 2 weeks before

this arrest. “I tried never to walk alone. If I did, I’d run to a safe spot where there were people. You didn’t have to look like a gangbanger. If you ignored them, they would jump you. If you ran, they would chase you. This is not the movies. In life, violence is real. A lot of people have died in my neighborhood. Death is always there.” Marco did not talk to his family members or friends about his sadness or fears. He did not realize how intense the pressure was and how having to contend with it alone undermined good decision making. Marco is emotionally needy, like a younger teenager, but he does not admit his desire for comfort and protection. He started spending most of his time with his brother and his friends, all several years older and in a gang. As he got more scared, Marco reluctantly went along with pressure from them to join their gang. Marco did not realize the risks of gang protection: “I now know that when I joined a gang it was not a smart choice, but I thought I had to have protection.” Working long hours with many family responsibilities, his parents assumed Marco was safe with his brother, and did not know that he had joined a gang, used marijuana, and was becoming alienated from school. The day before ninth grade began, a gang leader gave Marco, his brother, and a friend a ride home. Unbeknownst to Marco, they were on their way to a drive-by shooting. “At first, I thought it wasn’t really going to happen. I realized it too late, but I could have gotten out of the car. But I was 3

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threatened. He pushed everyone around. These things went on every day in the neighborhood, shootings and beatings to get revenge. He was mad about something done to him and he made us take revenge. It made no sense. But it seemed the only way out was to do what he ordered.” Marco talked about how sad he felt for the victim and expressed sympathy for the family. Marco did not object to being blamed and took responsibility for having bad judgment and not getting out of the car. He knows it was wrong, and if he had seen any choice, he said he would have left, but felt trapped even though he never intended to hurt anyone. How should the juvenile justice system deal with Marco? What criteria should it use to assess his culpability and impose an appropriate disposition? How does the system currently act in cases such as his? Juvenile justice systems make most decisions about youth based on age and offense. Yet age tells us little about what is behind an offense—for example, what precipitated it and what its meaning is for that individual—since each youth’s developmental progression is unique, often indexed in only limited ways to chronological age. The delinquent act itself also tells us little about the youth, since the contexts in which many offenses are committed are so complex. The intricate weave of factors, individual and contextual, that contributed to Marco’s involvement in a drive-by shooting illustrates how much more than age and offense must be considered in designing an effective rehabilitative service combination for him. However, employing a developmental framework allows for more hopeful and effective responses from the system and the community agencies that should be poised to help. In this chapter, I propose a developmental framework for making decisions regarding court proceedings, detention, and services, based on my training as a psychologist and my years of experience working with youth in

THE

ISSUES

juvenile programs and evaluating them for court. Its foundation, and the organizing premise of the chapter, is that the delinquent behavior of adolescents must be understood as resulting from their immature thinking and the effects of trauma and learning disabilities, which are ubiquitous among these youth. These core components are first introduced briefly below, and then I elaborate on each. I also argue for including youth’s strengths, and assessing their capacity for resilience within the context of their families, peers, schools, neighborhoods, and cultural communities at all points of the decision-making process. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of the richness of a developmental framework in vignettes of four system-involved youth, ages 13–16, with a range of offenses; Marco’s story is also included in the analyses.

CORE CONCEPTS To the extent that juvenile justice decisions are based on developmental concepts, these appear to be the outmoded, rigidly linear stagebased, and noncontextual theories of many years ago (Lerner & Steinberg, 2004). This view of development does not consider strengths, the effects of traumatic experiences, and environmental influences on youth. As a result, both in understanding the young person’s behavior and in designing services to change it, system decisions have not been developmentally sound, in the complex ways that we now understand development. For example, even though there is considerable research on the effects of trauma on children (Osofsky, 2004), it has not penetrated the system, perhaps because addressing the effects of trauma on delinquent behavior is not compatible with the simplistic view that offending is a bad choice. Probation and

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

juvenile facilities assume that youth control their behavior to avoid consequences and get rewards. What this fails to take into account is that some behavior is reactive to past victimization, and that traumatized youth may be unable to use rational decision making when the memories and anxiety from traumatic events are triggered. The challenges of learning disabilities have been well researched across academic and applied fields. Unfortunately, the application of research on learning disabilities, including processing problems, executive function difficulties, and attention deficits, appears to have been confined to use in schools, not in the many other realms of children’s lives. The school—in either the juvenile facility or the community—is expected to manage disabilities as they pertain to education, rather than helping everyone involved with the young person understand that they affect the youth’s behavior generally, and use this understanding outside the educational setting. In juvenile justice, disabilities are seldom used as a lens to understand the offense or facilitate behavior change. Instead, it is assumed that youth comprehend what to do and are simply being oppositional and making bad decisions. The notion that maturity should be assessed as a distinct developmental process, apart from chronological age, has a fairly long theoretical history in developmental psychology, but has only recently gained traction in juvenile justice policy and practice (American Medical Association, 2005). Research has demonstrated that adolescents are different from adults (Owen-Kostelnik, Reppucci, & Meyer, 2006; Steinberg & Haskins, 2008), but justice systems treat teenagers as adults in many ways (Bishop, 2000; McGowan et al., 2007). For example, even intelligent teenagers cannot appreciate the consequences of waiving their Miranda rights. Most teenagers say that

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although they were told they had a right to remain silent, they believed they could not refuse to answer police questions. Typically, when they are asked what would happen if the judge heard afterward that they would not talk to the police, they respond that the judge would believe they were guilty. These beliefs demonstrate that they do not comprehend the meaning of the right to remain silent and their decision making is influenced by emotions (Grisso et al., 2003). Teenagers are also more vulnerable to psychological manipulation than are adults. In the police station without a lawyer, young people may well give statements in response to questions that reduce their self-confidence and make them feel hopeless (Ofshe & Leo, 1997; Warden & Drizin, 2009). While research has found that adolescents 16 and older have similar competence-related abilities to adults regarding understanding facts about court proceedings (see Scott & Grisso, 1997, for a review), these findings have been widely misinterpreted to mean that youth over 16 should be considered adults. In fact, even 16- or 17-year-olds with normal intelligence are often incapable of weighing alternatives, seeing the risks of taking a plea or going to trial, and looking into the future in discussions with their lawyers; youth with learning disabilities are even further compromised. Developmentally sound juvenile justice decisions must be based on more than research on cognitive and psychosocial growth in adolescence. The developmental framework proposed here is comprehensive— including immaturity as well as a clinical perspective on trauma and learning disabilities and using an ecological approach regarding the contexts in which the teenager is gradually maturing. Let’s consider the several components of immaturity first.

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THE EFFECTS OF IMMATURITY ON TEEN BEHAVIOR Adolescent development is not a smooth, uniform, linear progression—there are differences in maturity among youth of the same age and across domains within individuals. I have sketched out in this section a number of ways that immaturity affects behavior in these years. Immature Thinking In real life situations, particularly when influenced by peers and/or under the influence of substances, young people often have immature thought processes, including not anticipating, minimizing danger, reacting to stress, and seeing only one option. &

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Not anticipating. Adolescents often do not plan or do not follow their plans and get caught up in unanticipated events. They usually view as “accidental” the unintended poor consequences of actions that adults could have predicted. For example, a young person could go with a group to an event and, on the way, a friend could have a conflict with a young person outside the group; a fight might break out, and several youth might be arrested for an assault they never imagined would have happened. Carrying, and even using, a weapon does not mean that a teen intended harm or thought that he or she would use the weapon. Often, teens feel driven to self-protection and never picture an injured victim. Minimizing danger. Risk taking is typical of adolescents who seldom can consider the worst possible outcomes of their actions (Furby & Beyth-

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Marom, 1992; Steinberg, 2008). Youth do not perceive or weigh risks accurately, and indeed, it has been asserted that “it is statistically aberrant to refrain from such [risk-taking] behavior during adolescence” (Spear, 2000, p. 421). In comparison to adults, teenagers attach different value to the rewards that risk taking provides (Fareri, Martin, & Delgado, 2008; Scott & Steinberg, 2008). Difficulty in managing impulses is a normal characteristic of teens, partly because they have more rapid and extreme mood swings than do adults (Scott & Steinberg, 2008). Impulsively defending a friend who is teased or pushed can quickly escalate into a situation a youth will regret but did not view as risky. Similarly, youth get in trouble with parents, school, and/ or the juvenile justice system for texting they think is benign, and do not realize can be interpreted as threatening. Drugs and alcohol, also often not seen as risky, lower inhibitions and reduce teens’ abilities to use mature judgment; being high frequently contributes to delinquent acts. Reacting to stress. Stress affects the ability to weigh risks and to override impulses with rational thought, and adolescents are more susceptible to stress and emotional fluctuations than are adults (Hampel & Petermann, 2006; Larson, Moneta, Richards, & Wilson, 2002; Seiffge-Krenke, 1995; Spear, 2000; Wills, Sandy, & Yaeger, 2001). Decision making can be even more immature when a teen is scared, particularly if he or she has been mistreated in the past. A common form of immature cognitive processes

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

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in adolescents is reacting to threat that adults might consider exaggerated. For example, a young person with no prior arrests or problems in school who jumps a subway gate without paying could get into a physical confrontation that leads to the serious charge of assaulting a police officer. Afterwards, his parents may find it difficult to understand how he could have felt so threatened. Seeing only one option. Adolescents only gradually develop the advanced cognitive ability to weigh alternatives simultaneously (Wigfield, Byrnes, & Eccles, 2006). In situations where adults see several choices, adolescents may believe they have only one. It is not unusual even for intelligent adolescents to imagine only a single scenario. When things do not unfold as they imagined, because of their immaturity, they behave as if they are incapable of adapting with another reasonable choice. For example, a teenage girl who thinks she is going shopping with a friend may be surprised when her friend encourages her to shoplift but may feel unable to leave, go home, or shop on her own.

Immature Identity Identity development is among the central tasks of adolescence (Erikson, 1959; Kroger, 2003). Becoming good at something, for example, doing well in school, arts, sports, or religious or cultural practices, is a cornerstone in the development of a positive identity, and helps it to solidify. Many system-involved youth have not experienced success, particularly in school; often, they feel marginalized.

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Having an unformed identity makes them more vulnerable to involvement with delinquent peers. For most teenagers, belonging to a family provides the basic architecture for identity development. Family provides cultural, religious, and other values that are important to the teenager’s self-definition: sometimes the youth’s values remain consistent with his or her family, and sometimes he or she separates from the family’s values. Identifying with peers is another important aspect of self-definition; group membership is necessary for a young person to feel valued. The process of developing a stable identity takes time, during which young people need approval from family and peers. An ecological approach to understanding teenagers in the context of all their relationships—particularly family and peers—recognizes that development is influenced in complex ways by these interconnected contexts (Garcia Coll, Akerman, & Cicchetti, 2000; Lerner, 2002; Spencer et al., 2006). Conflicting identifications, between two groups of peers or between family and peer expectations, may cause unpredictable behavior in a teenager, especially under stress. Even protective families find it challenging to ensure positive friendships for their teens, and a teen may have positive peers and still get exposed, often in unplanned situations, to peer coercion and/or pressure from the desire for peer acceptance. Some families think teens cannot be supervised, and others, whose authoritarian tendencies increase out of a desire to protect, instead overlimit the teen’s autonomy, both with potentially disastrous consequences (Dodge et al., 2006; Putnick et al., 2008). It is difficult for adults to help youth develop self-confidence to resist peer pressure when the need to belong is so strong. Families can be unaware when a teen, who seems the same at home, becomes

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more influenced by peers and negative school and neighborhood environments. Furthermore, in some neighborhoods, resisting the pressure to commit crimes or to seek protection from a gang itself puts the young person in danger (Fagan, 2000). &

&

Racial and ethnic identity. As their social networks expand, youth see themselves in multiple roles requiring different self-presentations. Racial stereotypes and cultural dissonance make the process of achieving a stable identity more difficult for youth of color (Cross & Fhagen-Smith, 2001; Luthar, 2003). Youth are vulnerable to racial and ethnic marginalization. Violence poses a complex series of threats to resilience for Black males, including aggression as an adaptive response to deal with victimization, which may lead to arrest and reinforces negative stereotypes (Graham & Lowry, 2004; Spencer et al., 2006). Girl identity. Experts disagree about how much the increase in arrests of girls represents a change in behavior as opposed to a change in society’s responses to girls (Zahn, 2009). Developmental research has identified stressors on girls that make them more vulnerable, especially during physical maturation and school transitions. For example, many 11- and 12-year-old girls become less outspoken and more preoccupied with perfection and fear being disliked; and this may contribute to an enduring sense of unworthiness affecting their involvement in delinquent acts (Beyer, Blair, Katz, Simkins, & Steinberg, 2003; Brown & Gilligan,

&

1992; Chamberlain & Moore, 2002; Hennessey Ford, Mahoney, Ko, & Siegfried, 2004; Wood, Foy, Goguen, Pynoos, & James, 2002a). A connection to others is the central organizing feature of development in girls, and their relationship focus and the struggle to be loyal, including worries about abandonment and disconnection, dominate girls’ thinking. Girls in juvenile justice include first-time offenders who were coerced by their older boyfriends. Many teenage girls report violence in their dating relationships. Though some confide in a friend, almost none talk to adults in their family or at school about being victimized in this way and the difficulty of extricating themselves. Traumatic experiences predict delinquency and risky sexual behavior, and most girls who have experienced significant trauma need, but do not receive, trauma treatment—including many who do not have PTSD diagnoses (Smith, Leve, & Chamberlain, 2006; see also Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). Sexual orientation and gender identity. Harassment for gender-nonconforming appearance or behavior, a nonheterosexual orientation or nontraditional gender identity can lead to a serious loss of self-esteem (Galliher, Rostosky, & Hughes, 2004). Homophobic discrimination at school and in the community is common and hurtful to teenagers and can lead to youth missing school or activities because they feel unsafe (Majd, Marksamer, & Reyes, 2009). Youth who experience

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

antigay victimization in middle or high school are more than twice as likely to be depressed and have substance abuse problems and three times as likely to report suicide attempts than lesbian, gay, or bisexual peers who have not been harassed (Wilber, Ryan, & Marksamer, 2006; see also Garnette, Irvine, Reyes, & Wilber, Chapter 8, this volume). Youth whose parents reject their sexual orientation and gender expression are more likely to be depressed and suicidal; they may end up living on the street, which may, in turn, bring them into the juvenile justice system (Ryan, Huebner, Diaz, & Sanchez, 2009). Immature Moral Reasoning Much has been written about moral development during adolescence, stressing youth’s increasing responsibilities in relationships and awareness of how others will judge one’s actions (Eisenberg, Morris, McDaniel, & Spinrad, 2009). The practical application of adolescent moral development research to real-life reasoning under stress is complicated. Committing a delinquent act can be misconstrued as an indication that the young person did not know right from wrong and/or lacked concern for others. But youth may express strong family and religious values and are frustrated that they cannot explain why they used poor moral reasoning during the offense. Adolescents are generally moralistic, insisting on what should be and intolerant of unfairness (Smetana & Turiel, 2003). They may become involved in an offense naively in order to right wrongs, often out of loyalty. As a result, they may not express an adult understanding of the

9

effect of their offense on victims, despite the fact that their capacity for empathy with others may not be impaired. Next let’s turn to considering the role of trauma in the lives of these youth.

THE EFFECTS OF TRAUMA ON TEEN BEHAVIOR The incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among youth in the juvenile justice system is up to 8 times higher than youth in the community in general (Abram et al., 2004; Kerig, Ward, Vanderzee, & Moeddel, 2009). Among nonincarcerated youth seen in juvenile court clinics, one in nine met criteria for PTSD (Brosky & Lally, 2004). In a study of 50 delinquents, all but two had experienced trauma, including repeated abuse and/or parent death and/or abandonment; at least a third were physically abused and a quarter were sexually abused; more than half the girls had been physically or sexually abused (Beyer, 2006). In my experience, trauma typically slows down development in children and can interfere with all aspects of a youth’s functioning. While other children are growing emotionally, the child coping with trauma is distracted from normal developmental tasks and is occupied with sadness and feeling powerless. Trauma causes disturbances of emotional regulation, social relationships, and attachment (Lieberman & Van Horn, 2004). Children who have been abused or were not protected from violence often blame themselves and have trouble trusting others (Cohen, Mannarino, & Deblinger, 2006). Many youth in juvenile justice have in the past been involved with child protective services and some are in foster care when they are

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arrested. Children who are exposed to disrupted caregiving (separation from their families and multiple foster homes) are at risk for continued difficulty in emotional regulation and deficits in social cognitive processing (Price & Landsverk, 1998). Depression Associated With Trauma Depression is common but often not diagnosed in traumatized teenagers (Ney, Colbert, Newman, & Young, 1986). Their behavior problems become the focus rather than their underlying sadness, isolation, and loss. Depressed children typically express selfdislike, show distorted thinking, and have a greater dependence on peers, but being depressed is correlated with teacher and peer ratings of unpopularity (Cicchetti & Toth, 1998). Often, young people come to juvenile justice without having received trauma treatment despite persistent depression, aggression, and school difficulties (Wolfe, Rawana, & Chiodo, 2006). Aggression Associated With Trauma Aggression can be a defense against the helplessness common among traumatized children. Traumatized youth may misinterpret and be offended by relatively benign things that others say and react with combative selfpreservation. These young people often have had difficulty since childhood modulating their reactions and putting their feelings into words. They react negatively to outside controls and are often labeled oppositional (Ford, Chapman, Hawke, & Albert, 2007; Wolfe et al., 2006). Traumatized teens may not be able to stop these reactions because they see controlling adults as mean and unfair, to which past abuse has made them acutely sensitive. When adults threaten them, they reflexively

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protect themselves; even if the adults believe they are controlling a situation, the teen automatically reacts as if back in the position of being victimized. When their feelings are hurt, they are flooded with anger from the past, which they are unaware is out of proportion to the present provocation, and they lack the ability to calm themselves. Unless adults arrange an environment to meet their needs, this predictable reflexive reaction will be provoked repeatedly. Multiple placements cause more loss and anxiety, provoking fear reactions and reinforcing sensitivity to hostility, rejection, and perceived unfairness. Externalizing behaviors—behavior problems in school, substance use, and truancy—are correlated with extreme parental permissiveness, and internalizing behaviors—depression, anxiety, and self-destructiveness—are associated with extreme parental psychological control (Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch, 1994). Furthermore, the problem-solving strategies that boys bring to adolescent and adult social situations are directly traceable to the lessons learned from dads . . . young boys who are aggressive and are low in pro-social behaviors . . . have fathers who are more likely to engage in angry exchanges with them . . . the [boys] who are most prone to break down when the going gets tough are those who have been raised with the idea that to admit vulnerability, even to themselves, is weak. (Kindlon & Thompson, 1999, pp. 102–104) Reactions to Bullying Youth who have been chronically picked on have low self-esteem and academic and peer

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

difficulties in school, leading to more teasing and bullying (Horowitz et al., 2004). Bullying keeps children from perceiving school as a safe environment. Other students fear that by associating with victims they may become targets. Sometimes victimized children become bullies themselves, and they tend to have more emotional problems than those who are victims only (Arseneault et al., 2006; Olweus, 1993). Pathologizing Trauma-Related Behaviors It is unfortunate that the effects of trauma on youth are often overlooked or misunderstood (see Sedlak & McPherson, 2010; see also Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). The effects of trauma may significantly interfere with the young person’s life and put him or her at risk of delinquency, even those whose symptoms do not meet the PTSD criteria (Widom, 1994; Wood, Foy, Layne, Pynoos, & James, 2002b) (see also Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Adolescents with a history of trauma have high rates of alcohol and substance abuse; these youth rely on substances to escape sad feelings and bad memories (Giaconia, Reinherz, Paradis, & Stashwick, 2003). Trauma is considered a significant risk factor, accounting for numerous items in checklists of factors connected to delinquency or dangerousness (e.g., the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth [SAVRY] and the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument [MAYSI-2]), but is seldom considered in designing rehabilitative services. Too often, symptoms from trauma are misinterpreted as part of the character of the young person, rather than a guide to what is behind behavior that can be changed. Finally, I briefly discuss the effects of learning disabilities on the behavior of youth in the juvenile justice system.

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THE EFFECTS OF LEARNING DISABILITIES ON TEEN BEHAVIOR About 17–53% of youth in juvenile justice systems have learning disabilities, in comparison to 2–10% in the overall child population (Kazdin, 2000; Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Learning disabilities affect young people not only in school, but at home and in the community, particularly in comprehending, following directions, and establishing and maintaining relationships. Learning disabilities include a variety of problems in listening, remembering, prioritizing, and strategizing as well as reading and mathematics. Delinquents have higher rates of neuropsychological deficits as reflected in language, verbal intelligence, working memory, and reading. Of special interest are deficiencies in “executive” functions that are served primarily by the frontal lobes of the brain . . . [including] abstract reasoning, goal setting, anticipating and planning, self-monitoring and self-awareness, inhibiting of impulsive behavior, and interrupting an ongoing sequence of behavior in order to initiate a more adaptive behavior (Kazdin, p. 53). Attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are the most frequently diagnosed behavior disorders of childhood. It is estimated that at least 25% of adolescents (17% of males and 21% of females) in the juvenile justice system have ADHD, compared to 9% in the overall child population (12% of males and 5% of females; Eme, 2009). Distractibility and impulsiveness are prominent characteristics of attention deficit disorders, making these young people less able to stop

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behaviors, which may contribute to delinquency (especially when they have immature cognitive processes and are unable to see alternative choices at the time of an offense). Difficulties with social skills are also common among children with attention deficits and, in my experience, often lead to indiscriminately seeking acceptance (even from delinquent peers). Some youth’s problem-solving skills are compromised by not accurately perceiving cues from peers and adults, typically attributing hostility to others and believing that aggressive acts will result in peer approval (Dodge, 2003). By the time the learning disability is identified, many youth lack the basic skills necessary to comprehend schoolwork and to get along with others. Often, the youth who is embarrassed by poor performance gets into a negative cycle of attention seeking that interferes with school participation. Some youths’ problem-solving skills are compromised by not accurately perceiving cues from peers and adults, typically attributing hostility to others and believing that aggressive acts will result in peer approval (Dodge, 2003). Truancy from feeling picked on by teachers and/or students and frustration with poor academic progress can begin early in young people with learning disabilities, and not attending school can lead to delinquency.

STRENGTHS OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS Youth have strengths that must be built on in designing supports and services to meet the needs driving their delinquent behavior (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). Often, youth can be engaged in change when their strengths

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are recognized. Their aspirations may be connected to something they are or were good at, and what may motivate them to change is to get back on track toward achieving dreams. Although families are typically blamed as the cause of delinquency, most families also have strengths, and youth often take it personally when their families are criticized (see Jacobs, Miranda-Julian & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). Peers and neighborhoods also receive blame for youth getting involved in delinquency, but positive peers can encourage the youth’s aspirations and neighborhoods can offer significant support (such as pastors, relatives, and other adults and athletic and artistic opportunities) (see Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Schools are seen as failing to address youth problems before they drop out or are suspended or expelled, but schools also can meet youth needs with services that offer youth the opportunity for success. Through a developmental framework, juvenile justice can avoid pathologizing and instead identify the strengths and needs behind each young person’s behavior. Rather than viewing the young person as a “bad seed” likely to become an adult offender, developmentally sound services support the youth’s resilience so he or she can outgrow unacceptable behaviors.

VIGNETTES OF YOUTH IN JUVENILE JUSTICE The stories of four youth are presented next, including brief descriptions of their strengths; family, peer, school, and neighborhood contexts; immaturity; trauma; and disabilities. These vignettes demonstrate how a developmental framework can guide our understanding and treatment of these youth,

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

as well as our efforts to prevent systeminvolvement for others. Marco’s story is included, as well, in the analysis presented in Table 1.1. Dustin Dustin is a quiet 13-year-old Native American youth born on a reservation. His mother was 16, his father was incarcerated before his birth, and he was raised by his grandmother. When he lived with his mother, he periodically ran away to his grandmother because of his mother’s physical abuse. His mother married, and they moved across the country to live with his new stepfather when Dustin was in seventh grade, shortly before the birth of his brother. It was traumatic for Dustin to lose his extended family and strong cultural roots. His stepfather was young, had not parented before, and favored his newborn; his mother’s life centered around her husband. Dustin adjusted surprisingly well to his new school. He had several friends who lived nearby and he spent most of his time in their homes. The girl next door was his best friend, and he felt “adopted” by her parents, who took him to the water park and skating rink; he resented his family for not caring enough about him to do activities together. He worried about his stepfather’s drinking, which caused work and marital problems. His stepfather was furious when Dustin protected his mother when he was about to slap her. Dustin said his stepfather hit him and constantly reprimanded him for not doing household chores properly. Dustin’s mother and stepfather criticized him for getting poor grades, although he complained that he worked on his homework longer every afternoon than his friends. Initially, his teachers attributed his academic struggles to their assumption that the small reservation school he had attended from first to sixth grades was

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inferior. Because he was so “shy,” his trouble concentrating and following directions was overlooked, and they were surprised that on his first standardized testing in late spring, Dustin scored more than three grades lower than his classmates. Although he was not referred for evaluation of attention deficit (without hyperactivity) and/or executive function deficits, Dustin was likely eligible for special education services to address disabilities, which would have improved his grades and self-esteem. During the summer, Dustin’s mother told him they had to move, but not back to his relatives. When he told his friend next door, she cried and Dustin said he held back tears. He was upset he would have to leave his friends and their caring families and adjust to a new school. The week of the offense, it came as a surprise to Dustin that his mother was sending him to live with a relative he did not know far from both his grandmother and where his mother was moving. He felt rejected, especially since his stepfather said it was his disobedience and poor grades that were making them send him to relatives who could discipline him. Early physical abuse, being separated from family members, chronic disapproval, worrying about his mother’s marriage, and the impending move was a significant amount of trauma. Dustin did not have anyone to confide in and internalized his feelings. Leading up to his explosion, Dustin was under extreme stress that compromised his typical immature thinking. When he walked in the door that night, Dustin said his mother immediately started yelling at him. He heated up some food and was watching television. His stepfather yelled at him to get off the couch and turn off the TV. He was real mean about it. I was still eating. He told me to hurry up. I got up and moved so he could lie down on the couch. I went into the kitchen

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and put my dishes in the dishwasher. Then he yelled at me because I had turned the kitchen light on. It made me mad. I was sick of being yelled at and not allowed to watch TV in my own house. I can’t explain what happened next. I grabbed a knife from the dishwasher. Without thinking, Dustin lunged at his stepfather, cutting him seriously before he ran out of the house. Later, he understood that he had “bottled up all that anger at my stepfather and my mother and it all came out at once, but I didn’t expect it.” Behind Dustin’s aggression were complicated unmet needs to: &

&

&

& &

&

Understand that the loss and rejection he experienced are not his fault; Learn how to respond when criticized and not overreact to rejection; Learn how to express himself without holding his feelings in until he erupts; Feel successful in school; Recognize the effects of his learning disabilities on his concentration and decision making; and Not be separated from family.

These needs could be met by trauma treatment, services to learn how to compensate for his learning disabilities, coaching on expressing his feelings and not overreacting, and returning to live with his grandmother. Peter Peter is a childish, White 14-year-old who was traumatized by abuse by his mentally ill mother, and then by abuse in his foster home. Later, he was moved to his father and stepmother’s home. When he was in elementary school, Peter ran away repeatedly because of

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his father’s abuse. Child Protective Services again placed him in a foster home for more than a year. When he was returned, the school complained that his father was not cooperative in dealing with Peter’s academic and behavior problems. Peter remembers being picked on since second grade for being behind academically. As he got older, Peter was upset that he was teased for being gay. He said he always liked girls, but kids thought he was gay because “I’m small and soft.” He felt unfairly treated by the PE teacher and got Fs in PE because he was being harassed in the locker room and refused to change. Peter’s arms are lined with scars. “I was always cutting my wrists. My teacher saw it. My dad saw it. No one did anything about it.” Peter talked about being isolated and alone, tolerating physical punishment by his father and conflict with his stepmother. “I didn’t care about anybody. I just wanted to be dead.” Asked what made him get to that point in eighth grade, he responded, “Thinking no one cares, people making fun of me all the time. My whole class made fun of me for being gay and not being able to do math.” Because of past trauma, Peter was unusually sensitive to criticism. He could not articulate that he felt hurt when he was teased and embarrassed about being unable to do his schoolwork. After years of abuse, Peter experienced any “no” as another victimization and he reflexively reacted to protect himself. He had not learned how to prevent escalation or how to calm himself down when he was teased, cornered, pushed, or touched. Peter’s IEP (Individualized Education Plan) was blaming, focused on behavior control, and reflected no understanding of trauma-driven behavior. Peter got angry when he read his behavior intervention plan (BIP): “Peter’s motivation for inappropriate behavior and language toward peers and teachers is

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

avoidance of work and attention seeking.” He thought his IEP was wrong: “Why do they think I avoid work? I go to school. I try to do my work. I need help on a lot of things. I am frustrated when I can’t get more help.” After his arrest, a neuropsychological evaluation found “a severe attentional disorder, a slow rate of information processing, and memory and executive dysfunctions which constitute a significant functional disability” that interfered with Peter’s school performance as well as with interactions with family and friends. For years he had IEPs without the required evaluations, which could have identified his disabilities in order to design the proper combination of services to ensure that his social skills, attentiveness, reading, and math improved. Had instruction in the give-and-take of communication, how to avoid talking too much, how to read others’ nonverbal cues, and how not to misinterpret rules as mistreatment been initiated in the early elementary years when his social skills deficits were first documented, Peter’s behavior improvement might have prevented being picked on. His early depression and anxiety might have been reduced with improved peer relationships, although these were also symptoms of trauma that went untreated. The kids were picking on me, calling me gay every day. The teacher heard them and didn’t do anything. The PE teacher yelled at me. The counselor wouldn’t do anything. No one would help. Nobody cared. A kid called me a name, another kid tripped me as I was walking to my seat. I got angry. My teacher yelled at me to calm down. I got more out of hand. She came toward me, trying to corner me. When I get angry, I don’t think. I was telling her to

15

leave me alone. She was yelling just like my father. She pushed me. I told her, “You better not touch me again.” She pushed me against the cabinet. I went ballistic. I pushed her down, ran out of the school. Behind Peter’s aggression were numerous unmet needs to: &

& &

&

&

Learn to separate his past victimization from provocation in the present; Learn to calm himself before reacting; Understand his pool of anger and hurt and learn to be less sensitive to rejection and to express his anger without hurting himself or others; Understand his attention, processing, and executive function difficulties; and Be successful at something.

These needs could be met by trauma treatment, services to learn how to compensate for his learning disabilities, a home and school where he is not maltreated, and guidance for the adults to understand that their actions might prevent most of his behavior problems by avoiding power struggles and deescalating before he gets out of control.

Brandon Brandon is a bright, engaging African American 15-year-old from a loving family. His mother is proud of her two older children in community college and she is raising her young great nephew who had been neglected. Brandon’s father’s murder when Brandon was young led to his family’s move out of a high-crime area. Brandon’s arrest for selling marijuana shocked all of them. His siblings and mother

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insisted that their family’s love, religious values, emphasis on school achievement, and strong work ethic made it inconceivable that any of the children could be a delinquent. Family members expressed regret for not realizing that his doing poorly in school and hanging around with kids who were not successful in school or athletics put him at risk. Brandon kept secrets from his mother for more than a year. His family said Brandon remained the same loving, childish, entertaining son and sibling at home, helping with his cousin and doing chores. But when he was out, he was using marijuana daily and paying for it by selling marijuana. Brandon’s life had changed significantly in the past 2 years, in a negative direction in several dimensions simultaneously. &

&

&

The loss of basketball. Brandon experienced a major, painful rejection when he was not invited to continue with the elite team he had been on for years. He felt humiliated, and lost a sense of belonging and identity that was critical to him. He stopped playing basketball altogether, believing his future as an athlete was over. Less attention from his mother. When he was in seventh grade, his mother lost her job and they had to move again. Her great nephew required a lot of her assistance when he was removed from his mother and had to adjust to a new family and school. Because Brandon was not playing sports, he spent less time with his mother, who had been at all his games. His brother’s leaving. When Brandon’s brother left home, he lost the daily friendship and guidance of the person to whom he was closest in his family.

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&

This marked the end of Brandon’s life at home playing video games, since his brother was his game partner from second to seventh grade. The loss of school as a place of success. For Brandon, like many students, seventh grade was a difficult adjustment—the work was more challenging and he felt the teachers expected too much. Although in elementary school he had met state standards, getting As and Bs, in seventh grade Brandon was below standard in math and reading, did not like his teacher, and failed a class. In eighth grade, he was absent 40 days (in contrast to nearly perfect attendance in elementary school), got Ds, and was suspended for getting into an argument. Not wanting to burden his mother, he kept his problems from her. His brother told Brandon “to turn it around. You are just being lazy.” A friend’s parent was monitoring her MySpace and complained to the school that Brandon wrote threatening statements about the assistant principal; he was arrested, put on probation, and suspended (even though he said he was just joking). His probation officer detained him for a week when he was suspended in the first month of ninth grade for having marijuana in his pocket at school.

Unaware of the seriousness of Brandon’s problems, his family viewed these as minor “incidents” due to his being unfairly treated at school and by probation. His mother was angry at the school for singling Brandon out: If he had been a White kid, the school would have given him help a long

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

time ago. If he had been White, his probation officer would have sent him to a drug program, rather than locking him up in detention. Brandon’s immature thinking included not being able to anticipate the long-term consequences of poor grades. He did not imagine that each day his choices about his schoolwork were taking him off the path of high school graduation and going to college on a sports scholarship. Brandon also minimized the risks of his secret life. He was smoking marijuana every day in ninth grade and believed that marijuana was benign. Brandon said marijuana gave him a “mellow mind,” and he liked being relaxed. The only problem he saw with marijuana was cost. Brandon also had an immature identity. Prior to seventh grade, Brandon was a successful athlete and student, staying close to his family and home. But he lost some of his family-centeredness and he lost his sportsfocused identity. Brandon did not want to turn his back on his close friends, with whom he had played basketball since elementary school. They smoked marijuana together, were barely passing in school, and none were playing high school sports. He was their supplier, believing he would never get arrested selling drugs just to people he knew. Behind Brandon’s illegal behavior were significant unmet needs to: & &

&

&

Be successful at school; Develop a stable, positive identity supported by successful peers at school; Talk about how much he has missed his father and brother; Learn how to get a “mellow mind” without using marijuana; and

&

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Learn how to anticipate consequences, see risks, and make choices that will allow him to achieve his goals.

These needs could be met by coaching on getting involved with college-bound peers, decision-making skills, returning to sports, improving study habits, tutorial assistance, college-preparatory summer programs, and guidance for his mother in providing supervision and recognizing Brandon’s successes. Kristi Kristi is a 16-year-old biracial girl whose grandmother said she was “the perfect child until middle school: good grades, happy, nice friends, loved sports. She loved her mother; they had survived hard times together.” Her parents’ arguments and bitter divorce and her mother’s remarriage were hard on Kristi. She missed having her father at home, and by the time she was in fourth grade, the fighting between her mother and stepfather was frightening. “I was scared of him. He wasn’t working and was living off my Mom and me. I couldn’t understand why she took him back over and over.” Kristi developed an eating disorder in sixth grade after her stepfather was arrested for attacking her mother and Kristi when she tried to get help. Kristi’s soccer team was the center of her life for years, and her mother, grandmother, and father cheered for her at tournaments: “It was hard work to be on a travel team. It was an honor. We went to the state championship and met girls from all over. We did so well. We had so much fun.” After the game, Kristi and her friends got caught drinking and their coach kicked them off the team. “I was going to try out for the high school team, but I gave up. . . . It was a big mistake that I regretted.”

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Her father talked about the vacuum that not playing soccer caused in Kristi’s life, observing that without the discipline of sports she “became less motivated to do well in school, had more worries about her weight, and did not have her good group of friends.” The combination of reactions to her parents’ divorce and her mother’s involvement in an abusive second marriage made Kristi susceptible to an exploitive relationship with an older male. With her worries about her appearance, the loss of soccer, and feeling less motivated academically, Kristi was flattered by his attention, and minimized keeping him a secret from her parents, who would not have approved. He was extremely moody, arguing with people for no reason. He hit me with his fists. He said the meanest stuff to me. And then sweet talk me, saying beautiful things. I told my best friend I didn’t want to stay with him, but I didn’t know how to break it off. I was so depressed. Kristi continued,

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Lacking experience, Kristi did not correctly assess many danger signals: “He would not let me go anywhere without him. His mood swings were extreme and unpredictable. He smashed things when he was angry.” His obsession that afternoon with wanting to run away with her was annoying, but she thought it was “just talk” when he kept coming back to the same subject for hours and was not satisfied with her telling him she was not leaving home. What Kristi did not know was that he had been using meth that day. She was shocked when he attacked her mother, stabbing her to death with a kitchen knife when she got home from work: “It was so quick; I was in shock, shivering and not understanding what was happening.” Threatening Kristi with the knife, he ordered her to get her mother’s car keys and wallet and made her drive to an ATM to withdraw the limit in cash from her mother’s account. When they were apprehended in her mother’s car, it did not occur to Kristi that the police would arrest her. She gave a simple statement about what had happened: I thought the police wanted information about what he did. I didn’t try to explain it to them. I didn’t understand what happened myself. I thought they knew I didn’t have any part in it and were going to take me home.

I was ashamed that I still loved him and his sweet-talking and hoped our good times would return. I didn’t ask for help because I didn’t realize I was over my head. I knew getting high with him and skipping school to be with him were wrong. But I thought I could quit him anytime.

Asked whether she told the police she had been kidnapped, Kristi responded that she thought kidnapping referred to a small child or someone being tied up. She added,

Kristi said she hid “how bad I felt about myself ” and did not know how to get counseling without burdening her mother. She told herself that her substance use was not a problem. She believed that she would get serious about school again and achieve her goal of college.

I was forced the whole time. I wasn’t dragged by my hair. But if I had refused, he would have made me. The look in his eyes was so threatening. In the car he was holding the knife. I didn’t have control, of course, I never did with him.

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Her boyfriend told the police it was Kristi’s idea to kill her mother because she wanted to run away from home. In her state, 16-yearolds charged with murder did not have a hearing where a judge would decide whether they could be rehabilitated in juvenile court. Kristi was held for many months in an adult jail, fortunately supported by maternal and paternal extended family, before she was acquitted by a jury in an adult trial. Behind Kristi’s involvement in an abusive relationship were complex unmet needs to: &

& &

&

Recover from her parents’ divorce and her exposure to domestic violence, and understand the connection between her worries about loss of relationships and her eating problems and use of substances; Be proud of her academic performance; Learn how to have a good dating relationship without violence or being controlled; and Improve her ability to assess the riskiness of her choices.

These needs could be met by trauma treatment, support from teachers and family for good grades in school, and guidance in deciding about whether to return to sports. Commonalities Among These Young People Of the five youths ages 13–16 arrested for a range of offenses described previously, all had strengths. Three had loving families and one had been raised in the past by a loving grandmother. All five needed, and had not received, trauma treatment. The behavior for which they came to the attention of the juvenile justice system (and one of them to the child welfare system) was linked to abuse, loss, harassment, and exposure to

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violence. None of them understood the connection between past trauma and their present problems, even the two whose aggression was directly related to prior victimization. For two of the youth, their delinquent behavior was associated with their untreated learning disabilities. The other three did not have disabilities, but had become alienated from school and were not achieving as well as they had in the past. Immaturity affected all of their offenses. All had immature thinking, minimized risk, and were unable to anticipate the worst possible outcomes of their behaviors. None of them had the experience to realize that they needed help and could not solve their problems themselves. One was helped by friends, one was loyal to friends, two were pressured by older youth, and one had poor peer relationships. All expressed moral values and knew right from wrong, but they were not rational and could not use mature moral reasoning when caught up in an offense they did not realize was going to happen. The range of developmental characteristics behind the behavior of these five youth is presented in Table 1.1. These portraits are quite different than the standard files of system-involved youth might suggest. Without minimizing the seriousness of the acts these young people have committed, each portrait attempts to explain how the youth came to be in the situations that led them to these actions, and based on that information, what services would likely be successful in building on their strengths and meeting their needs so they can achieve adult lives of purpose. They argue, in my view, for keeping youth out of adult probation, jails, and prisons—allowing them the opportunity to mature and to heal within a juvenile justice system that can provide developmentally sound support. The vignettes also identify lost opportunities for intervening before delinquent acts were ever committed.

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Marco (Age 14)

Attached to extended family Strong positive family values Felt criticized by stepfather, betrayed by mother

Nondelinquent friends

Well liked by teachers Behind academically No testing for services

Loss of reservation culture Safe neighborhood

Impulsive reaction to criticism Did not realize anger and sadness could explode Did not realize he needed help Not excelling at anything

Physical abuse Separation from family Constant criticism Stress of moving

Undiagnosed ADD and/or executive function deficit

PEER CONTEXT

SCHOOL CONTEXT

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT

IMMATURITY

TRAUMA

DISABILITIES

Separation from mother, abuse in foster home, abuse by father and stepmother Years of feeling unwanted

Wants friends, nonabusive home No prior arrests or substance use

Peter (Age 14)

Minimized risks of boyfriend Minimized risks of alcohol and marijuana Did not realize she needed help Dependent Divorce Domestic violence at home Loss of sports Depressed

Minimized risks of selling marijuana Did not realize drift away from path of school and sports Did not realize he needed help Did not want to be disloyal Father’s murder Loss of sports Mother’s job loss and move Brother leaving

Can’t anticipate consequences Didn’t want to be perceived as gay Not successful at anything Self-destructive behavior Tormented by teasing Repeated abuse caused reflexive reaction to threat Depressed

Minimized risks of joining gang Felt he had no choice but to do what was ordered Did not realize he needed help Not excelling at anything Deaths in family Parents preoccupied Constant fear from violence Pressure to achieve

Untreated processing, attention and executive function difficulties

Low-crime neighborhood

Was an excellent student Decreased confidence in school Working-class neighborhood with increasing crime

Was an excellent student

Isolated rural area

IEP for behavior control, not for disabilities Feels no one stopped mistreatment

Strong, caring family Did not realize she needed more supervision and help

Strong, caring family Did not realize he needed more supervision and help

Nondelinquent friends except her boyfriend Unable to leave abusive boyfriend

Wants to go to college No prior arrests Athletic talent

Wants to go to college Athletic talent

Friends no longer athletes and likely to drop out of school Daily marijuana use requires $

Kristi (Age 16)

Brandon (Age 15)

Terrified by gang violence

Capable of grade-level work, but alienated Feels teachers are unsupportive

Brother and friends in gang Picked on every day in school for 6 years

Strong, caring family Did not know how to provide supervision or encouragement

Wants to complete high school Wants to complete high school No prior arrests or substance use Remorseful Knows hurting someone is wrong

FAMILY CONTEXT

STRENGTHS

Dustin (Age 13)

Table 1.1. A Developmental Framework for Understanding Five System-Involved Youth

A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Taking an ecologically oriented, traumainformed developmental view of who these young people are, what they need, and what they might yet become is a step toward providing them with the effective juvenile services described in subsequent chapters.

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perspective. In B. Jackson & C. Wijeyesinghe (Eds.), New perspectives on racial identity development: A theoretical & practical anthology (pp. 243–270). New York: New York University. Dodge, K. A. (2003). Do social information processing patterns mediate aggressive behavior? In B. Lahey, T. Moffitt, & A. Caspi (Eds.), Causes of conduct disorder and juvenile delinquency (pp. 254–274). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Dodge, K. A., Malone, P. S., Lansford, J. E., MillerJohnson, S., Petit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (2006). Toward a dynamic developmental model of the role of parents and peers in early onset substance use. In J. Dunn & A. Clarke-Stewart (Eds.), Families count: Effects on child and adolescent development (pp. 104–131). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Eisenberg, N., Morris, A. S., McDaniel, B., & Spinrad, T. L. (2009). Moral cognitions and prosocial responding in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg, Handbook of adolescent psychology, Vol. 1: Individual bases of adolescent development (3rd ed., pp. 229–265). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Eme, R. (2009). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the family court. Family Court Review, 47(4), 650–664. Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle; selected papers. New York, NY: International Universities Press. Fagan, J. (2000). Contexts of choices by adolescents in criminal events. In T. Grisso & R. Schwartz (Eds.), Youth on Trial (pp. 371–402). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fareri, D. S., Martin, L. N., & Delgado, M. R. (2008). Reward-related processing in the human brain: Developmental considerations. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 1191–1211. Ford, J. D., Chapman, J. F., Hawke, J., & Albert, D. (2007). Trauma among youth in the juvenile justice system: Critical issues and new directions. Retrieved from National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Web site: www.ncmhjj.com Furby, M., & Beythe-Marom, R. (1992). Risk-taking in adolescence: A decision-making perspective. Developmental Review, 12, 1–44. Galliher, R. V., Rostosky, S. S., & Hughes, H. K. (2004). School belonging, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms in adolescents: An examination of sex,

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A Developmental View of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Putnick, D. L., Bornstein, M. H., Hendricks, C., Painter, K. M., Suwalsky, J. T., & Collins, W. A. (2008). Parenting stress, perceived parenting behaviors, and adolescent self-concept in European American families. Journal of Family Psychology, 22(5), 752–762. Ryan, C., Huebner, D., Diaz, R. M. & Sanchez, J. (2009) Family rejection as a predictor of negative health outcomes in white and Latino lesbian, gay and bisexual young adults. Pediatrics, 1, 346–352. Scott, E. S., & Grisso, T. (1997). The evolution of adolescence: A developmental perspective on juvenile justice reform. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 88, 137–189. Scott, E. S., & Steinberg, L. (2008). Adolescent development and the regulation of youth crime. The Future of Children, 18(2), 15–33. Sedlak, A., & McPherson, K. (2010). Conditions of confinement: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (May). Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of Justice. Seiffge-Krenke, I. (1995). Stress, coping, and relationships in adolescence. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Smetana, J. G., & Turiel, E. (2003). Moral development during adolescence. In G. R. Adams & M. D. Berzonsky (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of adolescence (pp. 247–268). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Smith, D., Leve, L., & Chamberlain, P. (2006). Adolescent girls’ offending and health-risking sexual behavior: The predictive role of trauma. Child Maltreatment, 11(4), 346–353. Spear, L. P. (2000) The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 417–463. Spencer, M. B., Harpalani, V., Cassidy, E., Jacobs, C. Y., Donde, S., Goss, T. N., . . . Wilson, S. (2006). Understanding vulnerability and resilience from a normative developmental perspective: Implications for racially and ethnically diverse youth. In D. Chicchetti (Ed.), Handbook of development and psychopathology (pp. 627–673). New York, NY: Wiley. Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78–106.

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Steinberg, L., & Haskins, R. (2008). Keeping adolescents out of prison. Princeton University-Brookings Institution Policy Brief. Retrieved from www.future ofchildren.org Steinberg, L., Lamborn, S. D., Darling, N., Mounts, N. S., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1994). Over-time changes in adjustment and competence among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent and neglectful families. Child Development, 65, 754–770. Warden, R., & Drizin, S. (Eds.). (2009). True stories of false confessions. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University. Widom, C. S. (1994). Child victimization and adolescent problem behavior. In R. D. Ketterlinus & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), Adolescent problem behavior: Issues and research. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Wigfield, A., Byrnes, J. B., & Eccles, J. S. (2006). Adolescent development. In P. A. Alexander & P. Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 87–113). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Wilber, S., Ryan, C., & Marksamer, J. (2006). Serving LGBT youth in out-of-home care. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. Wills, T. A., Sandy, J. M., & Yaeger, A. M. (2001). Coping dimensions, life stress, and adolescent substance use: A latent growth analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 309–323. Wolfe, D., Rawana, J., & Chiodo, D. (2006). Abuse and trauma. In D. Wolfe & E. Mash (Eds.), Behavioral and emotional disorders in adolescents. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Wood, J., Foy, D., Goguen, C., Pynoos, R., & James, C. B. (2002a). Violence exposure and PTSD among delinquent girls. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 6(1), 109–126. Wood, J., Foy, D., Layne, C., Pynoos, R., & James, C. B. (2002b). An examination of the relationships between violence exposure, posttraumatic stress symptomatology, and delinquent activity: An “ecopathological” model of delinquent behavior among incarcerated adolescents. In R. Greenwald (Ed.), Trauma and juvenile delinquency (pp. 109–126). New York, NY: Hayworth. Zahn, M. (2009). The delinquent girl. Philadelphia, PA: Temple.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

2

Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Characteristics and Patterns of Involvement KRISTI HOLSINGER

C

onventional wisdom about juveniles and delinquency control measures in this country has evolved substantially over time, yielding fragmented, contradictory, and at times even chaotic, approaches to managing juvenile delinquency—hardly a “system” in any conventional sense and certainly “young” in its development. In turn, shifting perspectives on who these youth are and how they should be treated have bedeviled attempts to standardize how they and their offenses are described and documented. Based on nationally available data, this chapter presents as full and accurate a portrait as possible of these young people, at each stage of their involvement with the juvenile justice system. A brief review of the history of the development and current operations of the system will proceed to provide necessary context for the data that follow.

1972). An important counterdevelopment occurred in 1841 with the advent of probation for children; similar “child-helping” initiatives soon followed with the creation of reform schools. However, it was during the Progressive Era when reforms that credited the ageminority status of children, including the establishment of the first juvenile court in 1899, became widespread. The reformers of this period saw the main goal of the juvenile justice court as treatment and rehabilitation, not punishment. Delinquency was a condition that could be identified, treated, and cured, they argued, through an individual analysis of the youth’s special needs and circumstances. In response, the court eliminated the punitive, adversarial, and formalized procedures of the adult criminal process and adopted more informal proceedings characterized by greatly increasing judicial discretion; as an unintended consequence, many due process protections afforded adults were eliminated. Eventually, common belief held that the juveniles were getting “the worst of both worlds” (Kent v. United States, 1966, p. 556), receiving neither the necessary help or treatment promised by the juvenile court, nor the procedural protection adults in the criminal justice system enjoyed. Landmark cases heard by the Supreme Court (e.g., In re Gault, 1967;

THE HISTORICAL LEGACY OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM Some mark the beginning of the juvenile justice system in the early 1800s, when states began to supersede parental authority and rights by institutionalizing “deviant” children, often for cheap labor, however, still treating them similarly to adult criminals (Mennel, 24

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

In re Winship, 1970) supported this contention, and the rights of juveniles were greatly expanded, institutionalizing some of the formality of the adult system in the juvenile court. Juveniles began to be treated more like adults in other ways as well; for example, the 1980s marked efforts by virtually every state to allow easier transfer of youth to adult court (Feld, 1998; Torbet et al., 1996; see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Research in the 1960s and 1970s also identified serious flaws in the system. Correctional “treatment,” especially in institutions, was punitive, harsh, and sometimes even sadistic (Holland & Mlyniec, 1995; President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 2008; also see Beck, Harrison, & Guerino, 2010, for a current review and analysis of sexual victimization in juvenile facilities), and minor offenders were incarcerated alongside seriously delinquent youth. In the 1970s, deinstitutionalization (providing programs in community-based settings rather than in institutions) and diversion (keeping youth out of the system to begin with) were promoted. The decriminalization and deinstitutionalization of status offenses were also encouraged, largely due to provisions in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. By the 1980s, a score of social and demographic factors precipitated a shift away from the long-standing posture of rehabilitation to one reflecting a “get tough” mentality (Butts & Mears, 2001). Crime control policies instituted for juveniles included lowering the age limit for juvenile court jurisdiction, the increased use of preventative detention, the increased transfer of juveniles to the adult system, a move toward determinate sentencing for violent offenders, and even the use of the death penalty for certain crimes. Data linking these get-tough measures with reductions in youth

25

crime have not been forthcoming; in fact, an in-depth analysis in Florida found such punitive measures to have a negligible impact on juvenile crime rates (Frazier, Bishop, & LanzaKaduce, 1999). Recent developmental research on adolescent brain functioning also suggests that youth do not have the same skills as adults in weighing costs and benefits and acting rationally (Scott & Steinberg, 2000). These developments have called into question the wisdom of the policy shifts of the 1980s and 1990s. Interestingly, both of these contradictory approaches remain part of the current juvenile justice system. States and counties vary greatly in their ideological viewpoints on, and their legislation concerning, juvenile crime; juvenile court practices are also determined by the demographics and geography of states and by the resources available for youth in a given community (see Schiraldi, Schindler & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). All this leads to wide variation across the country in the youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system, which in turn produces broad variation in selection and maintenance of both person- and crime-specific data.

HOW JUVENILE CASES ARE PROCESSED There are almost 3,000 juvenile courts in operation in the United States (Krisberg, 2005). The number of delinquency cases handled by them remained largely stable between 2000 and 2007, with approximately 1.7 million cases handled nationwide in 2007 (Knoll & Sickmund, 2010). As can be seen from Figure 2.1, the juvenile court caseload climbed steadily from 1960, when 400,000 cases were processed, to the peak year in 1997 with over 1.8 million cases (Puzzanchera &

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Figure 2.1 Number of Delinquency Cases, 1960–2005

Source: Adapted from Puzzanchera and Sickmund, 2008.

Sickmund, 2009). Between 1997 and 2007, there was an 11% decline in delinquency cases (Puzzanchera, Adams, & Sickmund, 2011). This decrease has been attributed to reductions in juvenile violent crime and expanded laws allowing for juvenile cases to be directly transferred to adult courts (Adams & Addie, 2010). The juvenile justice process typically begins with a referral, which can be handled informally or formally, or diverted. Most juveniles (83% in 2007; Puzzanchera et al., 2011) are referred into the system by law enforcement, although many cases drop out of the system through informal processing or diversion. Other referrals come from schools, parents, victims, probation officers, and social service agencies, largely dependent on the offense. For example, in 2002 non-law enforcement referrals accounted for a small percentage of property (9%), drug (10%) and person offenses (13%), and a larger percentage of truancy (86%), ungovernability (70%), runaway (45%), and public order offenses (39%) (Snyder & Sickmund, 2004). Beginning in the 1990s, there has been a trend of increased school referrals to juvenile court as the result of zero-tolerance state laws mandating referral of children to law

enforcement for certain school violations (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). An analysis of school referrals in five states found that four of the states experienced a greater proportion of referrals from schools to juvenile court in 2004 compared to 1995 (Krezmien, Leone, Zablocki, & Wells, 2009). Initially concerned with drugs, gangs, and weapons, zero-tolerance laws have expanded to include behaviors considered disruptive (Skiba, 2001). This practice has led to a phenomenon referred to as the “school-to-prison pipeline” where certain groups of students, particularly African American students, are put on a pathway by schools into the justice system (Wald & Losen, 1995; see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). The decision to detain a juvenile must involve parental notification and a review by an intake officer or a prosecutor to ensure sufficient evidence to proceed. At this point in processing, 44% of the cases are dismissed or handled informally, while slightly more than half (56%) result in formal intervention by the court (Sickmund, 1988). Holding a youth for an extended period of time (over 24 hours in

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

most states) requires a judicial decision and typically is determined by whether the youth is believed to be a harm to self or others; the youth lacks a parent or guardian, which can include homelessness or runaway status; or it is believed the youth is unlikely to appear for future court proceedings (Chesney-Lind & Shelden, 2004). In 2005, detention hearings resulted in 21% of youth being detained (Snyder & Sickmund, 2004). A delinquency case is handled in either juvenile or criminal (adult) court. Between 1992 and 1997, 44 states and the District of Columbia passed laws increasing the likelihood a juvenile would be waived to adult criminal court, either through changes in the law or by giving judges and/or prosecutors increased discretion (Allard & Young, 2002). The criteria and process for waiver to adult court are determined by state statute, but largely reflect an individual or policy decision about whether a youth or groups of youth are likely to be rehabilitated by the services provided in the juvenile court (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Less than 1% of all delinquency cases result in judicial waiver, and about half are for personrelated offenses (48%), with the other half being transferred to the adult system for property (27%), drug-related (13%), or public order offenses (11%) (Adams & Addie, 2010). This offense distribution has changed considerably when compared to transfers 20 years ago. In 1985, most cases involved property offenses (53%), followed by person (33%), public order (9%), and drug offenses (5%) (Adams & Addie, 2010). In 2007, approximately 8,500 cases were waived to criminal court. Most waived cases involved males (90%) over the age of 15 (88%) (Adams & Addie, 2010). To date, research on the use of waivers for juveniles is not supportive of the practice, as there is no evidence that it achieves reductions in recidivism or youth

27

crime, and in fact the practice may lead to increased recidivism (Bishop, 2000; Bishop & Frazier, 2000). Because of waivers, youth are eligible to receive life sentences. In 2008, the number of juveniles serving life terms was 6,807, and, depending on the source, between 26% and 37% of these youth have no chance of parole (Human Rights Watch, 2008; Nellis & King, 2009). While virtually every state doles out life terms (exceptions are Indiana, Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia), more than 50% of these juveniles are from five states: California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada. Juveniles sentenced to life without parole are most likely to come from the states of Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, and Louisiana. In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court held that a sentence of life without parole for juveniles in nonhomicide cases was unconstitutional (Graham v. Florida, 2010; see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). If a case proceeds in juvenile court, an adjudicatory hearing is scheduled, and the case is typically decided by a judge (see Figure 2.2 for the typical case flow in the juvenile justice system). In juvenile court, a separate hearing is held to determine the disposition of the case. This separate hearing allows time for a presentence investigative report to be filed based on a probation officer’s assessment of the unique needs and circumstances of the juvenile and exists as evidence of the court’s enduring goal of individualized treatment and rehabilitation. A judge then determines the disposition of the case, although input from the prosecution, youth, and probation officers can be presented (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Two categories of offenses that come to the attention of juvenile courts are criminal offenses and status offenses, the latter of which are behaviors deemed illegal based solely on the minor status of the offender (i.e., running away,

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Figure 2.2 Juvenile Justice System Case Flow Diagram

Source: Adapted from Snyder and Sickmund, 2006.

truancy, consuming alcohol). Processing for these two types of offenses is similar; however, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974 (P.L. 93-415, 88 Stat. 1109) and subsequent reauthorizations (1977, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2002) prohibit the use of secure detention for status offenses. In the JJDPA, states were required to use services outside of the juvenile justice system, such as group homes or shelter facilities run by family or social services in lieu of juvenile court residential placements. However, many status offenders still find their way into detention and placements through the valid court order (VCO) exception, passed in 1980 and included in subsequent reauthorizations. Under the VCO exception, status offenders can be detained if they violate a valid court order in the form, for example, of a probation condition. In

2007, about 11% of all adjudicated status offenders were in court ordered out of home placement (Puzzanchera et al., 2010). Due to the less serious nature of most juvenile crime, the most common disposition has always been, and remains, probation. Probation or regularly scheduled meetings between a probation officer and juvenile offender results in 56% of cases adjudicated delinquent and typically include other mandates such as drug testing, counseling, or restitution (Sickmund, 2010). After reaching a peak in 1997, the number of cases adjudicated delinquent and sanctioned to probation declined 17% by 2007 (Puzzanchera et al., 2010). Probation, either for a fixed amount or an open-ended amount of time, is terminated once the specified conditions have been met (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Regardless

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

of the effectiveness of probation, its use successfully allows a youth to avoid the many negative consequences now associated with incarceration (Bernburg & Krohn, 2003). Twenty-five percent of offenders adjudicated delinquent are placed in a residential facility for a specified or indeterminate time, which is the most severe outcome available for juveniles within the juvenile justice system (Sickmund, 2010). Approximately 95,000 youth are held in juvenile justice facilities and publicly operated facilities house 69% of juvenile offenders (Livsey, Sickmund, & Sladky, 2009). In 2007, state-funded, postadjudicatory, residential facilities cost an average of $241 per day (American Correctional Association, 2008). The use of out-of-home residential placements peaked in 1997 and decreased 16% through 2007, with the largest decreases taking place for property offenses (34% reduction between 1997 and 2007) and drug offenses (16% reduction) (Puzzanchera et al., 2010). Rehabilitative ideals typically coincide with an indeterminate sentence, in which the juvenile is held until juvenile justice professionals feel he or she is adequately reformed, whereas a determinate sentence, which is based on the offense and specific sentencing guidelines determined by states, is more consistent with “get-tough” practices (Forst, Fisher, & Coates, 1985). Upon release from residential facilities, jails, and adult prisons, some form of juvenile aftercare (referred to as parole in the adult system) is typically available, but jurisdictions vary greatly on the extent to which aftercare is treatment oriented. From an accountability perspective, there are usually conditions during this time period, which, if violated, can result in recommitment. In spite of very high recidivism rates for system-involved youth, aftercare is underdeveloped in most juvenile justice systems (Mears & Travis, 2004).

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Relying on institutions to “fix” juveniles in the system is problematic, as abusive and harsh conditions remain a reality (Beck et al., 2010). A survey conducted by the Associated Press found 13,000 claims of abuse from 2004 through 2007, but only a fraction of these is confirmed, likely related to the positions of authority held by adults in these environments (Mohr, 2008). A 2010 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics based on the National Survey of Youth in Custody (26,550 youth) found that 12% (n ¼ 3,220) report experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months (Beck et al., 2010). Staff sexual misconduct accounts for the majority of the incidents (85%), and boys report more abuse by staff, while girls are at greatest risk for sexual victimization by another youth (Beck et al., 2010). These statistics are of particular concern, given the higher rates of childhood victimization that exist in the delinquent population compared to the general population and the potential for additional traumatic experiences in the girls’ lives.

OFFENSE TRENDS Much of what is known about juvenile arrests and offense trends comes from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice through the Federal Bureau of Investigation; these data are based on reports submitted by law enforcement agencies. In 2008, 95% of the total population of law enforcement agencies was represented by the UCR, making it the most comprehensive data set on juvenile crime available (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). Nonetheless, there are questions about the extent to which the data represent an accurate picture of juvenile crime. The most frequent criticism has

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Figure 2.3 Percentage of Juvenile Arrests by Offense Type, 2009

non-index property index violent index

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 2010.

been that the data are affected by discretionary police policies and practices, such as the level of police presence in a particular area. Further, many juvenile crimes are committed that never come to the attention of the police, a statement particularly true for minor offenses. Additionally, arrest statistics do not reflect the guilt of an individual. As a result, when possible, it is important to examine multiple data sources that use several different research methodologies, in addition to arrest statistics, in order to gain the most complete picture possible of youth crime.1 In 2009, the number of juveniles arrested was 1,919,257, comprising 17.8% of the total number of arrests for all ages (U.S. Department 1

Other data sources available include large self-report studies, which collect data from the youth themselves (i.e., the National Youth Survey, www.colorado.edu/ IBS/NYSFS/, Monitoring the Future, www.monitor ingthefuture.org), the National Crime Victimization Survey, which gathers data from victims of crimes (www.ojp.usdoj.gov.bjs), and Juvenile Court Statistics, which are a compilation of records of cases handles by juvenile courts (www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org).

of Justice, 2010). This number captures the number of arrests, not the number of juvenile offenders, and therefore includes multiple arrests of the same person within the year. Additionally, only the most serious offense is recorded in cases where multiple crimes are committed. As shown in Figure 2.3 above, of all the juvenile arrests, the vast majority (73.4%) were for less serious felonies and misdemeanors (also called “nonindex” or Part II offenses). Index crimes (also referred to as Part I offenses) are the eight serious, felony-level crimes of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, larcenytheft (over $50), motor vehicle theft, and arson. Approximately one quarter (26.6%) of juvenile arrests were for index crimes (22.2% for property index offenses and 4.4% for violent index offenses). In 1980, approximately 7,400 juveniles were arrested, a number that continued to climb to its peak of approximately 9,400 in 1996 (see Figure 2.4). Ten-year trends, from 2000 to 2009, indicate that arrest rates of juveniles are down 20.2%, with greater

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

31

Figure 2.4 Arrests per 100,000 Juveniles, Ages 10–17, 1980–2008

Source: Adapted from Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2009.

reductions seen in index property crimes (down 20.3%) than in index violent crimes (down 15.0%) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). From 2008 to 2009, juvenile arrests fell an additional 2.4%, with a decrease in violent index crimes (2.3%) and an increase in index property crimes (1.6%) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). Although the UCR has been critiqued for reflecting enforcement practices, these reductions in arrests are substantiated by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which finds serious violent and property victimizations at their lowest levels since 1973 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008). Between 2005 and 2007, the NCVS showed reductions in violent crime (1.9%), personal theft (11.1%), and property crimes (5%).2 From large self-report studies that rely on youth’s disclosure about law violations, several other important factors about juvenile crime are revealed (Elliott, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985; Nye, Short, & Olson, 1958; Williams & Gold, 1972). First, apropos to this method of data gathering, unlike official data, self-report 2

NCVS data are not specific to juvenile offenders, but rather reports all victimizations regardless of the age of the offender.

surveys typically tap less serious, even trivial, delinquent behaviors that are unlikely to come to the attention of the police. This measurement approach to juvenile crime showed that minor acts of delinquency are common among youth in the general population in all socioeconomic groups, thus questioning the social class–delinquency relationship (Akers & Sellers, 2008). However, shortcomings of the available data abound, particularly regarding their accuracy capturing more frequent and serious offenses (Elliott & Ageton, 1980). This critique has led to the development of studies that identified a relatively small group of chronic offenders who commit a disproportionate amount of crime and delinquency (Blumstein, Cohen, & Farrington, 1988). An overwhelming strength of self-report studies is the ability to test theoretical propositions by collecting a variety of data. For example, the National Youth Survey, one of the most comprehensive attempts to measure delinquency through self-report survey methodology, found that having delinquent peers was the best independent predictor of self-reported offending for early adolescence, but not an important predictor in childhood (Elliott & Menard, 1996). These data also

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Table 2.1. Percentages of Selected Juvenile Court Referral Offense Types, 1985–2005 Year

Person

Property

Drugs

Public Order

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

15.9 19.1 22.0 23.0 25.3

60.8 58.4 50.1 39.8 35.3

6.7 5.3 9 11.5 11.5

16.9 17.3 18.9 25.7 27.9

Source: Sickmund, Sladky, and Kang, 2008.

support the contention that juvenile crime has been relatively stable over time (Osgood, O’Malley, Bachman, & Johnston, 1989). Contrary to negative media representation, crime by juveniles is at its lowest level in decades (Krisberg, 2005). Reductions in the youth crime rate have occurred despite slow, steady growth in the juvenile population over the past 25 years. Although the juvenile population is not the fastest growing segment of the population, it increased by 10 million from 1984 (62.5 million) to 2008 (72.3 million), and is projected to continue a slow increase through 2025 (Day, 1996). Another valuable data source on systeminvolved youth and the functioning of the juvenile court is Juvenile Court Statistics, now including 80% of U.S. juvenile court activities (Sickmund, Sladky, & Kang, 2008). These data provide information on the types and dispositions of cases handled by the juvenile courts. In 2005, the referring offense for juveniles was most often a property offense (35.3%), followed by a public order offense (27.9%). Violent or person offenses represented about a quarter of the cases (25.3%), with drugs making up the smallest percentage of cases (11.5%). Marked declines exist when comparing property offenses committed by youth over the past 20 years with less dramatic increases seen in the remaining three offense categories of person, drug, and public order offenses (see Table 2.1).

Over the past 20 years, referrals have become more likely to be handled formally (55.9% in 2005, compared to 45.6% in 1985) and more likely to result in adjudication (36.7% in 2005, compared to 29% in 1985). The use of detention has been slightly variable without consistent trends, but the 20-year average is 20%, meaning 2 out of every 10 youth are held in detention (Sickmund et al., 2008).

RISKS TO, AND STRENGTHS OF, SYSTEM-INVOLVED YOUTH Historically, system-involved youth have been characterized by their deficits, even among those who have advocated for more humane and rehabilitative approaches to addressing delinquency. These deficits appear either as actual conditions or limitations that are documented at some point during involvement with the system, or as “risk factors”— characteristics of the individual child, his or her family, or community that, as statistical predictors, increase the likelihood of a youth becoming delinquent. (See Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume, for a comprehensive treatment of risks implicated in delinquency.) These risks do not predict offending with certainty, but indeed, a host of factors—for example, impulsive or aggressive childhood behavior, or child maltreatment— have been found to be statistically correlated

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

with delinquency. The effect of risk factors can be cumulative, dependent on the timing in which they occur in a youth’s development; however, they also may be mitigated by existing strengths, or “protective factors,” in a youth’s ecology. The strengths perspective, also referred to as a resiliency framework (Masten & Powell, 2003; Saleebey, 2005) and positive youth development (Lerner, Taylor, & von Eye, 2002; see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume), recognize the strengths in individuals, families, and communities and seeks to collaborate with, and utilize, existing resources outside of the justice system. (See Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume, for youth profiles that integrate both strengths and risks.) Strengths are often conceptualized as “protective factors” that can counteract the negative effects of risk factors in youth’s lives as well as promote prosocial behavior in youth. They are defined as “those factors that mediate or moderate the effect of exposure to risk factors, resulting in reduced incidence of problem behavior” (Pollard, Hawkins, & Arthur 1999, p. 146). At times, protective factors are the exact opposite of a given risk factor, for example, excellent academic performance versus academic failure. They can also be “characteristics or conditions that interact with risk factors to reduce their influence” (Office of the Surgeon General, 2001) but are not necessarily “cures” to delinquency. Although a full portrait of youth presenting both risks and strengths would help the juvenile justice system develop more appropriate strategies for combating delinquency and promoting better functioning, the system remains largely deficit based. The strengths of these youth are insufficiently identified, measured, and utilized (Masten & Powell, 2003; see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume; Schiraldi et al., Chapter 20, this volume).

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THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF SYSTEM-INVOLVED YOUTH Understanding exactly who are the youth involved in the system is a complicated matter. Any national-level descriptive demographic profile of juvenile offenders results from official data and therefore represents only youth who are involved in the system, not all youth who commit offenses and do not come to the attention of the police, or those who are not formally processed. Therefore, demographic data related to age, gender, race/ethnicity, and geography presented in this section focus on youth who are processed in the juvenile justice system. Additionally, disabilities and mental health issues are reported, given their prevalence among this population. Age Each state determines the age at which a child will be under the juvenile court’s jurisdiction. Sixteen states specify a minimum age: 6 years old (North Carolina), 7 years old (Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York), 8 years old (Arizona), and 10 years old (Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin), while the remaining states do not specify an age but rely on the common-law age of 7 for inclusion in juvenile court (Snyder & Sickmund, 2004). The oldest age for juvenile court jurisdiction in delinquency matters ranges from 16 (New York and North Carolina) to 18, with 17 being the age limit in 11 states. This has been an issue on which states have recently amended their laws, with the trend toward raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18, expanding youth’s access to the the juvenile justice system rather than the adult criminal justice system (Arya, 2011).

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Figure 2.5 Percentage of Juvenile Arrests Under Age 15, by Offense Type, 2008

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 2009.

The UCR disaggregates arrest statistics by age. Arrest data also indicate the mean age at which youth are arrested for violent offenses (18 years old) and property offenses (16 years old) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2008). Data on arrests of juvenile offenders under the age of 15 show that their involvement in serious violent crime and serious property crimes is sizable, 27% and 29%, respectively, and similar for nonindex offenses (27%; see Figure 2.5, above). The highest offense categories for this age group within nonindex offenses are sex offenses (47%) and vandalism (40%). Their highest offense category overall is arson, where they make up 56% of juvenile arrests. In terms of violent index crimes, youth in the lower age category are responsible for 34% of forcible rape arrests and 31% of aggravated assaults. Of the cases processed in juvenile court in 2005, juveniles under the age of 16 accounted for 57% of all delinquency cases (4% under the age of 12, 5% 12-year-olds, 10% 13-yearolds, 17% 14-year-olds, 23% 15-year-olds) (Sickmund, 2009; Sickmund et al., 2008).

This younger age group accounted for 64% of all juvenile person offense cases, 59% of property offense cases, 54% of public order offense cases, and 42% of drug offense cases (Sickmund, 2009). The rank ordering of these cases stays the same when looking at the proportions of juvenile cases processed of youth younger than age 14 (24% person offense cases, 20% property offense cases, 15% public order offense cases, and 8% drug offense cases) (Sickmund, 2009). Sixteen-year-olds make up the largest proportion of juvenile court cases (24%), with involvement lower for 17-year-olds (18%) (Sickmund et al., 2008). There has been very little change over time in terms of the age representation in the juvenile court. The most notable changes are a 20-year decrease in the number of youth under the age of 12 (6.4% in 1985 versus 3.8% in 2005) and slight increases in the numbers of 16- and 17-year-olds (Sickmund et al., 2008). In 2005, 15% of the cases transferred to adult court were of youth age 15 or younger, with the remaining 85% being 16 or older; however, that profile has

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

shifted to include younger transfers over time. In 1985, only 7% of referrals were 15 years old or younger (Adams & Addie, 2009). Gender Females’ involvement in crime is lower compared to boys for the most serious crimes. Girls make up 18.6% of index violent offense arrests, 31.3% of index property offenses, and 18.6% of the nonindex offenses. Notably, females make up 69.6% of those arrested for prostitution and 55.2% of those arrested for running away. Based on the UCR, juvenile female involvement has been slowly on the rise over time. In 1980, girls made up 21% of arrests, with recent data reporting that girls make up 30% of all arrests in 2008 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). Between 2000 and 2009, arrest rates decreased 22.9% for boys and 13.1% for girls. The reductions seen during this period are most significant when looking at index property crimes—down 29.2% for boys, but up almost 1% for girls. Index violent crimes since 2000 are down 14.5% for boys and down 16.9% for girls (U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). The most significant changes in the female percentage of arrests can be attributed to increases in simple assaults (up 13% from 1980 to 2008), aggravated assaults (up 8%), and larceny-theft (up 18%) (U.S. Department of Justice, 1981, 2009). It is primarily for these offenses that gender differences are narrowing. However, detailed data analyses do not conclude that girls are becoming overall more violent; rather explanations focus on how changes, from law enforcement practices to zero-tolerance policies in schools, are driving the increase in girls’ arrests (Zahn et al., 2008). Juvenile court statistics show that in 2007, females made up about 27% of youth processed in juvenile court, a number that has been also

35

on the rise since 1985, when girls made up 19% of all court-involved juveniles (Sickmund et al., 2008). For most offenses, female delinquency cases have grown more or decreased less than male delinquency cases (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). However, overall, males appear to be receiving harsher treatment than females, which could be related to contextual differences in offending, indicating more serious typical offenses for males within broad offense categories (Zahn et al., 2008). For example, in 2005, males were more likely than females to be detained (22.5% versus 16.6%), more likely to be handled formally (58.9% versus 48.0%), and more likely to be adjudicated delinquent (39.1% versus 30.5%) (Sickmund et al., 2008). Limitations in the data collected, such as the absence of information on the seriousness of the behavior or a youth’s court history, both of which can influence case outcome, require caution in making gender comparisons (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006; see Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). With the increased concern over how status offenses are managed, a new problem has developed, particularly with regard to the processing of girls for whom status offenses have always represented a larger proportion of committing offenses compared to boys (Chesney-Lind, 1997). When status offenses are relabeled as criminal offenses or youth find their way into the system for violating a valid court order related to a status offense, the deinstitutionalization of status offenses is thwarted and what is known as bootstrapping occurs. In bootstrapping, a status offense becomes a delinquency through mechanisms for enforcement of technical violations of court orders or probation. Evidence exists that girls are more likely than boys to be detained for minor offenses such as technical violation and status offenses (41% versus 25%) (Sherman, 2005).

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Race/Ethnicity Table 2.2 below presents arrest data by race. Native Americans (including Alaskan Natives) and Asians (including Pacific Islanders) comprise small percentages of arrest totals consistent with their representation in the population, and Whites are typically the majority group for every offense. Several notable exceptions exist where African American youth are the majority group represented;

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they are the serious violent offenses of murder (58%), robbery (67.3%), and the nonindex offenses of prostitution/vice (58.4%) and gambling (92.7%). Given that African American youth comprise 15% of the population under 18 years of age, they are overrepresented in every crime category (with the exception of alcohol-related offenses) compared to their representation in the population (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2009). White youth, 76% of the

Table 2.2. Percentages of Arrests for Persons Under 18 Years of Age, by Crime Type and Race, 2009 Crime Type Nonindex offenses Other assaults Forgery and counterfeiting Fraud Embezzlement Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing Vandalism Weapons (carrying, possessing, etc.) Prostitution and commercialized vice Sex offenses Drug abuse violations Gambling Offenses against the family and children Driving under the influence Liquor laws Drunkenness Disorderly conduct Vagrancy All other offenses (except traffic) Suspicion Curfew and loitering law violations Runaways Index Violent Offenses Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter Forcible rape Robbery Aggravated assault Index Property Offenses Burglary Larceny-theft Motor vehicle theft Arson Total Arrests Representation in the Population (2009) Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 2010.

White

Black

Native American

Asian

67.6 58.6 66.4 61.9 63.8 54.6 78.4 60.7 39.7 71.2 72.4 6.8 73.9 92.0 89.4 88.5 56.8 71.5 69.2 42.3 60.8 65.7 46.4 40.4 63.4 31.1 55.4 63.9 60.9 65.0 54.0 76.7 65.9 77.2

29.6 39.2 32.2 36.0 33.3 43.6 19.2 37.3 58.4 26.6 25.6 92.7 24.3 5.1 6.2 8.7 41.4 27.3 28.0 57.1 37.1 26.7 51.6 58.0 34.5 67.3 42.4 33.2 37.3 31.8 43.2 20.6 31.3 16.2

1.3 1.1 0.5 1.1 0.2 0.8 1.2 0.8 0.4 0.8 0.9 0.0 1.3 1.8 3.1 1.9 1.0 0.4 1.1 0.0 1.0 2.2 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.4 1.0 1.2 0.9 1.2 1.5 1.3 1.2 1.5

1.5 1.1 0.9 1.0 2.7 1.0 1.2 1.2 1.5 1.4 1.1 0.5 0.4 1.2 1.3 0.8 0.8 0.7 1.8 0.6 1.2 5.4 1.2 0.7 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.7 1.0 2.0 1.4 1.4 1.6 5.2

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

total juvenile population in the United States, represent the vast majority of arrests for the offenses of driving under the influence (92.5%), liquor law violations (90.2%), and drunkenness (88.7%) (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2009). Fifteen percent of the juvenile population in the United States is Hispanic; however, this number is distributed across racial categories (22.5% of Native Americans are Hispanic, while 17.4% of Whites, 4.7% of African Americans, and 3.4% of Asians are Hispanic) (National Center for Health Statistics, 2008). The percentage of Hispanic youth under 18 years old is projected to make the most significant gains in the U.S. population, with one in four youth belonging to this ethnic group by the year 2021, compared to their current representation of 22% (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2009). Data on ethnicity are not collected in the UCR or in juvenile court statistics, so it is difficult to provide a national profile of Hispanic youth involved in the system. Explaining the disproportionate treatment experienced by minority groups is difficult, but research suggests a complex interplay

between existing biases in the policies and practices of law enforcement and justice systems and social conditions that place youth at increased risk for delinquency (Pope, Lovell, & Hsia, 2002; see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). A 1-day snapshot of youth held in detention illustrates disproportionate minority contact, showing that in 2006, African American youth were 6 times as likely to be in detention compared to White youth. Latino youth were more than twice as likely, and Native American youth were almost 4 times as likely to be held in detention compared with White youth (W. Haywood Burns Institute, n.d.) (see Figure 2.6). African American youth made up 33% of delinquency cases handled in 2007 (at 16% of the U.S. population), although their representation increases for person-related offenses (41%) and public-order offenses (34%), and decreases for property-related offenses (30%) and drug offenses (25%) (Knoll & Sickmund, 2010). Black youth are 12% more likely than White youth to be formally processed and 9% more likely to be waived to adult court (Knoll & Sickmund, 2010). Of all the youth

Figure 2.6 Detention Rates Trends by Race (per 10,000 youth)

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1997

1999 White

Source: W. Haywood Burns Institute.

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2001

African American

2003 Latino

2006 Native American

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waived to adult court, African American youth made up 37% of the waivers, compared with 59% of the waivers made up by White youth; however, it is for person and drug offenses that disproportionate minority numbers are most dramatic, as a greater percentage of Black youth are transferred into the adult system for these offenses than are White youth (Adams & Addie, 2010). Black youth are also 27% more likely to be placed in a residential setting and 14% less likely to be given probation compared to their White counterparts (Knoll & Sickmund, 2010). In 2002, three fourths of the 4,100 juveniles admitted to adult prisons were youth of color (Poe-Yamagata & Jones, 2007). Seventy-seven percent of juveniles serving life sentences are non-White, supporting research showing the cumulative and increasing disadvantage experienced by minorities as they move through the juvenile justice system (Nellis & King, 2009; Poe-Yamagata & Jones, 2007; see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Hispanic youth experience similar disproportionate minority contact to African American youth; however, these youth have been deemed largely “invisible” due to shortcomings in available data on ethnicity (Arya, Villarruel, Villanueva, & Augarten 2009; Poe-Yamagata & Jones, 2007; see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Fourteen states and the District of Columbia participated in a study that found that Latino/ a youth were sent to detention and residential facilities in the juvenile justice system more often their White counterparts and for longer periods of time (even when controlling for offense type and delinquent histories) (Villarruel & Walker, 2002). Nationally, 32% of youth incarcerated are Latino/a, based on figures from the U.S Census Bureau data on the incarcerated population in 2000 (Human

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Rights Watch, 2002). Latino/a youth were also transferred to adult court more frequently than their White counterparts (Villarruel & Walker, 2002). Geography The UCR does not break arrests down by specific geographical region and age; however, arrest rates are highest for juveniles who live in metropolitan areas, accounting for 12.1% of all arrests versus 8.8% of all arrests in nonmetropolitan areas (U.S. Department of Justice, 2008). Within metropolitan areas, juveniles make up 15.2% of all arrests in the suburbs and that number increases to 16.8% in cities. The highest rates of juvenile crime involvement in serious violent crimes (17.2%) and serious property crimes (26.8%) are found in cities (U.S. Department of Justice, 2008). Urban jurisdictions are also more likely than nonurban areas to impose harsher dispositions, a factor compounding minority representation due to the concentration of minority youth in urban areas (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). The growth of the juvenile population has not been, and is not projected to be, evenly distributed among states. Between 2005 and 2015, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Florida are expected to experience the largest increases in their juvenile population. More than one third of the states are projected to experience a decline in this population, with North Dakota, Vermont, New York, West Virginia, Maine, and the District of Columbia projecting the most significant declines (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005). Disabilities and Mental Health Issues Youth with disabilities are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, and this assessment

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

typically occurs once a youth is involved in the juvenile corrections system. Having a disability, however, can also affect a youth’s experiences in the system (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). For example, youth with disabilities may be more likely to confess or to have problems communicating with their lawyers (Muller, 2005). They are more likely to plead guilty, be committed, and serve a longer sentence, and less likely to have their sentence appealed, be placed on probation, or be given some type of diversion program (Muller, 2005). Youth with emotional disabilities account for about 8% of students with disabilities in the school system; however, this number goes up to 47% among a national sample of incarcerated youth (Quinn, Rutherford, Leone, Osher, & Poirier, 2005; U.S. Department of Education, 2005). This condition is characterized by an inability to build or maintain relationships, inappropriate behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances, a pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression, or a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears related to personal or school problems as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004). This population typically experiences co-occurring problems related to behavior, academics, drug use, and mental health (Gagnon & Richards, 2008). Approximately 20% of youth with emotional disturbances have been arrested, or are in detention or on probation prior to leaving school (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Thirty-nine percent of youth incarcerated in the juvenile justice system have learning disabilities and almost 5% meet the classification for mental retardation (Gagnon & Richards, 2008). The majority of youth entering correctional and detention settings are testing below skill level (66% below in reading and 68% below in mathematics) (U.S.

39

Department of Education, 2006). Youth with learning disabilities are three times more likely to join a gang than youth who are not disabled (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Mental health concerns and needs are also prevalent in this population. For example, in a large-scale study of Chicago-area youth in detention facilities, almost 60% of males and more than two thirds of females met the criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder, and more than 40% of the sample met the criteria for a disruptive behavior disorder (Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002). Significant variations were found in race and gender with females, non-Hispanic Whites, and older youth showing higher rates of most disorders (Teplin et al.). The connection between disabilities and mental health needs of youth in the juvenile justice system have been inadequately studied and addressed (Gagnon & Richards, 2008; see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume).

JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM REFORM A reform agenda in juvenile justice has clearly begun to take hold but needs empirical research to flourish (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume). Research is needed in order to develop a more complete national picture of youth as they move through the system. If there were a rich and comprehensive national data collection effort, “who these kids and families are” might well help drive reform and the implementation of new strategies for intervention. At present, there are many descriptive factors that are simply not available that might better explain youth’s initial involvement in the system, as well as indicate how their circumstances change

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as they move through the system. Currently, the diversity within juvenile court jurisdictions and the lack of standardization make it impossible to examine the effectiveness of various sanctions, or to glean a national picture of the youth, let alone identify the best predictors of recidivism. Some global deficiencies in current data collection efforts even make it difficult to determine the number of youth who are actually involved in the system. For example, the UCR and the juvenile court statistics are incident based, as opposed to offender based. This method of tracking incidents makes it almost impossible to identify high-rate offenders on a systemic level, let alone incidents that have multiple offenders/defendants (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). Similarly, the current method of systemic-level data collection makes it difficult to ascertain trends in less serious offenses, since typically only the most serious offense or most severe disposition is recorded. Likewise, currently reported statistics do not include the seriousness of the behavior (which may not match the charge all that well), contextual offense variables, or a youth’s prior offenses making cross-race and sex comparisons in processing problematic, for example. As previously mentioned, national level data sources on system-involved juveniles do not distinguish ethnicity, nor do they provide information on youth involved with multiple systems, particularly related to disability and mental health. Moreover, most juvenile justice and other youth agencies do not have the data capacity to work across agencies to view youth in their family and community contexts, leaving an incomplete snapshot of youth in individual systems (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). Effective reform requires the deeper understanding that greater data capacity and research would provide.

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REFERENCES Adams, B., & Addie, S. (2010). Delinquency cases waived to criminal court, 2007. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Akers, R. L., & Sellers, C. S. (2008). Criminological theories: Introduction, evaluation, and application. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Allard, P., & Young, M. (2002). Prosecuting juveniles in adult court: The practitioner’s perspective. Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2 (2),65–77. American Correctional Association. (2008). 2008 Directory: Adult and juvenile correctional departments, institutions, agencies, and probation and parole authorities. Alexandria, VA: American Correctional Association. Arya, N. (2011). State trends: Legislative victories from 2005–2010 removing youth from the adult criminal justice system. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Arya, N., Villarruel, F., Villanueva, C., & Augarten, I. (2009). America’s invisible children: Latino youth and the failure of justice. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Beck, A., Harrison, P., & Guerino, P. (2010). Sexual victimization in juvenile facilities reported by youth, 2008–2009. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Government Printing Office. Bernburg, J. G., & Krohn, M. D. (2003). Labeling, life chances, and adult crime: The direct and indirect effects of official intervention in adolescence on crime in early adulthood. Criminology, 41 (4), 1287–1318. Bishop, D. M. (2000). Juvenile offenders in the adult criminal justice system. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 27, pp. 81–167). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bishop, D. M., & Frazier, C. E. (2000). Race effects in juvenile justice decision-making: Findings of a statewide analysis. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 86, 392–414. Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., & Farrington, D. P. (1988). Criminal career research: Its value for criminology. Criminology, 26, 1–35. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2008). Crime and victims statistics, 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Butts, J. A., & Mears, D. P. (2001). Reviving juvenile justice in a get-tough era. Youth & Society, 33(2), 169–198.

Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Characteristics and Patterns of Involvement Chesney-Lind, M. (1997). The female offender: Girls, women, and crime. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chesney-Lind, M., & Shelden, R. (2004). Girls, delinquency, and juvenile justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Day, J. C. (1996). Population projections of the United States by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin: 1995 to 2050. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, U.S. Government Printing Office. Elliott, D. S., & Ageton, S. S. (1980). Reconciling race and class differences in self-reported and official estimates of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 45(1), 95–110. Elliott, D. S., Huizinga, D., & Ageton, S. S. (1985). Explaining delinquency and drug use. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Elliott, D. S., & Menard, S. (1996). Delinquent friends and delinquent behavior: Temporal and developmental patterns. In J. D. Hawkins (Ed.), Delinquency and crime: Current theories (pp. 28–67). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. (2009). America’s children: Key national indicators of well-being, 2009. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Feld, B. C. (1998). Juvenile and criminal justice systems’ responses to youth violence. In M. Tonry & M. H. Moore (Eds.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. Vol. 24: Youth Violence (pp. 189–261). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Forst, M. L., Fisher, B. A., & Coates, R. B. (1985) Indeterminate and determinate sentencing of juvenile delinquents: A national survey of approaches to commitment and release decision-making. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 36 (2), 1–12. Frazier, C. E., Bishop, D. M., & Lanza-Kaduce, L. (1999). “Get tough” juvenile justice reforms: The Florida experience. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 564, 167–184. Gagnon, J. C., & Richards, C. (2008). Making the right turn: A guide about improving transition outcomes of youth involved in the juvenile corrections system. Washington, DC: National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, Institute for Educational Leadership. Graham v. Florida, 120 S. Ct. 2011, 78 USLW 4387 (2010). Holland, P., & Mlyniec, W. J. (1995). Whatever happened to the right to treatment? The modern quest for a historical promise. Temple Law Review, 68, 1791–1835.

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Human Rights Watch. (2002). Backgrounders: Race and incarceration in the United States. New York, NY: Author. Human Rights Watch. (2008). The rest of their lives: Life without parole for youthful offenders in the United States. Executive summary. New York, NY: Author. In re Gault. (1967). The Supreme Court of the United States, 387 U.S. 1. In D. L. Parry (Ed.), Essential readings in juvenile justice (pp. 87–101). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. In re Winship. (1970). The Supreme Court of the United States, 397 U.S. 358. In D. L. Parry (Ed.), Essential readings in juvenile justice (pp. 102–105). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-446, § 302, 118 Stat. 2803 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. § 1415 (2004). Retrieved from www.ed.gov/offices /osers/idea/the_law.html Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (JJDPA) (P.L. 93-415, 88 Stat. 1109) and subsequent reauthorizations (1977, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2002). Kent v. United States. (1966). The Supreme Court of the United States, 383 U.S. 541. In D. L. Parry (Ed.), Essential readings in juvenile justice (pp. 79–86). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Knoll, C., & Sickmund, M. (2010). Delinquency cases in juvenile court, 2007. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Krezmien, M. P., Leone, P. E., Zablocki, M. S., & Wells, C. (2009) Juvenile court referrals and the public schools: Nature and extent of the practice of five states. Unpublished manuscript, University of Maryland. Krisberg, B. (2005). Juvenile justice: Redeeming our children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lerner, R., Taylor, C. & von Eye, A. (Eds.). (2002). Pathways to positive development among diverse youth. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. Livsey, S., Sickmund, M., & Sladky, A. (2009). Juvenile residential facility census, 2004: Selected findings. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Masten, A. S., & Powell, J. L. (2003). A resiliency framework for research, policy and practice. In Luthar, S. (Ed.), Resiliency and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversity (pp. 1–29). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Mears, D. P., & Travis, J. (2004). Youth development and reentry. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2(1), 3–20. Mennel, R. M. (1972). Origins of the juvenile court: Changing perspectives on the legal rights of juveniles. Crime and Delinquency, 18, 68–78. Mohr, H. (2008, March 2). 13,000 abuse claims in juvie centers. USA Today. Retrieved from www.usa today.com/news/nation/2008-03-02-1668706373 _x.htm Muller, E. (2005). The juvenile justice system and youths with disabilities. InForum: Brief Policy Analysis. Alexandria, VA: National Association of State Directors of Special Education. National Center for Health Statistics. (2008). Estimates of the July 1, 2000–July 1, 2007, United States resident population from the Vintage 2007 postcensal series by year, county, age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major /dvs/popbridge/popbridge.htm Nellis, A., & King, R. S. (2009). No exit: The expanding use of life sentences in America. Washington, DC: Sentencing Project. Nye, F. I., Short, J. F., & Olson, V. (1958). Socioeconomic status and delinquent behavior. American Journal of Sociology, 63, 381–389. Office of the Surgeon General. (2001). Youth violence: A report to the Surgeon General. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from www.surgeongeneral.gov/library /youthviolence Osgood, D. W., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Johnston, L. D. (1989). Time trends and age trends in arrests and self-reported illegal behavior. Criminology, 27 (3), 389–418. Poe-Yamagata, E., & Jones, M. A. (2007). And justice for some: Differential treatment of youth of color in the justice system. Oakland, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Pollard, J. A., Hawkins, J. D., & Arthur, M. (1999). Risk and protection: Are both necessary to understand diverse behavioral outcomes in adolescence? Social Work Research, 23(3), 145–158. Pope, C. E., Lovell, R., & Hsia, H. M. (2002). Disproportionate minority confinement: A review of the research literature from 1989 through 2001. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. (1967). The task force report:

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Juvenile delinquency and youth crime. Washington, DC: U.S Government Printing Office. Puzzanchera, C., Adams, B., & Sickmund, M. (2010). Juvenile court statistics 2006–2007. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice. Puzzanchera, C., & Sickmund, M. (2008). Juvenile court statistics 2005. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Quinn, M. M., Rutherford, R. B., Leone, P. E., Osher, D. M., & Poirier, J. M. (2005). Youth with disabilities in juvenile corrections: A national survey. Exceptional Children, 71, 339–345. Saleebey, D. (2005). The strengths approach to practice. In D. Saleebey (Ed.), The strengths perspective in social work practice (4th ed., pp. 49–58). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Scott, E., & Steinberg, L. (2008). Rethinking juvenile justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sherman, F. (2005). Juvenile detention reform for girls: Challenges and solutions. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Sickmund, M. (2009). Delinquency cases in juvenile court, 2005. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Sickmund, M., Sladky, A., & Kang, W. (2008). Easy access to juvenile court statistics: 1985–2005. Retrieved from www.ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezajcs/ Skiba, R. J. (2000). Zero tolerance, zero evidence: An analysis of school disciplinary practice. Bloomington: Indiana Education Policy Research Center. Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 national report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. Teplin, L. A., Abram, K. M., McClelland, G. M., Dulcan, M. K., & Mericle, A. A. (2002). Psychiatric disorders in youth in juvenile detention. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59, 1133–1143. Torbet, P., Gable, R., Hurst, H., Montgomery, I., Szymanski, L., & Thomas, D. (1996). State responses to serious and violent juvenile crime: Research report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2005). Interim projections of the population by selected age groups for the United States and the States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2030

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[Data file]. Retrieved from www.census.gov /population/projections/SummaryTabC1.pdf U.S. Department of Education. (2005). Twenty-seventh annual report to congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Jessup, MD: Education Publications Center. U.S. Department of Education. (2006). National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk (NDTAC). State and national fast facts. Retrieved from www.neglecteddelinquent.org U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1981). Crime in the United States, 1980. Retrieved from www.fbi.gov/ucr U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation (2008). Crime in the United States, 2007. Retrieved from www.fbi.gov/ucr U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation (2009). Crime in the United States, 2008. Retrieved from www.fbi.gov/ucr

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U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation (2010). Crime in the United States, 2009. Retrieved from www.fbi.gov/ucr Villarruel, F. A., & Walker, N. E. (2002). ¿Donde esta la justicia?: A call to action on behalf of Latino and Latina youth in the U.S. justice system. Washington, DC: Building Blocks for Youth. W. Haywood Burns Institute. For Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity. DMC Fact Sheet, www.burnsinstitute .org/downloads/BI%20DMC%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf Wald, J., & Losen, D. J. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 9–15. Williams, J. R., & Gold, M. (1972). From delinquent behavior to official delinquency. Social Problems, 20(2), 209–229. Zahn, M. A., Brumbaugh, S., Steffensmeier, D., Feld, B. C., Morash, M., Chesney-Lind, M., . . . Kruttschnitt, C. (2008). Violence by teenage girls: Trends and context. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

3

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System PAULA BRAVERMAN

AND

ROBERT MORRIS

T

his chapter begins with a detailed profile of the physical and mental health of youth currently in the juvenile justice system and an overview of some of the salient findings presented in these studies. The data offered confirm, unsurprisingly, that these youth have greater health challenges and less access to quality health care than would be considered acceptable in most communities in this country. Although juvenile justice involvement may provide an opportunity to improve the health of these youth by providing services that may not be available or accessible at home, being incarcerated can also compromise their health and well-being. Clearly, the more potentially efficacious point at which to intervene is before youth enter the system altogether. The second section of this chapter, then, provides an ecological view of the factors associated with both juvenile delinquency and poor health status, in an attempt to stimulate the thoughtful development and implementation of primary prevention efforts to address these two overlapping concerns.

(Council on Scientific Affairs, 1990; Golzari, Hunt, & Anoshiravani, 2006) who commonly present with unaddressed physical and mental health needs at higher rates than the general adolescent population (Forrest, Tambor, Riley, Ensminger, & Starfield, 2000; Morris et al., 1995; Sedlak & Bruce, 2010; Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Although many of their health problems are the same as youth in their age group (e.g., dermatologic, respiratory, dental, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and metabolic problems), youth in the juvenile justice system are at greater risk for other medical issues. In part, this is because many of these youth engage in high-risk behaviors, including violence, substance abuse, and unsafe sexual activity (Morris et al., 1995; Litt & Cohen, 1974). A recently published study summarized data from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP). This survey, conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), utilized audio computerassisted self-interview surveys from a representative sample of 7,073 youth age 10–20 years in residential placement throughout the United States in the spring of 2003 (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). This self-reported information obtained directly from youth echoes and confirms the other published studies in the literature, which report on specific clinical

OVERVIEW Youth entering correctional facilities are a high-risk, medically underserved population 44

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

data obtained by health-care professionals. The SYRP report also clearly demonstrates the disconnect between the need for physical and mental health services and the provision of appropriately matched services for youth in custody. In this chapter, we sketch out the dimensions and characteristics of these health needs.

PHYSICAL HEALTH This section provides an overview of the health needs of youth in custody. Where available, more detail is provided on specific physical health conditions. Extent of Health Problems Data from the SYRP provide an overview of the extent of health needs among youth in custody (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Approximately two thirds of youth reported a physical health-care need including dental, vision, or hearing (37%); illness (28%); injury (25%); and other unspecified physical health problems (29%). Males were more likely than females to report treatment needs related to injuries while females were more likely than males to report health-care needs related to illness, vision, dental, and hearing. This data are similar to other previously published studies described below which, although not in most cases nationally representative data, provide additional detail not presented in the SYRP report. The most comprehensive study evaluating the health issues of youth in the juvenile justice system was published in 1980 and described 88,106 youth admitted over 11 years to a secure detention facility in New York (Hein et al., 1980). In that survey, 46% of youth were found to have a medical problem. The

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diagnoses ranged from minor dermatologic complaints to traumatic injuries, drug overdoses or drug abstinence, psychiatric issues, and other body systems complaints. Particular note was made of dental issues, positive tuberculosis tests, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abnormal Pap smears, and signs of abuse and medical neglect. Of the 3,353 teens admitted to the infirmary, 20% had unresolved medical problems that required follow-up after release from detention. Two studies provide a national perspective on the risk taking behaviors that contribute to health problems among juvenile justice youth. The first is a 1991 survey conducted by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care included 1,801 minors from 39 correctional facilities in the United States (Morris et al., 1995). These youth were predominantly younger than age 18 (mean age of 15.4 years old in short-term facilities and 15.8 years old in long-term facilities) and had rates of substance abuse, trauma, sexual activity without protection, suicidal ideation, and violence that were higher than general high school populations. The recently published SYRP confirmed the high rates of self-reported mental and emotional problems, substance abuse, and traumatic experiences. This report included a comparison of reported alcohol and drug use to data from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health demonstrating higher lifetime use among youth in custody (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Another recent study of 819 youth admitted to a detention center in Alabama over an 18-month period in the mid-1990s found that 16.5% had been hospitalized prior to detention for sports injuries, trauma, or medical reasons (Feinstein et al., 1998). Over one third had medical problems related to trauma from fights or stab and gunshot wounds. Of the

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youth studied, 16.7% had received previous treatment for mental illness, and 6.7% had been treated for substance abuse. In addition, 6.4% reported being on a prescription medication at the time of admission. The most common condition was asthma, with others including orthopedic problems (scoliosis, fracture), mental illness, pregnancy, and hearing problems (chronic otitis media, perforated tympanic membranes). Moreover, 10.6% had a medical condition that required medical follow-up after release. Similar results were found among a broader sampling of youth in 15 detention and long-term facilities in the Maryland Juvenile Justice System during the same time period (Shelton, 2000). In that study, over 45% had an identified medical condition. Specific Health Conditions The following section provides more detail on several specific health conditions. Trauma As discussed by Feinstein et al. (1998), the causes of injury in these youth are diverse (see Baker, Cunningham & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). Several additional studies provide detail. In the 1991 National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) study, almost 70% of youth had been involved in at least one fight in the previous year, and one quarter of these youth had resulting injuries that required medical care (Morris et al., 1995). Three quarters of these youth reported that a weapon was involved in at least one of these fights. Selfinjury was also common, with one fifth having considered suicide, 15.5% making at least one attempt, and 8.2% injured during an attempt in the previous year. In the Maryland study, almost one fifth had an injury, including burns, musculoskeletal, and head trauma, with 12%

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reporting lack of treatment for these injuries (Shelton, 2000). Additional detail about the nature of traumatic events was provided by Woolf and Funk (1985) in a review of almost all the medical records (369) of 10- to 17-yearolds who were admitted to a secure residential facility in North Carolina over a 4.5-year period beginning in 1978. One quarter of these youth were female, and over half had an injury requiring medical attention. One third of injuries were sports related, 20% caused by fights, 13% self-inflicted, 9% suicide attempts, 8% vocational, 3% horseplay, and 11% designated as “other.” Musculoskeletal injury (33%) was most common, followed by scratches/bruises (27%). Fourteen percent had lacerations requiring closure; 7% had a fracture; and over one quarter required referral outside the facility for further evaluation. The authors concluded that facilities must pay attention to maintaining physical safety from accidental and purposeful injury, including suicide attempts. Dental Dental issues also stand out as a significant health problem for youth in the juvenile justice system. Bolin and Jones’s (2006) study of a random sample, including 419 dental screenings conducted on 12- to 17year-olds from the Juvenile Detention Center in Dallas County, Texas, between September 1999 and December 2003, found that one half had untreated decay. High-urgency dental problems, such as infection, tooth or jaw fracture, pulpitis, or severe periodontal disease with bleeding, were identified in 6.2% of youth. Moderate-urgency conditions in 13.1% included cavitated asymptomatic decay or moderate gingivitis. This study highlighted the challenges in providing comprehensive dental care to this population unless they are long-term detainees.

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Reproductive Health Youth in the juvenile justice system engage in high-risk behaviors including unprotected sexual activity, which place them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection, as well as pregnancy and parenthood. The following sections provide additional information on reproductive health issues among these youth. Sexual Activity/Contraception Adolescents in the juvenile justice system have high rates of sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) compared to other adolescent populations. The 1991 NCCHC study found that most of these youth had four or more lifetime sexual partners (Morris et al., 1995), a rate much higher than reported during that same time frame in the general population of high school youth. Similarly, STD incidence was double that of the general population. Use of contraception or condoms at last intercourse was reported by three quarters of high school youth compared to only one half of incarcerated youth, and 40–50% of high school youth used condoms as compared to less than one fifth of incarcerated youth. STD/HIV The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2009 Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report (CDC, 2010) found that the overall rate of chlamydia positivity among detained adolescent girls age 12–18 was 14.8% (4.7% for females age 12 and 16.2% for those age 16) while adolescent boys had an overall positivity rate of 6.6% (1.2% for males age 12 and 10.1% for those age 18). The overall rate of gonorrhea positivity for females was 3.9% (1.8% for females age 12 and 4.4.% for those age 16), while the overall positivity rate for males was 1.0% (0.1% for males age 12 and 1.4% for those age 18). Rates for syphilis, which are available in the 2007

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Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report (CDC, 2008a), were much lower, with the median rate of a serologic positivity of 0.2% (0.0–2.1%) for adolescent girls and 0.1% (0.0–0.9%) for adolescent boys. These rates are similar to data collected in a comparable study conducted between 1996 and 1999 (Mertz, Voight, Hutchins, Levine, & Jail STD Prevalence Monitoring Group, 2002). Results from one juvenile detention facility (Oh et al., 1994) found that 50% of gonorrhea and 90% of chlamydia infections were asymptomatic, while another study (Mertz et al., 2002) found even higher rates of asymptomatic infection, with only 2.7% of those with chlamydia and 7.3% of those with gonorrhea having symptoms. These studies indicate that most STDs will be diagnosed only by active screening. Unprotected sex with multiple partners, prostitution, injection drug use, and substance abuse by incarcerated youth puts them at risk for hepatitis B and C as well as HIV infection. The high rate of STDs also increases risk for HIV (CDC, 2008b; Elkington et al., 2008; Harwell, Trino, Rudy, Yorkman, & Gollub, 1999; Kim, McFarland, Kellogg, & Katz, 1999; Morris, Baker, Valentine, & Pennisi, 1998; Teplin, Mericle, McClelland, & Abram, 2003). The rate of hepatitis B in incarcerated adolescents ranges from 0–6% and the prevalence of hepatitis C virus is 2–3.5% (Weinbaum, Lyerla, & Margolis, 2003). Youth aged 13–17 admitted to a juvenile detention center in San Francisco between 1990 and 1995 showed an HIV-1 antibody–positive prevalence of 0.32% among 2,780 tests conducted (Kim et al., 1999). Serum specimens collected between 1990 and 1992 from adolescents in 33 correctional facilities found a rate of 0.3% (range 0–6.8%) (Sweeney, Lindegren, Buehler, Onorato, & Janssen, 1995). Despite the documented need for identifying youth with STDs, the 2004 Juvenile

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Residential Facility Census reported that only 18.5% of facilities offered STD testing for all adolescents on admission (Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007). Further, 8.3% of facilities did not make STD testing available, and the rest provided testing only when it was requested or deemed medically necessary. Similarly, only 4.3% of the facilities tested all youth for HIV, and 28.1% did not have HIV testing available. Pregnancy/Parenting Self-reported rates of parenthood among incarcerated teens are higher than in the general adolescent population. The nationally representative SRYP study found that 14% of youth in custody in 2003 reported having a child. Males (15%) were more likely to report having a child than females (9%). This compares to rates of 2% for males and 6% for females age 12–20 in the general population. Of those who were already parents, 12% were expecting another child indicating a female who was currently pregnant or a male whose female partner was pregnant. Overall, 20% of both males and females in the SYRP study were already parents or expecting a child (Sedlak & Bruce, 2010). These SYRP data add information to other studies, which have found that approximately one third of teens in juvenile correction facilities report that they have ever been pregnant (Lederman, Dakof, Larrea, & Hua, 2004; Williams & Hollis, 1999). The 2004 Juvenile Facilities Census study reported that at least 2.1% of girls are currently pregnant at any particular point in time (Gallagher, Dobrin, & Douds, 2007). Further in-depth study of pregnancies in the juvenile justice population is needed, since teen pregnancy rates vary by race/ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic level and are continuously evolving. Fatherhood among adolescent males is also an important issue that needs further

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investigation. One study, of 125 adolescent males age 14–17 incarcerated in a juvenile correctional facility in 1994, found that one quarter had fathered a pregnancy and of those who were fathers, 41% had fathered more than one pregnancy (Nesmith, Klerman, Oh, & Feinstein, 1997). Pregnancies in these youth are complicated by underlying problems of substance abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder, and complex decisions about postdelivery options (Hufft, 2004). In addition, these young women may need an altered schedule with additional rest and may have higher caloric requirements. Most juvenile justice facilities do not have arrangements for infant residency or visitation, and the majority of facilities do not have parenting classes (Breuner & Farrow, 1995; Hufft, 2004; see Pinderhughes, Craddock, & Fermin, Chapter 9, this volume). Attention must be paid to the potential for postpartum depression and other psychological consequences. Despite these high pregnancy rates and the constellation of health issues they raise, the 2004 Juvenile Facilities Census found that only 15–17% of all facilities had universal pregnancy testing of all girls on admission (Gallagher, Dobrin, & Douds, 2007). Further, 4.5–6.6% did not provide pregnancy testing, and the rest performed testing only when it was deemed medically necessary or requested by the adolescent. Prenatal services are also lacking in some correctional facilities and approximately one quarter to one third of facilities had no obstetrical services (Gallager, Dobrin, & Douds, 2007). Another study with data from 430 facilities in 41 states found that one third failed to provide prenatal services and 60% of the facilities with detained pregnant youth had at least one obstetrical complication (Breuner & Farrow, 1995).

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE Currently available studies indicate that adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system have rates of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders that exceed those of the general adolescent population (Desai et al., 2006; Fazel, Doll, & Langstrom, 2008; Vermeiren, Jespers, & Moffitt, 2006). Some authors have suggested that the juvenile justice system has become the placement of last resort for youth with mental health disorders who are not receiving care in their communities (Martin, 2006; see also Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). The SYRP (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010) does not provide diagnostic data; however, the report demonstrates the extent of self-reported mental and emotional problems. More than 60% of youth reported being easily upset, quick to lose their temper, and often angry. Fifty-one percent reported being unable to do what they wanted over the previous several months because of worry or being nervous and 52% felt lonely “too much of the time.” Determining the exact prevalence of these mental health and substance abuse disorders, including the specific subcategories of mental health diagnoses, has been challenging. A significant proportion of adolescents have multiple diagnoses (comorbidity) and/or

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co-occurring psychiatric and substance abuse diagnoses. While there are no national prevalence statistics on specific mental health diagnoses available for this population in the United States, studies from both the United States and other countries show prevalence rates ranging from approximately 50% to 100% when disruptive behavior disorders are included (Boesky, 2002). It is estimated that approximately one quarter of youth in the juvenile justice system have a severe mental health disorder that requires immediate treatment (Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006). Study Limitations The difficulty in determining the exact extent of mental health and substance abuse problems is related to the fact that most of the published studies have limitations in study design and data collection methodology (see Table 3.1). A few of these limitations warrant further discussion. The timing of the reported evaluations varied from the detention setting to longer term facilities. This is important because the stress of incarceration may affect the accuracy of mental health diagnoses, exacerbating various symptoms including suicidal ideation and self-injury/mutilation behaviors (Boesky, 2002). In addition, the source of information is also crucial and varies in these studies. Many studies

Table 3.1. Limitations and Variations Within the Literature on Reports About Mental Health and Substance Abuse Disorders Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System  Data are specific to certain states and individual facilities or are from other countries.  Nonstandardized measures and different diagnostic instruments or techniques are used.  Sociodemographic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, family environment, socioeconomic status, and criminal behavior are not comparable.  The timing of the evaluation varies from recent detention to postadjudication settings.  Potential bias exists based on selection of youth referred for psychiatric assessment.  Input from parents or teachers is not always added to youth self-report. Sources: Boesky, 2002; Shufelt, 2006; Teplin et al., 2002; Vermeiren, 2006.

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rely on self-reported impairment by youth, which may not be as accurate as when observations by parents and others, such as teachers, are included (Vermeiren et al., 2006). However, information from other informants is not always helpful. While one study found that one third of parents added substantial new information (Ko, Wasserman, McReynolds, & Katz, 2004), other studies found that adolescents actually reported higher rates of disorder and impairment than did their parents (Ko et al., 2004; Kramer et al., 2004). Certainly, reports from parents or other adults may lead to incorrect diagnoses when they include inaccurate or biased information (Boesky, 2002; Ko et al., 2004; Kramer et al., 2004). Parents and other adults may not be cognizant of the adolescent’s behavior or symptoms or may deny existing problems or accept different levels of behavior (Boesky, 2002; Vermeiren et al., 2006). The variation in sociodemographic variables between studies is important because mental health disorders result from a combination of inherited biological or psychological vulnerabilities, along with environmental stressors and supports as well as individual coping skills (Vermeiren et al., 2006). Studies of small samples of girls or ethnic minorities may significantly limit the interpretation of data since mental health diagnoses vary by gender and ethnicity (Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002). Comparisons within and between studies is also complicated by the fact that these youth have been exposed to different environmental experiences, which may include family conflict, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, neglect, experience with the foster care system, parental mental health and substance abuse, exposure to violence in their community, and easier access to drugs and alcohol (Boesky, 2002; Vermeiren et al., 2006).

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Prevalence Youth in the juvenile corrections system have a high prevalence of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders, with noted differences in rates when considering race/ethnicity and gender. These disorders also do not occur in isolation. Co-morbid psychiatric disorders and co-occurring psychiatric and substance abuse disorders have been documented in multiple studies. Overall Prevalence Based on a review of the worldwide literature from the 1960s through the 1990s, Roberts, Attkisson, and Rosenblatt (1998) found a mean prevalence rate of 16.5% (range 6.2%–41.3) for mental health disorders among adolescents in the general population. This compares to estimates of 50–100% of youth in the juvenile justice system with mental health disorders when conduct disorder is included (Boesky, 2002). The issue of whether to include disruptive behavior disorders such as conduct disorder in the prevalence analyses has been raised in the literature as an interesting issue, since conduct disorder diagnoses may reflect behavior that the juvenile will age out of naturally. When assessing selfreported behavior among adolescents, delinquency is very common, and multiple studies have demonstrated that the majority of adolescents in the general population participate in behaviors that would be considered delinquent (Moffitt, 1993). These behaviors are usually transient and part of the normal adolescent development, which include imitation of antisocial models/styles and social reinforcement. In fact, most of the adolescent offenders (85%) known to the criminal justice system stop offending by age 28 and severe persistent antisocial behavior over time is only found in approximately 5% of males. Those youth with early onset in childhood are more likely to be

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

persistent than those who begin these behaviors during adolescence (Moffitt, 1993; Ruchkin, Koposov, Vermeiren, & Schwab-Stone, 2003). Until recently, the 1991 NCCHC study was the only published multisite study in the United States that identified self-reported substance use and mental health risk behaviors among youth in corrections (Morris et al., 1995). This study found that more than 80% of these youth had smoked cigarettes and almost all had tried alcohol. Although marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug, 25.6% of females and 13.1% of males had used other drugs including injection drugs. Suicidal thought in the previous 12 months was not uncommon, with 21.8% having seriously considered suicide, 19.5% having made a plan, 15.5% with at least one attempt, and 8.2% having been injured by an attempt in the previous 12 months. The 2003 SYRP study (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010) found that 85% of youth had lifetime use of “any illegal drug,” and 50% had used an illegal drug other than marijuana. Lifetime alcohol use was reported by 74% of those surveyed, while 84% had used marijuana/hashish, 30% cocaine/crack, 26% ecstasy, 22% crystal meth, 19% acid/LSD, and 7% heroin. More than one half of these youth reported being drunk or high on drugs multiple times a week during the months leading up to being in custody. In addition, one fifth of those surveyed reported prior suicidal ideation; 22% had past suicide attempts. In order to better characterize the specific mental health and substance abuse issues among these youth, several recently published studies have attempted to eliminate some of the previous study design issues by using randomly selected youth, including more ethnic/racially diverse subjects, and using standardized screening and assessment instruments (Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006; Teplin et al., 2002;

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Wasserman, McReynolds, Ko, Katz, & Carpenter, 2005; Wasserman, McReynolds, Lucas, Fisher, & Santos, 2002). All of these studies utilized versions of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC), a highly structured psychiatric interview based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual criteria. The Teplin study, conducted between 1995 and 1998, involved 1,829 youth at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center; Wasserman and colleagues’ studies, conducted in 1998 and 2001, involved 991 youth at probation intake in eight Texas counties and 292 youth in secure placement in New Jersey and Illinois. Shufelt’s 2006 study included youth from three previously understudied areas—Louisiana, Texas, and Washington— and involved over 1,400 youth from 29 different programs and facilities with oversampling of two understudied populations: Hispanic and Native American youth. A comparison of the results of these newer studies shows consistent findings, including prevalence rates within a smaller range of 45.7–70.4% for psychiatric and substance abuse diagnoses. Both the Teplin and Shufelt studies were able to demonstrate that the prevalence rates were not explained solely by disruptive behavior disorders, as both authors similarly found that when conduct disorder was eliminated from the diagnostic categories, 60.9% (Teplin) and 66.3% (Shufelt) of youth had a psychiatric or substance use disorder. Shufelt found that 45.5% of youth still had mental health diagnoses when both substance use and conduct disorder were eliminated, indicating a high level of mental illness in this population. Table 3.2 compares the results of these studies. Comorbid and Co-occurring Disorders Comorbidity of two or more psychiatric diagnoses as well as co-occurring psychiatric and

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Disorder

Rate Males %

Rate Females %

Any Disorder Any Affective Major depressive Any Anxiety Disorder1 Generalized anxiety Panic disorder Obsessive-compulsive Separation anxiety disorder2 Any Disruptive Behavior3 ADHD Oppositional–defiant Conduct disorder Any Substance Abuse

44.8–68.5 5.9–18.7 5.1–13 17.4–26.4 2.1–7.1 0.3–4.8 4.8–8.3 12.9–25.1 20–44.9 1.2–16.6 3.1–14.5 18.3–37.8 26.3–50.7

49.5–81.0 13.0–29.2 11.4–21.6 29.0–56.0 3.1–7.3 1.5–3.0 5.7–10.6 18.6–32.8 20–51.3 0.5–21.4 10.5–17.5 16.8–40.6 22–55.1

1 Only Teplin (2002) included “separation anxiety” in the data for the “Any Anxiety” category. 2 Separation anxiety disorder subcategory data is from Teplin (2002) and Wasserman (2005). 3 Teplin (2002) did not include ADHD under the “Any Disruptive Behavior” category; ADHD was reported as a separate category. Note: All subcategories under the bolded “Any” headings are from Teplin (2002) and Wasserman (2002, 2005). Sources: Shufelt et al., 2006; Teplin et al., 2002; Wasserman et al., 2002, 2005.

substance abuse disorders have been documented in multiple studies in the United States and other countries (Abram, Teplin, McClelland, & Dulcan, 2003; Atkins et al., 1999; Dixon, Howie, & Starling, 2004; Domalanta, Risser, Roberts, & Risser, 2003; Lederman et al., 2004; Robertson, Dill, Husain, & Undesser, 2004; Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006; Teplin et al., 2002; Ulzen & Hamilton, 1998; Vreugenhil, Doreleijers, Vermeiren, Wouters, & van Den Brink, 2004). In the study by Shufelt and Cocozza (2006), 79% of youth with a mental health disorder had two or more diagnoses with 60% having three or more mental health diagnoses. Further, 60.8% of youth with a mental health diagnosis also had a co-occurring substance use disorder, and this association was more common among youth with disruptive behavior disorders and mood disorders. Youth with substance use

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disorders commonly abuse multiple substances. McClelland, Elkington, Teplin, and Abram (2004) found that approximately one half of youth had one or more and one fifth had two or more substance use disorders. For those with an alcohol use disorder, 80% also had a drug use disorder, and for those with a drug use disorder, 50% also had an alcohol use disorder. Youth who have substance use problems are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior, which places them at increased risk for STDs and HIV/AIDS. This increased risk includes youth with co-occurring substance use and other mental health diagnoses (Teplin et al., 2005). Racial/Ethnic Differences Utilizing a standardized diagnostic tool, Teplin et al. (2002) found that non-Hispanic whites had the highest rates of mental health disorders, and African American youth had the lowest. Hispanic youth fell in between these two groups. This difference, however, does not mean that minority youth do not have mental health/substance abuse treatment needs. In fact, concern has been raised in the literature that the actions of minority youth may be considered simply criminal behavior rather than the result of an emotional problem, making it more likely for them to become involved in the criminal justice rather than the mental health system (Boesky, 2002). Successful access to services may also be affected by important racial and/or ethnic differences in attitudes toward diagnosis and treatment of mental health and substance abuse. Some insight can be found from a qualitative study utilizing focus groups of African American youth in a detention center with diagnosed mental health disorders (Shelton, 2004). Youth in this study believed it was unacceptable to have a mental health disorder, and some were secretive about their experiences with mental

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

illness, illustrating the need for awareness about cultural issues in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Low mental health service utilization among African American and Hispanic youth when compared to non-Hispanic white youth was also addressed by Rawal, Romansky, Jenuwine, and Lyons (2004). They found a need for addition services since all youth, regardless of race or ethnicity, had low service utilization rates. However, minority youth had evidence of more multisystem needs, and African American youth had higher scores for caregiver problems including motivation to provide care. They note that lower mental health service utilization among minorities may be related to a culture that places a stigma on mental health issues and relies on family members and non-mental health professionals. Gender Differences The better designed studies consistently found that females are more likely than males to have any psychiatric disorder, and specifically to be diagnosed with internalizing disorders such as anxiety and mood disorders (Shufelt et al., 2006; Teplin et al., 2002; Wasserman et al., 2005). In general, both females and males had similar rates of substance use disorders. However, within the category of substance abuse, Teplin and colleagues (2002) found that females had higher rates of a substance use disorder other than alcohol or marijuana. Another problem more commonly found among females is physical, sexual, and emotional abuse (Mason, Zimmerman, & Evans, 1998; McCabe, Lansing, Garland, & Hough, 2002). These findings were confirmed in the nationally representative data in the SYRP report (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Victims of physical or sexual abuse engage in riskier sexual behavior compared to their peers who do not report abuse (Hayes, 2009;

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Mason et al., 1998). As documented in data collected in the 1991 NCCHC study, victims of sexual abuse also had a twofold increased likelihood of reporting a history of STD as well as suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts (Morris et al., 1995). As summarized in a recent OJJDP report, when considering both genders, rates of physical abuse vary from 11% to 73%, while sexual abuse ranges from 10% to 68% (Hayes, 2009). The SYRP data showed that, in a nationally representative sample, 42% of females and 22% of males reported past physical abuse while 35% of females and 8% of males experienced prior sexual abuse (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Specific Mental Health Disorders Published studies provide additional information on specific mental health disorders among youth in the juvenile justice system. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)/ Dissociative Disorder Several studies have specifically addressed PTSD and trauma with dissociation among delinquent youth. In addition to having higher rates of PTSD than general community samples, delinquent youth also report significant histories of witnessing and experiencing interpersonal violence. Dissociative disorder, which is associated with abuse and neglect, is also found in this population (Abram et al., 2004; Carrion & Steiner, 2000; Cauffman, Feldman, Waterman, & Steiner, 1998; Ford, Chapman, Hawke, & Albert, 2007; Steiner, Garcia, & Matthews, 1997). Suicide Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are a major concern for youth in the juvenile justice system. Both the 1991 NCCHC study and 2003 SYRP found that a history of suicidal ideation and attempts were common in this population (Morris et al.,

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1995; Sedlak & McPherson, 2010), and several studies utilizing nationally representative samples have been published specifically addressing suicide within juvenile facilities. The first was a national census of public and private juvenile justice facilities in the United States during the years 2000 and 2002, which found that the leading cause of death in these facilities was suicide (20 out of 62 deaths) (Gallagher & Dobrin, 2006a). The second study included an analysis of suicides between 1995 and 1999 in public and private juvenile facilities and found that staff should be aware of most suicidal youth because a history of mental illness, as well as a current diagnosis of depression, was found in two thirds of victims and more than onehalf were taking a psychotropic medication (Hayes, 2009). In that study, hanging was the method of suicide in virtually all (98.7%) of the cases and two thirds of victims were in single occupancy rooms. Approximately one half of the deaths occurred between 6 PM and midnight, which includes the time frame youth were less likely to be alone. For those on room confinement, they were most likely to commit suicide during waking hours when they should have been involved in other interactive activities. This study suggests the need for further research to better understand the reasons for and role of confinement in suicide attempts in juvenile facilities. Reduction in suicides among juveniles in confinement may be possible by suicide risk screening and training staff in suicide prevention, as these efforts resulted in lower rates of suicide in the facilities described in an OJJDP report (Hayes, 2009). This finding is similar to that of Gallagher and Dobrin (2006b), that facilities screening all youth within 24 hours of admission had a lower suicide risk. Suicide prevention strategies need to be improved, as only one fifth of the facilities in the 2009 OJJDP report had the seven key components

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needed for suicide prevention in juvenile facilities (Hayes, 2009). Psychotropic Medications There are no national data on the use of psychotropic medications in the juvenile justice system, but data from two studies conducted in Pennsylvania and Oregon found that almost one half of youth in detention facilities and over two thirds in longer term facilities receive psychotropic medication as part of their mental health treatment plan. Although ideal treatment plans for mental health issues may include psychotropic medications, the length of stay, attitudes of the parent and adolescent, and resources for continuity of care need to be considered in prescribing these medications (Desai et al., 2006). The challenges of mental health screening, assessment, and continuity of care illustrate the complexity of designing and implementing effective treatment for youth in the juvenile justice system. Health-Care Standards Challenges exist in the provision of quality health care to youth in correctional facilities. The NCCHC has published standards for health services for youth in correctional facilities (NCCHC, 2004). However, data analyzed by Gallagher and Dobrin from the Juvenile Residential Facilities Census (2000, 2004; see Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007) and Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (2003; see Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007) found that the overwhelming majority of facilities were not accredited by NCCHC and that there were significant deficits found when comparing reported practices to NCCHC standards (Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007). In addition, there are challenges related to the continuity of care between community health-care providers and health-care providers in the correctional

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

system (Feinstein et al., 1998; Morris, 2001). In part, continuity is made more difficult by the prohibition on utilizing federal money (i.e., Medicaid benefits) to treat youth while they are incarcerated as well as, in many cases, termination rather than suspension of benefits resulting in a delay in reinstatement once the youth is released back into the community (Gupta, Kelleher, Pajer, Stevens, & Cuellar, 2005; Perez, Ro, & Treadwell, 2009).

FACTORS RELATING TO DELINQUENCY AND HEALTH STATUS We have just reviewed the literature on the physical and mental health status and treatment findings for youth in the juvenile justice system. Overall, the research shows that in most domains of physical and mental health, these youth fare worse than their counterparts outside of the juvenile justice system. The following section begins to explain why that is, and suggests responses, by reviewing the literature on factors associated with both delinquency and poor health status. These factors range from the biologic to the cultural and cover the ecological domains of individual, family, community, and social institutions. As these interrelated factors compound, the likelihood of delinquency may increase along with the risk of poor health and reduced access to health care. Thus, understanding them is essential to preventing delinquency and improving youth health. Socioeconomic Status Nearly 13 million children live in poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2009), and socioeconomic status affects both health status and self-reported delinquency.

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Emerson points out that relative child poverty appears to be associated with health status, particularly in the macroeconomic aspect of the health of nations (2009). Child poverty is associated with unintentional injuries, juvenile homicide, low educational achievement, dropping out of school, poor peer relationships, feeling lonely, and mental health problems (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2007), all of which also tend to be found in delinquent youth as documented in the SYRP data (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Poverty is related to mortality risk, with the highest risk for 18- to 27-year-olds whose income is below the median of $20,190 (Rehkopf, Berkman, Coull, & Krieger, 2008). Adverse childhood experiences, such as frequent moves often associated with unstable socioeconomic circumstances, appear to be related to various health risks such as smoking and suicide (Dong et al., 2005). Economically disadvantaged communities with neighborhood violence and deviant peer groups may put middle childhood youth at particular vulnerability for antisocial behavior (Ingoldsby & Shaw, 2002; Seidman et al., 1998). Girls who live in poverty-stricken neighborhoods and who are victims of violence themselves are 2.2 times more likely to have behaved violently in the past year compared to girls who were not victimized. Girls from neighborhoods with poverty and homicides have higher rates of aggression (Molnar, Browne, Cerda, & Buka, 2005). Poverty is related to race and ethnicity in these findings; in 2007, Black and Hispanic juveniles were 3 times as likely to live in poverty as nonHispanic White youth (OJJDP, 2007). More generally, Leventhal and BrooksGunn reported the results of a comprehensive review of research on the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent wellbeing. High socioeconomic status (SES) led to

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positive life achievement, while low SES and residential instability was related to poor behavioral/emotional outcomes (e.g., increased delinquency and problem behaviors in adolescents) (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). Sampson (2003) elaborated on social characteristics of communities and neighborhoods as they affect health disparities in the inner city. Both articles point to a need to understand the functions of communities in order to improve the health of their citizens. This is particularly evident in a British study of 5- to 10-year-olds in deprived neighborhoods who displayed higher levels of antisocial behavior at school entry and less improvement in antisocial behavior between ages 5 and 10. That behavioral finding was offset by neighborhood collective efficacy but only in deprived neighborhoods, leading the authors to suggest that neighborhood efficacy had a protective effect in young children (Odgers et al., 2009; see Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Race and Culture Minority youth are disproportionately present both in the delinquency system and in the population of youth with reduced access to health care and poor health. Although there is a range of explanations offered, youth of color are represented among arrests and delinquency placements disproportionate to their presence in the population, and this disparity permeates the juvenile custody system including longterm facilities (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). This disparity remained stable over the last decade, with a slight decrease of the minority population in custody from 62% in 1997 to 61% in 2003 (Snyder, 2008; Snyder & Sickmund, 2006) and an increase in 2006 to 66% (OJJDP, 2007). Except for Vermont, Black youth’s custody rates in 2003

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exceeded rates for White youth across the states (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Black youth accounted for 38% of all youth in custody in 2003 (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006) and 41% of all males in custody in 2006 (OJJDP, 2007). Asian youth are an exception. In 1997, they comprised 4% of the juvenile population but only 2% of youth in secure detention (Hsia, Bridges, & McHale, 2004), and in 2006, they comprised 5% of the population but only 1% of youth in secure placement. Similarly, numerous studies report that racial and ethnic minorities have poor health and health care overall. For example, Shi and Macinko (2008) examined changes in medical care experiences between 1996 and 2002 for various racial groups and found that, although there were some fluctuations, racial minorities reported difficulties accessing care, worse health care, and worse health indicators that further declined in 2002. Flores and TomanyKorman (2008a) found similar results, as did Simpson and colleagues (2005) reviewing 2000–2002 data. The REACH 2010 Risk Factor Survey conducted in 21 minority communities showed that racial minorities had substantially greater socioeconomic risk factors and health burden than the general U.S. population, with type and degree varying somewhat among communities (Liao, Tucker, & Giles, 2004). The RAND Corporation in 2004 reported a wide range of socioeconomic, health, safety, and educational disparities faced by boys and men of color in California, all of which could increase the risk of offending and problems accessing health care. These included higher poverty rates of 27% as compared with 19% in the general population, higher HIV/AIDS rates than White peers (6.9 times higher for African Americans and 3.1 times higher for Latinos) and a higher likelihood of being imprisoned. Educational

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

gaps compared to White youth, as evidenced by a lack of a high school diploma, are twice as high for African American youth and 7 times as high for Latinos (Davis, Kilburn, & Schultz, 2009). Likewise, substantial health disparities are found in Native American/Alaska Native youth compared to the general population (Castor et al., 2006). In a report on adolescent health and youth of color, the National Association of Social Workers pointed out that Native American youth have the worst health of any racial group and highest rate of violent death compared to “any other racial or ethnic group” (Clark, 2001). Ethnic minority youth also report less regular participation in physical exercise. A review of the scientific literature by Elster, Jarosik, VanGeest, and Fleming (2003) compared 31 studies addressing adolescent racial and ethnic disparities in health care, concluding that racial and ethnic disparities, independent of socioeconomic status, exist in selected areas of adolescent health care (Elster et al.). Similar disparities for oral health are found among racial/ethnic minorities (Dietrich, Culler, Garcia, & Henshaw, 2008). Flores and Tomany-Korman (2008b) observed that children in non-English-speaking homes experienced multiple disparities in medical and oral health, access to care, and use of services, adding another factor that relates to the racial disadvantage in health care. Engagement in psychiatric care in particular is an issue that may not just be related to access (see Oliveri, Towery, Jacobs & Jacobs, Chapter 18, this volume). Many Americans are reluctant to take psychiatric medications even though they are effective, and their reluctance may have cultural roots. Croghan’s study found that the majority of respondents would not take psychiatric medications (Croghan et al., 2003). This finding may help explain some of the factors related to whether

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detained youth continue on psychiatric medications when they are released. There are ethnic differences in perspectives toward depression in that African American and Latino youth and their parents have less knowledge about antidepressants and are less willing to seek treatment (Chandra et al., 2009). Thus, these negative factors are not confined solely to delinquent youth, but rather result in poor mental health outcomes in the communities from which delinquents come. Family Structure, Abuse/Neglect, and the Foster Care System Family dysfunction, and specifically abuse and neglect, can lead to involvement in the foster care system. Youth in foster care (a number of whom will transition to the juvenile justice system) suffer poor health, and have chronic medical conditions, mental disorders, and substance abuse problems (Currie & Tekin, 2006; see Baker, Cunningham & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). In general, suffering greater levels of abuse leads to a greater likelihood of engaging in delinquency (Grogan-Kaylor, Ruffolo, Ortega, & Clarke, 2008; Malmgren & Meisel, 2004; Stewart, Livingston, & Dennison, 2008). However, the contribution of foster care alone as a cause of delinquency and poor health cannot be separated from the various types of severity and duration of abuse that lead to foster care placement. An additional confounding element is the appropriate disposition of foster children who may commit minor offenses such as hitting a staff member or fighting in a group home. There is the tendency to send these children to the juvenile justice system with no right of return to the child welfare system. Ross, Conger, and Armstrong (2002) discuss this effect and suggest the need for a “human services” model with the “objective of

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achieving real working partnerships at the front line (see Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). There is also a link between poverty (Farrington, 1989; Kirk, 2008), family disruption (Kirk, 2008; Sampson & Laub, 1994) and self-reported delinquency. Family disruption influences juvenile violence, leading to three interconnected states—poverty, family disruption, and violent delinquency (Sampson & Laub, 1994). Children from two-parent families are less likely to live in poverty than children from single-parent families, 8% vs. 17%. Single-mother households have much higher rates of receiving public assistance (62%) and food stamps (61%) compared to two-parent families, 32% and 23%, respectively (OJJDP, 2007). Youth living with both biologic parents are less likely to engage in problem behaviors and crime regardless of whether the neighborhood is well or poorly kept. In fact, family structure predicts problem behaviors more than does race or ethnicity (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). However, neighborhood characteristics, including social networks and Hispanic ethnicity, may influence parent-tochild aggression, with physical aggression leading to more severe child maltreatment (Molnar, Buka, Brennan, Holton, & Earls, 2003). Hispanic and African American youth are more likely to live in single-parent households (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). In 2007, 57% of Black youth lived with one parent, compared to 31% of Hispanic children and 23% of White children (OJJDP, 2007). Characteristics of parental supervision can help reduce delinquency so that a high level of parental supervision is associated with low delinquency (Fischer, 1983). Positive family communication (i.e., open vs. closed communication) with a youth’s parents also helps deter delinquency (Clark & Shields, 1997). Parents

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of delinquent youth tend to lose control of their children, as evidenced by their inability to turn their children away from maladaptive behaviors and toward prosocial activities. This, in turn, can interfere with the parents’ effectiveness in obtaining services for their children because of parental feelings of helplessness and inability to engage their children in agreeing to attend services. The Smith Sterns (1999) suggest that new approaches are necessary to empower parents and enhance cooperation between parents and social service agencies. The pathway from foster care to the delinquency system is more pronounced among youth of color. Youth of color make up the majority of foster youth (Clark, 2001). NonWhite children, given in-home abuse avoidance services as opposed to no services, had a lower risk of juvenile corrections entry. However, youth receiving mental health services had a high risk of entering the juvenile correctional system (Jonson-Reid, 2002). The same author reporting on children receiving child welfare services in California reported similar outcomes for non-White children. However, girls who experienced foster placement or group home placement had higher rates of involvement with the juvenile corrections system than girls not placed out of home (see, e.g., Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). Further, children who were reported as neglected were more likely to be incarcerated compared to those who were reported as being physically or sexually abused. The authors felt that children receiving no services were at greatest risk for incarceration (Jonson-Reid & Barth, 2000). Education Educational failure leads to unemployment and possibly criminal behavior. Again, these factors are interrelated, with poor education

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

leading to low SES, which is related to both poor health and health access and to involvement in the delinquency system. Hispanic and African American youth drop out of school more often compared to White youth. In 2005, 2.8% of White, 7.3% of Black, and 5% of Hispanic youth dropped out of school (OJJDP, 2007). Youth who neither attend school nor work have an increased risk of engaging in high-risk and delinquent behaviors (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Lowincome families, defined as those in the bottom fifth income bracket, also have higher dropout rates with 8.9% of low-income youth dropping out compared to 1.5% of high-income families who are in the top fifth income bracket (OJJDP, 2007). Biologic Factors Intrinsic factors, such as genetic variations, appear to contribute to behavioral traits leading to delinquent acts, and recent research shows that the origins of adult illness and behavioral abnormalities may be biologic (Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009). Youth who carry the short allele form of the serotonin transporter–linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) gene that is found in 40% of the general population are prone to impulsivity, low self-control, binge drinking, and substance use (Brody et al., 2009). Other genetic variations involving monoamine oxidase A (Passamonti et al., 2006) and serotonin (Lesch & Merschdorf, 2000) influence impulsive, aggressive behaviors. Serotonin transporter– promoting gene polymorphism is associated with violence in relation to personality disorders, impulsiveness, and childhood attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Retz, Retz-Junginger, Supprian, Thome & Rosler, 2004). The combination of violent behavior, impulsiveness, and ADHD also may be related

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to dopamine D3 receptor gene polymorphism (Retz, Rosler, Supprian, Retz-Junginger & Thome, 2003). There are a number of other genes that may be involved in antisocial behavior combined with ADHD (Langley, 2009) and ADHD and impulsivity (Ribases et al., 2008). Finally, there appears to be a subset of children with ADHD and antisocial behavior associated with variations in the catechol-Omethyltransferase (COMT) gene (Caspi et al., 2008). Although these genetic variations account for a small number of incarcerated youth, further research is likely to discover more of these inborn tendencies to engage in delinquent behavior. Some of these antisocial behaviors that are genetically related may be modified by prevention programs that can override the genetic predisposition (Brody et al., 2009). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides another tool to evaluate maturation and disruption in brain function in normal adolescence and pathologic states. Giedd and his colleagues followed brain architecture during childhood into early adulthood and found that the brain continues to change through the early 20s. The frontal lobes, where executive functioning resides, is one of the last areas to mature (Rhoghel & Giedd, 2006). These authors point out that changes in the brain’s structure and the size of various areas of the brain correspond to enhanced strengths or weaknesses in brain function such as memory capacity. They also note that brain maturation includes interactions between genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors. They define environmental factors as both outside environment and internal “physiologic milieu.” Thus, individuals who are stressed beyond their capacity to cope will develop “compensatory physiologic responses and behaviors that in time may affect brain structures” (p. 726). This can be part of a normal or abnormal learning process.

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Preliminary MRI studies of youth with developmental disorders show consistent changes in brain structure compared to controls, although the physiologic meaning of these changes is not well understood. Childhood-onset schizophrenia, Williams syndrome, ADHD, and fetal alcohol syndrome all demonstrate abnormal brain morphology with some areas of decreased size. Although the abnormalities vary in these disorders, there also are some similarities among them (Toga, Thompson, & Sowell, 2006). Although not directly related to these neuroimaging studies, many authors have measured various aspects of adolescent decision-making processes compared with that of adults. When engaged with peers, adolescents are more likely than adults to make decisions associated with increased risk. This scenario, which is called “hot cognition,” is compared to “cold cognition” when decisions are made in controlled or nonemotional circumstances (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). Modecki (2007) reviewed the gaps in the maturity of judgment literature and found that adolescents “display less responsibility and perspective relative to college students” (p. 89). There was no difference between nondelinquent youth and delinquent youth with regard to maturity of judgment, but high-level-delinquency youth have significantly lower maturity of judgment compared to low-level-delinquency youth (Modecki, 2007). Recent work utilizing functional MRI studies of normal adolescents 11–13 years old find that sleep deprivation may be related to compensatory increases in reward-driven behavior, possibly increasing risky behavior because of less activation of the caudate (part of the ventral striatum) that is related to reward-related brain function (Holm et al., 2009). Thus, there may be an interaction between brain

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maturation and sleep deprivation, which is often found in adolescents engaged in delinquent behavior at night. A recent review of childhood roots of health disparities amplifies the effects of poor environment on young children, bringing our understanding to a new theoretical plane. The authors argue that the origins of adult illness and behavioral abnormalities result from biological disruptions caused by toxic stress beginning prenatally and continuing through childhood. Unless there are protective relationships to buffer the effects of stress, the individual develops maladaptive coping mechanisms that are reinforced by permanent changes in the brain and other organs. They further point out that protective and stressful events affecting one generation can have positive or negative effects for several successive generations that are facilitated by epigenetic changes in DNA methylation and histamine modification of chromatin in response to experiences that can influence the next generation (Shonkoff et al., 2009). Although not part of their argument, there is the possibility of a multiplying effect in that parents who have experienced severe childhood trauma will pass on a genetic predisposition for poor adaptation to stress and compound the effect by lacking the ability themselves as parents to provide supportive relationships to their children. These children are likely to experience substantial, perhaps “toxic stress” because they remain embedded in the poor social climate of their parents. At the extreme, the children experience child abuse, chronic neglect, emotional abuse, extreme poverty, family violence, and parental drug abuse (Shonkoff et al., 2009). Shonkoff and colleagues (2009) also point out the long-term effects of this stress on personal well-being, including heart disease; high blood pressure; obesity; early aging; pulmonary disease; depression; alcoholism; teen pregnancy; smoking; anxiety; aggression;

The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

and poor mental flexibility, memory, and other cognitive processes. These observations lead to an understanding that the poor health and health disparities of many disadvantaged social groups have an early biologic basis that becomes evident as the person ages and illuminates the link between health disparities and delinquency. They make a strong case for early childhood interventions to reduce the risks of both physical and mental health impairments. They also point out that once these early processes take effect, it is very difficult to reverse the early biological damage. A related article reinforces these concepts and makes clear the difficulty in changing behavior in delinquent youth. Abram, Choe, Washburn, Romero, and Teplin (2009) followed 1,653 youth for about three years after detention and found significant functional impairment across one or more of the eight domains. One fifth (21.6%) of youth had marked global impairment. Only 7.5% had “no noteworthy impairment.” It would be expected that those youth who had substantial functional impairments would also have problems accessing health care after being released from detention. These data also reinforce the difficulties of changing behavior and functioning that may have roots in early childhood toxic experiences. Poor compliance with health care may also be related to the normal developmental course of brain maturation discussed in the MRI studies above. The associated lag in appropriate and non-risk-taking decision making could play a role in some youth not seeking health care or not cooperating with health-care recommendations. This may be compounded by poor parental supervision or disordered communities, and these immaturity dynamics could play a significant role in impeding the seeking of health care because there is no outside control on the youth’s behavior.

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CONCLUSION While additional national research is needed, existing literature confirms the sense in the field that youth in the juvenile justice system fare worse than their counterparts in the general population in most domains of physical and mental health. This is explained in part by the compelling confluence of demographic, family, and youth traits related to both the onset of delinquent behaviors and disparities in health care. Youth from lower socioeconomic strata, minority race and ethnicity, and disorganized families, including abused youth, are more likely to be involved in delinquency, and the same elements impede health care. Currently, it is not known if delinquent youth receive worse health care than nondelinquent youth of similar backgrounds. It may be that both groups suffer equally because of their social status. However, nondelinquent youth may have more supportive functional family structures that help ameliorate the risk of poor health care. At the time youth are incarcerated, there is a window of opportunity to address their existing health problems. However, although the health needs of these youth become evident and need to be addressed when they become involved in the juvenile justice system, primary prevention efforts, which address disparate socioeconomic and personal health risk factors before youth are involved in the justice system, may be most effective and most likely will require multiple approaches. Thus, it is important to view the causes and remediation of poor health care in detained and incarcerated youth from the broader perspective of their social, economic, and demographic origins. Efforts to improve the health status of this underserved population may also reduce the incidence of delinquency because the etiology of both is similar. Universal health

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The Health of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 national report. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Steiner, H., Garcia, I. G., & Matthews, Z. (1997). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 357–365. Stewart, A., Livingston, M., & Dennison, S. (2008). Transitions and turning points: Examining the links between child maltreatment and juvenile offending. Child Abuse and Neglect, 32, 51–66. Sweeney, P., Lindegren, M. L., Buehler J. W., Onorato, I. M., & Janssen, R. S. (1995). Teenagers at risk of immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection. Results from seroprevalence surveys in the United States. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 149, 521–528. Teplin, L. A., Abram, K. M., McClelland, G. M., Dulcan, M. K., & Mericle, A. A. (2002). Psychiatric disorders in youth in juvenile detention. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59, 1133–1143. Teplin, L. A., Mericle, A. A., McClelland, G. M., & Abram, K. M. (2003). HIV and AIDS risk behaviors in juvenile detainees: Implications for public health policy. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 906–912. Teplin, L. A., Elkington, K. S., McClelland, G. M., Abram, K. M., Mericle, A. A., & Washburn, J. J. (2005). Major mental disorders, substance use disorders, co-morbidity, and HIV-AIDS risk behaviors in juvenile detainees. Psychiatric Services, 56, 823–828. Toga, A. W., Thompson, P. M., & Sowell, E. R. (2006). Mapping brain maturation. Trends in Neuroscience, 29, 148–159.

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Ulzen, T. P., & Hamilton, H. (1998). The nature and characteristics of psychiatric comorbidity in incarcerated adolescents. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 43, 57–63. Vermeiren, R., Jespers, I., & Moffitt, T. (2006) Mental health problems in juvenile justice populations. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinics of North America, 15, 333–351. Vreugdenhil, C., Doreleijers, T. H., Vermeiren, R., Wouters, L. F., & van den Brink, W. (2004). Psychiatric disorders in a representative sample of boys in the Netherlands. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 43, 97–104. Wasserman, G. A., McReynolds, L. S., Lucas, C. P., Fisher, P., & Santos, L. (2002). The Voice DISC-IV with incarcerated male youths: Prevalence of disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 314–321. Wasserman, G. A., McReynolds, L. S., Ko, S. J., Katz, L. M., & Carpenter, J. R. (2005). Gender differences in psychiatric disorders at juvenile probation intake. American Journal of Public Health, 95, 131– 137. Weinbaum, C., Lyerla, R., & Margolis, H. S. (2003). Prevention and control of infections with hepatitis viruses in correctional settings. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. MMWR Recommendations and Reports, 52, RR-1, 1–36. Williams, R. A., & Hollis, H. M. (1999). Health beliefs and reported symptoms among a sample of incarcerated adolescent females. Journal of Adolescent Health, 24, 21–27. Woolf, A., & Funk, S. G. (1985). Epidemiology of trauma in a population of incarcerated youth. Pediatrics, 75, 463–468.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

4

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework F R A N C I N E T. S H E R M A N

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HON. JAY BLITZMAN

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hough we know that children have a set of evolving needs and capacities linked to their development, children’s law in the United States is not organized around child development or, in fact, any single organizing theory. Instead, it is a patchwork of sometimes contradictory provisions. After all, what developmental (or other) principle would restrict a child’s ability to vote until 18, to purchase alcohol until 21, yet sentence a 14-year-old to adult prison for life without the possibility of parole or allow him to waive his right to counsel in a delinquency case? Rather than reflecting a coherent vision of society’s responsibility to children, children’s law in the United States reflects history, a particularly American vision of individual rights, and the occasional nod to child development. It is helpful to think of children’s legal rights in two broad categories: autonomy-based rights and needs-based rights (see Buss, 2004a; Meyer, 2003; Woodhouse, 2001). Autonomybased rights pertain to children’s competencies or their abilities to make decisions and act on their own behalf—to be independent legal actors. They include the rights to direct one’s legal representation, make medical decisions as a mature minor, exercise free speech, contract, and enjoy procedural due process in court and administrative matters. Needs-based rights are rights to health, education, safety,

stable housing, and stable relationships; many of which are discussed as children’s human rights (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). Although autonomy and need are useful classifications, these categories of rights are connected. For example, a child’s right to liberty or to freedom from unnecessary restraint is behind his or her autonomy-based rights to counsel and formal process in delinquency cases, but it is also behind the needs-based right to rehabilitative treatment should the child be found delinquent (Holland & Mlyniec, 1996). Although its detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this chapter, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (1989), to which the United States is not a signatory, codifies for the international community this blend of need- and autonomybased rights. The CRC requires signatory nations to provide education, health care, stable homes, and a range of children’s needs. But the CRC also requires consideration of the child’s autonomy, limiting the exercise of parental rights to be “consistent with the evolving capacities of the child” and including children’s independent rights to speech, religion, association, and assembly (Melton, 2005). In the United States, children’s law developed through a legal tradition in which children were seen foremost as part of their 68

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

families, with rights historically contingent on those of their parents (Cunningham, 2006). Parents retain that authority over their children unless parents are found to be unfit, at which time the state steps in as parens patriae (literally translated, “parent of country”), a doctrine drawn from British common law under which the state serves as parent to protect and care for the child. But in U.S. law the child’s, parents’, and state’s rights coexist, each contributing in some way to the rights of the others, and can be viewed as rights in relationship to each other (Buss, 2004b; Henning, 2006; Meyer, 2003; Minow, 1986; Ross, 2003). For example, children need their parents in order to fully realize many of their individual rights. Parents help children find lawyers to pursue their rights and help them obtain health care and education, and the law recognizes this, giving parents authority to make most health and education decisions for their children. Moreover, parents’ rights over their children’s decisions diminish as the child matures, when the law increasingly recognizes the child’s ability to make more of her own decisions—for example, in areas of health care, abortion, and, through counsel, the conduct of any delinquency case. The state, which exercises its authority as both police power and parens patriae, is authorized by the needs of the public (e.g., requiring parents to immunize children and children to be immunized) but also limited by the parents’ and child’s rights. Thus, the rights of the child, parent, and state function in relation to each other. This chapter provides an overview of U.S. law relating to children. Framed both in terms of needs- and autonomy-based rights and the legal dynamics among child, parent, and state, the chapter describes how the law organizes the world for children in the United States. Like the other chapters in this volume, the discussion focuses on children involved with

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the child and family services, juvenile justice, and other state systems as well as critical institutions such as schools and health providers. The chapter discusses children’s law in relation to each of these systems and institutions independently and explores ways in which the law crosses or should cross these systems and institutions on behalf of children and families. With this ecological frame in mind, we acknowledge that children’s lives, including their legal lives, are related to their families, communities, and the social institutions that surround them.

CHILD, PARENT, AND STATE Children’s rights are contingent in significant measure on their parents. As recently as 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged this, upholding a Washington state statute allowing a custodial parent to restrict grandparents from visiting with her children. Although the Court did not deny findings that the grandparents’ visitation had a positive effect on the children, providing a “large, central, loving family . . . ” (p. 61), the Court found that “ . . . [t]he liberty interest at issue in this case—the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children—is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this court” (Troxel v. Granville, 2000, p. 65, emphasis added). In its holding, the majority deferred to the parent’s decision about grandparent visitation, even in the face of a possible contrary interest on the part of the child, who was not separately consulted or represented under the statutory scheme. In his dissent, Justice Stevens suggested that the interest at work may be the child’s: While this Court has not yet had occasion to elucidate the nature of a

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child’s liberty interests in preserving established familial or family-like bonds . . . it seems to me extremely likely that, to the extent parents and families have fundamental liberty interests in preserving such intimate relationships, so, too, do children have these interests, and so, too, must their interests be balanced in the equation. (Troxel, pp. 88–89; Buss, 2003) When parents are unfit, the state steps in as parens patriae. The notion first appeared in U.S. law in 1839 in Ex Parte Crouse, in which Mary Ann Crouse’s father challenged her commitment to the Philadelphia House of Refuge for being “an incorrigible or vicious female under the age of 18 years” (p. 1). Upholding the commitment, the court wrote: The object of charity is reformation, by training its inmates to industry, by imbuing their minds with principles of morality and religion, by furnishing them with means to earn a living, and, above all, by separating them from the corrupting influence of improper associates. To this end may not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it, be superceded by the parens patriae, or common guardian of the community? (Ex Parte Crouse, 1939, p. 2) The notion of the state as parens patriae was first recognized by the Supreme Court in two cases (Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923, and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925), upholding challenges to the constitutionality of state statutes interfering with the rights of parents to control their children’s upbringing and education. Meyer and Pierce, both cited approvingly in Troxel,

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did not discuss the children’s independent interests or rights. Concern about children’s autonomy rights to be heard in court independently of the state or parents is a relatively recent development beginning, perhaps, with Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), the prosecution of a guardian for violating a child labor law by permitting her 9-year-old ward to sell Jehovah’s Witnesses periodicals in the evening. Although the court upheld the conviction, the case included references to the rights of children to exercise their religion and notes that “children have rights, in common with other people, in the primary use of highways” (p. 169). Ten years later, in the school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, children were the named plaintiffs, and in 1967 the Supreme Court held that children had the right to be heard directly through their own attorneys during the adjudicatory phase of delinquency proceedings (In re Gault, 1967). The role of counsel and the extent to which children’s rights should be independent of adults is still the subject of debate. Does counsel have a responsibility to represent the child client’s expressed wishes or should counsel serve his or her view of the child client’s best interests? What happens when a parent’s view of what is best for her child, on a matter of fundamental interest such as education or health, conflicts with that child’s view? In an often-cited dissent in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), a case that reversed convictions of Amish parents who had violated a compulsory school attendance law, Justice Douglas argued that “(w)hile the parents, absent dissent, normally speak for the entire family, the education of the child is a matter on which the child will often have decided views” (p. 244). Although the growing consensus is that lawyers for children serve children best when they represent the child’s expressed wishes, providing representation comparable to that which an adult would

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

receive (Green & Dohrn, 1996), the relationship between children’s and parents’ rights is a continuing theme in children’s law. The Interplay of Child, Parent, and State Rights in Juvenile Justice The state’s role as parens patriae is clearest in the child and family services system, where the rationale for the case is the parents’ abuse or neglect of their child. When youth are alleged to be status offenders—committing acts that are law violations only for children (e.g., truancy, incorrigibility, running away, underage drinking)—or delinquent—committing acts that would be criminal if the child were an adult—the state exercises its authority both as parens patriae and police power. In these cases the roles and rights of parents are less clear. While the law increasingly requires parental involvement in these cases (Henning, 2006), it also blames parents and provides parents relatively little protection or encouragement, although the case can result in their loss of custody and one of the state’s goals is to assist the child and his or her family (see Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). As the rights of parents are deemphasized in delinquency cases, the rights of youth are emphasized but never equal to those of adults, and they are often expressed in relationship to their parents. In 1967 the Supreme Court found that children charged with delinquency and subject to possible placement in a “training school” have a right to counsel because they risk a loss of liberty protected by the U.S. Constitution. This liberty interest, and the procedural rights that flow from it, belong to the child and not the parents (In re Gault,1967). Almost 20 years later, the Supreme Court found that children charged with delinquency could be detained in locked facilities with fewer procedural protections

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than would be available to adults, reasoning that, although a juvenile’s interest in freedom from institutional restraints . . . is undoubtedly substantial . . . juveniles, unlike adults, are always in some form of custody . . . . They are assumed to be subject to the control of their parents, and if parental control falters, the State must play its part as parens patriae. (Schall v. Martin, 1984, p. 256) Thus, even in the delinquency system with their individual right to liberty at stake, children’s rights are conceptualized in relation to those of their parents. Although the law in many states requires that parents participate in the delinquency process (e.g., attend hearings, contact probation, pay restitution for their children’s acts), the juvenile justice process, despite its original intent, is a crude tool for nurturing the parent– child bond. Parental responsibility and parent– child privilege laws illustrate this point. Parental responsibility laws, which impose civil, criminal, or quasi-criminal liability on parents for the illegal acts of their children, illustrate the conceptual difficulties inherent in balancing parents’ rights and responsibilities for their children once those children become involved in the juvenile justice system. These laws, which assume that parents are in some way at fault for their children’s delinquency and that they can be motivated to do better by legal liability, have been around for decades but, perhaps because they feel out of step with the complex task of parenting, are rarely enforced absent a high-profile case (Harris, 2006; Henning, 2006). Parent–child testimonial privilege is another area of inconsistent policy about parents in relation to their children charged with

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crimes. Unlike the spousal testimonial privilege, which has a long history in common and statutory law (Trammel v. United States, 1980), as of 2006 only four states recognized a parent– child testimonial privilege, which would shield confidential communications between parent and child (Henning, 2006). Scholars have observed that the absence of a parent– child testimonial privilege creates a situation in which a child in trouble with the law would be wise not to seek help and advice from her parent. This runs counter to established legal tradition protecting the privacy of families and encouraging strong parent–child relationships, as well as the philosophy of the juvenile court to encourage parental responsibility for their children and the child’s trust of their parent, the juvenile justice process, and of their lawyer (Henning, 2006; Ross, 2003). As we examine the details of children’s rights and the law governing child-serving systems, we will continue to see a struggle, with inconsistent results, among the interests and rights of the child, parent, and state.

CHILDREN’S NEEDS-BASED RIGHTS Although there is federal constitutional law relating to children, most of the law governing children’s rights is state-based, and so there is significant state-to-state variation in children’s law and practice (Blitzman, 2007). Federal children’s policy is typically set through funding legislation, requiring states to approach children’s issues in proscribed ways. Federal constitutional law sets the floor for defining and protecting children’s rights, leaving states to pass laws complying with constitutional minimums, but which may test constitutional parameters (e.g., minor’s right to abortion) or to imagine the ceiling and exceed

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constitutional minimums in defining and protecting the rights of the child (e.g., broader rights to appointment of counsel in juvenile cases than are constitutionally required; state laws requiring a jury in a delinquency adjudication although none is required under the U.S. Constitution). The essentially local quality of children’s law and of the systems affecting children makes for 51 local laboratories that express community views about children and the roles of parents and society in relation to them (see Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). Education In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), in the context of a school funding challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court held that there was no fundamental right to education in the federal Constitution. While all 50 states have provisions in their constitutions establishing systems of public education, only 20 states recognize education as a fundamental right (Blumenson & Nilsen, 2003; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume), and the extent of the right varies (Hubsch, 1989; School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education v. State, 2009). Even where states have established a child’s right to education, parents exercise that right, which is subject to restrictions imposed by the state under its police power. While parents have a long-standing federal constitutional right to make decisions concerning their children’s education, they do not have the ability to direct their children’s education in the face of reasonable state regulation. For example, failure to send a child to school can result in a finding of neglect and state intervention into the family (see, e.g., Clonlara, Inc. v. Runkel, 1989; Ossant v. Millard, 1972; State v. Newstrom, 1985).

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

The state’s police power also provides authority for schools to suspend and expel students when they violate school rules or criminal laws or, in some states, when they are charged with a crime (Anderson, 2004; Blumenson & Nilsen, 2002; Reyes, 2006). Again, there is a great deal of state variation both in expulsion laws and in the extent to which alternative education is required or available to expelled students. Because the Supreme Court held that a student has a property interest in public education, schools must provide some procedural protections before expulsion or other deprivation of education (Goss v. Lopez, 1975). However, only a small minority of states recognize some degree of a right to alternative education for regular education students who have been expelled (Blumenson & Nilsen, 2003; Carroll, 2008). Despite the lack of a federal constitutional right to education, federal law sets educational policy through legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. §2000a et seq. (1988), and Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (20 U.S.C. §6301 et seq.). These laws condition federal funding for education on a range of policydriven requirements. NCLB, for example, requires that 100% of students demonstrate proficiently in reading and mathematics by 2014, showing “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) along the way (No Child Left Behind, §6316). This mandate sets education policy but is not actually a right to adequate education held by any individual child and so is not individually enforceable (i.e., a child who fails state tests cannot sue his school district under NCLB). However, NCLB contains provisions that may be tools for lawyers seeking to improve a child client’s education, such as the ability of a student to transfer from a Title I school that has not met adequate yearly

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progress for 2 years in a row (No Child Left Behind, §6316; Reichbach, 2004; see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume, for a detailed discussion of education law and juvenile justice). Unlike regular education students, students with disabilities do have a right to education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. §1401 et seq.), which guarantees a “free and appropriate public education” (FAPE) to every child with a disability in need of special education services. IDEA applies fully to all children with disabilities, including those in state systems such as the juvenile justice system (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(3)(A), (7); Blau & Allbright, 2006; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). This includes the right of youth in the justice system who have identified special education needs to receive specialized instruction and necessary developmental, supportive, and corrective services, and to be provided a full substantive curriculum (20 U.S.C.§1401 (3)(A); see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Approximately one third of youth in juvenile correctional facilities have been diagnosed with learning disabilities, which, according to advocates and experts, underrepresents the actual population of incarcerated youth with learning disabilities (Quinn, Rutherford, Leone, Osher, & Poirier, 2005; Sedlak & McPherson, 2010; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Health Like education, there is no clear legal right to health care for children in the United States. Children living in poverty—particularly poor children who are foster children, children in the juvenile justice system, and homeless children—have difficulty accessing health care; and their health needs often go unmet.

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However, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP, 42 U.S. C. 1397aa, et seq. (2009)), the Foster Care Independence Act (FCIA, 42 U.S.C.A. § 670 (1999)), and the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA, PL111–148, 2010 HR 3590 (2010)) all have provisions designed to expand health insurance coverage for these populations of youth. The extent to which these access goals are met vary considerably, depending on how these laws are implemented by the states (English, 2006). Medicaid provides health insurance to low-income families as well as to categories of juveniles based on individual state plans. Thus, in Massachusetts, for example, youth in state custody are categorically eligible for Medicaid (MassHealth), although that is not the case in other states. Federal SCHIP (2009) extended Medicaid benefits to children who would not otherwise be income eligible, and FCIA originally made youth between 18 and 21, who were in foster care at age 18, an additional Medicaid-eligible group (English, 2006), which will be extended by PPACA, beginning in 2014, to age 26 (42 U.S.C. §§ 2004, 10201). However, the structure of Medicaid coverage and reimbursement leaves coverage gaps for children, particularly those involved with state and county systems. For example, under the “inmate exception” to Medicaid, “an inmate of a public institution” is ineligible for Medicaid reimbursement, and that eligibility exception has been interpreted to apply to youth in delinquency facilities both preand post-adjudication, such as detention and secure post-adjudication treatment (Burrell & Bussiere, 2002; Gupta, Kelleher, & Cueller, 2005). As a result, teens who are Medicaid eligible due to family poverty often have their Medicaid suspended (or in some cases terminated) when detained or incarcerated.

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When these youth re enter the community, they must apply to have their benefits reinstated, and because they often have little access to assistance with this process, many youth are not covered when they return to the community. A federal court in Massachusetts addressed another common gap in Medicaid coverage for youth, finding that state Medicaid provisions failed to provide adequate medical assessments and coordination of services for youth with serious emotional disturbance as required under the “Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment” (EPSDT) provision of the federal Medicaid law (Rosie D. v. Romney, 2006). To reach this conclusion the court, like other courts presented with the issue, held that EPSDT provisions create private rights that can be enforced in the courts through a civil rights statute (42 U.S.C. § 1983; e.g., S. D. v. Hood, 2004). Rosie D. further found that the state had failed to provide adequate inhome behavioral support services for this population of children, necessitating instead, harmful confinement in residential facilities (Perkins, 2009). The litigation resulted in a statewide system of assessment and community-based mental health services (CBHI). The recent 2010 Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA, P.L. 111–148), and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (Recon. Act, P.L. 111– 152) expand health coverage for a number of vulnerable populations of youth. In addition to extending Medicaid eligibility to age 26 for former foster children (42 U.S.C. §§ 2004, 10201), they increase federal incentives to states to maintain broad eligibility for children under SCHIP (42 U.S.C. § 2101(a)) and require states to ensure that children who do not qualify for Medicaid are enrolled in a qualified plan through a state exchange (42 U.S.C. §2101 (b)), simplifying the process

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

of enrollment for these children (42 U.S.C. §2201; National Health Law Program, 2010). Thus, needs-based rights for youth to education and health in the United States are addressed through a patchwork of federal and state laws and court decisions, and vary considerably from state to state. This patchwork is complicated for youth in the juvenile justice system, who tend to have a concentration of education and health needs, which often go unmet due to system fragmentation (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). For them, strategic use of federal laws mandating the type of education and health services states must provide to certain children is particularly critical.

CHILDREN’S AUTONOMYBASED RIGHTS On issues of both education and health, courts have developed children’s autonomy-based rights as well as their needs-based rights. For example, in education, issues of autonomy have come up in free-speech cases and procedural rights cases relating to school discipline. In health, theyarisein theareaofconsent tomedical treatment and abortion. Like all children’s law, the cases and statutes in these areas reflect the sometimes competing interests of the child, parent, and state. We treat health-care decision making next, as a case in point. Health-Care Decision Making We have recognized three reasons justifying the conclusion that the constitutional rights of children cannot be equated with those of adults: the peculiar vulnerability of children; their inability to make critical

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decisions in an informed, mature manner; and the importance of the parental role in child-rearing. (Bellotti v. Baird, 1979, p. 634) As a general rule, minors do not have the legal right to consent to most medical procedures, whether routine or emergency. This is based on the belief that children’s judgment is not sufficiently mature to make medical decisions, and in the overarching legal principle of deference to parents’ decision making about their children’s upbringing, absent some showing of parents’ inability to act in their child’s interests. In Parham v. J. R. (1979), the Supreme Court articulated this assumption, upholding a Georgia law that allowed parents to “voluntarily” commit their child to a state mental hospital. The Court reasoned both that children had limited decision-making ability about medical matters and that parents generally have their children’s interests at heart. The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions. More importantly, it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children. (p. 602) Under the statutory scheme, which the Court upheld, the admitting doctor safeguarded against parents who might not have their children’s best interests at heart. Parham expressed the tension between parents’ rights to raise their children and children’s individual rights, as well as the assumption behind much of children’s law— that parents exercise their children’s rights in their children’s interests. In this, we see

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children’s and parents’ rights in relationship to each other. The court in Parham clearly articulated the child’s emerging liberty interest: “. . . we assume that a child has a protectable interest . . . in being free from unnecessary bodily restraint . . .” (442 U.S. 584, p. 601), which was later developed in the delinquency context in In re Gault (1967) to support procedural due process rights for children in delinquency adjudications (Weithorn, 2005). A number of exceptions to the general rule that children cannot consent to medical treatment have been recognized for youth who are determined, by a physician or judge, to be “mature minors,” and for certain classes of health issues (Cunningham, 2006; Hartman, 2002; Mutcherson, 2005). State law also provides for youth to consent to medical care in areas of public health concern such as reproductive health, communicable disease, substance use, or mental health (e.g., Mass. Gen L. Ann c. 21 §§12F; 12S). In these laws, public health concerns trump parental consent requirements, because obtaining parental consent may inhibit youth from accessing needed treatment. Even the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, 29 U.S.C.A. § 1181 et seq.), which controls access to medical records, gives 16-year-olds authority to access and release their medical information (2009). In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth (1976) and Bellotti v. Baird (1979), the Supreme Court considered the rights of a minor to make the decision to terminate her pregnancy. In Belotti, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts statute that required parental consent for a minor to access an abortion, holding that minors, like adult women, have rights to reproductive choice. However, the Court balanced that autonomybased right with its view of the minor’s “inability to make fully informed decisions

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that take account of both immediate and long-term consequences” (pp. 633–634). To accommodate limitations on a minor’s decision-making ability while preserving her reproductive rights, the Court held that parental consent provisions are constitutional as long as the law also provides for a “judicial bypass,” providing the minor with an alternative to parental consent. The law of children’s autonomy-based rights in the areas of education and health is, in many ways, a moving target in which courts try to balance youth’s autonomy to assert independent interests in education and health with parents’ well-established right to make decisions about their child’s upbringing. Behind it all is the state’s interest in protecting children and society. That state interest moves to the foreground when we consider the law that applies to children in the delinquency and child and family services systems.

THE JUVENILE COURT AND CHILD-SERVING SYSTEMS The first juvenile court was established in 1899 in Chicago, and the model quickly spread so that by 1920 all but three states had some form of separate court to address the needs of abused, neglected, and “wayward” youth (Ainsworth, 1991). The original vision did not distinguish youth who were abused and neglected from those who violated the criminal laws. Rather, these youth were collectively seen as needing the “care and discipline” of the state as a “kind, just parent” (see Ayers, 1997). Youth who violated the criminal laws, like youth who were abused or neglected, required treatment and reform, not punishment. The systems and laws addressing youth charged with crimes, youth who are status offenders, and youth who are abused and

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

neglected diverged through the 20th century so that we currently have a continuum of legal structures and rights. Youth who are charged with crimes have the most extensive due process rights, which, with some notable exceptions (e.g., right to a jury), almost mirror the rights of adult criminal defendants. These youth are increasingly considered different from their counterparts in the child and family services system, who may have fewer due process rights but are entitled to greater care and protection. Children’s Liberty Interests and the State as Parens Patriae and Police Power One thread of constitutional rights running through the law relating to children in state systems has to do with children’s libertyrelated interests—right to be free from restraint, freedom of movement, and freedom of association. These appear in cases about juvenile curfews, gang statutes, mental health confinement, and conditions in facilities and foster homes, and become central to the law governing the juvenile justice system. Courts acknowledge that the juvenile justice system reflects the “good intentions” (In re Gault, 1967, p. 19) of the state as parens patriae, and at times they defer to those intentions. In these situations the state’s parens patriae role can become conflated with the state’s role as police power in preventing juvenile crime and protecting the public; though these are really distinct, together they allow state conduct in relation to juveniles that would not be allowed for adults in the criminal justice system. An illustration of this can be found in cases allowing routine strip searches, without reasonable suspicion, of youth detained in the juvenile justice system (e.g., N. G. v. Connecticut, 2004; Smook v. Minnehaha County, 2006). In these cases the federal courts held that, because youth in the juvenile justice system

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are particularly vulnerable and the state as parens patriae is responsible for protecting them, routine strip searches at detention intake, after visitation, and when youth leave and reenter the facility are lawful in the name of child protection. In these cases, the courts contrast the juvenile justice context with other youth contexts such as schools (Safford v. Redding, 2009) and immigration detention (Reno v. Flores, 1993), finding the state’s interest greater and the juvenile rights reduced in the juvenile justice context. It should be noted that Safford v. Redding (2009), in which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional the strip search of 13-year-old Savana Redding by school officials who suspected her of hiding ibuprofen in violation of school policy, was decided by the Supreme Court subsequent to the federal court decisions in the detention strip search cases, and so may influence that law in the future. For now, the detention strip search cases provide a striking illustration of the way the state’s twin interests in juvenile justice as parens patriae and police power can outweigh the child’s individual liberty interest. Juvenile Justice: Social Welfare Versus Social Control Asany parent knows andasthe scientific and sociological studies . . . confirm, “[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.” . . .The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures,includingpeer pressure. . . . The third broad difference is that the

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character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult. The personality traits of juveniles are more transitory, less fixed. (Roper v. Simmons, 2005, pp. 569–570) [D]evelopments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence. Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of “irretrievably depraved character” than are the actions of adults. It remains true that “[f]rom a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.” (Graham v. Florida, 2010, pp. 2026–2027) The tension between the juvenile court’s twin missions to promote social welfare and social control permeates the law of delinquency. Juvenile delinquency proceedings increasingly resemble adult criminal proceedings, yet they are described in noncriminal terms. The juvenile is adjudicated delinquent, not found guilty, and he or she is given a disposition, not a sentence. The due process revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, resulting in expanded autonomy rights for youth, came at the cost of reduced dedication in the law to rehabilitation as the exclusive mission of juvenile justice. While juvenile justice still emphasizes rehabilitation as the goal, an increased segment of youth charged with crimes are tried and sentenced as adults, and in their dispositions, many juvenile justice systems couple rehabilitation with some measure of retribution, incapacitation, and punishment.

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There is a growing consensus that a juvenile’s right to counsel—developed in the 40-plus years since Gault—should look as much like an adult lawyer–client relationship as possible (Green & Dohrn, 1996; Blitzman, 2007). But how can we give children control over their cases through client-directed, adultstyle representation, yet acknowledge that their judgment is influenced by their still immature status? This is a specific instance of a paradox in youth law—we simultaneously base policy on the notion that juveniles are different from adults and the notion that they should be treated the same as adults (see Poncz, 2008). The particular question of the younger juvenile’s role vis-a-vis counsel is addressed through the law of competency (to consult with a lawyer and understand the proceedings) (Dusky v. United States, 1960). Greater understanding of the meaning of competency for juveniles, particularly for juveniles in adult court, may help protect both the integrity of the judicial process and the rights of the child (Cauffman, 1999; Henning, 2006). The shift from a purely parens patriae framework for juvenile justice was part of what has been called the “due process bargain”: In exchange for procedural due process, courts limited the youth’s second chances, a founding principle of the separate juvenile justice system. For example, although it was the norm in the 1960s, few jurisdictions now completely seal juvenile records. Children are required to register as sex offenders, as are adults, if found delinquent for certain offenses; and findings of delinquency now carry collateral consequences such as school expulsion or ineligibility for subsidized housing (Henning, 2004; Markman, 2008), which can dramatically reduce a youth’s opportunities for a productive future and have a significant impact on the lives of parents and siblings. Despite these significant consequences, in many juvenile courts the

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

culture continues to be casual and unaccountable, and the defense bar less than zealous, reflecting the incorrect belief that a finding of delinquency is a small price to pay for treatment. To combat this view there have been significant recent efforts to boost juvenile defense capacity, recognizing that the stakes are indeed high and special skills are needed (Majd & Puritz, 2009; Sterling, 2009). Procedural Due Process Youth have significant autonomy-based rights in juvenile justice. Perhaps foremost among these is the right to counsel at adjudication; in most jurisdictions that has come to mean a right to client-directed representation like an adult (Madj & Puritz, 2009). Youth also have the right to some procedural protections at a judicial transfer hearing to determine whether they will be tried in adult or juvenile court (Kent v. United States,1966), and at the delinquency adjudication, juveniles have the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, to receive detailed and timely notice of charges, and to protection against self-incrimination (In re Gault, 1967). Like adults, juveniles are constitutionally protected against double jeopardy (Breed v. Jones, 1975), and the standard of proof for a juvenile delinquency adjudication is the same as that for an adult criminal proceeding—proof beyond a reasonable doubt (In re Winship, 1970). In deciding which of the adult criminal due process rights are essential to a fundamentally fair proceeding, and therefore must apply to juvenile delinquency proceedings, the Supreme Court balanced the need to preserve the unique, rehabilitative quality of juvenile proceedings, requiring procedural informality and flexibility, with the need to protect the liberty interest of juveniles that is at stake in delinquency proceedings (In re Gault, 1967; Breed v. Jones, 1975; In re Winship, 1970;

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McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 1971). Thus, rather than import all adult procedural rights wholesale into the juvenile process, Supreme Court jurisprudence examines each right separately using this calculus. In a plurality decision, which effectively ended the due process revolution, the Court concluded that juveniles charged with delinquency do not have a constitutional right to a jury trial. In McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971) the Court reasoned that a jury was not necessary for fair fact finding and would constrain the juvenile court’s distinguishing flexible and informal character. The Court relied on the assumption that the juvenile justice system is oriented to rehabilitation and treatment; thus, the potential deprivation of liberty is less than that for adults in the criminal justice system, requiring fewer safeguards. The holding in McKeiver essentially returned discretion to the states to design the contours of each juvenile justice system, a minority of which provide for a jury in juvenile cases through statute or case law, though the number is increasing (Birkhead, 2009; Blitzman, 2007). Although there are other differences between adult and juvenile procedural protections, such as the lack of a bail right for most juveniles, the absence of a jury right is perhaps the most striking procedural difference between adult criminal and juvenile delinquency proceedings and has ramifications for charging, plea bargaining, and the juvenile’s perception of the fairness of the process. The systemic tension over whether juveniles should have rights co-extensive with adults or be treated more protectively at the expense of some autonomy is ever present in delinquency law. Most jurisdictions, for example, allow a juvenile to waive his rights to be protected from self-incrimination, to confess to police in an interrogation without counsel or a parent present, and to waive the right to

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be represented by counsel at trial (Berkeiser, 2002; National Juvenile Defender Center, 2000–2006). While the law governing interrogation and waiver of counsel must comply with constitutional minimums, it varies by state, reflecting local concern over crime and the administrative inconvenience that may result from increased procedural safeguards in the juvenile justice process. While (as we have seen) upholding parents’ rights to raise their children is a consistent thread in children’s law, parents are surprisingly minor players in the juvenile justice process (Henning, 2006; Ross, 2004; see Jacobs, MirandaJulian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). Although many states require parents to appear in court, meet with probation, pay fees, and participate in treatment (Henning, 2006; see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume), in juvenile justice, parents’ interests in raising their children and society’s interest in promoting the parent–child relationship are subordinate to the child’s liberty interest and the state’s authority as parens patriae and police power. In the juvenile justice process the child, parent, and state too often become, practically speaking, adversaries. Interrogation At interrogation, juveniles may be particularly vulnerable, and there is an active debate over whether their rights require more (or different) protection than that which is provided for adults. Currently, most jurisdictions allow a juvenile to confess to police without an attorney or parent present. To determine whether the juvenile’s confession is made “knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily” (Fare v. Michael C., 1979, p. 724), and therefore admissible in court, courts must consider the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the interrogation, just as they do for adult defendants (Fare v. Michael C., 1979). In this totality analysis, courts

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consider the youth’s age, emotional state, mental capacity, and whether his or her parent is present, among other factors. In these jurisdictions, a juvenile’s rights are essentially coextensive with those of an adult, and, other than considering youth as one factor within the larger totality, the framework for conducting an interrogation is not modified to accommodate the unique context of childhood. Thus, if a child, like an adult, requests counsel, the interrogation must end. However, the police may continue to interrogate a child even if he or she asks for a parent to be present (except in California; People v. Burton, 1971), even though the request to talk with a parent may be the child’s way of asserting his or her need for adult support and would be a much more natural request for a child to make than would asking for a lawyer. In contrast to this totality approach, a minority of jurisdictions require a parent or interested adult to be present at the interrogation of a juvenile, regardless of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation (King, 2006). While this interested adult or per se rule is ostensibly designed to protect the juvenile and the integrity of the process, most scholars believe it is inadequate protection against coerced confession. In fact, there have been many instances in which parents have encouraged children to confess, either unaware of the jeopardy to their child, in a parenting effort to encourage their child to take responsibility, or out of their own need to understand their child’s situation (Farber, 2004; King, 2006). Finally, a small minority of jurisdictions has what is arguably the fairest and most protective rule, requiring a lawyer to be present at interrogation for a confession to be admissible. The lawyer, directed by the youth client, preserves autonomy rights and protects the juvenile’s interest to be free from coercion

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

as well as the state’s interest in investigating the crime and protecting the public (Feld, 2006). Other accommodations to youth’s vulnerabilities at interrogation include laws and policies requiring that interrogations be videotaped (Feld, 2006). Applying the adult totality standard to juvenile confessions, just like allowing juveniles to waive their right to counsel, provides youth with a level of autonomy over critical decisions that many argue is inappropriate and inconsistent with their developmental abilities (Grisso, 1981). The enormous risk to youth and society of erroneous convictions resulting from false confessions by juveniles has been well documented (Drizin & Warden, 2009). Moreover, it is strikingly inconsistent policy to allow youth to confess or waive counsel without the advice of a parent or attorney, but to give parents near complete authority over all other critical decisions for their teenage children. Yet that inconsistency is a central feature of the law of juvenile justice, where concerns about public safety and juvenile crime tend to trump policies that might better reflect youth development and capacity (Cunningham, 2006). The extent to which a juvenile’s age should be considered in the interrogation phase of the juvenile justice process is an ongoing issue and is before the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2010 term. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2009) a 13-year-old special education student was suspected of burglaries and questioned by police in school without being given Miranda warnings. J.D.B. provided incriminating statements that resulted in a finding of delinquency. The question before the Court is whether and to what extent age must be considered in determining whether a youth is in custody for Miranda purposes. In J. D. B., like in so many juvenile justice cases, the Court is being asked to

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accommodate juveniles within a body of law designed for adults. Detention Approximately 22% of youth brought before the court for delinquency are detained (Puzzanchera, Adams & Sickmund, 2010), which generally refers to preadjudication locked confinement, used to ensure the juvenile’s appearance at trial and prevent him or her from committing additional crime before trial. Adult criminal law differs from juvenile law here. Adults have a constitutional right to pre-adjudication bail, but juveniles do not, although as of 2004, 16 states, by statute, provided juveniles with a right to bail like that of adults (Moriearty, 2008; e.g., Mass. Gen. L. Ann. c. 119 39H; Ga. Code Ann. § 15–11–47). In contrast to the law of adult detention, most juvenile detention is considered preventative. Courts decide at a hearing whether the juvenile is likely to appear at trial, and whether he or she poses a danger prior to adjudication; they then detain on the basis of that determination. However, without clear standards and accountability for the detention decision, detention is overused, and although not technically allowed, courts often consider the youth’s needs along with the risks they pose in making the detention decision. Thus, detention is used disproportionately for youth who are minor offenders and who violate conditions of probation (Holman & Ziedenberg, 2006). In Schall v. Martin (1984), the Supreme Court upheld New York’s preventative detention scheme, reasoning that detention is not as extreme a deprivation for juveniles as it is for adults because juveniles are “always in some form of custody” (p. 265). The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) is a policy and programmatic response to the overuse of detention and the awareness of

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the long-term harm that detention can cause for youth (Holman, & Ziedenberg, 2006). As of 2009, JDAI was in 110 jurisdictions in 27 states, and the initiative has contributed to reductions in detention utilization, improvements in public safety, and reductions in disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile system (Mendel, 2009; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume; Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). Among its strategies, JDAI streamlines the court process, strengthens the defense role, and brings objectivity to the detention decision through the use of risk assessment instruments and data-driven analysis of detention utilization. Juveniles in the Adult Criminal Justice System An estimated 200,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the United States, most for nonviolent offenses; on any given day more than 3,600 youth are locked up in adult prisons (Campaign for Youth Justice, 2010; Woolard, 2005). Adult sentences carry significant long-term costs for youth and society, including a significant risk of victimization and trauma for the youth, lack of education, rehabilitative programming and family contact, and a greater likelihood that youth will reoffend than if they were retained in the juvenile justice system (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007). Although racial and ethnic disparities (disproportionate minority contact [DMC]) are a problem throughout the juvenile justice system, those disparities are particularly pronounced among youth tried and incarcerated in the adult system (Arya & Augarten, 2008; Campaign for Youth Justice, 2010; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume).

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Although chronologically minors, juveniles under 18 are tried and incarcerated in the adult system as a result of state laws that define the jurisdiction of juvenile justice systems according to criteria other than age. Waiver statutes (also called transfer or certification) are how states define which youth will be handled by the juvenile justice system and which by the adult criminal justice system. Thus, even though a youth may be chronologically a minor, state waiver laws define him or her out of the juvenile justice system based on formulas that may include offense, offense history, history of treatment in the juvenile justice system, and availability of social supports, as well as other factors (Champion & Mays, 1991; Fagan & Zimring, 2000; Feld, 1998, 2003; Kent v. United States, 1964; Torbet et al., 1996). In one sense, waiver laws represent the state’s judgment about which youth are likely to benefit from the rehabilitation offered in the juvenile justice system and, therefore, on which youth the state should expend its treatment resources. Waiver laws are categorized by who makes the jurisdiction determination: the legislature, judiciary, or prosecution. Take the hypothetical case of a 14-year-old juvenile charged with armed robbery. Under legislative waiver, the law might require that every juvenile 14 or older who is charged with armed robbery be tried and sentenced as an adult, automatically, regardless of his or her individual circumstances. Under judicial waiver, the law might provide for a hearing in which a judge would make an individual determination as to whether this juvenile poses a danger to the public and is amenable to rehabilitation allowing him or her to be retained in the juvenile system. Under prosecutorial waiver, the prosecution has the option of filing the case in adult criminal court or in juvenile court based on the prosecutor’s evaluation of what is in the public interest or other criteria that might be

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

set out in statute. Over the past 20 years, every state has modified its waiver laws in some way, and many have amended their laws multiple times, struggling to decide which youth deserve the benefits of the juvenile justice system, thus largely defining the state’s overall vision of juvenile justice (Blitzman, 2007; Merlo, Benekos, & Cook, 1996). Under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA, 2002), states must separate incarcerated juveniles from adults; however, this does not apply to juveniles tried as adults (§223(a)(10)(H)). Thus, in 2008 there were 2,484 juveniles serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole in the adult prisons. These youth were under 18 at the time of their crimes and were tried and sentenced in the adult criminal justice system. Sixteen percent of them were 15 or under when they committed their crimes (Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch, 2008). In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional when applied to juveniles who were under 18 years of age at the time of their crime (see also Stanford v. Kentucky, 1989; Thompson v. Oklahoma, 1988). In doing so, the Court acknowledged that youth are different from adults developmentally, making the death penalty disproportional to any crime a youth may commit. The Court made specific developmental findings, that: &

&

&

Youth lack maturity and responsibility, which leads them to reckless and impulsive behavior. Youth are more vulnerable than adults to outside negative influences, generally negative peer influences. Youth are changing and do not yet have fully developed characters or personalities and so may grow out of criminal behaviors.

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These developmental findings echo the principles that informed the juvenile court initially, but from which juvenile justice had been drifting beginning in the late 1980s. Hopefully, Roper marks a return to a developmentally informed juvenile justice policy in which it becomes more difficult to try and punish juveniles as adults, and in which laws governing interrogation, detention, trial rights, and sentencing reflect the reduced capacity of juveniles while respecting their rights to autonomy. In Graham v. Florida (2010), the Court extended the reasoning in Roper, and held that a sentence of life without parole was unconstitutional for juveniles in non-homicide cases. In its decision, the Court reinforced the Roper findings that juveniles are not as culpable as adults as a result of their developmental immaturity and went even further, acknowledging developments in neuroscience that show differences between adolescent and adult brains that may inhibit juveniles’ abilities to control their behavior. As of the decision in Graham, there were 129 juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life without parole sentences (p. 2024). Status Offenses Status offenses are those offenses that apply only to minors, such as truancy, running away, underage drinking, or curfew violations. In many states, some of these laws are grouped together in comprehensive statutory schemes with titles such as Children in Need of Services (CHINS) or Persons in Need of Services (PINS) (e.g., Mass. Gen. L. Ann. C. 119 §§ 21, 39E-39I). Under the JJDPA, status offenders cannot be held in secure facilities with delinquent youth unless they violate a valid court order (VCO). That prohibition is called the Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders

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(DSO) mandate, and results in dispositions for these youth with child and family services systems and not delinquency or youth corrections systems (42 U.S.C.A. § 5633(B)). Despite the DSO mandate, juveniles are detained for status offenses when they violate a court order requiring certain behavior. This has been referred to as “bootstrapping” delinquency onto a status offense, and has a disproportional impact on girls who tend to enter the juvenile justice system for misbehaviors such as running away and violating court orders. These actions, then, trigger detention even when the underlying offense is a status offense (Sherman, 2005). Notably, the JJDPA reauthorization bill, which passed the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009 (S. 678), eliminates the VCO exception to the DSO mandate, compelling states to address status offending youth in family services, and not juvenile justice systems. That bill, however, did not become law and future treatment by Congress of the VCO exception remains to be seen. Youth curfew ordinances are a type of status offense that have proliferated in the past 15 years, and have resulted in a number of court challenges that are shaping the contours of children’s rights. Juvenile curfews have passed with a range of rationale—to reduce crime and victimization, reduce gang violence, and assist parents’ efforts to control their teenage children. The majority of studies, however, show that juvenile curfews are ineffective at reducing crime. Challenges to juvenile curfews generally consider whether juveniles have a constitutional interest in freedom of movement (or association) and whether that interest is equal to that of adults. The majority of courts (federal and state) that have considered a juvenile curfew have found that juveniles do have a fundamental constitutional right to free movement. However,

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courts vary in the precise formulation of that right and their holdings as to whether individual curfew ordinances are constitutional (Herman, 2007; Jashinsky, 2007; Kaminsky, 2003; see e.g., Commonwealth v. Weston, 2009; Ramos v. Town of Vernon, 2003) States vary on the extent of due process required in a status offense case, where counsel is not constitutionally mandated and the case falls somewhere between delinquency and abuse and neglect, often revolving around parents’ difficulties handling teenage children’s behaviors. A few states, like Massachusetts, always provide counsel for the child and provide counsel for the parent if a loss of custody is likely (In re Hillary, 2008). Child Maltreatment Every state has a statutorily proscribed system for reporting, investigating, prosecuting, and protecting children from maltreatment (abuse and neglect). These systems are state created and are not required under the U.S. Constitution (Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 1989). Although they vary somewhat across states, they are all grounded in the states’ parens patriae authority to protect and care for children when parents are unable to do so, and they all reflect a number of federal mandates. The guiding federal statutes are the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, 2003, 42 U.S.C. A. § 5101(2003), which prompted more uniform definitions of child abuse and neglect, mandatory reporting laws, guardian ad litem (GAL) appointments and records confidentiality; the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (2008, 42 U.S.C. 621), which required states to make “reasonable efforts” to prevent placement before removing children from their homes, shifting the focus away from removal and toward reunification and

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

placement prevention; and the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, 1997, 42 U.S.C. 671 (2009)), which was designed to address indeterminate foster care placements and frequent changes in foster homes by mandating timelines for reunification or permanent placement (adoption or kinship) of a child, once child protection proceedings are initiated. Each of these federal laws ties state funding to implementation of the particular act’s mandates through state law. Although state laws and systems typically have the dual missions of family preservation and child protection, these can be in conflict. Child welfare law in the United States cycles through emphasis on removing children from their homes for their protection and keeping children in their homes for stability. The systems have variously favored orphanages, group homes, foster care, kinship care, and adoption; they have been accused of being under- and over-intrusive in families and have been guided by social science and public perceptions about “good” parenting (Bernstein, 2001). State laws typically set forth a system of abuse reporting and investigation as well as a system of services provided to willing families. They also provide for a court process, which can be initiated by an allegation that the child is abused, neglected, or abandoned and that the parent is unwilling or unable to accept and benefit from social services. Statutory definitions of abuse and neglect tend to be somewhat vague and ambiguous, making them vulnerable to misuse in situations rooted in family poverty or cultural issues, and some have been challenged as vague in the courts (Alsager v. District Ct. of Polk City, 1975). Like in the juvenile justice system, children of color are represented in the child protection system disproportionate to their presence in the population, and experience multiple foster

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placements and lack of permanency at rates higher than their White counterparts. These findings suggest, along with social inequities, that existing laws may be too open to the exercise of discretion without adequate standards. But others counter that they also reflect the challenges of parenting for poor, stressed families, many of whom are families of color in urban areas (Bartholet, 2009; Chapin Hall Center for Children, 2008). All children who are the subject of maltreatment actions are supposed to be provided representation of some sort as the result of CAPTA, which mandates the appointment of a lawyer or non-lawyer GAL in all child abuse and neglect cases (Abrams & Ramsey, 2010; Koh Peters, 2007). However, states differ as to whether counsel acts as a lawyer, directed by the child client as much as possible, or GAL, representing the child’s best interest. There is a general consensus that attorneys for youth in delinquency cases should provide client-directed representation, as they would for an adult defendant. However, accommodating age and youth development, many attorneys for children in child abuse and neglect proceedings see their role as representing what they perceive to be the best interests of the child. Some state laws and rules support that conceptualization, despite an emerging consensus in the bar that client–directed representation is the child’s right (American Bar Association, 2006, 2009). The role and professional responsibility of attorneys for children is the subject of ongoing discussion in the profession, and a 2009 study found that in child protection cases, many children still go unrepresented (First Star & Children’s Advocacy Institute, 2009). The U.S. Supreme Court found that the liberty interest at stake in a termination of parental rights proceeding did not warrant a constitutionally protected right to counsel

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for parents in all cases (Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 1981), but states provide for court-appointed counsel by statute. In Santosky v. Kramer (1984), the Court held that the state must prove its case for a permanent termination of parental custody by clear and convincing evidence. Rights to Treatment and Services: Conditions of Confinement for Youth Although every state has a juvenile justice system charged with rehabilitating youth who commit crimes, and a child and family services system including foster care and other out-of-home programs to protect and provide services to youth who are victims of parental abuse or neglect, those systems often fail to do what they are required to do and, in some cases, can themselves be abusive to the youth they are charged with protecting. Particularly in juvenile justice detention and programs, reports of failure to provide adequate mental and physical health services as well as outright abusive conditions—such as use of pepper spray, excessive use of physical restraints, and physical and sexual assaults of youth by staff— occur too frequently (Soler, Shoenberg, & Schindler, 2009). When such abuse occurs, what laws protect youth, and how can they hold systems accountable? The law addressing children’s rights when the systems fail has a constitutional dimension through cases that have found that youth who are in the juvenile justice, mental health, or child and family services system have some form of right to treatment, because treatment is the reason for the youth’s confinement (Holland & Mlyniec, 1995). Systems may also be held accountable to provide services to youth through federal statutes mandating services or accommodations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 42 U.S.C.

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§ 12132, et seq.), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et seq. (i) (2004)), or the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA, 42 U.S.C. § 1997). Although juvenile courts that place children in the custody of the family service agencies or juvenile justice systems may play a role in requiring specific placements and services, in many states courts are constrained from ordering child-serving agencies to provide specific services by the doctrine of separation of powers. Youth who have not been convicted of a crime cannot be subject to conditions that amount to punishment, and, because a delinquency finding is not a criminal conviction, this protection applies to all youth in the juvenile justice system (Santana v. Collazo, 1983). Moreover, juveniles incarcerated in the juvenile justice system have a right to safety, adequate medical and mental health care in custody, some due process protections, access to their families and the courts, and to education and other programming (Dale & Soler, 2008; Soler et al., 2009; Youngberg v. Romeo, 1982). Although what we know about effective juvenile treatment has grown considerably over the past decade (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume: Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume) and facilities and courts can look to professional standards to determine the contours of treatment in juvenile justice, identifying poor conditions and enforcing reforms is complex. Youth often do not have access to counsel once they are incarcerated. Over the past two decades, federal courts have become less hospitable to conditions litigation, and youth are not legally entitled to best practices but only to treatment that satisfies minimal constitutional and statutory standards (Dale & Soler, 2008). However,

Children’s Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework

increased federal Justice Department oversight of conditions in juvenile facilities through CRIPA, the development of performancebased and other standards for youth detention and corrections, increased awareness of youth suicide in facilities (Hayes, 2009), enforcement of the Prison Rape Elimination Act in juvenile facilities (PREA, 45 U.S.C. §15601; Beck, Harrison, & Guerino, 2010), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) 2010 publication of data from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010) all point toward improved conditions and treatment for youth in the juvenile justice system (Soler et al., 2009).

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relationship to the other two. Children have similar rights to those of adults, but often to a lesser degree; and children’s rights are always framed by their families and the institutions with which they are involved. Children in state systems retain rights they have generally— to some measure of free speech; freedom of association, movement, special education; some sort of health care—and, by virtue of their system and court involvement, they have additional rights—to counsel, some procedural due process, some measure of treatment. When children’s law is functioning properly, it both protects and respects youth.

REFERENCES CONCLUSION The juvenile justice system is essentially a legal system, with each youth’s initial involvement marked by an alleged law violation that initiates the legal process. Because the laws governing juvenile justice practices are a patchwork of state and federal statutes that attempt to reconcile the various, sometimes competing, interests of youth, their parents, and the state itself, many outside the system simply cannot understand how it works— indeed, they view it as virtually impenetrable. This places informed participation in the process beyond the reach of a significant percentage of youth and families who end up subject to its decisions. Children’s law is best understood when categorized into needs-based and autonomybased rights, although these categories are to some extent artificial and they are often related. In addition, children’s law strives to balance the rights and interests of children with those of parents and the state. Each has a separate role to play, but each role operates in

Abrams, D. E., & Ramsey, S. H. (2010). Children and the law: Doctrine, policy and practice. (4th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West, Thomas Reuters. Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. 621 (proposed legislation—effective October 2008). Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, 42 U.S.C. 671 (2009). Ainsworth, J. (1991). Re-imagining childhood and reconstructing the legal order: The case for abolishing the juvenile court. North Carolina Law Review, 69, 1083–1113. Alsager v. District Ct. of Polk County, Iowa, 406 F. Supp. 10 (S.D. Iowa 1975). American Bar Association. (2006). Young Lawyers Division report to the House of Delegates. American Bar Association. (2009). Section on Litigation Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, report to the House of Delegates, Recommendation. Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch. (2008). The rest of their lives: Life without parole for youth offenders in the United States. Updating the report first published in 2005, The rest of their lives: Life without parole for child offenders in the United States. Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §12132, et seq.; 28 C.F.R. §35.130(d). Anderson, C. (2004). Double jeopardy: The modern dilemma for juvenile justice. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 152, 1181–1219.

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Arya, N. & Augarten, I. (2008). Critical condition: AfricanAmerican youth in the justice system. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Ayers, W. (1997). A kind and just parent: The children of the juvenile court. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Bartholet, E. (2009). The racial disproportionality movement in child welfare: False facts and dangerous directions. Arizona Law Review, 51, 871–932. Beck, A. J., Harrison, P. M., & Guerino, P. (2010). Sexual victimization in juvenile facilities reported by youth, 2001–09. Special Report. U. S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979). Berkheiser, M. (2002). The fiction of juvenile right to counsel: Waiver in the juvenile courts. Florida Law Review, 54, 577–686. Bernstein, N. (2001). The lost children of Wilder: The epic struggle to change foster care. New York, NY: Pantheon. Birkhead, T. R. (2009). Toward a theory of procedural justice for juveniles. Buffalo Law Review, 57(5), 1–72. Blau, A., & Allbright, A. (2006). 50-state roundup: Ensuring children with disabilities a free appropriate public education. Mental and Physical Disability Law Reporter, 30, 11–19. Blitzman, J. (2007). Gault’s promise. Barry Law Review, 9, 67–98. Blumenson, E., & Nilsen, E. (2002). One strike and you’re out? Constitutional constraints on zero tolerance in public education. Washington University Law Quarterly, 86, 65–117. Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519 (1975). Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Burrell, S., & Bussiere, A. (2002). The “inmate exception”and its impact on health care services for children in out-of-home care in California. San Francisco, CA: Youth Law Center. Buss, E. (2003). Symposium: The relationship rights of children. Children’s associational rights?: Why less is more. William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 1101–1116. Buss, E. (2004a). Constitutional fidelity through children’s rights. Supreme Court Review, 355–407. Buss, E. (2004b). The public and private face of family law. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 27–55. Carroll, M. (2008). Educating expelled students after No Child Left Behind: Mending an incentive structure that discourages alternative education and reinstatement. University of California Los Angeles Law Review, 55, 1909–1968.

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Campaign for Youth Justice. (2010) Key Facts: Youth in the justice system. Retrieved from www .campaignforyouthjustice.org/documents/FS_Key YouthCrimeFacts.pdf Cauffman, E., Woolard, J., & Reppucci, D. N. (1999). Justice for juveniles: New perspectives on adolescents’ competence and culpability. Q.L.R. 403–419. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2007). Effects on violence of laws and policies facilitating the transfer of youth from the juvenile to the adult system: A report on recommendations of the task force on community prevention services. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 56 (No. RR-9). Available online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/rr /rr5609.pdf Champion, D. J., & Mays, L. G. (1991). Transferring juveniles to criminal courts: Trends and implications for criminal justice. Symposium on serious juvenile crime. Notre Dame Journal of Ethics & Public Policy, 5, 257–503. Chapin Hall Center for Children. (2008). Understanding racial and ethnic disparities in child welfare and juvenile justice. In Racial and ethnic disparity and disproportionality in child welfare and juvenile justice: A compendium. (2009). Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Georgetown University. Retrieved from http://cjjr.georgetown.edu/. Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C.A. § 5101 (2003). Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §2000a et seq. (1988).Current through P.L. 111–202 (excluding P.L. 111–148, 111–152, 111–159, 111–173, 111– 192, and 111–198), approved July 13, 2010. Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 1997. Clonlara, Inc. v. Runkel, 722 F.Supp. 1442 (E.D.Mich., 1989). Commonwealth v. Weston, 913 N.E.2d 832 (Mass. 2009). Cunningham, L. (2006). A question of capacity: Towards a comprehensive and consistent vision of children and their status under the law. University of California at Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy, 10, 275–377. Dale, M. J., & Soler, M. I. (2008). Representing the child client (Vols. 1–2). New York, NY: Matthew Bender. Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989). Drizin, S. & Warden, R. (Eds.). (2009). True stories of false confessions. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

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Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). English, A. (2006). Youth leaving foster care and homeless youth: Ensuring access to health care. Temple Law Review, 79, 439–459. Ex Parte Crouse, 4 Whart. 9 (1839). Fagan, J., & Zimring, F. (Eds). (2000). Changing borders of juvenile justice: Transfer of adolescents to the criminal court. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Farber, H. (2004). The role of the parent/guardian in juvenile custodial interrogations: Friend or foe? American Criminal Law Review, 41, 1277–1312. Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707 (1979). Feld, B. (1998). Juvenile and criminal justice systems’ response to youth violence. Crime & Justice, 24, 189–262. Feld, B. (2003). Race, politics, and juvenile justice: The Warren Court and the conservative “backlash.” Minnesota Law Review, 87, 1447–1578. Feld, B. (2006). Police interrogation of juveniles: An empirical study of policy and practice. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 97, 219–316. First Star & Children’s Advocacy Institute. (2009). A child’s right to counsel: A national report card on legal representation for abused and neglected children. San Diego, CA: University of San Diego Law School. Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, 42 U.S.C.A. § 670. Ga. Code Ann., § 15–11–47 (2006) (proposed legislation as of 2009; amended). Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975). Graham v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 560 U.S. ___ (2010). Green, B. A., & Dohrn, B. (1996). Foreword: Children and the ethical practice of law. Fordham Law Review, 64, 1281–1300. Grisso, T. (1981). Juveniles’ waiver of rights: legal and psychological competence. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Gupta, R. A., Kelleher, K. J., & Cueller, A. (2005). Delinquent youth in corrections: Medicaid and re-entry into the community. Pediatrics, 115, 1077–1083. Harris, L. J. (2006). An empirical study of parental responsibility laws: Sending messages, but what kind and to whom? Utah Law Review, 5–34. Hartman, R. G. (2002). Coming of age: Devising legislation for adolescent medical decisionmaking. American Journal of Law and Medicine, 28, 409–453. Hayes, L. M. (2009). Juvenile suicide in confinement: A national survey. OJJDP, U.S. Department of Justice

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Office of Justice Programs. Retrieved from www .ojjdp.ncjrs.org Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Recon. Act, P.L. 111–152). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, 29 U.S.C.A. § 1181 et seq. (2009). Henning, K. (2004). Eroding confidentiality in delinquency proceedings: Should schools and public housing authorities be notified? New York University Law Review, 79, 520–611. Henning, K. (2006). It takes a lawyer to raise a child: Allocating responsibilities among parents, children, and lawyers in delinquency cases. Nevada Law Journal, 6, 836–889. Herman, D. (2007). Juvenile curfews and the breakdown of the tiered approach to equal protection. New York University Law Review, 82, 1857–1894. Holland, P., & Mlyniec, W. J. (1995). Whatever happened to the right to treatment: The modern quest of a historical promise. Temple Law Review, 68, 1791–1836. Holman, B., & Ziedenberg, J. (2006). The dangers of detention: The impact of incarcerating youth in detention and other secure facilities. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute. Hubsch, A.W. (1989). Education and self-government: The right to education under state constitutional law. Journal of Law and Education, 18, 134–140. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967). In re Hillary, 39 Mass. App. Ct. 1114 (1995). In re J.D.B., 686 S.E.2d 135 (N.C. 2009), cert. granted sub nom. J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 79 U.S.L.W. 3268 (U.S. Nov. 1, 2010). In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970). Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004, 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et seq. (i). Jashinsky, O. (2007). Liberty for all? Juvenile curfews: Always an unconstitutional and ineffective solution. Rutgers Journal of Law & Public Policy, 4, 546–574. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of (JJDPA) of 1974 (P.L. 93–415, 88 Stat. 1109) and subsequent reauthorizations (1977, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2002), 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq. Kaminsky, T. (2003). Rethinking judicial attitudes toward freedom of association challenges to teen curfews: The first amendment exception explored. New York University Law Review, 78, 2278–2303. Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966). King, K. (2006). Waiving childhood goodbye: How juvenile courts fail to protect children from

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unknowing, unintelligent, and involuntary waivers of Miranda rights. Wisconsin Law Review, 431–478. Koh Peters, J. (2007). Representing children in child protective proceedings 2007: Ethical and practical dimensions (3rd ed.). Charlottesville, VA: Lexis Law Publishers. Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18 (1981). Majd, K., & Puritz, P. (2009). The cost of justice: How low-income youth continue to pay the price of failing indigent defense systems. Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, 16, 543–583. Markman, J. (2008). Community notification and the perils of mandatory juvenile sex offender registration: The dangers faced by children and their families. Seton Hall Legislative Journal, 32, 261–285. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 119 §39H (2008). McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528 (1971). Medicaid 42 U.S.C. § 1396 et seq.;1;(1975)(proposed legislation—effective April 1, 2009). Melton, G. B. (2005). Treating children like people: A framework for research and advocacy. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 34(4), 646–657. Mendel, R. (2009). Two decades of JDAI: A progress report: From demonstration project to national standard. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Merlo, A., Benekos, P., & Cook, W. (1996). Getting tough with youth: Legislative waiver as crime control. Juvenile & Family Court Journal, 48, 1–15. Meyer, D. D. (2003). The modest promise of children’s relationship rights. William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 11, 1117–1137. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). Minow, M. (1986). Rights for the next generation: A feminist approach to children’s rights. Harvard Women’s Law Journal, 9, 1–24. Moriearty, P. L. (2008). Combating the color-coded confinement of kids: An equal protection remedy. New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 32, 285–343. Mutcherson, K. (2005) Whose body is it anyway? An updated model of healthcare decision-making rights for adolescents. Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 14, 251–325. N.G. v. Connecticut, 382 F.3d 225 (2nd Cir. 2004). National Health Law Program. (2010). Analysis of the Health Care Reform Law: PPACA and the Reconciliation Act. Retrieved from www.health law.org/index.php?option¼com_content&view¼

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article&id¼456:health-reform&catid¼51&Itemid ¼212 National Juvenile Defender Center. (2000–2006). State Juvenile Indigent Defense Assessments. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 20 U.S.C.A. §6301 et. seq. Ossant v. Millard, 72 Misc.2d 384, 339 N.Y.S.2d 163 (N.Y.Fam.Ct. 1972). Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979). Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA, PL111–148, 2010 HR 3590) (2010). People v. Burton, 6 Cal.3d 375 (1971). Perkins, J. (2009). Fact Sheet: Medicaid EPSDT Litigation (National Health law Program). Retrieved from www.healthlaw.org/images/pubs /EPSDT_Docket.pdf Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976). Poncz, E. (2008). Rethinking child advocacy after Roper v. Simmons: Kids are just different and kids are just like adults advocacy strategies. Cardozo Public Law, Policy and Ethics Journal, 6, 273–343. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944). Prison Rape Elimination Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 15601. Puzzanchera, C., Adams, B., & Sickmund, M. (2010). Juvenile Court Statistics 2006–2007. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice. Quinn, M. M., Rutherford, R. B., Leone, P. E., Osher, D. M., & Poirier, J. M. (2005). Youth with disabilities in juvenile corrections: A national survey. Exceptional Children, 71(3), 339–345. Ramos v. Town of Vernon, 353 F.3d 171 (2nd Cir. 2003). Reichbach, A. (2004). The power behind the promise: Enforcing No Child Left Behind to improve education. Boston College Law Review, 45, 667–704. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 315–19 (1993). Reyes, A. (2006). The criminalization of student discipline programs and adolescent behavior. Saint John’s Journal of Legal Commentary, 21, 73–109. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Rosie D. v. Romney, 410 F. Supp.2d 18 (D. Mass. 2006). Ross, C. (2003). Implementing constitutional rights for juvenile: The parent-child privilege in context. Stanford Law & Policy Review, 14, 85–120. S.D. ex rel. Dickson v. Hood, 391 F. 3d 581 (5th Cir. 2004). Safford v. Redding, 557 U.S., 129 S. Ct. 2633, 77 USLW 4591 (2009).

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San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). Santana v. Collazo, 714 F.2d 1172 (1st Cir. 1983). Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982). Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253 (1984). School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Educ. v. State, 202 P.3d 990 (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). Sedlak, A. J., & McPherson, K. S. (2010). Youth needs and services: Findings from the survey of youth in residential placement. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Sherman, F. (2005). Pathways to juvenile detention reform: Detention reform and girls: Challenges and solutions. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Smook v. Minnehaha County, 457 F.3d 806 (8th Cir. 2006). Soler, M., Shoenberg, D., & Schindler, M. (2009). Juvenile justice: Lessons for a new era. Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, 16, 483–541. Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989). State v. Newstrom, 371 N.W.2d 525 (Minn. 1985). State Children’s Health Insurance Program of 1997, 42 U.S.C. 1397aa et seq. (2009).

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Sterling, R. W. (2009). The role of juvenile defense counsel in delinquency court. Washington, DC: National Juvenile Defender Center. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988). Torbet, P., Gable, R., Hurst, H., Montgomery, I., Szymanski, L., & Thomas, D. (1996). State responses to serious and violent juvenile crime: Research report. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40 (1980). Troxell v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000). United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 20, 1989. United Nations Treaty Series Vol. 1557. Weithorn, L. (2005). Envisioning second-order change in American’s responses to troubled and troublesome youth. Hofstra Law Review, 33, 1305–1505. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972). Woodhouse, B. B. (2001). Children’s Rights.InS. O. White (Ed.), Youth and justice. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com /abstract=234180 or doi:10.2139/ssrn.234180 Woolard, J. (2005). Juveniles within adult correctional settings: Legal pathways and developmental considerations. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 4(1), 18. Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (1982).

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

5

A Vision for the American Juvenile Justice System The Positive Youth Development Perspective R I C H A R D M. L E R N E R , M I C H A E L D. W I A T R O W S K I , M E G A N K I E L Y M U E L L E R , C H R I S T O P H E R M. N A P O L I T A N O , K R I S T I N A L. S C H M I D , A N D A N I T A P R I T C H A R D

E

ach year in the United States, millions of adolescents become involved with the juvenile justice system (see Steinberg, 2008a). For some youth, this involvement begins and ends with a warning; they are not taken into custody and do not formally enter the system. Other youth are indeed taken into custody one or more times, and for some of these youth, there may be eventual incarceration in the adult criminal justice system. Although the treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system is generally dictated by the nature and seriousness of the offense and the prior involvement of youth with the system, it is also influenced by the extant conception of these youth (Steinberg, 2008b; Woolard & Scott, 2009) and, perhaps more fundamentally, by whether there exists a developmental conception of youth within the system (Scott & Steinberg, 2008). Traditionally, a developmental perspective has been absent within the juvenile justice system (Schwartz, 2003; Scott & Steinberg,



2008; Steinberg, 2008b), especially a developmental perspective informed by what we discuss later in the chapter as contemporary and cutting-edge models of development. Such models emphasize that mutually influential relations between the developing person and his/her complex (multilevel) ecology constitute the basic process of human development (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2006, 2010). Moreover, young people, whether involved in the juvenile justice system or not, have been seen through a lens that regards healthy or positive adolescent development as being reflected by the absence of problems (Lerner, 2007). The assumption guiding this general view of youth is that adolescence is (because of biology) an inevitable period of “storm and stress” and, as such, a time when youth are both dangerous to others and to themselves (Anthony, 1969; Freud, 1969; Hall, 1904). There has been, then, a purported universal, biologically based shortcoming—a deficit—in their behavior and development. This nature (or nativist) deficit conception aligns with conceptions of system-involved youth that reflect ideas that transgressing adolescents need to be protected from themselves and from harming society (Steinberg, 2008b). As noted later in

The preparation of this chapter was supported in part by grants from the National 4-H Council, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Thrive Foundation for Youth.

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

the chapter, these ideas were linked in the mid to late 1990s to the “superpredator” depiction of young people in the system and to adjudicating teenagers as adults. This deficit view of youth may have been a motivating factor in the separation of juveniles from treatment within the adult criminal justice system and the creation of the American juvenile justice system in 1899. Schwartz (2003) has suggested that this deficit view may have been a conceptually problematic but, nonetheless, somewhat effective way to protect children from “socialization” by adult criminals. Nevertheless, the deficit lens about adolescent development is based on an erroneous understanding of biological development, ignorance of extant data about adolescence, and a misunderstanding about the nature and strengths of youth development. Accordingly, the purpose of this chapter is to describe the nature and problems of the contemporary juvenile justice system that arise as a consequence of the counterfactual conception of adolescence that has framed the treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system (Schwartz, 2003; Steinberg, 2008a, 2008b). We place contemporary views about youth within the context of the history of the conceptions of young people that have been used within the juvenile justice system. In turn, building on recent calls for adopting a developmental perspective on juvenile justice (Scott & Steinberg, 2008; Steinberg, 2008b; Woolard & Scott, 2009), we provide a lens for viewing youth development: the positive youth development (PYD) perspective (Lerner, 2005, 2009). We believe that the PYD perspective capitalizes appropriately on contemporary theory and research on adolescent development and, as such, has profound implications for the transformation of juvenile justice policy and programs.

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JUVENILE JUSTICE AND VIEWS OF YOUTH BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT: PAST AND CURRENT PERSPECTIVES The United States created the concept of juvenile justice based on an idea that has developed slowly over the past 200 years— that is, that youth are socially and developmentally not as fully responsible for their behavior as are adults before the law (Woolard & Scott, 2009). With the onset of Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829–1837), penitentiaries were created to reform and rehabilitate adult and juvenile criminals alike rather than to punish them, as did prisons (Rothman, 1971). Following this model of rehabilitation, reformers soon sought to remove children from the presence of adults and provide a different place for them in the justice system. During this time, the first juvenile houses of refuge were established, and attempts were made to treat children accused and convicted of criminal offenses differently from adults (Dean & Repucci, 1974; Fox, 1970). With the creation of the first reformatories in the 1830s until the creation of the first juvenile court in Illinois in 1899, various approaches were taken for the care and treatment of children in the custody of the law. Public and private institutions attempted to mimic idealized visions of families or provide pastoral settings outside the “corruption” of the cities. Order, discipline, and hard work were the vision for the care of delinquent youth. However, these initiatives were imperfect experiments, and periodic investigations revealed that children in the court-ordered care of adults were typically treated poorly and harshly—a situation that some might argue continues to exist today. In the late 19th century, with the emergence of the field of social work and new ideas

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regarding the causes of delinquency, the juvenile court evolved as a legal and social institution. The moral crusaders of this period had the view that children in trouble with the law were the product of flawed social environments (Platt, 1969). The settlement house idea was imported from England, and community centers were created as a place to bring some order to the slums and to solve the problems of overcrowding, labor exploitation, alcoholism, public health failure, and the myriad of related problems (Addams, 1910). These problems were viewed as social pathologies reflecting the emergent disease theory of medicine. Social work emerged as an area of professional specialization that sought to ameliorate the conditions that were thought to cause crime and delinquency. In 1899, Illinois became the first state to establish a statutory basis for juvenile courts, with most states following soon thereafter. The juvenile court developed a structure and language that differentiated it from the adult justice system. It was designed to be therapeutic and not punitive and, in theory, it was the antithesis of the adult criminal justice system. The medical model was adapted and applied to the treatment of social problems; this language of “treatment” became commonplace in dealing with juvenile delinquents (Smith, 1911). Certainly, this approach was more benign than the placement of juveniles in the adult system. Nevertheless, many of the reforms were often implemented poorly, and the treatment of juveniles in reform schools began to resemble the treatment of adults in minimum and medium security prisons (Feld, 1999). By the mid-1960s, however, events occurred in both the legal system and in academe to change the landscape of juvenile justice law and the treatment of juvenile offenders. Scott and Steinberg (2008) note

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that this conceptual landscape had remained largely unchanged throughout the first half of the 20th century. In regard to the legal system, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (1967) provided a comprehensive examination of how both adult and juvenile justice were administered in the United States, as questions were emerging about whether the system protected the legal rights of juveniles and whether the actions of the juvenile justice system were in fact benign. In 1967, the Supreme Court case In re Gault challenged the historically informal court proceedings typical of juvenile cases (Scott & Steinberg, 2008), when Gerald Gault, a 15-year-old youth, was adjudicated in regard to making an obscene telephone call (see Schwartz, 2003, for a discussion of the impact of the Gault decision). He had been sentenced to a juvenile facility that was the equivalent of a medium security prison for the remainder of the time he was a juvenile. This case was the first to provide juveniles with the basic constitutional protections afforded to adults. In regard to academic events, Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory of delinquency used what may be termed sociogenic, or social mold (Elder, 1998) ideas (about socialization and social learning) to account for the advent of delinquency in a young person’s behavioral repertoire. From the standards of contemporary developmental theory, which we have already noted are linked to relational, systems notions of mutually influential exchanges between developing individuals and their complex (multilevel) and changing contexts, Hirschi’s theory reflects an outdated, split conception of the causes of behavior and development in the course of human life (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2006, 2010). Simply, Hirschi’s model (and others like it, e.g., Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1980) is based on a

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

counterfactual separation of organism and ecological developmental processes (Overton, 2006). Nevertheless, at the time of its presentation, the model of Hirschi was within the mainstream of social and behavioral science, which adhered to such Cartesian, split conceptions (Overton, 2010). Although Hirschi’s views about the bases of delinquency issues evolved (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1980), his work nevertheless continued to reflect the split notion of human functioning that is today seen as inadequate within developmental science (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2010). Nevertheless, at the time, his work was certainly useful in eliciting other discussions of the defining characteristics of delinquent youth and the source of these characteristics. Historically, then, Hirschi’s work was a precursor of ideas about the nature of the development of delinquency. In addition, his work provided a basis for discussions in the literature of whether the characteristics of treatment in juvenile institutions provided a good fit with the attributes of delinquent youth. In addition Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin (1972), examined the offenses of a cohort of youth born in Philadelphia in 1944 and found that involvement with the justice system among these youth was common; almost half of the youth had at least one contact. A progressively smaller number of youth, about 6%, accounted for almost half of the offenses. The juvenile justice system apparently had little impact on the behavior of these youth. From this work, the idea of the chronic offender was born. During the 1980s it became clear that, generally, prisons and juvenile institutions had punishment and incarceration as their primary purpose, and, as a consequence, the goal of rehabilitation was significantly reduced. This shift reflects what has been repeated historical

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variation between an emphasis on punishment and an emphasis on rehabilitation. The emphasis found within any particular period may reflect the larger zeitgeist pertinent to societal concern with issues of social order. By the 1980s, the idea of “Do the crime, do the time” was applied to juveniles who were now treated as the developmental equivalent of adults; these youth were incarcerated in the adult criminal justice system, although separated from adult prisoners until they themselves became adults (Redding, 2005). Moreover, many states revised their statutes allowing juveniles to be waived or transferred to the jurisdiction of the adult criminal justice system. This treatment was reinforced by works such as that of Dilulio (1995), who coined the term juvenile superpredator to describe youth who were so primal, amoral, and violent in their behavior that he believed there was little society could do with them except to incarcerate them and “throw away the key,” again reflecting a theoretically atavistic and counterfactual Cartesian, split conception of the bases of human behavior and development (Overton, 2010). Although here one emphasized the nativist (nature) basis of youth behavior, this conception also had racial overtones, in that youth of color comprised the major proportion of children and adolescents then involved in the juvenile justice system (see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Today, however, the laws that transfer juveniles to the punishments of the adult court are being questioned. A consistent finding is that those transferred to the adult system are more likely to reoffend than those who remain in the juvenile system (Lanza-Kaduce, Lane, Bishop, & Frazier, 2000). Indeed, because imprisonment undermines important developmental tasks, including social maturation, Scott and Steinberg (2008) argue that

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many young offenders “are not headed for careers in crime—unless correctional interventions push them in that direction” (p. 25). Is there, then, a different model of youth that can recast their treatment within the juvenile justice system? Can this model be expected to reduce youth crime, and, in turn, promote positive individual and social behavior? We believe that the answer is yes. We discuss such a model next and then consider its implications for transforming the juvenile justice system.

THE CONTEMPORARY STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (PYD) PERSPECTIVE The scientific study of adolescent development was founded by Granville (G.) Stanley Hall (1844–1924) who, in 1904, published the first text on adolescence, a two-volume work entitled: Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. Hall launched the study of adolescence with a theory that saw the period as one marked by “storm and stress.” Hall believed that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”: The changes that occur in a person’s life mirror the changes that occurred in the evolution of the human species. (This view is also called the theory of recapitulation.) Human evolution, he believed, involved changes that moved humans from being beastlike to being civilized. Adolescence corresponds to the period in evolution when humans underwent this change. Therefore, adolescence is a time of overcoming one’s beastlike impulses. Hall’s (1904) conception gave birth to what we noted earlier is a nativist, deficit model of

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adolescence. Predicated on a split notion that separates the nature and nurture sources of behavior and development, Hall believed that the biological- or evolutionary-based “nature” of human development gave rise necessarily to storm and stress during the adolescent period; there was, then, a biologically based deficit in the ability of youth to manifest overall civilized, serene, and stress-free behavior. Few scientists believed the specifics of Hall’s theory of recapitulation. However, his prominence in American psychology did influence the general conception that scientists—and society—had of adolescence as a time of upheaval and stress. Other scholars studying adolescent development adopted, in their theories, Hall’s idea that adolescence was a necessarily stressful period. For example, Anna Freud (1969) viewed adolescence as a universal period of developmental disturbance that involved upheavals in drive states, in family and peer relationships, in ego defenses, and in attitudes and values. Similarly, Erik Erikson (1968) spoke of adolescents as enmeshed in an identity crisis. In short, scientists defined young people as “at risk” for behaving in uncivilized or problematic ways and therefore as being dangerous to themselves and to others. For much of the 20th century, most writing and research about adolescence was based on this deficit conception of young people. This language is mirrored in the “risk” factors for adolescents offered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in their comprehensive strategy. The failure to negotiate adolescence allegedly created “deficits.” Typically, these deficit models of the characteristics of adolescence were predicated on biologically reductionist models of genetic or maturational determination (e.g., Erikson, 1968), and resulted in descriptions of youth as

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

“broken” or in danger of becoming broken (Benson, Scales, Hamilton, & Sesma, 2006), as both dangerous and endangered (Anthony, 1969), or as “problems to be managed” (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). For instance, Anthony (1969) noted that adolescents were “lost,” that is, unable to find a positive place for themselves in society and, as such, they were both “dangerous,” in that they did not behave in manners supporting societal institutions or the social order, and “endangered,” in that they were acting in manners that, by failing to support society, would in fact harm the viability of the very institutions that nurtured and protected them. Similarly, Anna Freud (1969) noted that the inevitable biological changes of puberty resulted in adolescents moving strongly away from (indeed even rejecting) parental attitudes and values and, in turn, adopting what she specified were the antithetical views of the peer group. As a consequence of the prevalence of these deficit conceptions, if positive development was discussed in the adolescent development literature—at least prior to the 1990s—it was implicitly or explicitly regarded as the absence of negative or undesirable behaviors (Benson et al., 2006). A youth who was seen as manifesting behavior indicative of positive development was depicted as someone who was not taking drugs or using alcohol, not engaging in unsafe sex, and not participating in crime or violence. However, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, developmental science began to give increasingly greater attention to a new, strength-based conception of adolescence labeled the positive youth development (PYD) perspective (e.g., Damon, 2004; Larson, 2000; Lerner, 2004, 2007; Lerner & Steinberg, 2009). The emergence of this view of adolescence was linked to biology and comparative psychology.

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Origins of the PYD Perspective The roots of the PYD perspective are found in the work of comparative psychologists (e.g., Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 2006; Schneirla, 1957) and biologists (e.g., Novikoff, 1945a, 1945b; von Bertalanffy, 1933) who had been studying the plasticity of developmental processes that arose from the “fusion” (Tobach & Greenberg, 1984) of biological and contextual levels of organization. The ideas of fusion and of plasticity derive from what we have noted earlier in the chapter is the contemporary, cutting-edge focus of developmental theory on the relational developmental system, that is, on the mutually influential relations between the developing individual and his/her ecology (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2006, 2010). These relations involve links between the neurological (e.g., brain) and psychological (e.g., cognitive, emotional, and motivational) facets of the person and the features of his/her natural and designed ecology (e.g., the family, school, and the institutions of civil society), the physical setting, and the historical context. Given that history (temporality) is an “arrow” that cuts through all levels that are integrated (“fused”) within the relational, developmental system, there is always a potential for systematic change (“plasticity”) in the behavior and development of the individual. Although these ideas about the importance of multiple levels of organization (those within the individual, such as physiology or cognition and those in the ecology, such as the family, educational institutions, and historical events) together acting to shape the nature and positive or negative direction of development across life arose in the study of biology and of nonhuman species (e.g., Gottlieb et al., 2006; Tobach & Schneirla, 1968), they began to impact the human developmental sciences in the 1970s (Cairns & Cairns, 2006; Gottlieb et al.,

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2006; Lerner, 2002, 2006; Overton, 2006). Examples are the theoretical papers by Overton (1973) and by Lerner (1978) that discussed the nature–nurture controversy (i.e., the debate about whether the source of development was to be found in biological or environmental influences or in some combination of the two sets of influences). These authors argued that the debate could be resolved by taking an integrative, relational–developmental systems theoretical perspective about nature (e.g., genetic) and nurture (e.g., socialization, educational) influences on human development. As we will explain in more detail below, these discussions about the systemic relations among variables from all levels of organization involving organisms (individuals) and their physical and social world have resulted in the last several decades in both the elaboration of what we have already noted to be relational developmental systems theories of human development (Overton, 2010) and, in turn, on a strength-based view of adolescence. As we shall note, if the developmental system is plastic, then a fundamental strength of any facet of the system—the individual, for instance—is that there is some potential for change in behavior across life. Therefore, given the presence of at least some plasticity across life, what one may see in a person’s behavior at one point in his or her life is not what one might necessarily see at a subsequent point, if one were to change the relations within the developmental system. Plasticity means, then, that changes in the system could be linked to the enhancement or improvement in behavior (or, if changes in the system of relations are not supportive of positive growth, then there may of course be negative changes in behavior; a system that is open, or plastic, in regard to changes for the better is also open to changes for the worse). Today, developmental science includes a range of diverse instantiations of developmental

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systems theories, ideas that are applied to individuals across the life span and to adolescents in particular (e.g., see Brandtst€adter, 2006; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Magnusson & Stattin, 2006; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, 2006; and see Lerner, 2006, and Lerner & Steinberg, 2009, for other examples). However, all instances of these models share several core ideas, which we now discuss. Defining Features of Developmental Systems Theories As we have noted already, developmental systems theories have arisen in response to conceptions of development that split apart the variables (e.g., biological and social) and levels of organization (e.g., the individual, the institutions of society, history) that comprise the ecology of human life (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Overton, 2010). Prior to the emergence of developmental systems theories, the study of human development and, indeed, the social and behavioral sciences more generally, were dominated by conceptions framed by modern, Cartesian thinking that reduced (or split off) the complexity of the system of influences involved in human life (ranging from the inner biological to the outer physical and historical) into one variable that was “real” (e.g., a gene, socialization, or social control); other variables were regarded as epiphenomenal or derivative. Developmental systems theories “reject all splits,” and constitute an instance of postmodern thinking that views the bases (the causes) of human behavior as associated with the configuration of relations across all levels of organization within the human development system, as they exist within a specific period of time (Overton, 2006). Accordingly, within all developmental systems theories the concept of developmental

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

regulation indicates that the character (the form or pace) of the course of development (i.e., the regulation of development) involves mutually influential relations among variables from the levels of the system, and not one variable from one level (e.g., a gene from the biological level of organization) producing change in other variables (or levels). There is, then, a bidirectional influence among levels, represented in general as Level 1 ! Level 2. When these developmental regulations involve relations between individuals and their contexts, the relation may be represented as individual ! context relations. In addition, when these developmental regulations between individuals and contexts benefit both components of the relation, when the relations are salutary for both the person and his/her setting, then adaptive developmental regulations exist. For instance, when the individual contributes to the institutions of civil society (e.g., by voting or by becoming civically engaged more generally) that, in turn, afford the person the opportunity to pursue his/her individual talents and positive interests, then an adaptive developmental regulation would exist (Lerner, 2004). We have noted that because of the integration of temporality (history—or the continuous changes associated with the “arrow of time”) within the developmental system, the developmental system is characterized by the potential for plasticity in individual ! context relations. This plasticity allows an optimistic approach to the study of human development. If developmental science can find combinations of individual and context that can capitalize on plasticity and change to better the course (the trajectory) of behavior, then all individuals have some chance for improvement in their behavior across life. The combinations of individuals and settings that could result in positive development

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constitute a virtually open set. There may be as many as 70 trillion potential human genotypes (a genotype is the set of genes that are received at conception) and—in the development of an individual (a phenotype)—each genotype may be coupled across life with an even larger number of social experiences, for example, different families, peer groups, neighborhoods, social policies, physical ecological conditions, and historical events (Hirsch, 2004). Therefore, from a developmental systems perspective, the diversity of people—the specific life paths they take and the specific outcomes of their development—becomes a prime focus for developmental research and application (Lerner, 2004; Spencer, 2006). Because of plasticity, all people possess a fundamental strength—the capacity to change—and, because of diversity, all people have an individual pathway through life that can, if conditions of person and context are adequately aligned, result in more positive behavior (Benson et al., 2006). Accordingly, ideas that seek to characterize all individuals or purported subgroups of individuals (e.g., “predator juveniles”) as the same and as not having any potential for positive change are egregiously flawed. Such ideas reflect counterfactual assertions about the nature of human development and are predicated on obsolete, split ideas that ignore the plastic and diverse character of human development. It is in the linkage between the ideas of plasticity and diversity that a basis exists for the extension of developmental systems thinking to the field of adolescence, and for the field of adolescence to serve as a “testing ground” for ideas associated with developmental systems theory. This synergy has had at least one key outcome, the forging of a new, strength-based vision of and vocabulary for the nature of adolescent development. In short, the plasticity–diversity linkage within

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developmental systems theory and method has provided the basis for the formulation of the PYD perspective. Components of the PYD Perspective Beginning in the early 1990s, and burgeoning in the first half-decade of the 21st century, a new vision and vocabulary for discussing young people has emerged. These innovations were framed by the developmental systems theories that were engaging the interest of developmental scientists. Moreover, these innovations were propelled by the increasingly collaborative contributions of researchers focused on the second decade of life (e.g., Benson et al., 2006; Damon, 2004; Lerner, 2004), practitioners in the field of youth development (e.g., Floyd & McKenna, 2003; Pittman, Irby, & Ferber, 2001), and policy makers concerned with improving the life chances of diverse youth and their families (e.g., Cummings, 2003; Gore, 2003). These interests converged in the formulation of a set of ideas that enabled youth to be viewed as resources to be developed, and not as problems to be managed (Roth & BrooksGunn, 2003). These ideas may be discussed in regard to two key hypotheses. Each

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hypothesis is associated with two subsidiary hypotheses. The first hypothesis pertains to the measurement of PYD. The second focuses on the relations between individuals and contexts that, within developmental systems models, provide the basis of human development. Hypothesis 1: PYD Is Comprised of Five Cs Based on both the experiences of practitioners and reviews of the adolescent development literature (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lerner, 2004; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003), “Five Cs”—Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring—were hypothesized as a way of conceptualizing PYD (and of integrating all the separate indicators of it, such as academic achievement or self-esteem). The definitions of these Cs are presented in Table 5.1. These Five Cs were linked to the positive outcomes of youth development programs reported by Roth and Brooks-Gunn (2003). In addition, these “Cs” are prominent terms used by practitioners, adolescents involved in youth development programs, and the parents of these adolescents in describing the characteristics of a “thriving youth” (King et al., 2005).

Table 5.1. Definitions of the Five Cs of Positive Youth Development Competence. Positive view of one’s actions in domain-specific areas, including social, academic, cognitive, and vocational. Social competence pertains to interpersonal skills (e.g., conflict resolution). Cognitive competence pertains to cognitive abilities (e.g., decision making). School grades, attendance, and test scores are part of academic competence. Vocational competence involves work habits and career choice explorations and entrepreneurship. Confidence. An internal sense of overall positive self-worth and self-efficacy; one’s global self-regard, as opposed to domain-specific beliefs. Connection. Positive bonds with people and institutions that are reflected in bidirectional exchanges between the individual and peers, family, school, and community in which all parties contribute to the relationship. Character. Respect for societal and cultural rules, possession of standards for correct behaviors, a sense of right and wrong (morality), and integrity. Caring (or Compassion). A sense of sympathy and empathy for others. Sources: Lerner, 2004; Lerner et al., 2005; Roth and Brooks-Gunn, 2003.

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

Hypothesis 1A: Contribution is the “Sixth C”: A hypothesis subsidiary to the postulation of the “Five Cs” as a means to measure (operationalize) PYD is that when a young person manifests the Cs across time (when the youth is thriving), he or she will be on a life trajectory toward an “idealized adulthood” (Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1998; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, 2006). Theoretically, an ideal adult life is marked by integrated and mutually reinforcing contributions to self (e.g., maintaining one’s health and one’s ability therefore to remain an active agent in one’s own development) and to family, community, and the institutions of civil society (e.g., families, neighborhoods, schools, religious groups, etc.; Elshtain, 1999; Lerner, 2004). In other words, contribution is conceived of as giving (being generous) to self and others. The contributing person keeps herself healthy and fit, so as not to be an unnecessary liability to or an unnecessary user of the resources of others and, as well, helps family members without any coercion, assists neighbors without any compensation to do so, and helps keep the institutions of civil society strong by, for instance, volunteering to help others (e.g., through food or clothing drives) and acting to support the institutions of democracy (e.g., by working to enhance voter registration, by supporting political debate, and by voting). An adult engaging in such integrated contributions is a person manifesting adaptive developmental regulations (Brandtst€adter, 2006). Hypothesis 1B: PYD and risk/problem behaviors are inversely related: A second

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subsidiary hypothesis to the one postulating the Five Cs is that there should be an inverse relation across development between PYD (e.g., the Five Cs) and behaviors indicative of risk behaviors or internalizing and externalizing problems (e.g., delinquency, substance use, depression, aggression). That is, this hypothesis suggests that as evidence for positive behavior increases, there should be fewer indications of problematic behaviors. Simply, the idea is that increases in good things are associated with decreases in what is bad. This idea was forwarded in particular by Pittman and her colleagues (e.g., Pittman et al., 2001) in regard to applications of developmental science to policies and programs. In essence, the hypothesis is that the best means to prevent problems associated with adolescent behavior and development (e.g., depression, aggression, drug use and abuse, or unsafe sexual behavior) is to promote positive development. The status of empirical support for Hypothesis 1: Findings from a national longitudinal investigation, the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (Lerner et al., 2005), support these hypotheses. The study, which currently includes about 7,000 youth from 41 states, involves longitudinal assessment of adolescents beginning in Grade 5 (at about age 10) and is currently designed to follow youth through Grade 12. The study provides evidence for the existence of the Five Cs of PYD, for the existence of the “Sixth C” of Contribution, and for positive relations among these

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Cs (Lerner et al., 2005). Indeed, PYD in an earlier grade predicts Contribution in subsequent grades (e.g., Jelicic, Bobek, Phelps, J. V. Lerner, & Lerner, 2007). Similarly, findings from the 4-H Study show that there are inverse relations between the Cs and the risk/problem behaviors discussed above (Jelicic et al., 2007), although this relationship is more nuanced than originally hypothesized. For example, Phelps et al. (2007) and Zimmerman, Phelps, and Lerner (2008) found that PYD and risk/problem behaviors follow different trajectories over time; that is, the patterns of change associated with these outcomes differ among individuals. Whereas some youth show inverse relations between trajectories of PYD and risk/problem behaviors, other youth show increases in both dimensions and still others show decreases in both. These findings, that youth have diverse combinations of trajectories of positive and problematic behaviors, indicate that both prevention and promotion efforts must be pursued in terms of the policy and programs directed at youth. For instance, in regard to the juvenile justice system, these findings indicate that even among youth who show a history of risk/ problem behaviors, including (within the 4-H Study data set) bullying, delinquency, or substance use, there may be substantial evidence of PYD and, as well, Contribution. Accordingly, there may be strengths—and the basis for positive change—among even those youth who show trajectories of marked risk/problem behaviors.

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Hypothesis 2: Youth-Context Alignment Promotes PYD Based on the idea that the potential for systematic intraindividual change across life (i.e., for plasticity) represents a fundamental strength of human development, the hypothesis was generated that, if the strengths of youth are aligned with resources for healthy growth present in the key contexts of adolescent development—the home, the school, and the community—then enhancements in positive functioning at any one point in time (i.e., well-being; Lerner, 2004) may occur. In turn, the systematic promotion of positive development will occur across time (i.e., thriving; e.g., Lerner, 2004; Lerner et al., 2005). Hypothesis 2A: Contextual alignment involves marshaling development assets: A key subsidiary hypothesis to the notion that aligning individual strengths and contextual resources for healthy development is that there exist, across the key settings of youth development (i.e., families, schools, and communities), at least some supports for the promotion of PYD. Termed developmental assets (Benson et al., 2006), these resources constitute the social and ecological “nutrients” for the growth of healthy youth. Hypothesis 2B: Community-based programs constitute key developmental assets: There is broad agreement among researchers and practitioners in the youth development field that the concept of developmental assets is important for understanding what needs to be marshaled in homes, classrooms, and community-based programs to foster PYD (Benson et al., 2006; Lerner, 2007). In fact, a key impetus for the interest in the PYD perspective among both researchers and

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

youth program practitioners, and thus a basis for the collaborations that exist among members of these two communities, lies in ascertaining the nature of the resources for positive development that are present in youth programs, for example, in the literally hundreds of thousands of after-school programs delivered either by large, national organizations, such as 4-H, Boys and Girls Clubs, Scouting, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, or Girls, Inc., or by local organizations (see Dym, Gerena, Tangvik, & Bartlett, Chapter 19, this volume). The focus on youth programs is important not only for practitioners in the field of youth development, however. In addition, the interest in exploring youth development programs as a source of developmental assets for youth derives from theoretical interest in the role of the macrolevel systems effects of the ecology of human development on the course of healthy change in adolescence (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006); interest derives as well from policy makers and advocates, who believe that, at this point in the history of the United States, community-level efforts are needed to promote positive development among youth (e.g., Cummings, 2003; Gore, 2003; Pittman, et al., 2001). The status of empirical support for Hypothesis 2: Once again, findings from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development lend empirical support to expectations associated with Hypothesis 2. For example, Theokas and Lerner (2006), and Urban, Lewin-Bizan, and Lerner (2009) found that greater ecological assets (e.g., mentors,

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opportunities for learning and recreation, etc.) were positively related to PYD and negatively related to problem/risk behaviors, such as depression. In addition, in all settings involving youth (families, schools, and the community) the assets most associated with high levels of PYD and Contribution and with low levels of risk and problem behaviors were people: large quantities of quality time with parents; access to a competent, caring teacher; and positive and sustained relations with a mentor or significant other. Furthermore, Zarrett et al. (2009) explored the association between patterns of involvement in community-based programs and PYD. Findings from this study indicate that participation in youth development programs— marked by the presence of a positive and sustained relationship with a mentor; life skills building activities; and opportunities for youth participation in, and leadership of, valued family, school, and community activities—was related to PYD and youth contribution, even after controlling for the total time youth spent in other out-of-school time activities, such as sports (Zarrett, et al. 2009). Possible Implications for Juvenile Justice There may be several implications of the PYD perspective for juvenile justice. First, it is clear that people can make a difference in the lives of youth involved in different developmental trajectories. Therefore, programs that involve the presence of positive adults in the lives of youth (e.g., mentoring programs) may be useful. Second, it may be that strengths

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(i.e., the potential for some plasticity) exist even among youth marked by considerable engagement in risk/problem behaviors; as such, there may be merit in searching for combinations of individual attributes and contextual resources that can capitalize on these strengths to promote more positive development among such youth (see Butts, Bazemore, & Meroe, 2010). Especially if a young person spends a significant amount of time with a caring, committed, and capable adult who is inculcating life skills and youth participation and leadership in positive, valued activities, then it may be that both PYD and Contribution may be increased and risk/problem behaviors may be decreased. Although the necessary data to support these implications remain to be collected, the evidence in support of the PYD perspective suggests the potential importance of such research. Conclusions About the PYD Perspective Replacing the deficit view of adolescence, the PYD perspective sees all adolescents as having strengths (by virtue of their potential for change). The perspective suggests that increases in well-being and thriving are possible for all youth through aligning the strengths of young people with the developmental assets present in their social and physical ecology. Although still at a preliminary stage of progress, there is growing empirical evidence that, with some important qualifications, the general concepts and main and subsidiary hypotheses of the PYD perspective find empirical support (Lerner, Phelps, Forman, & Bowers, 2009; Lerner, 2005, 2009). Given this evidence, it is useful to provide some concluding comments about the links between the PYD perspective and the innovations we believe need to be made in America’s juvenile justice system.

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TOWARD A PYD FRAMEWORK VISION FOR JUVENILE JUSTICE In light of the evidence from the 4-H Study, as well as from other research pertinent to the PYD perspective (see Lerner et al., 2009, for a review), it is clear that all youth have strengths and that, by aligning their strengths with resources for healthy development found in their homes, schools, and communities, the positive development of all young people may be enhanced. We support, then, Steinberg’s (2008b) call for adopting a developmental perspective in regard to juvenile justice, but would add that such adoption should involve a strengths-based formulation, such as the PYD perspective. As evident in other chapters in this volume (e.g., Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume), it is both important and gratifying to note that such efforts are beginning to occur in jurisdictions across the country. As we have explained, using the PYD perspective in regard to juvenile justice policies and programs would encourage policy makers to view youth as assets to be enhanced instead of viewing youth within the juvenile justice system as “problems to be managed” (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). In turn, using the PYD perspective as a lens for specific program initiatives would add credence to the recommendations of Scott and Steinberg (2008), who suggest that programs that reflect the individual ! context relational system model framing the PYD perspective are especially effective (see Butts et al., 2010). For instance, they note that programs that strengthen social supports with adults and family members and programs that take a developmental systems approach (e.g., a multisystemic therapy program) may be particularly beneficial (Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume).

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

In sum, consistent with the work of Steinberg and colleagues (Scott & Steinberg, 2008; Steinberg, 2008a, 2008b; Woolard & Scott, 2009), we are proposing that juvenile justice and delinquency prevention be moved from a deficit and nondevelopmental model of youth to a model based on the positive youth development perspective. Although society will continue to demand accountability for the delinquent and criminal acts committed by youth, the goal of juvenile justice should be to promote and sustain positive development of youth.

REFERENCES Addams, J. (1910). Twenty years at Hull House; with autobiographical notes. New York, NY: MacMillan. Anthony, E. J. (1969). The reactions of adults to adolescents and their behavior. In G. Caplan & S. Lebovici (Eds.), Adolescence: Psychosocial perspectives (p. 77) New York, NY: Basic Books. Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. F., & Semsa, A., Jr. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and applications. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 894–941). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Brandtst€adter, J. (2006). Action perspectives on human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 516–568). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 793–828.) Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Butts, J. A., Bazemore, G., & Meroe, S. A. (2010). Positive youth justice: Framing justice interventions using the concepts of positive youth development. Washington, DC: Coalition for Juvenile Justice. Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. (2006). The making of developmental psychology. In R. M. Lerner

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(Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 89–165). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rathunde, K. (1998). The development of the person: An experiential perspective on the ontogenesis of psychological complexity. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Volume Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., 635–684). New York, NY: Wiley. Cummings, E. (2003). Foreword. In D. Wertlieb, F. Jacobs, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and programs: Vol. 3. Promoting positive youth and family development: Community systems, citizenship, and civil society (pp. ix–xi) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Damon, W. (2004). What is positive youth development? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 13–24. Dean, C. W., & Reppucci, N. D. (1974). Juvenile corrections in institutions. In D. Glaser (Ed.), Handbook of criminology (pp. 75–92). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Dilulio, J. J. (1995). The coming of super-predators. Weekly Standard. Retrieved from www.mcsm.org /predator.html Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. A. (Eds.). (2002). Community programs to promote youth development/Committee on community-level programs for youth. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998). The life course and human development. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 939–991). New York, NY: Wiley. Elshtain, J. B. (1999). A call to civil society. Society, 36(5), 11–19. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York, NY: Norton. Feld, B. (1999). Bad kids: Race and the transformation of the juvenile court. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Floyd, D. T., & McKenna, L. (2003). National youth serving organizations in the United States: Contributions to civil society. In R. M. Lerner, F. Jacobs, & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and

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programs: Vol. 3. Promoting positive youth and family development: Community systems, citizenship, and civil society (pp. 11–26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fox, S. J. (1970). Juvenile justice reform: An historical perspective. Stanford Law Review, 22, 1187–1239. Freud, A. (1969). Adolescence as a developmental disturbance. In G. Caplan & S. Lebovici (Eds.), Adolescence (pp. 5–10). New York, NY: Basic Books. Gore, A. (2003). Foreword. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson (Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building communities: Implications for research, policy, and practice (pp. xi–xii) Norwell, MA: Kluwer. Gottlieb, G., Wahlsten, D., & Lickliter, R. (2006). The significance of biology for human development: A developmental psychobiological systems view. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 210–257). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescence: Its psychology and its relations to psychology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion, and education. New York, NY: Appleton. Hirsch, J. (2004). Uniqueness, diversity, similarity, repeatability, and heritability. In C. Garcia Coll, E. Bearer, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Nature and nurture: The complex interplay of genetic and environmental influences on human behavior and development (pp. 127–138). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Hirschi, T., & Gottfredson, M. (1980). Understanding crime. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967). Jelicic, H., Bobek, D., Phelps, E. D., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2007). Using positive youth development to predict contribution and risk behaviors in early adolescence: Findings from the first two waves of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 31(3), 263–273. King, P. E., Dowling, E. M., Mueller, R. A., White, K., Schultz, W., Osborn, P., . . . Scales, P. C. (2005). Thriving in Adolescence: The voices of youthserving practitioners, parents, and early and late adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 94–112. Lanza-Kaduce, L., Lane, J., Bishop, D. M., & Frazier, C. E. (2005). Juvenile offenders and adult felony recidivism: The impact. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 59–77.

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Larson, R. W. (2000). Towards a psychology of positive youth development.. American Psychologist, 55, 170–183. Lerner, J. V., Phelps, E., Forman, Y. E., & Bowers, E. (2009). Positive youth development. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed., pp. 524–558). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lerner, R. M. (1978). Nature, nurture, and dynamic interactionism. Human Development, 21, 1–20. Lerner, R. M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among American youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lerner, R. M. (2005, September). Promoting positive youth development: Theoretical and empirical bases. White paper prepared for the Workshop on the Science of Adolescent Health and Development, National Research Council/Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: National Academies of Science. Lerner, R. M. (2006). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development. (6th ed., pp. 1–17). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner.Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lerner, R. M. (2007). The good teen: Rescuing adolescents from the myths of the storm and stress years. New York, NY: Crown. Lerner, R. M. (2009) The positive youth development perspective: Theoretical and empirical bases of a strength-based approach to adolescent development. In C. R. Snyder and S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 149– 163). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdottir, S., . . . von Eye, A. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17–71. Lerner, R. M., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Magnusson, D., & Stattin, H. (2006). The person in context: A holistic-interactionistic approach. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., pp. 400–464). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

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

Novikoff, A. B. (1945a). The concept of integrative levels and biology. Science, 101, 209–215. Novikoff, A. B. (1945b). Continuity and discontinuity in evolution. Science, 101, 405–406. Overton, W. F. (1973). On the assumptive base of the nature-nurture controversy: Additive versus interactive conceptions. Human Development, 16, 74–89. Overton, W. F. (2006). Developmental psychology: Philosophy, concepts, methodology. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 18–88). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Overton, W. F. (2010). Life-span development: Concepts and issues. In R. M. Lerner (Ed-in-chief) & W. F. Overton (Vol. Ed.), The Handbook of Life-Span Development: Vol 1. Cognition, Biology, and Methods (pp. 1–29). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Phelps, E., Balsano, A., Fay, K., Peltz, J., Zimmerman, S., Lerner, R., M., & Lerner, J. V. (2007). Nuances in early adolescent development trajectories of positive and of problematic/risk behaviors: Findings from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Child and Adolescent Clinics of North America, 16(2), 473–496. Pittman, K., Irby, M., & Ferber, T. (2001). Unfinished business: Further reflections on a decade of promoting youth development. In P. L. Benson & K. J. Pittman (Eds.), Trends in youth development: Visions, realities and challenges (pp. 4–50). Norwell, MA: Kluwer. Platt, A. M. (1969). The child savers: The invention of delinquency. Chicago, IL, & London, England: University of Chicago Press. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967). The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Rathunde, K., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2006). The developing person: An experiential perspective. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 465–515). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Redding, R. E. (2005). Adult punishment for juvenile offenders: Does it reduce crime? In N. Dowd, D. Singer, & R. F. Wilson (Eds.), Handbook on children, culture and violence (pp. 374–395). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Roth, J. L., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). What exactly is a youth development program? Answers from research and practice. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 94–111. Rothman, D. J. (1971). The discovery of the asylum. Boston, MA: Little Brown. Schneirla, T. C. (1957). The concept of development in comparative psychology. In D. B. Harris (Ed.), The concept of development (pp. 78–108). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Schwartz, R. G. (2003). Juvenile justice and positive youth development. In F. Jacobs, D. Wertlieb, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Vol. 2. Enhancing the life chances of youth and families: Contributions of programs, policies, and service systems (pp. 421–443). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Scott, E. S., & Steinberg, L. (2008). Adolescent development and the regulation of youth crime. Future of Children, 18, 15–33. Smith, G. S. (1911). Social pathology. New York, NY: Macmillan. Spencer, M. B. (2006). Phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST): A human development synthesis applicable to diverse individuals and groups. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 829–894). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Steinberg, L. (Ed.). (2008a). Juvenile justice. [Special issue.] Future of Children, 18(2). Steinberg, L. (2008b). Introducing the issue. Future of Children, 18(2), 3–14. Theokas, C., & Lerner, R. M. (2006). Observed ecological assets in families, schools, and neighborhoods:Conceptualization,measurementand relations with positive and negative developmental outcomes. Applied Developmental Science, 10(2), 61–74. Tobach, E., & Greenberg, G. (1984). The significance of T. C. Schneirla’s contribution to the concept of levels of integration. In G. Greenberg & E. Tobach (Eds.), Behavioral evolution and integrative levels (pp. 1–7). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Tobach, E., & Schneirla, T. C. (1968). The biopsychology of social behavior of animals. In R. E. Cooke & S. Levin (Eds.), Biologic basis of pediatric practice (pp. 68–82). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Urban, J., Lewin-Bizan, S. & Lerner, R. M. (2009). The role of ecological context and activity involvement in youth developmental outcomes: Differential impacts of asset poor and asset rich neighborhoods.

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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(5), 601–614. von Bertalanffy, L. (1933). Modern theories of development. London, England: Oxford University Press. Wolfgang, M. E., Figlio, R. M., & Sellin, T. (1972). Delinquency in a birth cohort. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Woolard, J. L., & Scott, E. (2009). The legal regulation of adolescence. In. R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology: Vol 2. Contextual influences on adolescent development (3rd ed., pp. 345–371). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

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Zarrett, N., Fay, K., Carrano, J., Li, Y., Phelps, E., & Lerner, R. M. (2009). More than child’s play: Variable- and pattern-centered approaches for examining effects of sports participation on youth development. Developmental Psychology, 45(2), 368–382. Zimmerman, S., Phelps, E., & Lerner, R. M. (2008). Positive and negative developmental trajectories in U.S. adolescents: Where the PYD perspective meets the deficit model. Research in Human Development, 5(3), 153–165.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

S ECTION II

UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL YOUTH

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

6

Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice JAMES BELL

AND

RAQUEL MARISCAL

R

acial and ethnic disparities is one of the most intransigent and disturbing issues facing juvenile justice in the United States (Nellis & Richardson, 2010). While comprising approximately 38% of the population eligible for detention, the overrepresentation of youth of color in secure confinement has increased to almost 70% over the past decade (Mendel, 2009) (see Figure 6.1). These startling increases in disparities for youth of color occurred while arrest rates for serious and violent crimes declined by 45% (Nelson, 2008). While current data collection methods could be significantly improved, we know enough about the overrepresentation of youth

of color to be sufficiently alarmed. According to the most recent data, African American youth are treated more harshly at all stages of the juvenile justice system, resulting in a cumulative disadvantage. While only 16% of the African American youth population are of sufficient age for detention, they represent 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of detained youth, and 58% of youth admitted to state adult prison (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007; see Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). Although the number of cases contained in local and national data sets is a significant undercount, research reveals similar disparities for Latino youth. The National Center on

Figure 6.1 Increasing Overrepresentation of Youth of Color in Detention Centers 80 70

62 56

60 50

69

65

43

Youth of Color as a Percentage of Total U.S. Detention Population

40 30 20 10 0 1985

1995

1999

2003

2006

Sources: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985–1995; OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Databook, 1999, 2003, and 2006.

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Juvenile Justice analyzed 2005 data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive and was able to provide only limited data on Latino youth because only 13 of 42 jurisdictions consistently reported ethnicity data. Nevertheless, the data accounted for approximately 63% of the nation’s Latino youth population. The data revealed, in order of rising disparity, that Latino youth were 4% more likely than White youth to be petitioned; 16% more likely than White youth to be adjudicated delinquent; 28% more likely than White youth to be detained; 41% more likely than White youth to receive an out-of-home placement; and 43% more likely than White youth to be waived to the adult system (Arya et al., 2009). Although no two juvenile justice systems are exactly the same, there are several decision points within the juvenile justice process at which the overrepresentation of youth of color is commonly measured (see Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). Some key decision points prior to judicial appearance include “cite and release,” arrest, diversion after arrest, referral to a detention facility, and admission to detention. At each key decision point, juvenile justice professionals exercise judgments about how the young person and his or her family should be handled. Monitoring these decision points, pursuant to federal policy, reveals that youth of color are funneled deeper into the system for behaviors similar to their White counterparts, when controlling for offenses (Nelson, 2008). For example, data reveal that White youth are more likely to be diverted from formal processing than are youth of color. Additionally, more youth of color are referred and admitted to detention than are their White counterparts for similar behavior (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007). In this chapter, we examine major elements of disparities by race, ethnicity, and

ancestry in the juvenile justice system, and deconstruct its drivers in order to engage appropriate responses to the way justice is lived by children, families, and communities of color. We first provide an overview of the history and current thinking about racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system, beginning with the role federal policy has played defining this issue and a summary of the literature concerning the causes of disparities. We then review the historic treatment of youth of color in the U.S. juvenile justice system, demonstrating that current disparities in treatment draw from this historical legacy. Next, we discuss how contemporary policies that purport to be race neutral actually operate to disadvantage Black and Latino youth. Finally, we examine promising policies and practices for reducing racial and ethnic disparities, demonstrating that juvenile justice systems can operate with fairness and equity for all young people.

FRAMING THE DISPARITIES DISCUSSION The modern history of identifying and analyzing disparities has largely been defined by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act ( JJDPA, 2002). Through the JJDPA and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded research and publications, the federal government has played a central role in defining the scope, reasons, and responses to race and ethnic disparities in the U.S. juvenile justice system (Pope & Leiber, 2005). Federal attention to this issue has broadened over the years, from focusing on confinement (disproportionate minority confinement, DMC) to assessing disparities at each phase of the system, or contact (disproportionate minority contact, DMC).

Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice

The earlier JJDPA of 1974 was designed to influence state juvenile justice policy by providing monetary incentives for compliance with federal mandates. Toward that end, it dictated two core requirements that states had to meet to receive funding: remove offenders from adult pretrial lockup and deinstitutionalize status offenders. In 1988 Congress amended the JJDPA, requiring each state to address the issue of disproportionate minority confinement in secure facilities, but the Act did not make this a core requirement. The 1992 reauthorization elevated this to a core requirement tied to future funding eligibility. In 2002, Congress amended the JJDPA once again, this time broadening the DMC core requirement. States were directed to address disproportionate contact of youth of color with the juvenile justice system, not just their confinement in secure detention (Bell & Ridolfi, 2008). This change from confinement to contact acknowledged that disparities exist at other stages of the juvenile justice system and broadened the required inquiry to all decision points, while arguably taking the focus off confinement, the most oppressive locus of disparities. While recognizing the presence of race and ethnic disparities at all stages of the juvenile justice process, our primary emphasis in this chapter is on confinement—the actions of policy makers that deprive youth of their liberty through confinement in secure facilities. As part of its effort to set policy addressing DMC, since 1993 OJJDP has funded state and federal research documenting the extent and nature of DMC and has provided tools to states seeking to address disparities. Under the JJDPA, states are required to address DMC by identifying the extent to which minority youth are confined, assessing the reasons for disproportionality, developing strategies to address the causes of disproportionality,

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and evaluating the effectiveness of these strategies as they are implemented (Pope & Leiber, 2005). To support the shift in mandate from a focus on confinement to one on contact, the 2002 reauthorization of the JJDPA also shifted the methodology for determining overrepresentation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system from the Disproportionate Representation Index (DRI) to the Relative Rate Index (RRI). While the DRI compared the percentage of youth of color at a specific decision point with a percentage of the youth of color in the general population, the RRI compares the rates of youth of color’s contact with the juvenile justice system at a particular decision point with the corresponding percentage of White youth at the same decision point. In other words, the RRI does not take into account the presence of each group of youth in the population as a whole, but rather compares White youth and youth of color at each decision point through the youth’s contact with the juvenile justice system to the percentage of White youth and youth of color at the previous decision point (Ridolfi, 2004). While the RRI provides a more detailed analysis, focusing on decision points throughout the juvenile justice process (Moriearty, 2008), because the RRI no longer considers the population of White youth and youth of color as a whole, the results can understate the social significance of the disparity. In essence, the number loses some of its context. For a clearer picture of how youth of color are experiencing detention, the rates of overall detention among White youth and youth of color should be calculated in addition to the RRI. Regardless of the methodology, most of today’s data fail to disaggregate by ethnicity, which has the unfortunate consequence of classifying Latino youth as “White” or the

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ever amorphous “Other.” This practice makes Latino youth invisible and significantly undercounts the levels of racial and ethnic disparities present in the juvenile justice system (Villarruel & Walker, 2002). Disproportionate minority confinement analysis has centered on a Black and White paradigm, suggesting to local jurisdictions they are “allowed” to address only the disparate treatment of one racial/ethnic group at a time and ignoring a massive demographic shift over the past decade, during which the number of Latino youth in this country has almost doubled (Pew Hispanic Center, 2007). Despite federal attention to race and ethnic disparities since the late 1980s, the problem persists, raising real questions about the effectiveness of federal leadership (Leiber, 2002). OJJDP’s oversight of state compliance with the DMC mandate has been inconsistent, with few states penalized for failures to comply; other states have documented disproportionality, but have failed to develop and implement remedial plans (Moriearty, 2008). Moreover, the JJDPA was last re-authorized in 2002, and its DMC provisions would benefit from amendments consistent with what has been learned in the field since that time (Nellis & Richardson, 2010). Finally, while the DMC mandate began in 1992, other federal youth policy has been inconsistent with that mandate. As this chapter shows, throughout the 1990s, while claiming concern for disproportionality through the DMC mandate, federally driven “get tough” policies such as drug-free zones and zero tolerance increased the disproportional representation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system. Explaining Disparities While the fact and extent of race and ethnic disparities through the juvenile justice system

are well established, there continues to be discussion about the cause. Two theories have been proposed over the years: differential offending and differential treatment (Bishop, 2005; Nellis & Richardson, 2010; Piquero, 2008). Differential offending considers race and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice (and criminal justice) systems the result of different patterns and rates of offending among youth by race and ethnicity (Bishop, 2005). In contrast, differential treatment explains that disparities result from differences in the treatment of White youth and youth of color at each of the discretionary decision points within the juvenile justice system. Differential treatment, the view advanced by OJJDP (Tracy, 2005), is consistent with the way disparities increase as juveniles move deeper into the juvenile justice system. Research shows that racial differences become larger as juveniles move from arrest to detention, formal processing, out-of-home placement, and waiver into the adult system, experiencing the cumulative effect of justice system decisions (Piquero, 2008). While there may be a debate over which theory explains these disparities, it is undisputed that youth of color are present at each stage of the justice system in numbers disproportionate to their presence in the population, and these disparities increase as youth move further along the juvenile justice process (Piquero, 2008). Differential offending alone cannot explain the nature and extent of race and ethnic disparities that are welldocumented in the juvenile justice system. Studies have found that youth of color are more likely than their White counterparts to be arrested and referred by police for formal processing; be securely detained; receive harsher dispositions; and be transferred into the adult criminal justice system (see Bishop, 2005, for a review of the literature). Rates of out-of-home placement in secure facilities for

Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice

youth of color adjudicated for drug offenses are a case in point. An analysis of 2003 data found that 73% of adjudicated drug offense cases involved a White youth, while White youth were 58% of drug offense cases resulting in out-of-home placement and 75% of cases resulting in formal probation. In contrast, 25% of drug offense cases involved an African American youth, while African American youth were 40% of adjudicated drug offense cases resulting in out-of-home placement and 22% of drug offense cases receiving formal probation (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007). Steen, Bond, Bridges, and Kubrin’s (2005) qualitative studies of court officials’ perceptions of similarly situated White and Black youth suggest that officials’ race-based biases are a factor contributing to disparities. Based on an examination of court records, they found that court officials had different perceptions and explanations for the motivations of Black and White youth in court. They were more likely to explain the delinquent behavior of Black youth by internal factors, such as having a lack of meaningful life goals or needing to be held accountable, while similar behavior of White youth was explained in relation to external factors such as having a difficult family life. Thus, the Black youth himself was perceived more negatively than the White youth (Bridges & Steen, 1998; Steen et al., 2005). Bishop (2005) notes that while race and ethnic disparities exist in the adult criminal justice system, they are more pronounced in the juvenile justice system where social factors, along with traditional criminal justice factors such as offense and offense history, are part of the decision-making process at every stage except adjudication. In this chapter we show that since before its official start in 1899, the juvenile justice system’s social

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welfare mission has been a pillar of structural racism. The history of disparities in the juvenile justice system illustrates a progression of policies and practices that has resulted in embedded racial and ethnic inequities. Indeed, the trend in the United States has been to criminalize the very nature of adolescence, in the name of social welfare, with youth of color bearing the brunt of what is actually social control (see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume; Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume).

A HISTORICAL LEGACY OF DISPARITIES Disparate treatment of young people of color has deep historical roots in our nation, and contemporary disparities are a clear extension of those early roots. From the earliest days, structural de jure race-based policies and practices significantly influenced the treatment of children (Bell & Ridolfi, 2008). Simply put, many key policies and practices, and the assumptions about youth that undergird them, are racialized; understanding that historical legacy is critical to improving the current system. The Early 1800s to Early 1900s In the early 1800s, the number of people living in cities doubled as the U.S. economy transitioned from subsistence farming to wage labor. The poverty faced by many Americans during this time proved an inescapable reality for untold thousands of youth living in America’s rapidly expanding cities. Children who previously were responsible only for household chores on farms were now expected to help their parents survive, leading them to struggle

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in factories or leave home entirely and make their own way (Grossberg, 2002). Increased mobility, disease, and weakening familial networks contributed to delinquency, as youngsters turned to petty crime as a means of financial support (Feld, 1999). Local governments reacted with harsh penalties and began establishing structures to manage the arrest, detention, and “treatment” of wayward youth, forming the early elements of the modern juvenile justice system (Krisberg, 1993). Concerned citizens began a campaign aimed at fighting the rising numbers of homeless and wayward youth across the nation. Their efforts were formalized as early as 1817, with the founding of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism (Krisberg, 2005). However, creating a community organization to prevent pauperism was not intended to “lift all boats.” Indeed, scholars have observed that “the motivation of the reformers of the 19th century, whatever they overtly stated or implied, was one of social control of deviant elements of the increasingly heterogeneous society” (Frey, 1981, p. 10). This effort was led by men of high social status whose primary motivations were to prevent social disorder, protect their class status, and maintain what they believed to be the “moral health of the community” (Krisberg, 1993). This attitude led to New York City’s enactment of legislation regarding “children who beg.” This new legislation empowered officials to apprehend any child under 15 years of age who was found “soliciting charity” (Laws of New York, Ch. CCCXXXI, 1824). Almost immediately after passage of this legislation, the first juvenile institution in the country was opened in New York City. The New York House of Refuge opened its door with six White boys and three White girls. Soon, other cities would follow, including Boston and Philadelphia. Immediately

after the establishment of Houses of Refuge, a pattern of racial exclusion emerged when a separate “colored section” of the New York House of Refuge was created. Exclusion of Black children from such services was justified under the rationale that expenditures on Black children wasted resources and “it would be degrading to the White children to associate them with beings given up to public scorn” (Mennel, 1973, p. 17). When a Mississippi legislator proposed opening a reform school for Black children, the bill lost on the grounds that “it was no use trying to reform a Negro” (Oshinsky, 1996, p. 47). The prevailing sentiment was that “white taxpayers refused to ‘waste’ money on the needs of ‘incorrigible’ young blacks” (Oshinsky, 1996, p. 47). When Houses of Refuge begrudgingly began to admit children of color, services proved meager and insufficient. As a result, African American children were disproportionately confined in adult jails and prisons. Indeed, in just a short time, 60% of the children (under 16) being held at the Maryland penitentiary in Baltimore were African American. Similarly, approximately 50% of children in the Providence jail were African American, and all children under 16 in the Washington, DC, penitentiary were African American (Curry, 1981). A similar pattern emerged within institutions designed to serve Mexican American youth. While officials recognized that most Spanish-speaking youth had not attended school beyond the primary grades, they were reluctant to provide these youth with the educational skills necessary to improve their life chances. Mexican American youth were relegated to segregated Mexican schools, “designed to keep backward, over-age, and undereducated Spanish-speaking youth among their own kind” (Chavez-Garcia, 2006). While the attitudes expressed above reflected bias and bigotry, they did not have the

Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry in Juvenile Justice

force of law. However, soon thereafter, the Ex parte Crouse decision in 1838 gave legal sanction to institutionalizing young people as an instrument of social control. Mary Ann Crouse’s mother placed her in the Philadelphia House of Refuge claiming that Mary’s confinement was warranted because her “vicious conduct rendered her beyond [her mother’s] power” (Ex parte Crouse, 1839). Mary’s father sued, seeking his daughter’s release on the basis that detention of a minor without a trial by jury violated the Constitution. The court denied her release, holding that “The House of Refuge is not a prison, but a school. Where reformation, and not punishment, is the end, it may indeed be used as a prison for juvenile convicts who would else be committed to a common goal” (Ex parte Crouse, 1839). The holding emphasized the legal doctrine of parens patriae, Latin for “parent of the country.” The court posed the rhetorical question, “May not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it, be superseded by parens patriae, or common guardian of the community?” (Ex parte Crouse, 1839). Underscoring state supremacy over and above the rights of parents, the court held that when the parents are “unsuitable,” their natural parental rights are revocable (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Then, as now, Ex parte Crouse would have a devastating effect on all children, and particularly children of color. For example, in Native American communities traditional justice sought to instill a sense of harmony and reconciliation to the misbehaved child and to the victim using a restorative approach (Poupart, Redhorse, Peterson-Hickey & Martin, 2005). Typically, family meetings were held with the perpetrators and victims in order to balance victim compensation, perpetrator punishment, and community stability.

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As a result, restorative justice reconciled victims’ rights and community safety, and promoted personal relationships. Using Ex parte Crouse as authority, officials derided and dismissed restorative justice traditions and replaced them by subjecting Native youth to long hours of labor and prison as a consequence for wrongdoing (Poupart et al., 2005). The doctrine of parens patriae continues to be a justification for misuse of the juvenile justice system purportedly to meet the needs of youth (Bell, Lacey, Ridolfi, & Finley, 2009; Nellis & Richardson, 2010). The Juvenile Court Era The rehabilitation versus punishment debate as framed by Crouse continued into the 1900s with the formation of the juvenile court. The foundation for the development of the country’s first juvenile court was laid by the creation of Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, by Jane Addams in the late 19th century. Hull House was established as a humane response to the existing houses of refuge, and represents a defining moment for rehabilitation as the guiding principle of the juvenile system. On April 14, 1899, the Illinois legislature enacted “An Act for the Treatment and Control of Dependent, Neglected and Delinquent Children,” and the first juvenile court opened on July 3, 1899, without a courthouse, detention center, or public funds for salaries (Tanenhaus, 2002). Under the Juvenile Court Act, a court separate from the adult system would hear the cases of delinquents under the age of 16. This court would stress “the child’s need and not the deed,” and the goal would be to rehabilitate rather than punish the child (Spring, 1998). However, then as now, there has never been a clear definition of what is considered “rehabilitation” or what is considered “punishment.” Consistently, juvenile

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justice professionals have been given authority and discretion to make decisions about children, youth, and families measured by illdefined principles. From the very beginning of the juvenile court era, juvenile justice practitioners continued to confine Black children in adult prisons, and excluded them from the protections extended to White juveniles in the juvenile court. By 1910, the proportional representation of Black male juveniles doubled (27.5%) while the representation of Black girls nearly tripled (39%) (Ward, 2001). Latinos did not fare well in the juvenile court era either. In fact, Los Angeles newspapers negatively portrayed Mexican American youth, and police were quick to target them as gang members, placing them in institutions in large numbers (Sherman, 1943). In looking back on the first portion of the 20th century, the old adage “be careful what you wish for” aptly summarizes the progression of the juvenile court system. While created to protect children from the adult criminal system, its perception as a milder intervention meant that more children entered its sphere. As the juvenile justice system progressed from mere idea to full-fledged bureaucracy, over time the distinction between rehabilitation and punishment blurred. The seminal Supreme Court decision of In re Gault (1967) addressed abuses in the juvenile justice system and began a critical examination of the juvenile court. In Gault, the Supreme Court found a significant gap between the rehabilitative rhetoric of the juvenile court and its practical reality. Although not willing to discard the juvenile court experiment, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution required significantly enhanced procedural protections for juveniles, including a right to counsel, protection against self-incrimination, and the right to cross-examine witnesses (see

Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Feld (2005) describes the court prior to Gault as a “nominally rehabilitative social welfare agency” (p. 123), which the Supreme Court’s procedural decisions began to transform into a more formal structure. In 1974 Congress passed the JJDPA, which prohibited detention of youth with adults, prohibited detaining status offenders in secure facilities with delinquent youth, and established alternatives to detention. The JJDPA and OJJDP supported research and stimulated state reform consistent with the rehabilitative vision of the juvenile justice system. Gault began a period of rehabilitation and expanded procedural safeguards for young people. During this period, the system served mostly White youth, whose numbers greatly increased with the inclusion of status offenses in data collection (i.e., truancy, curfew violators, and runaways). With the growth of White youth in the system, youth of color represented a smaller proportion of the overall juvenile justice population (U.S. Department of Justice, 1987). This focus on rehabilitation prompted by Gault and the JJDPA would be short lived. The move away from the child-oriented rehabilitative approach in juvenile justice began in the early 1980s, when the public feared an epidemic of ruthless youth criminal activity. During a time when overall crime rates were dropping, violent youth crime spiked for a short period, inspiring a few influential academics like James Q. Wilson and John Dilulio to incorrectly predict that we would soon be facing a population surge of “superpredators,” youth of color with no moral conscience who believe committing a crime is a rite of passage and who would not fear the stigma of arrest or the pain of imprisonment (Deitch, Barstow, Lukens, & Reyna, 2009). Policy makers and the media picked up this notion.

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These dire and inaccurate predictions were strikingly racialized, with James Allan Fox noting that the population growth among White youth would be modest, while the population growth among Black youth would be much more significant (Soler, Schoenberg, & Schindler, 2009). Although juvenile crime declined beginning in 1995 (Nelson, 2008), these false predictions and the attendant media frenzy resulted in the enactment of “get tough” policies in states throughout the country. It is no coincidence that this attempt to respond to “public safety” has resulted in a greater impact on youth of color. While these policies and practices, embedded in federal, state, and local laws, appear to be race neutral, they are discriminatory in effect, driving youth of color into the juvenile justice system.

THE MYTH OF RACE NEUTRALITY IN POLICY AND PRACTICE A few policies notable for their impact on youth of color are drug-free zone laws, antigang laws, zero tolerance in schools, and transfer of youth to adult court. All of these policies are the result of legislation during the late 1980s and through the 1990s that either created the policies (zero tolerance) or modified existing policies (transfer to adult court) to increase their discriminatory effect while appearing race neutral. These policies are formalized in state law and have become accepted practice, with sweeping ramifications for the juvenile justice process and its youth. Drug-Free Zones In the 1980s, states began increasing penalties for drug offenses committed in prohibited zones surrounding schools and other public

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and quasipublic locations (Gaudio, 2010). Legislatures imposed these enhanced penalties for activities in areas ranging from 300 feet to 3 miles surrounding schools or other public locations (e.g., public housing), regardless of whether schoolchildren were involved in, or the target of, the drug offense. The enforcement of drug-free zones in densely populated urban areas, which are disproportionately populated by youth of color and where much of the residential area is within a school or public housing zone, resulted in a large increase in youth of color in the juvenile justice system (Greene, Pranis, & Ziedenberg, 2006). Thus, drug-free zone legislation had the effect of both increasing the perception of being “tough on crime” and increasing racial and ethnic disparities within the juvenile justice system. In fact, racial and ethnic disparities in drug arrests are well established beyond those associated with drug-free zones and have been attributed to a number of enforcement strategies, such as an enforcement focus on lowlevel drug dealers within minority communities and the relative visibility of drug activity in urban neighborhoods of color (Bishop, 2005). This differential enforcement has been attributed to the media-fueled perception that drug crime is focused in urban African American communities. A related illustration of how legal reforms in drug enforcement and transfer have a discriminatory impact occurred in Chicago in the 1990s when the Illinois legislature amended its transfer law, making adult prosecution of 15- to 16-year-olds charged with drug crimes within 1,000 feet of public housing mandatory. Like the research on the impact of drug-free school zones, a study of the resulting transfers over one year found that all of the transferred youth were African American (Bishop, 2005; Clarke, 1996). A 2006 Justice Policy Institute (JPI) report found that across three states that had

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implemented drug-free zone laws, urban communities of color were disproportionately affected by prohibited zones, and enforcement of the laws had little or nothing to do with protecting children. A case in point is Massachusetts’s drug-free zone statute. Research on the implementation of Massachusetts’s statute, enacted in 1989, found the following: &

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Seven out of 10 drug-free zone incidents occurred when school was not in session. Less than 1% involved sales to youth. Eighty percent of defendants who received mandatory, enhanced sentences under the statute were Black or Latino, even though 45% of those arrested were White. While roughly 80% of all arrests took place within a school zone, only 15% of Whites were charged with an eligible offense compared to 52% of non-White defendants. In a state where Whites comprise 80% of the resident population, Blacks and Latinos comprise nearly 80% of those convicted of drug-free zone violations (Greene, Pranis, & Ziedenberg, 2006).

Moreover, JPI’s analysis suggested sharp disparities affecting both youth and adults of color in the way drug-free zone laws were enforced (Greene et al., 2006). The seemingly race-neutral intent of the laws, that is, protecting children from drug-related activities, disproportionately affected youth of color. Gangs Another contributor to the current overrepresentation of youth of color in confinement was the proliferation in the 1990s of anti-“gang”

legislation. Although gangs pose a public safety issue for those communities that experience them, antigang laws cast a wide net and often criminalize the very nature of youth behavior. Young people “hang out” or socialize in groups with peers who might be friends, family, or extended family. Stereotypes about which youth are associated with gangs can affect police decisions about who to stop and who to arrest (Villarruel & Walker, 2002). For example, familia and extended families are very important in the Latino culture, where it is not uncommon for a young person who is not a member of a gang, or affiliated with a gang, to have a cousin or friend who may be a gang member. A study of Latino youth in California found that 84% of youth reported having family, friends, or acquaintances in gangs, even though only 10% of youth personally reported being in a gang or “crew” themselves (Arya et al., 2009). In many jurisdictions the mere act of two youth being out and about together can easily result in their being stopped, photographed, and identified as “gang associates” by the police. In many states the information gathered from law enforcement’s gang profiling is entered into “gang databases.” The criteria for being placed on these lists are often vague, including criteria like “hangs around with gang members” (Villarruel & Walker, 2002). Moreover, living in the same barrio as a suspected gang member can lead to being labeled as an “associate.” Youth and families of color are often segregated in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty that are characterized by high unemployment, poor schools, and deliberate disinvestment. This disadvantage is compounded when they are more likely to have their behavior criminalized because of their race, ethnicity, and place of residence. For these reasons and a complex of others, youth of color are particularly at risk of being

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classified as gang members. Results from the 2001–2004 National Youth Gang Center’s annual survey showed that law enforcement agencies reported gang members being 35.7% African American, 48.2% Latino, and 9.5% White. By contrast, results of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, found that 42% of White youth, 27% of African American youth, and 24% of Latino youth reported being gang involved (Greene & Pranis, 2007). The contrast between law enforcement data showing the greatest gang involvement among youth of color and the youth self-report data showing the greatest gang involvement among White youth, highlights the problem with relying exclusively on law enforcement data and may speak to how bias, stereotyping, and intolerance of adolescent behaviors leads to the categorization of youth of color as gang members. Zero-Tolerance School Policies Like enforcement of drug-zones and gang laws, youth of color comprise a disproportionate share of public school students referred to the juvenile justice system under zero-tolerance policies [American Psychological Association (APA), 2008; see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume]. Zero tolerance describes harsh, predefined mandatory consequences, such as suspension or expulsion, imposed by schools for a violation of school rules, without regard to the seriousness of the behavior, mitigating circumstances, and without consideration of context. Zero-tolerance rhetoric became widespread in the 1990s. It was initially a response to drug enforcement and then became more widespread in reaction to media reports about gangs and school shootings, even though school crime rates were stable or declining by the time these

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policies were implemented (APA, 2008; Peterson & Schoonover, 2008). One initial appeal of zero tolerance was the perception that because these laws were objective and therefore apparently race neutral, they might be fairer to youth of color and other students, who had been overrepresented in school disciplinary proceedings. However, a decade of research reflects the opposite result. African American students have been consistently overrepresented among students who are suspended and expelled, a finding that cannot be entirely explained by economic disadvantage. Nor are there data supporting the assumption that African American students exhibit higher rates of disruption or violence that would warrant higher rates of discipline. Rather, African American students may be disciplined more severely for less serious or more subjective reasons such as lack of teacher preparation in classroom management, or lack of teacher cultural competence, or racial stereotyping (APA, 2008; see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). The lack of a single definition of zero tolerance illustrates the ad hoc nature of these policies, which are codified as federal law but have the ability to change at the state or school district level. For instance, the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (Gun Free Schools Act, 20 U.S.C. §7151, GFSA) required schools to expel any student who brings a firearm to school for a calendar year. Subsequent changes in many state laws and local school district regulations broadened the GFSA focus on firearms to many other kinds of “weapons,” such as a fourth grader who brought a twoinch Lego “weapon,” along with his Lego policeman to school. The principal considered the toy worthy of suspending the student, although the local Department of Education advised that the toy need only be confiscated

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and returned to the child’s parents at the end of the day (Padnani, 2010). Schools’ reliance on zero tolerance has resulted in an increased connection between schools and the juvenile justice system, including increased police presence in schools and increased referrals to the juvenile justice system for infractions that were once handled in school (Skiba et al., 2006; Wald & Losen, 2003; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). The result is what has been called the school-to-jail pipeline, which has a disproportionate impact on youth of color (Wald & Losen, 2003; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). U.S. Department of Education data indicate that Black students are suspended at higher rates than White students. In 2006, approximately 15% of Black students were suspended as compared with 5% of White students, and approximately 0.5% of Black students were expelled compared with 0.1% of White students (Planty et al., 2009). Juvenile justice practitioners and reformers throughout the country offer plentiful case data of youth of color referred to the juvenile justice system for school-based misbehaviors that have historically been handled by school personnel. Stories in the media abound about the abuses of zero-tolerance policies. Like many of the reforms beginning in the 1990s, zero tolerance is an expedient, seemingly race-neutral way for schools to wash their hands of any trouble, real or perceived, large or small. Youth of color face disparities in referral to the juvenile justice system through policies like zero tolerance, while at the same time this “get tough” attitude is mirrored in the courts through the expansion of legislative and prosecutorial transfer laws once youth enter the juvenile justice the system.

Transfer to Adult Court The last two decades have seen a continued criminalization of delinquency, including expanding the ways youthful offenders are tried and punished as adults in the criminal justice system. Over this time, there has been an expansion of legislative and prosecutorial transfer, approaches that take the decision about whether to try and treat a youth in the juvenile justice system out of the hands of the courts where individual and contextual circumstances can be considered. We have also seen reductions in the age at which youth can be tried as adults in many states (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Against this backdrop, national and jurisdictionspecific data demonstrate that youth of color are transferred to adult courts far in excess of their proportion of the overall cases processed by juvenile systems (Burgess-Proctor, Holtrop, & Villarruel, 2007). In 2002, three out of four of the 4,100 new admissions of children under 18 years of age to adult prison were youth of color (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007). In 2005, of those youth transferred to adult court through judicial waiver, 39% were Black youth, who comprise 58% of juveniles admitted to adult prisons and 28% of youth arrests. Disparities among Black youth become greater further into the criminal justice system, and even at arrest, they far exceed the 16% that they comprise in the youth population nationwide (Arya, Augarten, & Shelton, 2008). Latinos are over 40% more likely than White youth to be waived to the adult criminal justice system and nearly twice as likely to be waived to the adult system for an offense against a person. A significant percentage of Latino youth are at risk of being tried as adults or are being held in an adult jail by virtue of where they live. Thirty-seven percent of

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Latino youth ages 10–17 live in one of the 13 states where the maximum age of juvenile jurisdiction is 16 or 17, in contrast to the majority of the country where juvenile jurisdiction ends at 18. In these 13 states, regardless of how minor the crime, the young person will automatically be prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system (Arya et al., 2009; see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). State data are even more striking. According to a 2007 report, in California, Black youth are 4.7 times and Latino youth are 3.4 times as likely to be transferred into the adult system as White youth. In Connecticut, youth of color are less than 30% of the population but 80% of young men in adult corrections; in Wisconsin, youth of color are approximately 15% of the state population but are 7 out of 10 youth in adult jails and prisons (Campaign for Youth Justice, 2007). These statistics reflect policies and practices that hearken back to the 19th century when Black youth were placed in the adult criminal justice system as intentional segregation from their White peers in the juvenile justice system. Today, the overrepresentation of youth of color in youth justice systems is the result of deliberate policy decisions often supported by weak science and anecdote. These inequities result from structural components in our schools, communities, and justice systems, and reflect conscious decisions about who will “suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm.” The Role of Local Practice The history of change in the juvenile justice system suggests that racial and ethnic inequities are by design and not accident. The inequities are the result of a legacy of structural elements, rather than individual bias and racism. While shifts in policies and practices may appear in

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the guise of race neutrality, the shifts and their target—youth of color—were intentional. Indeed, Michelle Alexander, in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), explores the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating a racial hierarchy in the United States. Structural elements, similar to those that influence national policy, also influence local policies and practices in the juvenile justice system. Within each local juvenile justice continuum, there is a wide range of daily discretionary decisions that are formalized and highly influential to the future of youth. They include, for example, local decisions about when to detain youth for placement failures, warrants, or violations of probation (W. Haywood Burns Institute, 2009). In making these local decisions, systems often fail to consider the racial, cultural, or geographic contexts for youth of color and their families, and that failure can lead to local practices that drive youth of color into detention systems disproportionately, unfairly, and contrary to the stated goals of local systems. A typical example of local practice having a discriminatory effect is as follows: A youth is released at intake on the condition that she or he report to a youth-serving program on a daily basis. The young person has no transportation to the program and would have to walk through a couple of neighborhoods to get to there. One neighborhood in particular is a little rough, with a reputation for confronting anyone who is an “outsider.” Because the youth fears for her or his safety, the young person decides not to report to the program. Program staff immediately report the youth as AWOL, and the youth is subsequently picked up by his or her probation officer and held in secure detention for placement failure. In this case, failing to consider the geographic reality of a seemingly race-neutral policy

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results in a differential impact on poor youth of color, propelling them deeper into the system. Unabated and ill-conceived policies and practices continue to be implemented both nationally and locally in response to adolescent misbehavior. This familiar pattern of criminalizing kids for typical adolescent behavior affects youth of color disproportionately, perpetuating the myth of race neutrality in policy and practice. Taking responsibility for racial equity means being willing to acknowledge that our nation’s enduring patterns of racial disparity are inconsistent with our ideals and thus unacceptable. It also means demonstrating the will to challenge norms or values that may seem to be “normal” or “race neutral” in our culture and political economy (Lawrence, Sutton, Kubish, Susi, & FulbrightAnderson, 2004).

THE URGE TO PROVIDE AND PROTECT: LOW-RISK, HIGH-NEED YOUTH The juvenile justice system has become the default system—the warehouse—for low-risk, high-need youth whose needs should have been served, or should currently be served, by other public systems (see also Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). This structural failure drives many youth of color into the juvenile justice system (see Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). We know that up to 70% of youth in the juvenile justice system have a mental health disorder, while more than 20% have a serious mental illness (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume; Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Rates of posttraumatic stress are high among detained youth (Rich et al., 2009), and many youth in the juvenile justice system have

substance abuse issues, often in combination with mental health issues (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). School failure and its consequences in terms of suspension, expulsion, and dropping out represent another pervasive need among youth in the justice system (see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). When these needs go unmet in the community, there is evidence that youth of color are referred to the justice system (Bell et al., 2009). A 2007 study by the American Psychological Association (Pottick, Kirk, Hsieh, & Tian, 2007) found that youth of color were often given diagnoses that led to confinement. The report found a disparity in clinicians’ judgments of mental disorders between minority and nonminority youth. Controlling for context and clinicians’ characteristics, clinicians were less likely to identify a mental health disorder in Black or Latino youth than in White youth. One possible explanation was that when clinicians were faced with antisocial behavior, they were diagnosing White youth with mental disorders and directing them to treatment, while diagnosing minority youth with behavioral issues and directing them to the juvenile justice system. Improving the capacity of the juvenile justice system to deliver mental health services is not a legitimate solution because the juvenile justice system is not an appropriate venue for delivering mental health services to youth (Grisso, 2008). Similarly, the juvenile justice system alone is not equipped to respond to the needs of low-risk youth with substance abuse issues. In 2006, nearly 10% of youth 12–17 reported being actively engaged in drug use. Research shows that there is a direct connection between drug and alcohol abuse among youth and trouble with the law for youth who are disproportionately from low-income

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communities and communities of color. In 2008, more than 23.1 million people ages 12 or older needed treatment for a drug or alcohol problem. Of these, only 2.3 million (0.9% of persons aged 12 or older and 9.9% of those who needed treatment) received treatment at a specialty facility (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2009). Many of these are youth who ended up in detention. Similarly, differential treatment has been observed in physical health care. Trauma, or as John Rich describes it—adversity—is one health issue that impacts justice system involvement (Rich et al., 2009; see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Dr. Nadine Burke posits that the clinical effects of childhood trauma need to be given more attention as a serious medical epidemic and significant contributor to overincarceration of youth of color (N. Burke, personal communication). The preceding discussion documents the presence, extent, and some of the reasons for racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile justice systems. Overcoming these dynamics necessarily involves confronting the structural nature of race, ethnicity, and institutional inertia. We know from innovative work around the country in a variety of jurisdictions that progress can be made—that systems can be operated fairly and equitably while maintaining public safety (Nellis & Richardson, 2010). A Positive Future In spite of the structurally biased nature of the juvenile justice system, both systemic and programmatic reforms that promote equity are being implemented throughout the country. Sites throughout the country have established that these reforms have effectively reversed the traditional practice of reliance

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on detention, demonstrated that detention and equity reforms are effective public safety strategies, and provided empirical evidence that the existence of racial and ethnic disparities is not an intractable fact of life (Bell et al., 2009; Mendel, 2009; Nellis & Richardson, 2010). Fundamental to successful system reform are collaborative and data-driven strategies to change the way adults in the juvenile justice system operate—that is, collaboratively utilizing data to conduct critical self-examination of policies and practices and how they impact youth of color. Developing objective decision making along the juvenile justice continuum is an essential component of reform, as is the need for intentional and determined leadership to level the playing field for youth of color. Similarly, successful programs demonstrate racially and culturally responsive components that promote opportunities for positive youth development and that strengthen families and communities. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative For almost two decades, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) has worked with jurisdictions throughout the nation to safely reduce reliance on secure detention. As of 2009, approximately 110 local jurisdictions in 27 states and the District of Columbia were implementing JDAI’s core strategies to establish more effective, efficient, safe, and equitable systems (see Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). A recent evaluation of JDAI documents its progress making fundamental changes to juvenile justice systems through alternative policies, practices, and programs (Mendel, 2009; Nellis & Richardson, 2010).

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JDAI’s theory of change is based on eight core strategies, including: collaboration, collection and utilization of data, objective admission screening, alternatives to secure detention, case processing reforms, flexible policies and practices to address “special detention cases” (e.g., violations of probation, writs/warrants, and awaiting placement), ensuring safe and appropriate conditions of confinement, and strategies and innovations to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. Working on implementing the eight core strategies through a racial and ethnic lens to identify and analyze points of disparities, JDAI sites were among the first in the country to demonstrate reductions of racial and ethnic disparities (Hoytt, Schiraldi, Smith, & Ziedenberg, 2002). This was accomplished through the implementation of systemic and programmatic changes targeted at reducing the reliance on secure detention for youth of color. JDAI jurisdictions making significant gains demonstrate that no specific strategy is more important than the tangible commitment, political will, and leadership of system personnel to achieving racial and ethnic equity. Results include significant and measurable outcomes in the safe reduction of detention admissions, average daily population (ADP), and average length of stay (ALOS), as well as increased use of alternatives to detention for youth of color (JDAI Results Reports, 2009; JDAI site quarterly reports, unpublished data). W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity (BI) Another organization that has achieved positive, measurable results reducing disparities is the W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity (BI). BI’s methodology brings officials from law enforcement, legal systems, and child welfare together with community leaders, parents, and children, and

takes them through a data-driven, consensusbased approach to change policies, procedures, and practices in the juvenile justice system that result in the disproportionate detention of youth of color and poor children. BI’s work in more than 40 jurisdictions throughout the United States provides empirical evidence that solving disparities and disproportionality is possible. BI has achieved measurable reductions in disparities by fashioning institutional responses to policies and practices impacting youth of color such as zero tolerance, “failures to appear,” warrants, and inordinate lengths of stay in detention (Hernandez, 2006). Models for Change DMC Action Network The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative is another national initiative working on racial and ethnic disparities. Through improved data and intentional and targeted interventions, Models for Change states are working to promote fair and unbiased juvenile justice systems that treat youth, sharing knowledge and accelerating progress in the reduction of racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. The Models for Change DMC Action Network was launched in 2007 to bring together teams from select local jurisdictions, expose them to the latest thinking among national experts, and give them an opportunity to learn from one another about effective ways to reduce the disproportionate contact of minority and ethnic youth with the juvenile justice system. Each site is implementing at least two “strategic innovations” that are likely to have an impact on reducing the disproportionate contact of minority youth locally. Sites will track their implementation experiences, and results will be shared with their colleagues

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and the field. Strategic innovations include: (1) improvements in the tracking and reporting of data, (2) enhanced cultural competency and community responsiveness of staff, (3) diverting preadjudicated youth, and (4) expanding postdisposition culturally relevant alternatives to incarceration.

CONCLUSION Over two centuries ago, German philosopher Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller introduced his immutable law of events, stating “into today already walks tomorrow.” As professionals, scholars, practitioners, and community members vested in the future of the next generation, we cannot allow the overincarceration of youth of color to go unchecked. Our mandate must be to create fair, equitable, and humane approaches for children in trouble with the law, which have positive, serviceoriented interventions and consequences, and maintain public safety. Civil rights leader Cesar Chavez once said that “the love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature.” Justice demands that we be ever vigilant about who suffers and who is shielded from harm. All young people deserve to be treated equally and fairly by the systems that mean to serve and protect them. It is everyone’s job to work tirelessly to achieve this goal.

REFERENCES Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: New Press, 2010. American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies

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effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. American Psychologist, 63(9), 852–862. Arya, N., Augarten, I., & Shelton, H. (2008). Critical condition: African-American youth in the justice system. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Accessed online at www.campaign4youthjustice .org/documents/CFYJPB_CriticalCondition.pdf Arya, N., Villarruel, F., Villanueva, C., Augarten, I., Murgia, J., & Sanchez, J. (2009). America’s invisible children, Latino youth and the failure of justice. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Accessed online at www.campaign4youthjustice.org /documents/CFYJPB_InvisibleChildren.000.pdf Bell, J., Lacey, C., Ridolfi, L., & Finley, M. (2009). The keeper and the kept, reflections on local obstacles to disparities reduction in juvenile justice systems and a path to change. San Francisco, CA: W. Haywood Burns Institute. Bell, J., & Ridolfi, L. (2008). Adoration of the question, reflections on the failure to reduce racial & ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. San Francisco, CA: W. Haywood Burns Institute. Bishop, D. M. (2005). The role of race and ethnicity in juvenile justice processing. In D. F. Hawkins & K. Kempf-Leonard (Eds.), Our children, their children (pp. 23–82). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bridges, G. S. & Steen, S. (1998). Racial disparities in official assessments of juvenile offenders: Attributional stereotypes as mediating mechanisms. American Society Review, 63, 554–570. Burgess-Proctor, A., Holtrop, K., & Villarruel, F. (2007). Youth transferred to adult court: Racial disparities. Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice. Available at www.campaign4youthjustice.org/ Downloads/KeyResearch/MoreKeyResearch/ AdultificationPolicyBriefVol2.pdf Campaign for Youth Justice. (2007, March). The consequences aren’t minor: The impact of trying youth as adults and strategies for reform. Available at www .campaign4youthjustice.org/documents/CFYJNR_ ConsequencesMinor.pdf Chavez-Garcia, M. (2006). Youth, evidence, and agency: Mexican and Mexican American youth at the Whittier State School, 1890–1920. Journal of Chicano Studies, 31(2), 55–83. Clarke, E. E. (1996). A case for reinventing juvenile transfer. Juvenile and Family Court Journal 47, 3–22.

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Curry, L. P. (1981). The free Black in urban America, 1800– 1850: The shadow of the dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Deitch, M., Barstow, A., Lukens, L., & Reyna, R. (2009). From time out to hard time: Young children in the adult criminal justice system. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs. Available at www.utexas.edu/lbj/news/images/ file/From%20Time%20Out%20to%20Hard%20 Time-revised%20final.pdf Ex parte Crouse, 4 Whart 9 (1839). Feld, B. (2005). Race and the jurisprudence of juvenile justice: A tale in two parts, 1950–2000. In D. F. Hawkins & K. Kempf-Leonard (Eds.), Our children, their children (pp. 12–163). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Feld, B. C. (1999). Bad kids: Race and the transformation of the juvenile court. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Frey, C. (1981). The House of Refuge for Colored Children. Journal of Negro History, 66(1), 10. Gaudio, C. M. (2010). A call to congress to give back the future: End the “war on drugs” and encourage states to reconstruct the juvenile justice system. Family Court Review, 48(1), 212–227. Greene, J., & Pranis, K. (2007). Gang wars: The failure of enforcement tactics and the need for effective public safety strategies. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute. Available at www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload /07-07_REP_GangWars_GC-PS-AC-JJ.pdf Greene, J., Pranis, K., & Ziedenberg, J. (2006). Disparity by design: How drug-free zone laws impact racial disparity—and fail to protect youth. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute. Available at www.justice policy.org/images/upload/06-03_REP_Disparityby Design_DP-JJ-RD.pdf Grisso, T. (2008). Adolescent offenders with mental disorders. The Future of Children, 18(2), 143–165. Available at http://futureofchildren.org/futureof children/publications/docs/18_02_07.pdf Grossberg, M. (2002). Changing conceptions of child welfare in the United States, 1820–1935. In M. K. Rosenheim, F. E. Zimring, D. S. Tanenhaus, & B. Dohrn (Eds.), A century of juvenile justice. (pp. 3–41). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 (20 U.S.C. §7151) (2002). Hernandez, G. (2006). Implementing the Burns Institute Model to reduce DMC: Pima County. Unpublished report, W. Haywood Institute, San Francisco, CA.

Hoytt, E., Schiraldi, V., Smith, B., & Ziedenberg, J. (2002). Pathways to juvenile detention reform: Reducing racial disparities in juvenile detention. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967). Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative JDAI Results Reports. (2009). Unpublished data. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. JDAI site quarterly reports. Unpublished data. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5611 et seq.) (2002). Krisberg, B. (1993). Reinventing juvenile justice. London, England: Sage. Krisberg, B. (2005). Juvenile justice: Redeeming our children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lawrence, K., Sutton, S., Kubisch, A., Susi, G., & Fulbright-Anderson, K. (2004). Structural racism and community building. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. Available at www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content /docs/roundtable%20on%20community%20change /aspen_structural_racism2.pdf Laws of New York, Ch. CCCXXXI, 1824, 1824 Law Establishing County Poorhouses in New York. Available at www.poorhousestory.com/1824_law .htm Leiber, M. (2002). Disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) of youth: An analysis of state and federal efforts to address the issue. Crime & Delinquency, 48(1), 3–45. Mendel, R. (2009). Two decades of JDAI: A progress report, from demonstration project to national standard. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Mennel, R. M. (1973). Thorns and thistles: Juvenile delinquents in the United States, 1825-1940. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, p.17. As cited in Ward, G. K. (2001). Color lines of social control: juvenile justice administration in a racialized social system, 1825–2000. Dissertation Abstracts International, 2002 62(10), 3582-A. (UMI No. DA3029453). Moriearty, P. L. (2008). Combating the color-coded confinement of kids: An equal protection remedy. New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 32, 285–343. National Council on Crime and Delinquency. (2007). And justice for some: Differential treatment of youth of color in the justice system. Accessed online at www.nccdcrc.org/nccd/pubs/2007jan_justice _for_some.pdf

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Nellis, A., & Richardson, B. (2010). Getting beyond failure: Promising approaches for reducing DMC. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 000(00), 1-11. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177 /1541204009361180 Nelson, D. W. (2008, June). A road map for juvenile justice reform. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Available at http://datacenter.kidscount.org/ db_08pdf/2008_essay.pdf Oshinsky, D. M. (1996). Worse than slavery: Parchman Farm and the ordeal of Jim Crow justice. New York, NY: Free Press. Padnani, A. (2010, February 3). Big brouhaha over New Dorp boy’s tiny toy gun. Staten Island Real-Time News. Retrieved from www.silive.com/news/index.ssf /2010/02/big_brouhaha_over_tiny_toy_gun.html Peterson, R. L., & Schoonover, B. (2008). Fact sheet #3: Zero tolerance policies in schools, Muncie, IN: Consortium to Prevent School Violence. Retrieved from www.preventschoolviolence.org/resources _assets/CPSV-Fact-Sheet-3-Zero-Tolerance.pdf Pew Hispanic Center. (2007). Tabulations of 2000 Census (5% IPUMS) and 2007 American Community Survey (1% IPUMS). Available at http://pew hispanic.org/files/factsheets/hispanics2007 Piquero, A. R. (2008). Disproportionate minority contact. Future of Children, 18(2), 59–79. Planty, M., Hussar, W., Snyder, T., Kena, G., Kewal Ramani, A., . . . Dinkes, R. (2009). The condition of education (2009) (NCES 2009-081). Washington, DC: National Center for Educational Statistics, Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Pope, C., & Leiber, M. J. (2005). Disproportionate minority confinement/contact (DMC): The federal initiative. In D. F. Hawkins & K. KempfLeonard (Eds.), Our children, their children (pp. 351–389). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pottick, K. J., Kirk, S. A., Hsieh, D. K, & Tian, X. (2007). Judging mental disorder: Effects of client, clinician, and contextual differences. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75, 1–8. Poupart, J., Redhorse, J., Peterson-Hickey, M., & Martin, M. (2005). Searching for justice: American Indian perspectives on disparities in Minnesota criminal justice system. Saint Paul, MN: American Indian Policy Center. Rich, J., Corbin, T., Bloom, S., Rich, L., Evans, S., & Wilson, A. (2009). Healing the hurt: Trauma informed

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approaches to the health of men and boys of color. Philadelphia, PA: Drexel University School of Public Health. Ridolfi, L. (2004, July 16). internal memo. San Francisco, CA: W. Haywood Burns Institute. Sherman, G. (1943, June 2). Youth gangs leading cause of delinquencies. Los Angeles Times. Skiba, R., Reynolds, C. R., Graham, S., Sheras, P., Conoley, J. C., & Garcia-Vasquez, E. (2006). Are zero tolerance policies effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Soler, M., Shoenberg, D., & Schindler, M. (2009). Juvenile justice: Lessons for a new era. Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law & Policy, 16, 483–541. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2009). Results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H-36, HHS Publication No. SMA 09-4434). Rockville, MD. Spring, M. E. (1998) Comment: Extended jurisdiction juvenile prosecution: A new approach to the problem of juvenile delinquency in Illinois. 31 J. Marshall L. Rev.1351. Steen, S., Bond, C. E. W., Bridges, G. S., & Kubrin, C. (2005). Explaining assessments of future risk: Race and attributions of juvenile offenders in presentencing reports. In D. F. Hawkins & K. Kempf-Leonard (Eds.), Our children, their children (pp. 245–269). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tanenhaus, D. S. (2002). The evolution of juvenile courts in the early twentieth century: Beyond the myth of immaculate construction. In M. K. Rosenheim, F. E. Zimring, D. S. Tanenhaus, & B. Dohrn (Eds.), A century of juvenile justice (pp. 42– 73). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tracy, P. E. (2005). Race, ethnicity, and juvenile justice: Is there bias in post-arrest decision making? In D. F. Hawkins & K. Kempf-Leonard (Eds.), Our children, their children (pp. 300–347). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (1987). Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities, 1986–1987: [UNITED STATES] [Computer file]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. doi: 10.3886/ICPSR08973

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Villarruel, F., & Walker, N. (2002). Donde esta la justicia? A call to action on behalf of Latino and Latina youth in the U.S. justice system. Building Blocks for Youth. Accessed online at www.buildingblocksforyouth .org/Full%20Report%20English.pdf Wald, J., & Losen, D. F. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 9–15.

Ward, G. K. (2001). Color lines of social control: juvenile justice administration in a racialized social system, 1825–2000. Dissertation Abstracts International, 62(10), 3582-A (UMI No. DA3029453). W. Haywood Burns Institute. (2009). Successful strategies to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in JDAI jurisdictions. Training curriculum, available at www.burnsinsti tute.org.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

7

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story F R A N C I N E T. S H E R M A N

AND

J E S S I C A H. G R E E N S T O N E

O

ver the past two decades, the proportion of girls in the juvenile justice system has steadily increased; from 1999 to 2008, arrests of girls decreased less than their male counterparts in almost every offense category, and for some crimes, arrests of girls increased while those of boys decreased (Puzzanchera, 2009). Reacting to this growth and to the recognition that juvenile justice systems were designed for male offenders, since 1992 the Juvenile Justice Act has mandated that jurisdictions examine their systems and develop plans for providing needed gender-specific services to address the prevention and treatment of delinquency in this growing female population. This federal call to action has prompted research leading to a much deeper understanding of girls’ developmental needs, the circumstances that bring girls into contact or render them at risk of being in contact with the juvenile justice system, and how these needs and circumstances influence girls once they are in the system (Acoca, 1999; Bloom & Covington, 2001; Cauffman, 2008; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP], 1998; Sherman, 2005). We now can identify a constellation of developmental and societal factors pushing girls into the juvenile justice system. We are also learning that public systems play an

inadvertent role in criminalizing girls’ behavior, and can work against girls’ successful reentry into the community and independent adult life (Sherman, 2005). This chapter examines a “typical” case of a multisystems-involved teenage girl, “Grace,” considering the role gender-responsive principles played in case decisions and services in the child welfare, delinquency, and legal systems. By examining how the respective players in Grace’s case viewed her and reached decisions in her case, and how Grace herself views these decisions, we hope to shed light on how systems might understand and implement gender-responsive principles so as to improve their structure and services for girls. We begin with a review of the literature describing the social characteristics of girls in the juvenile justice system and the ways these factors predict their system entry, including the role system practices and policies play in girls’ entry and course of stay in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Next, we describe our case study methodology, including the gender-responsive principles that frame our analysis. We then introduce Grace and analyze the interview data from Grace’s case study using the framework provided by literature on gender responsiveness.

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SYSTEM-INVOLVED GIRLS: CHARACTERISTICS AND PREDICTORS OF SYSTEM INVOLVEMENT The literature on the role gender plays in youth system involvement describes disparities in the degree and way girls and women are affected by particular social circumstances or problems (Mead, 2001).1 It demonstrates how risk factors and difficult life circumstances are often interrelated (Ravoira, 2005), with these variables continuing to influence one another throughout the life span. In this review we focus on family discord, victimization, mental health problems, and risky sexual behaviors because delinquent girls are disproportionately affected by these problems. We also examine the quite extensive literature suggesting that girls are differentially affected by some of the structures, policies, and practices common in youth-serving systems; the literature concludes, as do we, that gender-responsive programs, services, and policy reform are critical to achieving better outcomes for these girls. Family Discord While there is a tendency for family distress to be present in the lives of both female and male delinquent youth, female delinquent youth are more likely to come from family environments characterized by strife (Lederman, Dakof, Larrea, & Li, 2004; Timmons-Mitchell et al., 1997). Tension in parent–child relationships that sometimes becomes violent can result in girls being arrested for assault or domestic battery (Sherman, 2009; Zahn, Brumbaugh, et al., 2008), or for status offenses such as running away (Acoca, 1999; Chesney-Lind 1

Portions of this section originally appeared in Jacobs, Oliveri, and Greenstone (2009).

& Okamoto, 2001). Family-based risk factors may also include lack of communication (Bloom, Owen, Deschenes, & Rosenbaum, 2002ab), experiencing the death of a parent or sibling, and lack of stability leading to foster care or other arrangements (Acoca, 1999). Conversely, one study identified family strengths, such as good communication and structure, as a major protective factor for girls (Bloom et al., 2002b). As a result of living in these homes, girls are likely to enter the child protection system, which can be a pathway into the delinquency system. In their study of the links between foster care and detention, Conger and Ross (2001) found that youth in foster care in New York were more likely to be detained by the juvenile court than nonfoster youth, after controlling for offense and demographics. This “foster care bias” was significantly more pronounced and more difficult to remedy for girls than boys, so that 20% of the girls detained during the study were in foster care as compared with 10% of the boys. The researchers attribute this to girls frequently going AWOL from foster placement, leading them into detention, due to both a lack of appropriate alternatives and laws allowing secure detention for violations of a valid court order in a status offense case (Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act [JJDPA], 2002). Even detention decisions based on more objective risk assessment instruments can be biased against girls who are given additional points for histories of running away and resulting warrants, making it more likely that they will be detained (Sherman, 2005). Victimization While there has been a good deal of variance in empirical findings of the proportion of delinquent and system-involved girls who

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have suffered sexual abuse and resulting trauma, the evidence is unequivocal that a history of abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects a significant number of girls in this population (Chesney-Lind & Okamoto, 2001; Lederman et al., 2004; see also Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume) and is often a catalyst for their interactions with the criminal justice system (Acoca, 1999; Chesney-Lind & Okamoto, 2001). Early sexual abuse is common among girls victimized by commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), the subject of significant federal and state attention since 2000. In 2008, girls comprised 76% of juvenile prostitutionrelated arrests (Puzzanchera, 2009), and girls victimized by CSEC are routinely detained in the juvenile justice system despite general recognition of their victimhood and the trauma associated with detention (Lynch & Widner, 2008; Sherman, 2005). Juvenile justice system involvement in these cases results from the lack of alternatives, an overemphasis on law enforcement, fear for the welfare of girls who are victims of CSEC, and the failure of systems to collaborate toward cross-system, gender-responsive solutions (see Sherman & Goldblatt Grace, Chapter 16, this volume). Zahn, Hawkins, Chiancone, and Whitworth, (2008) contend that while girls are more likely to have experienced sexual assault, rape, or sexual harassment, suffering neglect or physical or sexual abuse is a risk factor for delinquency for both boys and girls. Some find, though, that a history of abuse during childhood or adolescence is a more powerful predictor of delinquent behavior for females (Cauffman, 2008). Abuse histories in girls may be linked to mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders (Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2003; Goodkind, Ng, & Sarri, 2006; Sherman, 2005), or may manifest in girls as externalizing disorders

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such as aggressive behavior (Sherman, 2005). Abusive experiences in the past may also affect girls’ emotional adjustment and their ability to trust others, and may be a factor in substance abuse (Bloom et al., 2002b). Victimization and trauma is also a major catalyst leading girls to run away from home, which is a frequent cause of arrest for female delinquents (Bloom & Covington, 2001; Chesney-Lind & Okamoto, 2001); some claim, indeed, that the system is punishing girls for being victims of abuse (Goodkind et al., 2006). Victimization in the home has become a pathway into the delinquency system for girls as an unintended result of changes in law enforcement practices for domestic violence. Zahn, Brumbaugh, and colleagues (2008) attribute the increase in girls’ arrests for assaults over the last decade in part to this change in law enforcement practices. From 1999 through 2008, girls’ arrests for assault increased 12%, while boys’ arrests declined 6%, and girls’ arrests for aggravated assault declined 17%, while boys’ arrests declined 22% (Puzzanchera, 2009). While same-sex peers are the most common victims of both girls’ and boys’ aggression, family members are the second most common victims of girls’ aggression, confirming that much of girls’ violence occurs in the context of a chaotic home. At the same time, many jurisdictions require arrest or detention when police are called to a home for domestic violence, and many in law enforcement report arresting teenage girls involved in home violence rather than arresting the mother, who has responsibility for other children. These reports are confirmed by detention data that show girls comprising a larger proportion of detentions for domestic violence and assaults than of detentions overall (Sherman, 2009). Through these mechanisms, girls’ victimization is criminalized, driving them into the juvenile justice system.

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Mental Health Problems

Risky Sexual Behavior

Multiple studies conclude that mental health problems are central in the lives of a large segment of the female delinquent population. Mirroring the general population, females involved in the juvenile justice system are more likely than their male counterparts to be affected by psychological illness (Alemagno, Shaffer-King, & Hammel, 2006; Cauffman, Lexcen, Goldweber, Shulman, & Grisso, 2007; Sherman, 2005; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; Timmons-Mitchell et al., 1997; see also Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume), and this disproportion is significantly exacerbated in the juvenile justice population (Cauffman et al., 2007). Girls are especially affected by internalizing disorders such as depression and particular anxiety disorders (Corneau & Lanctot, 2004; Lederman et al., 2004; Teplin et al., 2002; Zahn, Hawkins, et al., 2008). Unlike trends in the nondelinquent population, female offenders also outnumber male offenders in rates of externalizing disorders (Cauffman, 2008). A high incidence of comorbidity of mental health disorders has been found in several studies (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). The presence in the delinquency system of significant numbers of youth, and particularly girls, with mental health disorders is associated, in part, with the failures of child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice, and public health systems to identify and treat these youth in their communities. Those failures have been linked to inadequate state Medicaid plans (Rosie D. v. Romney, 2006), poor mental health screening (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume), and an ongoing failure of youth-serving systems to cross traditional agency lines to develop comprehensive care plans and wraparound community-based services for youth (see Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume).

Girls in the delinquency population often engage in risky sexual behavior that may be explained in part by their high rates of sexual abuse (Bloom et al., 2002b; Goodkind et al., 2006; Kelly, Owen, Peralez-Dieckmann, & Martinez, 2007). Girls’ first and subsequent sexual interactions are often with an older male partner (Acoca & Dedel, 1998; Guthrie, Hoey, Ravoira, & Kintner, 2002; Lederman et al., 2004). Sexual debut may also occur at young ages among system-involved girls; in one study involving girls ages 12–18 who were at risk for recidivism, the mean age for first sexual intercourse was 13.9 years (Guthrie et al., 2002). Evidence on safe sex practices and rates of sexually transmitted diseases is inconclusive, yet these issues are undoubtedly a major concern among youth in this population (Lederman et al., 2004). Race and Class Incarcerated girls and their male and adult counterparts are disproportionately people of color, especially African American and Hispanic (Acoca, 1999; Bloom & Covington, 2001; Chesney-Lind & Okamoto, 2001; see also Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume) and frequently come from high-poverty backgrounds and communities (Bloom & Covington, 2001). Thus, the role of race and class in girls’ pathways into the juvenile justice system is important to consider.

GRACE’S CASE STUDY Case study analysis investigates, in depth, a contained example, or examples, of a phenomenon of interest to understand characteristics and processes that might pertain

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

beyond that example; cases that are considered “typical” are commonly chosen (Stake, 1995; Yin, 1994). Consistent with this principle, Grace was chosen because her story reflects many of the elements and predictors of system involvement described in the literature. This was a mixed-methods case study utilizing legal and state agency records and qualitative interviews as data. Agency, court, and attorneys’ records were reviewed to construct a timeline of the major events in Grace’s case. The records provided historical data and baseline knowledge about the case, and allowed us to develop preliminary hypotheses regarding the relevance of Grace’s gender in various case components. However, records alone would not have provided sufficient material for this study because we were interested in the role of gender, which was not an explicit focus of the records (Hodder, 2003). In addition, Grace’s voice was not chronicled in written records, and her subjective experiences as a system-involved girl were essential to our study of the role of gender and gender-responsive principles in her case (Mason, 2002). In addition to Grace, four key players in Grace’s case were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews, the protocols for which were informed by the records as well as the literature on gender-responsive principles. Interviewees reflected on past experiences, and in the process of doing so engaged in a reinterpretation of those experiences through their current knowledge (Lawler, 2002). Interviews with Grace developed her personal narrative, her views of the system and its representatives with whom she interacted, and the role of gender-responsive principles in her case. Through interviews with Grace’s caseworkers from the juvenile justice and family service systems, a juvenile justice system administrator at the time of her case, and one

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of her attorneys, we sought to gain insight into whether and how gender-responsive principles were incorporated into decisions made in her case and what might have been improved. In total, seven interviews with six individuals were conducted between July and September 2009. We used qualitative data analysis software to code interview transcripts and aid in theory building (Weitzman, 2003), identifying themes, and conducting interpretive analyses of the connections among the themes and the links within these themes across data sources (Ryan & Bernard, 2003). Within this chapter, we present quotes from our interviews as examples of those themes (Ryan & Bernard, 2003) we consider representative of the viewpoints expressed by study participants (Mason, 2002). Grace’s Story Grace is, in many ways, typical of girls described in the literature. She is African American and lived as a young girl with her family in a housing project in a large northeastern city. Her father was not named on her birth certificate and not involved in her childhood, although she knows who he is. Her family is close-knit, comprised of her mother, two sisters, an aunt and uncle, a grandmother, and cousins, all of whom live in close proximity to one another. Those who have worked with Grace have described her as intelligent, outspoken, and caring. Her family and friends look to her as a support and confide in her. She is the first to identify and speak out against injustice, and despite the difficulties she presented as a client, her caseworkers remember her fondly and describe her as kind, engaging, and resilient. Her childhood with her mother—who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, abused drugs, and neglected her daughters—was

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marked by chaos and violence. Many reports of abuse and neglect were filed with the state Department of Family Services2 (DFS) and social services were provided to the family. When Grace was 11 years old, she and her sisters were removed from her mother’s custody and given to their maternal grandmother, who had a drinking problem and was later arrested for assaulting Grace with a hammer. A report of abuse was filed, and shortly thereafter they were removed from her home. They were often placed in separate foster homes. For the next 2 years, Grace and her sisters moved in and out of foster care and their grandmother’s home. Their mother had little to do with them during this period. Grace, who has since been clinically diagnosed with a mental health issue, became identified for her difficult behaviors by the agency and courts. She was moved among foster homes in part because her behaviors were difficult for foster parents to manage. When Grace turned 14, she was placed in foster care in a city 2 hours distant from her family home. She perceived this placement, far from her family, as punishment, and began to have more serious behavioral problems. Shortly after this placement, she was charged with assault and battery on a public employee and disturbing school assembly. It was her first, and would be her only, delinquency or criminal charge. She was expelled from school and, following an incident in which she stepped in front of a bus, was placed in a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Grace was placed on probation and moved back to her home city, living in a series of foster homes, emergency shelters, and residential placements. She received education in the residential placements but not when she was 2

The agency names, like the parties’ names, have been changed to preserve anonymity.

in the community. Grace would frequently run from her foster homes to her grandmother’s home. During this time, she became pregnant and miscarried. The case began to focus more on her mental health as her behaviors became more clearly dangerous to herself. Because her probation conditions were to comply with DFS, the court found her in technical violation of probation and committed her to the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Grace was now 16 years old. For the next 18 months, DFS and DJJ struggled over control of Grace’s case. Grace continued to be placed in a series of foster homes and residential placements, but now she was also placed in secure detention when she technically violated her release conditions by running away or breaking curfew. Despite this, she continued to run to her grandmother’s home with the resulting warrants and detention. During the 2 years from ages 15 to 17, Grace was placed 44 times and spent 426 days—over half that period—in detention. During this time, the agencies made sporadic efforts to enroll her in education or career training programs and otherwise direct her toward a productive future. She was enrolled in an alternative school from which she was regularly suspended for “ . . . unsafe behavior, verbal inappropriateness, refusal to follow directions, and creating an unsafe environment . . . ” (DFS records). She was also seen by a psychiatrist and placed on medication for depression, which was becoming more acute. Seven months before she turned 18, Grace attempted suicide and, at her request, was placed in a hospital psychiatric unit where she remained until her 18th birthday. During these 7 months, DFS and DJJ were joined by the hospital and the Department of Mental Health staff in the struggle over Grace. Upon her hospitalization, a law school clinical

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

program also began representing her to seek education services and plan for her transition to adulthood. At age 18, Grace “aged out” of the system but agreed to post-18 services with DFS. Although she was seeking funding for independent living, she was placed in a foster home with conditions, and 6 months later DFS terminated her over-18 services for an alleged violation of those conditions. Grace is now 24 years old. She has two children and lives with them in an apartment in her home city. The children attend day care when Grace is attending a trade school, where she is doing well in her studies. Her mother and sisters are a regular feature in her life and continue as both a source of support and a drain on her limited resources.

GENDER-SPECIFIC AND GENDER-RESPONSIVE: GUIDING PRINCIPLES The terms gender-responsive and gender-specific are often used interchangeably in the literature and, at a basic level, describe services that strive to satisfy girls’ unique developmental needs, personal characteristics, and life circumstances.3 In the case of delinquent girls, this includes understanding their pathways into the system, the multiple risk factors associated with their system involvement, and how these factors interact with one another (Bloom & Covington, 2001; Bloom et al., 2003; Morgan & Patton, 2002; OJJDP, 1998; Ravoira, 2005; Sherman, 2005). Programs defined as genderresponsive are not only characterized by serving a population that is all female or by having female staff (Acoca & Dedel, 1998; Ravoira, 3

Portions of this section originally appeared in Jacobs, Oliveri, and Greenstone (2009).

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2005; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, 1999); they also recognize unique experiences associated with being a female in the juvenile justice and related youth systems and deliberately use this knowledge to inform all components of the program (Bloom et al., 2003; Morgan & Patton, 2002; OJJDP, 1998; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, 1999). Services are delivered with empathy for the past and current challenges faced by participants, with an emphasis on the importance of relationships for girls (Bloom et al., 2003). Although somewhat diluted in the 2002 reauthorization, since 1992 Congress has endorsed the need for gender-responsive approaches through the JJDPA (2002). Core Considerations in Girl-Targeted Programs and Practices There are several overlapping principles for gender-responsive practices and programming in the juvenile justice population, some of which derive from empirical studies or observations emerging from applied work (see, for example, Acoca, 1999; Bloom, Owen, Deschenes, & Rosenbaum, 2002a; Mead, 2001; Ms. Foundation for Women, 2000, 2001; Ravoira, 2005; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, 1999; Wheeler, Oliveri, Towery, & Mead, 2005). Others are rooted in theoretical perspectives related to female development (see Bloom & Covington, 1998; Bloom & Covington, 2001; Goodkind, 2005; Maniglia, 1996). Still others are drawn from secondary analyses of empirical data collected by other researchers. Gender-responsive principles for girls’ services in the juvenile justice system include safety and safe spaces, attention to relationships, and a collaborative approach wherein power is shared across systems and with the girl. These

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are the gender-responsive principles about which we asked research participants when thinking about their agency’s involvement in Grace’s case. Safety and Safe Spaces Creating safe and supportive spaces is a key dictate of girlfocused programs and services, but how safety is defined varies. One dimension of safety is physical (Bloom & Covington, 1998, 2001; Bloom et al., 2003; Mead, 2001; Morgan & Patton, 2002). Women and girls are subjected to various forms of male violence in private and public spaces (Mead, 2001), including unwanted sexual contact (Alemagno et al., 2006). Considering the prominence of abuse victimization and trauma among system-involved girls, it is especially important that features of juvenile justice treatment programs, services, and practices do not mimic or perpetuate qualities of abusive relationships or conditions that many young female delinquents have experienced in their lives (Acoca 1999; Bloom et al., 2003; Goodkind, 2005; Sherman, 2005). Same-sex staff and supervision are important elements to consider in creating a safe environment for female offenders (Sherman, 2005). Emotional and intellectual safety should also be considered. Within the program environment and the system, participants should feel comfortable expressing their emotions, beliefs, goals, and fears, contributing their ideas and exploring new points of view and areas of interest. Safe and nurturing environments allow opportunities for building skills that are consistent with girls’ interests, but that are not limited to those traditionally associated with being a girl. Female-focused programs and services can then encourage individual growth and development instead of being driven by stereotypes (Levick & Sherman, 2003).

Attention to Relationships Developmental research on girls has emphasized the role of relationships and care in girls’ perspectives on what is important in life and the choices they make at critical moments. Due partly to their socialization into caretaking roles, research suggests that women tend to protect their bonds with others, choosing connection over independence (see, for example, Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Chodorow, 1974; Gilligan, 1982). In their recommendations for genderresponsive programming and practices, many refer to this research, urging that programs for girls and juvenile justice system practices consider the centrality of relationships in girls’ lives by providing opportunities for connection with adult individuals and services in the program context itself, and in girls’ communities (Bloom & Covington, 2001; Bloom et al., 2002a, 2003; Hubbard & Matthews, 2008; Maniglia, 1996; Morgan & Patton, 2002; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, 1999; Sherman, 2005). These may be lacking if girls’ family lives are chaotic or troubled (Alemagno et al., 2006; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, 1999). Collaboration and Shared Power The principle of collaboration and shared power applies both to sharing power with youth and to collaboration across systems. Regarding collaboration with youth, this principle includes allowing girls to participate in program design and leadership—indeed, having their input guide its course (Denner & Griffin, 2003; Mead, 2001; Morgan & Patton, 2002; Ms. Foundation for Women, 2001; Wheeler et al., 2005). Bloom and Covington (2001) contend that gender-responsive programs should aim to empower their participants. Goodkind and colleagues (2006) recommend programs to help girls not only

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

cope with the negative effects of trauma, but also develop a sense of agency and control over their lives. Correspondingly, Sherman (2005) and Goodkind (2005) argue that such programming should be strengths focused, not deficits focused. This can include the active involvement of girls in decision making about their treatment course (Sherman, 2005), so that girls act in collaboration with staff to determine appropriate services. Collaboration and shared power across systems is important in girls’ cases because many are simultaneously involved with more than one youth-serving system, having a set of needs that cross traditional agency lines. Bloom and colleagues (2003) also encourage partnerships with community organizations to provide multilevel support to female offenders aimed at their life circumstances and challenges, which is critical to their successful reentry and longterm success in their communities. Given girls’ multiple needs, the failure to work across systems has been shown to result in detention of girls disproportionate to their male counterparts and to their conduct (Conger & Ross, 2001). While service delivery across systems and in collaboration with communities is difficult (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume), states’ recent use of Medicaid support for juvenile justice–related evidence-based practices that involve multiple state and county agencies seems promising (Hanlon, May, & Kaye, 2008).

GENDER-RESPONSIVE PRINCIPLES IN GRACE’S CASE This section examines the role of genderresponsive principles in Grace’s case. Specifically, the themes of safety, relationships, and collaboration and shared power are discussed.

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Quotations from Grace’s interviews organize our analysis. Safety: “You Really Do Lose Yourself Through All the Chaos” The system representatives interviewed about Grace’s case, including DFS, DJJ, detention, and her lawyer, each underscored ensuring Grace’s safety as a guiding principle in their decision making, but in their emphasis on her physical safety as opposed to emotional safety, they differed from Grace. She defined safety: Like a shield of protection obviously, that’s what safety is I guess. You don’t have to worry about being alone or being scared, if you are scared, there’s someone to speak to. . . . Moreover, although system informants expressed concern with Grace’s emotional safety—that she feel safe—their understanding of what feeling safe meant to her was limited. Physical Safety Informants agreed that the greatest risks to Grace’s physical safety were her running away, hurting herself (self-cutting or suicide attempts), and sexual exploitation. Although Grace did not perceive these factors to be risks at the time, in retrospect she acknowledges them and even credits DJJ with pulling her back from the brink: “DJJ keeping me off the streets was a big plus because I was aiming to die.” DFS and DJJ tightened rules and used detention in an effort to keep Grace physically safe, trying to “keep her close and being a little more strict” (DJJ caseworker). Both the DFS and DJJ caseworkers described their agencies’ reactions to Grace’s safety risks similarly, conflating caring for her with being tough and strict. The DFS caseworker stated:

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Due to her serious history with regards to risky behaviors and things like that, the system always wanted to react in a way that really, you know, came down hard on her, sheltered her or made rules for her that she had to follow. Similarly, the DJJ caseworker stated: I think we were hard on Grace because of the worry we had with her safety, so we had higher expectations for her. So a girl who was a runaway, who doesn’t have the cutting or the suicide and those things going on, you’re gonna . . . consider them a runaway with emotional issues, but her, we tried to keep, I remember, as tight of a rein as possible because [of] being concerned about everything from pregnancy to possible prostitution. This focus eclipsed all other case goals, fed a crisis mentality in Grace’s case management, and restricted forward movement in her education and her ability to exercise autonomy in decision making. For example, DJJ placed Grace in a DJJ school located in its day reporting center, although Grace wanted to enroll in the public school. The DJJ caseworker described the decision as a reaction to concerns over Grace’s physical safety. Although the system was trying to protect her, Grace felt increasingly vulnerable and powerless in the face of what she saw as arbitrary system restrictions. Her explanation for running away, a behavior perceived as dangerous by the system and one that caused escalating restrictions, illustrates this: Why did they move me all the way to [a city two hours from my home]?

That’s how I felt, you just up and snatched me one day and moved me away. I didn’t get any warning or anything, I had to just completely separate from my family, like even if they weren’t the greatest family, they’re still my family and I wanted to stay closer to them than some strange new place because it felt like forever to get there and then, I don’t know, I never saw it as a safety concern, but now, it’s like I’m an adult and it’s like, anything could have happened to me. But I still always ran away. For Grace, emotional safety and physical safety cannot be disentangled, but neither was stable, and emotional safety in particular was largely absent during her teens. Her feelings of isolation and vulnerability colored her experiences, dictating much of her behavior. Although her early childhood at home clearly played a role, Grace blamed system practices for her feelings of lack of safety. Emotional Safety Grace’s definition of safety is informed by her experience as a foster child: You really do lose yourself through all the chaos. I say chaos because you’re jumping from one place to another, you’re sleeping in one bed to another bed. Then you have, you know, one DFS [placement] to another DFS [placement], one judge to another judge, one court system to another court system, and then you’re locked up. It’s dizzy[ing]. Have you ever been in a fight, and you don’t even know you’re fighting? . . . My life went so fast, and it could have went a little

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

slower, if someone had stopped and slowed me down a little bit. Those frequent moves frightened her because they were unpredictable; they separated her further from her family; and many of the foster parents did not provide emotional nurturance when Grace needed it. She describes the impact of these frequent and unpredictable residential moves on her sense of well-being: . . . it’s like now you’re feeling lonely, you’re just, I don’t know, you’re a feather in the wind, wherever you land for that moment is where you stay until the wind blows again. You’re on the go, you have no idea where you’re going, and you have no idea how long you’re gonna be there, but you’re there until it’s time to go. Because it’s always time to go. . . . Although she acknowledges that hers “weren’t the best family,” and that living with her mother could be dangerous, she wanted to be with her family and, as a system-involved teen, ran to her grandmother or to be closer to her sisters. Despite their limitations, she felt safe with her family because they were a known quantity and she could be herself with them: I would prefer to be with my family more than a foster home. I mean you could sleep easy, not feeling like someone is gonna do something, or you don’t know what is gonna happen next, and plus you know what to expect from your family, aside from someone new you’re like, “Oh God, I have to start all over.”

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When she expressed vulnerability or asserted herself, Grace describes her foster parents and the family services system as rejecting her. Thus, she could not express the feelings of loneliness and depression she was having for fear of additional placements. “I’ve been in foster homes where I cut myself and they’re like, ‘Oh no, you can’t stay here.’ And it’s like, ‘next.’ So I just ran away. They didn’t care, not the foster parents anyway.” Showing her real personality as an outspoken teenager seemed to lead to problems as well. I got kicked out of her foster home. This is when I was supposed to be taking college courses. My plan was to go to [name of college]; I had straightened up. This was after I asked to go to the hospital; usually they have to fight me to go. I asked to go, I spent all these months in the hospital, I get out, I’m doing the right thing, I’m taking my medication, I just got a job at Walgreens, I’m not smoking weed. I’m doing the right thing. But because all of us girls are so scared, everyone has a voice but everyone is scared to confront the foster mother. So, me, I’m the leader, I’m gonna say it, because I’ve been going through this long enough, you know. So I speak up, she calls the DFS worker, which I didn’t even know changed. I get kicked out of the foster home. Grace came to believe that her changes in placement were prompted by her selfexpression, whether of sadness or independence, and this further threatened her feelings of emotional safety as well as prompted insecurity about her identity. She felt punished for speaking out or expressing her fear and

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sadness, as it always seemed to result in a placement change. Grace’s description of the system personnel with whom she felt safe highlighted the value she placed on authenticity and on people who took the time to understand who she really was. Here, she describes a nurse in the psychiatric hospital: I forgot her name, I just still call her the army nurse because she never cracked a smile and I wrote a few composition notebooks back to back, what was gonna be my book, and it was like maybe five composition notebooks that I just wrote, and she was the only one that read it . . . because they didn’t have a therapist there at the hospital at the time, and she looked at me when my sisters came and she’s like, ’cause I had to give them money to come see me at the hospital basically, and she’s like, don’t let the way other people are change who I am. Now mind you, she never smiles or says anything to anyone, it’s “If I say get in the room, get in the room, or you’re going down.” She had no problems doing restraints, but I felt safe with her. Similarly, though she says her commitment to DJJ was a bad experience because it resulted in months of lost time in detention, she says she felt safe in detention because she did not face rejection from the staff for being herself, and did not have to conceal her identity with girls who shared her experiences. . . . when you’re locked up, you have no choice but to be you. I mean if you want to spaz out then go for it, you know you’re just going to be

restrained . . . and then they talk you back down. DFS, on the other hand, you spaz out, you’re gone. There is no one to rub your back or try to understand or help you understand what’s going on with you, I mean you’re just gone. And you’re in the next place, no one goes over what just happened and you’re in the next place. The director of detention saw that Grace was struggling without an outlet for her feelings but was constrained because, although Grace spent many months in detention, the facility was not designed for treatment: . . . she kind of conformed, but I think as she wasn’t really addressing what was really going on with her or the system in general wasn’t really addressing it, and detention isn’t the place to address that, I mean we’re not treatment, that’s not our service. She started to struggle more and more. Although DFS, DJJ, and her attorney recognized that Grace did not feel safe, they could not appreciate the enormity of her fears and the many ways in which fear influenced her behavior. Her attorney recognized that Grace’s traumatic family experiences continued to affect her deeply: Grace is still grieving the loss of her family and nobody got that. It never was about Grace having been taken from her mother and then taken from her grandmother and all of the losses she had experienced, and separated from her sisters, and it was all about her deficits. So I think that somebody who was more connected to . . . her

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

community could have, there’s no guarantee, but could have been able to see her assets and try to build on those assets. Her DJJ caseworker connected her need for emotional safety to her need for stability, particularly a stable placement. She believed Grace would find that stability only with her family but was constrained by DFS (which did not support family placement) and the housing authority (which prohibited Grace from living with her grandmother in subsidized housing). The DFS caseworker also saw Grace’s need for nurturing and saw that as a particularly strong need for girls. She believed that the system did not provide it because they viewed Grace as a criminal (despite her minor delinquency). Despite that view, however, the caseworker did not connect her need for a nurturing relationship to her feeling unsafe. The disparity between the system’s primary focus on physical safety and Grace’s primary focus on emotional safety led to neither being sufficiently addressed, and to system measures that led Grace to perpetuate the very behaviors the system aimed to thwart, such as running away and self-harm. These measures also alienated Grace, making her feel vulnerable to rejection and unable to be herself, feelings that fueled dissatisfaction with system decisions, and tensions in her relationships with system representatives. Relationships: “It Felt Like the Whole World Just Left Us Naked” Relationships play a central role in Grace’s system experiences and are closely associated with her struggles with identity and emotional safety. The central role of relationships in

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Grace’s life may be rooted in the early loss of her mother and family and her moves in and out of foster homes and detention. Those in the system who worked with Grace recognized the centrality of relationships for her, and for girls generally, yet the system’s judging and rule-bound approach to services made it difficult for individuals working with her to form relationships that Grace saw as authentic and valuable. The systemic challenges to authentic relationships were unfortunate, both because they proved counterproductive to Grace’s success and because, at least in Grace’s case, those relationships would have been relatively easy to establish and nurture: All our informants seemed genuinely to like her for her many endearing qualities as well as her strength of personality and apparent resilience. It is as though the system got in the way of these individual relationships rather than having facilitated them. Loss of Family Relationships Grace’s own accounts, as well as those of her agency workers and her attorney, suggest that her experience of abandonment by her mother and later her grandmother, and the instability of her family life, were replicated throughout her system involvement, as she was moved from placement to placement in the system. Grace describes the early underpinnings of her need for supportive and reliable relationships: . . . that’s where the depression came from, feeling like I was lonely. . . . You lose hope really easy when you don’t have someone. I mean your first love is your mother’s, I mean that’s where you spend your first nine months . . . same heartbeat, you’re sharing it all. When your mother gives up on you at such a young age, it’s like a chicken, you know

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the baby chicken, you don’t have fur at first, it’s like you’re naked to the world. Your mother’s wings are supposed to keep you warm and protected until you, you know, develop those feathers. It felt like the whole world just left us naked. Through Grace’s frequent moves within the system, she repeatedly relived this loss, loneliness, and experience of abandonment. From Grace’s perspective, these moves were the result of foster parents and caseworkers seeing her as flawed or at fault, a notion that was largely corroborated by those who worked with Grace during her system involvement. Her DFS caseworker remembered: . . . she would say that she wants to go to [a job training program] and everyone would get behind it and there were allsortsoflogisticalthingsthatneededto be worked out and we’d work really hard on itand then I thinkshewould just change her mind or she would call one day and be like, “That’s not what I want anymore. Now I want to do this.” And she was a little bit scattered about it, and so that made the system sort of react, “Oh now we did all this work and now you’regonnachangeyour mindafterwe did all that.” You know what I mean? That’s what ended up happening to her a lot, so I think in the end, it just became about safety. It just became about her following the rules and if she didn’t, she was out, that type of thing. In a similar vein, her attorney described: . . . [Grace] exhausted people and they got fed up with dealing with her contentiousness if they knew

her or not. I think they would, you know, collaterals would hear from the DMH worker [who] I’m sure got an earful from the caseworker who maligned Grace for her demands, so nobody took the time, nobody who might have stepped out to the plate, took the time to kind of get to know her, I felt, and advocate for her. Institutional Obstacles Institutional obstacles to effective relationship building were apparent in Grace’s case as well. For one, the regulatory nature of most relationships Grace had with individuals in the system compromised their genuineness. There was no one whose role it was simply to build a relationship with her, mentor her, or provide her emotional support; rather, every relationship was characterized by unequal power, wherein significant consequences loomed when she disobeyed system rules. As explained by Grace’s DFS caseworker: . . . all of her connections were about people that set rules for her and it was whether or not she followed those rules. I mean she had a DJJ worker, a DFS worker, all these different foster homes, or all these different staff members at programs, and I remember her trying to foster relationships and she’d try to foster relationships with people and, you know, someone had to come down hard on her and tell her that she broke a rule and sort of tighten up the system on her. It was never an authentic thing. Grace suffered in this void of genuine personal connections, of relationships that were unconditional, wherein she would not

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

face rejection for not following rules that seemed to her to be unduly punitive or to present her with unfair choices. Her overarching characterization of the agency representatives she encountered throughout her system involvement was that of a lack of effort or interest in knowing the “real” her but, rather, an effort to change who she was. Within these relationships, she felt misunderstood and sometimes voiceless. She stated: . . . try to understand this part of me, please hear what I’m not saying, not try to put your interpretation of what you want me to be inside my head. Let me tell you who I am because I’m forgetting who I am because you’re moving me around too much, I don’t know. Grace rarely saw her DFS caseworkers. The role had high turnover, and Grace says she was often not informed when her caseworker changed. One caseworker with whom Grace did have a longer-term relationship, who was interviewed for this study, went on maternity leave at a critical juncture in Grace’s case, when she was turning 18 and would “age out” of the system. In retrospect, everyone agreed this was a significant setback for Grace, who may have weathered the transition better had this caseworker been available to her. As her attorney explains: Grace gets a new caseworker, and I don’t know the level of experience this caseworker had, but she was going by the book and Grace doesn’t do things by the book, and so that was a critical event that really set Grace up to have the voluntary [post-18 services] fall apart. I mean that was certainly one piece of it.

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There were other things, too. Where she was placed was not a great foster home for her. You know, the truth is she needed a lot more support than she thought she needed and that she wanted to have, and part of it was resources, what the department has to offer. Throughout her system involvement Grace rarely felt there was a good fit between her and the adults responsible for her. According to Grace, decisions made in her case were channeled through the foster parents with whom she was placed, rather than through her caseworkers. Due to her lack of connection to, and negative feelings about, the majority of her foster placements, this contributed to feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability; Grace felt like things were being done to her, without an opportunity to influence decisions that were made about her life. Positive Relationships in the System Although Grace’s relationships with system representatives were often contentious, she also seemed to inspire in many of these same adults feelings of empathy and a belief in her potential to succeed, and motivation to help her. Her DJJ caseworker recalled: I remember I worried about her a lot, like she was one of those girls you think about when you go home. You think about all of them, but you think about her because of her ability to be warm and friendly, and also care about you as a person. You know, generally some kids hate their caseworkers. She cared about me, like she’d always ask about my daughter, things like that.

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Study informants described Grace as a young woman who clearly sought personal connections with others. She had stories to tell, and wanted someone to listen to, and help her work through, the emotions they surfaced. Her attorney reflected that when she first met Grace, Grace shared with her that she had miscarried twins. This immediately forged a personal dimension in their relationship. Her attorney explained: I mean I think she wanted me to react to her pain. She wanted me to be sympathetic to it and I was. I mean it was, I was thinking, “Oh my God. Thank God” that she wasn’t pregnant with twins and that was adding to the list of the things that she had to deal with. She was telling me about it because people around her weren’t grieving with her, so yeah, definitely. I think that was true with Grace in every interaction. It was first about the emotional; it was first about “This is what’s happened to me. I am so upset.” And it was always important for my first response to her to be “Oh Grace, I am so sorry,” and then “what happened?” And not just “I’m so sorry” and get down to business. We needed to really talk and process this, and I was willing to do it. Caseworkers also found themselves naturally inclined to provide her with emotional support and guidance. Finding this balance was complicated both for Grace, due to the conditional nature of these relationships, and for these agency representatives, and there was no consensus on what an appropriate interpersonal relationship with a client should look like. All our informants strove for a balance between respect for professional boundaries

and support in their relationships with Grace. The former director of detention struggled with aspects of the relationship between Grace and her DJJ caseworker. She perceived the caseworker as: . . . trying to befriend, more than be the person of the rational decision making, or the person that a client can bounce an idea off and sort of get an answer that has some structural reasoning to it or play the devil’s advocate, you know those kinds of things, that sort of talking, communication, and interaction because even not being able to say no or not being able to set limits with clients, especially with a client like Grace, I think is as detrimental as anything else. While this particular relationship seemed problematic from an administrator’s viewpoint, Grace describes it as one of the most trusting and positive relationships she had during her system involvement. Not surprisingly, Grace enjoyed relationships in which individuals stuck by her despite her imperfections, taking this as an indication that they accepted her for who she was, including her troubled parts. About the DFS caseworker with whom she had the longest relationship, she said: I’m almost getting ready to turn 18. I’m like “Thank you.” Because she was hard, but she didn’t leave us. Everyone else did. There were caseworkers that left and didn’t even say anything. You didn’t even know that you had a new caseworker ’cause they never met with you, and I’m like seriously, honestly, that happened so

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

many times I can’t even count ’cause I never even met them, they just passed through. But the ones that stuck around sometimes were okay, some good, some not so great, most not so great, but [DFS caseworker] in the end, I had to give it to her, like, “Okay, I applaud you ’cause you stuck it through. You cared.” Sort of like a test. Grace considered this caseworker’s dedication atypical, compared to her experiences with other caseworkers and with foster parents: I was in a foster home and I used to cut myself. When she came upstairs and she saw the cuts on my arms she says, “Okay we gotta figure something out.” I’m believing this lady cares about me and that she’s gonna try to help me and make it better, so I get sent to DJJ, and my freedom was taken because I was a depressed child. . . . She calls me and says, “Oh honey, I’m sorry,” and I’m like it’s because I’m not who she wanted me to be, the foster kid who doesn’t give her a problem. Not only did Grace feel that she could not count on foster parents to stick by her through the tough times, but she felt they rejected her and punished her because of her mental health challenges. The message to Grace seemed to be that regardless of her life circumstances, there was no room for error within this system. Grace deeply valued authenticity in relationships with system adults, which she defined as “being real” with her and allowing, even demanding, her to be real with them.

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Whereas with others in the system the conditional nature of the relationship was at the forefront, exacerbating Grace’s feeling that she could not express her true self, the individuals that Grace viewed as authentic made her feel that she could be herself without risk of rejection or desertion. Some of the staff members whom she remembered particularly fondly are also those she described as being tough with her, forcing her to consider the potential consequences of her actions: It felt real. The conversation was always real, it wasn’t sugarcoated or “Oh, I feel bad for you.” You know, it’s “Okay. Let’s work on this. This is what we have to do now ’cause you don’t want to end up dead, do you?” And it’s like a reality check and sometimes you listen, sometimes you don’t. . . . However, she also appreciated when these individuals acted in ways she considered to be exceptional: When I ran away, [the DJJ supervisor] gave me two days to come back. Now mind you, I already should’ve been back and I should’ve been locked up. He goes to my grandmother’s house, off record, because he wants to bring me in his self, he doesn’t want the police to come and get me. He wants him and [the DJJ caseworker] to be the ones to come and get me. . . . In the preceding quote, Grace describes an instance in which a staff member went out of his way to treat her with dignity. Other examples include staff members visiting her when she was receiving care in a psychiatric hospital, taking her out to eat when she was pregnant,

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or giving her their own money to buy herself clothing. These acts signaled to Grace that they saw her as a person, not just a case, and that they genuinely cared about her. She says of her attorney: . . . she brought my son before he was born so many boxes of things, and this was her money. This isn’t, this isn’t somebody else’s money, so you know other people care about you. Because you don’t have to do it but you do it, and I never felt like I was looked at like a charity case. Examining the role of relationships in Grace’s case underscores the importance of deliberate and thoughtful systemic attention to positive, stable relationships for girls. The quality and benefit of the relationships Grace had with agency representatives seemed entirely dependent on the individual working directly with her and, thus, that individual’s own beliefs about the importance of their relationships with young clients and the scope of her/his role, as well as her/his personal biases about Grace. Collaboration and Shared Power: “When I’m Complaining, I’m Not Cooperating” Grace’s experience with the systems was characterized more by friction and disempowerment than by collaboration and shared power. Collaborating and Sharing Power With Grace Grace felt that all the decisions in her case were made for her and happened to her, out of her control and without her input. She felt stripped of any agency or power over her life, and she explains her running away, in part, as a way of taking back some control.

Grace told us that she felt that DFS and DJJ regarded her as: . . . a lost ship in the system, in the computer system. Once you’re in, you’re the enemy. Even if it’s not your fault, I mean the things that happened to me with my mother, you know, the abuse that I took, I was 8, you know; it wasn’t my fault. But, growing up, DFS they didn’t look at it like that. Everything my sisters did, everything we did was a problem. The DFS caseworker agreed that the system’s lack of trust in Grace, whether warranted or not, made it impossible to share power with her: It was always a setup to ask her to comply with all these probation rules because she was just emotionally not able to do it, you know, she had been so sort of traumatized, she had a hard time complying with rules 100%. She would really try, but she’d end up in these crazy situations that got her into trouble. It’s almost like, you get the label of being on probation, and then you’re a rule violator for probation, but you’re in DFS custody and then you’re not following the rules of placement. It all snowballs, and she just got the reputation of being a kid that just broke rules. It is striking that though Grace has many positive things to say about many people in the system, when she is asked about whether they shared power with her or collaborated with her on decisions, her answer is unequivocally negative:

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

I don’t think that they would be happy with that, not just because, you know, being a female, but just being a child in general. Why would they want to give you that power? They make the better decisions, you don’t. They know what’s good for you. The absence of any power or control over decisions in her life contributed to her feeling detached from what was happening, and left with unanswered questions all these years later: I honestly just went through DFS. I just, what happened during the process is just like a raindrop falling on the ground. It’s there, it dissolves there, you know, and then there’s another drop here, and then there’s another drop here. It’s just, there’s drops all over the place. The dried-up part is just you leaving that part alone, it’s over now, it’s a new drop. But you don’t get a full understanding of why you stayed there, I don’t know how to explain it. You know, like you don’t get a full understanding of why it happened. Although Grace has a mental health diagnosis that required treatment over the years, she viewed mental health intervention suspiciously, as she did most other system interventions. To her, use of psychiatric medication was another way the system tried to quiet her down and avoid engaging her in meaningful ways: . . . psychiatrists was just giving me medications. DFS was my legal guardians, they had to say yes or no, so I’m guessing they said, “Yeah, drug her up,” whatever is going to keep her

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quiet so we don’t have to keep running back to the foster homes, do it. Her lawyer shared Grace’s view of the autocratic system decision making and attributes it to a punitive mind-set and the inability of individuals in the system to step back and act with professional distance. The lawyer describes the system approach to offering services as . . . grudging. I just can’t even emphasize that enough. All of these meetings were designed to say, “We don’t like you, we don’t think that you’re gonna do what we expect you to do, but here, this is the agreement, so let’s see how you do because we don’t have any confidence that you can actually succeed.” Grace’s attorney continues, . . . any young woman who speaks her mind, expressing herself, and you know sometimes it’s not infrequently about unhappiness about their situation, that’s not encouraged. I mean you can do it, if you do it in a oneon-one with the caseworker and the caseworker feels that you have been assuaged by her comforting words or whatever. But if that doesn’t really satisfy you, they don’t really want to hear from you. The last thing that I saw in that meeting to hammer out the [post-18] voluntary services agreement was collaboration. It was all about “This is what we offer; this is the best we can do. This is what we offer everybody, and you’re not gonna get anymore, so just take it or leave it.” Basically, that was very much their

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approach to it, and shared power, this was all about Grace being brought to her knees and being told, “If you want this, this is what we’ll give you. But don’t expect us to bend on this.” The dynamic in those meetings were (sic) all “dump on Grace” meetings. It was one person after another just sort of listing all of the things Grace hadn’t done and never any discussion of why she hadn’t done them. If she hadn’t done them, what else could she do, what else could be offered to her that might make it possible for her to succeed? There was no collaboration at all, and that’s where her frustration came over years of not having her voice heard. I just don’t think that’s the model. The DFS and DJJ caseworkers said they valued the gender-responsive element of shared power and collaboration, but approached it in a somewhat unilateral way, reporting having tried unsuccessfully to have Grace “buy in” to decisions they made. The DJJ caseworker stated: So we would always kind of say, “Well these are the things you want, this is what you’re gonna have to do to get them,” and we’d try to help her through it. . . . I think Grace personally didn’t feel like we were on the same page as her. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m not, I think she every day kind of felt a little differently about what our role was and how we were trying to help her. I definitely recall her one day trusting us and wanting us to help her, and then another day not. And I don’t think that’s just the bipolar thing, I think it’s in general, any kid in a system like that, you’re trying to set

these goals and you have these people that actually also have the authority to bring you into custody, it’s like kind of that awkward balance. Despite their intentions, the caseworkers report, Grace’s inability to stick to a plan and the many small setbacks along the way inevitably derailed progress. It is clear, however, that there was no formal mechanism for making collaborative decisions with her. The extent to which Grace participated in decisions about her case was contingent on the personalities and philosophies of the individuals involved. Not surprisingly, in contrast to her general view of system decision making, Grace felt that having a good lawyer was empowering: [My attorney] cares so she’s fighting for me and I’m just sitting there with happy tears in my eyes, I’m so happy someone is sticking up for me. It’s not just my voice that’s being blocked, you know like I’m not being heard. . . . And to have someone that’s by your side telling you you’re worth it and it’s not right . . . who’s doing it for free, and they’re really fighting like they’re getting paid for it, it’s like wow. Collaborating and Sharing Power Across Systems Grace, like many girls in the juvenile justice system, was under the jurisdiction of more than one state system simultaneously. She was in the custody of DFS as a result of a child protection case, committed to DJJ as a result of delinquency, for a year she was under the supervision of the Probation Department, and she was also placed in a Department of Mental Health (DMH) facility briefly as a result of her bipolar disorder. These agencies

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

each had responsibility for a portion of the services, and so their ability to collaborate was critical to effective service delivery (see also Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). However, during Grace’s teens, these agencies fought among themselves over who had responsibility for her placements, and this contributed to Grace spending a total of 264 days over 2 years in secure detention, although after her first offense she was never charged anew. This lack of cross-system collaboration and shared power appeared to be the result of (a) a lack of clarity among the caseworkers about who was legally responsible for which portion of services; (b) poor interpersonal relationships among the responsible agency caseworkers and supervisors, resulting in staff personalizing decisions; (c) limited resources; and (d) a lack of mechanisms for information sharing. Indeed, when Grace discussed the two primary systems in her life, DFS and DJJ, she was almost like a child of bickering parents, having to choose a favorite, suffering a loss of confidence and trust in them as a result. In Grace’s view, DJJ was generally in the right and DFS was in the wrong, making it even more difficult for her to trust DFS’s decisions in her case: The DJJ system, I feel like they cared a lot more than DFS, and that’s a little weird because you’re confined with DJJ, you’re locked away. But they cared more. DJJ fought with DFS to find me placements because sometimes, if DFS couldn’t find me a placement, they’d just throw me in DJJ custody. Regardless of whether Grace’s understanding of responsibilities across the agencies

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was accurate, their public disputes and her caseworkers’ willingness to blame the other agencies seemed to contribute to Grace’s mistrust of the system and feelings of powerlessness and lack of safety. Agency informants in this study differed in their views of who had responsibility for finding Grace placements. The attorney, DJJ, and Grace thought DFS was responsible, and DFS and the judge (who was not involved in Grace’s case but was rather commenting on the general rule) thought the primary responsibility fell to DJJ. It is likely that both DJJ and DFS had responsibility at different points in the case, but the lack of clarity among the line staff and supervisors about each agency’s responsibility could only have contributed to the difficulties they had collaborating across systems. In addition, agency policies made crosssystem collaboration more difficult in ways large and small, all of which appeared to hurt Grace. The DFS caseworker stated: The clothing money? It was supposed to be paid out from the DFS system. We’re supposed to be supporting the child, so we’re supposed to pay for their clothing and their birthday money, and the child has a legal right to that money under the state law and there is no way to pay between the DFS system and the DJJ system. . . . So she would miss all these payments, which was sort of the sad thing about her case is she never had clothes, she never had her hair done, she never had all these things that would make a young woman successful. And that’s sort of what I meant in the beginning about they didn’t really take care of her, nurture her like a girl.

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Different agencies’ foci and the degrees of discretion allowed among caseworkers may have also contributed to conflicts. DJJ informants said they may have considered a placement with Grace’s family, but DFS, which was involved as a direct result of Grace’s family’s inability to care for her, would not consider it. The agencies did not negotiate through these differences. Along with different foci, the agencies often also operated with different information. Even within DJJ there was little information sharing, so the detention facility knew little about Grace, although the DJJ case file likely contained much more (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). This lack of information sharing contributed to disjointed case planning. The former director of detention explained: In detention, you go with very little information. You can go with a lot of self-disclosed information from the client in terms of what Grace tells us basically, but you also get a “Mit” [custody order from the court] and it says something on it like “assault and battery,” and that’s all you have; you don’t have what the circumstances were. There’s always more information than what you get, and so you go with that and trying to get to a point where we understand that there was a history of mental health in her family. I don’t think that’s something we ever knew until the very, very end. The absence of shared power and collaboration in the decision-making process was a striking feature of the years Grace spent involved with DFS and DJJ and was the result of the mutual lack of trust between Grace and these systems as entities, a rigid “take it or

leave it” approach to service provision, and an overall accountability approach to case planning that blamed Grace for her failures and used those failures as a reason not to share power with her. There was also a lack of collaboration across systems, marking Grace’s case with cross-system squabbles about who was responsible for various pieces of her case, limiting the resources available to her, and putting her in the middle of system turf disputes and conflicting policies.

CONCLUSION Juvenile justice policy should not be made on the basis of any single case. However, case study analysis can deepen our understanding of how individuals interpret a shared experience, and that understanding, in turn, can form the basis for further study and analysis with individuals in similar circumstances. Through this process, it is our hope that Grace’s case study, along with others like it, might lead to policies more connected to the young women the youth systems are meant to serve. Over the past decade, a consensus has begun to emerge about the particular needs and pathways of girls in the juvenile justice system and the gender-responsive approach to services and systems that might address those needs. Three core gender-responsive elements—physical and emotional safety, relationships, and collaboration across systems and with young women—are acknowledged in the literature as central to effective programs and policies for system-involved girls. We chose to tell Grace’s story with reference to these gender-responsive elements because they facilitated the narration and highlighted themes in Grace’s experience to which policy makers should attend.

The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace’s Story

Though this case study suggests many profitable areas for further research and policy reform, there are a few core, overarching findings. Most broadly, it is clear that however well-meaning adults in the system are, the girls involved will make their own meaning of their experiences, reflecting their preferences about process and solutions. Their perspectives are critical to successful policies. Second, Grace’s story highlights the importance of a developmental focus, emphasizing girls’ needs and strengths rather than focusing on their crimes and misbehavior. Finally, Grace’s story is a poignant reminder that regardless of our adult view of the quality of girls’ families, young women in Grace’s situation seek and need family connection, and the systems charged with their care must find ways to support them in that quest. Grace was in the custody of the youth systems from 1999 to 2003, and policies related to much of what characterized her tour through the systems are beginning to evolve. In 2011 there is increasing attention to placement instability and its profound impact on youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. There is also movement toward reducing reliance on detention and increasing reliance on community-based programming (see Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). There is a growing emphasis on positive youth development (see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume) and intensive, individualized services in juvenile justice and child welfare systems, which might have removed the negative quality of so many of Grace’s system interactions (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). These are reasons to hope that the system experiences of girls today might be improved from those experienced by Grace.

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Chodorow, N. (1974). Family structure and feminine personality. In M. Z. Rosaldo & L. Lamphere (Eds.), Woman, culture, and society (pp. 43–66). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Conger, D., & Ross, T. (2001). Reducing the foster care bias in juvenile detention decisions: The impact of Project Confirm. Retrieved from Vera Institute of Justice Web site: www.vera.org/download?file ¼177/Foster%2Bcare%2Bbias.pdf Corneau, M., & Lanctot, N. (2004). Mental health outcomes of adjudicated males and females: The aftermath of juvenile delinquency and problem behaviour. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 14, 251–262. Denner, J., & Griffin, A. (2003). The role of gender in enhancing program strategies for healthy youth development. In F. A. Villarruel, D. F. Perkins, L. M. Borden, & J. G. Keith (Eds.), Community youth development: Programs, policies and practices (pp. 118–145). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goodkind, S. (2005). Gender-specific services in the juvenile justice system: A critical examination. Affilia, 20(1), 52–70. Goodkind, S., Ng, I., & Sarri, R. C. (2006). The impact of sexual abuse in the lives of young women involved or at risk of involvement with the juvenile justice system. Violence Against Women, 12(5), 456–477. Guthrie, B. J., Hoey, E., Ravoira, L., & Kintner, E. (2002). Girls in the juvenile justice system: Leave no girl’s health un-addressed. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 17(6), 414–423. Hanlon, C., May, J., & Kaye, N. (2008). A multi-agency approach to using Medicaid to meet the health needs of juvenile justice-involved youth. Retrieved from National Academy for State Health Policy Web site: www .nashp.org/sites/default/files/Multi_Agency_NASHP .pdf Hodder, I. (2003). The interpretation of documents and material culture. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed., pp. 155–175). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hubbard, D. J., & Matthews, B. (2008). Reconciling the differences between the “gender responsive” and the “what works” literatures to improve services for girls. Crime & Delinquency, 54(2), 225–258.

Jacobs, F., Oliveri, R., & Greenstone, J. H. (2009). Massachusetts health passport project evaluation final report. Medford, MA: Tufts University. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1992, 42 U.S.C. 5601 et seq. (2002). Kelly, P. J., Owen, S. V., Peralez-Dieckmann, E., & Martinez, E. (2007). Health interventions with girls in the juvenile justice system. Women’s Health Issues, 17, 227–236. Lawler, S. (2002). Narrative in social research. In T. May (Ed.), Qualitative research in action (pp. 242–258). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lederman, C. S., Dakof, G. A., Larrea, M. A., & Li, H. (2004). Characteristics of adolescent females in juvenile detention. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27, 321–337. Levick, M. L., & Sherman, F. T. (2003). When individual differences demand equal treatment: An equal rights approach to the special needs of girls in the juvenile justice system. Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal, 18(1), 9–50. Lynch, D., & Widner, K. (2008). Commercial sexual exploitation of children in Georgia. Atlanta, GA: Barton Child & Policy Clinic, Emory University School of Law. Maniglia, R. (1996). New directions for young women in the juvenile justice system. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 5(2), 96–101. Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative researching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mead, M. (2001). Gender matters: Funding effective programs for women and girls. Accessed online at www .chambersfund.org/documents/gender-matters.pdf Morgan, M., & Patton, P. (2002). Gender-responsive programming in the juvenile justice system— Oregon’s guidelines for effective programming for girls. Federal Probation, 66(2), 57–65. Ms. Foundation for Women. (2000). The new girls movement: Charting the path. Electronic reference format. Accessed online at www.ms.foundation.org/user -assets/PDF/Program/HGHW.pdf Ms. Foundation for Women. (2001) The new girls’ movement: Implications for youth programs. New York, NY: Author. Available from www.ms.foundation.org /user-assets/PDF/Program/hghw_girlsmovement. pdf Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). (1998). Guiding principles for promising female programming: An inventory of best practices. Washington,

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DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Available from http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/principles/contents.html Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile arrests 2008. Juvenile justice bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Ravoira, L. (2005). Portrait of risk. Jacksonville, FL: PACE Center for Girls. Rosie D. v. Romney, 410 F. Supp. 18 (D. Mass, 2006). Ryan, G. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2003). Data management and analysis methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed., pp. 259–309). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. (1999). A gender analysis: Implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women and CEDAW Task Force. Available at www.sfgov .org/site/cosw_page.asp?id¼10860 Sherman, F. T. (2005). Detention reform and girls: Challenges and solutions (13). Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Sherman, F. T. (2009). Reframing the response: Girls in the juvenile justice system and domestic violence. Juvenile and Family Justice Today, 18(1), 16–20. Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Teplin, L. A., Abram, K. M., McClelland, G. M., Dulcan, M. K., & Mericle, A. A. (2002). Psychiatric disorders in youth in juvenile detention. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59, 1133–1143.

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Timmons-Mitchell, J., Brown, C., Schulz, S. C., Webster, S. E., Underwood, L. A., & Semple, W. E. (1997). Comparing the mental health needs of female and male incarcerated juvenile delinquents. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 15, 195–202. Weitzman, E. A. (2003). Software and qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed., pp. 310–339). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wheeler, K. A., Oliveri, R., Towery, I. D., & Mead, M. (2005). Where are the girls?: The state of girls’ programming in Greater Boston. Accessed online November 1, 2006, at www.girlscoalition.org / uploads/pdf/COPY%20FOR%20PRINTING— Where%20Are%20the%20Girls%20report%2012 .29.05%20FINAL.pdf (no longer available). Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zahn, M. A., Brumbaugh, S., Steffensmeier, D., Feld, B. C., Morash, M., Chesney-Lind, M., & Kruttschnitt, C. (2008). The Girls Study Group: Violence by teenage girls: Trends and context. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Zahn, M. A., Hawkins, S. R., Chiancone, J., & Whitworth, A. (2008). The Girls Study Group: Charting the way to delinquency prevention for girls. Retrieved from Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp /223434.pdf

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

8

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth and the Juvenile Justice System LAURA GARNETTE, ANGELA IRVINE, CAROLYN REYES,

M

ost youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are supported by their families and peers as they progress through the series of developmental changes that mark adolescence (Erikson, 1968), including the establishment of gender identity and the exploration of sexuality (Silbereisen, Eyferth, & Rudinger, 1986). Unfortunately, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth experience social stigma and abuse from their families and peers, interrupting normative development and threatening mental and physical health. This social stigma and abuse leads to a series of negative outcomes for some LGBT youth: school failure and truancy, family conflict, placement in group and foster homes, homelessness, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Indeed, LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system are more likely than their heterosexual and gender-conforming peers to have been abused and neglected by family members, to have been placed in out-ofhome care, to have run away from placement, and to have been detained for running away (Irvine, 2009). This chapter provides a framework for understanding healthy adolescent development, the ways that social stigma and abuse

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can derail healthy adolescent development, and the harmful effects of detention. It presents new research on the links between social stigma and abuse and juvenile detention. It also provides policy and programmatic recommendations for meeting the needs of this vulnerable and mostly invisible population.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY IN ADOLESCENTS Adolescence is the transition from childhood to adulthood and is marked by profound social, emotional, and physical changes (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009; see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). The development of healthy sexuality and integration of a positive gender identity are among the critical developmental tasks youth must undertake during this time (Christopher, 2001; Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Impett & Tolman, 2006). Creating an environment in which youth feel safe exploring and disclosing their emerging sexuality and gender identity promotes well-being, positive self-esteem, and self-care, all of which are essential components 156

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in reducing risk and increasing healthy behaviors (Wilber, Ryan, & Marksamer, 2006). Sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct aspects of an individual’s identity. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction to members of the same or different sex. It exists on a continuum, from exclusively heterosexual (attraction to members of a different sex) to exclusively homosexual (attraction to members of the same sex), with degrees of bisexuality (attraction to same-sex or other-sex people) in-between (American Psychological Association, 2009). Gender identity refers to a person’s internal, deeply felt sense of being male, female, or something other or inbetween (Eckes & Traunter, 2000). Every person has a gender identity. Typically, one’s gender identity is consistent with his or her anatomical sex. However, transgender individuals have a gender identity that is different from their assigned birth sex. The term transgender also describes people whose gender expression does not conform to societal norms, though not all gender-nonconforming individuals identify as transgender. Child and adolescent development research indicates that gender identity is firmly established in early childhood (Brill & Pepper, 2008; Wilber et al., 2006). Just as genderconforming youth have strong gender identities before starting kindergarten, some youth self-identify as transgender as early as preschool (Mallon & DeCrescenzo, 2006; Wilber et al., 2006). Sexual orientation is similarly established at a young age (Ryan & Diaz, 2005). Like heterosexual youth, lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth usually become aware of their sexual orientation based on their thoughts and emotions long before they have their first sexual encounter. Recent research shows that children are “coming out” (disclosing their sexual

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orientation to others) at younger ages than in previous generations (Ryan & Diaz, 2005). Ryan and Diaz (2005) found that many youth report awareness of their sexual orientation by age 5, while the average age of first awareness of same-sex attraction is about 10 years and of self-identification as gay or lesbian is about 13 years. Although a considerable debate exists about the origin of sexual orientation, the prevailing scientific understanding is that it is the result of a complex interaction of biological and environmental factors and is an inherent part of a person’s being (American Psychiatric Association, 2009; American Psychological Association, 2009; Frankowski, 2004). Even though some people may choose not to act on their feelings or to self-identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, experts agree that individuals with same sex attraction cannot change their sexual orientation any more than heterosexual people can change theirs (American Psychological Association, 2004). Similarly, consensus exists among the health professions that a person’s gender identity is a deep-seated, inherent aspect of human identity; efforts to change gender identity are ineffective and likely to cause significant harm (Israel & Tarver, 1997; Mallon, 1999). Some professionals have tried unsuccessfully to “cure” individuals using techniques designed to alter their cross-gender identification. These techniques are sometimes referred to as reparative therapies or aversion techniques. However, the medical and psychological professions view efforts to alter a person’s core gender as both futile and unethical (Israel & Tarver, 1997; Mallon, 1999). There is clear consensus among all mainstream health and mental health professionals that LGBT identity represents a normal aspect of human experience (Klein, 2000; Mallon & DeCrescenzo, 2006; Wilber et al., 2006).

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Over 35 years of scientific research demonstrates that lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities fall within the range of normative sexual development and are not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems; nor are they caused by prior sexual abuse or other trauma (American Psychological Association, 2004; Herek & Garnets, 2007). According to the American Psychiatric Association, childhood sexual abuse does not appear to be more prevalent among children who grow up to identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) than it is among their heterosexual counterparts (American Psychiatric Association, 2009). Even though LGB youth are no more likely to experience childhood sexual abuse than their heterosexual peers, many LGBT adolescents do experience sexual abuse and trauma after coming out to individuals in their families, communities, schools, and other institutions (Earls, 2002; Savin-Williams, 1994). Research similarly confirms that no inherent connection exists between a person’s sexual orientation and the likelihood of sexual offending (Goldman, 2008; Jenny, Roesler, & Poyer, 1994; McConaghy, 1998). Studies using a variety of psychological measures indicate that gay individuals are not more likely than heterosexuals “to possess any psychological characteristics that would make them less capable of controlling their sexual urges, refraining from the abuse of power, obeying rules and laws, interacting effectively with others, or exercising good judgment in handling authority” (Herek, 2009). Additionally, transgender individuals in general do not have serious underlying psychopathology that causes or influences their transgender identity. Studies have documented that the incidence of reported mental health problems for transgender individuals undergoing treatment is similar to that in the general

population (Brown, 2007; Cole, O’Boyle, Emory, & Meyer, 1997). The research is clear: Though faced with challenges rooted in stigma that are not experienced by most of their nonLGBT counterparts, LGBT youth are in no way “sick,” “damaged,” or “depraved.”

SOCIAL STIGMA AND ASSOCIATED RISKS TO WELL-BEING FOR LGBT YOUTH LGBT youth reach the same developmental milestones as their heterosexual and gender normative counterparts, but face additional challenges associated with living with a stigmatized identity. They must cope with familial, social, educational, and community environments in which victimization and harassment are common. LGBT-related stigma has social, behavioral, and health-related consequences that can increase risk behaviors, such as substance abuse and unprotected sex, and intensify psychological distress and risk for suicide (Ryan & Futterman, 1998). Juvenile justice professionals working with LGBT youth must be aware of these unique contextual issues in order to provide appropriate, individualized services to these youth. Social Stigma Despite the gains made by LGBT individuals in the area of civil rights and increased visibility in the media, there is still profound societal stigma associated with LGBT identities. Society continues to uphold heterosexuality and gender-conforming behavior as “normal” and label all other human expressions as inferior, at best. In an environment in which same-sex attraction and gender-nonconforming behavior is heavily

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

pathologized, children learn at a young age which behaviors are acceptable and rewarded and which ones are best hidden or repressed. This is the context in which adolescents are expected to work toward creating a stable identity and becoming healthy and productive adults. This type of social stigma makes these already difficult developmental tasks seem insurmountable to many LGBT youth (Hill & Willoughby, 2005; Martin, 1995). Morrow and Messinger (2006) explain that Developing a positive identity within a heterocentric social environment can be especially challenging for LGBT youth in that there are often severe social penalties, such as ostracism, taunting, even violence, for not conforming to socially approved dating practices and gender expression norms. (p. 178) Harassment at School Many LGBT youth do not find acceptance, or even safety, in schools. A 2003 national survey of self-identified LGBT youth aged 13 through 20 (Kosciw, 2004) found that 90% of respondents heard homophobic remarks in their schools frequently or often; approximately 20% heard homophobic remarks from faculty or staff at least some of the time; three quarters of youth felt unsafe in their schools, primarily because of their sexual orientation or gender expression; approximately 20% experienced physical assault because of sexual orientation; more than 10% experienced physical assault because of their expressed gender identity; and over half of the students reported that their property had been deliberately damaged or stolen in the past year. Similarly, the National School Climate Survey

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(Kosciw, Diaz, & Greytak, 2007) indicated that 86.2% of respondents experienced harassment at school in the past year and 60.8% felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation. An extensive state survey of high school students found that LGBTyouth are more than twice as likely to report having been in a physical fight at school in the previous year and 3 times more likely to report having been injured or threatened with a weapon at school in the past year than their non-LGBT peers (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2006). Failure to intervene to protect LGBT students who experience abuse and harassment on school campuses leads to higher rates of truancy and school failure. LGBT youth are more likely than non-LGBT youth to skip school because they feel unsafe; and 19% of LGBT students reported that they had missed school in the past month because they felt unsafe, compared to 5.6% of non-LGBT students (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2006). LGBT youth who are victimized in school are also at risk of school failure and dropping out of school, which significantly increases their chances of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system and negatively affects their prospects for a successful transition to adulthood. In fact, research conducted by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, and released in October 2009, has identified a series of employment, earnings, income, and social difficulties faced by the nation’s young adults lacking regular high school diplomas or their equivalent. The researchers found that 1 in 10 male high school dropouts were in juvenile detention or jail as compared to 1 in 35 high school graduates (Sum, Khatiwada, McLaughlin, & Palma, 2009).

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Family Rejection Many LGBTyouth find little, if any, sanctuary from societal condemnation in their homes. Parents are often upset when their child discloses that he or she is lesbian, gay, or bisexual or behaves in a manner that is gender nonconforming (Clatts, Davis, Sotheran, & Atillasoy, 1999; Hyde, 2005; Owen, Heineman, & Gerrard, 2007; Ray, 2007; Robson, 2001). Negative responses vary widely, from disapproval to abuse (Cochran, Stewart, Ginzler, & Cauce, 2002; Saewyc, Pettingell, & Skay, 2006; Valentine, 2008; Witbeck, Chen, Hoyt, Tyler, & Johnson, 2004). One study found that 45% of parents were angry, sick, or disgusted when first learning of their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity (Martin, 1996). Many parents compare the sense of loss and devastation they feel upon learning their child is LGBT to mourning their child’s death (Ryan & Futterman, 1998). Another study showed that approximately 30% of LGBT youth in foster care have been physically abused by family members as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity (Sullivan, Sommer, & Moff, 2001). Researchers Ryan and Diaz (2005) from the Family Acceptance Project—the first major study of LGBT adolescents and their families—have documented the impact of family responses to children’s emerging LGBT identities on the young people’s health and mental health. Not surprisingly, they found that family acceptance is an important protective factor, and family rejection has serious negative outcomes for LGBT youth. LGBT young people whose families rejected their sexual orientation or gender identity during adolescence were much more likely to experience significantly higher rates of depression, suicidality, substance abuse, and risk for HIV infection than their peers with

accepting families. Family acceptance and rejection also had a significant impact on self-esteem, access to social support, and life satisfaction (see Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). Because families play such a critical role in child and adolescent development, it is not surprising that negative reactions from parents and caregivers in response to their children’s LGBT identity would have such a harmful impact on their children’s risk behaviors and health status as young adults (Ryan, Huebner, Diaz, & Sanchez, 2009). In contrast, family support, along with self-acceptance, has been found to mediate the impact of the victimization on mental health and suicidality of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth (Hershberger & D’Augelli, 1995). Homelessness As a result of being forced out of their homes due to conflict related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, LGBT youth are disproportionately represented in the homeless youth population (Cochran et al., 2002; Milburn, Rotheram-Borus, Rice, Mallet, & Rosenthal, 2006; Ray, 2007; Solorio, Milburn, Anderson, Trifskin, & Rodriguez, 2006; Sullivan et al., 2001; Van Leuwen et al., 2006). The National Network of Runaway and Youth Services estimates that between 20% and 40% of homeless youth are LGBT (Woronoff, Estrada, Sommer, & Marzullo, 2006). These young people may be on the run from abusive families and/or foster care placements where they experienced verbal and physical abuse because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Once on the street, LGBT youth have limited resources for help or protection. For example, New York City has approximately 7,000 homeless LGBT youth but only 26 beds specifically allocated to LGBT

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

individuals (Guzder, 2005). Many shelters exclude LGBT youth. Other shelters enroll LGBT youth in programs that attempt to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Staff in some shelters have physically threatened or sexually assaulted LGBT youth. One third of LGBT youth who are homeless or in the care of social services experienced a violent physical assault when they came out to staff (Ray, 2007). With extremely limited resources, LGBT youth who are homeless often commit “survival crimes,” such as prostitution, theft, or drug sales, in order to gain adequate housing and food (Anderson, Freese, & Pennbridge, 1994; Cochran et al., 2002; Gaetz, 2004; Majd, Marksamer, & Reyes, 2009; National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2009; Ray, 2007; Van Leuwen et al., 2006). Homelessness also exposes LGBT youth to increased risk of victimization, including assault, robbery, and rape. Among high-risk homeless youth, LGBT homeless youth report the highest rates of victimization, risk, and health concerns (Cochran et al., 2002). The Child Welfare System Given high rates of child abuse and neglect among LGBT youth, the child welfare system assumes custody of many of these youth (Berberet, 2006; Mallon, 1992; Ray, 2007; Sullivan et al., 2001; Thompson, Safyer, & Pollio, 2001; Van Leuwen et al., 2006). Unfortunately, child welfare officials often categorize LGBT youth as “difficult to place” because many group and foster homes refuse to house and care for LGBT youth (Sullivan et al., 2001). Transgender youth, in particular, have difficulty accessing placements and are especially vulnerable to abuse when in placement (HCH Clinicians’ Network, 2002). If placed, many LGBT youth are subject to the

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same disapproval, abuse, and neglect they endured in their families and in homeless shelters. In response, these youth find themselves back on the street and vulnerable to incarceration for running away, theft, and prostitution. LGBT YOUTH AND THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM LGBT youth enter the juvenile justice system for numerous reasons, many of which are unrelated to their sexual orientation or gender identity. However, as with all youth, it is important to understand the ways in which the social context of individual LGBT youth—one marked by societal, familial, and peer rejection—may impact the youth’s pathway into the juvenile justice system (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). While the marginalization of LGBT youth has been documented in the family, schools, and child welfare system, until recently researchers have failed to link these experiences to incarceration. Making these links has been difficult because juvenile justice systems do not collect data on the sexual orientation or gender identity of the youth they serve (see Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume; Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). New research provides empirical data documenting how the rejection and abuse experienced by LGBT youth in their families, schools, shelters, and group and foster homes ultimately leads them to become involved in the juvenile justice system (Irvine, 2010). New Data on LGBT Youth in the Juvenile Justice System A recent study provides quantitative data on how many LGBT youth are in the juvenile

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justice system and whether LGBT youth have different patterns of incarceration when compared with heterosexual youth (Irvine, 2010). Irvine (2010) distributed 2,300 surveys to youth detained in juvenile facilities in the western, southern, and midwestern regions of the United States. Twenty-one hundred surveys were returned (a 91% response rate). Respondents varied in age, and race and ethnic identity. The age of respondents ranged from 11 to 21, with a mean age of 16 years. Within the sample, 34% (n ¼ 665) of respondents identified as African American; 30% (n ¼ 575) of respondents identified as Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, Mexican, or Mexican American; 18% (n ¼ 345) of respondents identified as White or Caucasian; 4% (n ¼ 76) of respondents identified as Native American; 1% (n ¼ 27) of respondents identified as Japanese, Chinese, Samoan, or Pacific Islander; and 13% (n ¼ 245) of respondents identified with multiple racial or ethnic categories or a racial or ethnic category other than those reported above (Irvine, 2010). Respondents also varied by sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Eighty-five percent of respondents reported heterosexual sexual orientations and gender conformity. Of respondents, 15% reported having lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientations, questioning their sexual orientations, having a transgender gender identity, or having a nonconforming gender expression (Irvine, 2010). These findings varied across respondents who identify as boys and girls. Compared with 11% of boys, 27% of girls reported being LGBT (Irvine, 2010). The disclosure of sexual orientation also varied across race and ethnic identity. This variation provides evidence that dispels a common myth among juvenile justice professionals. While many juvenile justice professionals assume that most LGBT youth are White and

middle class, the data from this survey show that of youth in the juvenile justice system, an equal proportion of White, Latino, and African American youth are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning: Ten percent of White, Latino, and African American respondents are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning. An even higher proportion of Asian, Native American, and youth with multiple ethnic or race identities disclosed that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual or questioned their sexual orientation: Twelve percent of Asian, 24% of Native American, and 18% of respondents with mixed race or “other” race and ethnic identities identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning. The proportion of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system may surprise many justice professionals. LGBT youth remain largely hidden within the juvenile justice system because most LGBT youth conform to gender norms and secure detention is not seen by youth as a “safe place” to disclose their sexual orientation. Sexual orientation and gender identity interact in very complex ways. A girl may have a lesbian sexual orientation, but may wear her hair, dress, and behave in a way that is considered feminine and that follows gender norms for girls. Another girl might have a heterosexual sexual orientation, but may wear her hair, dress, and behave in a way that is considered masculine and different from gender norms for girls. The research findings (Irvine, 2010) show that 85% of youth have heterosexual sexual orientations and are gender conforming; 3% of youth have heterosexual sexual orientations and behave in gender-nonconforming ways; 3% of youth have lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientations and behave in gendernonconforming ways or question their sexual orientations; and 9% of youth have lesbian, gay, or bisexual orientations or question their

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

sexual orientations and behave in genderconforming ways. In other words, there are youth who have heterosexual sexual identities but appear in gender-nonconforming ways. These youth probably experience varying degrees of mistreatment within the juvenile justice system because of the way they look. At the same time, the majority of LGBTyouth in the juvenile justice system wear their hair, dress, and behave in ways that are consistent with the norms of the gender assigned to them at birth. Because their appearance and behavior are consistent with the expectations of juvenile justice professionals, many of these youth remain “invisible” to the juvenile justice system unless they disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity. The findings from this new research reinforce the existing literature on school bullying, family rejection, homelessness, and involvement in the child welfare system by demonstrating that, when compared with heterosexual and gender-conforming youth, LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system are twice as likely to have a history of home removal, twice as likely to have a history of living in foster and group homes, twice as likely to have a history of homelessness, and twice as likely to be detained in a secure juvenile facility for running away (Irvine, 2010). However, while existing research studied LGBT youth who have disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and have accessed social

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services, this new study surveyed many LGBTyouth who continue to hide their sexual orientation and gender identity. Table 8.1 presents findings from this new survey. Among heterosexual and genderconforming youth in the juvenile justice system, 11% have been removed from their home by a social worker, compared with 24% of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Among heterosexual and genderconforming youth in the juvenile justice system, 18% have lived in a group home or foster home, compared with 33% of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Among heterosexual and gender-conforming youth in the juvenile justice system, 17% have been homeless, compared with 37% of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. All three differences are statistically significant. Data from the surveys also document different detention patterns for LGBT youth when compared with heterosexual and gender-conforming youth. Table 8.2 on the following page reports the percentage of heterosexual and gender-conforming and LGBT youth detained for eight different types of offenses: violent offenses; weapon offenses; property offenses; drug and alcohol offenses; running away; prostitution; and truancy, warrants, or probation violations. These data show that the juvenile justice system detains heterosexual and

Table 8.1. Home Removal, Group Foster Home Placement, and Homelessness Among Detained Youth

Outcome

Heterosexual and Gender-Conforming Youth

LGBT Youth

Statistically Significant Differences

11% 18% 17%

24% 33% 37%

YES (p < .000) YES (p < .000) YES (p < .000)

Have you ever been removed from your home by a social worker? Have you ever lived in a group home or foster home? Have you ever been homeless after being kicked out of home or running away? Data Source: Annie E. Casey LGBT Youth Survey, 2008 (A. Irvine, Principal Investigator).

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Type of Offense Violent Weapon Property Alcohol/drug Running away Prostitution Truancy, warrant, or violation of probation

Heterosexual and Gender-Conforming Youth

LGBT Youth

Statistically Significant Differences

17% 14% 24% 22% 12% 1% 11%

21% 17% 27% 21% 30% 9% 18%

NO NO NO NO YES (p < .000) YES (p < .000) YES (p < .013)

Data Source: Annie E. Casey LGBT Youth Survey, 2008 (A. Irvine, Principal Investigator).

gender-conforming and LGBT youth at similar rates for violent, weapon, property, and drug- and alcohol-related offenses. However, the juvenile justice system detains LGBTyouth much more frequently for running away; prostitution; and truancy, warrants, and probation violations. Among heterosexual and gender-conforming youth in the juvenile justice system, 12% are detained for running away, compared with 30% of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Among heterosexual and gender-conforming youth, 1% are detained for prostitution, compared with 9% of LGBT youth. Among heterosexual and gender-conforming youth in the juvenile justice system, 11% are detained for truancy, warrants, or probation violations, compared with 18% of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Thus, the juvenile justice system detains LGBT youth for nonviolent offenses at twice the rate of their heterosexual and gender-conforming peers. These data help paint a picture of a typical path from home to detention. As LGBTyouth are removed or ejected from their homes, they are often placed in group or foster homes not equipped to meet their needs. The initial placement is followed by a cycle of placement failures, running away, homelessness, and survival crimes that make these youth even more

susceptible to punishment from law enforcement agencies. Detention for these particular offenses punishes LGBTyouth for the conflict they experience at home, in group and foster home placements, at school, and in homeless shelters.

HARMFUL POLICIES AND PRACTICES DIRECTED AT LGBT YOUTH IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM Whether or not they are physically identifiable, LGBTyouth in the juvenile justice system are subject to harmful practices at every stage of the delinquency process. LGBT youth who are gender nonconforming or open about their gay or lesbian identities often face discriminatory practices and abuse. LGBT youth who do not disclose their identity, or are not perceived to be LGBT, are also harmed by the juvenile justice system through inaccurate risk assessments and homophobic policies and practices. In fact, policies and practices that marginalize or penalize LGBT youth harm all youth by tacitly discouraging them from exploring their own emerging identities and by conveying the message that being different is unacceptable.

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

Risk Assessments at Arrest When a youth is suspected of committing a delinquent act and is arrested, the police officer can release the youth to a parent or guardian or deliver the youth to secure custody. In most jurisdictions, once the young person arrives at the detention center, institution staff determine whether the youth remains in secure confinement or is released. Best practice for secure detention facilities is the use of a validated, objective risk instrument to assist in making this determination (Stanfield, 1999; Steinhart, 1999). The risk instrument assesses many domains of the youth’s life to determine whether he or she is at risk of harming someone in the community or failing to appear in court. Two critical elements of a risk assessment are home and school functioning. These sections document relationships between youth and their family members or guardians, academic performance, and school attendance—precisely the areas in which many LGBTyouth experience the most conflict (Estrada & Marksamer, 2006; Irvine, 2009; Valentine, 2008). Consequently, LGBTyouth with low criminality are more likely to be held in secure detention because of family discord and poor school attendance (Irvine, 2010). At booking into detention, LGBT youth are often reluctant to disclose the true reasons for their difficulty at home and at school, making them more vulnerable to secure confinement even when they pose no objective risk to public safety. A common juvenile justice system response to a youth with low criminality who is unable to return to his or her parents or caregivers—either because of refusal on the part of the caregiver or because the home lacks the appropriate support or protection—is placement within the child welfare system. Although this response is a

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well-intentioned effort to allow the youth to remain in a less restrictive environment than secure detention, it does not address the core problem of family turmoil over the youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The recent findings from the Family Acceptance Project demonstrate that a family’s acceptance or rejection of its LGB child serves as a significant indicator of the youth’s future physical and mental health (Ryan et al., 2009). Critically important for professionals working with LGB youth, the research also shows that caregivers who are ambivalent or conflicted about their LGB children’s identity are receptive and interested to learn how their words, actions, and behaviors affect their children’s health (Ryan et al., 2009). This research suggests that with proper training, professionals working with this population can have a profound effect on family functioning by educating caregivers on the significant physical and mental health risks to their child that are directly associated with family rejection. Progressive reforms in juvenile justice systems uniformly support working closely with families to repair conflicts in the home and improve the youth’s prospects upon release from the system. The research from the Family Acceptance Project underscores the importance of working closely with the families of LGB youth. Detention Juvenile detention facilities are required to meet certain minimum standards regarding the care of youth in their facilities. Under the United States Constitution, youth in the care and custody of the state have an affirmative right to safety, which imposes a corresponding duty on the state to provide protection from harm (Alexander S. v.

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Boyd, 1995). Incarcerated youth also have the right to be free of unreasonably restrictive conditions of confinement (Milonas v. Williams, 1982). Facilities may not subject detained youth to practices that “amount to punishment” (Bell v. Wolfish, 1979, p. 535) or that “substantially depart from accepted professional practice” (Youngberg v. Romeo, 1982, p. 314). In addition to constitutional requirements, state statutes and regulations govern policies and practices in detention facilities, and often subject facilities to licensing standards and periodic monitoring. Professional standards, including the standards promulgated by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (2004) and the American Correctional Association (2007), provide further guidance on generally accepted professional practices. LGBT youth are vulnerable in secure detention (Valentine, 2008). Findings from the first National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), representing approximately 26,550 adjudicated youth held nationwide in stateoperated and large locally or privately operated juvenile facilities, revealed startling results. In the first national survey on sexual victimization among youth in juvenile facilities, an estimated 12% of youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities (representing 3,220 youth nationwide) reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months. Youth with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual reported significantly higher rates of sexual victimization by another youth (12.5%) compared to heterosexual youth (1.3%) (Beck, Harrison, & Guerino, 2010). LGB youth who have disclosed their sexual orientation or youth whose appearance or expression does not conform to gender norms are often subject to ridicule, harassment,

differential treatment, and sexual and physical assault (Majd et al., 2009). Moreover, recent surveys of juvenile justice professionals indicate that many facilities “manage” LGBT youth by isolating them from the general population— either to protect LGBT youth from their peers or to protect the youth in the general population from contact with LGBT youth (Majd et al., 2009). Child advocates working with LGBT youth in custody have exposed these practices through lawsuits and system reform efforts (Estrada & Marksamer, 2006). In a recent case, R.G. v. Koller (2006), filed on behalf of three LGBT youth detained in the Hawai’i Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF), the plaintiffs alleged that they were subjected to constant verbal, physical, and sexual harassment by their peers and facility staff. They further alleged that the facility staff responded to this behavior by isolating the LGBT youth. The federal court determined that HYCF officials acted with deliberate indifference and violated due process by failing to intervene to protect the youth and by permitting the abuse to continue. The court further found that use of isolation to “protect” LGBT wards violated acceptable professional standards and constituted unconstitutional punishment (R.G. v. Koller, 2006). Whether or not they disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity, LGBTyouth are subject to high levels of stress. They must either hide their sexual orientation or gender identity in an effort to blend in with peers ordisclose their identities and risk harassment, isolation, and even physical harm. Even in a program as successful and progressive as the Center for Young Women’s Development in San Francisco, it typically takes approximately 4 months for a young woman to disclose her lesbian or bisexual identity to staff (M. Sanchez & L. Garnette, personal communication, February 2005). The preadjudication period can be

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

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MARK’S STORY Mark is a gay young man who spent most of his adolescence in the juvenile justice system in California. By his 18th birthday, Mark had served more than two years of cumulative time in the local detention center. Even though he spent much of his formative adolescent years with the detention staff, he never disclosed his gay identity. In 2004, as a 25-year-old man, Mark shared his experience with juvenile justice professionals from across the country at an Annie E. Casey Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative national conference in San Francisco. When describing why he denied his true identity while involved in the system, he said, “It’s just not cool to be gay in this environment. . . . It’s not an open, free-thinking, comfortable, nurturing place to be. It is one that encourages stereotypes and macho-ism. And what more intimidating place to be for those who want to keep a secret” (JDAI All-Site Conference, 2004).

especially daunting for LGBT youth. If they decide not to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is impossible to have an open relationship with their defense attorney, probation officer, or custodial staff. The professionals working with these youth make recommendations and decisions, which often have a significantand lasting impact on ayoung person’s life, based on partial or inaccurate information. Disposition Disposition in the juvenile system is equivalent to sentencing in the adult system. Some youth are sentenced to secure detention. Other youth are placed on probation. Although probation is an alternative to secure confinement, the youth is responsible for meeting the terms of probation that have been set by the juvenile court. If the youth violates any terms of his or her probation, he or she may be returned to detention. There are several ways that standard dispositions adversely affect LGBT youth. Primary terms of probation, among other orders, normally require youth to obey all laws, follow their parents’ directives, participate in counseling, and attend school. Yet LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system are more likely to be bullied and harassed at school and experience conflict at home. Court orders that mandate

staying at home and attending school as conditions of probation place LGBT youth in an untenable position, forcing them to choose between remaining in an unsafe environment or violating a court order. These probation conditions also place LGBT youth at higher risk of secure detention because LGBT and gender-nonconforming youth are more likely to be detained for running away and truancy than their heterosexual, gender-conforming peers (Irvine, 2010). LGBT youth are more likely to be inappropriately classified as sex offenders than are their heterosexual and gender-conforming counterparts. For example, some courts have ordered LGBT youth with no sex offense history to submit to risk assessments designed to predict the likelihood of future sex offending or undergo sex offender treatment even when no indications of risk exist (Majd et al., 2009). These dispositional orders likely stem from the misconception that all LGBT youth are predatory. Other courts order LGBT youth to undergo counseling to address or change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Although every major health and mental health organization has condemned “reparative therapy” as ineffective and harmful, many case plans still contain some provision aimed at “curing” LGBT youth (Majd et al., 2009).

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Postdisposition If LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system are not flourishing in their homes or schools, the court is likely to order placement in an alternative school or home setting. On the surface, this may seem like an appropriate option for a struggling teen. Indeed, positive alternatives often allow youth to make better choices, create new interests, develop positive peer relationships, and redefine themselves in prosocial ways. Problems arise, however, when postdispositional alternatives are not competent to serve LGBTyouth. The lack of competent postdispositional alternatives often results in placement of LGBT youth in settings that are more restrictive than their offense history justifies. Many of these youth languish in detention for no legitimate reason, awaiting placement in an appropriate program that may not even exist. Prolonged detention is harmful to youth in many ways. Detained youth are at heightened risk of abuse, injury, and suicide and are cut off from prosocial connections to the community (Majd et al., 2009). Detained youth are also less able to assist in preparing for trial, less likely to make a positive impression on the judge, and more likely to receive harsher dispositions than nondetained youth (Holman & Zeidenberg, 2006; Majd et al., 2009). Of even greater consequence is the fact that the most significant correlate for future criminal behavior is prior detention, and youth who are incarcerated are more likely to recidivate than youth who are supervised in a community-based setting, or not detained at all (e.g., Holman & Ziedenberg, 2006). A study of youth incarcerated in Arkansas (replicated numerous times) found not only a high recidivism rate, but that the experience of incarceration is the most significant factor in increasing the odds of recidivism (Benda & Tollet, 1999).

RECOMMENDATIONS Social scientists have documented a pernicious cycle of abuse, neglect, and sexual exploitation experienced by many LGBT youth. School victimization, family rejection, and homelessness are all by-products of LGBT-related social bias and stigma. Any of these experiences can contribute to the involvement of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Cumulatively, these experiences deepen and unnecessarily prolong the involvement of LGBT youth in the system, and contribute to the disproportionate number of LGBTyouth in the system. Understanding the context for LGBT youth should help juvenile justice professionals assess behaviors of individual LGBTyouth and assist in creating individualized dispositional plans that include recommendations that correspond with the needs of the youth. The following policy and programmatic recommendations are addressed to juvenile justice personnel and programs, and are drawn from experience, research, and existing literature on LGBT youth in the justice system. &

Group or foster homes, schools, detention facilities, and treatment programs serving juvenile justice youth must create and maintain an inclusive culture that accepts and nurtures youth of different race, ethnicity, ability, language, immigration status, gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Creating this environment requires leadership from managers and supervisors; reinforcement in individual supervision, staff meetings, and agency materials; appropriate intervention when staff or youth violate these principles; and respectful behavior between adult peers and between adults and youth.

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

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GIRLZPACE One program that has excelled in inclusiveness of LGBT youth is “GirlZpace,” administered through the Santa Cruz, California, Juvenile Probation Department. The program is funded with federal Title II funds that pass through the state to address gender-specific issues. GirlZpace has created three neighborhood based “safe spaces” in the form of evening programming for girls on probation or at risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system. The staff mirrors the demographic makeup of the youth, including lesbian staff who are open about their sexual orientation. In one area of the county, the girls voted to allow gay-identified boys to participate in the program. All forms that youth fill out to participate in GirlZpace have demographic questions that include sexual orientation and gender identity. All staff assigned to this program receive extensive training in work with diverse populations.

&

Programs serving youth should: Display signs and art in all areas where youth convene showing all types of family structures and youth. & Create and implement a written policy, which youth read and sign, stating there will be an inclusive atmosphere for all youth. & Facilitate group sessions for youth focused on sexual orientation and gender identity. Examples used in the group should be diverse, either scenarios the youth can relate to or that challenge the youth to empathize with peers who are struggling with these issues. Juvenile justice agencies and the juvenile court should develop and implement formal policies that prohibit discrimination against youth in the system based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Line workers should ensure that all youth in the system receive a copy of the policy in a form that they can understand. The policy should also include specific guidelines for working with transgender youth, addressing issues such as hormone treatment, grooming, name and pronoun use, and privacy.

&

&

&

&

Probation departments should revise terms of probation to avoid unnecessarily subjecting LGBT youth to incarceration when the youth are unsafe at home or in school. Probation departments or courts should offer youth, parents, and caregivers counseling with a provider experienced working with LGBTyouth to reduce family discord (Majd et al., 2009). Juvenile justice agencies and juvenile courts should work together to develop and provide training to all bench officers, court staff, probation staff, attorneys, detention personnel, and community partners providing prevention programs and alternatives to detention. Training should include a review of vocabulary and definitions relevant to LGBT youth, an exploration of myths and stereotypes regarding LGBT youth and adults, developmental issues and adaptive strategies for LGBTyouth, promoting positive adolescent development and a review of the coming-out process, a discussion of how stigma related to sexual orientation and gender identity can be related to the reason youth are involved in the juvenile justice system, issues and challenges unique

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&

to transgender youth, approaches to working with the families of LGBT youth, and community resources available to serve LGBT youth and their families (Wilber et al., 2006). Courts and probation departments should develop subcontracts with service providers to ensure safe environments that include language specifically setting forth the agency’s expectations and requiring the contractor to maintain and report outcome data. Reports from contractors should include who was referred to the program and which youth were successful or unsuccessful, disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation, when possible. Contracts should convey the clear expectation that the treatment provider is responsible for the youth’s success in the program. Agencies should specifically prohibit the use of reparative therapy or aversion techniques with LGBT youth.

CONCLUSION While most youth are supported by their parents and friends as they navigate through adolescence, many LGBT youth experience social stigma, abuse, and neglect within their families and peer groups. This isolation can lead to negative outcomes for LGBT youth such as school truancy, dropping out of high school, placement out of the family home, running away from home or placement, homelessness, and survival crimes such as prostitution. As such, social stigma creates a pipeline from home into the justice system and secure detention for LGBTyouth. In fact, 15% of youth in the juvenile justice system

are LGBT, a statistic that is the same for White, African American, and Latino youth. Notably, most of these LGBTyouth behave in gender-conforming ways and are, therefore, invisible to juvenile justice professionals unless youth disclose their gender identity or sexual orientation. Unfortunately, LGBT youth are often mistreated at various points within the juvenile justice system, creating additional layers of trauma for detained youth: LGBT youth are often inaccurately assessed for risk in areas tied to school and home functioning, harassed and abused by institutional staff and peers, rejected by parents and forced into out-of-home placements, and placed in alternatives to detention and out-of-home placements that are not competent to serve LGBT youth. This ongoing mistreatment and rejection also creates a cycle of detention when LGBT youth are harassed and abused, run away multiple times, are assigned to higher level out-of-home placements, or sentenced to longer periods of detention. This harmful cycle can be interrupted by following a number of best practices. Juvenile justice systems can foster an inclusive culture and develop formal policies that clearly prohibit discrimination and outline equitable treatment practices. Systems can also provide training for juvenile justice stakeholders such as probation officers, judges, public defenders, district attorneys, and community-based organizations in order to reinforce the importance of the equitable and inclusive treatment of LGBT youth. Over time, jurisdictions will ideally recognize how LGBT youth have been driven into the juvenile justice system and, in response, create a broad spectrum of services that help them move beyond the social stigma they have experienced in most realms of their lives.

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

REFERENCES Alexander S. v. Boyd, 876 F. Supp. 773, (D.S.C. 1995). American Correctional Association. (2007). Agency manual of accreditation. Retrieved from www.aca .org/standards/pdfs/AccreditationPolicyProcedure .pdf American Psychiatric Association. (2009). Gay/lesbian/ bisexuals. Retrieved from http://healthyminds.org /More-Info-For/GayLesbianBisexuals.aspx American Psychological Association. (2004). Sexual orientation and homosexuality. Retrieved from www .apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx American Psychological Association. (2009). Answers to your questions for a better understanding of sexual orientation and homosexuality. Retrieved from www.apa .org/topics/sexuality/sorientation.pdf Anderson, J. E., Freese, T. E., & Pennbridge, J. N. (1994). Sexual risk and condom use among street youth in Hollywood. Family Planning Perspectives, 26, 22–25. Beck, A. J., Harrison, P. M., & Guerino, P. (2010). Sexual victimization in juvenile facilities reported by youth 2008–09. United States Department of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 228416. Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov /index.cfm?ty¼pbdetail&iid¼2113 Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 525 (1979). Benda, B. B., & Tollet, C. L. (1999). A study of recidivism of serious and persistent offenders among adolescents, Journal of Criminal Justice, 27(2), 111–126. Berberet, H. (2006). Putting the pieces together for queer youth: A model of integrated assessment of need and program planning. Child Welfare, 85(2), 361–384. Brill, S., & Pepper, R. (2008). The transgender child: A handbook for families and professionals. San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press. Brown, G. R. (2007). Transvestism and gender identity disorder in adults. In G. O. Gabbard (Ed.), Treatments of psychiatric disorders (pp. 2034–2035). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing. Christopher, F. S. (2001). To dance the dance: A symbolic interactional exploration of premarital sexuality. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Clatts, M. C., Davis, W. R., Sotheran, J. L., & Atillasoy, A. (1999). Correlates and distribution of HIV risk behaviors among homeless youth in New York City. In G. Anderson, C. Ryan, S. TaylorBrown, & M. White-Gray (Eds.), Children and HIV/ AIDS (pp. 95–107). Piscataway, NJ: Transaction.

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Cochran, B. N., Stewart, A. J., Ginzler, J. A., & Cauce, A. M. (2002). Challenges faced by homeless sexual minorities: Comparison of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender homeless adolescents with their heterosexual counterparts. American Journal of Public Health, 92(5), 773–777. Cole, C. M., O’Boyle, M., Emory, L. E., & Meyer, W. J. (1997). Comorbidity of gender dysphoria and other major psychiatric diagnoses. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 26(1), 13–26. Earls, M. (2002). Stressors in the lives of GLBTQ youth. Transitions, 14(4), 1–3. Retrieved from www .advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option¼com_con tent&task¼view&id¼697&Itemid¼336 Eckes, T., & Traunter, H. M. (2000). Developmental psychology of gender: An integrative framework. In T. Eckes & H. M. Trautner (Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 3–32). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: Norton. Estrada, R., & Marksamer, J. (2006). The legal rights of LGBT youth in state custody: What child welfare and juvenile justice professionals need to know. Child Welfare, 85(2), 171–194. Frankowski, B. L. (2004). Sexual orientation and adolescents. Pediatrics, 113, 1827–32. Gaetz, S. (2004). Safe streets for whom? Homeless youth, social exclusion, and criminal victimization. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 46(4), 423–455. Gagnon, J. H., & Simon, W. (1973). Sexual conduct: The social origins of human sexuality. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Goldman, L. (2008). Coming out, coming in: Nurturing the well-being and inclusion of gay youth in mainstream society. New York, NY: Routledge. Guzder, D. (2005, July 8). Gay, young, and homeless. NY Blade. Available at http://nyblade.com/2005/7-8 /locallife/main/. HCH Clinicians’ Network. (2002). Crossing to safety: Transgender health and homelessness. Healing Hands, 6, 1–6. Herek, G. M. (2009). Facts about homosexuality and child molestation. Retrieved from http://psychology .ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html Herek, G. M., & Garnets, L. D. (2007). Sexual orientation and mental health. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3(1), 353–359. Hershberger, S. L., & D’Augelli, A. R. (1995). The impact of victimization on the mental health and

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suicidality of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths. Developmental Psychology, 31, 65–74. Hill, D. B., & Willoughby, B. L. B. (2005). The development and validation of the genderism and transphobia scale. Sex Roles, 53, 531–544. Holman, B., & Zeidenberg, J. (2006). Dangers of detention: The impact of incarcerating youth in detention and other secure facilities. Retrieved from www.justice policy.org/content-hmID¼1811&smID¼1581& ssmID¼25.htm Hyde, J. (2005). From home to street: Understanding young people’s transitions into homelessness. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 171–183. Impett, E. A., & Tolman, D. L. (2006). Late adolescent girls’ sexual experiences and sexual satisfaction. Journal of Adolescent Research, 21(6), 628–646. Irvine, A. (2009, August). The inappropriate detention of LGBT youth. Paper presented at the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Inter-site Conference, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Washington, DC. Irvine, A. (2010). “We’ve had three of them”: Addressing the invisibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in the juvenile justice system. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 19(3), 675–701. Israel, G. E., & Tarver, D. E., II (Eds.). (1997). Transgender care: Recommended guidelines, practical information and personal accounts. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. JDAI All Site Conference, San Francisco, December 1, 2004. Jenny, C., Roesler, T. A., & Poyer, K. L. (1994). Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics, 94(1), 41–44. Klein, R. (2000). Group work practice with transgendered male to female sex workers. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 10(3), 95–109. Kosciw, J. G. (2004). The 2003 national school climate survey. Retrieved from www.glsen.org/binarydata/GLSEN_ATTACHMENTS/file/300–3.PDF Kosciw, J. G., Diaz, E. M., & Greytak, E. A. (2007). The 2007 national school climate survey: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in our nation’s schools. Retrieved from www.glsen.org /binary-data/GLSEN_ATTACHMENTS/file/000 /001/1290-1.pdf Lerner, R., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.) (2009). Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Majd, K., Marksamer, J., & Reyes, C. (2009). Hidden injustice: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in juvenile courts. San Francisco, CA: Legal Services

for Children, National Juvenile Defender Center, and National Center for Lesbian Rights. Mallon, G. P. (1992). Gay and no place to go: Assessing the needs of gay and lesbian adolescents in outof-home care settings. Child Welfare, 71(6), 547– 557. Mallon, G. P. (1999). Gay and lesbian adolescents and their families. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, 11(1/2), 23–33. Mallon, G. P., & DeCrescenzo, T. (2006). Transgender children and youth: A child welfare practice perspective. Child Welfare, 85(2), 215–241. Martin, C. L. (1995). Stereotypes about children with traditional and non-traditional gender roles. Sex Roles, 33, 727–751. Martin, S. R. (1996). A child’s right to be gay: Addressing the emotional maltreatment of queer youth. Hastings Law Journal, 48, 167–173. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2006). 2005 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey results. Retrieved from www.doe .mass.edu/cnp/hprograms/yrbs/05/default.html McConaghy, N. (1998). Paedophelia: A review of the evidence. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 32(2), 252–265. Milburn, N. G., Rotheram-Borus, M. J., Rice, E., Mallet, S., & Rosenthal, D. (2006). Cross-national variations in behavioral profiles among homeless youth. American Journal of Community Psychology, 37(1–2), 63–76. Milonas v. Williams, 691 F2d 931, 935, 943 (10th Cir., 1982). Morrow, D., & Messinger, L. (2006). Sexual orientation & gender expression in social work practice: Working with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2009). Incidence and vulnerability of LGBT homeless youth. Youth Homeless Series, 2. Retrieved from www .nyacyouth.org/docs/uploads/LGBTQ-HomelessYouth-Incidence-and-Vulnerability-2009.pdf National Commission on Correctional Health Care. (2004). Standards for health services in juvenile detention and confinement facilities. Chicago, IL: National Commission on Correctional Health Care. Owen, G., Heineman, J., & Gerrard, M. D. (2007). Overview of homelessness in Minnesota 2006: Key facts from the statewide survey. Retrieved from www .wilder.org/download.0.html?report¼1963 R.G. v. Koller, 415 F.Supp.1129 (D. Hawai’i, 2006).

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth and the Juvenile Justice System Ray, N. (2007). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: An epidemic of homelessness. Retrieved from www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports /HomelessYouth.pdf Robson, R. (2001). Our children: Kids of queer parents and kids who are queer: Looking at sexual minority rights from a different perspective. Albany Law Review, 64, 915–924. Ryan, C., & Diaz, R. M. (2005). Family responses as a source of risk and resiliency for LGBT youth. Paper presented at the Pre-conference Institute on LGBT Youth, Child Welfare League of America 2005 National Conference, Washington, DC. Ryan, C., & Futterman, D. (1998). Lesbian & gay youth: Care & counseling. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Ryan, C., Huebner, D., Diaz, R. M., & Sanchez, J. (2009). Family rejection as a predictor of negative health outcomes in White and Latino lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. Pediatrics, 123, 346–352. Saewyc, E. M., Pettingell, S., & Skay, C. (2006). Hazards of stigma: The sexual and physical abuse of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents in the United States and Canada. Journal of Adolescent Health, 34(2), 115–116. Savin-Williams, R. C. (1994). Verbal and physical abuse as stressors in the lives of lesbian, gay male and bisexual youths: Associations with school problems, running away, substance abuse, prostitution, and suicide. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(2), 261–269. Silbereisen, R., Eyferth, K., & Rudinger, G. (1986). Development as action in context. New York: Springer. Solorio, M., Milburn, N., Anderson, R., Trifskin, S., & Rodriguez, M. (2006). Emotional distress and mental health service use among urban homeless adolescents. Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research. 33, 381–393. Stanfield, R. (1999). The JDAI story: Building a better juvenile detention system. Pathway to juvenile detention reform. Retrieved from www.aecf.org/upload /publicationfiles/jdai%20story.pdf

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Steinhart, D. (1999). Pathways to juvenile detention reform: Planning for juvenile detention reforms—A structured approach. Retrieved from www.aecf.org/Knowledge Center/Publications.aspx?pubguid¼{B7DB4F644B6B-4657-A541-288273086F49} Sullivan, C., Sommer, S., & Moff, J. (2001). Youth in the margins. A report on the unmet needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adolescents in foster care. New York, NY: Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Sum, A., Khatiwada, I., McLaughlin, J., & Palma, S. (2009). The consequences of dropping out of high school. Joblessness and jailing for high school dropouts and the high cost for taxpayers. Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. Thompson, S. J., Safyer, A. W., & Pollio, D. E (2001). Differences and predictors of family reunification among subgroups of runaway youths using shelter services. Social Work Research, 25(3), 163–172. Valentine, S. E. (2008). Traditional advocacy for nontraditional youth: Rethinking best interest for the queer child. Michigan State Law Review, 1053(4), 1054–1113. Van Leuwen, J., Boyle, S., Salomonsen-Sautel, S., Baker, D., Garcia, J., Hoffman, A., & Hopfer, C. (2006). Lesbian, gay, and bisexual homeless youth: An eight city public health perspective. Child Welfare, 85, 151–170. Wilber, S., Ryan, C., & Marksamer, J. (2006). CWLA best practice guidelines: Serving LGBT youth in out-ofhome care. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. Witbeck, L., Chen, X., Hoyt, D., Tyler, K., & Johnson, K. (2004). Mental disorder, subsistence strategies, and victimization among gay, lesbian, and bisexual homeless and runaway adolescents. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 329–342. Woronoff, R., Estrada, R., Sommer, S., & Marzullo, M. A. (2006). Out of the margins: A report on regional listening forums highlighting the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth in care. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (1982).

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

9

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System Toward Developmentally and Socioculturally Based Provision of Services E L L E N E. P I N D E R H U G H E S , K A R E N T. C R A D D O C K ,

A

AND

L A T A S H A L. F E R M I N

WHO AND WHERE THEY ARE: A BRIEF DEMOGRAPHY OF ADOLESCENTS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

dolescent parents in the juvenile justice system represent a culturally diverse population for whom societally based opportunities for optimal transition into successful adult functioning are limited. Faced with the consequences of two distinct actions that may prematurely propel them into adult-level situations—becoming pregnant and the commission of a delinquent or criminal act— these young adults need services and policies that are developmentally and socioculturally informed. This chapter addresses the gaps that exist in our understanding of adolescent parents’ risks for entry into the juvenile justice system, the impact on parenting of current services and policies associated with juvenile confinement, and the developmental and identity issues with which confined adolescent parents contend. After a synopsis of the demographics of adolescent arrests and confinement, we briefly provide the theoretical perspective that guides the subsequent examination of risks, current services and policies, and adolescent identity issues before concluding with a discussion of implications for enhancing services and policies for this diverse population.

Despite a decreasing trend in juvenile arrests over the past 10 or more years (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2004; U.S. DepartmentofJustice,2008),adolescentscontinuetobe arrested and confined in alarming numbers, especially minority youth. In 2007, adolescents accounted for just over 25% of the U.S. population, but their arrests for certain crimes are disproportionate to that figure. For example, while comparable percentages were arrested for larceny–theft and property crimes, approximately 48% of those arrested for arson were adolescents (see also Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). Historical race disparities in juvenile arrest rates continue, with 67% of juveniles arrested being White, and almost 31% being Black,1 1

Because not many studies reviewed in this chapter differentiate among racial and ethnic subgroups (e.g., African American and African Caribbean, or Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican), we refer to all youth of African descent as “Black,” all youth of European American descent as “White,” and youth of Hispanic descent as “Latino.”

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although Black youth comprise 16% of all youth. Among juveniles arrested for violent crimes, almost 51% were Black. These disparities generally hold irrespective of population density; among juveniles arrested for any crime in metropolitan areas, 68% were White and 32% were adolescents of color, and among juveniles arrested in suburban areas, 28% were youth of color. Although juvenile arrests for any crime in nonmetropolitan jurisdictions did not reflect this race disparity, arrests for robbery did, with 53% being Black. Recent data on juvenile custody rates reflect even greater racial and ethnic disparities in how systems treat adolescents (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, 2006). Rates of confinement among Black youth are twice as high as Latinos and over 4 times as high as Whites. Among males, the disparity is staggering: Black males are confined at rates more than twice as high as Latinos and almost 5 times as high as Whites. Although the disparities among females are lower, nonetheless, Black females were confined 2.5 times more than Latinas and over 3 times more than White females (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). Adolescent parents are also disproportionately represented in confinement settings. Unfortunately, there are no national statistics on the percentage of confined adolescents who are parents (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, 2006); however, specific analyses or studies document this disproportionality. Although adolescent fathers comprise 4% to 7% of the juvenile nonoffender population (Unruh, Bullis, & Yovanoff, 2004), fatherhood rates range from 25% to 28% among the juvenile offender population (Bullis, Yovanoff, Mueller, & Havel, 2002; Unruh et al., 2004). Analyses of state-level statistics point to higher rates of confinement among adolescent mothers. For example, in Florida, 35% of

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incarcerated adolescent girls had been pregnant, and 10% currently in residential programs were parents (e.g., Patino, Ravoira, & Wolf, 2006). A Theoretical Lens: Into the World of Our Adolescents Given the demographics of youth and adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system and the structural inequities that, for so many youth, serve to foreclose their development and heighten the likelihood of delinquent acts, it is critical that we examine experiences of adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system through a lens that can facilitate a deeper and more comprehensive understanding. Typically, ecologically based theories (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1989) are invoked to explain the person-context fit that results in adolescents engaging in delinquent acts and being placed in juvenile institutions or prison.2 Through these perspectives, the field understands the impact of multilevel constraints on adolescent positive development. For example, structural/systemic influences include differential arrest and adjudication rates and differential educational resources (e.g., Gorman-Smith, Tolan, Zelli, & Huesmann, 1996). Community-level influences can be characterized by neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, unemployment, and crime; high rates of residential instability; and low levels of community cohesion (e.g., Sampson & Groves, 1989). Family-level influences include high levels of stress associated with limited or no income, 2

Although adolescents convicted of serious crimes may be placed in prisons, we will use the term institution for both juvenile institutions and prisons. Likewise, we will use the term confinement to cover juvenile confinement and incarceration. Exceptions will be made when citing or quoting others.

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uncertain employment, and so on, that undermine parental monitoring and warmth (e.g., Gorman-Smith et al., 1996). Although these ecological perspectives are necessary, we believe that a nuanced understanding of adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system and their needs would benefit from an ecologically based approach that emphasizes how youth make meaning of their experiences in the larger sociocultural context. Spencer’s Identity-Focused Cultural– Ecological perspective (ICE; Spencer, 2001, 2006) provides such a lens. A full description of this perspective and the related theoretical framework, Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (P-VEST; Spencer, 2006) is beyond the scope of this chapter; however, a brief synopsis is provided below. The ICE model places contextual influences and individual functioning within a phenomenological frame, emphasizing the importance of seeing another person’s world in its totality—one’s experiences, contextual influences, and perceptions and actions— through that person’s eyes. Although the model can be applied flexibly across the life span and to diverse populations, it is especially relevant for ethnic minority or low-resource youth. According to Spencer (2001), youth are extremely aware of, and highly sensitive to, their contextual influences, especially the perceptions and inferred evaluations of them by others. This hypersensitivity, in combination with a “hyperawareness of self ” (2001, p. 55), can predispose youth to perceive and react to contextual influences in ways reflective of their sociocultural status. For example, these adolescent females and males may perceive police presence in the neighborhood quite differently than would adolescents of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, among ethnic minority and low-resource adolescents who are affected by structural

inequities, as well as by community and family-level risks, some may infer disrespect from others and respond with behaviors that feel self-empowering in the moment, but that are potentially self-destructive (Spencer, 2001) and dangerous to others. A related perspective offered by Robinson, Ward, and colleagues, suggests that such behaviors reflect sub-optimal resistance to the structural inequities, or marginalization that beset ethnic minority and low-resource adolescents (e.g., Craddock, 2007; Robinson & Howard-Hamilton, 1994 Robinson & Ward, 1991; Ward, 1996). This perspective, psychological resistance to marginalization, identifies the several layers of societal inequity confronting some youth, including: (a) marginalization as adolescents by a society that views them as irresponsible, threatening, and sometimes dangerous; (b) marginalization as members of an impoverished population through educational, employment, and income barriers; and/or (c) marginalization as people of color through racism and discrimination. Adolescents must contend with the marginalizing forces that act on them throughout their lifetimes and are particularly salient at critical stages of their development. Contending responses—here, resistance strategies—feature different levels of functioning: Optimal resistance reflects an approach, grounded in liberation-oriented strategies, that focuses on challenging and confronting the marginalizing circumstances in order to succeed, despite them. It involves an awareness of oneself, one’s setting, and related influences, and seeks a solution that will benefit the individual (and perhaps others) in the long term. Suboptimal resistance reflects an approach, based in survival-oriented strategies, that focuses on enabling one to “get through” the marginalizing circumstances. It often lacks a full awareness of self and the context, emphasizes

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

short-term or immediate relief, and may include denial, isolation, or avoidant functioning. Youth who tend to engage in suboptimal functioning as a means to resist and “push back” are likely to be more at risk for self-destructive and delinquent behavior. The complexity of the psychological resistance framework is such that both optimal and suboptimal resistance strategies often coexist within an individual, with one form often emerging as more dominant over the other. The nature of youth’s contexts, as well as how they perceive themselves operating within those contexts, can have great bearing on which forms of resistance manifest, when, and the degree to which they emerge (Craddock, 2007). Thus, an understanding of the functioning of, and outcomes for, adolescents in the juvenile justice system is enhanced by a focus on youth’s perspectives (see also, for example, Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). As an example, Spencer asserts that studies that specifically focus on predictors of delinquency (e.g., parenting behaviors; Rosenbaum, 1989), and do not include youth’s perceptions of those predictors, fail to provide an understanding of a potentially important link (i.e., a mediating mechanism) between those predictors and youth’s delinquent behaviors that would be a target of intervention. In short, as Spencer notes, “the ways in which minority youth perceive their environments and cope with contextual stressors may mediate the relationship between structural barriers and outcomes” (2001, p. 54). The empirical literature on adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system is particularly sparse and therefore insufficient to provide an understanding of their experiences and needs. This review, then, draws on several important studies of adolescents of color in the juvenile justice system, some of whom are

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parents (e.g., Nurse, 2002; Parra-Cardona, Sharp, & Wampler, 2008), and qualitative studies of adult-aged parents who are incarcerated (Enos, 2001; Golden, 2005). Because of the theoretical importance of individuals’ lived experiences and perspectives (Spencer, 2006), the review features studies that give voice to those who have faced incarceration or confinement (see also Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume).

ADOLESCENT PARENTS AND RISK FOR ENTRY INTO THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM Delinquency is multidetermined, with several, often converging, individual, family, and community risk influences. A thorough review of these influences is beyond the scope of this chapter and can be found elsewhere (see, e.g., Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group [CPPRG], 1992; Yoshikawa, 1994; see also Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume; Bruyere & Garbarino, Chapter 13, this volume). This chapter will address influences most likely to correlate with risks for adolescent pregnancy. Individual Risk At the most proximal level, individual youth functioning can escalate into juvenile/criminal behavior. Despite their physical development, adolescents’ cognitive capacities may remain somewhat immature (e.g., Hains, 1984; Reppucci, 1999), thus posing the risk for impulsive and poor decisions. Academic failure, school truancy, and dropping out are precursors to entry into the juvenile justice system (e.g., Sharp & Simon, 2004; Stouthamer-Loeber & Wei, 1998). Teen parenting also is associated with school disengagement, dropping out, and

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delinquency; however, the directionality of these relations is complex. Some studies point to teen parenting as a risk for poor academic achievement and a correlate with substance abuse and crime (e.g., Allen, Philliber, & Hoggson, 1990; Brindis, 1993; Foster, Hagan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2008). Faced with the competing demands of parenthood and educational achievement, some adolescents disengage or leave school, exacerbating their risk for entry into the juvenile justice system. Moreover, with few skills and qualifications, adolescent parents will have fewer chances for employment and income to support themselves and their children. Thus, adolescent parents are at considerable risk for illegal activity. Recent studies in England point to academic disengagement as the precursor to risky sex and adolescent pregnancy (e.g., Bonell et al., 2005; Hosie, 2007). Yet other studies of incarcerated teen mothers note that once pregnant, some teens initially drop out of school, only to become motivated anew to resume their education (e.g., Zachry, 2005). Overall, the literature suggests that teen parenting greatly influences behavioral decisions in multiple ways. Certain decisions reflect the suboptimal functioning described earlier, such as disengaging from school and engaging in behaviors that can lead to arrest. Other decisions reflect more optimal functioning, for example, when teen parenting motivates the young parent to challenge her/his current circumstances, pursue an education, and avoid negative activity. Family and Community Risk Generally, family risks include intergenerational patterns of incarceration and absence, problematic parenting in early to middle childhood, low parental monitoring in adolescence, and abusive parenting (e.g., Chamberlain, Leve, & DeGarmo, 2007; CPPRG, 1992; Hawkins

et al., 1998). Incarceration among previous generations paves the way for youth entry into the juvenile justice system. Adolescents whose parents have been incarcerated are more at risk for delinquent activity (Murray & Farrington, 2005). For example, in the 1998 National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) study, approximately 54% of the girls’ mothers had been arrested, and 46% of their fathers were in jail or out of contact (Acoca, 1999). Greene and Peters found that sons of adolescent mothers were 2.7 times more likely to become confined than other boys (1998, as cited in Sharp & Simon, 2004). Unfortunately, childhood abuse also exacerbates youth risk for delinquency and confinement (e.g., Abrams & Aguilar, 2005; Ehrensaft, 2005; see also Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). Whether physical abuse (Salzinger, Rosario, & Feldman, 2007) or sexual abuse (Feiring, Miller-Johnson, & Cleland, 2007; Sigfusdottir, Asgeirsdottir, Gudjonsson, & Sigurdsson, 2008), mediational links between child abuse and delinquency have been documented for both girls and boys. Salzinger and colleagues (2007) observed that links between abuse and delinquency were mediated through relationships with parents and moderated by access to delinquent peers and abusive behavior with peers. Using a community sample of over 9,000 Icelandic boys and girls, Sigfusdottir and colleagues (2008) found that anger mediated links between sexual abuse and delinquency. With a sample of 160 adolescents—predominantly girls—who had documented histories of sexual abuse, Feiring and colleagues (2007) noted that the link between abuse and delinquency was mediated through self-stigmatization processes. However, evidence does suggest that female delinquents are disproportionately more likely than their male peers to experience trauma and sexual abuse (e.g., Lederman,

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

Dakof, Larrea, & Li, 2004). Moreover, for females, the effects of trauma on subsequent delinquency are more significant (see Cauffman, 2008, for review). At the community level, neighborhoods with low social capital—few friendship networks, poorly supervised adolescents and teen peer groups, and low levels of community participation—are associated with high rates of antisocial behavior, crime, and delinquency (e.g., Ingoldsby et al., 2006; Sampson & Groves, 1989). For girls living in high-risk environments, early adolescence poses a high risk for victimization. This is a developmental period when girls are most likely to be beaten, stabbed, shot, or raped (Acoca, 1999). Related statistics indicate that among young girls the use of drugs and alcohol, school suspension, and running away often happen between ages 13 and 14, as does their first arrest (Acoca, 1999). Among boys, young adolescent exposure to riskamplifying circumstances is also prevalent. Many young male offenders come of age surrounded by poverty and violence in their neighborhood and families, “sacrificing much of their childhood” (Inderbitzin, 2009, p. 454). Early adolescence for girls and boys is a highly influential stage of development that poses many risks within their sociocultural context. As a result of, or in response to, victimization and exposure to violent and violating experiences, maladaptive functioning occurs, increasing the risk for adolescents’ entry into the juvenile justice system. In sum, as Spencer (2001) noted, these converging community influences can serve to foreclose on adolescents’ identity processes, tracking them toward delinquent activity. Sociocultural Variation in Risk at All Ecological Levels The risk for juvenile justice system entry varies due to gender and race. Among adolescent

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parents, gender is associated with differential risks for juvenile justice system entry. The first 2 years of fatherhood are notably the most risky time frame for delinquent acts by adolescent fathers, relative to nonfathers (Stouthamer-Loeber & Wei, 1998). Among females, the relation between pregnancy and delinquent activity is more complicated. As noted by Hope, Wilder, and Watt (2003), much of the research literature on adolescent sexual activity points to significant positive relations between teenage pregnancy and delinquency. However, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Udry, 2003), Hope and colleagues (2003) demonstrated that pregnancy outcomes were linked differentially to delinquency: Adolescent girls who chose motherhood were no more likely to engage in delinquent activity than were girls who were never pregnant, whereas adolescents who chose abortion or adoption were more likely to engage in delinquent activity. These researchers suggest that adolescent parenthood can offer young mothers an opportunity to develop new levels of responsibility and expand their identity processes and thus avoid delinquent behaviors. Despite this important distinction in pregnancy outcomes and delinquency, adolescent mothers remain disproportionately represented in juvenile facilities. Racial and ethnic disparities in the numbers of adolescents in the juvenile justice system are multiply determined and appear to involve both differential systemic response and differential behavior (Piquero, 2008). Historical racial and ethnic differences in the treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system (e.g., Stehno, 1982; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume) continue into the 21st century. Piquero’s cogent review of the literature includes statistics from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency

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(NCCD, 2007), revealing that systemic discrepancies can be found at each point in the processing of criminal activity: arrests, court adjudication, and length of confinement. For example, rates of detention are highest among Black youth, followed by Latino, and then White youth. Latino youth and Black youth are confined 112 and 61 more days than are White youth, respectively. Although Black youth tend to commit more serious crimes, when detained for the same offense, Black youth are more likely to be charged and removed from the home than are White youth (Hartney & Silva, 2007; Piquero, 2008; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Community-based responses differ as well for adolescents who are repeat offenders. Indeed, in a study of the predictors of referral for mental health services among adolescent offenders, Lopez-Williams, Stoep, Elena Kuo, and Stewart (2006) noted race differences in the relation between prior confinement and mental health symptoms and receipt of mental health services: a positive relation was found among White youth, whereas no relation was found among Black youth. In short, Black offenders with higher levels of psychopathology were less likely to receive mental health services than were their White counterparts. In sum, multilevel sociocultural risks such as those discussed here result in a cascade of problematic functioning that culminates in juvenile justice system entry. The system’s impact is discussed next.

THE IMPACT OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM ON ADOLESCENT PARENTS AND PARENTING PROCESSES Once in the juvenile justice system, adolescent parents face influences from multiple

ecological levels that affect their ability to maintain a parental relationship with their children. These influences include detention facility policies that undermine parent–child contact and lack of programming to support parents, child welfare policies designed to address the needs of children facing the absence of parents, and their familial contexts outside confinement that may not support parenting. Maintaining Contact With Children While Incarcerated Parents and children who are separated must depend on regular in-person contact in order to maintain their relationships. Such contact is especially important for young children, whose cognitive and emotional systems lack the maturity to retain memories of their parents that can sustain them for long periods of time. Thus, opportunities for frequent visitation with physical contact, nurturance, and play are essential for maintaining the parent– child attachment. Institutional policies about visitation—hours, number of visitors, and frequency of visits—limit parents’ access to their children (Enos, 2001; Golden, 2005; Nurse, 2002). Nurse observed that adolescent fathers in California Youth Centers were denied visitation privileges during their first few weeks in confinement. Implemented as a security measure, this restriction disconnects adolescent fathers from their children during a period of heightened anxiety within the parent–child system and extended family system. As one adolescent father noted, She knows who I am, she knows I am, she knows I’m her father, but I see it in her sometimes. She . . . feels I’m kind of a stranger in a way. She has that look in her eyes like she’s kind of confused whether she should come

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

and hug me. She treats me like a stranger sometimes ’cause she doesn’t really know. . . . That hurts me ’cause I look at her like I’m her dad, you know. (Nurse, 2002, p. 74) Some facilities may function like adult prisons and restrict physical contact as well (Hairston, 2002). Limits on the number of hours, number of visitors, and frequency of visits further hinder the maintenance of a parent–child relationship. Many facility policies serve as disincentives for children to visit. For example, some facilities prohibit toys or other materials during visits; others require strip searches after visits that can include infants’ diapers. Consequently, adolescent parents report that facing nothing to do, their children do not want to visit (Nurse, 2002). The requirement that young women under the age of 18 have a notarized letter from their parent/guardian authorizing the visit can limit visits between children and their young mothers. Noisy visiting rooms providing little privacy can also function as a disincentive (Enos, 2001; Thompson, 2008). The location of confinement facilities limits access for visiting, as well. According to a Department of Justice report (Mumola, 2000), over 50% of mothers in state prison never received a visit from their children; more than 60% of parents at state facilities were held over 90 miles from their most recent preincarceration residence. In fact, from 1997 to 2004, there was a slight increase in the percentage of parents reporting never having had a visit (Schirmer, Nellis, & Mauer, 2009). Despite recent attempts to place inmates closer to their families, for many, the nearest prison has been over 1 hour away (Schirmer et al., 2009). These facilities typically are in locations with limited public transportation, leaving families dependent on private transportation.

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My incarceration was painful and traumatic for my children. I was in a correctional center, a four-hour drive from my home, which made it nearly impossible for my family to bring my children to see me. It will take them years to heal from this separation. They felt abandoned and hurt . . . (Golden, 2005, p. 114) Policies such as those described above reduce physical contact, visitation, and engagement between adolescent parents and children, and are inconsistent with practice guidelines that have been developed by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) to improve conditions in juvenile facilities (Soler, Shoenberg, Arya, & Burrell, 2006). These restrictive policies undermine adolescent parents’ maintenance of a positive parenting identity. How adolescents respond to these constraints may reflect processes reflective of ICE (Spencer, 2001). For example, adolescent parents may view them as another example of an unfair and uncaring system and make choices (e.g., noncompliance) with deleterious effect on their subsequent short-term parenting (e.g., restrictions on visitation). Serious long-term consequences for their relationships with their children may ensue. Differential Gender Effects of Confinement Policies Whereas both adolescent fathers and mothers may experience the sting of constraining visitation policies, it is likely that mothers suffer the consequences more deeply. “Men can be criminals but mothers should be different. We shouldn’t be out of control and a lot of us are” (Enos, 2001, p. 77). This young mother’s perspective about the higher standard to which mothers should be held reflects her acceptance

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of differing societal expectations about the roles of mothers and fathers. There is a pronounced parental gender disparity among incarcerated parents in where their children live: Incarcerated fathers are more than 3 times as likely as incarcerated mothers to have their children live with the other parent (Dallaire, 2007). Mothers face termination of parental rights more frequently than do fathers because fathers typically leave the child’s mother to care for the child. When mothers become incarcerated, however, the care for their children typically falls to grandparents or relatives, or children are placed in foster care (Dallaire, 2007; Enos, 2001). Child Welfare–Related Constraints For those children who are placed in foster care, the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act 1997 (ASFA, Public Law 105–89) “clock” starts ticking. With a goal of reducing the time that children spend in the foster care system, and increasing the number of permanent homes for children, ASFA provides clear requirements regarding permanency planning for children in foster care. These requirements ensure that foster children have a permanency plan within one year of entering care, and set the maximum limit for how long children can remain in care—15 of the most recent 22 months—before parental rights are terminated. Some states have more restrictive policies. Thus, when parents are incarcerated or confined, the other biological parent is not a tenable option, there are no viable familial or kin placements, and reunification is projected to take place after the maximum time allowed by the state, child welfare personnel are expected to petition the court for termination of parental rights. In some communities, racial and ethnic differences have been found in

incarcerated mothers’ reliance on family for the care of their children. Enos (2001) found that White mothers who were incarcerated were less likely to rely on their families for care of their children than were Black and Latina mothers, resulting in greater risk that White children would be placed in foster care. Another requirement that adolescent parents may face while confined is defending against allegations of parental unfitness (Enos, 2001) in order to maintain parental rights. Although this legal requirement applies to all parents whose behavior is determined by the state to jeopardize their child’s safety, security, or well-being, it can be particularly challenging for confined parents whose contact with their children is constrained. Typical indicators of parental fitness include frequent contact with one’s children, explicit eagerness and commitment to reunite with one’s children, and participating in parenting classes. Restrictive institutional rules about the length and condition of visits directly undermine parents’ ability to demonstrate parental fitness (Enos, 2001). Thus, faced with the requirement to establish one’s fitness to be a parent in the context of restrictive visiting opportunities, confined adolescent mothers may perceive an insurmountable hurdle. As a result, some mothers find themselves struggling to sustain their motivation to maintain an emotional connection with their children, and may choose not to have visitation. In addition, other mothers choose not to visit with their children out of concern for how the children will feel seeing their mothers in prison (Golden, 2005). Withdrawal from one’s children—whether to ease one’s pain or that of one’s child—is an example of the self-destructive behaviors that Spencer (2001) suggests can happen. Such struggles or choices can be misread by juvenile justice system officials, child welfare workers,

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

or courts as lack of commitment to one’s children, and hence lack of parental fitness (Enos, 2001). Moreover, interagency coordination is very problematic for mothers in institutions who seek to maintain contact with their children. Neither the child welfare system nor the criminal justice system provides the family supports to deal with the trauma of a mother’s incarceration. “The lack of coordination between child welfare agencies and correction facilities can create insurmountable obstacles to parents who wish to preserve their parental rights and reunite with their children” (Smith, 1995, cited in Golden, 2005, p. 35). Familial Ecology for Adolescent Parents Behind Bars The ecological influences and risks linked with adolescent parents’ entry into the juvenile justice system remain active while parents are in confinement. How well adolescent parents’ support systems function while they are detained depends on how effective the supports were prior to confinement. Whether family members provided assistance with child care, helped in times of crisis, or provided general assistance before confinement may carry over into the time frame when parents are in confinement (Enos, 2001). Relationships formed before confinement can facilitate or complicate adolescent parents’ management of their parenting responsibilities while detained (Golden, 2005). For example, positive relationships with individuals who become the caregivers of one’s children can help to sustain parenting during confinement. Unfortunately for some parents, preconfinement relationships that were problematic may undermine parenting during confinement. When those relationships involve individuals who become the child’s caregiver (e.g., a

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grandparent), gatekeeping—controlling and limiting the access that parents have to their children—may ensue. One adolescent mother observed: Every time I come home, my kids run to me. My mother gets so attached to them that she gets mad when I come home. One time she called child welfare and she said that my kids had run away. (Enos, 2001, p. 67) Because fathers, whether confined or not, are more likely to leave their children in the care of the child’s mother than vice versa, such complications may affect adolescent fathers more than adolescent mothers. Roy and Dyson (2005) noted the vulnerability of confined adolescent fathers to gatekeeping behaviors by their children’s mothers: Over 50% of youth in their study were affected. Having limited contact with one’s children and their caretakers, as well as with loved ones, parents often lack knowledge about their children. Children’s needs for caregiving require that others assume the role of caregiver; thus, confined parents face being replaced emotionally, even if the child welfare system does not move to terminate parental rights. One adolescent father painfully noted: When a kid doesn’t see their father, original or real father, they tend to latch on to whoever is next to them, you know what I mean? If her mom has a new boyfriend, that’s “daddy.” . . . I mean, I see it every day. When somebody gets locked up, what we call Sancho—you know, sidekick—that’s the next dude in line—takes over and raises the kid with the kid calling him “dad.” (Nurse, 2002, p. 77)

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Those who assume the role of caretaker become the gatekeeper for communication and contact between confined parents and their children. How the gatekeeping caretaker feels about the parent’s confinement and circumstances leading to it may contribute to children’s perceptions of their parents. One incarcerated mother recalled her experiences when, as a young child, her own mother was imprisoned: When my mother was in prison, I felt alone. My grandmother and I weren’t getting along at all. I felt like the only reason she was keeping me was because she had to, not because she loved me and wanted to. She used to tell me that my mom didn’t want me and if she did, she wouldn’t have given me away . . . . (Golden, 2005, p. 97) For adolescent parents already confined, gatekeeping can serve as another perceived barrier to access to one’s children. Faced with these challenges to one’s parenting identity, some parents might give up on their attempts to stay connected to their children, thus undermining their chances for reconnecting postconfinement. Thus, the role of supports as facilitators or complications can have a direct effect on how well adolescent parents are able to demonstrate parental fitness. Constraints on a Smooth Transition Into the Community As adolescent parents in confinement approach the end of their sentences, planning for postrelease activities, including family reconnection and work or school, becomes essential. Adolescent parents can find the challenges associated with reentry back into the community overwhelming and can find

themselves lost in the stressors of post confinement life (e.g. Inderbitzin, 2009). Inconsistencies in supports available to adolescent parents directly undermine their ability to prepare for life postrelease. When I was getting out, they didn’t say, “Okay, you’ve been locked up for two and a half years, we know you’ll need help. We’ll give you contacts in your community to get proper support for issues that you need.” There was no advice or money to cover me until I found a job. When I got out at 17 and a half years old, I didn’t even know how to use the transportation system because it had changed. All they gave me when I left was fear that if I did anything wrong, even though I needed to live, I would face the same walls again. (Golden, 2005, p. 130) Parenting classes that can prepare youth for reconnecting with their children are sorely lacking, leaving some adolescent parents and their children confused about how to reestablish a relationship. For fathers, who may have been more likely to lose contact with their children, lack of parenting supports may be the final barrier that seals the end of the father–child relationship. When the reentry process fails to include job referral and training supports, reentry is particularly problematic for adolescent parents who lack a high school diploma or work experience, but are economically responsible not only for themselves, but also for their children. Adolescent mothers who have relied on public assistance may face more challenges if those services are no longer available. Moreover, if children have entered foster care, adolescent mothers undergo steps to demonstrate financial,

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

emotional, and parental fitness to regain custody of their children (Golden, 2005). In short, the system has failed to recognize that confined young adults require supports to reenter the community and rebuild their lives. This systemic failure significantly exacerbates the risk that these young adults will perceive few legally sanctioned options available to them and thus make self-destructive choices that lead to delinquent activity and recidivism—a sequence of functioning that is a classic example of Spencer’s (2001) ICE perspective. Moreover, additional postrelease and parole conditions, including restrictions on where young men can live, further undermine their ability to reconnect with their children (Nurse, 2002). For example, Nurse (2002) observed that parole boards can cite gang affiliation, the nature of the offense, or stability of available households for youth as they impose restrictions on where parolees live.

ADOLESCENTS, IDENTITY PROCESSES, AND CONFINEMENT Adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system face the challenge of balancing multiple and often competing identities. One layer of identity is simply that of being an adolescent. As Arnett (2004) notes, older adolescents are working through the process of emerging adulthood, which includes several distinguishing features: a period of identity exploration, instability in their identity, and feeling in between childhood and adulthood. In addition, during the most self-focused period of life, adolescents typically perceive their lives as full of possibilities and have high hopes or expectations for adulthood. For adolescents from ethnic minority backgrounds, another identity layer is associated

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with their framing of their race, ethnicity, and gender. Experiences in the larger sociocultural context complicate their formation of a healthy identity (e.g., Arnett & Brody, 2008; Spencer, 2001; Spencer, Dupree, Cunningham, Harpalani, & Mu~ noz-Miller, 2003). As Spencer (2001) notes, maladaptive identity patterns in response to a marginalizing social context may emerge for youth who might, in turn, respond to their circumstances in antisocial ways that further distance them from prosocial sources of support. Like Spencer, researchers note that the growing complexity of modern culture and society amplifies a strained sociocultural context, in which adolescents find it ever more challenging to define an individual sense of self (e.g., Ferrer-Wreder et al., 2002). Adolescents who are parents face forming an identity associated with their perceived responsibility for another, dependent person. As adolescent parents quickly learn, the responsibilities associated with effective parenting can compete with the processes of exploration typically associated with emerging adulthood. Adolescents who are confined must come to terms with the system’s response to their actions and find themselves formulating an associated identity (Enos, 2001; Nurse, 2002). Adolescents who are parents and confined thus face balancing identities that conflict with typical adolescent processes of exploration and complicate youthful expectations of a better future. A core challenge of identity configuration incorporates the essential elements of goal orientation and coconstruction that emerges within the cultural context (Schachter, 2005). For these adolescents, who are juggling multiple and often contradictory realities of parenthood and adolescence in the context of confinement, their perceptions of their situation have a powerful influence on their goals

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and ultimately their identity formation (see Spencer, 2001). For example, in balancing the realities of being a parent and an inmate, some might opt to minimize or deny one of these identities. Too often, unfortunately, the parental role is minimized. In sum, adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system have found themselves thrust into adult-type experiences without developmentally based and appropriate preparation and individual maturity to manage those experiences (e.g., Inderbitzin, 2009). In the face of institutional policies that undermine adolescent parents’ engagement in the parenting role and the maintenance of parent–child relationships, it is not surprising that these adolescent parents find themselves wrestling with how to balance these multiple identities (e.g., Nurse, 2002). Moreover, “inmate identities” and parent identities can elicit contradictory aspects of functioning. On the one hand, having children provides membership in a community of adults who are responsible for nurturing and caring for dependent others. On the other hand, involvement in drugs, crime, and other activities reflects behavior that is inconsistent with nurturing young children, as does engagement with other inmates, who may well support these behaviors. Parents reconcile these competing identity tasks in various ways. Drawing on the creative conceptualization by Snow and Anderson (1987) of identity talk in explaining how individuals who are homeless reconcile competing identities, Enos (2001) illustrates the relevance of the construct for incarcerated or confined individuals. Identity talk reflects verbal strategies to manage competing and sometimes negative identities in ways that promote and support one’s self-concept, a process consistent with Spencer’s ICE perspective (2001). Three distinct strategies have been identified as associated with identity talk among incarcerated mothers, with each

strategy having implications for subsequent opportunities and functioning. Some mothers distance themselves from the situation and setting in order to minimize the pain and discomfort associated with being or having been an inmate. One mother reflected, I don’t want to sound conceited, but I think I’m a good, beautiful person. If I grew up in a middle-class household and my mother, who drank because she couldn’t cope with [poverty, single parenthood] had resources, maybe she could have given us a safer life. Who might I have become if my life were safe? (Golden, 2005, p. 95) Other mothers work through the pain by embracing their role and their reality with a vision for a better future. These mothers often acknowledge their status as an inmate along with its potential consequences, recognize the state’s requirements for maintaining parental rights, and commit themselves to demonstrating parental fitness—a strategy of optimal resistance (Craddock, 2007; Robinson & Ward, 1991). A third group of mothers engage in fictive storytelling, reflecting a denial or exaggeration (whether intentional or not) of the past and fantasies of the future, representing a suboptimal pattern of resistance. This strategy offers the short-term benefit of relief from emotional pain and unbearable circumstances, but increases the longterm risk of undermining one’s options. One adolescent mother, who appeared to embrace her role, shared her perspective on other mothers who chose the latter identity strategy: They talk about their kids, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. They make up stories about their kids. Women in here talk about their own lives, but not about their

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

kids. I know how everything I do goes back to my kids. (Enos, 2001, p. 80) Embracing one’s role with determination to succeed requires an ability to integrate different parts of oneself into a coherent self. Faced with the challenges of premature parenthood and juvenile confinement, adolescent parents may be less likely to be able to embrace that role and would benefit from supports that would facilitate such functioning. For adolescent fathers in confinement, balancing competing identities can also be overwhelming. Particularly notable for some adolescent fathers are the shame and embarrassment when their children are old enough to know their fathers are confined (Nurse, 2002). Balancing these competing identities can be compounded further by guilt over what one is not able to provide for those on the outside. Overwhelmed with the challenges and intense emotions, some adolescent fathers resolve this conflict through a coping mechanism, “hard timing” (Nurse, 2002), in which they disengage or cut off their ties to the outside world, including their children. [I was afraid of] her looking at me different. Like, “My dad . . . what is my dad? Is he a gangster? A killer? What is he in here for? What did he do?” I don’t want her to be afraid of me, basically what I am saying. ’Cause basically, I mean, I’ve seen a lot of the public when they see us working out there [on work crews]. They’re kind of scared of us, and I don’t like that. I don’t want them to be scared of me. I’m not going to do nothing to them. I don’t want her see that, too. I don’t want her to be afraid of me just ’cause I’m incarcerated. (Nurse, 2002, p. 45)

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This identity strategy represents a suboptimal resistance response (Craddock, 2007; Robinson & Ward, 1991). Unfortunately, the long-term consequence is that fathers often encounter more parent-related struggles when they later attempt to reenter their children’s lives. Still others adopt another self-perception to cope with their struggle as adolescent fathers who are confined or newly released (e.g., Parra-Cardona et al., 2008). If they cannot take on traditional male “breadwinner” roles to provide financial support, then in their efforts to be self-defined and sufficient, they perceive an option of contributing “social capital” to their children’s lives by providing child care, buying diapers, and being involved in daily parenting rituals (Inderbitzin, 2009). This optimal resistance response (Craddock, 2007; Robinson & Ward, 1991; Ward, 1996) reflects the perspective of youth who have chosen to find any possible way of owning their responsibilities as fathers. Many of the adolescent fathers expressed wanting to “get out of the life,” as they had hopes and visions of raising their own children in more “conforming situations” (Inderbitzin, 2009). In these examples, we see adolescent parents striving to incorporate individual, societal, and cultural goals in an effort to build an identity as they assume increasing adult and parental responsibilities.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ENHANCED POLICIES AND SERVICES FOR ADOLESCENT PARENTS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM This chapter identifies multilevel constraints on the ability of adolescent mothers and fathers to engage in their parenting role in the context of their confinement, and the impact of these constraints on parenting and

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the parent–child relationship; it also highlights the challenges these adolescent parents feel balancing competing personal identities. In effect, as Golden (2005) notes, there are potentially two generations of casualties from confinement of adolescent parents that is neither developmentally or socioculturally informed. Not only are adolescent parents affected directly, but their children also suffer. I reached to cover my pain, my mother’s pain, her mother’s pain. Years on top of years of struggle . . . generations of bitterness twisting and turning inside my soul, wishing to be numb, wishing I could get a grip and a little control. (Golden, 2005, p. 96) At multiple contextual layers, policy and service delivery changes could enhance services not only to adolescent parents, but also to their children, thereby increasing the odds of disrupting an intergenerational pattern of incarcerated or confined parents. Changing Policies Policies regarding juvenile offenders (e.g., institutional policies, alternative disposition policies) and those designed to address the needs of children in foster care (e.g., ASFA) individually and collectively can undermine parenting among adolescent parents. Detailed discussion of policies in each of these arenas—juvenile justice and foster care—is beyond the scope of this chapter. Thus, this discussion of policies will center on the institutional policies in juvenile facilities as an example of the need to carefully examine policies in all arenas that can affect confined adolescent parents and their children.

Statewide and individual institutional policies should be examined for the degree to which they promote or hinder the ability of adolescent parents to engage in their parenting role and the parent–child relationship. An important goal would be to enable adolescent parents to develop optimal resistance strategies that would enable them to manage the competing demands of being an inmate and being a parent. Within individual institutions, consideration should extend to housing adolescent parents together, separated from other confined adolescents (Nurse, 2002). Such arrangements can provide a community of support for adolescent parents that might reduce “hard timing” and promote more embracing of the parenting role. As one adolescent father observed, Sometimes, if you find another father who loves their kids and, you know, misses their kids, yeah. But the guys without kids really don’t, you know. They still might talk about a nephew or something, but it’s not the same thing as meeting somebody who has a kid. They’re trying to be a good dad, too, or missing their children. You connect better with them and they’re supportive more with each other. (Nurse, 2002, p. 143) While the recommendation for housing adolescent parents together may be readily understandable, housing them separately from nonparents may be more controversial. Adolescent fathers have made this proposal, noting how vulnerable they feel when they talk about or show emotions about their children. “Nonfathers frequently treated such talk as a sign of weakness and ridiculed it” (Nurse, p. 143). Thus, a policy allowing for

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

separate housing for adolescent parents could better enable them to incorporate their competing identities without anxiety about how their nonfather peers would view or treat them. Policies regarding visitation and phone communication should provide for contact soon after confinement, as well as more frequent contact overall. According to a set of standards developed by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (Soler, Shoenberg, Arya, & Burrell, 2006), which is aimed at ensuring that all youth involved in juvenile justice have opportunities for optimal development, youth should be allowed free (or in the case of those youth with resources, reasonably priced) phone calls. Further, these standards recommend visits several days per week for at least one hour, to include physical contact. Moreover, Soler and colleagues (2006) recommend that staff encourage adolescent parents to maintain contact with family through calls, letters, and appropriate visiting space. Noting the lead taken in several California prisons, Nurse (2002) called for toys and playground equipment to be made available for visits. Golden (2005) observed that a facility in New Mexico allowed visits with young children as often as twice a week for two hours. An innovative visitation arrangement taking place at prisons in 17 states gives hope and connection to 800 girls and their incarcerated mothers. As depicted in an award-winning documentary of one participating site (Tompkins, 2006), the program, Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB; 2010) allows girls to visit their incarcerated mothers weekly or monthly. Mothers and daughters jointly participate in meetings and activities in which mothers are given leadership roles later found to be critical to their employment and success after release from prison. An outgrowth of the GSBB, Girl Scouting in

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Detention Centers, is a program in over 20 states that is aimed at girls who are adjudicated, wards of the court, or court-referred delinquents. This program, serving over 10,000 juvenile girl offenders, is often court mandated and centers on goals to build selfesteem, social consciousness, and critical life skills (Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, 2010). Although it does not specifically target adolescent parents, it may provide important skills for incarcerated teens who are not yet parents that would enable them to delay parenthood. Regarding phone contact, institutional policies about phone use should be broad enough to encompass not only contact between the incarcerated parent and child, the child’s caregiver, and extended family, but also to support involvement of parents in the child welfare system’s periodic reviews of the case (through phone calls with lawyers or child welfare professionals). In California, an important bill under consideration (SB 134) would guarantee a minimum of four calls per month for young incarcerated parents— to talk with their children, as well as with other relatives and professionals who work with their children—to facilitate more participation in their children’s lives (Irish, 2010). Mothers’ attempts to maintain their relationships with their children and to fight allegations of “unfitness to be a parent” would be substantially facilitated with the successful passage of this bill. Changing Services As with institutional policies, services need to be examined for the degree to which they enable adolescent parents to engage in their parenting role during confinement. Services that support the parent–child relationship in its larger contexts (i.e., the institution, the child’s caregiving arrangement, and the teen’s family)

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would be ideal in helping these youth incorporate their multiple roles into identities that could enable them to function optimally. Institutional Services The evaluation process for youth entering juvenile institutions should include consideration of adolescent parents’ connection with their children and families (see Acoca, 2004). Based on the reality that not all mothers will reengage with their children upon reentry, Enos (2001) proposed that professionals involved in service delivery to incarcerated mothers (e. g., correctional staff, child welfare staff ) develop gender-specific, culturally sensitive strategies for assessing “promising” and “problem” mothers as early as possible in their inmate careers. This would allow personnel to provide the appropriate level of support, so as to optimize the possibilities of successfully maintaining or building parenting functions (see e.g., Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). In addition, such an evaluation should consider youth’s suboptimal and optimal resistance approaches to their situations. An understanding of whether an adolescent has only suboptimal strategies or a combination of optimal and suboptimal strategies, in which one strategy dominates in certain circumstances, could inform the delivery of services and staff engagement with youth during confinement. For example, an adolescent parent who expresses interest in going to college postrelease as a path toward success (optimal resistance approach), yet engages in denial of limited academic skills (a suboptimal approach designed to minimize the pain of the marginalizing academic experiences), might resist remedial educational services that could be helpful. Young parents who struggle with dominant suboptimal forms of resistance would require supports that

address the trauma and/or marginalization they have experienced. In contrast, an adolescent parent who is working to understand and recognize the situations that trigger his or her angry and impulsive outbursts (suboptimal functioning), in order to engage in nonviolent conflict resolution (optimal functioning), may be more amenable to services designed to challenge this behavior. For those exhibiting dominant optimal forms of resistance, supports should scaffold these strategies, especially by providing goal setting and instruction to better equip them to become successful adults and parents. With comprehensive data about each confined adolescent parent, staff would be able to apply policies regarding engagement with children and family in ways that match youth’s needs and strengths. In addition, they could deliver services that would enable adolescent parents to function more optimally in dealing with their confinement experience and their role as parents. A sociocultural approach within this focus would be essential in order to consider cultural variations in parenting and relations with families. According to Soler and colleagues (2006), a critical service that would support visitation between adolescent parents and their children is transportation to and from institutions, when public transportation is not available. This service would enhance the frequency of access that adolescent parents have to their children. Parenting classes serve as an important support for adolescent parents in at least two ways. First, individual parents directly benefit from knowledge about children’s normative development, the impact of separation on children, and ways that they could improve their parenting during points of contact with children. One adolescent father suggested such services should be required:

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

Just keep giving them information. Keep having those parenting classes, you know what I mean? Because all the information they give helps somebody, because it all pertains to a certain different situation somebody is going through. That’s it there. Just keep giving them info. For the guys that have kids, they should make it mandatory that they go to parenting class. (Nurse, 2001, p. 135) Second, having the opportunity to participate in parenting classes provides a sense of community for adolescent parents and, as with the congregate housing idea, could enhance their embracing of their role as parents. Therapeutic Services Consideration of the developmental needs of adolescent parents might point to adaptations in juvenile justice settings. Although not intended specifically for adolescent parents, the state of Missouri has initiated a relationship-based intervention with juvenile inmates in several of its facilities that serve youth who have committed serious crimes (Zavlek, 2005). The intervention centers on the establishment of relationships between staff and youth and among youth that serve to facilitate a process in which each youth comes to terms with the underlying experiences and issues that were related to his/her crime. Youth explore their perceptions of their experiences in their ecological contexts—at home, in the community—and their link to individual acts, a process consistent with Spencer’s ICE perspective (2006). This statewide service delivery model, which includes small settings for confined juveniles, has been cited as a national model (Mendel, 2001): Evaluation research of this relationshipbased model with juvenile offenders

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is underway with emergent findings showing positive outcomes for youth, as well as positive economic impact for the state of Missouri. (Kleitz, Borduin, & Schaeffer, 2010) The Missouri model reflects a growing appreciation of evidence-based community intervention to address antisocial behavior among children and adolescents. One prominent model is Multisystemic Therapy (MST; Henggeler, Melton, Smith, & Schoenwald, 1993; Sheidow & Henggeler, 2005; see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume), which was developed to address limitations in the delivery of mental health services to juvenile offenders. A contextually based program, MST has a focus on relationshipcultivating, family-based methods and intensive treatment. Evaluations of MST have found it to be a vehicle for family preservation and an effective alternative to incarcerating serious juvenile offenders (Henggeler et al., 1993; Sheidow & Henggeler, 2005); indeed, it has been endorsed as a “Blueprint for Violence Prevention” program (Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, 2010). MST is rapidly expanding, with more than 400 programs in more than 30 states and 10 countries (Henngeler, Schoenwald, Borduin, Rowland, & Cunningham, 2009). A second prominent model also endorsed as a “Blueprint” is Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC; Chamberlain & Reid, 1998; see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume), which features intervention services focused on key proximal antecedents of delinquency. The core elements found to be effective with boys or mixed-gender groups—adult supervision, consistent discipline, and involvement in problem solving—have been adapted for girls to include a focus on emotional regulation,

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symptoms of abuse and neglect, and reducing aggression (Chamberlain et al., 2007). Both of these models represent developmentally responsive interventions that could be offered for juvenile offenders who are also parents. (See Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume, for a review of evidence-based practice in juvenile justice.) The application of a sociocultural lens in the delivery of services for adolescent parents is essential, so that racial and cultural dimensions in the risk for entry into the juvenile justice system and potential differences in parenting practices are appropriately addressed (e.g., Enos, 2001; Golden, 2005). Services should be tailored to meet the diverse needs of adolescent parents. Moreover, because cultural differences may vary from state to state, services should reflect the local needs of adolescent parents. For example, in some settings, different paths of entry would point to the need for culturally based prevention services. In her small qualitative study, Enos noted that White women found their way to criminal lifestyles through running away, whereas Black women entered such lifestyles through domestic networks, and Latino women through drugs. Possible differences in placement of children with extended family or foster care (e.g., Enos, 2001) might point to variations in the delivery of services to provide familial supports. Reentry is a particularly critical time for adolescent parents and their children. The negotiation of multiple identities shifts to the world outside of detention, with a different set of complexities, each requiring attention. Wrap-around services in the community, including General Educational Development (GED) and job training, vocational skill building, and parenting support, can help them contend with the emotional toll that often accompanies returning home (Inderbitzin, 2009; see Schiraldi, Schindler, and Goliday,

Chapter 20, this volume). MST and MTFC could be adapted for use proactively during this period, potentially helping to reduce recidivism among this population. Finally, juvenile justice staff, both in correctional institutions and communities, need training specific to the needs of adolescent parents and their children (Acoca, 2004; Soler et al., 2006). This training should incorporate basic adolescent development, as well as the development of young children, and the functions and consequences of parenting. In addition, training that incorporates the theories detailed in this chapter [see ICE (Spencer, 2001)] and strategies of resistance (e.g., Craddock, 2007; Robinson & HowardHamilton, 2000; Robinson & Ward, 1991; Ward, 1996) would help staff to understand youth’s experiences through their eyes, and how their identities influence their behaviors; staff, in turn could help youth develop more optimal resistance strategies.

CONCLUSION An ecological approach to understanding the challenges faced by adolescent parents in the juvenile justice system that features the youth’s perspectives (Spencer, 2006) points to multilevel constraints on their ability to fully assume the parenting role and maintain parent–child relationships. Implications reflect the importance of developmentally and socioculturally informed policies and services, including services dedicated to adolescent parents during, after, and as an alternative to, confinement. These offerings might appear to some as preferential treatment, even a “reward” for being an adolescent parent. However, these policies and services have particularly broad resonance: Adolescent parents who leave the juvenile justice system having acknowledged their

Adolescent Parents and the Juvenile Justice System

parenthood, and perhaps even having developed skills to increase their engagement with their children, might well join the ranks of responsible parents in their communities, shoring up their families and others, and demonstrating adaptive ways to integrate their adolescent and parenting identities.

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Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

S ECTION III

UNDERSTANDING YOUTH IN CONTEXT

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

10

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System F R A N C I N E H. J A C O B S , C L A U D I A M I R A N D A -J U L I A N ,

F

or years modern developmental psychology, and perhaps our own experiences as well, convinced us that emotional upheaval— stress, alienation, separation from parents and families in favor of peers—was an inevitable, core feature of adolescence (see, e.g., Elkind, 1998, Erikson, 1986; Zeldin, 2004; see also Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). We now know, however, that this developmental period is much more complex and nuanced: However much drama there may be, the vast majority of teens are also busy building and consolidating a repertoire of positive skills, behaviors, and relationships that will serve them well into their futures (Damon, 2004; Lerner, 2007; Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000). As to their parents and families, most teens appear to want and need separation and attachment, differentiation and identification (Allen, 2008; Benson, Harris, & Rogers, 1992; Steinberg, 1990).

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RACHAEL KAPLAN

Ecological (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), developmental systems (e.g., Lerner, 2006), family and general systems (e.g., Bateson, 1979; Minuchin, 1974; von Bertalanffy, 1968), and cultural developmental (e.g., Rogoff, 2003) theory all argue that relationships are central to development and functioning, for our purposes here particularly the relationship between the child or youth and her proximate partners—parents, siblings, and grandparents. The consequences of these relationships begin before birth and continue throughout a child’s life (Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Recent research on brain development (Dahl, 2004; Masten, 2004; Scott & Steinberg, 2008a; Shonkoff et al., 2009) also speaks to the power of context, highlighting the key role played by children’s physical, social, and emotional environments throughout childhood and into adolescence (Scott & Steinberg, 2008b)—in other words, even the teen brain is still maturing. Although approaches to parenting vary across cultures, communities, and generations, the obvious lessons to draw from these lines of research are not surprising: Children need opportunities to connect positively to their parents and families, as do their parents and families to them; they need significant adults in their lives who believe in them and have the material and psychological resources to invest in them



We offer a special measure of gratitude to the parents and advocates who shared their experiences and wisdom with us, including: Grace Bauer, Families of Incarcerated Children, Campaign for Youth Justice; Gina B. Womack, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Tracy McClard, Campaign for Youth Justice and FORJ-MO (Families and Friends Organizing for Reform of Juvenile Justice in Missouri); Rebecca Kendig, Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana; and Vicky L. Gunderson, parent advocate for juvenile justice.

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over the long term. They need guidance, supervision, direction, and protection, as well as respect, expectations, encouragement, and affection. They need to live in communities that support their development and functioning and the adequate functioning of their families. This is a tall order, however, and some parents or communities fall short of filling it. A percentage of these parents become involved with public systems that shore up or extend parental resources or assume parental responsibilities altogether. The child protection, public welfare, and juvenile justice systems are most common, with markedly different roles vis-a-vis families. For example, cash assistance programs administered through public welfare agencies have been characterized as “family preservation” policies because they provide material supports to enable children to remain with their families (Davidson, 1994). Acting as parens patriae—literally, “parent of country,” but in practice the default parent—child protection and juvenile justice agencies, however, have the authority to reconfigure and even dissolve these families. The child protection system, primarily concerned with the consequences of maltreatment, monitors and intervenes in family processes, places children outside their parents’ homes, and, working through the courts, may terminate parental rights altogether. The juvenile justice system is meant to protect public safety, and part of that job is to rehabilitate youthful offenders; it takes physical custody of youthful offenders during their commitment to the system (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). The operating premise here is that inadequate parenting has led to the youth’s delinquency, so that temporary abrogation of parental rights while the youth mends his way, with help from the state, is necessary. But fair is fair, and one could also ask whether the state itself is behaving as would

IN

CONTEXT

a “wise and just parent” (Ayers, 1997), providing what these youth presumably lack, given what we now know about the power of relationships and context, and the possibilities of continued development in adolescence. Does it engage the parents of these youth—with whom, given that parents retain legal custody, it is in de facto partnership—so as to optimize both public safety and the rehabilitation of its charges? Indeed, what does it know about these families altogether, and how does that information inform its practice? These questions are at the heart of this chapter. We begin by locating the juvenile justice system’s orientation to parents historically, and then explore, in broad terms, what is known about parents’ and families’ participation within the system, offering some possible explanations for how it has assumed its current shape and dimensions. We highlight a number of the barriers to increased parent participation, briefly offer strategies to enhance it, and then conclude by noting the limitations of any approach that ignores the material conditions in which many of these families and children live. The chapter attempts to incorporate the perspectives of parents, advocates, and juvenile justice system personnel, using primary data, Web sites of organizations that advocate for families, and comments made by family advocates in informal conversations with the authors. In the spirit of this volume—reformist and strengths-based—we do not focus on the parental and familial risks or deficits (e.g., parental incarceration, inadequate parental monitoring, or child maltreatment in the home) that have contributed, in a significant percentage of cases, to a child’s delinquency. We acknowledge them as potent factors for some youth, and their importance to developing effective prevention and intervention strategies. Our interest here, however, is to suggest an alternative view that

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

encourages the system to implement more, and more positive, options for parent and family engagement.

A BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTE The official genesis of modern juvenile justice is commonly set in the Progressive Era, when in 1899 the first juvenile court was established (Feld, 1999; Finley, 2007; Krisberg & Austin, 1993); before that time, children were considered the property of their parents, and were of no particular concern to the courts (Scott & Steinberg, 2008a). Progressive Era reforms concretized the growing conviction within mainstream U.S. culture that a child’s character is not fixed at birth; that childhood is a distinct developmental period; and that children deserve special attention, protection, and dispensation when their behavior falls outside conventional norms. The theory held that well-tended, children would become competent, moral, and responsible adults. Although the changes prompted by Progressives were largely altruistic in intention (Grubb & Lazerson, 1982), and improved circumstances for many delinquent juveniles, they had an unholy underside. First, Black youth, from whom earlier reformist impulses had been largely withheld, continued to be discriminated against in the courts, for example, by confinement in adult prisons (Bell & Ridolfi, 2008). Second, although not all the youth who became involved with the juvenile justice system in the early 20th century were poor, a significant percentage was. Yet the root causes and contexts of the poverty that spawn their often petty offenses (thefts, truancy, vagrancy, etc.) were not addressed, establishing an infelicitous but enduring approach to dealing with the problems of poor children and families (Grubb & Lazerson, 1982; Krisberg &

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Austin, 1993). Third, in adopting the role of parens patriae, the juvenile justice system essentially reinforced prevailing beliefs about the inadequacy of their parents (Ayers, 1997; Feld, 1999; Grubb & Lazerson, 1982; Schwartz, 2003; Scott & Steinberg, 2008a). The courts asserted that the juvenile justice system could, and would, do better. The consequences of the system’s early structures and decisions have remained: Black youth are still poorly served, as, faced with the evidence of disproportionate minority contact (DMC), is well documented, and broadly acknowledged by advocates, policy makers, and researchers (Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice [FACJJ], 2009; Piquero, 2008; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). Juvenile justice remains a back-end loaded, “residual” system (Lindsey, 2004; Nelson, 2008; Travis, 2009; see also Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume), receiving primarily low-income youth who have fallen through gaping holes in other public service systems (e.g., child protective services, education, mental health, public health) that should have responded earlier and better (Maschi, Hatcher, Schwalbe, & Rosato, 2008; see also Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). Particularly germane to our discussion, the Progressives’ belief that the stakes involved in proper parenting were too high to leave that task to parents alone, is still apparent in the system’s general appraisal of parents. As Nelson (2008) notes, “most juvenile justice systems are more inclined to ignore, alienate, or blame family members than to enroll them as partners” (p. 10). To underscore the last point, regardless of the prevailing views of delinquent youth, the system has yet to determine whether, and how, to engage parents and families to yield the best results for their children and society at large.

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FAMILY ENGAGEMENT WITH THE SYSTEM: WHAT IS DONE VERSUS WHAT IS KNOWN In 2001, my 13-year-old son—who weighed 90 pounds soaking wet—was adjudicated delinquent and sentenced to five years in a Department of Corrections facility. My son’s crime was stealing a stereo out of a truck with two other boys. At the time, I believed the promises of the probation officer and staff at the juvenile justice department that they would care for my son and get him back on the right track through a program called STOP. I also never asked for an attorney for my son after the probation officer told me an attorney would just stand in the way of my son getting the help the state could provide. I believed my son would have access to treatment to help him deal with the issues he faced. Unfortunately, I could not have been more wrong. . . . My 13-year-old boy had to fight for food and do without when his size failed to hold off other kids suffering from malnutrition and desperation. The education he needed—along with the other nearly 400 kids—consisted of a few worksheets, no certified teachers, and school hours filled not with instruction, but with military-like exercises done in the heat of the south’s brutal summers. The mental health care the family court judge ordered was nonexistent (although it is difficult to see how one could get meaningful mental health treatment in a facility where children live with filth, neglect, and rampant abuse). I eventually learned that the STOP program, which the probation offices said would help, had a 70% recidivism rate. All of this happened five and half hours away from where we lived and

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many times we traveled all five and half of those hours only to be told our son was denied visitors that day or that he was in the infirmary and we would not be able to see him. . . . It wasn’t until I saw the evidence of an assault on my son’s body that I sought the advice of an attorney. By then it was too late. The state now controlled every aspect of my son’s life and I had no say in his treatment or care, nor did I have any power to stop the abuse and neglect of my son. . . . I wish I could say that what happened to my son was a rarity or that we have come so far in the last nine years that these things don’t happen to children anymore. Let me be loud and clear, there is not one week that goes by in the last nine years that I haven’t heard the pain and pleas of other parents in the same or similar situations. (Bauer, 2010) In theory, family participation in juvenile justice system operations is possible at each juncture of the process: at the time of arrest, during intake, during consideration of detention, during the preparation for adjudication, at the time of disposition, during placement (Osher & Hunt, 2002), when youth are on probation at home, and at discharge. There appears to be more participation at certain points in the process (i.e., court hearings) than at others, in part because the law encourages or requires certain types of involvement (Gilbert, Grimm, & Parnham, 2001; Henning, 2006), and not others. But because the data are sparse, we can only offer an impression of how parents are actually engaged with the system. One can think about the range of ways parents are involved in the juvenile justice process along a few critical dimensions: Is the genre of participation mandatory or optional?

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

Does it reflect a view of parents as problems or as partners? Is it well or poorly documented in the relevant literature? We address each of these dimensions briefly below. Mandatory Versus Optional The juvenile court has wide latitude to require parents’ participation in its operations, or in other activities meant to enhance parental supervision and promote youth rehabilitation, and to legally sanction parents if they do not comply. Parents can be required, for example, to bring their child to court for his scheduled appearances, attend court hearings, participate in individual therapy or family-oriented treatment with their children, enroll in parenting classes, or undergo psychiatric evaluation (Henning, 2006). In addition, parental liability provisions, both criminal and civil, hold parents legally responsible for the crimes their children commit (Harvell, Rodas, & Hendey, 2004); parents can be fined or incarcerated for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” and can be sued to recover damages related to a child’s criminal acts (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Juvenile courts vary dramatically in parent participation provisions (Harvell et al., 2004), mandating certain kinds of involvement, and recommending others; engaging in family counseling, for example, is often recommended but not required (Gilbert et al., 2001). Parents also have an affirmative right to be involved in some activities (e.g., in educational program planning for children with special needs), and systems encourage but do not require their participation in others (e.g., attending prerelease or reentry planning meetings). Or parents can simply be involved, volitionally, in supportive ways in the lives of their system-involved children (e.g., visiting residential facilities or fostering grandchildren;

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see Pinderhughes, Craddock, & Fermin, Chapter 9, this volume); this voluntary involvement is supported, at least in theory, by some juvenile justice professionals (Davies & Davidson, 2001; see also Peterson-Badali & Broeking, 2009, for a Canadian perspective). A Parents-as-Problems Versus Parents-as-Partners Stance On one end of this continuum sit the legal mandates noted earlier that focus on enhancing parental supervision and monitoring during the rehabilitation of one’s child; implicit is the court’s assessment of these parents as problems, either directly responsible for their children’s delinquency or incompetent to manage their children’s return to a socially sanctioned life. Parenthetically, a number of qualitative studies of system-involved youth suggest that they do not broadly share this view of their parents (see, e.g., Abrams, 2006; Brank & Lane, 2005; Brank, Lane, Turner, Fain, & Sehgal, 2008; Goldson & Jamieson, 2002). These mandates show little respect for the authority the parenting role should confer on decisions regarding their children. Furthermore, paradoxically, these requirements often undermine parents’ ability to meet their parental responsibilities (e.g., losing critical household income pursuant to being required to attend all court proceedings) (Henning, 2006; see also Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). They stand in contrast to laws protecting parents’ authority that originate outside of the juvenile justice system—for example, a parent’s right to participate in planning an educational program for youth with special needs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Farther along this continuum toward viewing parents as partners are the primarily

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therapeutically oriented evidence-based practices and/or programs—approaches that have demonstrated their effectiveness according to demanding research standards (Greenwood, 2008; see also the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Web site www.colorado.edu/ cspv/blueprints/; the Coalition for Evidencebased Policy Web site www.evidencebased policy.org). Embraced by some jurisdictions in the midst of reforming their juvenile justice systems (see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume), rather than simply blaming parents for their inadequacies, these interventions acknowledge parents’ risks and challenges, and attempt, for example, to repair family functioning or improve parenting skills. However, these programs also require parents—whose authority is already compromised—to admit to deficits that are implicated in their children’s delinquency. Thus, even by encouraging (and not requiring) parental participation, these programs reinforce the system’s hierarchical position vis-a-vis parents, helping to maintain the structurally uneven and uneasy relationship that often exists between the two groups. This is not to discount the many virtues of these approaches, but even a parent with serious problems that are amenable to these treatments, who is grateful for the opportunity, also probably knows that help offered to her earlier would have been more useful and less demeaning for her to accept. Furthermore, she is aware that the system has not invited the other actors responsible for her child’s delinquency—the school superintendent, the mayor, her neighbors who are overwhelmed themselves and cannot properly supervise their own teenagers, and so forth—into treatment with her. For over two decades, a number of juvenile justice jurisdictions have planned and

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implemented major system reforms to address many and varied shortcomings (see Mendel, 2009, regarding ongoing detention reforms, for example). Some of these efforts include parents by soliciting their participation in needs assessments (see, for example, Luckenbill, 2009, for a review of Pennsylvania’s approach) to imagine a revamped system, more responsive to their children’s needs. This admirable posture is yet farther down the line toward viewing parents as partners, suggesting that system officials see parents as sharing the investment in their children, with points of view worth considering (Luckenbill, 2009). Although it is difficult to discern in available materials, it appears that parents are not frequently represented on bodies that actually develop, implement, and oversee these system overhauls—an action that would level the field that much more; as a number of these systems are in their early stages of reform, indeed, this may be the intention, not yet realized. Of course, only states committed to reform appear even to consider this more reasonable approach to parents. Well Documented Versus Poorly Documented Few aspects of parental involvement in the juvenile justice system are well documented, which may be read, as some suggest, as disrespect for parents. There may be truth to that interpretation, but in addition, the data systems maintained by juvenile justice agencies on all aspects of their functioning are generally considered wanting, and in need of serious updating (see, for example, Busch, 1999; Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume; Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). So what information do we have? At one end of this continuum are publicly available, systematically collected data—by juvenile

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

justice agencies or independent researchers— characterizing participation at each phase (e.g., the extent and quality of it, the characteristics of parents who are and are not involved). The recent Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) report on conditions of confinement (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010a) that includes family contact data from a 2003 nationally representative sample of 7,073 youth in custody is a noteworthy example of this kind of information. However, it is a rarity. Reporting comparable data at each phase of potential involvement would move us a great distance toward proper documentation. There is also a limited number of promising studies of parent involvement in court proceedings, which is a genre of information that would be important to have more generally. Davies and Davidson (2001) conducted a large, U.S. national study of court officers in innovative jurisdictions, reporting their observations about parental involvement in court hearings, why they believe parents are or are not involved, and how important they viewed such participation as being. Several recent studies of participation in the Canadian youth court system (see, for example, Broeking & Peterson-Badali, 2010; Peterson-Badali & Broeking, 2009, 2010; Varma, 2007) provide welcomed texture and depth regarding the nature and timing of parental involvement, youth’s beliefs about their parents’ roles, and the relationship of parental involvement to court-related outcomes. We could find nothing comparable conducted in the United States, and currently, no federal mandate exists encouraging the participation of parents in the juvenile justice system within the United States. Unlike the United States, Canada’s federal statues over the past 25 years have increasingly encouraged parental involvement (see Varma, 2007). As to who these parents are, no study we could identify focuses on,

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or even treats in a significant way, their positive attributes—strengths, abilities, and potentialities—although innovations in child and family assessment in a number of state systems may soon yield this view (see, e.g., Shanahan, 2010). One needs to leave the academic literature and turn to Web sites of parent and other advocacy organizations (see, e.g., the Campaign for Youth Justice, www.campaignfor youthjustice.org), descriptions of innovative system reform efforts (e.g., Luckenbill, 2009; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume), and coverage of family engagement in the popular press, to find evidence of these stores of human capital. We also know little from the parents’ own perspectives, even within existing literature. While youth’s “voices” increasingly are being heard in the growing collection of fine qualitative studies of this population (e.g., Abrams, 2006; Inderbitzin, 2009; Unruh, PovenmireKirk, & Yamamoto, 2009), parents’ assessments of their own strengths and limitations, their dreams for their children, and their assessments of how the system operates, are generally not available, though there are a few exceptions in that last category (see, e.g., Benner, Mooney, & Epstein, 2003, for a discussion of what parents want for their children while in custody). We could not find discussions about what parents want for themselves, though Bolen, McWey, and Schlee (2008) present such a discussion from the perspective of parents in the child welfare system that may be relevant here as well. However, on the well-documented end of the spectrum, enter “parents of children in the juvenile justice system” in your search engine and you will find hundreds and hundreds of entries that detail parents’ risks and deficits, arrayed across levels of ecology: individual parental characteristics (e.g., limited education, substance abuse, history of incarceration,

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mental illness), family composition characteristics (e.g., single-parent household, multiple children), family circumstances (e.g., residential instability), family functioning (e.g., child maltreatment), parenting styles (e.g., lax monitoring, harsh discipline), and neighborhood characteristics (e.g., poor, underresourced, high crime), considered according to the age, gender, mental health status, and so on, of the youth. This information is necessary and useful—to inform the development, refinement, and evaluation of interventions for delinquent youth and their families, or for those at risk of delinquency. It also is problematic, since it reifies the assumption that the most salient aspects of these parents and families are their deficits, and it suggests a “norm” for focusing research in this way. (See Pelton, 2008, for an insightful discussion of these issues regarding parents in the child welfare system.) The juvenile justice system is likely to continue to concentrate activity at the mandated and parent-as-problems focused ends of these continua; that is in the nature of residual human services systems in which families with significant problems “reside.” And however much juvenile justice data management systems improve, they are unlikely to have the reach or resources to support some of the research we advocate, and so certain processes and aspects of parenting these youth will, understandably for the time being, remain poorly documented. The usefulness of typifying activities according to these dimensions, then, is to illuminate the choices that systems make, hopefully as a prologue to expanding the breadth of system engagement with parents and families to include more of them at the “positive” ends. With these dimensions of involvement in mind (Is it mandated? Does it acknowledge parents as potential partners in their parenting

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roles? Is it addressed in the literature?), we briefly review what is known. Parent Participation in Court Hearings and Interrogation According to several studies, youth are usually accompanied by a parent, or parents, to court hearings. In a national U.S. survey of judges and chief probation officers in “innovative” jurisdictions, Davies and Davidson (2001) found that over two thirds of juveniles’ parents attend their child’s first formal delinquency hearing—a figure lower than the authors expected—and their informants estimate that at least one parent appears across a child’s delinquency hearings between 80% and 90% of the time. Broeking and Peterson-Badali (2010), in a study of the Canadian youth justice system, found somewhat similar findings as those in the United States. Relying on youth selfreport, 87% of their sample indicated that they had a legal guardian involved in their legal cases—most often the mother—but parent participation varied across their sample, and over the phases of system involvement. Almost 50% of parents reportedly were involved to a high or medium extent (at a minimum of three time points); the remainder was involved inconsistently and minimally. In an observational study of courtroom proceedings for youth, Peterson-Badali and Broeking (2010) found that parents were present in 68% of all cases. Varma (2007) observed bail and sentencing hearings, noting a 70.3% participation rate at bail hearings and a 57% rate at sentencing hearings. Reports of parental participation at interrogations range broadly (Woolard, Cleary, Harvell, & Chen, 2008), likely reflecting variation in law, most of which allows youth to be interviewed without a parent present (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume).

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

Furthermore, parent-child testimonial privilege is rare, so that parents can be made to testify against their children; this may discourage both parental participation in legal procedures, and the provision of parental emotional support to their children more generally (Ross, 2003). There is a small but noteworthy percentage of children who cannot depend on their parents’ presence, support, and/or helpful behavior in any of these activities (see, e.g., Broeking & Peterson-Badali, 2010). Youth in the foster care system are particularly disadvantaged in legal proceedings, appearing more likely to be detained, for less serious offenses, than youth living with their biological families (Conger & Ross, 2001; Ross, 2008; see also Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume).

visit, and of those who had not, about one third reported either that the visiting hours or the distance of the facility from their homes precluded it. Rates of contact varied across types of facilities, with youth in correctional facilities and camps about twice as likely to report low rates of family contact (less than once/week) (39%) than youth in other placements (20%). Only 7% of the youth without any contact reported not wanting it, and 6% reported that it is their family members who were not interested. Parent participation also varies across time, and issue. For example, one seasoned juvenile justice worker noted: Parents maintained close contact during the assessment, because [during that phase] there was more of an introduction to the Department . . . once in secure treatment it felt like “old hat” and parents were less engaged . . . [that is] less contact with staff/program but [they] did keep in touch with the kids. . . . School/education piece was a place where parents had a greater presence . . . (KI1, personal communication, 10/2/09)1

Incarceration Parent involvement during youth incarceration can include participation in educational decisions and treatment sessions, maintaining regular contact with staff, visiting (in person or by phone) (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010a), and providing the support and guidance that parents of adolescents generally offer their children. It can also mean keeping a youth’s interests in mind in the community by maintaining contact with, or caring for, the youth’s own children, or conveying relevant information to medical or educational personnel to aid in the transition back to the community. According to the recent OJJDP report on conditions of confinement (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010a), over 90% of the youth noted that they had been in contact (by phone or visit) with their families since their arrival at their placements (detention facilities, corrections facilities, camps, community-based facilities, and residential treatment programs). Almost two thirds had received an in-person

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This information would be useful for systems to collect and maintain, to help in targeting their efforts to increase specific types of parent participation. Treatment Researchers have been active in this domain of parent involvement. Decades of thoughtful intervention research have yielded a small 1

Key informant (KI) interviews are numbered to protect confidentiality.

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but growing set of options for youth and families at risk of involvement, or already involved, with the juvenile justice system that meet standards for evidence-based practice or programs (EBP) (see, e.g., Blueprints for Violence Prevention Project, www.colorado .edu/cspv/blueprints/; Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume, for a detailed discussion). The subset of model Blueprints programs that centrally involve families includes Functional Family Therapy (FFT; see Alexander et al., 1998; Henggler & Sheidow, 2003; Sexton & Turner, 2010) and Multisystemic Therapy (MST; Henggler & Sheidow, 2003; Henggler, et al. 2009; Timmons-Mitchell, Bender, Kisna, & Mitchel, 2006), which are community based, for youth on probation and their families, and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC; see Chamberlain & Mihalic, 1998; Chamberlain, Leve, & DeGarmo, 2007; Zahn, Day, Mihalic, & Tichavsky, 2009), which also operates in communities, with foster parent training and support a key element. Another well-regarded family-oriented program, Family Integrated Transitions (FIT; see Aos, 2004; Drake, 2007), begins in the residential facility in which youth are incarcerated and continues in the community. A range of child and family outcomes has been achieved by these interventions, and Aos, Miller, and Drake (2006) have also established their cost effectiveness (see Anderson & Bogenschneider, 2007; Greenwood, 2008; see also, Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume). Recruiting and retaining parents in these programs, when they are not mandated to comply, is a major challenge (Fagan, Hanson, Hawkins, & Arthur, 2008; Mulford & Redding, 2008). Additionally, Greenwood (2008) reports that only a small percentage of eligible youth currently participate in Blueprints-validated treatment programs. This leaves the

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remainder without a family-focused intervention, or in one with unknown or likely fewer effects, though there are also problems with relying too heavily on EBP model programs (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume). Even with Blueprints programs, to achieve effects, faithful implementation is critical (Lipsey, 2009) and not always straightforwardly attained (Schoenwald, 2010), and some jurisdictions choose not to incur the training expenses that are related to these efforts (see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume). Probation and Community Reentry As mentioned earlier, a number of effective family-focused treatment programs are community based, implemented during probation and community reentry, and for families engaged in those interventions we have a clear idea of the nature and degree of that system-directed, family involvement. However, few studies offer a more general picture of how families participate with the system and with their children when youth are in the community. Indeed, descriptions of the reentry process often barely mention parents and families (e.g., Mears & Travis, 2004; Zeldin, 2004; see also Hawkins, Vaschchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Youth themselves differ in their perceptions of their parents and families as supports during this phase. A number of studies suggest that many view their family relationships as basically positive. For example, in a multiyear, national evaluation of the Serious and Violent Offenders Reentry Initiative (SVORI), 99% of the young men in the SVORI group (n ¼ 185), and 96% of those in the non-SVORI group (n ¼ 152) reported feeling close to their families, and wanted them involved in their lives (Hawkins, Lattimore, Dawes, & Visher,

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

2009). Brank, Lane, Turner, Fain, and Sehgal (2008), in an evaluation of an intensive probation program in California, found the youth across the program and nonprogram groups feeling well supported by their parents, who they saw as genuinely interested in their wellbeing. A recent evaluation of a health access program for youth on parole committed to a juvenile justice agency (Jacobs, Oliveri, & Greenstone, 2009; see also Jacobs, 2007, and Miranda-Julian & Jacobs, 2009), reported that both male and female offenders did what teenagers often do—they sought their parents’ advice in a range of matters related to their health and health care, and reported their parents as being helpful to them (see also Oliveri et al., Chapter 18, this volume). The 51 incarcerated male offenders in the Unruh, Povenmire-Kirk, and Yamamoto (2009) study, imagining their trajectories once back in their communities, appeared to understand well both the potential benefits of, and liabilities to, family support. Over 70% of them viewed strong familial support, both emotional and instrumental, as critical to a successful transition to adulthood, helping them avoid the unlawful behaviors that resulted in system involvement and providing residential stability. Stability in one’s living situation was viewed as particularly critical to their positive development, but was less likely to be offered, when family members were themselves involved in criminal activities. (See Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume, on the risks of negative social capital of this sort.) However, families of origin figured only marginally in Inderbitzin’s (2009) ethnographic study of five male youthful offenders reentering their home neighborhoods. In the main, it appeared, their families were too troubled to attend to the youth, or had written them off and did not, or could not, provide the

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family support and resources to make a successful transition. A few of these young men, already fathers themselves, focused instead on their own children and parenting and the extent to which they could be good providers and supports. Sullivan’s (2004) ethnographic analysis of the reentry experiences of five young men concluded that incarceration likely hastens normal developmental processes that “end” adolescence and the separation from parents that can accompany the move into adulthood. This developmental note is important to underscore and should modify expectations of the degree of involvement to be expected or sought from parents of older adolescents. Based on this review, it appears that state statutes often determine what is required or requested from parents and families, and the law currently attempts to hold parents accountable for failed involvement with their children in the juvenile justice system. Support for the development and evaluation of theoretically based, empirically driven treatment programs has yielded increasing options for systems to work with parents and families in more helpful and inclusive ways, increasing engagement, though this is primarily confined to states in reform modes. Other than these family-oriented, intervention-focused investigations, reports of how families and parents participate in the system and interact with their children in the many ways that “usual, devoted parents” do are spare.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF RESEARCH TO PRACTICE AND POLICY It is impossible to track the direction of influence between the research and current juvenile justice policy. Does the voluminous body of research on parental deficits and problems

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sharpen and reinforce the system’s focus on deficits and problems? Or perhaps, to effect even incremental change in juvenile justice (a deficit-based legal system, after all) toward a more family-focused orientation, one must investigate deficits, demonstrating the extent to which they are amenable to intervention, on the one hand, and the consequences for youth and public safety if they are not addressed, on the other. Both are likely true. As a general rule, research rarely creates or derails an observable shift in policy, for a host of often-cited reasons pertaining both to the nature of social science research (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume) and the nature of the policy-making process (see Bogenschneider, 2006; Jacobs, 2001; Weiss, 1983). On the policy end, competing perspectives and perceptions—political, ideological, economic—exert considerable influence as well, and co-construct policy with research (categorized as the 3 I’s—ideology, interests, and information, by Weiss, 1983). It is best to view applied research as a tool to support, modify, and challenge emerging or existing policy choices, not as the source of the policy or its revision (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume, for a comprehensive treatment of this issue in the juvenile justice field). Assessing the extent and nature of actual parental involvement, in all phases of the juvenile justice process, is an empirical task awaiting execution. With the information we have at present, however, our hunch is that there is far more than is documented but less than would be optimal, and for that reason, we proceed to discuss the barriers to parent participation.

BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION Consistent with our view that increasing the volitional, rather than mandated, types of

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parent participation would best achieve the rehabilitative aim of the juvenile justice system, we focus here on barriers to that sort of participation from the system’s, parents’, and youth’s perspectives. This short list was largely generated through, and multiply corroborated by, data collected from line agency staff and youth (see Jacobs, Oliveri, & Greenstone, 2009), and from informal conversations with advocates; each of these points finds ample support in the research, practice, and advocacy literatures (see, e.g., Garfinkel & Nelson, 2004; Harvell et al., 2004; Varma, 2007). &

&

Lack of accessible, useful information on systems operations. Parents, particularly those without means, are poorly educated about the workings of the court and the system overall. This is, in part, a function of the exigencies of the law, which views the child, not his parents, as the client to be afforded legal counsel (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). One family advocate noted, “Many of them [parents] didn’t understand what their rights were, their kids’ rights. They felt helpless” (Rebecca Kendig, personal communication, 10/8/09). Engagement with the legal system can be intimidating to any individual, and when the system is uninviting and obfuscating, and the stakes are so high, it is difficult for some of these parents to forge ahead. Its underlying assumption of parental responsibility for delinquency. This clear system-delivered message of parental responsibility for their child’s delinquency discourages, paralyzes, and infuriates some parents. As one systeminvolved youth revealed:

Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System

INTERVIEWER: Can you talk to me about what you know about your mom’s involvement with the Department while you were in lockup? YOUTH: None. She hates them. . . . Like the only thing, like when they had to send her papers to sign, that’s about it. She’ll sign them and send them back. . . . But beside that, I don’t think any parent likes the Department because, you know, they have custody of us and the parent feels like, I’m supposed to have full [custody] because I’m the parent. (KI2, personal communication, 4/29/08) &

Its low expectations for parent involvement. Several informants noted that the system’s structure broadcasts the expectation that parents will not be involved much with their children. This expectation, then, is easily validated by a system that does not accommodate parents’ schedules and other responsibilities. For example, residential facilities that are distant and inaccessible, with strict rules about visiting and phone contact, preclude regular involvement (e.g., Travis, 2009). Sedlak and McPherson (2010a) report that, for 59% of youth in custody, it takes an hour or more to travel for a visit, and for 28% of the youth, it takes at least 3 hours. A youth described her parents’ efforts in this regard: . . . My mom didn’t, like my mom doesn’t have her license, she doesn’t have a car, she can’t drive so she really didn’t have a ride to go out [to participate

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in a meeting at the facility], but when she did have a ride, she’d attend my meeting. My dad [with a car] attended every single meeting that I had. (KI3, personal communication, 9/26/08) &

Little staff expertise, or quality training to develop expertise, in working with families. Many system personnel are not inclined to include parents in systemrelated activities that are not mandatory, solicit their input, or provide therapeutically oriented services. One system-based clinician observed that “the Department is not historically good at doing work with families . . . though family therapy was offered, [we] very rarely got participation from the family . . . [it’s] . . . not a strength of the Department” (KI1, personal communication, 10/2/09). Some caseworkers, the clinician noted, have embraced the notion, while others resist, making the “‘bare minimum’ effort to engage with child and family” (KI1, personal communication, 10/2/09). System reformers note this as a particular challenge (Decker, 2010).

On the Parents’ End We take as a given that some parents cannot (e.g., because of significant mental or physical health problems), or should not (e.g., because of a history of serious maltreatment in the home), be involved with their systeminvolved children. Others choose not to be involved. There are two additional factors, however, that many juvenile justice court and

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agency personnel concede, but are not as evident in the public discourse that merit mention. Typically, the daily circumstances of these families’ lives are challenging; they tend to be of low or moderate income, and quite a few of them are single-parent households. So even when required at legal proceedings, some parents, for instance, cannot afford or are not allowed the time off from work. Often, additional child caring responsibilities at home, sometimes including the care of grandchildren whose parents are incarcerated, further constrain their participation. And without supports, many parents are simply overwhelmed by these multiple demands. In addition, the needs of many systeminvolved youth can overwhelm parents, particularly those who are already stressed. A significant percentage of system-involved youth have special needs, estimated at up to 70% (FACJJ, 2009). Grisso (2008) notes that between one half and two thirds meet criteria of at least one mental disorder, and 30% of confined youth indicate that they have a diagnosed learning disability (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010b). Some youth are so difficult—threatening, dangerous, or just trying—that parents sometimes, as one worker put it, “need a break from the kid’s behaviors.” There is also a percentage of youth who terrorize or abuse their parents or other family members (see Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). On the Youth’s End Youth, for their part, run the gamut from wanting their parents involved to wanting them excluded to not expecting much one way or the other. Those whose parents have maltreated them, or whose family relationships are conflicted, often prevent family members from participating (Miranda-Julian & Jacobs, 2009; Varma, 2007). Some youth would rather

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not have their parents, siblings, and/or children hear the case against them in court, or see them incarcerated. “Kids will tell parents not to visit and they won’t. . . . [The kids] don’t want [their parents] to see them in a place like that” (KI4, personal communication, 10/2/09). They can be concerned that parents will be angry and disappointed in them (Broeking & Peterson-Badali, 2010; Gilbert et al., 2001), an assumption that, indeed, is sometimes correct. Youth may be less likely to encourage parental involvement if they believe that their parents will be judged or found culpable. Abrams (2006), for example, found that some youth would not participate in familyoriented treatment if it meant that they had to accept that premise of parental responsibility for their delinquency. Finally, establishing some degree of independence and autonomy from one’s parents during adolescence is a common goal for many adolescents and is no less the case for system-involved youth. When youth return home, or are placed on probation, the amount of supervision parents seek, or are required by the courts to provide, is often more than what youth experienced in their homes at earlier points, leading to tension in the home. As one youth noted: INTERVIEWER: Does your mom have any involvement [with the probation office]? YOUTH: Yeah, when I do something bad, she always calls them and tells them. INTERVIEWER: And how does that make you feel? YOUTH: Mad. INTERVIEWER: Do you wish there were more involvement by your mom or less involvement? YOUTH: No, less . . . because I don’t want my mom to, like, get me in trouble (KI5, 4/29/08).

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To the extent that these barriers to increasing parental involvement seem insurmountable, one response would be to shore up the state’s capacity, on its own, to manage these responsibilities for the youth under its authority. We consider that option next.

THE STATE AS PARENT, REPRISED: CAN IT DO THE JOB? Tracy’s son, Jonathan, who had just turned 17, committed suicide in January 2008, while in custody. At the time Jonathan committed his crime and was arrested, he was extremely depressed and was immediately sent to a juvenile psychiatric hospital. At the hospital he was evaluated and put on medication. It took Tracy an entire day of making calls to locate her son at the hospital. No one called to let her know where he had ended up or to ask for parental input into his assessment. . . . Tracy was not consulted about medication or treatment planning. Jonathan stayed at the hospital for two weeks. Visitation was strict, based on the discretion of the head nurse, and confined to certain hours. With Tracy and her family living 3½ hours away, making these visits was very difficult, so she was limited to what she was able to learn (for example, what medications he was taking, how he was doing) when she called to check in. After two weeks, Jonathan was moved back to juvenile detention. He reported that he was hallucinating and “saw blood running down the walls.” Tracy immediately spoke to the staff, who told her that they could not change the medication without a consult from the psychiatric hospital doctor. Tracy advocated for Jonathan to receive an appointment with his own physician. She asked to be told when the appointment was scheduled so she could attend, provide history, and support her son, but this was not done, and he saw the physician without her. When Tracy called the physician, he told her that

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he agreed Jonathan was on too much medication, but that the facility was not going to change the dose, so Jonathan was going to have to learn to deal with it. Jonathan was then transferred to a facility in another county, without Tracy’s being informed, and was assigned a counselor from an outside agency. He reported to his mom that he would see her for about 10 minutes per week. The counselor also believed that Jonathan was overmedicated, but was unable to have the dosage changed. Tracy had no say about medication—no rights. And she was told nothing about his placement or treatment without her initiating the contact. Jonathan was certified as an adult after five weeks in juvenile detention and moved to an adult county jail, where he was removed from all medication without being detoxed. He killed himself then, six months after committing his crime. Whereas the family did not receive any calls while Jonathan was in detention, they received multiple calls following his suicide (T. McClard, personal communication, 9/23/09). While the catastrophic ending to this tragic story is not a frequent occurrence, Tracy’s experience with the system—the amount of engagement she was offered, the system’s obvious disregard of her devotion to her son—is not all that unusual, a reminder that the assumptions the system holds, and the decisions it makes, have real consequences for youth and families. Progressive Era reformers claimed that the state, embodied in the juvenile justice system, was willing and able to assume the role of the kind and just parent—the ordinary, devoted parent (Schwartz, 2003). Having appropriated through parens patriae a large measure of parental prerogative when deemed necessary, it is reasonable, then, to assess the extent to which the system is positioned to, and has actually acted, responsibly—as parents are expected to do—toward the youth in its custody. Ayers

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(1997), articulating a common sentiment, thinks not: [The Juvenile Court] has become, by all accounts, an unfit parent—unable to see children as full and threedimensional beings or to solve the problems they bring with them through the doors, incapable of addressing the complicated needs of families. . . . The law is a blunt instrument. As a solution to most problems it is severely limited, and the intervention of the law often causes more harm than good. (p. xvi) The bifurcated nature of its mission promoting both social control and social welfare is a central cause of its ineptitude. Juvenile justice, as a legal system, can monitor adjudicated youth—through detention, incarceration, and community-based supervision—and can at times require them to receive particular services while in its physical custody. It can mandate certain behaviors on the part of parents, circumscribe aspects of the manner in which parents and children interact, and sanction when its dictates are ignored (Gilbert et al., 2001; Henning, 2006; see also Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). However, promoting social welfare, with rehabilitation being a core vehicle, necessarily exercises a different set of muscles. However sympathetic court personnel may be to the circumstances surrounding a youth’s delinquency, they acknowledge that the actions at their disposal fail to address the complex problems that led to that system involvement (Ayers, 1997; Gilbert et al., 2001; see also Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume); among these are poverty, poor-quality public services, dangerous neighborhoods, and so forth. Those problems remain to greet youth

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when they reenter communities after incarceration. The rehabilitative services at the system’s disposal are often located in distant residential facilities rather than in communities and are, wherever they are offered, often limited in number and of varied quality. Moreover, system personnel are more comfortable in the role of monitor than guide (Schwartz, 2003). Ultimately, the system cannot make a long-term investment in its charges, as would a usual, devoted parent, providing supports and guidance over time, even past the period of legal authorization, to help youth maintain a safe lifestyle. In fact, positive youth development (PYD) advocates would argue that promotion efforts should occur before there is an identified or even incipient problem, assuming the strengths of individuals and communities as a starting point, and working to enhance them (Lerner, 2009; Lerner, Brentano, Dowling, & Anderson, 2002). This is, after all, how most parents approach their own children—not waiting for deficits to appear, but rather attempting to provide a nurturing context in which to optimize their children’s well-being. This disposition is surely not evident across the juvenile justice system, although PYD is surfacing as an orientation in an increasing number of jurisdictions and system-related literature (see Butts, Bazemore, & Meroe, 2010; Schwartz, 2003; see also Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). Moreover, organizationally the system is a difficult one to manage—a complex and cumbersome patchwork (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume) of public and private agencies, and a range of residential institutions, operating at local and state levels of government, representing numerous professional disciplines and training (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010a). In addition, a large percentage of the

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youth and families served by the system are involved with other state agencies—most notably, child welfare and education. For positive results to accrue, an intensive level of cooperation and collaboration, both during the youth’s incarceration and afterward, is necessary though unlikely. The fruits of the state’s intervention are not impressive. Rearrest and recommitment rates vary, depending on the population and the period of time being considered, but in all cases are significant. For example, recidivism rates for youth in detention have been reported as up to 70% 1-year postincarceration (Holman & Zeidenberg, 2007). Few other publicly funded “programs” could expect to survive such a dismal showing. Parents, however, are seen as incompetent or worse when their efforts to supervise and monitor their children are assessed by these same measures. In his brilliant critique of the U.S. child welfare system, Lindsey (2004) characterizes it as a “residual system”—a court of last resort— in that: (a) services are withheld until problems are undeniably critical; (b) parenting failure is the ticket of admission; (c) services are ameliorative, not curative; and (d) the clients are involuntary, and the supervision and services are mandated. Lindsey concludes that the failure of such a system, with many poor or disadvantaged children and families, disproportionately of color, with extensive needs and limited draw on public sympathy, is virtually guaranteed. The parallels between child protection and juvenile justice are many and obvious. Both are residual systems, and juvenile justice is perhaps even more so (FACJJ, 2009; Maschi et al., 2008; Ross, 2008), since child welfare agencies can transfer troublesome youth out, into juvenile justice. Both hold immense power over families viewed as having failed in their child rearing; the fact that many of them actually have fallen

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short and do need monitoring and intervention does little to create an easy or collaborative relationship between them and public agency personnel. Both systems are underfunded and undervalued, doubtless in part because of the profile of their clientele. As currently structured, they are both bound to fail. So it turns out that the juvenile justice system is no better able to responsibly parent these youth than are their own parents, though in individual cases it protects, guides, and rehabilitates youth admirably, employing many dedicated individuals committed to their charges. What, then, can be done to develop and sustain the critical partnerships between parents and systems that youth need? The Next Generation of Parent Involvement It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer specific strategies—in the forms of particular therapeutic interventions or revisions to juvenile justice law, for example—to improve this situation. Rather, keeping the dimensions of involvement noted earlier in mind, we present a few broad recommendations that exemplify how we might extend parent participation in more positive directions, and enhance the system’s capacity to document it. &

Redefine how parental participation or involvement is conceptualized, operationalized, and represented in the literature. The system needs to look past the genre of activities it can mandate, or even encourage, to credit and support the numerous other ways that parents are or could be engaged with the system, with their children or on their children’s behalf, during system-involvement. It should also encourage parent involvement in policy-setting decisions.

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&

The absence of a robust, broad, and methodically diverse literature on parents and families in juvenile justice is not only a strategic problem for the system—complicating its capacity to plan more effectively. It is also a major problem for parents and families, as they seek a measure of additional control and power over the course and nature of their children’s lives. Since so little is expected of them, not documenting more accurately what they actually do within the system allows stereotypical images to prevail. Nor are parents portrayed in the available research as complete human beings, with strengths as well as deficits, dreams for themselves and their children, and pride and concern about their neighborhoods, their schools, and so forth. This list of holes in the literature is long, and the field requires support for ethnographic studies, other qualitative studies, upgraded management information systems to include parent participation data in all phases of systems-operations, and so forth, to set it right. Maintain a full range of family-oriented, community-based supports for parents and families of youth currently involved with the system. This requires building up the less intensive, less deficit-based, less therapeutically oriented end of the spectrum—peer support and parent education programs. Although not necessarily validated by EBP measures, these offer opportunities to meet other parents in similar circumstances, to share resources and problems, to enhance parenting skills and knowledge, and to learn about the juvenile justice system. These

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programs may be attractive to parents, as they are often peer led, and their structures allow for more flexibility in content and delivery; chosen wisely, they can be useful to families. Exploit the “reform” spirit that is currently afoot to bring parents into the center of the system. Over the past decade, dozens of jurisdictions have initiated system reform. Dissatisfaction with parent and family participation does not appear as a major driver of these reforms, though opportunities for more, and more respectful, family engagement have accompanied some of them. For example, partly in the service of reducing residential placements, Missouri and Washington, DC, have worked to include parents, in meaningful ways, in each phase of the process—from assessment to community reentry (Decker, 2010; see also Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). New York and Pennsylvania have recently completed planning processes that have solicited serious family input (Luckenbill, 2009; Travis, 2009). California and Ohio have introduced assessment processes that, by considering the strengths that parents bring, may end up giving families a more central role in their youth’s rehabilitation. Whatever the specific target of the reform, families can and should be viewed in most cases as a potential gateway to change for youth. Increasing reliance on community residential placements is a hallmark of current system reform, and is among those with the greatest potential impact on family involvement. Missouri, for example, has virtually

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eliminated distant secure residential facilities in favor of small, community facilities and community-based probation programs (Decker, 2010; Nelson, 2008; Travis, 2009). This structure facilitates parent and family participation that a lack of transportation and time might undermine; it also conveys to the youth and their families that they are still members of that community—redeemable and valuable. Support the efforts of parent and family advocacy organizations, and of advocacy groups dedicated to system change, more broadly. Although not a feature of the juvenile justice system, these organizations are indispensible allies to families; among the many worthy of notice are the Campaign for Youth Justice (www.campaignforyouthjustice.org), the National Juvenile Justice Network (www.njjn.org), the Coalition for Juvenile Justice (www.juvjustice.org), the National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice (www .edjj.org), and the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights (www.pacer.org), and state-based organizations such as Family and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (www.fflic.org), and Families & Allies of Virginia’s Youth (www.favyouth .org). Until recently, they were virtually the only voice for families and have provided information and support to thousands. In addition, these groups have helped win significant battles for incarcerated youth—for example, the closing of the notorious Talullah Correctional Center for Youth in Louisiana. Although sometimes seen as a thorn in the side of the system, in

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fact their activities are arguably helpful to the system as well, agitating from the outside in a way that reformers on the inside cannot easily do (see Majone, 1989). The value of these organizations cannot be overstated. The juvenile justice system has a long way to go to include families and children more centrally, and more respectfully, but there are some early signs that it is moving in the right direction. Now, the correct question to ask is whether it can reasonably be expected to achieve what it increasingly knows it must.

CONCLUSION An often-heard criticism of the wave of family-oriented reforms in child protection in the 1990s was that the system was placing too many high expectations of participation and quick remediation on the backs of systeminvolved families—not because they were perceived to be so strong and capable, but because they were so weak and disempowered that they could not resist what amounted, simply, to a transfer of collective responsibilities from all of us to them. A similar caution should be offered here. The reforms described earlier are promising and exciting, initiated by forwardfacing, well-meaning reformers. But to the extent that parents and families play a figural role in these reforms, we must acknowledge the limitations they, as well as the juvenile justice and other public systems, encounter in trying to achieve the transformational change many of these youth need. One of the core features of a residual system (Lindsey, 2004) is that the problems its children and families exhibit are truly residual. More advantaged families, living in more advantaged communities, have the resources to

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take care of them earlier and often in private— for example, buying babysitting or after-school care to get a break from caretaking, or enrolling a child in a private school for children with serious emotional problems. Indeed, a particularly cruel consequence of the residual nature of juvenile justice is that aspects of the youth’s circumstances that are notrelatedtocriminalbehavior per sesometimes act as the rationale for system involvement. For example, the 2009 report on the New York juvenile justice system (Travis, 2009) found that many judges incarcerate less advantaged youth (as opposed to their wealthier counterparts) to obtain for them the mental health services they need—a practice that appears to be widely implemented. Girls who are involved in the commercial sex trade are sometimes detained and incarcerated because no alternative treatment or rehabilitation facilities are available, and judges believe this to be the best available option for keeping them safe (see Sherman & Goldblatt Grace, Chapter 16, this volume). And some parents willingly facilitate their children’s entry into the system, believing either that it will be able to help their children with personal problems, or simply that it will keep them away from the exigent dangers of the street (see, e.g., Bauer, 2010). Although the system does provide a measure of safety or treatment to some that is unavailable to them otherwise, system involvement and youthful incarceration may begin a process that ends with adult criminality, not diversion from it—the inadvertent payment the system exacts for the measure of relief it offers. One parent advocate explains: I would . . . talk to various family members . . . the same families that the Department said didn’t care about their kids. And they were crying about what was happening to their kids . . . the family was often looking

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for support . . . a child being ungovernable, looking [for help] in the community. So they were told to turn their kids over to the state, then the kids got caught in the system. The kids weren’t necessarily receiving services, [they got in trouble], then they received more charges in the facility and got more time. So they were in for a short time and ended up with a long period [sentence] (G. Womack, personal communication, 10/9/09). In the end, residual systems are premised on individual parental failure (see Nelson, 1984) and pathology and reflect a “privileged” narrative. This narrative—here, the dominant story of how youth become violent or otherwise delinquent—implicitly congratulates families without such children as being superior; that these superior families are also, as a rule, wealthier than those in the juvenile justice and child protection systems—and whiter, too—is rarely mentioned. It flies in the face of the ecological theories of development proposed in the beginning of this chapter and throughout this volume. Yet it is an appealing story, requiring no attention to the embarrassingly wide inequities in economic resources among families, or to the stubbornly enduring vestiges of racism and discrimination with which most of the families in the juvenile justice system contend. While there are doubtless youth and parents who must alter their behavior in significant ways to live productive lives in their communities, and public systems that can and should facilitate those changes, until these core issues are acknowledged, the wholesale improvements needed for families and children in the juvenile justice system will be difficult, if not impossible, to attain. In 1899, just as the first juvenile court was being established, the eminent educator, John

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Dewey, threw down a gauntlet to the schools that is relevant to juvenile justice as well; it remains yet unclaimed over a century later: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal [for the schools] is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy” (Dewey, 1915, p. 7). REFERENCES Abrams, L. S. (2006). Listening to juvenile offenders: Can residential treatment prevent recidivism? Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 23(1), 61–85. Alexander, J., Barton, C., Gordon, D., Grotpeter, J., Hansson, K., Harrison, R., . . . Sexton, T. (1998). Functional family therapy: Blueprints for violence prevention, book three. Blueprints for Violence Prevention Series (D. S. Elliott, Series Ed.). Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado. Allen, J. P. (2008). The attachment system in adolescence. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 419–435). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Anderson, C., & Bogenschneider, K. (2007). A policymaker’s guide to effective juvenile justice programs: How important are family approaches? In K. Bogenschneider & H. Normandin (Eds.), Costeffective approaches in juvenile and adult corrections: What works? What doesn’t? (Wisconsin Family Impact Seminar Briefing Report). Madison: University of Wisconsin Center for Excellence in Family Studies. Aos, S. (2004). Washington State’s Family Integrated Transitions Program for Juvenile Offenders: Outcome evaluation and benefit-cost analysis. Retrieved from Washington State Institute for Public Policy Web Site: www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/04–12–1201.pdf Aos, S., Miller, M., & Drake, E. (2006). Evidence-based public policy options to reduce future prison construction, criminal justice costs, and crime rates. Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Ayers, W. (1997). A kind and just parent. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

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Parents, Families, and the Juvenile Justice System and other secure facilities. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Justice Policy Institute. Inderbitzin, M. (2009). Reentry of emerging adults: Adolescent inmates’ transition back into community. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24(4), 453–478. Jacobs, F. (2001). What to make of Family Preservation Services evaluations (Discussion Paper CS-70). Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children. Jacobs, F., Oliveri, R., & Greenstone, J. (2009). Massachusetts Health Passport Project Evaluation: Final report. Medford, MA: Tufts University. Jacobs, L. (2007). Theories of health and health care: Understanding the thoughts, concerns, and preferences of boys in the juvenile justice system (Unpublished master’s thesis). Medford, MA: Tufts University. Krisberg, B., & Austin, J. F. (1993). Reinventing juvenile justice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Lerner, R. M. (2006). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology. Volume 1: Theoretical models of human development of (6th ed., pp. 1–17). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lerner, R. M. (2007). The good teen: Rescuing adolescents from the myths of the storm and stress years. New York, NY: Crown. Lerner, R. M. (2009). The positive youth development perspective: Theoretical and empirical bases of a strength-based approach to adolescent development. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 149–163). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Lerner, R. M., Brentano, C., Dowling, E. M., & Anderson, P. M. (2002). Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society. New Directions for Youth Development, 95, 11–30. Lindsey, D. (2004). The welfare of children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lipsey, M. W. (2009). The primary factors that characterize effective interventions with juvenile offenders: A meta-analytic overview. Victims and Offenders, 4, 124–147. Luckenbill, W. (2009). Family involvement in Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system. Report prepared by the Subcommittee of the Mental Health/Juvenile Justice workgroup for Models for Change Pennsylvania, and the Family Involvement Workgroup of the Pennsylvania Council of Chief Juvenile Probation

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Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships L I N D A L. B A K E R , A L I S O N J. C U N N I N G H A M ,

C

hild and youth maltreatment and exposure to interparental violence are serious public health and social welfare problems (Gilbert et al., 2009). Adolescence, more than any other developmental stage, represents a potential confluence of multiple types of interpersonal violence: child maltreatment, domestic violence, and youth violence. Youth may be abused or witness violence in the family and, compared with younger siblings, are at substantially greater risk of exposure to violence outside the family, including dating violence, sexual victimizations, assaults causing injury, and peer assaults (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby, 2009). National estimates in the United States indicate that more than 70% of youth aged 14–17 reported being assaulted during their lifetimes, and some will experience more serious forms of violence (e.g., sexual victimizations). The pattern of exposure differs for younger youth (10–13 years). While experiencing less serious violence overall, they had the highest levels of serious violence in certain categories (e.g., assaults with a weapon, usually a knife) and were the most likely to witness intimate partner violence or a family assault (Finkelhor et al., 2009). The burden of victimization on the young is intensified because many who are affected by violence within or outside the family experience repeated exposures to multiple types of

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K I M B E R L Y E. H A R R I S

violence, as well as co-occurring adversities (e.g., parents with mental illness or substance abuse difficulties) (Felitti et al., 1998; Finkelhor et al., 2009). Recurring victimization from violence in the family, along with its resultant disruptions, and frequent coexisting adversities in the sociofamilial context (e.g., parent criminality, neighborhood violence, media violence), increase the likelihood of negative trajectories for youth (Margolin & Vickerman, 2007). These trajectories are associated with health problems (e.g., KendallTackett, 2002), mental health difficulties (e.g., Fergusson, Boden, & Horwood, 2008; Margolin & Vickerman, 2007), school difficulties (e.g., Lansford et al., 2007), delinquency (e.g., Smith & Thornberry, 1995), and increased risk for youth violence (e.g., Maas, Herrenkohl, & Sousa, 2008). Even family violence that begins in adolescence can be associated with poor outcomes like perpetration of violence by youth (Fagan, 2005; Rebellon & Van Gundy, 2005). People who work in the juvenile justice system are likely to meet young people who have experienced, or perpetrated, violence in their families (Baker & Jaffe, 2003; see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). Some youth fall into both categories. Sometimes this violence is reflected in the charges or conviction. A substantial number of youth in the United States, 223

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one fourth of all juveniles who committed an assault reported to law enforcement in 2004, aggress against a victim with whom they have a domestic relationship: 51% victimized a parent; 24% victimized a sibling, and 11% victimized an intimate partner (Snyder & McCurley, 2008). For other youth, the violence may not have come to the attention of authorities or may not have even been disclosed by the youth. Even compared with other crime categories that go underreported, domestic abuse against family and intimates is likely to be hidden because of the associated fear and shame ( Jouriles et al., 2008). In consequence, youth in the justice system can carry the burden of coexisting adversity and repeated and multiple victimizations regardless of the behavior that brings them into conflict with the law. For example, a youth convicted of theft may also be violent toward her mother. A youth convicted of a peer assault may also be abusive to his intimate partner. Family violence is usually a tightly held secret for family members (Fantuzzo, Mohr, & Noone, 2000). Many children perpetuate the secrecy by presenting as “normal” because fitting in and being accepted is important. They may know instinctively or they may have been warned that bad things will happen if the world learns the family secrets (Cunningham & Baker, 2011). As a result, children exposed to family violence are often not easily identified as in need of help by friends, teachers, and others they may come into contact with. The shame and secrecy cuts them off from people who could support them or recognize that a problem exists. The juvenile justice system presents opportunities, although they are challenging, to intervene to increase safety, to address the impacts of victimization, and to interrupt the cycle of violence. Some may feel the

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opportunity for effective intervention has passed by the time a youth comes into the justice system. While prevention and intervention in the earliest stages of life is critical, we believe that it is important to intervene at all stages and that at no point is it too late. Intervention to reduce risk and mitigate harmful effects, no matter how many adverse experiences have preceded them, could halt the progressively cumulative impact of multiple adversities and ultimately reduce perpetration against others. We will start with a discussion of family violence and its correlates and how, together, they might create pathways for young victims into the justice system. Though intricately interacting with cooccurring adversities, our focus will be on family violence, knowing that other chapters in this volume go into depth on many of these other risks. Understanding family violence, its correlates, and its linkages to delinquency, especially youth violence, will inform the concluding discussion on the implications for practice.

FAMILY VIOLENCE AND ADOLESCENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR In reviewing empirical studies on child maltreatment, Gilbert et al. (2009) conclude that both retrospective and prospective studies (e.g., Lansford et al., 2007) suggest strong evidence for a link between childhood abuse and later criminal behavior. For example, in one large population sample, more than half of the maltreated children had later contact with the juvenile justice system (Loeber et al., 2005; Stouthamer-Loeber, Loeber, Homish, & Wei, 2001). Childhood maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect) is one of the various forms of family violence, a category

Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships

that also includes sibling abuse, youth-toparent abuse, and interparental violence. Multiple studies have documented how these types of family violence often coexist in the same family (e.g., McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, & Minze, 2009), meaning that few youth are exposed to, experience, or perpetrate only one type of family violence. For example, in the ongoing adverse childhood experiences (ACE) series of studies, children who were exposed to male violence against a mother were highly likely to have experienced several other types of abuse along with other adverse circumstances and events (Dong et al., 2004). We also know that many abused children are exposed to violence outside their homes, including criminal victimization (Finkelhor et al., 2009). Family violence has been associated with deleterious effects at each stage of child development and in all domains of a young person’s life: emotional, behavioral, social, health, academic, relationship, vocational (Cunningham & Baker, 2007). The effects of family violence may be readily observable (e.g., distress, injury) or manifest in less obvious ways (e.g., influencing attitudes and beliefs about the world and others). The effects can be immediate, delayed, or long term, cutting across developmental stages (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). Impact is understood to vary according to the type of violence/abuse, the relationship between the victim and abuser, and the characteristics of the violence (Edleson, 2004; Fantuzzo & Mohr, 1999). Outcomes may be moderated by the family and broader social context (e.g., socioeconomic factors, quality of the parent–child bond, social support) and mediated by the characteristics of the young person (e.g., attributions, coping, developmental stage, cognitive ability, gender). While research has identified a range of potential effects associated with living

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with family violence, the impacts for given individuals can vary widely, even for siblings experiencing similar types of family violence within the same familial and societal context (Skopp, McDonald, Manke, & Jouriles, 2005). Accordingly, interventions need to be individualized in response to the needs of each youth. Figure 11.1, developed by Cunningham and Baker (2004), summarizes the variables hypothetically associated with the impact of family violence and corresponding categories of intervention strategies. A variety of causal explanations have been put forward to account for the impact of family violence and other adversities on child and adolescent outcomes. Each explanation has distinct implications for the level and target of intervention, from cognitive-behavioral therapy for youth, to mandatory arrest for intimate partner violence with compulsory batterers’ intervention, to social change to increase economic and political equality for women. For example, general strain theory (Agnew, 2001) suggests that strains or stressors increase the likelihood of negative emotions like anger and frustration. These emotions then exert pressure for corrective action for which crime is a potential response. Other research has put forward deficits in socialinformation processing as a causal mechanism whereby children raised in adverse conditions go on to show sociocognitive deficits (e.g., they attribute hostile intent in neutral or accidental social events, have difficulty generating alternative solutions to problems), show cognitive distortions (e.g., hitting is an effective way to get a person to acquiesce), and have a capacity for empathy that is compromised (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Khan & Cooke, 2008). Finally, perhaps the most common mechanism purported to explain violent behavior in violence-exposed youth is social

Physical Sexual Emotional

Father to mother Mother to father Child maltreatment by father Child maltreatment by mother Maltreatment of siblings by one or both parents Abuse among siblings

Duration Frequency Severity Recency Etc.

MODERATED BY

Source: Cunningham and Baker, 2004, p. 4.

CHILD SAFETY Minimize or eliminate child's contact with violence & abuse • Criminal justice response • VAW advocacy • Child protection services • Legal services

• • • • •

3. Characteristics of Violence

•

•

•

• • •

2. Abuser/Victim Relationship

• • •

Intervention

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

• • • •

FAMILY CONTEXT Socioeconomic factors Quality of parent–child bond Parenting skill Relationship of male partner to child Social support (e.g., extended family) Parental mental health Alcohol/substance use of parent Level of nonviolent interparental conflict Residential safety & stability Parental resources (e.g., education, employment MEDIATED BY skills) Level of emotional or physical neglect of child Abuse by someone outside nuclear family (e.g., uncle, teacher) Exposure to community violence Absences for parental incarceration Cultural factors Emigration/immigration stress War/political violence

FAMILY SUPPORT Decrease harmful & increase helpful contextual factors • Advocacy • Professional and informal supports

Intervention

1. Type of Violence/Abuse

Figure 11.1 Variables Hypothetically Associated With Impact of Family Violence

Infant/toddler Preschooler School-aged child Adolescent

•

• • •

• • • • •

Cognitive ability Special needs Temperament Gender Etc.

4. Other Qualities of Child

3. Age of Child at (any) Intervention

2. Number of Developmental Stages Spanned by Violence

• • • •

1. Age at Onset of Violence (i.e., developmental stage)

Type and level determined by:

CHILD ATTRIBUTION & COPING

CHILD SUPPORT Devise developmentally sensitive intervention Assessment Reframe coping Heal mother–child bond Trauma therapy

Intervention

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PREDICTS

OUTCOMES* Emotional Behavioural Social Health Academic Relationship Vocational

NB: Interparental violence may also be positioned as a moderator variable or a dependent variable (i.e., effect).

* In the literature, we found studies that positioned interparental violence as either the correlate or cause of these outcomes: adaptive behavior skills, aggression to siblings, alcoholism, animal abuse, antisocial behavior, anxiety, attitudes condoning male-to-female violence, carrying a gun, concerns about becoming a parent, criminal victimization, depression, dysfunctional emotional regulation, early onset of intercourse, having 30 or more sexual partners, hopelessness, fights at school, health problems, reduced IQ, life satisfaction, male involvement in teen pregnancy, marital dissatisfaction, obesity, parenting skill deficits, posttraumatic stress disorder, posttraumatic stress symptoms, preparenthood concerns, psychiatric symptoms, psychopathy, reading skill deficits, school performance, self-esteem, social competence, smoking, substance abuse, suicide attempts, unhappiness, unintended pregnancy, and violence toward dating partners and spouses.

3. As Adult

2. In Subsequent Childhood Developmental Stages

1. Immediate

• • • • • • •

Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships

learning theory, which suggests that individuals learn through observing and modeling after the behavior of others (Bandura, 1973). The family is the child’s primary social context, and parents are powerful models across developmental stages. Learning acquired from family life continues to influence a child’s behavior, even when peers take on an increasingly powerful role. From this perspective, youth living with intimate partner violence may observe disrespectful attitudes and abusive behavior by one parent toward the other. If the parental model appears to be rewarded in some way for instrumental aggression (i.e., gets what he wants, experiences power), it is more likely the youth will imitate the aggression (e.g., against a younger sibling or peer). If the youth’s abusive behavior (e.g., bullying) is rewarded, especially intermittently, then the behavior is strengthened and may be incorporated into the youth’s repertoire. Problem solving, coping strategies, or roles modeled in homes characterized by violence may result in learning that predisposes youth to perpetrate or be victimized in relationships (Kwong, Bartholomew, Henderson, & Trinke, 2003). Even information processing styles (e.g., Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994) and parental attitudes on aggression and violence can have powerful impacts on children and adolescents (Solomon, Bradshaw, Wright, & Cheng, 2008). This phenomenon is often referred to as the intergenerational transmission of violence. Supportive evidence takes the form of higher rates of peer violence in adolescent victims of child maltreatment (Maas et al., 2008) and violent crime in general (R. C. Herrenkohl, Egolf, & Herrenkohl, 1997; Thornberry, Ireland, & Smith, 2001; Widom & Maxfield, 1996). Children who have experienced abuse are also at increased risk of being arrested for nonviolent and status-type offenses (Lansford

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et al., 2007). Getting “beat up” between the ages of 11 and 17 years by a parent appears to contribute substantially to both violence and property crime (Rebellon & Van Gundy, 2005). Similarly, even after controlling for a wide range of demographic risk factors, Fagan (2005) demonstrated that physical abuse by a parent during adolescence predicted serious violence perpetration in young adulthood. Some acts of family violence are themselves criminal acts, and youth who aggress against family members, even if defensively, may find themselves before the courts (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). We discuss later in this chapter the phenomenon of parent abuse, which can result in arrest of youth. Abuse between siblings is also common, perhaps the most common form of family violence (Khan & Cooke, 2008). In their retrospective survey of youthful offenders, Khan and Cooke (2008) found that 90% of participants reported intentionally perpetrating at least one act of severe intersibling violence, with more than a third admitting to inflicting a serious injury (e. g., burn, broken limb, puncture wound requiring medical intervention). Another variation of family violence that can result in arrest is dating violence. A key aspect of adolescence is the initiation and development of intimate relationships, which raises issues of sexuality, intimacy, and relationship skills. With family violence as a model, it is probably not surprising that youth from violent homes may have difficulty establishing healthy relationships (Connolly, Furman, & Konarski, 2000). For both girls and boys, having been hit by an adult, almost always a parent, with the intention of harm, was part of a cluster of variables (e.g., low selfesteem, having a victimized friend) that predicted the onset and chronicity of physical dating violence victimization in adolescence (Foshee, Benefield, Ennett, Bauman, &

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Suchindran, 2004). Indeed, being hit by a parent was the most consistent risk factor predicting dating violence victimization regardless of gender (Foshee et al., 2004; see also Foshee et al., 2008). While these data seem compelling, research remains inconclusive as to whether maltreatment is uniquely predictive of criminal behavior once other risk factors are taken into account, particularly in the case of sexual abuse and neglect (Maas et al., 2008). Although it may be difficult to tease out a causal relationship between the experience of family violence and various outcomes, from an ecological standpoint and given the multifaceted nature of risk, consideration of the complexity of the context in which a young person lives is required. The majority of studies looking at an abuse–crime link take into account only one type of abuse or victimization. When multiple forms of family violence are considered, we can see evidence of the dose– response relationship between abuse and later poor outcomes (e.g., Grych, Jouriles, Swank, McDonald, & Norwood, 2000). Specifically, the probability of a poor outcome increases in relation to the duration of exposure, the severity of abuse and the number of multiple forms of abuse. It is also apparent that any link between family violence and outcomes, such as arrest, is mediated and moderated by a variety of factors that include features of family functioning and the social context, especially poverty. Indeed, the link between family violence and later criminality could well be conceived of as a path involving several stages that move some youth toward an “on-ramp” into the justice system. Variables important to this pathway could include issues that manifest early, such as externalizing behavior problems or poor recognition and regulation of emotions. In this phase of development, the interventions

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of choice might focus on parenting. Parenting practices, in particular harsh and inconsistent discipline and low supervision, may play a role in the development of adolescent delinquency (Chamberlain & Patterson, 1995), whereas positive parental involvement and warmth is linked to lowered aggression and delinquency (Brendgen, Vitaro, Tremblay, & Lavoie, 2001). In adolescence, visible signposts of the effects of family violence may be evident in different ways, including compromised school success, substance abuse, abusive behavior of youth toward parents, compromised mental health, and early home leaving. In addition, there is good reason to believe that the signposts and pathways are different for boys and girls (e.g., Johansson & Kempf-Leonard, 2009; Roe-Sepowitz, 2009). Understanding potential linkages between family violence and problematic teenage behavior (T. I. Herrenkohl & Herrenkohl, 2007) informs assessment using a family violence lens. This approach, in turn, aids intervention to either stall movement toward the on-ramp into the justice system or hasten progress toward an offramp, out of the system. Signpost 1: Compromised School Success While some abused children excel in school, living with violence can make it challenging to do well academically and graduate from secondary school. Intrusive thoughts about traumatic events or preoccupied worry about the safety of family members and oneself may overload an adolescent’s cognitive resources, leaving little room for engaging in academic tasks and affecting his or her ability to function in school (Rossman & Ho, 2000). Indeed, concentration, attendance, and performance may all be poor, as when noise and fighting at night prevent restful sleep or older children are excessively called upon to mind younger

Violence Within Families and Intimate Relationships

siblings. Noise and disorganization at home make it difficult to study or do homework. Residential instability, including potential shelter stays and periods in and out of child protective care, can mean multiple changes of schools or periods of nonattendance. Emotional abuse can sap a young person’s confidence and self-esteem, perhaps intensifying feelings of being different from other students or likely to fail and do poorly. Given such scenarios, it is not surprising that, among the poor outcomes associated with exposure to interparental violence, are poor academic achievement and early school leaving (Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt, & Kenny, 2003). For girls, the difficulties of staying in school may be compounded if they experience a teen pregnancy (see Pinderhughes, Craddock, & Fermin, Chapter 9, this volume). Although variables statistically associated with teen pregnancy are numerous, it has been observed in higher rates among children exposed to family violence (Lansford et al., 2007). Cunningham and Baker (2004) are among those to observe that troubled home lives can trigger the use of sexual intimacy as a substitute for love and emotional closeness. Adolescent mothers who experience partner violence experience higher rates of parental violence and physical abuse by a parent than in comparable samples in the literature (Kennedy & Bennett, 2006). Therefore, these young women experience high rates of cumulative violence exposure with expected negative outcomes, including early school leaving. As violence exposure increased, school outcomes tended to worsen (Kennedy & Bennett, 2006). It is notable that while stay-in-school programs have been developed to specifically assist young mothers, exposure to family violence and partner violence contribute to impeding school attendance and completion (Quint & Musick, 1994).

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Signpost 2: Substance Abuse as a Coping Strategy Cunningham and Baker (2004) note how use of intoxicating substances is a worrisome but effective coping strategy used by some older children and teens who live with violence at home. Feeling intoxicated can numb painful emotions, quiet disturbing thoughts, and generally provide a temporary escape from reality. When one or both parent uses drugs or uses alcohol to excess, a common correlate of family violence, these substances may be readily available in the household. Meta-analyses summarizing the data of over 100 studies indicate that, after controlling for a number of important variables, exposure to interparental violence predicts a variety of worrisome outcomes, including the use of alcohol by children (Emery, 2006).

Signpost 3: Abusive Behavior Toward Parents A large proportion of children and adolescents who abuse their parents were themselves physically or sexually abused or witnessed domestic violence (Kennair & Mellor, 2007). Whether or not this behavior results in arrest, juvenile justice professionals can probe for the possibility of family violence in cases where abuse of parents is a feature of home life. There are several ways in which a young person may come to assault his or her parent. With the physical changes brought on by puberty, older children and young teens may try to stop the violence between their parents, particularly when the aggressor is not their biological father (Edleson, Mbilinyi, Beeman, & Hagemeister, 2003). Indeed, as boys get older and enter late adolescence and early adulthood, they are more likely to hit their fathers and less likely to hit their mothers (Agnew & Huguley, 1989).

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In some families, mothers are more likely than fathers to be the targets of abuse (Ulman & Straus, 2003). Cottrell and Monk (2004) found that a typical scenario involved the adolescent perpetrating abuse against a mother soon after the abusive father left the home. Cunningham and Baker (2007) observe that behavioral problems in violence-exposed children may worsen after an abusive parent leaves the family, perhaps by entrenching mother– child conflict or intensifying the severity of conduct problems. It may be a paradox, but children may blame the abused mother more than the abusive father for the violence and its consequences (Cunningham & Baker, 2007). In the extreme, one child in the family may replace the absent father as the abuser of the mother (Cunningham & Baker, 2011). Prospective longitudinal research has shown that poor supervision and low family involvement (weak parent–child attachments) as well as substance use in both teens and parents increased the risk of adolescent aggression toward mothers (Pagani et al., 2004). It is notable, however, that in parent abuse, young people report that violence often emerges over disputes about their substance use rather than while they are intoxicated (Cottrell & Monk, 2004). Perhaps the most striking relationship outlined in this line of research was that the use of verbal and physical aggression by parents toward their adolescent children in the past 6 months was the strongest predictor of parent abuse even after controlling for a wide range of risk variables (Pagani et al., 2004). Signpost 4: Compromised Mental Health In young people who witnessed or experienced violence in the family, the possibility of trauma symptoms is of particular concern (Margolin & Vickerman, 2007), but so are depression and the risk of suicidal behavior

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(Fergusson, Horwood, & Lynskey, 1996). From a developmental psychopathology framework, trauma leads to an adaptive or maladaptive trajectory as a result of the multifaceted interaction between the nature of the trauma exposure, the developmental capacities and characteristics of the youth, and the social– familial context of the youth (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995; Pynoos, Steinberg, & Piacentini, 1999). Evidence that many violence-exposed youth experience multiple types and recurring violence within and out of the family (Finkelhor et al., 2009) supports recent conceptualizations of child abuse and exposure to family violence as complex traumas. Complex trauma involves a prolonged, repeated, and developmentally aversive event of an interpersonal nature (van der Kolk, 2005). Several domains of impairment have been observed to result from exposure to complex trauma, including poor emotion regulation (e.g., difficulty modulating anger), deficits in information processing (e.g., attention and learning difficulties), compromised behavioral control (e.g., aggression, substance abuse), and altered response of biological processes (e.g., higher levels of cortisol) (Margolin & Vickerman, 2007; van der Kolk, 2005). These impairments may negatively affect a young person’s interpersonal relationships, ability to succeed in school or sustain employment, or mental health, which, in turn, increase the probability the youth will come into conflict with the law. A characteristic reaction to trauma is the flooding of negative affect. In the Youth in Transition Survey, a large proportion of the relationship between maltreatment and delinquency was found to be mediated by negative affect (Brezina, 1998). Consequences of poor emotion regulation such as detachment and excessive reactivity increase the risk for interpersonal problems (van der Kolk, 2005).

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The young person’s developing brain may be particularly vulnerable to chemical changes that have been observed in posttraumatic reactions, resulting in severe mental health problems. Higher levels of certain neurotransmitters (e.g., cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline) increase agitation, decrease attention, and can negatively affect memory (Cohen, Perel, DeBellis, Friedman, & Putnam, 2002). Anxiety, depression, and attention deficit disorder, all disorders having various neurotransmitters as part of their etiological basis, are often comorbid and may mask trauma symptoms, particularly given the secrecy associated with family violence (Margolin & Vickerman, 2007). Teenagers with a trauma history often engage in substance use, risky sexual practices, and delinquent acts. Researchers and clinicians alike suggest that these behaviors serve to assist the young person in coping with family violence through self-medicating, reducing their sense of isolation, and improving their esteem, respectively (Widom & Hiller-Sturmhofel, 2001). Children and adolescents will adapt in order to survive in their immediate environment, however, the strategies that are required for such an adaptation to take place in the context of family violence and the multitude of other risk factors that accompany family violence may come at a significant cost to the young people and society. Signpost 5: Early Home Leaving Adolescents tend to be underrepresented in cross-sectional samples of youth exposed to family violence (Cunningham & Baker, 2011), an observation perhaps partly explained by early exit from the family home. Leaving home during adolescence can come about in several ways. Teenagers who live in a context of family violence may absent themselves from home as an avoidance strategy. Exposure

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to violence in general is correlated with a higher probability of leaving home in adolescence (Haynie, Petts, Maimon, & Piquero, 2009). In a longitudinal study of a large sample of African American low-income females, sexually abused girls were more likely to become runaways (Siegel & Williams, 2003). However, adolescents may be “kicked out” or sent to live with relatives or through the efforts of child welfare agencies be prevented from returning home in order to ensure their safety. Finally, some youth from violent homes will find themselves living in correctional facilities or other juvenile justice settings for a portion of their teenage years (Baker & Jaffe, 2003; see Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). Factors potentially triggering leaving home prematurely include an onset or deepening of parent–child conflict, assault charges stemming from physical interventions to stop violence between parents, or to escape overwhelming responsibilities (such as child care), to name a few. The factors leading to precocious exit from home and subsequent transition to independent living may rob the young person of the learning that is achieved through experience in a conventional teenage role. These youngsters may leave home before they might otherwise be developmentally ready and be exploited by others. Some of their survival strategies can lead to or take the form of criminal behavior, such as work in the sex trade or drug sales (Belknap, Holsinger, & Dunn, 1997; Rotheram-Borus, Mahler, Koopman, & Langabeer, 1996). The critical importance of obtaining money for survival may usurp the value of successfully completing high school; it also may increase these young people’s engagement in antisocial activities in order to get their needs met and their affiliations with those who exploit or otherwise take advantage of them.

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Gender Differences How are girls different from boys? First, they may experience different types of family violence. For example, girls are more likely than boys to experience intrafamilial sexual abuse, which has greater deleterious effects than other forms of sexual abuse (KendallTackett, Williams, & Finkelhor, 1993; Widom & Ames, 1994). Longitudinal research has linked childhood sexual abuse to later female delinquency (Siegel & Williams, 2003). Second, they may be affected in different ways. Only a minority of studies examining gender as a moderator of outcome has found no differences in the type or severity of emotional and behavioral problems experienced following child exposure to family violence. It is commonly posited that boys may exhibit more externalizing behaviors (e.g., hostility, aggression), while girls may experience more internalized difficulties (e.g., somatic complaints, depression) (Holt, Buckley, & Whelan, 2008). Clearly, however, there is a wide interpersonal variation with some girls who act out and some boys who are depressed, for example. Third, they may evidence different patterns of criminal behavior. Much of the research has found similar and sometimes even higher rates of dating violence perpetration by girls than boys (Foshee & Matthew, 2007). Depression may be an important risk factor in the link between child maltreatment and dating violence in girls (Banyard, Cross, & Modecki, 2006). McCloskey and Lichter (2003) found that depressed girls were 6 times more likely to perpetrate aggression against a dating partner. However, Foshee and colleagues warn that the relationship between gender and adolescent dating violence may be quite a bit more complex. They found that gender differences in adolescent dating

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violence were mixed in their study of potential mediators of this relationship. Moreover, when all potential mediators were included in their analyses, girls actually reported more of each type of dating violence compared to boys (Foshee et al., 2008). Fourth, related implications for intervention will be different. If the on-ramps to the justice system are different for girls, so might the off-ramps be different, a fact now widely recognized. In response, we have seen the development of gender-specific assessment tools and intervention strategies. And yet we still have much to learn about the differences between boys and girls and how to help them get out and stay out of the juvenile justice system (see Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume).

IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERVENTION The principles of effective intervention with youth largely hold true regardless of the adversity or negative outcome they have experienced. These principles include: &

&

&

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Use of developmentally sensitive approaches (e.g., programs designed expressly for adolescents); Awareness of how culture and language can impact comprehension and application of lessons learned; Use of screening and assessment to inform individualized intervention (e.g., identification of problems and competencies with triage to needed services); Matching the type and dosage of intervention to the individual needs of the youth (e.g., responsivity principle);

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&

&

&

&

Prioritizing and sequencing interventions according to the youth’s hierarchy of needs (e.g., shelter before cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression), use of evidence-informed approaches and interventions (e.g., what is a promising or effective program for who and when); Use of gender-responsive programming (e.g., interventions designed for the unique needs of young women and their pathways in and out of crime); Use of youth-focused and collaborative approaches (e.g., engaging youth, recognizing and strengthening competencies, collaborative goal setting); and Collaborating with other service providers and systems to best support youth (e.g., interagency protocols, facilitating navigation of system, avoiding duplications requiring youth to retell their story unnecessarily).

Information about these principles and their application is presented in other chapters in this volume and will not be repeated here (e.g., Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume; Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume; Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). Rather, the focus here will be on interventions that warrant discussion through the lens of youth affected by family violence. Specifically, we will discuss the need for healthy cultures in youth justice facilities, screening and assessment, the strengthening of selfregulation, healthy relationships, and reentry planning.

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Healthy Cultures in Youth Justice Facilities The health and well-being of youth require that they be and feel safe. Safety is particularly important for young people who lived in dangerous environments and who experienced trauma, the reality of many in the justice system. Yet creating both actual and perceived safety in a justice setting can be challenging, especially those characterized by overcrowding, little privacy, and the everpresent possibility of peer-to-peer aggression. Cesaroni and Peterson-Badali (2005) found that the number one worry of incarcerated male youth, aged 12–15, was fear of victimization, which in turn was linked to poorer adjustment even when vulnerabilities at admission were taken into account. Another study found that a substantial portion of youthful offenders believe correctional staff play a role in peer violence (e.g., turning a blind eye to peer-on-peer violence) and in the emotional and physical victimization of youth (Peterson-Badali & Koegl, 2002). Peer bullying and traditional approaches to maintaining order and asserting authority, especially “tough” confrontational approaches and the use of isolation and restraints, recreate the coercive power and control dynamics that many youth experienced in their families. The consequences are serious and negative: youth are not and do not feel safe; unhealthy messages and power dynamics learned from living with family violence are reinforced; existing stress reactions may be exacerbated or reactivated; and some youth may be retraumatized. While cultures vary widely, all healthy ones share two essential components: zero indifference to violence and a relationshipbased approach to working with youth. Safety is the priority when there are “living” policies and procedures to ensure zero indifference

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to violence, including racial and gender role stereotypes and hate biases. Youth are held accountable through consistent, fair, and firm approaches and both proactive and reactive strategies are used to prevent aggression toward self and others (Ireland, 2000). Rehabilitation efforts with adults (e.g., Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & O’Brien, 2008) and youthful offenders (e.g., Florsheim, Shotorbani, Guest-Warnick, Barratt, & Hwang, 2000) suggest that relationship-based approaches contribute to improved outcomes. Rehabilitation includes identification and intervention for mental health problems, especially depression, anxiety, and trauma. The type and quality of relationship between helpers and youth clients contribute to the effectiveness of evidenced-based treatments (e.g., Escudero, Friedlander, Varela, & Abascal, 2008; Karver, Handelsman, Fields, & Bickman, 2006). Specifically, there is empirical support for adult/helper and youth relationships characterized by respect, a positive bond, and collaborative goal setting. When the culture is healthy, the potential for learning social competencies (e.g., communication skills, conflict resolution skills, tolerance for individual or group differences) is significantly greater and is analogous to the relative advantage of learning a second language through an immersion experience (e.g., going to live in Paris to learn French compared to attending 1-hour language classes three times per week). Ongoing staff modeling, for example, teaches new messages about respectful relationships, healthy male-to-female interactions, and nonviolent ways of resolving conflict. In contrast, the lack of safety in unhealthy cultures erodes readiness for and gains made in individual or group interventions, even when they are evidence based and well delivered. Healthy cultures are sustained when integrated throughout the organization,

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including the program vision, mission, policies and procedures, staff supervision models, staff relationships in the agency, staff-to-peer relationships, and peer-to-peer relationships. While not sufficient, it is the necessary foundation for the other interventions we will discuss. Screening and Assessment For youth who enter the justice system experiencing mental health or health problems, this juncture may provide the first opportunity for identification of concerns or followup of problems identified earlier. Health and mental health screening at intake enables triaging for emergency/urgent evaluation, assessment, and intervention/treatment as required. Indeed, screening and assessment are beneficial only if they assist with triage, inform individualized plans of care and intervention, including treatment where required, and assist planning for the youth in the community. Otherwise, they can be one more checklist or interview that further erodes young people’s trust. Mental health screening of youth in the justice system is important for a number of reasons. First, mental health problems are associated with experiencing family violence and with signposts on pathways into the justice system. Second, mental illness, regardless of the causal influences, often emerges in adolescence and, if not treated, may continue into adulthood. The resulting impacts are felt in adolescence and accumulate over time (e.g., emotional suffering, missed school/ work, strained relationships). Third, one impact may be an increased risk of suicide. Fourth, justice settings present a window for evaluation when young people are not under the influence of substances that may interfere with assessment or mask symptoms.

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In summary, entry into the justice system provides a window of opportunity for the identification of and intervention for mental health problems, a protector that may increase safety, ameliorate symptoms, and reduce recidivism. Based on the literature reviewed in this chapter, evidence-informed screening should look for symptoms or indicators of depression, anxiety, and in particular posttraumatic stress, inattention and poor concentration, suicidal thoughts and behavior, and substance abuse, as well as all forms of family violence. While perhaps surprising given the topic of this chapter, screening for various forms of family violence is often overlooked or minimized and warrants additional discussion. Certain attitudes can act as a barrier to investigation of abuse history, including discomfort with the issue, an attitude that family violence is a given for 100% of youth, a belief that some youth will fabricate abuse histories to shift focus to victimization, or an assumption that abuse will not be disclosed. A minority of staff may also avoid discussion of the topic for fear that any forthcoming information will create more work for them. Another false belief is that adolescence is too late to address the impact of childhood issues or that abuse is not a criminogenic risk factor. Yet the cumulative nature of impact means it is never too late to reduce risk and harm. Effective screening and assessment for different forms of family violence enables safety planning, risk management, and other interventions to help break the cycle of violence. All these attitudes can be addressed in training and supervision of staff. Health screening and physical checkups are also important for youth entering residential programs such as detention. Keeping family violence secret may cause caregivers to avoid taking children or adolescents for medical or dental checkups. Secrecy, fear,

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shame, and embarrassment may keep youth who have been sexually abused away from health professionals. Immunizations might be missed due to school absences. Family disruptions and lack of finances often result in unscheduled or missed medical and physical checkups. When young people enter the justice system there is an opportunity to improve their health by catching up on basic medical and dental care (e.g., immunizations, dental checkup), identifying potential health problems, including those related to victimization experiences (e.g., injuries, sexually transmitted disease from sexual abuse), and to provide treatment (e.g., antibiotics). Perhaps most important, young people can be connected to community-based health services and supported in learning how to access medical assistance in the future. Being able to address safety is important when asking young people to acknowledge victimization. Hidden perpetration experiences related to family violence are often cloaked in distrust, secrecy, fears of telling, embarrassment, and shame. Safety is established through healthy program cultures characterized by respect and clear norms against violence. Privacy during screening and assessment is essential and contributes to a youth feeling that it may be safe to share. Informed consent (including parental consent when required) and clear statements about confidentiality and its limits are required before screening or assessment can occur, and assist in building trust with and security for youth. While creating safety in the setting is necessary, it may not be sufficient for sharing. Young people are most likely to be influenced by their subjective perceptions of safety, which may not be congruent with objective reality. Sometimes factors in the young people’s worlds prevent disclosure (e.g., fear of additional charges

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against them or against an intimate or family member, having to move out of home). Other factors influencing the likelihood of youth disclosure include how we invite them to share. If checklists or surveys are being used, the youth’s reading comprehension level must be sufficient. Failure to explore literacy level may lead to invalid answers or close down further sharing. Survey items and interview questions invite accurate sharing when they focus on descriptors rather than categories (e.g., “When your parents are angry at you, do they ever hit you?” versus “Have your parents ever physically abused you?”). Forced choices (yes/no) can be frustrating and lead to “no” responses or incomplete forms. It is helpful to provide a range of possible answers; scaling gives permission to report extreme responses, enables more accurate reporting, and may reduce frustration. Strengthening Self-Regulation Many youth in juvenile justice programs have underdeveloped or compromised selfregulation, behavioral control, and informationprocessing skills. These challenges are intricately linked with experiences of trauma, mental health difficulties (e.g., depression, anxiety, disruptive behavior disorders), poor modeling, and disruptions to optimal development associated with family violence and co-occurring adversities. Emotional literacy and social problem solving are two cognitive-behavioral interventions conducive to delivery in small, same-sex groups in justice programs with a culture of safety. In fact, there may be benefits from peer support and modeling that occurs in group interventions. Skills learned in the groups are ideally encouraged and supported through teachable moments (e.g., resolving issues) and staff modeling throughout the day (i.e., creating

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an emersion learning experience). Accordingly, all program staff need to know and understand the purpose and content of these group interventions and, where appropriate, may be trained to lead or colead these groups. Both interventions are often components in promising, multifaceted cognitive-behavioral treatment for a number of emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., in addition to guided imagery, psychoeducation, social support, cognitive restructuring) (see review by Feeny, Treadwell, Foa, & March, 2004; Reinecke, Ryan, & DuBois, 1998). A substantial portion of youth in some settings may require and benefit from intensive, multifaceted cognitive-behavioral treatment for trauma or other mental health problems. Potential counterindications for a youth’s participation include a youth’s subjective perceptions of being unsafe in the current environment; group content or modality not responsive to youth’s needs (e.g., youth’s difficulties warrant individual or family intervention); conflicts with treatment planned or underway; and individual readiness for participation is out of step with timing of the group (e.g., may first need to experience benefit from antipsychotic medication). Emotional Literacy In our experience, most youth are able or willing to identify two feelings, anger and boredom, and many have difficulty regulating both. They benefit from coaching around emotional expression: developing a feeling vocabulary, increasing awareness of their emotions, identifying emotional cues (e.g., increased heart rate), developing ways of responding to emotional cues, and learning to express feelings in ways that overwhelm neither themselves nor others (Margolin & Vickerman, 2007). It is an essential skill for understanding and processing feelings and is a prerequisite for understanding the

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link between feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; regulating intense emotions and related behaviors; interpersonal communication, especially in family and intimate relationships; and developing social problem-solving skills. Social Problem Solving This skill refers to the cognitive–affective–behavioral process by which an individual attempts to effectively cope with problematic situations in real-life social environments (D’Zurilla & Nezu, 1990). Real-life problems take many forms (e.g., no transportation, insufficient money), but both the sources of problems and their solutions involve other people (e.g., conflict with boyfriend, sibling, peers, teachers, street family). In addition to the cognitive skills of traditional problem solving (e.g., problem identification, goal setting, finding suitable solutions, and evaluating problem-solving outcomes), social problem solving also incorporates and focuses on the person’s orientation to the problem. Problem orientation is primarily influenced by past experiences with problem situations (e.g., maltreatment, school failure) and may interfere with a youth’s effort to perform the skill. Effective problem orientation and problem solving are both important skills and difficulty with one or both compromises a youth’s ability to cope with challenging situations. For example, individuals could have good cognitive problem-solving skills but not be able to perform or execute the skills in social situations evoking intense emotions conditioned to past experiences. Avoidance in the form of procrastination or acting out are likely. Further practice of the cognitive steps of problem solving, the model used in many correctional settings incorporating problem solving, is unlikely to assist the latter youth. Understandably, social problem-solving ability, either by itself or together with social

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support, has been associated with quality of life and shown to reduce or minimize the impact of life stress on youth and young adults, (e.g., D’Zurilla & Sheedy, 1991; Siu & Shek, 2005). Acquisition of this skill, unlike seclusion and incentives that are earned or lost (e.g., level systems), is a life coping strategy that the young person takes with him when he leaves the justice program. Healthy Relationships Education Those who espouse a social learning perspective suggest that youth learn messages and roles from growing up in a home characterized by family violence (Cunningham & Baker, 2011). They may learn that people who say they love you can hurt you, that anger and violence get people what they want, that no one gets in trouble for being abusive, and that men have the right to control women’s lives (Cunningham & Baker, 2007). In adolescence this learning may be reinforced by messages from peer groups, exposure to community violence, and media violence. Psychoeducational interventions, sometimes including skill building, are designed to increase awareness about the youth’s use of violence, the impact on others and self, and to teach healthier attitudes and behaviors for relating to others. A search of the published literature suggests that programs developed primarily to address adolescent perpetration of family violence are rare and designed for males who are abusive toward family members and/or intimate partners. The Emerging Young Men’s Program of the Domestic Abuse Project in Minnesota (Davis, 2004) is one example. Such programs are intuitively appealing, but the effectiveness is not known. Other programs have focused on intimate partner violence (dating violence) in efforts to interrupt the cycle of violence with mixed results (e.g.,

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Foshee et al., 2005; Wekerle & Wolfe, 1999). More programs targeting general youth violence have been developed and evaluated at the tertiary level of prevention (see review by Limbos et al., 2007). While finding effective programs, Limbos and colleagues note that it is not possible to evaluate effectiveness by age, gender, or race because of limitations in the data reviewed and the scope of their systematic review. Turning Point: Rethinking Violence (Scott, Tepas, Frykberg, Taylor, & Plotkin, 2002), a program to educate male first-time violent crime offenders and their parents about the consequences of violence, is an example of a psychoeducational program found to significantly improve outcomes. Understanding how best to intervene with violent girls is an area still evolving. Reentry Planning Our goal is that young people, regardless of what brought them into the justice system, leave in a better position to navigate their world safely and responsibly. This means having a community orientation and planning for the youth’s success in the community. Transitions, even when desirable, bring accompanying stress and a different set of challenges (e.g., living arrangements? financial support? peer pressures?). Supporting the youth to prepare for and manage the transition is likely to reduce stress and increase opportunities for success in the community. Drawing on the youth’s social problem-solving skills and community resources, the hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1971) should inform planning and determine priorities. This critical work necessitates individuals working in the justice system to understand community-based services for youth, including services supporting young victims (Finkelhor, Cross, & Cantor, 2005), and to establish interagency agreements

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to better serve youth (Daro, Edleson, & Pinderhughes, 2004). Social Support Research (Berkman, Glass, Brissette, & Seeman, 2000; Berkman & Syme, 1979; Kawachi & Berkman, 2001) consistently identifies social support as a protector for health and mental health. It also serves a protective function for women and children experiencing domestic violence (Canady & Babcock, 2009; Owen et al., 2008). Social support may play different and greater roles in the lives of young women. Experiences of family violence, co-occurring adversities, and their associated disruptions often reduce or eliminate families as a source of support. Involvement in the justice system, especially incarceration, may distance others. Living on the street, early school leaving, and unemployment adds to the isolation, as do many other risks, which cumulatively result in poverty and marginalization of a significant minority of young people. Building opportunities for informal and formal social supports anchored in the community needs to start at the beginning of the youth’s involvement in the program. Bringing representatives from community networks, mentoring programs, volunteer programs, knowledge of safe Internet sites, all help to create opportunities for connection and support. Help-Seeking Behaviors and Safety Planning Multiple types of, and recurring exposure to, violence increases the probability that young people will be victimized again. Even one victimization increases vulnerability to further exposure to violence (Finkelhor et al., 2009). While aiming to minimize the risk of further violence exposure (e.g., safe place for them to live), it is important to engage the youth in safety planning for potentially difficult or dangerous situations.

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Teaching the metaskill of help seeking is a portable strategy that benefits all youth. For example, young people learn how to use the Internet, telephone book, and directory assistance to locate numbers of helping resources no matter where they are living. It is also important to learn about and meet representatives in person from key agencies in the community (e.g., antiviolence agencies, child protection, police, shelters, food bank, health agency). Anecdotal experiences of our mental health team, serving youth in the justice system, indicate that youth are more likely to seek help from a community resource, when a peer has done so or they have met a staff from the agency. Visits to agencies or virtual tours online can also help to lower barriers. Crisis or distress lines are also important numbers to learn and practice dialing on disconnected phones. Most national help lines have tollfree numbers, and some offer Web-based counseling opportunities. Crisis line workers may come into programs and role play the type of response youth are likely to get if they call and will answer questions. The Internet can reach directly into the lives of young people to help them put labels on what is happening at home and how they feel about it. This type of connection often gives youth a sense of control during help seeking. The information obtained lets them know they are not alone and gives direction to sources of support (Cunningham & Baker, 2011). Examples include www.itsnotyour fault.org from the United Kingdom, www .familyviolencehurts.gc.ca from Canada, and www.burstingthebubble.com in Australia. The latter site provides a template for formulating a personalized safety action plan and lists the legal and practical contingencies of leaving home as a youth. Feedback from 87 users who acknowledge living with family violence, largely females, reported that visiting the site

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increased their knowledge of support services, gave them advice they could apply at home, and helped them to feel less alone (Shrimpton & McKenzie, 2005). Many Web sites address issues related to intimate partner violence in teen dating relationships and are also present on Facebook and MySpace (for discussion, see Cunningham & Baker, 2011).

CONCLUSION Many youth in the justice system have lived with adversity and experienced, or perpetrated, violence in their families. Understanding family violence, its correlates, and linkages to delinquency, especially youth violence, helps us identify observable signposts or pathways for young victims into the justice system: compromised school success, substance abuse as a coping strategy, abusive behavior toward parents, compromised mental health, and early home leaving. Intervention within the youth justice system should be reexamined through the lens of youth affected by family violence. Healthy cultures in youth justice facilities counter the experiences of many youth, creating safety, providing positive role modeling and opportunities to acquire social competencies, and ensuring the foundation necessary to enable youth to benefit from intervention. Violence-informed health and mental health screening and assessment upon entering the youth justice system seizes the important opportunity for identification and intervention for trauma, mental health concerns, and health problems. Interventions to teach coping skills such as emotional literacy and social problem solving, associated with quality of life and stress reduction, build self-regulation and information-processing skills that are often compromised when youth experience recurring victimization and associated risks.

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Healthy relationships education, whether to intervene or prevent dating violence, peer-topeer violence, or family violence, is intuitively appealing for youth who have lived with family violence and coexisting adversities. Development and evaluation of gender-specific healthy education programs for youth in the justice system are needed. Finally, planning for youth to reenter the community is necessary to create social supports, develop helpseeking behaviors, and to develop realistic safety plans. This critical work necessitates that individuals working in the justice system understand the range of community-based services for youth, including services supporting young victims, and to establish interagency agreements to better serve youth. In summary, we need evidence-informed interventions to reduce risk and mitigate harmful effects to youth in the justice system. Regardless of the crime that brought them into conflict with the law and no matter how many adverse events they have experienced, our goal is to create opportunities to halt the progressively cumulative impact of multiple adversities and ultimately reduce perpetration against others.

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Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Making a Place for Youth: Social Capital, Resilience, and Communities R O B E R T L. H A W K I N S , M A R Y N A V A S H C H E N K O ,

T

he transition of formerly incarcerated youth back to their communities often poses a significant challenge for those communities. Nearly 100,000 youth are released from facilities annually (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006), and the profile of these young people includes many educational, social, and economic difficulties (see, e.g., Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume) that complicate their ability to engage productively in community life (McWhirter, 2008; Reiman, 2007). In addition, they are often met with a paucity of supportive people to whom they can turn for assistance, and limited publicly available services to help them balance their new responsibilities (Inderbitzin, 2009; Sullivan, 2004). Employment is difficult to secure, and lack of engagement in work and/or school puts youth at risk of repeated offending; over half (55%) of these youth are rearrested within the first 12 months upon release (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). This, in turn, sets off a vicious cycle of yet poorer employment prospects, truncated career and residential options, continued negative life events, welfare dependence, and mental health problems (Steinberg, Chung, & Little, 2004; Unruh, Gau, & Waintrup, 2009). Activating community resources on behalf of these youth is an urgent task.

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COURTNEY DAVIS

What attributes or capacities does a community need to have to successfully support its system-involved youth as they are reintegrated after incarceration? For distressed communities, economic resources are the first cornerstone to be laid. The next step involves activating the skills, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the individuals within (human capital), and the networks of relationships and the resources shared among people (social capital). These three elements help establish communities that can foster resilience among their young people—allowing them to adapt positively to challenges and make sound choices in support of hopeful, productive futures. In this chapter, we make the case for viewing communities within this resilienceoriented paradigm. We follow the course of one of these key elements—social capital— and consider its particular contribution to creating and sustaining such communities. We then explore the ways in which social capital—when it is operationalized with juvenile offenders in mind—can help with the reentry and reintegration process for these youth.

ADOPTING A RESILIENCE LENS Historically, research and interventions, including programs for juvenile offenders, have taken a deficit-based approach of identifying 245

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problems with these youth and proposing ways to reduce negative outcomes associated with various risks (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). The past two decades, however, have evidenced the rise of a new paradigm in psychology, in which researchers and practitioners focus on “positive adaptational outcomes,” rather than “adaptational failures” (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000, p. 861). A central tenet of this new perspective is the notion of development-incontext, which emphasizes the need to consider the dynamic interactions among multiple factors of influence, including individuals, families, and communities in which individuals and families are “nested,” to better understand the paths to positive outcomes (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Positive adaptation, that is, the manifestation of resilience, is understood as a condition of both the person and his or her context, and not a unique attribute of the individual; indeed, some would argue that for individuals to respond well to adversities in their own lives, the communities in which they live need to possess certain aspects that promote resilience (Chaskin, 2008; Peters, 2005). This wide recognition of the importance of context is exemplified by the surge of studies examining the role of communities and social environments in the development and adaptation of individuals (e.g., Gardner & Brooks-Gunn, 2009). The multiple individual and environmental risks that youth experience both before and after incarceration have been well documented by the literature on juvenile delinquency. They include poor school performance, mental health problems, unstable and unsupportive family relationships, high crime and poverty rates within their communities, absence of positive role models, and abundance of delinquent influences (Steinberg et al., 2004). Add the stress of imprisonment, disrupted social networks,

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and the normative developmental challenges of adolescence on top of this long list of risk factors, and perhaps that 55% recidivism rate in the first 12 months postrelease (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006) does not seem so surprising. What leads some of the youth to reintegrate successfully and lead prosocial lives in the community despite their exposure to risk and adversity; that is, what explains their resilient functioning? How does the concept of social capital fit into the potential explanations of such adaptational success? To answer these questions, we first need to briefly review the main tenets of the resilience framework, as it provides a useful perspective for considering the role of social capital in adaptational outcomes. Being at the center of the strengths-based tradition of research, the literature on resilience emphasizes the significance of examining social conditions that surround individuals and how they interact with their environment, and aims to (a) identify what mechanisms within these interactions may account for resilient trajectories and (b) direct researchers and policy makers to empirical knowledge that could inform development of effective intervention models (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000; Masten & Obradovic, 2006). In particular, one of the models of resilience, the protective model (simplified in Figure 12.1 for ease of illustration) describes a moderating effect of protective factors that reduce the impact of risk and adversity on an outcome, which in the absence of the protective factor could be expected to be negative (Schoon, 2006). Investigators have examined various variables thought to foster individual resilience including, among others, positive temperament; sociability; responsiveness; adaptability in infancy and early childhood; a warm, supportive family environment; a sound relationship with a primary caregiver; and positive

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Figure 12.1 Simplified Protective Model of Resilience Negative outcome (i.e., recidivism, dropping out of school, teen pregnancy)

Source of adversity (peers, family, neighborhoods)

Adversity (i.e., youth incarceration, violence, crime victimization)

or

Protective factor (i.e., family resources, positive peer and community resources)

extrafamilial support and role models (Kilmer, Cowen, & Wyman, 2001). Initially, most research focused on personal attributes of individuals in promoting resilience (Schoon, 2006), but because by its very nature the resilience framework positions individuals within their ecologies, the field soon began to explore the mechanisms by which ecologies shaped individuals’ capacities to overcome adversity (Ungar, 2008). Researchers of resilience admit, however, that it is unlikely we will be able to identify a narrow list of key factors that predict healthy outcomes in all individuals (Ungar, 2004). Furthermore, there has been considerable debate about the exact nature of the relations among risks, protective mechanisms, and adaptation that result in resilience. The protective model presented in Figure 12.1, then, is only one of many proposed models of resilience. All current models, however, agree that resilience is a dynamic process; therefore, multiple pathways to positive outcomes should be considered within

Resilient outcome (i.e., success in college, nondrug use, safe sex practices)

specific time frames and transactional processes (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000; Masten & Obradovic, 2006). Zatura, Hall, and Murray (2010) point out that personal mastery and social support are among the most thoroughly conceptualized and researched factors believed to promote resilience. Highlighting the joint role of individual (personal mastery) and contextual (social support) factors in adaptation, they emphasize the need for models of resilience to consider not only psychological capital (e.g., positive mental health), but social capital as well. In fact, Zatura, Hall, and Murray place the research on social capital at the forefront of the scientific inquiry into the community resources that foster resilience.

WHERE SOCIAL CAPITAL FITS During the 1980s and 1990s, at the same time as the notion of resilience was taking off, the

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concept of social capital gained considerable traction among sociologists and economists, who became increasingly interested in the assets possessed by communities that allowed them to withstand stresses and shocks (Coleman, 1988, 1990; Moser, 1998). The resurgence of interest in the concept of community, as “a critical arena for addressing a range of social problems and promoting a range of social benefits” (Chaskin, 2008, p. 65), incited numerous social policy initiatives focused on community development, community organizing, and community-building strategies to promote community change and collective efficacy and capacity (Chaskin, Goerge, Skyles, & Guiltinan, 2006). Specifically, paradigms such as Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs) focused on addressing the multiple problems of poor communities (crime, poverty, unemployment, poor access to education, jobs, and other ills) not one at a time, but in the interrelated manner in which these issues occur in lives and in communities (Schorr, 1997). Further, community-based youth development (CBYD) programs focus on providing and activating an array of formal and informal services based on the complexity of meeting the needs of youth (Lerner et al., 2005). This growing recognition of the importance of community mirrored the popularity of the concept of “social capital,” which has been described as “the missing link” (Harriss & de Renzio, 1997) that allowed vulnerable individuals to develop positively by accessing community resources. Since its initiation as a phenomenon worthy of attention, however, significant variation has emerged in how social capital has been defined and used. This, in turn, has introduced a great deal of conceptual vagueness and confusion about its meaning, and some skepticism about its alleged effects (Portes, 2000; Williams, 2007).

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Given that successful reentry of incarcerated youth into communities is one of the primary ways to prevent recidivism and other poor outcomes (Unruh et al., 2009), enhancing social capital and its role in communities is, obviously, an attractive route to facilitate this reintegration. We agree, but only if social capital—here defined as a by-product of social interactions that are embedded in, and accessed via, formal and informal social relationships with individuals, communities and institutions (Hawkins & Maurer, 2009)—is deliberately conceptualized and thoughtfully operationalized. If so, it can, indeed, guide practitioners in how to best take advantage of the positive elements of a youth’s social network, while managing what could be more negative factors. The devil, however, is in the details. Social Capital Defined and Redefined Attention to social capital has emerged from a wide variety of social science disciplines and is often redefined in each subdiscipline, based on a new or slightly different set of theoretical criteria (e.g., Bourdieu, 1977, 1985; Coleman, 1988, 1990; Granovetter, 1985; Kadushin, 2004; Lin, 2001; Putnam, 2000). Some conceptualizations have confused and conflated social capital with social support or social networks (Lin, 2000; Lochner, Kawachi, & Kennedy, 1999; Schuller, Baron, & Field, 2000). Simply put, social capital is that which is generated by social support and social network interactions operating at both the individual and community levels (Hawkins, 2010; Hawkins & Maurer, 2010; Lin, 2000). The derivation of the term is often credited to Coleman (1988), who considered it related to exchange theory, with its use of norms and expectations. Exchange theory is based on the proposition that humans maintain relationships based on an “exchange” of

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

goods and services. In other words, relationships continue and are strengthened as long as they remain mutually beneficial. Coleman himself, however, built on Bourdieu (1977, 1985, 1986), who emphasized formally institutionalized relationships that mutually determine and construct access to resources. In their work, social capital has been defined as the by-product of formal and informal social relationships with individuals, community, or institutions that engender mutual trust, expectations, obligations, and influences in individuals, families, and communities (Bourdieu, 1977, 1985; Coleman, 1988, 1990). Bourdieu viewed social capital as crucial to reproducing prevailing class power and status relationships (Smith & Kulynych, 2007), emphasizing its role as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 51). He stated that the acquisition of social capital results in cultural, economic, and social resources for access— connections through connections. Using Bourdieu’s definition, one normally sees the result of social capital through economic transactions, though it is not necessarily brought about simply through economics. His analysis focused primarily on the relationship between social connections and social obligations. In order to benefit from social capital, individuals must already have their own exchangeable resources that matter. If there is nothing to exchange, then the value is unidirectional. While Bourdieu’s treatment of social capital underscored its role in the reproduction of inequality, conceptualizations offered by others put a dramatically different spin on it, elevating it to a major component of democracy—indeed, a virtual “silver bullet” for certain ills in society. Some researchers, for

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example, argue that it facilitates youth development (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995), has health (Beaudoin, 2009) and financial benefits (Quillian & Redd, 2006), and that it can affect educational outcomes (Jack & Jordan, 1999; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005), including school engagement (Garcia-Reid, 2007) and school achievement (Woolley et al., 2008). Putnam’s conceptualization of social capital holds a leading role among these literatures; his metaphorical use of the term bowling alone (1995, 2000) to represent a lack of social capital in people’s lives brought the concept a certain level of mainstream attention. Offering a much more collective interpretation of social capital than does Bourdieu, Putnam sees efforts to increase or create community-level social capital as a way to increase civic engagement and counteract the negative effects of low socioeconomic status (Bedolla, 2007). Viewing social capital primarily in terms of civic engagements and associations, Putnam makes a strong case for social capital as representing community, and as an entirely positive concept. Noting that the norms and trust promoted by social capital facilitate mutual benefit among community members, he concludes that trust and “reciprocity” lead to positive community development. Putnam’s theory of social capital as civic engagement has even influenced how the media and policy makers have come to understand community participation and engagement, and has been incorporated into funding priorities in public policies and private grant making ( Jennings, 2007). Despite its popularity, Putnam’s conceptualization has been criticized as limited for its lack of a true examination of the complexities and power dynamics inherent in social relationships (Farrell, 2007; Hawkins & Maurer, 2011; Hero, 2003). In his introduction to the anthology Race, Neighborhoods, and the Misuse

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of Social Capital, James Jennings (2007) argues that the prevailing notion of social capital (a) depoliticizes the nature of poverty; (b) fails to consider historical, economic, and political contexts and structural explanations of inequality; (c) lacks a focus on racial inequality and institutional injustice; and (d) seems to suggest that low-income communities are deficient in civic participation and motivation to improve their social and economic resources, and therefore need to be exposed to “normal, middle class values” as a way of encouraging social capital. Finally, from a “politics of language” perspective, Smith and Kulynych (2002, 2007) argue that choosing social capital to denote the phenomena to which it typically refers is unfortunate; the association of the word capital with financial capital implies that capitalist social relations and the prevailing social order are largely inevitable. Critics also lament the instantiation of Putnam’s notion of social capital, calling it an oversimplified “cure all” for many of the ills that strike families and communities (DeFillippis, 2001; Farrell, 2007; Mowbray, 2004; Stone & Hughes, 2002). They argue, instead, that the concept can be both a positive and a negative. Seeing it as only a positive attribute suggests that more is better, and this has led a number of studies to operationalize the construct as simply the amount of social capital in someone’s life (e.g., Kawachi, 1999; Kawachi, Kennedy, Lochner, & Prothrow-Stith, 1997; Lochner, Kawachi, & Kennedy, 1999). Thinking primarily about the amount of social capital, however, misses the complexity that exists in social relationships. Families and communities may produce social capital, as do positive role models, but so do gangs or peer groups who engage in substance abuse, crime, or bullying. Other studies, in keeping with the more traditional and economically based conceptualization (Antonucci, Akiyama, & Lansford,

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1998; Hawkins, 2010; Lin, 2001; Roschelle, 1997), contend that negative social capital (that which depletes rather than augments resources and access) is generated by the same elements that produce positive social capital—friends, families, neighbors, and community resources. These elements can be as hurtful as they can be helpful, and indeed, while all “trusting networked relationships” produce a type of social capital, these networks may or may not have a positive, prosocial normative value (Antonucci, Akiyama, & Lansford, 1998; Corcoran & Adams, 1997; Hawkins, 2010; Hawkins & Abrams, 2007; Roschelle, 1997). Another major criticism of the social capital literature is that the concept is often used interchangeably with social networks and social support (see Castillo, 2009; Emlet, 2006; Lindsey et al., 2008). Even though these three concepts are indeed related, we find the distinctions important to maintain. To be clear, for our purposes, a social network is a set of socially linked or interconnected discrete individuals or groups, as well as the structure, number, and character of the relationships that link members of the network (Cleak & Howe, 2003; Lin, 2001; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Like social capital, social support is embedded in and accessed via social networks (Granovetter, 1985). Social support, however, is better defined as the provision and receipt of assistance to and from individuals (e.g., emotional encouragement, advice, information, guidance, concrete aid) (Belle, 1982; Findler, 2000; Tracy & Bell, 1994). Social capital, however, is the product that emerges from the social network and social support system and results in cultural, economic, and social “resources” (Bourdieu, 1977, 1985). Social capital is not the community, family, or small group, but these are the environments in which social capital is generated.

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

Core Features of Social Capital Despite these and other criticisms of the construct, the broad appeal of social capital gives it durability and merits sustained in practice. We believe that properly defined, carefully distinguished from other related constructs, and used judiciously, social capital can be a useful lens for viewing the impact of social interaction on the lives of young people. We argue that a thorough understanding of social capital includes a multidimensional framework that would serve to enhance the understanding of social support and social networks (Ersing &, Loeffler, 2008; Loeffler et al., 2004; MillerCribbs & Farber, 2008; Muhkerjee, 2007). Our conceptual view of social capital is best understood by examining its two core features. Social Capital Exists in Degrees Contrary to the popular view of social capital as an absolute element—either you possess it or you do not (Curran, 2002; Fukuyama, 2000; Kreuter & Lezin, 2001)—we consider it to be, in fact, less measureable and not obviously quantifiable. The nature of social capital is that it is comprised of resources that “belong” to others (individuals, communities, institutions), such as reputation, and that are loaned temporarily to those who need it (Lin, 2001). A high school student might be offered a summer job because of the reputation of her parents. Although the student may or may not be qualified, she has in a sense “borrowed” the reputation of her parents and the connection they have with the employer. What this student gains is a job, which might lead to other offers of employment, an appealing statement on her college application and, of course, money. Her social support—in this case, her parents—were able to connect her to an employer and future prospects. It is in this

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light that Hawkins and Maurer (2010) define social capital as the “by-product of social interactions that are embedded in and accessed via formal and informal social relationships with individuals, communities and institutions” (p. 1778). This definition is consistent with Bankston and Zhou’s (2002) understanding of social capital as a process that is not limited to a single time period or level of social organization; it operates at the community, individual, and institutional levels and does so based on the relative structure of relationships and social interactions. This process, then, could work as a metaphor rather than a clear and consistent structure, making it difficult to view social capital as a specifically quantifiable element. An example of the difficulty in measuring social capital is provided by Hawkins and Maurer (2011), who documented how it was used in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. They showed that social capital within a low-income community came from both existing bonds as well as newly created ones stemming from the disaster. These researchers view social capital as both a process and a result. The assistance, expectations, planning, and emotional force that grew out of the relationships of Hurricane Katrina survivors was the social capital, not the relationships themselves. Social Capital Is Complex and Multidimensional Many commentators note that social capital is hydra-headed; it is generated through a wide variety of relationships and transactions, operates at several levels of social ecology, and affects individuals and communities in different ways, both positively and negatively (e.g., see Bankston & Zhou, 2002; Colclough & Sitaraman, 2005; Curran, 2002; Lin, 2000; Portes, 1998). Understanding the context in which social capital is

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developed—the social position and relative power of the social network being tapped (Bourdieu, 1985; Muhkerjee, 2007), for example—is critical to identifying its potential value. One useful heuristic, proposed by Gitell and Vidal (1998) and elaborated by Szreter and Woolcock (2004), identifies three distinct kinds of social capital: bonding, bridging, and linking. Bonding social capital refers to relationships among members of a group or network who are similar or homogenous in some way. Bridging social capital refers to relationships among people and groups of people who perceive themselves, or are perceived by others, to be dissimilar in some demonstrable fashion—such as according to age, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, education, and so on (Szreter & Woolcock, 2004). Linking social capital reflects the relationships that individuals and communities build with the institutions and people who have relative power over them—for example, to provide access to services, jobs, or other resources (Szreter & Woolcock, 2004; Woolcock, 2001). Distributing the expression and effects of social capital across these three types allows for many analyses of interest to researchers and program developers, including a comparative structural analysis of the hierarchy of power, wealth, and reputation, which is important to maintaining resources and building assets (Lin, 2001). An important dimension of social capital to consider here is what Granovetter (1985) calls the relative “strength of [one’s] weak ties,” that is, the residual effects that can be generated as one moves from strong close ties (bonding relationships), to weaker ones (bridging or linking relationships) that may emerge from those strong ties. For example, your close friend or classmate may not be able to give you a job, but someone he or she knows could work for a company that is hiring.

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Measuring Social Capital While the interest in social capital has increased exponentially over the past decades, its scientific study has been hampered by the same conceptual confusion described above. Social capital has more often been an examination of social networks or social support, rarely taking the necessary steps of going beyond the network connections. Both qualitative and quantitative studies exist, though quantitative studies predominate (Brisson, Roll, & East, 2009; Cattell, 2001; Dominguez & Watkins, 2003; Hawkins & Abrams, 2006). The most common measures used, essentially as social capital proxies, have been self-report measures of interactions among parents, children, and schools; and beliefs, norms, and attitudes regarding community and family relationships (Bottrell, 2009; Kahne et al., 2001; Kawachi, 1999; Teachman, Paasch, & Carver, 1996). Some literature also attempts to identify the primary source of important social capital interactions: community based or family based (Ferguson, 2006), and youth peer-topeer based or youth-to-adult based (GarciaReid, 2007). Identifying where the important social capital interactions are located is important to understanding and developing interventions at the bonding, bridging, or linking levels. Further, differentiating between community and family interactions is important in youth studies because the child is dependent on the parent, and in many ways shares the social capital resources of the parent and family as a whole (Kim & Schneider, 2005). Similarly, youth-adult interactions are important, as adults act as the gatekeepers in the community and children must navigate these relationships in order to establish their own position in the community (Kim & Schneider, 2005).

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

Exploring the sources, nature, valence, and quality of social capital available to, and used by, young people is a useful enterprise for researchers interested in improving the lives of youth. These findings, in turn, can contribute to the design and evaluation of interventions to promote their positive adjustment.

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND YOUTH Across the United States, the young people most at risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system are those growing up in poor neighborhoods, whose families face poverty daily; they are also disproportionately members of ethnic minority groups (MacDonald & Marsh, 2001; MacDonald, Shildrick, Webster, & Simpson, 2005; Reiman, 2007). Communities struggle with their roles in changing the trajectory of these young people’s lives. When the quality of relationships is considered, social capital can reduce the likelihood of juvenile justice involvement and strengthen youth reentry through better connecting the youth with peer, family, and community resources. Despite problems with measurement and theory, those studies that use elements of social capital reflecting clear conceptualizations of the construct have found a consistently strong association between social capital and positive youth outcomes (Brisson et al., 2009; Farr, 2004; Fram & Altshuler, 2009; Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995). And while some studies take a rather narrow view of the concept and others use only a positive lens to view social capital, these studies identify outcomes that cover a full range of youth well-being proxies. They include, for example, emotional support (StantonSalazar & Spina, 2005), mental well-being (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995), school achievement (Woolley et al., 2008), substance use (Curran, 2002), fighting and weapon use

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(Wright & Fitzpatrick, 2006), school engagement (Garcia-Reid, 2009), dropping out of high school (Teachman et al., 1996), the transition to postsecondary education (Kim & Schneider, 2005), labor force attachment (Powers, 1994), resiliency (Bottrell, 2009), and human capital development related to education and employment (Coleman, 1994). The preponderance of studies focuses on the impact of bonding social capital at the family, peer, and neighborhood level. The positive results of this particular genre of social capital makes sense in light of the posited link between disadvantaged communities and low trust, weak cohesion, and the high incidence of crime (Bottrell, 2009; Brisson et al., 2009; Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995; Woolley et al., 2008).

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND PEERS Studies have found that peer-to-peer, bonding social capital yields positive outcomes among low-income, U.S. Latino youth who exhibited the effects of social and cultural marginalization. These young people were shown to be at particular risk of poor school performance and dropping out of school altogether. They often lived in dangerous and stressful neighborhoods and households (Brisson et al., 2009; GarciaReid, 2007; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005). Those studies looking into peer-level bonding outcomes found a positive relationship between close, reciprocal friendships that provide the young person with positive experiences of school and sources of emotional support and the kind of positive outcomes that suggest high levels of resilience (Brisson et al., 2009; Garcia-Reid, 2007; Ream & Rumberger, 2008; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005; Wright & Fitzpatrick, 2006). These relationships are shown to provide emotional

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well-being to young people by allowing for positive expressions of personal identity, trust, and mutual support (Bottrell, 2009; GarciaReid, 2007). The studies suggest that the experiences present in bonded peer social capital may be “instrumental to [youth at risk] resilience” (Garcia-Reid, 2007). Those students who had access to peer bonding social capital were less likely to perform poorly in school, drop out of school, or display violent behavior, and they expected to continue on to higher education and financial success (Ream & Rumberger, 2008; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005; Woolley et al., 2008). It is also important to consider here the negative side of social capital, which is especially present in the bonding context for youth who are at risk. There is an assumption embedded in most social capital logic models that the presence of social capital in a community is automatically evidence of beneficial interactions among individuals (see, e.g., Farr, 2004; Lin, 1999; Lochner et al., 1999; Schuller, Baron, & Field, 2000, for more thorough discussions). The literature is clear, however, that social capital is not always positive, and can, in fact, be negative. Bonding social capital appears to be the most scrutinized in this regard (Kadushin, 2004; Ream & Rumberger, 2008; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005). Closed networks, such as youth gangs, substance-abusing peers, or others involved in criminal behavior, can produce social capital that has a negative outcome. Overall, this negative social capital can strengthen problematic community outcomes such as social disorganization, breakdown of community norms, and social strain (Kadushin, 2004; Lin, 2001; May, 2008). In these examples, the social capital embedded in the networks of antisocial environments can promote and facilitate behaviors that can be hurtful, dangerous, or at the least, counterproductive

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(May, 2008). Those working with this population should be especially attentive to these variations in the quality of social capital that young people employ. Social Capital in the Family In addition to studies investigating peer-topeer social capital, much of the social capital literature regarding young people revolves around resources within the family and focuses on adults directly transmitting or negotiating transmission of resources and opportunities to the young people in their lives (Curran, 2002; Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995; Woolley & Bowen, 2007). Kim and Schneider (2005) use the conceptual model of brokerage to describe this activity. The assumption here is that “parents act as contacting resource agents” (p. 1185) for children by tapping into their own weak ties, or using bridging social capital on behalf of adolescents. The ability of parents and families to broker access to these resources is a more powerful influence than is bonding capital, either within the family itself or among peers (Bourdieu, 1985; Granovetter, 1973). Much like the peer-to-peer network bonding social capital, strong familial relationships— in particular, close relationships between two parents and children—have been linked to positive outcomes, such as high school graduation, labor force participation, and robust mental health (Coleman, 1988; Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995; Kim & Schneider, 2005; Wright & Fitzpatrick, 2006). Although these findings are promising, this area of the literature is hindered by a lack of qualitative and quantitative research and the need for a more adequately specified variable for bridging social capital to be used alongside current bonding social capital variables. However, reflecting Granovetter’s idea of the strength of weak ties, some studies have suggested that bonding social capital alone

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

is not enough and that, in the absence of bridging social capital, tight-knit families tend to fare only as well as their family members (Kim & Schneider, 2005; Morgan & Sorenson, 1999). Kim and Schneider (2005) found that in the absence of bridging social capital, closed family units become insular and diminish the members’ capacity to gain access to resources. Hawkins (2010) found a similar pattern in his study of low-income, formerly homeless, single mothers who were seeking higher education. The women’s close friends and families offered a mixture of support and criticism, while persons with loose ties to the women and sometimes even complete strangers were supportive of the women’s educational goals. In the preceding examples, crediting relationships beyond close peers and family members may be crucial to understanding how social capital can help youth over time. Social Capital in the Community Much youth-oriented social capital research has focused on the role of formal and informal community-level social capital and its constitutive relationships and networks of relationships. Much like peer, familial, and child–adult relationships, neighborhood bondedness is related to school achievement, safety, employment, and even savings behavior for the families of low-income children (Brisson et al., 2009; Woolley et al., 2008; Wright & Fitzpatrick, 2006). In addition to the positive impacts on children, there is a growing interest in this community-based social capital as a tool that may affect “community capacity as a vital form of social capital grounded in informal networks of social control and social support” in a broader way (Bazemore & Erbe, 2003, p. 261). Rather than linking individual children to resources outside a community, then, the development of this genre of social capital

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may provide a platform for young people to be reintegrated inside their own communities as productive and civically empowered agents (Bazemore, 1997; Sampson, 1997; see also Dym, Tangvik, Gerena, & Bartlett, Chapter 19, this volume). A number of researchers have shown that although social networks and social support can help individuals cope with daily struggles, because of the tension of resource sharing and reciprocity and lack of structural supports, low-income bonding often cannot contribute to elevating socioeconomic status (Belle, 1982; Dominguez & Watkins, 2003; Farrell, 2007; Hero, 2003; Lin, 2001; Miller-Cribbs & Farber, 2008). Bridging happens, for example, when a family moves to a new area or a child attends a new school or camp, enters college, or starts to look for work. When the dynamics of a community change, so too can its social capital, such as when a neighborhood starts to attract economically mixed families and its socioeconomic nature changes. As family members are introduced to more individuals or have more experiences, their weak ties, or linking social capital, develop. For low-income families in unchanging communities, however, the bridging and linking social capital may be slow to or never develop, making it difficult, if not impossible, to enhance their job options, take advantage of learning or training experiences, or improve their life chances. What develops then is a “chicken and egg” situation: In order to improve outcomes for youth, the community must be strengthened, but in order to improve the community, positive social capital should be developed. Often, the extent to which youth can develop bridging capital is hindered by barriers instituted by communities. While a bonded group with resources and power does not have to bridge, communities with little power need

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the bridging and linking capital in order to be able to gain economic and social advantages for its members. For many communities, however, the incorporation of the values of mainstream culture is a particularly challenging issue to navigate. In this regard, Bedolla (2007) argues that bridging and linking social capital are affected by race and class dynamics that play a critical role in promoting some activities and inhibiting others. Due to structural barriers and institutionalized racism, racial or ethnic minorities or economically marginalized groups have limited access to bridging and linking social capital. The relative power of the groups to which one is associated may dictate exactly what social capital is available and how it can be used, and thus the resources useful for economic or political advancement may not be available to marginalized groups that populate juvenile justice systems.

CONSIDERING SOCIAL CAPITAL WITHIN A JUVENILE JUSTICE CONTEXT There is clear benefit in applying the concept of social capital to models of community reentry, being mindful of the differences among types of social capital and the variations in patterns of social capital utilization among young people. A particular emphasis should be placed on promoting relationships outside of youth’s bonded groups, as absence of bridging social capital hinders one’s capacity to gain access to resources needed for growth and success. This is of particular importance to those working with delinquent youth, as this population is often unwilling to rely on mainstream services and authority figures for support (Letourneau, Stewart, Reutter, Barnfather, & Hungler, 2008).

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Consistent with this position, several interventions for reentry of delinquent youth to their communities have suggested a focus on social network participation and the strength of community ties. For example, Nicholson, Collins, and Holmer (2004) see the importance of connecting youth to the community by providing services, supports, and opportunities. These elements constitute a meaningful investment in community by the youth, thus creating positive ties. Mears and Travis (2004), too, suggest a community perspective focusing on justice, and placing pressure on government agencies, justice, educational, mental health, and social services departments through program development and advocacy. Further, the community plays a major role in Bazemore, Nissen, and Dooley’s (2000) restorative justice model, the idea of which is to build supportive relationships around the youth reentering the community. In one of the few analyses focusing on social capital and reintegration, Bazemore and Erbe (2003) emphasize a restorative justice model to strengthen neighborhood informal social control and social support. They suggest increasing social exchange by encouraging the offender to “earn redemption” or “repair” his or her relationship with individuals and collectives by greater community engagement. However, despite their attention to the importance of social networks, these interventions are not sufficiently comprehensive to be of enough value to change the lives of young people, especially if the youth’s network is homogenous or reflects bonding capital (Hawkins & Maurer, 2009; Morgan & Sorenson, 1999). Considering what results from those social networks—the social capital— adds a more effective option for intervention. Homogeneous networks are not all bad. The strength of ties in a homogenous network, such as in bonding-level relationships, may have other positive effects, such as

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

increased social support that decreases stress or facilitates activities of daily life. However, some argue that unless access to power, wealth, and the reputation of the dominant class is gained, there is little real change in the lives of young people (Lin, 2001; Morgan & Sorensen, 1999). Further, because close ties can have either prosocial or delinquent features, the characteristics of the network itself are critical. As it is only natural for individuals experiencing uncertainty to seek routine, reliability, and trust to protect the psychological self from chaos (Giddens, 1991; Mitzen, 2006; Wakefield & Elliott, 2000), it is likely that upon returning from confinement, youth will rejoin the same bonded group of individuals who participate in the kinds of activities that led them to be incarcerated in the first place. For instance, young men who have been struggling with substance abuse and mental health problems were often observed to return to where they felt safest, which included the bonding or close relationships that resulted in a community that abused substances (Hawkins & Abrams, 2007). Hawkins and Maurer (2011) and Hawkins (2009) observed, in research using data from victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, that individuals often seek ontological security following disasters—in other words, they seek out that which is familiar and safe. Giddens (1990) defines ontological security as the “confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self identity and in the constancy of their social and material environments of action” (p. 92). It is in these relationships that bonding has a strong importance when it came to day-to-day survival and other activities (Hawkins & Maurer, 2011). In sum, while there is clear benefit in applying the concept of social capital to models of community reentry, one needs to be mindful of the differences among types

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of social capital and the variations in patterns of social capital utilization among young people. A particular emphasis should be placed on promoting relationships outside of youth’s bonded groups, as absence of bridging social capital hinders their capacity to gain access to resources needed for growth and success. This is of particular importance to those working with delinquent youth, as this population is often unwilling to rely on mainstream services and authority figures for support (Letourneau, Stewart, Reutter, Barnfather, & Hungler, 2008). Programming for Reentry, Keeping Social Capital and Resilience in Mind The risk and resilience literature provides an overarching framework for understanding the mechanisms by which social capital impacts individuals and communities. Like resilience, social capital is a process in which interactions between the individual and his or her environment are the unit of analysis. In the resilience framework, it is the unique constellation of individual and community risk and protective factors interacting with each other that is behind each person’s adaptive outcome. In other words, different youth reentering the same community may follow very different trajectories as a function of their unique strengths and vulnerabilities, different person–context relations and exposure to different risk and protective factors. Similarly, the same individual may thrive in one community but not in another; and each community’s makeup, structure, and circumstances are likely to affect each individual differently. Following the same logic, we argue that individuals are likely to be differentially affected by their social capital. Some individuals may benefit from the positive aspects of social capital, such as family members who

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can provide babysitting so that a parent may take a better paying job or a community church group that provides a scholarship for low-income, well-performing students; both of these examples allow the combination of bonding and bridging social capital. Other young people may be hindered by the negative aspects of their social capital (e.g., strong presence of youth gangs), while still others may actually benefit from an opportunity to learn how to overcome challenges presented by these negative aspects. Regardless, none of this happens outside of social and structural contexts. The outcomes would vary as a function of person–context relations and the relative power or social position of an individual or network in the social hierarchy. Homogeneity or heterogeneity of network members and the strength of social connections influence the outcome, much as the ecological model is important to risk and resilience. The approach of seeking to identify protective factors while allowing for multiple pathways toward successful adaptation provides important insights to our conceptualization of the role of social capital in reentry processes. Only a few studies have attempted to identify protective factors within various ecological domains of the incarcerated youth returning to their communities that may promote successful adaptation (e.g., Todis, Bullis, Waintrup, Schultz, & D’Ambrosio, 2001). The model of social capital described in this chapter certainly allows us to assume that some aspects of this construct may serve a protective role against the risks to which youth returning from correctional facilities are exposed. It cautions us, however, against the simplistic view of social capital as a panacea. The resilience framework also cautions that it is the unique constellations of individual and contextual factors that give social

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capital protective functions in some cases, and benign or even negative functions in others. Programs trying to promote optimal trajectories of the youth reentering communities after incarceration must be mindful of these complex interactions. Our proposed approach for youth community reentry interventions (see Figure 12.2) integrates the protective model of resilience, which aims to uncover the complex, dynamic relationships among individual and environmental risk and protective factors, and our multidimensional model of social capital. This multilayered framework provides a road map for interventions that take into account the dynamic relationships among various aspects of social capital and risk and protective factors. As follows from the model, the role of social capital in the process of adaptation is complex and multilateral. Some aspects of social capital may promote resilient outcomes by (a) directly influencing the outcome as a protective factor or (b) increasing the protective effect of a different factor; other aspects of social capital may play a negative role by (c) intensifying the detrimental effects of adversity on adaptation. Interventions for young people reentering the community should start with a detailed assessment of risk and protective factors present within each type of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking). To be clear, this is an effort to make the sometimes intangible nature of social capital more tangible, by identifying those key elements related to the concept. As outlined in Table 12.1, a focus on the young person’s “geography” speaks to the importance of the youth’s physical environment, followed by who exists with the youth within that environment. Further, defining the role each person plays is essential to identifying the protective or risk components of the relationship.

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

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Figure 12.2 Framework for Youth Community Reentry Interventions

Negative outcome (e.g., recidivism) Adversity (e.g., youth incarceration)

or Resilient outcome (e.g., success in college)

Social capital (bonding)

Protective factor

(e.g., close) friends, family)

(e.g., family) resources)

Social capital (bridging) (weak ties: business associates, parents’ friends, community leaders, etc.)

Social capital (linking) (businesses, jobs in the community, neighborhood quality, access to education)

Table 12.1. Questions for Assessing Social Capital in Youth Relationships Bonding

Bridging

Linking

What is the geographic makeup of the young person’s close social network (household, neighborhood, school, etc.)?

Are there social links that lead outside of the closed network?

What relationship does the youth have with enrolling in, or continuing in, schools?

Who exists within the youth’s social network? Are youth still in touch with individuals? What role does this individual or individuals play in the life of the young person? What positive elements does this person or persons bring? What are the negative elements? What risk factors (e.g., low school engagement, poverty, high crime rates) and protective factors (e.g., sociability, stable family relationships, availability of adult mentors) are at play?

Where do they lead? Who is in that network? How? Why? Where are the strong/weak ties in the young person’s relationships? What positive and negative factors do they bring? How are these factors operationalized? What are the connections, if any, to human capital development opportunities, such as employment or education?

What groups and associations, if any, are the youth connected with in order to help the youth maintain a prosocial lifestyle? What is the potential future of the youth’s relationship with these institutions? How can the youth remain connected to these larger institutions in a positive manner?

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Support may be present at the bonding level, but if there is not enough of it, the development of equally critical bridging or linking social capital would likely be more difficult. While bonding can stop at the boundaries of a network, it can also lead to bridging social capital, as individuals have other experiences and are introduced to new social stimuli. Therefore, interventions to promote positive adaptation of reentering youth must pay attention to the aspects of youth’s bonding situations that may connect them with bridging opportunities. Examination of the nature and value of bridging capital should be guided by questions that look outside of the closed network. Like bonding relationships, it is important to highlight the risk and protective factors of any existing strong weak ties, especially those that may be connected to human capital development opportunities, such as employment or education. This assessment of the bridging relationship should document both the relative strength of the ties beyond those that are close and their positive and negative elements. Bridging social capital can lead to linking, so the questions are fewer, but some can still be examined. In considering linking social capital, the questions should be asked about the youth’s connections to larger institutions. These questions should include an examination of a youth’s relationship with school, his/ her associations with other groups or organizations, and an assessment of both potential and ongoing relationships. Once a full picture of the youth’s social capital is obtained, the intervention program should help the youth identify which social capital elements are protective and which are interfering with positive adaptation. Given that this population of youth might have difficulties taking advice from those whom

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they see as authority figures, it is critical to establish mutual trust and acceptance. The program might involve a member of the young person’s bonded network to act as a mentor. For example, a skills-building program could include the programmatic units to help reentering youth learn work and educational skills, but with a focus on social capital these programs could assess the young person’s social environment, and identify the bonding, bridging, and linking connections. A General Educational Development (GED) program could also include a social capital component. In many programs, GED graduates still do not find jobs that pay a livable wage. One way to assist them is to facilitate their establishing community and civic connections and then assess the varying kinds of social capital, both positive and negative, available to the youth. The final step is to help the youth acquire access to additional social capital that would open up new avenues to success, reduce isolation, support existing individual strengths, and optimize peer influences. The focus of the intervention should be helping the youth build a new identity that gives him or her a sense of competence and control without the need to engage in risky or destructive behaviors. When this new identity is constructed in the context of supportive and trusting social relationships, it becomes empowering and gives the young person the skills to challenge the identity of delinquent assigned by the larger society.

CONCLUSIONS While the reentry of youth following incarceration can be a serious challenge for communities, social capital can be a useful tool to help with the transition of young people back to the community. Youth reentering

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

communities are faced with issues ranging from education to employment to cultural behaviors that make their transition difficult. Lack of engagement in work and/or school puts youth at risk of repeated offending and can set off a vicious cycle of negative life events. Social capital has become a popular concept in the social sciences to help illustrate the range of individual, family, and community resources, yet it has seen little usage in juvenile justice in general, and reentry in specific. In this chapter, we define social capital as a byproduct of social interactions that are embedded in and accessed via formal and informal social relationships with individuals, communities, and institutions and explore how it can be used as a conceptual and practical model for juveniles reentering communities after incarceration. We present a multilayered framework to help youth placed at risk, especially as they reenter or try to reconnect with the community. Our model borrows several key ideas from the risk and resilience literature to provide a theoretical approach for understanding the pathways to optimal functioning of individuals and communities. Examining the multilayered framework of social capital is necessary to its operationalization and use in juvenile justice. Understanding that social capital is related to, but distinct from, social networks and social support is essential to its use. Also understanding that there are real structural, economic, and social barriers to benefiting from social capital is critical to developing any community supports for formerly incarcerated youth. Youth program developers and practitioners should attempt to gain a complete picture of the young person’s social capital at each level of his or her ecology. This understanding can help the youth evaluate which existing outcome of their social relationship

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might help him or her capitalize on available protective factors and manage any negative outcome. It can also help the practitioner identify what resources will be helpful and which obstacles to avoid or divert, when possible. Identifying a youth’s social capital at multiple levels can also be a vehicle to help youth acquire access to additional resources, especially bridging and linking opportunities. It is these additional resources that facilitate the growth of new social relationships, helping youth develop new skills, competencies, values, and beliefs about themselves and their prospects.

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Zatura, A. J., Hall, J. S., & Murray, K. E. (2010). Resilience: A new definition of health for people and communities. In J. W. Reich, A. J. Zatura, & J. S. Hall (Eds.), Handbook of adult resilience (pp. 3–29). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

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The Developmental Impact of Community Violence EDMUND BRUYERE

AND

JAMES GARBARINO

W

ith the 2008 election of our first African American President, Barak Obama, we turned a page on a new chapter in U.S. history—one that promises to bring hope and change to millions of children and families. From the personal letter sent to daughters Sasha and Malia, to town hall meetings on health care, President Obama has been explicit in his intentions regarding many of the core issues continuing to plague children and families living in the United States (e.g., education, health care, women’s rights). In fact, it appears President Obama, “walks the talk,” because within his first 100 days in office he signed major legislation likely to improve the lives of many children and families. Nonetheless, despite the apparent progress in promoting child and family outcomes, there are many social and economic concerns yet to be addressed. For example, how do we intend to sever the grip of intergenerational and chronic poverty on millions of American children and youth? How will we reduce the stressors associated with child maltreatment? How do we assure every child access to a quality education? Finally, how will we address the factors disturbing child well-being and leading to juvenile incarceration? This chapter responds to this last question by extending the analysis first presented by Garbarino (1999) more than 10 years ago.

In that volume, he describes how the social environment surrounding young men contributes to the development of psychopathologies and violent behavior that, in turn, lead to outcomes such as juvenile incarceration (Garbarino, 1999). We begin here by summarizing core concepts of the ecology of human development, which serves as a theoretical framework used to guide our subsequent discussion. We then discuss the effect of risk accumulation, community violence, and trauma on juvenile incarceration. The second half of the chapter details how ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child could provide important guidance for community development, particularly in how it relates to creating social support networks known to prevent and ameliorate many of the factors associated with community violence and juvenile incarceration.

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF CHILDREN Three principles underlie the ecology of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). First, children are recognized as active participants who influence, and are influenced by, the direct and indirect actions of others and 267

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surrounding environmental systems. These reciprocal transactions create subjective, meaningful representation of experiences for children. Second, children, as well as environments, adapt and respond accordingly to changes over time. Finally, a series of interrelated systems—the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems—directly and indirectly influence development, with the child at the focal point of that influence. These structures coalesce as the child’s human ecology (see Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 2, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume; Oliveri, Towery, Jacobs, & Jacobs, Chapter 18, this volume). Ecology of Human Development Microsystems are immediate environments in which a child is influenced by place, time, roles, and activities. This system has the most direct influence on development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Here, a child engages in activities that should become more complicated and meaningful with time. There is a reciprocal relationship between the child and environment, meaning that not only does the child influence surrounding environments but also environments influence the biological and social outcomes of the child. In addition, across time a child develops cognitive, social, emotional, psychological, and behavioral competence, which enables him to assume more complicated social roles. And, of course, by engaging with others, a child forms relationships with caregivers and other family members. Each of these experiences influences perceptions of surrounding environments and future interactions. The mesosystem—the relationship between two or more settings in which a child is directly involved—also influences development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). A few examples of mesosystem structures include relationships

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between a child’s home and school; home and places of faith; and among home, welfare, and health-care institutions. Similar to the microsystem, the extent to which a child is influenced by mesosystem environments depends in part on the strength of reciprocal transactions, communication, and knowledge between settings. For example, the likelihood that a child will be maltreated has been shown to be correlated with the extent to which parents receive social support from surrounding environments, including community-level resources and relationships (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978). Similarly, it is widely known that social workers, as well as other service agency personnel, must provide parents with a feeling that the community they live in is willing to communicate and encourage participation (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Many of the same principles (e.g., reciprocal relations, knowledge and communications between settings) that apply to the mesosystem also apply to the exosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). However, in contrast to the micro- and mesosystems, children typically have no direct involvement or influence on decisions made in the exosystem. Nevertheless, they are directly and indirectly affected by decisions, legislation, and tenets set forth by policy makers, judges, and bureaucratic administrators at multiple levels of government (local, city, state, and national levels) and in private organizations. The macrosystem represents a blueprint of how a society as a whole decides how it will live and what and who it will value (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Within the macrosystem lie the micro-, meso-, and exosystems, each of which is influenced by the morals and values of a society. It is here where state and federal lawmakers, judges, and international governmental bodies—such as the United Nations—produce influential judicial decisions, legislation, and policies.

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

Ecological Perspective on the Human Rights of Children Two principles are vital to understanding an ecological perspective on the human rights of children (Bruyere & Garbarino, 2009). First, such a perspective attempts to describe and explain the direct and indirect influence of the micro-, meso-, exo- and macrosystems on the behavior and development of children. Second, by taking a position on the risks and opportunities influencing the social environment of children and families, an ecological perspective on the human rights of children attempts to make the world a better place to live through acknowledging and supporting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is our view that only through macro-level change—that is, through United States ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—will we be able to permanently support and protect the social and economic rights of all children and families living in the United States, to include youth involved in the juvenile justice system (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). An underlying assumption of the ecological perspective on the human rights of children is this: Rarely is there a direct causal association between variables that are universal and invariant across contexts (Garbarino, 2008). This can be expressed as follows: When the question is “Does X cause Y?” the best answer is almost always, “It depends.” In other words, what we think of as “cause and effect” must be considered in the context of a number of mediating variables. To illustrate, consider the question: “Does exposure to community violence cause youth to behave in a way that places them at risk for juvenile incarceration?” The answer is: “It depends.” It differs from youth to youth, and from community to community, as a function of both the range and quality of social resources

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available to the youth, and a host of other factors as well (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). In short, it depends on a number of mediating variables that include the interaction of the child with other adults, family functioning, income level, neighborhood conditions, and the national social consensus to place the best interest of all children and families at the forefront of the political, social, and economic agenda. It depends on the net effect of the accumulation of developmental risks and assets. Risk Accumulation One of the essential concepts in understanding the developmental pathways characterizing violent young men (and more and more young women) is “risk accumulation” (Garbarino, 1999, 2001). Rarely, if ever, is a single risk factor decisive in the development of children. For one thing, children differ temperamentally in how and to what degree they will react to particular experiences. For another, assessing the impact of particular risk factors depends to a large extent on the larger context of the child’s life (see Dym et al., this volume). Thus, it is the accumulation of risk factors that tells the story, in counterpoint to the number and quality of compensatory supports (developmental assets) provided (Garbarino, 2008; see also Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). What is more, the particulars of any one child’s development reflects the individual nature and characteristics of that child (Garbarino, 1999). Thus, two equally traumatized children might react in different ways as a result of temperamental differences. A passive child might resort to internalized symptoms; a more outwardly oriented child might respond with externalizing symptoms. This gross differentiation often distinguishes between girls and boys in the same abusive family. The boys are likely be more aggressive and antisocial, the

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girls more withdrawn and self-destructive (see Baker, Cunningham, & Harris, Chapter 11, this volume). Despite these differences, it is important to note that when the nature of the trauma is severe, pervasive, and prolonged enough, the casualty rates reach virtually 100% (if all forms of dysfunction are included). For example, a World War II study of U.S. soldiers revealed that after 60 days of continuous combat, the rate of psychiatric “casualty” reached 98%, and those few who did not break down were characterized as having psychopathic personality profiles (Grossman & Siddle, 1999). Similarly, a study in Chicago revealed that among abused children living in the most violent and impoverished neighborhoods who were exposed to racism, all (100%) exhibited significant psychiatric and/or academic problems between the ages of 13 and 15 (Tolan, 1996).

by their personal exposure to trauma, including having friends shot and killed, being injured themselves, and being chronically exposed to threat and violence at school and in the neighborhood (Garbarino, 1999). Many youth who experience this do so without the benefit of a strong and loving father in their lives. This lack of a positive strong male role model leaves them feeling particularly vulnerable, and thus subject to the influences of the inner city war zone, as it has many others (particularly male) in similar circumstances. Indeed, research shows that a close intimate relationship with his father helps a boy learn how to deal with issues of aggression in a socially appropriate way (Blazei, Iacono, & McGue, 2008).

Social Deprivation

Family risk factors and a youth’s experiences as an abused child contribute to escalating bad behavior, acting out, aggression and violating the rights of others during childhood—a pattern of behavior characterized as “childhoodonset conduct disorder” (Rutter, 1989; Rutter, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2006). For most children, the severity of this problematic behavior increases in middle school, with neighborhood risk factors contributing to the serious, long-term effects of this childhood pattern. As Garbarino (1999) notes, in some neighborhoods, particularly those with high levels of social and economic deprivation, violence, and criminality, approximately 65% of children with childhood conduct disorder become seriously violent delinquents, as opposed to 15% in safer, more prosocial neighborhoods. In these settings, children are likely to respond in school to the threat of bullying with “preemptive assaults” to protect themselves and establish themselves as powerful

A particularly toxic nexus of social risk factors exists for young males growing up in a social environment in which they are exposed to a high level of community violence, racism, lack of support for education, and economic inadequacy (Garbarino, 1999). This high level of violence constitutes an “urban war zone.” For example, in a study conducted in Chicago, Dubrow and Garbarino (1989) found that in certain neighborhoods, almost two thirds (63%) of the elementary schoolchildren report having witnessed a shooting. This is precisely the percentage found in studies in war-torn Lebanon and among Palestinian children during the peak years of political violence in the West Bank and Gaza strip (Garbarino & Kostelny, 1996). Exposure to Traumatic Experiences In many cases, the high, ambient level of violence for high-risk youth is compounded

Early and Escalating Patterns of Conduct Disorder

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

figures in their peer groups. This same approach is likely to be evident on the streets, where they seek to gain power by carrying a gun, being willing to engage in reckless behavior, engaging in numerous criminal acts, and taking a role in drug dealing (Garbarino, 1999). The “War Zone” Mentality To those who are unfamiliar with the psychological and social realities of growing up in an urban war zone, the “normal” adaptations that youth evidence often seem pathological (Garbarino, 2001). But in fact, in most cases they are “normal” adaptations to an “abnormal” social environment. These manifest in many ways. For example, Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, and Pardo (1992) observed young children in Chicago playing a game they called “funeral” in the block corner in their kindergarten classrooms. Among teenagers these often manifest as reckless and aggressive bravado, self-medication through drugs and alcohol, and participation in gangs as social vehicles for protection, access to resources, and identity (see Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). All this is intensified for youth who have family-level risk factors, particularly the experience of abuse and neglect at home. Many individuals who have grown up in a war zone convey a fatalistic acceptance of their world in the sense that they disconnect from the future (Garbarino, 2001). This “terminal thinking” stands in contrast to the “future orientation” that is so important in motivating and sustaining prosocial behavior in adolescents. These individuals can and do feel a generalized regret about the violence that is part of their experience, whether it be inflicted on people close to them or that they have inflicted on others. But they have a

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stronger sense of its being a fact of moral life (as do young men who say, “You just do what you gotta do”). The kind of experiences of trauma reported in the lives of children living in situations of high community violence risks their developing a “war zone mentality”; this is particularly the case for boys (Garbarino, 1999). Operating within this framework, the youth views and responds to the world much as would a young soldier in a combat zone. The key elements of this war zone mentality are extreme sensitivity to threat (“hypervigilance”—being highly attuned to verbal and physical threats) and a high probability of responding to perceived threat with aggression (including preemptive assault—“get them before they get you”). Less obvious is the fact that many of the youth living with this war zone mentality also evidence problems with depression, fear, and lack of social trust. These characteristics are apparent in the lives of youth who live with community violence during adolescence and young adulthood, and who are subsequently incarcerated or otherwise detained in secure juvenile facilities. Developmental Assets What positive themes exist in the lives of youth growing up amidst community violence? This, of course, depends in part on the individual temperament and family experience of specific children (Jaffee, Caspi, Moffitt, Polo-Tomas, & Taylor, 2007). Some youth demonstrate some or all of the underpinnings of resilience (Losel & Bliesener, 1990; Werner, 1982)—for example, at least average intellectual functioning, positive and likeable disposition, responsiveness to therapeutic and educational interventions, strong attachment relationships in the family, and

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extrafamilial relationships with mentors and other positive adults. Even amidst high levels of community violence, these resilience factors can and are present. All this bodes well for the future development of youth who commit acts of delinquent violence and are incarcerated—if they are placed in a secure and therapeutic environment, and if their postrelease environment supports the goals of the therapeutic treatment program in which they participated while they were detained (Garbarino, 1999; see also Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Troubled children will be as “bad” as the social environment around them (Garbarino, 1999). This highlights the issue of “social toxicity,” the presence of social and cultural “poisons” in the world of children and youth, to which troubled children are especially susceptible. Just as children with asthma are most affected by air pollution, so are “psychologically asthmatic” children most affected by social toxicity (Garbarino, 1995). The key to rehabilitating children and youth affected by community violence is to recognize and understand their trauma (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume), develop relationships with them that can teach alternatives to cyclical violence, and embed them in protective relationships that hold them close to strong adults until they have healed sufficiently to reapproach the communities from which they come or to which they are moving. Improving their emotional self-regulation and empathy are the mechanisms for making these important changes, and there are some critical elements in such intervention efforts (see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume), among them: &

Emotional regulation issues for traumatized youth. Self-medication in the form of illicit drug use (including

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alcohol) is a significant issue for the population of young men in the juvenile justice system in the United States (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume) and among many such youth around the world (United Nations, 2000). This “need” cannot be ignored or simply punished. Traumatized youth need alternative tactics and strategies for dealing with the arousal issues associated with trauma. For example, the use of consciousness-orienting approaches such as meditation might be considered as part of any comprehensive program (perhaps, in some cases, in combination with psychiatric use of psychoactive drugs to permit youth to stabilize emotions while processing trauma). Techniques that permit processing of traumatic memories without debilitating emotional “flooding” (such as eye movement desensitization) can be part of this effort as well. These efforts provide the psychological “space” to process memories and yet protect the youth from being overwhelmed by reexperiencing the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Shapiro & Forrest, 2004). Building meaning. The various crises in “meaningfulness” experienced by traumatized youth require special attention (Garbarino & Bedard, 1996). Cooperative, prosocial projects can assist here (Bruyere, 2009) and have the additional benefit of allowing violent youth to be seen as engaged in restorative justice efforts that advantage the community and the youth. Spiritual development activities (e.g., insight meditation and prayer groups) can also be useful in this effort

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

&

&

(Garbarino & Bedard, 1996). Efforts to involve traumatized and violent youth in caregiving (e.g., with plants, animals, and other dependent beings) can enhance a sense of meaningfulness but, of course, must be undertaken with adequate adult supervision. These efforts stand in contrast to “get tough” approaches exemplified in the “Boot Camp” militaristic model (Welsh & Farrington, 2007). Enhancing empathy. Some adolescent rehabilitation programs have involved “victim awareness” programming to build empathy of those affected by the behavior of violent youth (Garbarino, 1999). These efforts can be helpful, but only after the victimization experienced by the traumatized and violent youth has been acknowledged and processed. An important caveat comes from programs attempting to teach “empathy skills” to adult inmates. While “normal” inmates profit from this learning experience (e.g., improved relationships), individuals with psychopathic profiles may approach such programs as an opportunity to improve their “manipulation skills” (Hare, 1996). Understanding the depth of any psychopathology in youth involved in programming is essential to avoid such problems and requires sophisticated psychiatric and psychological assessment. Careful management of the peer process. Efforts to rehabilitate delinquent youth can be counterproductive if these interventions fall into one or both of the following traps: First, if they rely on peer process for influence and change in groups in which a

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significant minority (perhaps 30%) are exhibiting antisocial beliefs, rhetoric, and behavior, the net effect is likely to be a worsening of the behavior of less delinquent youth, rather than an improvement in the most delinquent youth. This is likely because the youth process models validate negative images (Garbarino, 1999). The principal antidote to this problem is some mixture of powerful control of group process and language by prosocial adults, and systematic group composition that limits the disproportionate involvement of the most delinquent youth. Second, intervention can be counterproductive if it focuses on “lecture” models, particularly when these lectures involve emotionally intense and threatening rhetoric. A prime example is the “Scared Straight” program (Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino, & Buehler, 2003), which employs “hard core” adult criminals to lecture delinquent and “predelinquent” youth (often accompanied by threatening language and gestures). Research reveals this approach may indeed “scare” more prosocial and sensitive youth, who are likely not at risk for longterm patterns of serious delinquent behavior anyway. But it serves to increase the severity of antisocial behavior of youth already involved in delinquent behavior (Petrosino et al., 2003) and thus places them at heightened risk for more serious delinquent behavior. These youth tend to interpret the intense messages from the adult criminals not as “I am scared of the consequences of my current activities so that I will curtail my

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delinquent behavior,” but rather as “I am going to have to be even tougher to survive in prison.”

CREATING STRONGER SOCIAL SUPPORT NETWORKS Having illustrated the psychological and social realities of growing up in an urban war zone and the normal adaptations to abnormal social environments, these negative forces must be countered with a dynamic look at how international and national influences could enhance the social environment of youth in the juvenile justice system reentering the community (see also Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Toward that end, the moment has come to advocate not only for the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Women (not addressed in this text) but also for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These two macrosystemic conventions seek to advance the personhood of the individual and the common good of the family environment by providing social supports for advancing the positive development of all children. In the section that follows, we present the rationale for adopting an international framework, which has been ratified now by 193 United Nations members—the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). It is relevant to note that the United States is one of only two countries that have failed to adhere to international social consensus, and therefore have refused to ratify the Convention (Bedard, 2007). Considering the number of youth entering and reentering the juvenile justice system, we believe it is time to reconsider the benefits of ratification. In addition, we believe that

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when used as a framework to guide child development, as well as policy and decision making at all levels of society, the negative environments contributing to the recidivism of youth involved in the juvenile justice system will improve. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Through the drafting of a series of human rights declarations (most notably the UN Declaration on Human Rights), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) evolved out of the recognition that many children throughout the world were experiencing extreme hardships and consequently lacked the necessary resources vital to positive youth development. The Convention is unique in that it is the first legally binding human rights document to recognize children as autonomous human beings, born with inalienable rights and developmental needs that evolve with age and maturity (Hart, Price-Cohen, FarrellErickson, & Flekkoy, 2001). More simply, it is the first international legal document to view children as human beings worthy of the same respect and dignity granted to adults in other human rights treaties (Melton, 2005b). The 39 substantive articles contained within the Convention are interconnected to guide governments in drafting policies to empower all children and families with the supports and resources vital to positive youth development. These articles encompass four principles: the best interest of the child, protection, survival and development, and participation (Hart et al., 2001; see also Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). The Convention is a preventive document, meant to provide the same social supports and developmental assets that we have

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

already illustrated are absent in the lives of many youth caught in the juvenile justice system (Hammarberg, 2008; Hawkins & Fraser, 1983; Howe, 2008; UNICEF, 1998). In fact, research suggests that these same social supports and assets are absent in the lives of 50% of today’s youth, across all sociodemographic groups in the United States (Benson, 2007). With roughly 100,000 youth caught in the juvenile justice system (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008) there is truly more we can do. We believe the answers to countering these negative forces lie not in the legal power of the Convention, but in the ability of its principles to guide policy and decision making in doing what is in the best interest of all children and families (Melton, 2005b). While Articles 37 and 40 specifically mandate nations to draft juvenile justice and reintegration policy, the articles within the Convention provide a holistic approach to preventing the factors associated with juvenile delinquency by supporting the creation of an asset rich environment, which is likely to protect and promote the positive development of all children (Hammarberg, 2008; Howe, 2008). Gary Melton (1996; 2005b), who was influential in drafting the Convention, asserts that the Convention provides a framework for protecting the family (e.g., Articles 5, 19, and 27) environment through the provision of resources and supports known to enhance parental care and positive youth development. In addition, he, as well as others (Hammarberg, 2008; Howe, 2008; Limber & Flekkoy, 1995), find that the Convention provides a framework for creating healthy and supportive communities amenable to positive youth development. As Eleanor Roosevelt maintained during a speech delivered to the United Nations in 1958:

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Where, after all, do human rights begin? In small places, close to home— so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. (March 27, 1958) Positive Youth Development and Thriving Theoretically grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development, positive youth development (PYD) seeks to identify the strengths of youth, prevent risk behavior, and promote positive outcomes (see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). PYD recognizes youth as active participants in their own development, and also recognizes that all youth need an asset-rich environment filled with high levels of support, experiences, and opportunities. Healthy relationships with related, as well as nonrelated adults, are recognized as one of the principal supports known to enhance positive outcomes (Benson, 2007). Thus, PYD recognizes multiple contexts as influential to child development. Among these are the family, nonrelated adults, and a safe and supportive community. As we will see, when a child’s environment is filled with the necessary supports, experiences, and opportunities, the assets present in their lives increase and youth thrive (Benson,

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Scales, Hamilton, & Sesma, 2006; Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, 2005). Integrated within the paradigm of PYD is the concept of thriving (Benson et al., 2006). Lerner, Brentano, Dowling, and Anderson (2002) define thriving as a process of “adaptive developmental regulation which results in young people who move beyond their own self-interest and place value on, and commit to, action supportive of a social system promoting equity, democracy, social justice, and personal freedom” (p 22). Thriving is seen as a healthy change process resulting in developmental regulation, which serves to counter many of the at-risk behaviors and negative outcomes (e.g., violating the rights of others, incarceration, control) experienced by youth in the juvenile justice system, moving them closer to reaching their true personhood (Lerner et al., 2002)—a personhood espoused by the Convention (Hart, 2009; Melton, 2005b). Thriving also asserts that a sense of personal meaning and empathy for others is present in the lives of youth. Thriving indicators include school success, display of leadership, helping others, maintaining good health, delay of gratification, valuing diversity, and overcoming adversity; outcomes include youth who develop into citizens who contribute to self, family, community, and society. However, this developmental process called thriving requires “systems that integrate individual and ecological developmental assets” (Lerner et al., 2002, p. 22). Building Strong Families and Communities One of the greatest threats encountered by youth reentering communities from the juvenile justice system is the availability of healthy social support networks in the communities they reenter (Garbarino, 1999; see also

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Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). Too often, these youth are reentering the same socially toxic environments, exposing them to the same factors that contributed to their incarceration in the first place. Factors identified as contributing to these socially toxic environments are a breakdown in connections to nonrelated adult role models, the values and norms of a community, and the fragmenting of a family’s social support system. We believe the factors associated with countering these toxic forces, and two models for promoting the human rights of children, are manifested in the framework of Strong Communities and the outcomes associated with the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets (Benson, 2007; see Figure 13.1). Strong Communities (SCs) Meeting the human rights of children and preventing juvenile delinquency require the functioning of a healthy family nurturing a child within the safety and support of an asset-rich community (Benson, 2007; Melton, 2005a, 2005b). Research shows that parents who are connected to vital resources and supports are also empowered with the parenting skills that provide a home conducive to positive youth development (Garbarino & Crouter, 1978; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005). These homes are marked by safety, stability, love, and affirmation. Moreover, these same resources and supports have been shown to reduce parental stress, thus allowing for greater physical and psychological investment in children. To illustrate, Sroufe and colleagues (2005) followed the progress of 182 at-risk families across time, identifying protective factors influencing parenting skills under high levels of economic and social stress. Specifically, those parents who provided a home conducive to positive youth development also had a strong support system as well as a greater knowledge

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence Figure 13.1 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents (ages 12–18)

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and ability of parenting and were able to provide a stable home environment. The work of Clemson University’s Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life (2009) and its Strong Communities initiative is a prime example of how change can occur through the mobilization of an entire community dedicated to providing every family with a strong social support system, knowledge of effective parenting practices, and resources to help parents provide a positive home environment (Melton, 2008; Kimbrough-Melton & Campbell, 2008). Developed from the recognition that risk accumulation (particularly child abuse and neglect) undermines family functioning and child well-being, the Institute developed a plan to mobilize multiple sectors of the community. Its two core elements include community development and the provision of social supports for families. As we proceed, you will recognize that many of the same principles espoused by the ecological perspective on the human rights of children are integrated into the Strong Communities framework. We should also note that the Convention is the driving force behind this initiative (Melton, 2008). Supported by a long-term endowment from the Duke Foundation, the community development component of Strong Communities began with a grassroots mobilization of citizens brought together to identify mechanisms for “reaching out” to children and families (Kimbrough-Melton & Campbell, 2008). More specifically, nearly 5,000 volunteers have participated in reaching out to children and families (Melton, 2008). The goal has been to let every child and family know that “we see you and you are valued.” Community development has moved beyond relying on the child welfare system as the sole system of economic and social support, to using multiple sectors of the community to create stronger communities and families

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(Kimbrough-Melton & Campbell, 2008). Strong Communities has been able to rely on numerous faith-based organizations, health-care institutions, businesses and city personnel, as well as others in the donation of facilities and services and supports. In a sense, Strong Communities has moved beyond the “village rhetoric,” toward action and progress leading to safer and stronger communities. With approximately one fifth of families living in the Greenville, South Carolina, area (where Clemson University is located) reporting feeling isolated, the Family Support component of Strong Communities provides perhaps the greatest asset to preventing child abuse, violence, and its corresponding outcome, juvenile delinquency (KimbroughMelton & Campbell, 2008). Volunteers have been mobilized to identify families with children under age 6 to initiate the offering of a “family friend” and, if needed, a family advocate. Most recently, volunteers and organizations have committed to providing supports and resources for family activity centers. The family activity centers are places where parents can go to meet other parents (e.g., while children play or a more formal gathering during “Parents’ Night Out”), engage in parent–child activities, and receive information regarding primary human services as well as financial education and mentoring. Child participation (which meets Articles 12–15 and 31 of the Convention) is also integrated within SCs. For example, playgrounds and playgroups have been developed to bring children together (Kimbrough-Melton & Campbell, 2008). In addition, numerous volunteers, such as local firefighters, have committed to mentoring children and teen mothers, who are at an increased risk of mistreating their children. This one service is significant to preventing juvenile delinquency. To illustrate, analyzing data from an urban sample of 2,226 youth,

The Developmental Impact of Community Violence

Molnar and his colleagues (Molnar, Cerda, Roberts, & Buka, 2008) found greater social support to be negatively related to aggression and juvenile delinquency. While in its preliminary stages of evaluation, four outcomes are expected from ongoing evaluations (Clemson University, Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, 2009). First, it is expected that the Greenville community will recognize that the well-being and protection of all children is a fundamental personal responsibility. Second, the increase in social connections is expected to enhance perceived quality of life and strengthen the sense of community among citizens. Third, an increase in parental participation is expected to result in greater academic achievement for youth as well as family satisfaction. Finally, the experience of community support is expected to influence parental beliefs that they have the power to protect their children as well as strengthen their communities. In turn, these beliefs are expected to reduce rates of child abuse and neglect as well as other problems of child development and family life. We believe Strong Communities serves as the foundation for meeting the human rights of children because it creates a complex network of social support that appears vital to protecting children and preventing juvenile delinquency. In fact, a study evaluating the strength of 112 communities in the United States found the number of community strengths to be related to positive outcomes (Blyth & Leffert, 1995). That is, the communities found to have strong families, schools, community involvement, and positive peer influence were also less likely to have youth engaging in at-risk behavior. Using step-wise regression to account for the variance in problem behaviors predicting community strengths, the researchers found that the model

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explained an impressive 55% of the variance in outcomes. It was concluded that strong communities provide youth and families with caring, safe, and supportive environments; relationships that value youth; and opportunities for involvement, and set clear expectations for behavior. The 40 Developmental Assets The Search Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has surveyed approximately three million students in grades K–12 across the United States (Benson, 2007). Consequently, it has identified 40 developmental assets vital to positive youth development (see Figure 13.1). These assets account for the relationships, experiences, and opportunities present in the lives of youth. In line with the Convention’s emphasis on a child’s evolving capacities (Article 3)—or functionally valued behaviors and competencies across development—the asset framework is designed to capture the psychological and emotional life of youth. Research strongly suggests that the more assets accumulated, the more likely youth are to thrive and grow to their true potential. Conversely, the fewer assets accumulated the more youth tend to do poorly. We should note that some juvenile justice scholars (Barton, 2004; Butts et al., 2005) also recognize the significance of the asset framework as a mechanism for preventing juvenile delinquency and recidivism—a mechanism that is enhanced within the context of a healthy community. The 40 developmental assets are divided into 20 external (ecological) and 20 internal (individual) assets (Scales & Leffert, 2004). Assets within the external categories include Support, Empowerment, Boundaries and Expectations, and Constructive Use of Time. These external assets account for relationships, experiences, and

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opportunities present in the lives of youth. Moreover, they align with the Convention’s emphasis that all children have the right to be anchored in nurturing families, safe communities, and developmentally stimulating schools. The internal assets include a Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity (Scales & Leffert, 2004). These internal assets represent the Convention’s emphasis on a child’s evolving capacities— the growth of functionally valued competencies and behaviors across development. We broadly define these as the 5Cs: competence, character, connection, confidence, and caring (Lerner et al., 2002), or lately, the 6Cs, including commitment (see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). The accumulation of internal assets is not inherent in children but rather reflects the extent to which they are anchored in external relationships, experiences, and opportunities. Regarding the measurement of these constructs, the Search Institute’s Attitudes and Behaviors survey has been shown to be a reliable and valid instrument in evaluating the level of assets present in the lives of youth, as well as thriving and risk behavior (Benson, 2002). Moreover, it has been invaluable in identifying community strengths to mobilize communities to enhance the positive development of children (Blyth & Leffert, 1995). In terms of being a reliable indicator, Scales, Benson, Leffert, and Blyth (2000) found the asset framework to explain between 10–43% of the variance in thriving indicators, even after controlling for demographic variables. In addition, the asset framework has also been found to be useful in predicting risk behavior. Other research has found the asset framework to account for as much as 66% of the variance in their composite risk index (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, sexual intercourse, depression–suicide, antisocial behavior,

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violence, school problems, driving and alcohol, and gambling) (Leffert et al., 1998). Having established the usefulness of the assets in predicting thriving and risk behavior, what does research tell us about the level of assets youth experience, in general? Moreover, what does this research tell us about the accumulation of assets in preventing juvenile delinquency? Level of Assets in the Life of Today’s Youth There is reason to be concerned about the level of assets present in the lives of today’s youth. Based on an aggregate sample of 148,189 students in grades 6–12, the Search Institute (Benson, 2007) found 17% of youth experiencing 0–10 assets, placing them at risk for adverse outcomes, 42% experiencing 11–20 assets, making them vulnerable to adverse outcomes, 32% experiencing an adequate amount of assets with 21–30 assets, and only 8% of youth experiencing 31–40 assets, thus considered to be thriving. These numbers suggest that approximately 50% of today’s youth are at risk or vulnerable to many of the same risk behaviors exhibited by youth involved in the juvenile justice system. These findings are supported by previous studies that have found similar results, suggesting our children and families are not receiving the necessary social supports required to promote positive youth development (Benson, 2007). Moreover, it can be argued that these patterns of behavior suggest there are macro-level influences affecting the behavior of youth in the juvenile justice system who do not appear to be so different from all other youth (Tulkin, 1972). The Power of Assets to Prevent Risk and Juvenile Delinquency The study of assets has shown their power to prevent the same risk behaviors that place many youth at risk for juvenile delinquency (Scales & Leffert,

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2004). To illustrate, results from the 2003 Search Institute survey (Benson, 2007) that included roughly 148,000 students revealed large discrepancies in risk behavior between students with low level of assets and those with high level of assets. Of the students found to be at risk (those experiencing 10 or fewer assets), approximately 38% reported using illicit drugs three or more times in the past year. In contrast, only 1% of thriving students, or students experiencing 31–40 assets, reported using illicit drugs. Similarly, 62% of at-risk students reported being engaged in three or more violent acts in the past year compared to 6% of thriving peers. Finally, 45% compared to 3% reported using alcohol three or more times in the past 30 days. Using Search Institute data, DeCarvalho (2007) found thriving behavior and asset levels to be negatively related to juvenile delinquency in a sample of 200 Hispanic students. Specifically, he found that as the number of assets accumulated, thriving behavior increased and juvenile delinquency decreased. In another study, which included a sample of 462 Hispanic and African American students from a predominantly impoverished community, Scales and his colleagues (2000) also found an accumulation of assets to be predictive of thriving behavior. That is, those youth experiencing 20–40 assets were found to be succeeding in school, valuing diversity, maintaining good health, and delaying gratification, and were also involved in empathy-related activities helping others. It was concluded that these youth were also less likely to engage in juvenile delinquency than peers with lower levels of assets. Researchers (e.g., see Dukes & Stein, 2001; Leffert et al., 1998) have found several specific assets to be negatively related to delinquency. In a study of 13,207 students using the asset framework to test social control theory, which

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suggests that delinquency is related to a lack of social connection and deficiencies in internal assets, Dukes and Stein (2001) found five assets to be predictive of protection from deviant behavior. These assets included high selfesteem, positive school attitudes, prosocial activity, purpose in life, and prosocial bonds. In contrast, they found fear of harm, victimization, and abuse in the home to be risk factors associated with delinquency. Additionally, controlling for demographic variables, Leffert et al. (1998) found positive peer influence, personal restraint, school engagement, time at home, resistance skills, and peaceful conflict resolution to account for 39% of the variance in explaining protection from antisocial behavior. What is clear from these studies is that the relationships, positive experiences, and opportunities present in the lives of youth buffer them from engaging in behavior placing them at risk for juvenile delinquency. Several of the asset categories have also been found to be important predictors across ethnic groups (Native American, White, African American, Hispanic, Asian). In an aggregate sample of approximately 218,000 students in grades 6–12, the Search Institute (2003) found boundaries and expectations, commitment to learning, positive values, and social competencies significantly related to antisocial behavior, a predictor of juvenile delinquency. That is, those students who were provided boundaries and expectations within surrounding environments and had the internal assets of a commitment to learning, positive values, and social competencies (total assets from 22 to 40) were less likely to engage in antisocial behavior than peers who lacked this particular constellation of assets. As implied, not all individual assets are equally relevant to each ethnically diverse group; the accumulation of assets, however, appears to protect youth from risk behavior and

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encourage positive youth development and thriving (Benson, 2002). Assets and Economic Equality Finally, economic equality plays a role in preventing juvenile delinquency and promoting positive youth development. Although neither poverty nor affluence by itself causes either juvenile delinquency or positive youth development, economic circumstances do matter to both outcomes, and thus economic equality is a goal worth setting. Benson (2007) reports that, on average, youth living in poverty experience three fewer assets than more affluent peers. Thus, poverty and its socially toxic correlates deny children the right to accumulate assets— assets we have already illustrated are vital to preventing juvenile delinquency and promoting positive youth development (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume; Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). The pathway of positive outcomes is affected by poverty (in particular chronic, pervasive, intergenerational poverty) because, given the stresses it places on parents and communities, it denies children the right to feel safe and supported (Garbarino, 1999). For example, as we have already discussed, parental stress and lack of social support is strongly related to maltreatment and neglect (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Brown, Cohen, Johnson, & Salzinger, 1998; Sroufe et al., 2005). In addition, poverty dictates where parents can live, and, for many children, this means in communities in which they are exposed to, or victims of, neighborhood violence. What is more, they will be denied access to quality early education programs and effective K–12 institutions, profoundly influencing developmental, behavioral, and life outcomes.

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There is an internal, psychological cost to poverty as well. It sends the message that “within this land of wealth and social opportunity you are excluded.” Garbarino (1999) highlights the psychological toll of poverty during an interview with a young man incarcerated for life for murder. “Warren,” asks Garbarino (1999, p. 174), “when you were growing up, were you poor or regular?” Warren’s answers suggests feelings of shame and inadequacy—feelings that neutralize the development of internal assets related to positive identity. The tragic outcome, of course, is youth who are willing to do anything to feel “regular,” including gunning another human being down for material gain. These feelings of economic inequality perpetuate the cycle of violence, neighborhood drug dealing, gang activity, and subsequent juvenile incarceration.

CONCLUSIONS Having explained the associations between child well-being, community violence, and juvenile delinquency, we reflect as follows: The founders of the nation stated that the basic purpose of government is to secure basic human rights, unalienable rights. . . . This is the appeal for those who would insist that public policy . . . protect and nurture the children of teenage mothers, that dangerous neighborhoods be restored to safety so children can escape trauma and abuse, and that, as economic structures change, the needs of children remain paramount. (Garbarino, 2006, p. 201) This is truly a moral endeavor. And as former President Jimmy Carter (2005) asserts,

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it is this endeavor that will return the United States to being “seen as the unswerving champion of freedom and human rights, both among our own citizens and within the global community” (p. 200). Moreover, it will restore “America . . . as the focal point around which other nations of all kinds could marshal to combat threats to security and to enhance the quality of our common environment” (p. 200). In this context, we believe that by upholding the moral virtues on which the United States was founded, we can serve as a model nation for eradicating the socially toxic environments contributing to juvenile delinquency. REFERENCES Barton, W. H. (2004). Bridging juvenile justice and positive youth development. The youth development handbook: Coming of age in American communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bedard, C. (2007). Children’s rights are human rights. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Press. Benson, P. L. (2002). Adolescent development in social and community context: A program of research. New Directions for Youth Development, 95, 123–145. Benson, P. L. (2007). All kids are our kids: What communities must do to raise caring and responsible children and adolescents (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Jossey-Bass. Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. F., & Sesma, A. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and applications. In N. Eiesenberg, W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), The handbook of child psychology (pp. 894–935). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Blazei, R. W., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2008). Father-child transmission of antisocial behavior: The moderating role of father’s presence in the home. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 47, 406–415. Blyth, D. A., & Leffert, N. (1995). Communities as contexts for adolescent development: An empirical analysis. Journal of Adolescent Research, 10, 64–87. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. (1997). The effects of poverty on children and youth. Future of Children, 7, 55–71. Brown, J., Cohen, P., Johnson, J. G., & Salzinger, S. (1998). A longitudinal analysis of risk factors for child maltreatment: Findings of a 17-year prospective study of officially recorded and self-reported child abuse and neglect. Child Abuse and Neglect, 22, 1065–1078. Bruyere, E. (2009, June). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: The right to participation and self-expression. Paper presented at the Symposium on U.S. Ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Washington, DC. Bruyere, E. B., & Garbarino, J. (2009). The ecological perspective on the human rights of children. In S. B. Kamerman, S. Phipps, & A. Ben-Arieh (Eds.), From child welfare to child well-being: An international perspective on knowledge in the service of making policy: A special volume in honor of Alfred J. Kahn (pp. 155–174). New York, NY: Springer. Butts, J., Mayer, S., & Ruth, G. (2005). Focusing juvenile justice on positive youth development. Chapin Hall Center for Children, 105. Retrieved from www .chapinhall.org Carter, J. (2005). Our endangered values: America’s moral crisis. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Clemson University, Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life. (2009). Strong Communities. Evaluation plan. Retrieved from www.clemson.edu /strongcommunities/about.html De Carvalho, J. (2007). A causal analysis of developmental assets, behaviors, and delinquency among Hispanic youth in Texas (Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas). Retrieved from http://dspace.uta.edu/bitstream /handle/10106/316/uta-etd-1440.pdf ;jsessionid¼ 58C846F4971281FE6B42E920EFAC1666? sequence¼1 Dubrow, N., & Garbarino, J. (1989). Living in the war zone: Mothers and young children in public housing development. Child Welfare, 68, 3–20. Dukes, R. L., & Stein, J. A. (2001). Effects of assets and deficits on the social control of at-risk behavior among youth: A structural equations approach. Youth & Society, 32, 337–359. Garbarino, J. (1995). Raising children in a socially toxic environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garbarino, J. (1999). Lost boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save them. New York, NY: Free Press.

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Garbarino, J. (2001). An ecological perspective on the effects of violence on children. Journal of Community Psychology, 29, 361–378. Garbarino, J. (2006). A vision of family policy for the 21st century. Journal of Social Issues, 52, 197–203. Garbarino, J. (2008). Children and the dark side of human experience: Confronting global realities and rethinking child development. New York, NY: Springer. Garbarino, J., & Bedard, C. (1996). Spiritual challenges to children facing violent trauma. Childhood, 3, 467–478. Garbarino, J., & Crouter, A. (1978). Defining the community context of parent-child relations: The correlates of child maltreatment. Child Development, 49, 604–616. Garbarino J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., & Pardo, C. (1992). Children in danger. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garbarino, J., & Kostelny, K. (1996). The effect of political violence on Palestinian children’s behavior problems: A risk accumulation model. Child Development, 67, 33–45. Grossman, D., & Siddle, P. (1999). Combat. In L. Kurtz & J. Turpin (Eds.), The encyclopedia of violence, peace, and conflict (Vol. 3, pp. 139–149). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Hammarberg, T. (2008). A juvenile justice approach built on human rights principles. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Hare, R. D. (1996). Psychopathy: A clinical construct whose time has come. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23, 25–54. Hart, S. (2009, June). Child participation—a human rights and development imperative. Paper presented at the Symposium on U.S. Ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Washington, DC. Hart, S., Price-Cohen, C., Farrell-Erickson, M., & Flekkoy, M. (2001). Children’s rights in education. Philadelphia, PA: Kingsley. Hawkins, J. D., & Fraser, M. W. (1983). Social support networks in delinquency prevention and treatment. In J. Whitaker & J. Garbarino (Eds.), Social support networks: Informal helping in the human services (pp. 333–352). New York, NY: Aldine. Howe, B. R. (2008). Children’s rights as crime prevention. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 16, 457–474. Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Polo-Tomas, M., & Taylor, A. (2007). Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from

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non-resilient maltreated children: A cumulative stressors model. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 231–253. Kimbrough-Melton, R. J., & Campbell, D. (2008). Strong communities for children: A communitywide approach to prevention of child abuse and neglect. Family & Community Health, 31, 100–112. Leffert, N., Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Sharma, A. R., Drake, D. R., & Blyth, D. A. (1998). Developmental assets: Measurement and prediction of risk behaviors among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 2, 209–230. Lerner, R. M., Brentano, C., Dowling, E. M., & Anderson, P. M. (2002). Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society. New Directions for Youth Development, 95, 11–30. Limber, S. P., & Flekkoy, M. G. (1995). The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: Its relevance for social scientists. Social Policy Report, 9, 1–15. Losel, F., & Bliesener, T. (1990). Resilience in adolescence: A study on the generalizability of protective factors. In K. Hurrelmann & F. Losel (Eds.), Health hazards in adolescence. New York, NY: de Gruyter. Melton, G. (1996). The child’s right to a family environment. American Psychologist, 51, 1234–1238. Melton, G. (2005a). Building humane communities respectful of children: The significance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. American Psychologist, 60, 918–926. Melton, G. (2005b). Treating children like people: A framework for research and advocacy. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 34, 646–657. Melton, G. (2008). Beyond balancing: Toward an integrated approach to children’s rights. Journal of Social Issues, 604, 903–920. Molnar, B. E., Cerda, M., Roberts, A. L., & Buka, S. L. (2008). Effects of neighborhood resources on aggressive and delinquent behaviors among urban youths. American Journal of Public Health, 98, 1086–1093. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2008). Statistical briefing book. Retrieved from http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov Petrosino, A., Turpin-Petrosino, C., & Buehler, J. (2003). Scared straight and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency: A systematic review of the randomized experimental evidence. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 589, 41–62. Roosevelt, E. (1958, March 27). In your hands: A guide for community action for the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paper

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presented at the United Nations General Assembly, New York, NY. Rutter, M. (1989). Pathways from childhood to adult life. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 23–51. Rutter, M., Moffitt, T. E., & Caspi, A. (2006). Geneenvironment interplay and psychopathology: Multiple varieties but real effects. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 226–261. Scales, P., & Leffert, N. (2004). Developmental assets: A synthesis of the scientific research on adolescent development. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute. Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 27–46. Search Institute. (2003). Unique strengths, shared strengths: Developmental assets of youth of color. Insights & Evidence, 1, 1–13. Retrieved from www .search-institute.org Shapiro, F., & Forrest, M. S. (2004). EMDR: The breakthrough therapy for overcoming anxiety, stress, and trauma. New York, NY: Basic Books. Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The development of the person: The

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Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tolan, P. (1996). How resilient is the concept of resilience? Community Psychologist, 4, 12–15. Tulkin, S. R. (1972). An analysis of the concept of cultural deprivation. Developmental Psychology, 6, 326–339. UNICEF. (1998). Juvenile justice. Innocenti Digest, 3. Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/s/ucf /inndig.html United Nations. (2000). World situation with regard to drug abuse, with particular reference to children and youth. Retrieved from www.odccp.org/pdf /document_2000-12-06_1.pdf United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). United Nations General Assembly Document A/RES/44/25. Retrieved from www .cirp.org Welsh, B. C., & Farrington, D. P. (2007). Preventing crime: What works for children, offenders, victims and places. New York, NY: Springer. Werner, E. E. (1982). Vulnerable but invincible: A longitudinal study of resilient children and youth. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

14

The Right to a Quality Education for Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice System K A T H L E E N B. B O U N D Y

AND

JOANNE KARGER

T

he duty to provide students an adequate and equitable public education rests largely with the states and depends on the education clause of the state constitution, and to a lesser extent, state legislation, such as compulsory education statutes and school finance laws. The nature and extent of the right to an adequate, quality public education, including in detention and juvenile correctional facilities for children and youth adjudicated delinquent or in need of supervision, varies from state to state based on an array of factors related to a complex web of federal and state laws and policies. Only 20 states recognize education as a fundamental right (usually grounded in the education clause of their state constitutions) that, barring a compelling state interest, guarantees all eligible school-age students a public education (Blumenson & Nilsen, 2003). Even in these states, the right to education for children and youth in delinquent facilities often translates into little more than the minimally required hours of class instruction and a fragmented, limited curriculum bearing little relationship to a quality education that prepares students for learning and using higher order skills so they may successfully

reintegrate into their communities. In too many states, the nature and extent of this education provided in delinquent facilities depends on the youth’s age, state of residence, status as a student with a disability in need of special education, the charge for which the youth was adjudicated, whether the youth was charged as a juvenile or an adult, and the youth’s placement. The first juvenile court, which marked the beginning of the juvenile justice system, was established in the late 19th century by reformers who believed that children could be rehabilitated because their behaviors and actions were attributable to immature stages of physical, mental, and moral development (Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899). Under the parens patriae doctrine, the state assumed the role of parent responsible for changing children’s behaviors and overseeing the correction of bad habits, lack of moral judgment, and poor values (Gilbert, Grimm, & Parnham, 2001). The focus on rehabilitation and reform continued to evolve, culminating in 1974 with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDP) (42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq.), which established the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)

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to support local and state delinquency prevention efforts to improve the system of juvenile justice. The beneficent intent of the statute, however, has been seriously limited by “zerotolerance” policies and a more punitive approach to juvenile-perpetrated crime as a result of a significant rise between 1988 and 1994 of primarily drug- and weapons–related violence in urban neighborhoods and schools (National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 2005). Changes were reflected in state and federal laws (e.g., Gun-Free Schools Act (20 U.S.C §7151)) and unduly harsh and inflexible school push-out policies and practices, which contributed to statistical disparities by race, ethnicity, low-income status, and disability among youth referred, adjudicated, detained, and incarcerated in the juvenile justice system. Given the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006; Twomey, 2008), the duty to educate school-age youth in delinquent facilities has been generally accepted as critical (Twomey, 2008) and is, to some extent, reflected in state laws (Griffin, Szymanski, & King 2006). A survey of the educational delivery systems across the states shows that they are uneven and inconsistent with the standards established by federal law (Blomberg, Pesta, & Valentine, 2008). While states have the authority to enact and implement legislation requiring higher standards than mandated by federal law, they must, at a minimum, meet the federal standards. This chapter sets forth the legal requirements for educating youth, primarily in delinquent facilities, based on two key federal laws: Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (20 U.S.C. §6301 et seq.), and the Individuals with

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Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. §1401 et seq.), both of which have been amended to embrace standards-based education reform. Looking through the lens of the right of all school-age youth to a quality education, we then analyze educational services to youth who are primarily being educated in delinquent facilities (i.e., detention and juvenile correctional facilities). We examine the education of these youth: (a) before involvement in the juvenile justice system, when “at-risk” youth are susceptible to school policies and practices that “push” them out of school and into the juvenile court system; (b) during confinement in detention or juvenile correctional facilities, when youth, both pre- and postadjudication, are denied quality education to which they are entitled due to various barriers that impede the effective delivery of educational services; and (c) after confinement in detention or juvenile correctional facilities, as they struggle to transition successfully back into school and reintegrate into their community.

CHARACTERISTICS OF YOUTH IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM During the 2007–2008 school year, approximately 272,943 youth received educational services in state and locally operated detention facilities, and approximately 99,915 youth were educated in juvenile correctional facilities, including secure and nonsecure facilities for adjudicated youth (Bardack, Seidel, & Lampron, 2010). Placements of youth in secure detention facilities are typically shorter than those in juvenile correctional facilities. Data collected by OJJDP (2008) indicate that only 15% of detained youth remain so after 60 days; by 90 days, less than 10% remain. In contrast, after one full year, 12% of committed

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youth remain confined, predominantly in juvenile correctional facilities. The overrepresentation of students of color, in particular African American males, in the juvenile justice system has been extensively documented (Bilchik, 2008; Gavazzi, Russell, & Khurana, 2009; Piquero, 2008). In 2008, while African Americans comprised 43% of the population of youth in juvenile detention and corrections facilities (Bardack et al., 2010), they comprised only 15% of youth in the general juvenile population (OJJDP, 2009). Approximately 84% of youth in detention and juvenile correctional facilities in 2008 were male (Bardack et al., 2010). Many explanations have been suggested for these racial/ ethnic disparities, including the impact of racial bias on the manner in which schools and the juvenile justice system process complaints against youth of color, particularly with respect to less serious offenses, and the confounding effects of race/ethnicity with other factors such as poverty (Piquero, 2008; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Students with disabilities are also disproportionately represented among delinquent youth. Quinn and colleagues found that approximately 33% of a national sample of youth in juvenile corrections facilities was identified as receiving special education services under IDEA (Quinn, Rutherford, Leone, Osher, & Poirier, 2005); of the disability categories represented, emotional disturbance accounted for the highest percentage (48%), with specific learning disabilities (39%) and mental retardation (10%) being the next most commonly identified. Research has also highlighted the prevalence of mental health disorders among youth in the juvenile justice system (Cocozza & Skowyra, 2000; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; see also Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume).

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THE FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR A QUALITY EDUCATION FOR DELINQUENT AND DETAINED YOUTH Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (20 U.S.C. §6301 et seq.), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. §1401 et seq.) are two key federal laws establishing quality education for all youth. Title I allocates funds for improving academic achievement of disadvantaged students, while IDEA does the same for students with disabilities. These statutes also provide specific funds for educating children and youth, whether in short- or long-term detention or juvenile correctional facilities. The funds are accompanied by mandates for state and local agencies, which, read in conjunction with federal civil rights statutes based on race, ethnicity, national origin, language, and disability, provide greater protection and critical handles for implementing and enforcing the rights of these children and youth to receive a high-quality public education (see Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Equal Educational Opportunities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973). Given the high rates of youth with disabilities and in need of special education among youth in the juvenile justice system, and a highly prescriptive federal statute, educational advocacy has focused almost exclusively on IDEA. However, Title I, Part A of ESEA/NCLB sets the bar for all students and all schools, and applies as well to youth in delinquent facilities. It is thus the essential starting point for assessing and improving the education these youth receive. In addition, Title I, Part D provides supplemental funding and obligations for educating neglected or delinquent youth.

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

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act As the largest federal education program, Title I Part A funds are distributed to schools based on the population of students from low-income families. More than 12 million eligible children and youth in about 48,000 schools receive services under the Title I basic grants ($14 billion) that are intended to help meet the educational needs of children and youth who are most at risk of failing to meet challenging state academic content and achievement standards. In addition, there are almost a half million “neglected” or “delinquent” children and youth, who are educated within their states’ child welfare or juvenile justice systems or who participate in programs serving students “at risk” of dropping out of school. These programs may also receive financial assistance to supplement their educational costs under Title I, Part D/NCLB, discussed below. Title I, Part A Regardless of state law variables, federal law requires that children and youth confined in detention or juvenile correctional facilities be provided a high-quality education offering them opportunities to achieve the same standards set for all public school students. Congress expressly declared that the purpose of Title I is “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and to reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments” (20 U.S.C. § 6301)(emphasis added; footnote omitted). States, school districts, and schools are expected to achieve this outcome by, among other requirements, “ensuring . . . curriculum and instructional materials are aligned with challenging State academic

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standards . . . ”; “meeting the educational needs of low-achieving children . . . neglected or delinquent children . . . ”; “providing children an enriched and accelerated educational program . . . ”; “ensuring the access of children to effective . . . instructional strategies and challenging academic content . . . ”; and “significantly elevating the quality of instruction by providing staff . . . with substantial opportunities for professional development . . . ”(20 U.S.C. § 6301). Furthermore, all public elementary and secondary schools and school districts (regardless of whether they receive Title I, Part A monies) are accountable for making sufficient, continuous improvement toward the goal of ensuring that all students reach “proficiency,” as defined by their respective state, by 2013–2014 (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2) (F)). The system for assessing and reporting on school achievement levels and for determining whether schools are, in fact, making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward that 100% goal includes state and locally operated correctional facilities serving children and youth adjudicated as delinquent or in need of supervision (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2)(B)). There are no exceptions. Title I, Part A sets out a basic framework, at the school, district, and state levels, for ensuring that all students, and disadvantaged students in particular, become proficient in the skills and knowledge identified in their state adopted standards of what all children should learn. As a condition of receiving these very substantial amounts of federal funding under Title I, Part A, each state educational agency (SEA) must have a single statewide system of accountability (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2)(A)) with a goal of reducing the achievement gap between higher and lower achieving students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, limited English proficiency,

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economic disadvantage, gender or disability (20 U.S.C. §§ 6301(2)–(3)). The Act requires states to set annual measurable outcomes (AMOs), including student performance and rates of participation on state assessments in English language arts and mathematics, and on academic indicators, such as attendance for elementary and middle schools, and graduation for high schools. These data must be reported in the aggregate and for each subgroup of students (race, ethnicity, low-income, English language learner, disability) (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(3)(C)(xiii)) to demonstrate progress in closing the achievement gap and to identify schools and districts that may need technical assistance in closing that gap (20 U.S.C. § 6311(j)). AYP is the term used to describe the AMO representing the percentage of students scoring at or above the proficient level necessary to meet the State established goal for 100% proficiency by 2013–2014 (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(3) (C) (xiii), at least 95% test participation by students in the school or district and in each subgroup, and the State target for high school graduation, or, for attendance or another indicator in elementary and middle schools (20 U.S C. §§ 6311(b)(2)(B), (C)). Schools and districts make AYP by meeting these criteria in the aggregate and separately for each subgroup (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(3)(C)(xiii)). Under Title I, Part A, schoolwide programs, targeted assistance school programs and local educational agencies serving eligible students, including those in programs for neglected or delinquent youth, must help students achieve the State learning goals by using effective methods and instructional strategies for addressing students’ particular learning needs, providing an accelerated, high-quality curriculum, while minimizing the removal of students from the regular classroom during regular school hours for

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instruction under this part. Each program must provide instruction by highly qualified teachers who receive ongoing professional development as well as effective interventions and instructional assistance for struggling learners (20 U.S.C. §§6314(b), 6315(c)). Title I/NCLB has a long reach. It requires the state system for assessing and reporting on schools’ achievement levels and for determining whether they are making AYP include all public schools in the state (whether or not they receive Title I, Part A funds); and sanctions for schools not making AYP over multiple years apply only to the Title I funded schools (20 U.S.C. § 6316; 20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2)(A)). Despite Title I’s extensive coverage, schoollevel accountability for the performance of particular subgroups (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities or students with disabilities with Individualized Education Programs [IEPs]), has been seriously compromised by a variety of practices. For example, some states adopt a minimum subgroup size (compare CA’s 100 with MD’s 5) for reporting performance outcomes that excludes far too many schools from the state accountability system. As a result, the subgroup is treated as meeting AYP despite all evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the mobility of youth in the juvenile justice system contributes to their not being “counted” for purposes of AYP accountability because, under the law, students/transferees not enrolled in the same school for a full school year are not “counted” (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(3)(C)(xi)). The mandate that each state adopt “challenging academic content standards and challenging student academic achievement standards that will be used by the State, its local educational agencies, and its schools [emphasis added]” (20 U.S.C. § 6311) applies to children and youth who have been adjudicated delinquent and are being educated within state institutional settings or in facilities

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

operated by local education agencies (LEAs). The state must have a strategy for ensuring that school-age youth who are adjudicated delinquents, or are otherwise detained because they are in need of supervision, are educated based on a curriculum aligned to these standards (20 U.S.C. § 6434(a)(2)(B)). These youth must be “taught the same knowledge and skills in such subjects and held to the same expectations as are all children” (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(1)(E)). Moreover, all teachers teaching core subjects must be “highly qualified,” that is, have a bachelor’s degree, state certification, and proven competence in each subject they teach (20 U.S.C. § 6311(h)(6)(A)(iii)).1 Each state must, under Title I, Part A, administer “high-quality, yearly student academic assessments” aligned with the academic content and achievement standards established for all students (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(3)(A)). These assessments, intended to make schools more accountable to families, are the primary means for measuring the yearly progress of the state, district, and school in enabling all children to reach proficient and advanced levels of mastery of the state’s academic standards (20 U.S.C. §6311(b)(3)(C)). The state and LEAs must issue annual report cards and provide other public reporting of school data and assessment results—disaggregated by race, economic disadvantage, ethnicity, disability, migrant status, and limited English proficiency— to allow a comparison between actual levels of achievement among each group and information on the performance of LEAs in making AYP (20 U.S.C. § 6311(h)(1)(C)).

1

In March 2004, the U.S. Department of Education introduced some flexibility in these requirements for science, multisubject teachers, and those teaching in rural areas.

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Title I, Part D In addition to the large basic grant under Title I, Part A, the majority of states receive supplemental educational funds for juvenile justice education programs from funds authorized under Title I, Part D of the ESEA, as amended by NCLB (20 U.S.C. § 6421 et seq.). Part D authorizes two separate program allocations, Subpart 1 for stateoperated programs and for which only state agencies may seek funding, and Subpart 2, for local programs and for which only LEAs are eligible for funding. Under Subpart 1 of Part D, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) provides federal assistance to SEAs to utilize or to award subgrants to other state agencies (SAs) that operate free education programs in institutions or community day programs for children and youth who are neglected, delinquent or “at risk” (20 U.S.C. § 6431). If an SA receiving Subpart 1 funds subcontracts with another SA, LEA, or private provider, the SA remains responsible for ensuring that the program providing educational services “operates in accordance with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements” (ED 2006, B-3). Part D funds supplement and do not supplant the required 20 hours of state-funded instructional programming that these students must, as a condition of Part D funding, already receive. With the exception of institution-wide projects to upgrade services for all children and youth in a neglect or delinquent institution (20 U.S.C. §6436), the SA can only use Part D, subpart 1 funds to assist those children and youth identified by the SA as failing, or at risk of failing, to meet the academic content and achievement standards set by the state for all students, and to supplement and improve the quality of educational services provided by the SA (20 U.S.C. §6435(a)(2)(B)(i)). Only LEAs are eligible for Subpart 2 subgrants under Title I, Part D, which are

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distributed by the SEA to LEAs with high numbers or percentages of children in locally operated correctional facilities for youth, including public or private institutions and community day programs serving delinquent youth who do not live in a facility (20 U.S. C. §6452(a)). All children and youth in local correctional facilities are eligible to be served using Subpart 2 funds through age 21. Subpart 2 funds support school districts’ programs that collaborate with locally operated correctional facilities to implement high-quality education programs to help youth prepare for secondary education completion, training, employment, or further education; to facilitate their transition from the correctional program to further education or employment; or to provide programs in local schools for children and youth returning from correctional programs and programs that serve youth “at risk” of dropping out of school. As the SA, if an LEA subcontracts with another entity to provide services, the LEA must exercise administrative control and assume responsibility for ensuring compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements (U.S. Department of Education, 2006, N-2). As described earlier, whether the SA responsible for educating delinquent youth is the SEA, or as is the case in many states, the Department of Juvenile Justice, or some other state agency, all state-operated schools (Subpart 1) and programs operated by LEAs (Subpart 2) that educate adjudicated youth who are placed in residential or day programs, fall under the umbrella of the single state accountability system for all public elementary and secondary schools required by Title I Part A (20 U.S.C. § 6311(b)(2)). In its statement of purpose Title I, Part D reaffirms the significance of education for youth within the juvenile justice system—that delinquent

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children and youth [need to] have the opportunity to meet the same challenging State academic content standards and challenging State student academic achievement standards that all children in the State are expected to meet; . . . the services needed to make a successful transition from institutionalization to further schooling or employment; and . . . a support system to ensure [the] continued education . . . [of] children and youth returning from correctional facilities or institutions for neglected or delinquent children and youth. . . . (20 U.S.C. § 6421) These goals underscore that delinquent youth participating in either Subpart 1 or Subpart 2 programs must receive at least the same level of education as those students in all other public schools. As a condition of a state’s receiving Part D funds from ED, each SEA must also submit a plan that is integrated with its Title I, Part A program and describes how the SEA will meet the educational needs of delinquent youth in order to effectuate their successful, seamless transition to continued education (20 U.S.C. § 6434(a)(1)). The state plan must ensure that youth in state and locally operated institutions or facilities “will have the same opportunities to achieve as such children would have if such children were in the schools of local educational agencies in the State” (20 U.S.C. § 6434(a)(2)(B) (emphasis added)). This choice of language suggests that these youth may expect to be educated as if they were enrolled in “targeted assisted” or “schoolwide” programs under Title I, Part A, which have a heightened level of responsibility to eligible students (see 20 U.S.C. §§ 6314, 6315). Students enrolled in either of these types of schools that receive Title I, Part A

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

funds must be provided an enriched, accelerated curriculum aligned to the State’s challenging academic standards set for all students; be effectively taught by highly qualified teachers to acquire knowledge and skills for higher order thinking; and receive effective interventions when they struggle to attain those standards (see 20 U.S.C. §§ 6314(b), 6315(c)). In addition, the required plan for obtaining a Part D grant must contain assurances by the SEA that any SA receiving a subgrant shall comply with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, including the explicit monitoring and oversight obligations of the SEA under IDEA and Title I as set forth in the state plan requirements of Title I, Part A (20 U.S.C. § 6434(a)(2)(C)). An SA seeking to receive a subgrant under Subpart 1 must similarly submit a plan to the SEA that describes how the SA will ensure that delinquent youth will be held to the same standards as all children and provided with the means to return to public school after exiting the delinquent facility or taught the skills necessary to enter the workforce (20 U.S.C. §§ 6434(b), 6435(a)(1)(B), 6438(a)(1)). By statute, the SA must reserve not less than 15% or more than 30% of its grant to support transition services for children and youth exiting state operated facilities to LEAs or, for those who have received a school diploma or a GED, to postsecondary education, or vocational and technical training programs, through strategies intended to prepare the youth for successful reentry into such programs (20 U.S.C. § 6438(a)(2)). An LEA seeking Subpart 2 funding from the SEA must also describe how participating schools will coordinate with locally operated correctional facilities to ensure that delinquent children are participating in an educational program comparable to the one operating in the local school such child would attend (20 U.S.C. §§ 6453(2), (3)). In addition, the application

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must describe how the program will involve parents in efforts to improve the educational achievement of their children and how participating schools will inform correctional facilities of a youth’s existing IEP for delivering special education services so as to help enable youth with disabilities to learn to the standards set for all (20 U.S.C. §§ 6453(8), (11), (12)). Finally, the SEA, as a condition of receiving funds from ED, must expressly assure that each SA or LEA conducting a program under Subpart 1 or 2 of Part D will evaluate the educational program, disaggregating data on participation by gender, race, ethnicity, and age at least every three years, to determine the program’s impact on participants’ ability to maintain and improve educational achievement; to accrue school credits that meet requirements for promotion and graduation; to make the transition to an LEA operated program; to otherwise complete secondary school; to obtain employment upon leaving the correctional facility; and, as appropriate, to participate in postsecondary education and job training (20 U.S.C. § 6471(a)). These results must be shared with ED and the SEA and be used to improve subsequent programs for participating youth (20 U.S.C. § 6471(d)). The SEA may choose to reduce or terminate funding under Subpart 1 and 2 if the SA or locally operated institutions fail to demonstrate that there has been an increase in students returning to school or obtaining diplomas or employment (20 U.S.C. § 6456(2)). The SEA may reduce or eliminate funding after three years for LEA projects for similar reasons (20 U.S.C. § 6456(1)). The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) IDEA, 20 U.S.C. §1400 et seq., originally enacted in 1975 and last amended in 2004, is both a funding statute and a civil rights statute

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that was passed under the 14th Amendment in response to the national failure to provide children with disabilities the “educational opportunity that had been long considered the right of every other American child” (121 Cong. Rec. S20427 (daily ed., Nov. 19, 1975) (statement of Sen. Randolph)). IDEA is also a federal grant-in-aid statute under which state and local education agencies receiving funding must have policies and procedures in effect to ensure compliance with the substantive and procedural requirements of the Act. IDEA embodies the constitutional principle established in two landmark cases that no child is too disabled, too emotionally disturbed, or too much of a behavior problem to be excluded from or denied his/her right to a public education (Mills v. District of Columbia Board of Education, 1972; Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1972). The Act contains an unequivocal directive to SEAs and LEAs to provide a full free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to every child with a disability, regardless of the severity, who is in need of special education and related services (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(1)(A), (3)(A)). It explicitly directs that children with disabilities who are wards of the state, which would encompass the majority of youth committed to the state as delinquents, and in need of special education and related services, be identified, located, and evaluated to ensure receipt of the programming and services they need (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(3)(A), (7)). IDEA requires SEAs and LEAs to provide specialized instruction, individually tailored to meet each child’s unique needs based on an IEP (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(1), (a)(4), 1401(29), 1414(d)). To ensure access to the same general education curriculum aligned to state standards established for all other students, each eligible student with a disability must be

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educated in the regular classroom with his/ her peers without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(5) (A), (B)). Procedural due process safeguards required under the act include parents’ right to complain about any matter concerning the identification, evaluation, educational placement or provision of FAPE, hearings, and appeals, as well as safeguards for student records related to this process (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(6), 1415). Finally, the SEA has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that all students with disabilities receive FAPE, and that LEAs, other public agencies, including state correctional agencies involved in educating children, and private schools or programs accepting publicly placed students comply with the Act (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(11)(A), (B)). This obligation includes: ensuring that all educational programs for children with disabilities, including those of LEAs and other state agencies (e.g., those responsible for educating delinquent youth or youth in need of supervision) meet the requirements of federal law (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(1), (2)); monitoring and evaluating IEPs, programs, and placements (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(4), (5)); ensuring that procedural safeguards are in effect (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(6)), including procedures for correcting deficiencies in programs that are identified through monitoring and evaluation (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(11), 1221e–3); and gathering data and annually reporting on youth served, including those in delinquent facilities (20 U.S.C. §§ 1416(b)(1), (2)(C), (f ), 1418(a), (b)). Students With Disabilities and the Juvenile Justice System Courts have made clear that eligible students with disabilities do not lose their substantive rights, procedural safeguards, or remedies provided under the IDEA because they have become involved with the

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

juvenile justice system (Alexander S. v. Boyd, 1995; Donnell C. v. Illinois State Board of Education, 1993; Green v. Johnson, 1981; Nashua School District v. State of New Hampshire, 1995; Smith v. Wheaton, 1998; Unified School District No. 1 v. Connecticut Department of Education, 2001). Under IDEA, the state is authorized to determine which public agency is responsible for funding special education programming and services for juveniles in delinquent facilities (20 U.S.C. §1412(a)(12)(B); 34 CFR §300.2(b)(iv)). Some states (e.g., Massachusetts) continue to hold the school district where the youth resided at the time of commitment responsible for funding incarcerated youth’s excess special education costs (Mass. Regs. Code tit. 603 § 28.06(9)). Other states, such as Connecticut, create a separate LEA/ intermediate district for the delivery of education, including special education, to all incarcerated/detained youth (State of Connecticut–Unified School District #1 v. Department of Education, 1996). Still others, such as New Hampshire, make local school districts responsible for conducting comprehensive evaluations, convening IEP meetings, and developing IEPs for incarcerated youth in need of special education (Nashua School District v. State of New Hampshire, 1995). Every eligible child or youth through 21 years, who has 1 of 13 categorical disabilities and is in need of special education (20 U.S.C.§1401(3)(A)), has a right to receive FAPE and to receive specialized instruction and necessary developmental, supportive, and corrective services, and to be provided a curriculum aligned to state standards (20 U.S.C.§ 1401(3)(A)), whether the child is enrolled in a public school or, pending or subsequent to adjudication, placed in detention or in a juvenile correctional facility (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(2); see also Alexander S. v.

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Boyd, 1995; Donnell C. v. Illinois State Board of Education, 1993; Green v. Johnson,1981; Smith v. Wheaton,1998). Eligible students with disabilities, including those not previously identified as needing special education and/or related services (e.g., psychological or other mental health services) and those who are “highly mobile” (34 CFR § 300.111(c)(2)) must be properly referred, identified (20 USC § 1412(a)(3)) and evaluated using valid and comprehensive assessments (20 USC §§ 1414(a), (b)) to determine their disability related educational and noneducational needs. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has determined that SEAs and LEAs must include in their “child find” systems those incarcerated youth who would be eligible to receive FAPE (Letter to Yudien, 2003). To facilitate timely implementation or development of a student’s IEP, transferor schools must release school records to juvenile detention facilities, even in the absence of parental consent (Alexander S. v. Boyd, 1995; Smith v Wheaton, 1998). Through changes to the statute in 2004, IDEA became more closely aligned with the requirements of Title I, Part A/NCLB (described above). As a result, all students with disabilities—including those youth in delinquent facilities—are expressly required to be provided effective instruction and a full, meaningful opportunity to attain their respective states’ academic content and achievement standards. Each eligible youth with a disability has a right to a FAPE that consists of specialized instruction and supportive services, consistent with his/her IEP and designed to deliver academic programming and instruction that meet the SEA’s standards (including state established academic content and achievement standards required by Title I, Part A) (20 U.S.C. §§ 1401(9), 1412(a)(1)(A), 1414(d),(1)(A)(i)(II), (IV)(bb).

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IDEA 2004, as amended, expressly requires that state performance goals for children with disabilities be “the same as the State’s definition of adequate yearly progress, including the State’s objectives for progress by children with disabilities under section 6311(b)(2) [Title I/NCLB]” (20 USC § 1412(a)(15)). States are required to assess the progress of all youth with disabilities, including those in delinquent facilities (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(16) (A)–(C)), and the assessment results must be capable of being disaggregated so that the performance of students with disabilities on all general state and districtwide assessments, including those required under section 6311 of Title I may be compared to that of their peers, with and without disabilities, inside and outside of the juvenile justice system (20 USC § 1412(a)(16)(D)). Once it is determined that a child has a disability and needs special education and related services, a written IEP must be developed (20 USC § 1414(d)), containing a statement of all services needed by the child, not just those that are available within the school or juvenile justice facility (20 U.S.C. § 1401(9)(D). Given the increased cohesion between IDEA and NCLB, IEPs must be used as tools for enabling children with disabilities to learn what all children are expected to learn by aligning the IEP with the general education curriculum. With limited exceptions, students’ IEPs should be “standards-based,” that is, linking the individual student’s goals with the state standards for all students under Title I. Courts have required the responsible public agency to convene a meeting to develop the IEP at the beginning of the detention period for an eligible youth in need of special education and related services in order to meet the youth’s disability related needs in a timely manner (see, e.g., Alexander S. v. Boyd, 1995;

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State of Connecticut–Unified School District 1 v. Department of Education, 1996). When a youth with an IEP transfers from one public agency within a state to another (e.g., local public school to a juvenile correctional facility), the new placement must provide comparable services to those set forth in the latest IEP until the new agency either adopts the youth’s prior IEP or develops, adopts, and implements a new IEP (34 CFR § 300.323(e)). The responsible public agency generally must convene an IEP meeting to develop an IEP at the beginning of the period of detention, and failure to do so can result in an order for compensatory education (State of Connecticut–Unified School District 1 v. Department of Education, 1996). However, public agencies detaining youth for short-term stays (rarely more than 21 days) have been relieved by the courts of this IEP-related obligation (see, e.g., Alexander S. v. Boyd, 1995), though correctional personnel were required to implement the most recently approved IEPs to the extent possible while students remained in that temporary placement. All eligible students have a right to receive appropriate educational programming and developmental, supportive, and corrective services necessary to address their disability related needs, both academic and nonacademic (e.g., those relating to emotional and behavioral matters or substance abuse, consistent with their IEP) (20 U.S.C. §§ 1412(a)(1), 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(II)). IDEA defines special education as “specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parent or guardians, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability” (20 U.S.C. § 1401(29)). The statutory term unique needs has been construed broadly to include “academic, social, health, emotional, communicative, physical and vocational needs” (Seattle School District No. 1 v. B.S., 1996, p. 1500). “[E]ducation . . .

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

embodies . . . a broad range of associated services traditionally grouped under the general rubric of ‘treatment.’” (Babb v. Knox County School System, 1992, p. 109, citing Tilton v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 1983, p. 803). “Related services” necessary for the youth to benefit from special education mean “such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services” including, but not limited to, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, parent counseling and training (20 U.S.C.§ 1401(26); 34 C.F.R.§ 300.24). To address the educational and other needs of a child or youth with a disability whose behavior has resulted in his or her being excluded from public school, adjudicated, and placed in a delinquent facility, schools must provide a comprehensive range of programming and services. IEP teams must consider and address special factors relating to potential educational need, in particular, whether a child’s behavior impedes his/her learning or the learning of others. If yes, the team must consider “the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports, and other strategies, to address that behavior” (20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(3)(B)(i)). The court in Smith v. Wheaton stated that “equipping disabled children with the skills and ability to function outside of an institution and, if possible, within the mainstream of society, is a goal of the IDEA . . . ” and noted, that “an ‘appropriate’ education for a child . . . is one that gives him a reasonable chance to acquire the skills that he needs to function outside of an institution” (1998; emphasis added, citing Rettig v. Kent,1981, p. 777). Significantly, the court also held that delinquent youth require FAPE upon their discharge and reentry into the community; without such a seamless system for support, the risk is high that they will drop out of school and/or recidivate back into delinquency.

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EDUCATION OF YOUTH BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER CONFINEMENT IN JUVENILE DELINQUENT FACILITIES Next, we provide a conceptual framework for analyzing the provision of educational services to youth before, during, and after confinement in detention and juvenile correctional facilities. The framework consists of three interconnected phases: The first, the education of youth before any involvement with the juvenile courts, discusses the relationship between prior educational experience and subsequent involvement with the juvenile justice system. This phase addresses school policies and practices that “push” youth out of school and into the juvenile justice system, a phenomenon that is commonly referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline (Advancement Project, 2005; American Civil Liberties Union, 2008; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 2005; Wald & Losen, 2003; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). The second phase, the education of youth during confinement pre- and postadjudication in delinquent facilities, discusses barriers impeding delivery of high-quality educational services to these youth as well as models that have been shown to be effective. The third phase, the education of youth after confinement, focuses on the process of transitioning and reintegrating youth who have exited delinquent facilities back into school and the community. Failure to reintegrate youth successfully into school and/or community leads to a cycle of recidivism (Brock & Keegan, 2007; Mears & Travis, 2004; see also Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume).

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Phase 1: Education of Youth Before Involvement With the Juvenile Court System: School Push-out Policies and Practices Creating the School-to-Prison Pipeline The school-to-prison pipeline is the result of a combination of school policies and practices that “push” youth, who are disproportionately students of color and from low-income backgrounds, out of school and into the juvenile justice system. These policies and practices include: (a) constructive exclusion from highquality educational opportunities; (b) excessive disciplinary exclusion; and (c) criminalization of minor, school-related behavior through inappropriate referral to law enforcement or juvenile court. Constructive Exclusion From HighQuality Educational Opportunities The relationship between prior school failure and subsequent involvement in the juvenile justice system has been well documented. Youth who enter the juvenile justice system are more likely to have received lower and failing grades, to have poor school attendance, and to have been retained in grade (Foley, 2001; Wang, Blomberg, & Li, 2005). These youth usually function below grade level, manifesting deficits in reading and mathematics (Baltodano, Harris, & Rutherford, 2005; Foley, 2001; Krezmien, Mulcahy, & Leone, 2008). In a review of educational studies, Foley (2001) noted that the academic achievement of delinquent youth fell between the fifth- and ninth-grade levels. Approximately 21% of youth who enter the juvenile justice system are not enrolled in public school, a rate more than four times that of youth in the general population (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). The low academic achievement of youth entering the juvenile justice system reflects the

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fact that they are likely to have experienced a history of educational opportunities far below the level of quality to which they are entitled under the law. Schools with high concentrations of low-income children tend to provide lower quality instruction by teachers who lack sufficient skills to prepare students for today’s labor market (Murnane, 2007). Moreover, schools with large percentages of racial and ethnic minority students tend to implement policies and practices that perpetuate educational inequities and reinforce the stereotyping of students (Smith, 2009). Such policies and practices include the assignment of students to low-level classes through tracking (McCord, Widom, & Crowell, 2001; Oakes, 1987), the overidentification of students of color in special education classes, in particular African American males, and the underrepresentation of students of color in advanced placement classes with a college preparatory curriculum (NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 2005; Smith, 2009). The inferior nature of the educational experiences of many low-income students, who are disproportionately youth of color, constructively excludes them from highquality learning opportunities and may lead to their dropping out of school, which in turn is associated with other negative outcomes, including, ultimately, incarceration in the adult prison system (Harlow, 2003). Excessive Disciplinary Exclusion The overzealous use of zero-tolerance discipline policies is another type of school push-out with implications for youth entering the juvenile justice system. Zero tolerance refers to a “one-size-fits-all” approach to discipline that mandates predetermined, punitive consequences—suspension and expulsion— applied without consideration of attendant circumstances (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force [APA],

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

2008; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). Although the use of suspension and expulsion as a means of punishment is viewed as ineffective in helping students change problematic behavior or in making the school environment safer (American Bar Association [ABA], 2009; APA, 2008; Skiba, 2000), states and school districts have broadened the reach of zero tolerance to include additional offenses, sometimes minor in nature, making zero tolerance more commonplace in the public schools (Browne, 2003; Skiba, 2000). Students suspended from school are more likely to drop out (DeRidder, 1991; Eckstrom, Goertz, Pollack, & Rock, 1986; Raffaele Mendez & Knoff, 2003), in part because they miss out on important classroom instruction and assignments and fall further behind in their work (Advancement Project & Civil Rights Project, 2000). Disciplinary exclusions may also provide students with long periods of time without adult supervision, during which they can become involved with other delinquent youth (ABA, 2009; Skiba & Peterson, 1999). Sixty-one percent of youth in delinquent facilities report having been expelled or suspended from school during the year prior to their entering the facility (Sedlak & McPherson, 2010). Moreover, school discipline policies have a disproportionate impact on students of color, in particular African American males, and students with disabilities (ABA, 2009). African American males receive expulsions at 3 times the rate of their White male peers (Schott Foundation, 2010). Students of color are also excluded more frequently for minor offenses (e.g., disobedience and disrespect), which are subjective and easily affected by racial bias (ABA, 2009; Advancement Project & Civil Rights Project, 2000). Disciplinary exclusions also tend to have a disproportionate

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effect on students with disabilities (Zhang, Katsiyannis, & Herbst, 2004), who are often punished for behavior related to their disability, in violation of IDEA and Section 504. According to a recent longitudinal study, one third of students with disabilities had been suspended or expelled at some time during their school experience. Students with emotional disturbance received the greatest number of exclusions; 63% experienced disciplinary action in one school year, with the average being seven incidents per student per year (SRI International, 2006). Criminalization of Minor, School-Related Behavior A third school push-out factor stems from the increased presence of schoolbased police officers, which has led to a greater number of student arrests for minor offenses that could be more appropriately addressed within the school as well as constitutional concerns regarding the questioning of students and the searching of students’ personal items (Advancement Project, 2005; New York Civil Liberties Union, 2007). School-based arrests are often made for vaguely defined offenses such as “disrupting public schools” or “disturbing school assembly,” which can apply to a broad range of school-related behavior (Wald & Thurau, 2010). Schools also criminalize behavior by filing petitions for truancy or excessive absenteeism, despite the fact that truancy has been found to be associated with an increased likelihood of dropping out and becoming involved with the juvenile justice and adult prison systems (Smink & Heilbrunn, 2005). Students with disabilities tend to be particular targets of inappropriate school-based referrals to law enforcement (ABA, 2009). Although the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA included the provision that “[n]othing in this part shall be construed to prohibit an agency

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from reporting a crime committed by a child with a disability to appropriate authorities . . . ” (20 U.S.C. § 1415(k)(9)(A) (1997)) (current version at 20 U.S.C. § 1415(k)(6) (A)), the legislative history makes clear that referrals to law enforcement are not to be made as a means to circumvent the obligations of the school district under IDEA (143 Cong. Rec. S4403 (daily ed. May 14, 1997) (statement of Sen. Harkin)). IDEA requires districts to address the behavior of students with disabilities as an education issue by providing appropriate services and supports that address the needs of the student (Morgan v. Chris L., 1997). School-based referrals to law enforcement may also constitute discrimination under Section 504 (29 U.S.C. § 794). Phase 2: Education of Youth During Confinement in Delinquent Facilities: Barriers Impeding the Effective Delivery of Quality Education and Model Practices Although youth inside detention or juvenile correctional facilities have a right to the same quality education as their peers in the general population, the reality is that delinquent youth typically do not receive high-quality educational opportunities consistent with the academic standards set for all. The provision of educational services to youth confined in detention and juvenile correctional facilities is examined under the following five categories: (1) curriculum aligned to state standards and effective instruction, (2) highly qualified teachers, (3) monitoring and accountability, (4) supports addressing the individualized needs of students, and (5) governance and organizational structure. Curriculum Aligned to State Standards and Effective Instruction Although states are required to ensure that all school-age youth

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are provided meaningful opportunities to participate in a curriculum that is aligned to the state’s high academic content and achievement standards, in practice, the curriculum that is provided to youth in delinquent facilities is often based on limited expectations. Approximately one third of juvenile correctional principals participating in a national survey reported that the instructional materials used in their facilities were only “somewhat, very little, or not at all aligned with state assessments” (Gagnon, Barber, Van Loan, & Leone, 2009, p. 688); and more than one third indicated that they receive little supervision in aligning curricula with state assessments and limited professional development to promote such alignment. Furthermore, more than 50% of the principals reported that they believed that “grade level expectations should not apply to all students with LD and EBD in their schools” (p. 685, emphasis in original). In addition to low expectations and lack of alignment of the curriculum with grade level standards, the education programs in these facilities often lack effective instruction, particularly in reading and mathematics (Leone, Krezmien, Mason, & Meisel, 2005; Maccini, Gagnon, Mulcahy, & Leone, 2006). Instruction in delinquent facilities tends to provide mainly low-level seatwork, in which unengaged students work mechanically on worksheets and workbooks (Howell & Wolford, 2002; Leone & Cutting, 2004), and which has been characterized as promoting “inactivity, boredom (for students and teachers), limited emphasis on learning, and little true individualization” (Howell & Wolford, 2002, p. 14). The lack of differentiated instruction is particularly problematic because the students typically represent a wide range of ages and academic levels (Houchins, PuckettPatterson, Crosby, Shippen, & Jolivette, 2009; Leone & Cutting, 2004). Vocational

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

education (Wilson, 1994), arts programming (Williams, 2008), and the use of computers/ technology (McIntyre, Tong, & Perez, 2001) are also limited, although the benefits to delinquent youth have been documented (McIntyre, Tong, & Perez, 2001; Williams, 2008; Wilson, 1994). Highly Qualified Teachers SEAs receiving funds under Title I, Part A must develop a plan to ensure that all teachers teaching the core academic subjects are highly qualified; however, data collected by the Juvenile Justice No Child Left Behind Collaboration Project (NCLB Project) indicate that many states are not fully meeting these requirements with respect to the teachers in their juvenile justice education programs. In 2006, although 14 states out of 44 reported that more than 90% of the classes in their juvenile justice education programs were taught by teachers satisfying the highly qualified requirements, four states reported that less than 50% of their teachers were highly qualified, and 10 reported that they do not require their teachers to meet the highly qualified criteria. According to data collected the following year (2007), 5 states out of 42 (12%) reported that all of their juvenile justice education programs were exempt from the highly qualified requirements, and an additional 11 states (26%) indicated that they had an exemption for certain kinds of juvenile justice programs (Blomberg, Pesta, & Valentine, 2008). Thus, it appears that a combined 38% of the states were in noncompliance. Monitoring and Accountability As a condition of receiving Title I, Part D funds, the SEA must provide assurances that each SA or LEA that conducts a program under Subpart 1 or 2, respectively, evaluates its educational program at least every three years. There is

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no requirement, however, that the evaluation data be posted publicly, and, consequently, it is difficult to determine compliance. According to data collected in 2006 as part of the NCLB Project, 30 of the 42 responding states reported using a formal evaluation instrument to monitor their juvenile justice education programs. The majority of these states indicated that they developed their own instruments for these evaluations, while 13 states used the performance-based standards that were developed by OJJDP and made available through the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (Blomberg, Pesta, & Valentine, 2008). No further information, however, is provided in the NCLB Project report as to the nature or contents of the evaluations. Moreover, while the report found that 37 of the 42 responding states indicated that they conduct an evaluation at least once every three years (in accordance with Title I, Part D), five states are not in compliance with this requirement (Blomberg, Pesta, & Valentine, 2008). Further evidence of insufficient monitoring of delinquent facilities’ compliance with Title I, Part D is the fact that some states use accreditation as a tool for monitoring (Blomberg, Pesta, & Valentine, 2008), even though accreditation may resemble mere licensing practices and may have little impact on curriculum policies (Gagnon et al., 2009). Supports Addressing the Individualized Needs of Students All students with disabilities in need of special education and related services under IDEA, including those in detention and in juvenile correctional facilities, must be identified, located, and evaluated appropriately. Once identified as eligible under IDEA, these students are entitled to receive appropriate programming and supports as specified in their IEPs. Large numbers of youth with disabilities in delinquent facilities,

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however, receive inadequate special education programming and services (Burrell & Warboys, 2000: Leone, 1994; Leone, Meisel, & Drakeford, 2002). Violations by these facilities include the failure to: locate, evaluate, and identify eligible students with disabilities; develop appropriate IEPs and convene IEP teams; implement IEPs; provide related services, including speech/language and mental health/counseling; and provide appropriate transition planning and services. In light of the overrepresentation of students of color and English language learners (ELLs) in delinquent facilities, it is also imperative for teachers to use teaching practices that take into account the manner in which students’ own experiences and cultures impact their learning (Harris, Baltodano, Artiles, & Rutherford, 2006). These practices are especially important when the teachers do not reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of their students (Spry, 2003). Delinquent facilities also need to provide appropriate language and literacy instruction for ELLs, particularly for older students, who have had a shorter period of time in which to gain basic skills in English while also trying to master complex content (Collier & Thomas, 2001; see also Ruiz-deVelasco, Fix, & Clewell, 2000). Moreover, detention and juvenile correctional facilities have an obligation to address the behavioral challenges of students with disabilities as an education issue. One strategy for addressing behavior in delinquent facilities that has begun to receive more attention is the use of positive behavior supports (PBS) (Gagnon, Rockwell, & Scott, 2008; Houchins, Jolivette, Wessendorf, McGlynn, & Nelson, 2005; Scott et al., 2002). In contrast to typical behavioral programs in delinquent facilities that focus on the use of a point system and/ or psychopharmacologic treatment, PBS utilizes a three-tiered model that emphasizes a

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proactive and preventive approach to addressing behavior (Gagnon et al., 2008). The first tier provides behavioral expectations for all students, while the second and third tiers provide more targeted and intensive interventions for youth who need them (Houchins et al., 2005). The use of “wraparound” services, which encompass a range of community-based supports and services to help youth and their families, has also been shown to result in improved behavior on the part of delinquent youth (Leone, Quinn, & Osher, 2002). Similarly, the utilization of “restorative justice,” an approach that focuses on repairing the harm caused by an alleged incident by engaging all those affected in determining an appropriate resolution, is associated with a reduction in recidivism (Bradshaw & Roseborough, 2005; Ryals, 2004). Governance and Organizational Structure The governing and organizational structures of educational programs in delinquent facilities may further hinder the delivery of high-quality learning opportunities by the bifurcation of responsibility for general and special education between two different state agencies, the privatization of the system used for the education of detained and committed youth, and the lack of collaboration and coordination between teaching and other facility personnel. In some states, the responsibility for governance and oversight of confined youth is divided between two state agencies, usually correctional and educational, which operate, for the most part, independently of one another. For example, in Massachusetts the correctional agency is responsible for the overall provision of education to youth involved in the juvenile justice system, while the educational agency is responsible for the education of youth with disabilities eligible under IDEA

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

or Section 504 (Blomberg & Pesta, 2008). The existence of two separate systems may lead to a lack of coordination, a blurring of roles and responsibilities, serious administrative delays, and an obfuscation of accountability (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). Moreover, an organizational structure that separates out the education of youth with disabilities is particularly problematic as it serves to perpetuate the artificial divide between general education students and the large percentage of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice population. An additional challenge relates to the increasing privatization of the system for delivering education to delinquent youth (Platt, Casey, & Faessel, 2006). A private organization, for example, may try to argue that it is not obligated to comply with the highly qualified teacher requirements, opting to hire, instead, less experienced teachers who do not have a background in the appropriate content areas but could save the institution money. An SA, however, may not circumvent its legal obligations with respect to the education of delinquent youth. The U.S. Department of Education stated in its Title I, Part D nonregulatory guidance that if an SA subcontracts with a private provider under Subpart 1, the SA remains responsible for ensuring that the program “operates in accordance with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements” (B-3). The lack of collaboration and coordination between teaching and security personnel in delinquent facilities results in confusion of roles and functions of key staff and creates a degree of tension that is detrimental to the provision of effective educational services (Houchins et al., 2009; Leone et al., 2005). This tension is also evident in the constant disruption of classroom instruction by the

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frequent movement of youth in and out of class for noninstructional purposes such as disciplinary matters or counseling and other clinical supports (Houchins et al., 2009; Howell & Wolford, 2002; Leone et al., 2005). Phase 3: Education of Youth After Confinement in Delinquent Facilities: Transition and Reintegration of Youth Into School and the Community Transition services and planning for youth exiting delinquent facilities to ensure their continued education and successful reintegration into the community is a major priority under Title I, Part D. In addition, students with disabilities have a right to transition services under IDEA to help them reach measurable postsecondary goals as specified in their IEPs. Despite these legal requirements, however, youth who exit delinquent facilities and seek to reenter school face many obstacles (Brock & Keegan, 2007; Mears & Travis, 2004; Stephens & Arnette, 2000; see also Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). In a study examining the enrollment status of youth in Chicago who had exited delinquent facilities between 1997 and 2003, Cusick, Goerge, and Bell (2008) found that 57% of those who had been enrolled in school prior to confinement were no longer enrolled in school after being released. Research has also demonstrated a strong relationship between low academic achievement and recidivism (Katsiyannis & Archwamety, 1997; Katsiyannis, Ryan, Zhang, & Spann, 2008). Bullis, Yovanoff, and Havel (2004) found that youth who were engaged in school and/or work within 6 months of exiting a juvenile delinquent facility were more likely to be engaged in such activities after 12 months, and less likely to reoffend; in addition, if youth did not return to a juvenile

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delinquent facility within 12 months of exiting, it was extremely unlikely that they would return at a later date. They therefore concluded that “getting started right” upon release from a delinquent facility was imperative (Bullis et al., 2004, p. 91). Barriers identified as impeding successful reentry include: fragmented service delivery from multiple agencies with confusing lines of communication and responsibility; lack of coordination between the delinquent facility and the local school; lack of effective policies and practices to promote the smooth reentry of youth into school; delays in the transfer of student records; and failure of the local school to accept academic credit received during incarceration (Baltodano, Mathur, & Rutherford, 2005; Brock & Keegan, 2007; Mears & Travis, 2004; Stephens & Arnette, 2000). The goal of effective transition services should be to create a seamless system of support beginning long before the youth exits the delinquent facility and continuing for a period of time after the departure. An OJJDP report highlighted “the importance of preparing youth for progressively increased responsibility and freedom in the community, facilitating youth–community interaction and involvement, linking the offender with community support systems, and monitoring youth progress” (Stephens & Arnette, 2000, p. 4). Several states have enacted legislation and issued regulations addressing the provision of transition services to youth moving out of detention or juvenile correctional facilities (Spain, n.d.). For example, under Florida law, school districts are required to negotiate an agreement with the Department of Juvenile Justice that includes, among other elements, “transition plans” for youth moving into and out of juvenile facilities (Fla. Stat. Ann. § 1003.52(13)(i)). Florida has further issued a rule clarifying the required contents of such

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transition plans as well as the roles and responsibilities of personnel for transition activities (Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r.6A-6.05281(5)). Similarly, Maine law requires the public school superintendent to establish a “reintegration team,” consisting of school personnel and the youth’s parent, to implement reintegration planning (Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 20-A, § 1055(12)). Academic continuity is a particularly difficult issue for youth reentering public school and has become an area of legislative intervention (Spain, n.d.). For example, Kentucky requires that an “educational passport” be prepared within two days of a youth’s exiting a state agency facility (Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 158.137(2)). States have also clarified the appropriate development of individual transition planning. For example, West Virginia requires that a youth’s “aftercare plan” include “a detailed description of the education, counseling and treatment which the juvenile received while at the institution or facility” and “a plan for education, counseling and treatment for the juvenile upon the juvenile’s discharge” (W. Va. Code § 49-5-20 (b)). The aftercare plan must be shared with the youth’s parents, lawyer, probation officer/ mental health center professional, prosecuting attorney, and principal of the school that the youth will attend after release (W. Va. Code § 49-5-20(a)). Missouri’s aftercare program also has some positive features. Before a youth leaves the delinquent facility, he or she begins to participate in transition meetings with a service coordinator to plan for the youth’s aftercare placement (Mo. Code Regs. Ann. tit. 13, § 110-3.010(1)(A)(5)). Following the youth’s release, a college student serves as a “tracker” to monitor the youth’s activities and to help with the youth’s transition back into the community. To further assist with reintegration,

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

many facilities have programs in which youth can interact with their communities by working at local homeless shelters, senior centers, hospitals, and children’s mental health facilities (Abrams, 2005; Missouri’s Division of Youth Services, 2003).

CONCLUSIONS Youth confined in detention and juvenile correctional facilities do not lose their legal rights to receive a high-quality public education. Indeed, the mandates for state and local agencies under Title I/NCLB and IDEA, when read in conjunction with federal civil rights statutes based on race, national origin, language, disability, and gender, provide strong legal handles for implementing and enforcing these educational rights. While there has been some case law pertaining to the education of students with disabilities within these facilities, the cases have not adequately targeted the failure of states to meet the substantive obligations under Title I and IDEA to provide all youth a high-quality education consistent with state standards. Challenges to serving youth within these institutions abound. The failure to implement and enforce the requirements of Title I and IDEA, both in public schools educating youth prior to incarceration and in juvenile justice facilities serving these youth, is disturbing and is exacerbated by the laissez-faire attitude of those responsible for oversight, monitoring, and enforcement. Furthermore, the public education and juvenile justice systems have become intricately linked by the school-toprison pipeline, from which it is difficult for youth, who are disproportionately students of color and from low-income backgrounds, to become disentangled. Moreover, elements of the organizational structure of juvenile justice systems play a role in obfuscating the

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responsibility to educate, as does an underlying belief that these youth are somehow less worthy and/or less capable than are youth in the general population. Notwithstanding these barriers, model practices have been identified; those that prepare youth, in advance, for their transition back into schools and their communities, and provide ongoing support for reentry, appear particularly promising.

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disabilities in juvenile corrections: A national survey. Exceptional Children, 71(3), 339–345. Raffaele Mendez, L. M., & Knoff, H. M. (2003). Who gets suspended from school and why: A demographic analysis of schools and disciplinary infractions in a large school district. Education and Treatment of Children, 26(1), 30–51. Rettig v. Kent, 539 F. Supp. 768 (N. D. Ohio 1981), aff’d in part, vacated in part, 720 F. 2d 463 (6th Cir. 1983), cert. denied 467 U. S. 1201 (1984). Ruiz-de-Velasco, J., Fix, M. E., & Clewell, B. C. (2000). Overlooked and underserved: Immigrant students in U.S. secondary schools. (Research Report). Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Ryals, J. S. (2004). Restorative justice: New horizons in juvenile offender counseling. Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling, 25, 18–25. Schott Foundation for Public Education (2010). Yes we can: The Schott 50 state report on public education and black males (National Summary). Retrieved from http://blackboysreport.org/bbreport.pdf Scott, T. M., Nelson, C. M., Liaupsin, C. J., Jolivette, K., Christle, C. A., & Riney, M. (2002). Addressing the needs of at-risk and adjudicated youth through positive behavior support: Effective prevention practices. Education and Treatment of Children, 25(4), 532–551. Seattle School District, No. 1 v. B.S., 82 F.3d 1493, 1500 (9th Cir. 1996). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794. Sedlak, A. J., & McPherson, K. S. (2010). Youth’s needs and services: Findings from the survey of youth in residential placement. (Juvenile Justice Bulletin NCJ 227728). Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. Skiba, R. J. (2000). Zero tolerance, zero evidence: An analysis of school disciplinary practice (Policy Research Report #SRS2). Bloomington, IN: Indiana Education Policy Center. Retrieved from www .indiana.edu/safeschl/ztze.pdf Skiba, R., & Peterson, R. (1999). The dark side of zero tolerance: Can punishment lead to safe schools? Phi Delta Kappan, 80(5), 372–376, 381–382. Smink, J., & Heilbrunn, J. Z. (2005) Legal and economic implications of truancy. (Truancy Prevention in Action Series Monograph). Clemson, SC: National Dropout Prevention Center/Network, Clemson University.

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Smith v. Wheaton, 29 IDELR 200 (D. Conn. 1998). Smith, C. D. (2009). Deconstructing the pipeline: Evaluating school-to-prison pipeline equal protection cases through a structural racism framework. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 36, 1009–1049. Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 national report. Washington DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. Spain, A. (n.d.). State legislation strengthening transition. Washington, DC: National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk. Retrieved from www.neglected-delinquent .org/nd/resources/trans_strength.asp Spry, S. A. (2003). Making diversity in correctional education classrooms work for correctional educators and incarcerated students and workers. Journal of Correctional Education, 54(2), 75–78. SRI International. (2006). National longitudinal transition study 2, facts from NLTS2: School behavior and disciplinary experiences of youth with disabilities. Retrieved from www.nlts2.org/fact_sheets/nlts2_fact_sheet _2006_03.pdf State of Connecticut-Unified School District #1 v. Department of Education, 24 IDELR 685 (Conn. Super. Ct. 1996). Stephens, R. D., & Arnette, J. L. (2000). From the courthouse to the schoolhouse: Making successful transitions. (Juvenile Justice Bulletin NCJ 178900). Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. Teplin, L. A., Abram, K. M., McClelland, G. M., Dulcan, M. K., & Mericle, A. A. (2002). Psychiatric disorders in youth in juvenile detention. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59(12), 1133–1143. Tilton v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 705 F.2d 800 (6th Cir. 1983), cert. denied 465 U.S. 1006 (1984). Twomey, K. (2008). The right to education in juvenile detention under state constitutions. Virginia Law Review, 94, 765–811. Unified School District No. 1 v. Connecticut Department of Education, 780 A.2d 154 (Conn. App. 2001).

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U.S. Department of Education (2004). New No Child Left Behind flexibility: Highly qualified teachers (fact sheet). Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/nclb/methods/teachers/hqt flexibility.pdf U.S. Department of Education (2006). Title I, Part D: Neglected, delinquent, and at-risk youth: Prevention and intervention programs for children and youth who are neglected, delinquent, or at-risk (N or D) (nonregulatory guidance). Washington, DC: Author. Wald, J., & Losen, D. J. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. In J. Wald & D. J. Losen (Eds.), Deconstructing the school-to-prison pipeline: New directions for youth development, No. 99. (pp. 9–15). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wald, J. & Thurau, L. (2010). First, do no harm: How educators and police can work together more effectively to preserve school safety and protect vulnerable students (A CHHIRJ Policy Brief ). Cambridge, MA: Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School. Wang, X., Blomberg, T. G., & Li, S. D. (2005). Comparison of the educational deficiencies of delinquent and nondelinquent students. Evaluation Review, 29(4), 291–312. Williams, R. M. C. (2008). The status and praxis of arts education and juvenile offenders in correctional facilities in the United States. Journal of Correctional Education, 59(2), 107–126. Wilson, P. R. (1994). Recidivism and vocational education. Journal of Correctional Education, 45(4), 158– 163. Wood, J., Foy, D. W., Layne, C., Pynoos, R., & James, C. B. (2002). An examination of the relationships between violence exposure, posttraumatic stress symptomatology, and delinquent activity: An “ecopathological” model of delinquent behavior among incarcerated adolescents. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 6(1), 127–147. Zhang, D., Katsiyannis, A., & Herbst, M. (2004). Disciplinary exclusions in special education: A 4-year analysis. Behavioral Disorders, 29(4), 337–347.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

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Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color S A B I N A E. V A U G H T

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very year in the United States, law enforcement arrests over 1.5 million youth. Young Black men are incarcerated at a rate 4 times of their White counterparts— 5 times of their White counterparts for drugrelated offenses (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP], 2009). These numbers mirror racial disparity trends in schooling. Nationally, just 50% of Black, Latino, and Native American youth graduate from high school, while 75% of their White counterparts do—a gap that widens significantly when youth of color1 are placed in special education, are English language learners, or attend underresourced urban schools (Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004; see Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). These trends represent some of the many links between schooling and juvenile incarceration that have come to be known as the school-toprison pipeline, a mechanism by which lowincome youth of color are funneled out of

school and into various forms of incarceration (Browne, 2003; Dunbar, 2001; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 2007; Osher, Quinn, Poirier, & Rutherford, 2003; Wald & Losen, 2003; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Scholars, activists, and government agencies have turned to schooling as an institutional site of more nuanced explanation and remedy for both youth incarceration and the challenges of reentry to society on the outside. The school-to-prison pipeline describes the massive, nationwide trend of undereducating and overdisciplining youth of color. The components of this pipeline are measured variously by assessing the statistical relationship between school-based indices and arrest, detention, and incarceration rates. These measures include policies and outcomes related to discipline, graduation, literacy, and special and behavior education, among others. Zero tolerance and related policies, in particular, have been the subject of much attention, as they have resulted in increased rates of school and district suspension and expulsion (Ayers, Dohrn, & Ayers, 2001; Casella, 2003; Fenning & Rose, 2007; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Boundy &

1

Author’s note: While I understand the publisher’s adherence to APA guidelines (6th edition, rule 3.14) that indicate that while “Black” and “White” may be capitalized as they refer to specific racial groups, “of Color” may not be capitalized as it is more vague. I note here, however, that my original manuscript included the capitalization of the term “of Color” to similarly indicate people of Color, not as people who have skin color unconnected to other factors, but as people who share non-White racial (and often political, legal, and historical) identity and structural categorization.

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Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Zero tolerance originally referred to the constellation of school policies that mandate automatic expulsion for students violating rules about bringing drugs, alcohol, or weapons to school, or those students engaging in violent behavior at school, among others. Those categories— “drug,” “weapon,” and “violence,”—are often poorly described in policy or include an unforgiving range of possibility. For example, I conducted research in a district where a young Black student faced zero-tolerance sanctions because her sharp fingernail file exceeded the four-inch “knives” rule. Shocking illustrations of the misapplication of this misguided policy have been widely reported, such as the expulsion of a 6-year-old White boy for bringing a camping food implement to school (Dorrell, 2009), or when 12-year-old Alexa Gonzalez, a young girl of color, wrote on a desk that she loved her friends—an act for which her principal called the NYPD, who arrested, handcuffed, and removed Gonzalez from school (Chen, 2010). Further, these policies—purportedly aimed at increasing school safety—do not afford students opportunities to learn, receive nonpunitive treatment or training, or experience institutional support. Indeed, they are consistently discriminatory in their uneven application, targeting youth of color (Ayers et al., 2001; Skiba et al., 2002). Moreover, there is no evidence that such policies have had any impact on school safety (Ayers et al., 2001; Skiba & Knesting, 2002). Importantly, zero-tolerance policies highlight the trend to create school policies that “integrate juvenile justice laws into school disciplinary codes” (Meiners, 2007, p. 3). School zero-tolerance weapons policies were federalized and codified into law by Congress through two explicit acts that compelled state cooperation (Rozalski, Deignan, & Engel, 2008). Many states and districts

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adopted mimetic policies for drugs, alcohol, fighting, and so on. The number of youth of color suspended and expelled under these umbrella policies grew exponentially. Experiences of suspension and expulsion are firmly linked to future incarceration (Meiners, 2007). Additionally, the egregiously uneven tracking of low-income Black and Brown youth into low track or remedial (Saddler, 2005) and special and behavior education classes and programs (Blanchett, 2006) solidly predicts travel on the school-to-prison pipeline. These statistical relationships are contextualized by emerging qualitative understandings of the racialized experiences of schooling in which low-income male youth of color, in particular, are criminalized by the cultural and ideological practices of the school (Davis, 2006; Ferguson, 2000; Meiners, 2007; Watts & Erevelles, 2004) and society (Williams, 1995). Analyzing and transforming educational policy and practice to disrupt this forceful oneway mechanism is urgently important in attempting to remedy racist practices in school and youth incarceration. From seeking reform to working toward prison abolition (Davis, 2003; CR10 Publications Collective, 2008), a focus on schooling is both logical and necessary. However, without similarly extensive understandings of the policy and practice impacts of schooling in a prison context (and often without any data or understanding), education has consistently been taken up as the singularly significant project within juvenile prison and detention systems. Further, it has been framed as the major focus for incarcerated youth’s reentry into life outside. Examining how schooling functions within a juvenile prison and in relation to youth reentry to society on the outside are the focus of this chapter. Specifically, I engage this question through a qualitative exploration of a school and its links to release and reentry at

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a prison site—Lincoln Center—that was part of a larger ethnographic study I conducted. The chapter also ponders how the young men incarcerated at Lincoln negotiated its educational policies and practices connected to reentry. Specifically, the richly textured lived realities of the young men, teachers, staff, and administrators at Lincoln serve as a local window onto the more abstract, national juvenile justice policy questions of schooling and reentry. Through this window are glimpses of the elusive and illusory nature of reentry and its relationship to schooling. The stories that emerged from Lincoln ask: What constitutes successful reentry and schooling and who defines them? How were practices of revocation, or widespread experiences of repeat incarceration, taken into consideration in the practice of youth incarceration? Similarly, was reentry linked meaningfully to the material realities of employment, fatherhood, and future education?

RESEARCH Lincoln Center was located in a state that made some efforts, through its Division of Juvenile Affairs (DJA), to reform aspects of the juvenile justice system, including schooling. Data from my ethnographic study of DJA’s Lincoln Center indicate that schooling on the inside mimicked schooling on the outside. Most of the young men incarcerated there had clearly traveled the school-to-prison pipeline, and many had dropped out prior to their current incarceration. Their participation in school on the inside was not rehabilitative and did not clearly contribute to productive reentry. In this chapter, I examine the tension between some of the formal and informal educational policies and practices implemented at Lincoln—the state’s facility for its most serious male youth

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offenders—and the material, lived realities of the young men. I pay particular attention to those policies and practices aimed specifically at reentry and highlight how the young men incarcerated in this facility understood reentry. Reframing how we think of reentry and the role of schooling is challenging in light of the complex nexus of federal and state laws and mandates that shape prison schooling in some regard. Moreover, the fact of incarceration— and its origins in and impact on inequity— mitigates much of the potential to reform the contradiction that is prison schooling in truly effective ways. However, the analysis forwarded here should challenge readers to consider the nature of the relationship between prison schooling and reentry, and to construct critical questions for reform. Context and Methods Through two sabbatical releases and a grant from my university, I was afforded the time and travel support to conduct an ethnographic study between the winter of 2008 and the spring of 2009. I undertook my fieldwork primarily at Lincoln Center, a state-run juvenile prison. The racial disparities in the incarceration of youth of color in the United States were reflected there, where the population of youth of color in juvenile prisons was three times their population in the state. At Lincoln, almost all inmates were of color. While the context of that state was relevant, my larger concerns of juvenile incarceration are not specific to locale, but instead to national questions about citizenship, rights, and humanity. As with all states, there are many individuals and organizations working diligently on specific policy and practice. My work is to offer critiques of the larger ideological and material systems constituting juvenile incarceration.

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

DJA officials insisted that the state did not run juvenile prisons, but rather rehabilitation centers. However, many of those who worked and were confined at Lincoln described it as a prison. In keeping with multiple critical ethnographic traditions’ methods (Carspecken & Walford, 2001; Delgado Bernal, 2002; Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Duncan, 2005; O’Connor, Lewis, & Mueller, 2007; Smith, 1999; Smith, 2005; Sol orzano & Yosso, 2002; Sprague, 2005; Twine & Warren, 2000; Vaught, 2008), here I take up the language used by the young men who were the focus of this study, as opposed to the official language of the state. This decision reflects two goals of critical qualitative research and analysis: first, to privilege the perspectives and understandings of subjects; and, second, to highlight the tensions between dominant epistemic mechanisms—such as naming—and experiences of marginality or resistance. However, I also use the term prison in keeping with scholars and activists who decline to accept state-sanctioned terminology around juvenile incarceration—specifically, terminology that sanitizes, naturalizes, or diminishes the practice and impact of such incarceration (Meiners, 2007). In this chapter, then, prison refers to a state facility in which young men are locked up and controlled. At night, some daytime hours, and for “solitary,” the young men were placed in what they, the security staff, teachers, and administrators described as “cells.” The locked cells were spare, including a plastic bed frame and thin mattress, and reportedly reached temperatures of 115 degrees during the summer months—a situation that upset some of the adults sympathetic to the young men. The young men’s eating, sleeping, bodily functions, activities, and communication—with people both inside and outside—were all fully regulated and monitored. In addition to referring to these recognizable modes of state imprisonment, prison is

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also here defined as a state institution mechanizing civil death. Meiners (2007) suggests civil death refers not only to the removal of certain civil rights, such as voting in the case of adult prisoners, but also of the many other, less formalized, pernicious consequences of incarceration that also apply to youth: joblessness, inability to secure housing, social stigmatization, and so on. Prisons operate inside a system of civil rather than social justice (Coates, 2004), which has always served to define who can be a member of civil society and therefore who can benefit from processes of justice. These processes have functioned by safeguarding powerful contingents who claim civil status by excluding and punishing those who are marginal to such societal legitimacy. Exclusion through and from civil law has operated consistently in the United States to control racial power structures (Brewer & Heitzeg, 2008). Finally, prison is the end point of the school-to-prison pipeline, a phrasing that most accurately captures both the institutional relationships and the individual experiences. The Lincoln prison consisted of regular units where the young men’s cells were located and a prerelease unit—intended to transition young men briefly before their full release—in which the young men shared large sleeping and social areas. Although DJA maintained authority over Lincoln and stationed a facility director there, prison operations were contracted out to private, nonprofit “vendors.” At the time I was there, the state had contracts with four different vendors to run portions of Lincoln, and a major change in staff and policy occurred when the state terminated one contract and negotiated a new contract with another vendor. One vendor employed and managed security staff. Security staff with whom I spoke indicated their pay was $10– $11 an hour. All security staff members were

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people of color and many came from the same neighborhoods as the young men. While I was at Lincoln, state policy determined that the young men who were sent there had to be between 13 and 21 years of age and had to have been convicted and sentenced for a minimum of six months. When I arrived, Lincoln housed approximately 80 young men, the majority of whom were African American and Black Latino. Two were White and were soon released. Many had sentences that well exceeded six months, and many were doing a second, and some a third, stint. DJA identified schooling as central to rehabilitation. Accordingly, Lincoln housed a fully operational school, run and staffed by a private, nonprofit education vendor. The state contracted this vendor to provide educational services throughout the state’s juvenile facilities. The vendor also maintained multiple other program contracts separate from DJA. Though publicly funded, state institutional schools were not governed by or connected to any school board, other public governing body, or superintendent. Rather, the state established what I call an administrative commission to oversee educational policies and practices inside juvenile prisons, and this work was facilitated by official intermediaries. I draw particular attention to the organization and operation of the prison and its school by vendors because the privatization of schooling is a considerable concern among education scholars who have charted the dismantling of public accountability, especially to poor youth of color, in tandem with the privatization of various aspects of schooling (Aleman, 2007; Dingerson, 2007; Fine, 1993; Levin, 1999; Lipman, 2004; Rodriguez & Rolle, 2007; Smith, Miller-Kahn, Heinecke, & Jarvis, 2004; Stein, 2004; Vaught, 2009; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998; Witte, 2000). This privatization process not only

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removes accountability for education from the public sphere, but also effectively masks inequitable educational practices and atomizes policy making and other decisions that directly impact learning outcomes for youth. Significantly, this trend is consistently noted to have caused a decrease in successful educational performances and outcomes for schools largely serving low-income youth of color (Aleman, 2007; Vaught, 2009; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Nowhere was the impact of this privatization more evident than in teacher and instructional quality at Lincoln. At the time, the teachers at Lincoln and other state juvenile prison schools were not unionized and did not have to be certified in the areas they taught. All teachers at Lincoln were White, very young, inexperienced, and paid far less than their counterparts in the surrounding cities; teacher turnover was extraordinarily high. Most teachers I interviewed said this was their first teaching position; several had found the position on Craigslist. Classroom instruction was remarkably poor in quality, often consisting of brief, rote work, followed by stretches of inactivity. The school was one long hallway on the ground floor of the building, with all classrooms on one side. It was explained to me that this particular design was created for safety, so that security staff could see all activity in the school at all times. The young men were moved under tight control from class to class in one group of fewer than ten. The school separated the boys by gang affiliation with either the Crips or the Bloods. Other affiliations were not used for inmate organization, and many of the young men were not involved in gang activity at all. The young men attended class together, regardless of age. I was told that all curricula were aimed at the ninth grade and modeled loosely after the local city

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

ninth-grade curricula, to help the young men transition back into high school. However, many of the young men were not prepared for ninth-grade level instruction, many had already dropped out of school, and very few intended to rematriculate.2 It was in this context that I conducted ethnographic research between the winter of 2008 and the spring of 2009. My schedule shifted considerably depending on happenings at Lincoln and demands of my own work schedule. At Lincoln, I observed and participated in classes, spoke with the young men and interviewed them formally and informally. I also observed and interviewed teachers and staff. My research methods consisted of contemporary practices of ethnographic and narrative qualitative data collection and analysis, including taking field notes, conceptual and thematic coding and analyses of interviews and notes, and triangulation of qualitative data across subsites, participants, and materials, such as documents, records, and so on (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2000; LeCompte & Schensul, 1999; Weis & Fine, 2000; Witherell & Noddings, 1991). For this chapter, I draw on a subset of data from the larger project. That subset includes formal and informal interviews with and/or observations of 8 Lincoln teachers, 3 prison/school administrators, 3 DJA administrators, 4 community leaders, 1 parent, and more than 40 young men. It also includes field notes recorded daily both during and after my time at Lincoln. What I observed was a complex system, and it is not within the purview of this chapter to detail all its permutations. Instead, I provide 2

Youth of color in the state were nearly 4 times as likely as their White counterparts to be placed in special education classes and were 2.5 times as likely to be suspended.

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a cursory description of just some of those policies, programs, practices, and beliefs that directly informed reentry and that lend insight into the larger question of how to both understand and approach issues of youth return to life on the outside and its relation to schooling.

THEORETICAL FRAME AND METHODOLOGY Two bodies of scholarship inform my analyses. Foucault’s (1995) conceptualizations of discipline and punishment are particularly meaningful. Foucault suggests that punishment itself creates a set of truths about crime and the criminal that do not exist independent of the punishment. Further, he describes how a citizenry must be disciplined into ideology and behavior through spectacle and surveillance. Criminalized individuals and their bodies become mediums for widespread societal disciplining, so that the spectacle of individual punishment serves to discipline the larger whole. Through surveillance, the gaze is operationalized into systemic disciplinary apparatuses. The individual is imprisoned and unidirectionally watched. While Foucault specifically illustrates surveillance through Bentham’s Panopticon—the architectural prison model designed to ensure that prisoners can always be watched but never be certain if they are being watched—I am focusing on the omnipresent ideological surveillance and discipline that shapes the experiences of the young men at Lincoln. Although looking at the prison itself would make sense in a larger discussion, I do not want readers here to mistake the physical structure of the prison for the ideological imprisonment that disciplines all citizenry through the construction of the criminal. Surveillance is

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mechanized inside and across societal institutions, thereby reinforcing larger societal ideologies of various material and ideological forms of imprisonment. In other words, Foucault suggests that the surveillance physically built into the Panopticon is a tangible blueprint of that built into ideological and material societal structures that imprison all citizenry into oppressive behaviors and beliefs. Societal power structures are thus protected through the specter and reality of omnipresent surveillance. The surveillance of the young men at Lincoln helped shape their criminalization. This criminalization had a significant impact on their experience of reentry, where they had to negotiate life as criminals in the larger ideological and structural systems. The young men at Lincoln were punished and criminalized in racially specific ways. Their criminalization was, in part, a disciplinary tool of the larger society’s project to protect racist power structures. Critical Race Theory (CRT) helps explain the racialized nature of their criminalization and the function of discipline. CRT is an interdisciplinary scholarly movement that originated in legal studies (Bell, 1992; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993; Valdes, Culpe, & Harris, 2002). It is organized around the precepts that racism is permanent and endemic to U.S. society; that claims to positivistic, neutral knowledge should be challenged; that analyses of racism require social and historical contextualization; and that CRT scholarship should work to disrupt racist and other forms of societal oppression through radical, not liberal, change, among others (Bell, 1992; Crenshaw et al., 1995; DeCuir & Dixson, 2004; Delgado, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Dixson & Rousseau, 2006; Haney L opez, 2007; Harris, 1993; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Lynn & Parker, 2006; Matsuda et al., 1993).

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Significantly, CRT scholars posit that racism is not an individual pathology, but rather a pervasive, systemic, sociocultural dynamic. Guinier (2004) describes racism as “the maintenance of, and acquiescence in, racialized hierarchies governing resource distribution” (p. 98). Such resources are material, cultural, social, political, and so on. CRT lends itself particularly well to analyses of schooling and prison, as these two institutional sites are integral and extensive parts of the nationwide systems of resource distribution and power. Guinier and Torres (2002) plainly state that “institutional arrangements do not work for people of color, and that it is not possible to address the present racial hierarchy without addressing these institutional arrangements” (p. 20). By enlisting CRT to help explain the racist nature of criminalization, discipline, and surveillance, this chapter examines some of the ways in which young men at Lincoln experienced the institutional relationships that determine their reentry into life on the outside. Specifically, I adopt a Critical Race methodology, especially as it has been shaped and explored in the field of education studies (Duncan, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 2000; Parker, Deyhle, & Villenas, 1999; Parker & Lynn, 2002; Sol orzano & Yosso, 2002; Vaught, 2008). Counterstorytelling—a methodological strategy of privileging the voices and narratives of people of color—has emerged as a significant qualitative research tool that serves several methodological purposes. First, counterstories challenge the validity and neutrality of the dominant master narratives, or majoritarian stories, that work to maintain White material and ideological societal domination (Bell, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 2000; Parker & Lynn, 2002). Second, counterstories are intended to provide people of color a space and means to describe their own realities (Choe, 1999;

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

Hermes, 1999; Ladson-Billings, 1999). Third, counterstories are issued in the hope “that well-told stories describing the reality of black and brown lives can help readers bridge the gap between their worlds and those of others” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 41). The stories, interviews, observations, and field notes that follow comprise a constellation of counterstories speaking back to normative understandings of youth incarceration, prison schooling, and reentry.

CRIMINALIZATION: PRISON, SCHOOLING, AND THE MAKING OF A PREDATOR The way the young men at Lincoln entered the system and how they were defined while in prison shaped how they reentered society on the outside. During my first visit to Lincoln, I was told, repeatedly, that “safety” was the main “issue” at Lincoln school. One of the two facility personnel who were orienting me said, “These are not kids. These are predators.” I was cautioned not to be friendly with or trust any of the youth. One of the men explained that to these young men, “niceness is a weakness.” I was warned never to be alone with any of the young men and to protect my body and belongings at all times. Imprisonment of the young men at Lincoln both formed and reinforced certain dominant truths about lowincome young men of color: that they were innately and singularly dangerous, particularly to women. The characterization of young men of color as predators justified their incarceration and determined their position in the larger society. Specifically, it was a systemic disciplinary mechanism by which the individual incarcerated Black male is posited as representative of all Black men. This, in turn, reifies dominant truths about the just rule of

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law and White men as protectors of civic organization. The truths asserted through the criminalization of these young men neither matched the realities of their lives nor the reasons for the incarceration. Although some of these young men had indeed violated the law, others had violated untenable terms of probation or been singled out for legally ambiguous behavior, such as fighting. And in all cases, no structural understanding of the impact of racism and economic oppression was undertaken in making sense of their particular actions. In my field notes on the meeting that first day, I wrote: Field note: 1/28/08 When I asked what kinds of convictions the young men were in for— in response to their statement that these kids were the state’s worst offenders— they replied that there was the occasional manslaughter, attempted second degree, rape, but mostly a and b: assault and battery (sometimes with a deadly weapon). Assault and battery could be a fistfight. That is the most typical conviction. Assault and battery. My later inquiry proved this to be true. Administrators with records shared that assault and battery was the most common initial charge and that many young men were returned to lockup for violations of the terms of their release. The young men at Lincoln were constructed as predators in order to sustain a logic around their imprisonment and to maintain a larger societal apparatus of surveillance and discipline. As CRT scholar Harris (1993) suggests, one of the central and exclusive rights of Whiteness is the right to make meaning. The young men at Lincoln, like other young men of color criminalized through a constellation of nationwide legal, governmental,

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educational, and social systems, were used to make meaning of the racist structures that pervade the society. Specifically, in this construction of the young men at Lincoln as predators, the institutions and their personnel drew on . . . a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings. (Ansley in Harris, 1993, p. 1714, n. 10) This racialized meaning making, used to discipline the entire society variously into certain ideological allegiances and behaviors, was evident when we concluded that first meeting and I was admitted into the school portion of the prison. The young men were not only Black, but were of notably physically large stature. My field notes from that first day read, [The young men] were tall—easily six to six and a half feet tall across the board . . . their size was a detriment to their freedom. In the dominant mind, large Black boys are more criminal and more dangerous and more threatening than other Black boys. Just as White youth of all body statures engage in the same activities that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of the young men at Lincoln, Black and Brown youth of small stature also engage in such activities. But the young men at Lincoln were marked for their build and for their strength as signifying the Black

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predatory threat against which White institutions of “treatment,” “correction,” and “commitment” are established. The Black male body has long been a symbol in White culture of criminality and danger, but the large Black male body in particular has symbolized the ultimately dangerous savage and beast that are antithetical to and, consequently, construct the boundaries around, humanity and citizenship (Mann, 2007; Mercer, 1994; Morrison & Lacour, 1997). Through criminalization and incarceration the young men’s bodies were transformed into Foucault’s spectacle itself, transformed into the object of the dominant gaze, thereby signifying White cultural ideologies about who can exist as citizen and human. The stamp of predator on the bodies of the young men at Lincoln was accompanied by beliefs expressed by White teachers and informed how and when the young men were released. This was particularly important to the young men at Lincoln, as policy dictated that the length of their stay could easily be extended by the clinicians assigned to them. While such extension was not in fact an extension of the initial sentence, it was so characterized by both youth and adults at Lincoln. The perceived and real threat of extensions served as a constant mechanism of disciplining surveillance that was linked directly to schooling. Clinicians at Lincoln, all very young White women, were understood to possess and often use the authority to extend young men’s “sentences” if they appeared not to be ready for release. The clinicians used data from the Lincoln school—teacher reports, fights, and so on—to determine whether to require extensions. While protocols were in place for making extensions, some of which might include notification of attorneys, not one young man I spoke with was aware of any protocols and none described involvement of attorneys. Further, I did not meet a single

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

young man whose “sentence” had not been extended, and most had their sentences extended repeatedly, often for three to nine months at a time. Most of the young men reported that their sentences were being extended because they had not properly handled their anger and needed more “treatment.” Many of the young men spoke to the notion of Lincoln as a “treatment” or rehabilitation facility. “Me, I been gettin’ locked up since I was 10,” commented one young man. “Doesn’t improve me one bit.” “It don’t never help, if you lock somebody up,” said another young man. “Take away somebody’s freedom, not going to change them,” said another. Schooling, treatment, and the looming threat of extension were enmeshed. For example, the grading system for Lincoln was behaviorally based, and included a point system awarding students for their cooperation. One teacher described the grading policy as follows: “Kids are graded on direction, behavior, and work. Direction consists of students being able to follow directives; behavior consists of general classroom behavior; and work is just the work they submit at the end of the class.” The greater part of the young men’s daily grade, then, consisted of a subjective assessment of their behavior. Assessment of learning was largely absent in awarding points. If students did not cooperate, they could be “ejected”—a common practice that meant the young man in question was handcuffed, sent to his cell, deprived of all his belongings, and held in solitary for an indefinite and unpredictable period of time. The points attached to grading and ejection were reported to clinicians, who used them to determine extensions, among other things. This direct policy link between schooling and the conditions and terms of incarceration structured schooling as the primary apparatus of the disciplining gaze of the

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various, and sometimes unidentifiable, forces of power and punishment in these young men’s lives. While magnified in scope, structure, and impact in this prison context, this disciplinary surveillance mirrored policies and practices in schools on the outside (Ferguson, 2000; Meiners, 2007; Noguera, 2008). Teachers were the original source of information in the discipline practice that determined extensions. Teachers were positioned to police and assess student behavior, making teachers wardens and students prisoners. While the teachers possessed some variation in beliefs and ideas about the young men in prison, many of them expressed cultural and racial misunderstanding at best and engaged in racial microaggressions in the classroom (Sol orzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). Racial microaggressions are seemingly subtle verbal and nonverbal interactions in which White aggressors consciously or unconsciously communicate messages of Black cultural and racial inferiority and so White superiority. Protected by their general undetectability by White bystanders and the near impossibility of explaining them to Whites, these aggressions have significant cumulative impact. Importantly, these aggressions were linked to teacher ideology and real consequences for the young men. A White male science teacher who, according to the principal, did not fare well in two public school districts and so came to Lincoln, captured part of the racial ideological norms that pervaded many aspects of Lincoln one morning during his planning period. Immediately after our interaction in the faculty office area, I recorded our conversation in my field notes. Field note: 3/12/08 I had the list of all the young men in my hand. He pointed to [two names], and said, “These are the

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only two White boys here.” I said I thought so. He said, “All my other students are Black.” I’m guessing he doesn’t distinguish between African American and Latino, Brown and Black. He followed with, “This doesn’t reflect [the city]” (meaning, the racial demographics). “I have to believe it has something to do with race.” He was referring to the incarceration of Black boys. Then immediately he said, “But when I look at my students, I see kids who need to be locked up.” When I asked why, he referred to their problematic “attitudes,” including attitudes about “consumer culture” and “drugs.” I said I didn’t understand, and asked for examples. [He said,] “If they have a headache, they want a Tylenol right away. If they have a sore throat, they want a lozenge. They think they should take Viagra to improve their sexual function.” How he presumed to know the latter, or not know this would have been some sort of joke was beyond me. . . . When pressed to describe the attitudes that justify [the young men at Lincoln] being locked up, he referred to their use of Tylenol and cough drops. . . . He said to me, “They’re just not ready to be in society.” This teacher, like many others at Lincoln, suggested that race was a source of criminal attitudes or behavior. Significantly, he and others identified racial disparities in incarceration not as a biased function of the legal systems, but as indicative of something wrong with Black culture and young Black men in particular. Further, the young men at Lincoln, defined and debased as racialized predators,

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were held to standards of moral and social behavior that well exceeded those imposed on anyone else in society. This seemingly illogical set of notions—that youth might be denied their freedom because they take cough drops—provided dominant commonsense rationales for their incarceration. It reified a fictitious White norm and real gaze of morality and virtue against which Black male youth could be measured and always come up short (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). This teacher was not alone in such opinions. Rather, teachers consistently identified surprisingly benign behaviors as evidence of immoral, and therefore unfit, attitudes. Further, it is not insignificant that the teacher referenced Viagra. The young men at Lincoln were consistently sexualized in teacher discourse in spite of the fact that during my time there I was told that fewer than 4% of the young men were actually in on sex-related charges. The looming, mythical threat of Black male hypersexuality and violence was mobilized to discipline them and the larger society. For the fathers at Lincoln, this was a highly present form of ideological discipline, as the evidence of their sexual activity marked them as lascivious in ways allowed only White men. As critical race scholars argue, these racialized ideas are not unique to aberrant White individuals, who are afflicted by a psychological illness. Rather, the ideas taken up by individual Whites are part of a larger nexus of systems that maintains racial power structures. As Lawrence (1993) writes, “The racist acts of millions are mutually reinforcing and cumulative because the status quo of institutionalized white supremacy remains long after deliberate racist actions subside” (p. 61). In this case, teacher attitudes were directly linked to tangible power through sentence extension policy. One young man said, “Everybody

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

has no say once you got yourself in the system. So, you’re like a puppet.” Those young men who were ultimately granted release from Lincoln learned a restraint unparalleled in my research or experience in schools. Their forced acquiescence to (and sometimes negotiation with) the racist disciplinary mechanisms that marked them as criminals in fact prepared them for reentry as criminals. Schooling on the inside did not help them navigate the complexities of this reentry; rather, it disciplined them into it. Indeed, if successful reentry meant, at the very least, avoiding revocation—including understanding the dayto-day implications of their formal and informal locations vis-a-vis law enforcement, probation, and other systems—and, at the very best the improvement of their material circumstances, including finding real employment and education opportunities that would positively impact their material and civic circumstances, the range went unaddressed by prison schooling.

A MENACE TO SOCIETY During my first few months at Lincoln I met Anthony, a young Black man who had been moved to the prerelease unit and was trying assiduously not to have his sentence extended. Like a number of the young men at Lincoln, he had multiple charges, and had been in DJA custody since he was 10 years old, when he was initially detained and then committed for fighting another youth who had approached him with a knife and tried to rob him. He had lost count of the number of times he had been returned to lock-up for violating the terms of his release. Once committed, youth were in the legal custody of DJA until they were 18 or 21, and could be placed in prisons like Lincoln or in the community under a parole system with

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terms of release. DJA determined the placement and its length. The standards for maintaining freedom during reentry were all behaviorally based and extraordinarily severe. Youth were not allowed to sleep in class or skip school, were required to follow a strict curfew, assigned community service, and held to a slew of subjective behavioral measures. I found that youth’s failure to meet these subjective and unevenly applied standards resulted consistently in their being locked up. For example, Anthony had been locked up for violating his terms of community release by truancy at his school on the outside, for violating curfew (9 p.m.), because he “slept in school,” and, with two of his friends, when they came across a group of “White kids 20 deep standing on the corner.” According to Anthony, the police officers said to the White youth, “Everybody just leave.” To Anthony and his friends, the police said, “We have reason to believe this is gang related.” Anthony and his friends were “searched and harassed.” Nothing on the inside prepared Anthony to understand what it would mean to encounter various systems of authority that could immediately identify him as committed to DJA and use this mark of criminality to confirm their racialized understandings of who is a criminal and who is a citizen. It is important to note that the racialization of criminal and civic bodies and groups cannot be reduced to a quantitative accounting for who is incarcerated. This racialization is also present in how that overt legal process of racially disparate arrest and incarceration is accompanied by, and mutually reinforces, larger cultural and ideological practices by which men of color, for example, who achieve mainstream educational and professional success are always cast as the exception to the rule and those who constitute the unemployed or incarcerated are characterized as the norm

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(Williams, 1995). Further, people who associate and identify with Black Americans can be ideologically and sometimes materially blackened by the local dominant groups and power structures (Lee, 2005; Ong, 2000). This was true of one young White man I met at Lincoln who described being arrested only when he was in the company of his Black and Brown friends. Nothing about schooling at Lincoln prepared the young men for what many of them experienced as the inevitability of being returned repeatedly to lockup that was the hallmark of their civil death. When I asked him what he did learn while in locked custody, Anthony said to me, “I wasn’t really a fighter until I went to [DJA]. Then I got used to it.” According to Anthony, being in DJA prepared him for reentry by teaching him to fight. His most recent fight on the outside had landed him in Lincoln. He had gone to his mother’s apartment to “call in for curfew.” Then, he said, “I got pulled in because my mom’s boyfriend tried to hit her. So, I beat him up,” said Anthony. “How are you gonna lock me up for defendin’ my mother?” Beating up his mother’s boyfriend was considered a violation of probation, and so Anthony was “recommitted.” Anthony pointed out, “I wouldn’t be [at Lincoln] if I wasn’t committed [already].” As for many of the young men, reentry into life on the outside was temporary and organized to return him to lockup. This time, however, Anthony faced a particularly complicated situation. Because he would turn 19 before his sentence was up and trial could be completed, his court-appointed attorney encouraged him to “plead out.” In this way, he believed he would avoid being “aged out” of the juvenile prison system while serving his sentence, and thus also avoid being transferred to an adult prison. He said he had learned to do anything possible to elude that particular fate.

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However, the plea Anthony was offered in order to gain release at age 18 was guilty of assault and being a “menace to society.” This plea was particularly problematic for Anthony, because it meant that he would not be able to reside with or even visit his mother, who lived in Section 8 housing where the “assault” occurred. If authorities knew that Anthony so much as entered the property, his mother’s subsidy and lease would be terminated. So during the time he prepared for reentry, Anthony was uncertain about where he would live, how he would pay for it, and what he might do to earn a living. He said he had been told by someone (he could not recall whom) that he might be able to get transitional housing, but was not sure. School was well in Anthony’s past and he had no plans to return. After Anthony was committed to DJA, some of his schools and teachers were given this information. Additionally problematic was that the information was incomplete, so that teachers did not know if he had been committed for murder or for a fight, for example. Of the high school he attended until dropping out permanently, Anthony said, “The teachers know the kids’ records. They don’t know me, so they’re afraid of me.” Anthony’s 8-year experience inside the institutional relationships among DJA, Probation, law enforcement, the court system, and schooling marked him as a criminal. As agents of the various disciplining apparatuses, teachers on the outside mobilized their powerinvested gaze, reinforcing Anthony’s criminalized status in a very public context. All the young men with whom I spoke described similar experiences with schooling. And, as I described above, the familiar disciplinary gaze of dominant society through schooling was mechanized in particularly punitive ways inside the Lincoln school. Schooling inside and outside helped shape reentry into a revolving door of

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

release and reincarceration. So while reentry might be constructed in the dominant discourse and ideology as an opportunity for youth to positively reconstruct their lives, the interlocking forces of the juvenile legal system, schooling, and racist ideology forged a reentry that not only failed to produce positive results for youth, but by which youth were constructed as public criminals in the larger mechanisms of societal discipline and control. Most of the young men with whom I spoke at Lincoln were frustrated with the systems that seemingly worked against them, but had learned to take complete and individual responsibility for their “charges.” Young men typically said to me of their charges and sentences, “It’s on me.” They were disciplined into seeing themselves as criminals and blunting their own critiques of a set of institutions that most often failed to support their reentry and generally ensured their reincarceration. Specifically, school on the inside trained them to monitor their own behavior according to extraordinary, uneven, and unpredictable demands. Unable to learn a set of rules because those rules were guided not by consistency, logic, or fairness, but by the societal drive to protect and reproduce racially reified notions of criminality, many of the young men became alternately frustrated, defeated, angry, and fatalistic. These struggles, imposed by the unremitting mechanisms of discipline and punishment, further isolated the young men, thereby thwarting any possible potential for successful reentry (see Pinderhughes, Craddock, & Fermin, Chapter 9, this volume).

REENTRY: “AND WE CAN’T SAVE A KID” The isolation of the young men was particularly evident in the story of a young Black man named Reynold (Rey), whose struggle with

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release and reentry highlighted the tension between the punishing institutions and the lived realities of the young men locked up at Lincoln. Rey’s struggles occurred against the backdrop of the system’s ostensible effort to prepare young men for reentry. As part of its Learning Campaign, the state’s DJA created a Community Connections Initiative. This initiative was described as aimed at helping incarcerated youth develop “life skills” and “work skills” so they could successfully move from prison to the workforce. During one skills class I observed, the young men participated in a computer assessment to help them determine possible future careers. One young man began laughing and said, “This says I’m supposed to be a police. Wonder how that’s gonna work.” Other young men, already on the prerelease unit, went out to community workshops and trainings. All of them reported to me that no one could answer their questions about background checks. And because the Lincoln school was not permitted to offer a GED program for “security reasons,” as I was told by a DJA administrator and a vendor administrator, the young men did not meet the educational requirements for any potential work programs. These programs constituted a false practice of reentry preparation that reinforced the disciplinary mechanisms of prison education. In other words, by providing such programs, the state and the prison appeared to be supporting positive possibilities for reentry. The young men’s participation in these programs was used to confirm the alignment of the systems, thereby attaching the young men’s failure singularly and personally to them, not to the constellation of systems that failed and continued to fail them. Their individual failure carried enormously serious consequences. While the

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same school practice for students not in DJA custody (read: not criminalized), mechanized, for example, by attaching individual student grades to the faSc ade of meritocracy, might lead to severely disparate material outcomes, the individual meritocratic failure of a criminalized youth had dire consequences, including future incarceration. Yet it was through this attachment of failure to the individual young men that their role as criminal was further solidified, and so their larger societal function as the boundary against which citizenship could be measured and monitored. Meritocracy in schooling and training produced the public spectacle of failure and reified dominant ideologies about crime and punishment. While I take seriously the severe mismatch between stated practices and what material support is really available to the young men as they were prepared to reenter society on the outside, the attention given to education, broadly conceived, is terribly misguided. In fact, I would suggest that while government agencies, political groups, nonprofits, research organizations, and citizen assemblies are rightly concerned about the educational policies and practices aimed at incarcerated youth, even the best policies and practices are rendered meaningless without consideration of the real and imminent needs of low-income young men of color and without understanding of the larger racialized ideologies that contextualize the systems. Bell (2004) argues that because youth of color and their communities are not party to the creation or implementation of educational policy, any benefit they might receive from policy is simply fortuitous. It is impossible to fight a breach when one is not party to the creation of the contract, but is rather the object—intentionally or incidentally—of said contract. This is nowhere more true than in a prison educational context. The state as parent (Ayers, 1997)

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assumes a degree of autonomy and authority unparalleled in public schooling on the outside, and the Black and Brown youth incarcerated at Lincoln were positioned as predators for whom the state is making its best efforts. When efforts fall short or fail, the blame is placed on youth, their families, and their communities. Families were well aware of this dynamic. One mother I visited in her home said she knew her son was being treated unfairly inside Lincoln. This young Black man was academically very smart and had repeatedly requested materials to complete a GED course, something he offered to do without teacher support and something with which I offered the administration to assist. While the principal wanted to consent, the prison administration denied the request. This mother told me that the last time she filed a complaint, her son’s sentence was extended, and so she was afraid to say anything now, particularly as he was at the age that an extension would mean transfer to adult prison. She could not bargain for educational policies or exceptions to policies because not only did she not possess the right to make considered negotiations, she and her son were disciplined for ostensibly rebuffing their “fortuity” (Bell, 2004). This disciplining mechanism is made possible by what Delgado (1996) calls the “empathic fallacy.” False empathy describes a racialized societal mechanism by which White institutions and their representatives can enact policy or practice based on their understanding and expression of empathy for people of color. The fallacy lies in “the belief that one can change a narrative by merely offering another, better one—that the reader’s or listener’s empathy will quickly and reliably take over” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 28). In fact, the White listener hears a pitiable story, but not one that changes fundamental White

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

beliefs about why or how conditions exist and not one that necessitates or exacts structural change. Rather, this empathy captures a mechanism of systematized racial power dynamics. Much like hate speech (Matsuda et al., 1993), when such empathy is mobilized by an individual, it leverages the stereotypes that create traction in dominant systems. For example, teachers expressed to me pity for students because they were born into deficient cultures, lazy families, and violent communities. The pity reifies the system of stereotypes, which reciprocally entrenches power hierarchies. False empathy references an institutionalized solipsism masked by ostensible benevolence and protects the status quo. Real empathy would require participation in societal transformation aimed at disrupting racial power hierarchies (Delgado, 1997). For example, false empathy inside the ideological and structural systems that incarcerate youth of color positions those institutions as necessary supports for errant youth and communities and enacts empathic policy, such as educational initiatives and curricula, to bolster its support of criminalized youth. In education, false empathy was most famously systematically deployed in Brown v. Board of Education. The agreement to end de jure desegregation was based largely on the compelling argument that denying Black youth the right to associate with White youth was damaging to their psychological development and well-being (Guinier, 2004). This framing of desegregation as denying Black children psychological—not material or structural—access to Whiteness created false empathy across various segments of White society (along with violent resistance, namely across those segments of White society to whom the “burden” of integration fell). The empathy was false because it was predicated on notions of White superiority and

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not on the egregious injustice of the inequitable distribution of resources and democratic schooling. Empathy describes the psychologization of what are truly material, structural phenomena, requiring not care or pity, but radical reorganization. Further, empathy maintains the locus of power. Whites can give associational rights, and there is no establishment of parity in brokering authority. False empathy and racial fortuity in schooling collude to safeguard inequitable systems. Most teachers at Lincoln with whom I spoke expressed some form of false empathy. When I asked them what they thought the sources of criminal behavior among the young men at Lincoln were, they replied that some are “kids who don’t wanna get it” and some are “literally mentally ill,” attributed sometimes to mothers being crack addicts and sometimes to dysfunctional or violent families. Others identified “growing up in the inner city” as a source of criminal behavior. One said, “Kids from the inner city want the elevator to the top.” One teacher proposed a solution that highlights the extraordinary danger of false empathy. When asked what he truly thought would solve problems facing the youth incarcerated at Lincoln, he suggested that in order to support urban youth of color, “The government takes all kids and raises them from birth.” Schooling was the apparatus of both false empathy and discipline, making invisible the real needs of the young men. In this context, Rey was moved to the prerelease unit and, according to many adults in the facility, began “assaulting everyone.” Rey had been one of the more docile young men at Lincoln, submitting quietly to verbal harassment from teachers and other youth. He was never provoked to fight and never instigated verbal or physical conflict. However, immediately upon his transfer to the prerelease unit, he began to

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fight both verbally and physically. His clinician extended his sentence, and Rey became once again docile. The pattern repeated itself several times, with Rey’s sentence being extended for several months after each incident. Ultimately, it was the principal—who was consistently supportive of the young men, but often hamstrung through a variety of policies and organizational structure—and one of Rey’s friends who explained to the clinicians that Rey had received word from the outside that the same people who killed his brother would kill him “the day he was out.” Rey’s older brother had been incarcerated and, upon release, had worked with local organizations and his church on various projects aimed at supporting youth. He was shot outside his grandmother’s house, and the assailants were never arrested. Rey said he knew he would face the same fate and preferred to stay incarcerated. Reentry meant death. No policy in place supported him, so he had to draw on constructed notions of himself as a racialized criminal and predator to manipulate the system to protect him—ironically, by keeping him locked up. While the authorities inside Lincoln eventually became aware of Rey’s situation, they had no options to adequately support him. The principal of Lincoln narrated the tension between policy and reality in reentry. One day he spoke with me about Rey. Then he pointed to the name of another young man on the wall calendar. The young man’s first initial and last name filled the box of his date of release, less than two months earlier. Then the principal gestured toward a wall, stacked floor to ceiling with office supplies: reams of paper, boxes of paper clips, pencils, binders, and rubber bands, and so on. “I get a ridiculous budget for office supplies I can’t even use,” he said. He could not use them because many of the supplies contained what DJA considered

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potential contraband. Paper clips, I had been told, could be used to unlock handcuffs. He said sadly, “I get $2,000 a month. . . . And we can’t save a kid.” He said he wished he could take some of that money and buy a young man who needed it a plane ticket to Alabama, to stay with family until he was safe. He wished he could use small portions of that money to make reentry safe. Rhetorically, he asked, “What are we doing?” I did not reply. “We are not doing the right thing, that’s for sure.” The name on the wall calendar belonged to a young Black man who was bright, funny, and gregarious. Even at Lincoln, he was liked by teachers. And he got along well with his peers. He was released from Lincoln. Then some few weeks later he was shot, three times, as he crossed a street one summer evening leaving a barbeque. When I searched for his obituary in the local paper, I could not find it. I learned that one has to pay to place an obituary, and his family could not.

CONCLUSION The very institutions that reproduce the societal conditions of violence and oppression, that construct young men of color as criminals, that utilize them as spectacles of larger societal discipline and structural omnipotence, also produce policies and practices to ostensibly “treat” and “educate” these young men. But these young men must face the reality of reentry into a world where they are never free, where they cannot find work, where their paternity is degraded and challenged, and where their survival is uncertain at best. Within this context, schooling is the least of their worries and the smallest of their assets. At both the center and the utter margins of youth incarceration and reentry, schooling presents both symbolic and real tensions in the

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color

simultaneous social production of criminals and the ostensible efforts to fashion their “treatment.” Schooling on the outside is a broken system that functions, in part, to funnel youth into prison. To mimetically reproduce school on the inside ignores the systemic mechanisms of schooling in the United States today and masks the structural shortcomings of institutions, policies, and ideologies of youth incarceration. In very apparent ways, school is constructed to provide the public forum for the spectacle of discipline and punishment. Concurrently, it is revered in dominant ideology as the chief site of meritocratic opportunity, sanctifying notions of individual uplift and possibility at the expense of those who are barred from such mobility. These two seemingly disparate functions of schooling work in lockstep to naturalize the production and existence of youth criminals and to locate the sources and practices of this reified criminality squarely with the youth and their families, communities, and race. Further, these functions maintain the reigning racial order by disciplining the entire society into beliefs in constructed truths of race and crime, punishment and possibility, youth and citizenship. The question remains, particularly for this volume: What can be done about prison schooling and reentry? The editors asked me to consider implications for reform, and in good faith I agreed to the endeavor. However, I hesitate because the data I have described and the analyses I have shared here point specifically to the need for remedy and transformation to be both radical and to be generated through real collaboration with the youth who are objects of the current systems, as well as their families and communities. I recognize the urgent and practical need to address the conditions of youth currently incarcerated and simultaneously understand the necessity of challenging the existence of a broken and

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oppressive system. In this spirit is my hope that the chapter will raise productive questions for all who work with incarcerated youth, and will contribute to the larger dialogues ranging topically from reform to abolition.

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Dixson, A., & Rousseau, C. (2006). Critical race theory in education: All God’s children got a song. New York, NY: Routledge. Dorrell, O. (2009). Schools’ zero-tolerance policies tested. USA Today (online). Retrieved from: www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-01-zero -tolerance_N.htm Dunbar, C. (2001). From alternative school to incarceration. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(2), 158–170. Duncan, G. (2005). Critical race ethnography in education: Narrative, inequality and the problem of epistemology. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 93–114. Fenning, P., & Rose, J. (2007). Overrepresentation of African American students in exclusionary discipline: The role of school policy. Urban Education, 42 (6), 536–559. Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Fine, M. (1993). [Ap]parent involvement: Reflections on parents, power, and urban public schools. Teachers College Record, 94(4), 682–710. Fine, M., Weis, L., Weseen, S., & Wong, L. (2000). For whom? Qualitative research, representation, and social responsibilities. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. (pp. 107–131) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. Guinier, L. (2004). From racial liberalism to racial literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the interestdivergence dilemma. Journal of American History, 91(1), 92–118. Guinier, L., & Torres, G. (2002). The miner’s canary: Enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haney L opez, I. F. (2007). “A nation of minorities”: Race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness. Stanford Law Review, 59, 985–1063. Harris, C. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1709–1791. Hermes, M. (1999). Research methods as a situated response: Toward a first nation’s methodology. In L. Parker, D. Deyhle, & S. Villenas (Eds.), Race is . . . race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 83–100). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In L. Parker, D. Deyhle, & S. Villenas

Juvenile Prison Schooling and Reentry: Disciplining Young Men of Color (Eds.), Race is . . . race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 7–30). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (2000). Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. (2nd ed., pp. 257–278). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. Lawrence, C. (1993). If he hollers let him go: Regulating racist speech on campus. In M. Matsuda, C. R. Lawrence III, R. Delgado, & K. W. Crenshaw (Eds.), Words that would: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the first amendment (pp. 53–88.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. LeCompte, M. D., & Schensul, J. J. (1999). Designing and conducting ethnographic research. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Lee, S. (2005). Up against Whiteness: Race, school, and immigrant youth. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Levin, B. (1999). Race and school choice. In S. Sugarman & F. Kemerer (Eds.), School choice and social controversy. (pp. 266–299). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Lipman, P. (2004). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer. Lynn, M., & Parker, L. (2006). Critical race studies in education: Examining a decade of research on U.S. schools. Urban Review, 38(4), 257–290. Mann, C. R. (2007). Images of color, images of crime. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Matsuda, M., Lawrence C. R., III, Delgado, R., & Crenshaw, K. W. (Eds.). (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the first amendment. San Francisco, CA: Westview Press. Meiners, E. R. (2007). Right to be hostile. New York, NY: Routledge. Mercer, K. (1994). Welcome to the jungle: New positions in Black cultural studies. New York, NY: Routledge. Morrison, T., & Lacour, C. B. (1997). Birth of a nation’hood: Gaze, script, and spectacle in the O. J. Simpson case. New York, NY: Pantheon, Random House. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (2007). Dismantling the school-to-prisonpipeline. Retrieved from http://naacpldf.org/pub lication/dismantling-school-prison-pipeline

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Noguera, P. (2008). The trouble with Black boys . . . and other reflections on race, equity, and the future of public education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. O’Connor, C., Lewis, A., & Mueller, J. (2007). Researching “Black” educational experiences and outcomes: Theoretical and methodological considerations. Educational Researcher, 36(9), 541–552. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). (2009). OJJDP statistical briefing book. OJJDP, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org /ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID¼qa05274 Ong, A. (2000). Cultural citizenship as subject making: Immigrants negotiate racial and cultural boundaries in the United States. In R. Torres, L. Miron, & J. Inda (Eds.), Race, identity and citizenship: A reader (pp. 262–294). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Orfield, G., Losen, D., Wald, J., & Swanson, C. B. (2004). Losing our future: How minority youth are being left behind by the graduation rate crisis. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Contributors: Urban Institute, Advocates for Children of New York, and the Civil Society Institute. Osher, D. M., Quinn, M. M., Poirier, J. M., & Rutherford, R. B. (2003). Deconstructing the pipeline: Using efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-benefit data to reduce minority youth incarceration. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 91–120. Parker, L., Deyhle, D., & Villenas, S. (Eds.). (1999). Race is . . . race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Parker, L., & Lynn, M. (2002). What’s race got to do with it? Critical race theory’s conflicts with and connections to qualitative research methodology and epistemology. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 7–22. Rodriguez, G. M., & Rolle, R. E. (2007). To what ends and by what means? The social justice implications of contemporary school finance theory and policy. New York, NY: Routledge. Rozalski, M., Deignan, M., & Engel, S. (2008). The world of juvenile justice according to the numbers. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 24, 143–147. Saddler, C. (2005). The impact of Brown on African American students: A critical race theoretical perspective. Educational Studies, 37(1), 41–55. Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. Urban Review, 34(2), 317–342.

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Skiba, R. J., & Knesting, K. (2002). Zero tolerance, zero evidence: An analysis of school disciplinary practice. In R. J. Skiba & G. G. Noam (Eds.), New directions for youth development (no. 92: Zero tolerance: Can suspension and expulsion keep schools safe?) (pp. 17–43). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Smith, M. L., Miller-Kahn, L., Heinecke, W., & Jarvis, P. F. (2004). Political spectacle and the fate of American schools. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer. Sol orzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students. Journal of Negro Education, 69(1/2), 60–73. Sol orzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Sprague, J. (2005). Feminist methodologies for critical researchers: Bridging differences. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Stein, S. J. (2004). The culture of education policy. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Twine, F. W., & Warren, J. W. (2000). Racing research, researching race: Methodological dilemmas in critical race studies. New York: New York University Press. Valdes, F., Culpe, J. C., & Harris, A. (Eds.) (2002). Crossroads, directions, and a new critical race theory. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

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Vaught, S. (2008). Writing against racism: Telling White lies and reclaiming culture. Qualitative Inquiry, 14 (4), 566–589. Vaught, S. (2009). The color of money: School funding and the commodification of Black children. Urban Education, 44(5), 545–570. Wald, J., & Losen, D. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 9–15. Watts, I. E., & Erevelles, N. (2004). These deadly times: Reconceptualizing school violence by using critical race theory and disability studies. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 271–299. Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2000). Speed bumps: A studentfriendly guide to qualitative research. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Whitty, G., Power, S., & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education: The school, the state and the market. Victoria, Australia: The Australian Council for Educational Research Limited. Williams, P. (1995). Meditations on masculinity. In M. Berger, B. Wallis, & S. Watson (Eds.), Constructing masculinity (pp. 238–249). New York, NY: Routledge. Witherell, C., & Noddings, N. (Eds.). (1991). Stories lives tell: Narrative and dialogue in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Witte, J. (2000). The market approach to education: An analysis of America’s first voucher program. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

16

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls F R A N C I N E T. S H E R M A N

AND

LISA GOLDBLATT GRACE

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INTRODUCTION

aquel was the subject of a child abuse and neglect petition due to her mother’s failure to protect her from sexual abuse by mother’s live-in boyfriend. During Raquel’s 4 years in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families, she lived in a series of foster homes, residential placements, and with her grandmother. She ran from many of these placements and, when on the streets, was recruited by an experienced pimp, who exploited her through prostitution. He took care of her and also manipulated her until she felt he was her whole world. Once he rendered her isolated and dependent, he physically threatened and abused her. She was beaten and raped by the men who paid to have sex with her. Although she traveled with her pimp to neighboring states, she was arrested in her home state on charges of prostitution when she was 15, about one year after she was first commercially sexually exploited. Charged as a delinquent, she was placed in locked detention. The police hoped she would testify against her pimp, but she both loved him desperately and feared him, and was unwilling to testify. Absent an appropriate placement, she lingered in detention for months. She was ultimately placed in a program for girls with serious mental health issues.

Raquel’s story is typical of young girls who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, which remains an insistent, profound issue in the United States. Young people (girls, boys, and transgender youth) are “deceived, manipulated, forced or coerced” into the commercial sex industry every day (Clawson, Dutch, Solomon, & Goldblatt Grace, 2009). The average age of entry into prostitution nationally is between 12 and 14 years old (Estes & Weiner, 2001; Lloyd, 2005; Silbert & Pines, 1981; Smith, Vardaman, & Snow, 2009). Most often, these children are first seen as victims in the child and family services system as a result of familial abuse. They are later seen as delinquents in our juvenile justice system, criminalized for their exploitation. Understanding the victim–offender tension that inhibits our policy and the continuum of abuse that begins in childhood is critical to understanding and responding to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). CSEC is first and foremost child sexual abuse, yet unlike other forms of child sexual abuse, CSEC is sexual abuse of a minor for economic gain (Mukasey, Daley, & Hagy, 2007). In addition, CSEC occurs when a child’s

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exploitation is connected in some way to the commercial sex industry (Lloyd, 2005). For example, sexual exploitation clearly occurs when a coach induces his middle school soccer player to have intercourse with him in exchange for the starting position. However, not until that same coach brings his player to a coaches’ conference and systematically sells his player to other coaches does it meet the definition of CSEC. While girls, boys, and transgender youth are all victims of commercial sexual exploitation in need of targeted services and policy reform, this chapter will focus exclusively on the experiences and needs of girls. We do this, in part, because the dynamics of CSEC as well as the law enforcement and social service responses for each population are different, and require individual analysis (Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2004). It is our hope that discussing the dynamics and response to commercial sexual exploitation of girls will support similar analyses for boys, and transgender youth, and that our recommendations for girls will inform those analyses. Although almost every state, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have passed laws since 2000 to address some aspect of this issue (Polaris Project, 2010; see Table 16.1), state and federal systems continue to struggle with how to properly define and address the constellation of issues posed by CSEC. Legislation falls into two broad categories: &

&

Laws aimed at aiding and enhancing prosecution of perpetrators of CSEC (i.e., pimps, johns); and Laws aimed at providing legal protection, services, or compensation to victims of CSEC (recently referred to as “Safe Harbor” laws).

As state and local authorities implement policy and practice for this population, those

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two goals—law enforcement and victim protection—can conflict, creating practices that serve neither goal fully. Moreover, absent comprehensive legislation directed at this multifaceted issue, prosecution-focused efforts are more common, and existing laws can be misapplied, yielding results contrary to sound public policy and research. This chapter begins by framing the official response to CSEC in historical and theoretical terms, describing the victim–offender tension behind current policies. We then survey the literature about the incidence of CSEC and its impact on the girls who are exploited. Finally, we summarize international and U.S. federal and state responses, as expressed in legislation and initiatives, noting trends within the rapidly increasing body of U.S. state legislation addressing CSEC. In the course of this analysis, we offer some ideas to frame a needed comprehensive response to CSEC in the United States.

CSEC AND GIRLS: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES Serious examination of policy responses to commercial sexual exploitation of girls (and women) has been surprisingly limited, as discussion of policies relating to sex often are because they tread close to sensitive moral and political issues. What discussion there is has been too often animated by a false dichotomy, expressed over the years in discussions about the prostitution of adult females—that girls in CSEC must be either offenders or victims, with each triggering a different set of responses and having significant policy and resource consequences (Kristof & WuDunn, 2009). For example, accurate data collection, which is critical to understanding the incidence and nature of CSEC, has been hindered because exploited youth are sometimes

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identified by law enforcement as victims and sometimes as offenders, each with separate databases and responses (Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2004). In its 2009 report, Shared Hope International cited misidentification of victims of CSEC as “the primary barrier to the rescue and response to domestic minor sex trafficking victims” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 2). Although official rhetoric in the United States defines commercially exploited children as victims, they appear more often in offender databases and are commonly processed as offenders in the juvenile and criminal justice systems (Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2004; Mukasey et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2009). Our lack of clarity about commercial sexual exploitation of girls is nowhere more apparent than in the contradictory application of the criminal laws of prostitution and rape. Although states vary in how they codify this principle, every state assumes in its criminal law that minors under a certain age (i.e., 16) cannot participate voluntarily in sex. Minors are thus protected through criminal laws that define the age at which a youth can consent to sex by that youth’s age alone or the age difference between the parties (Annitto, in press; Glosser, Gardiner, & Fishman, 2004). These “statutory rape” laws, as well as other state criminal laws, are designed to protect minors from sexual exploitation. Nonetheless, the vast majority of state prostitution laws allow the prosecution for prostitution of those very minors who, by virtue of their age, are considered incapable of consenting to sexual activity under state statutory rape laws. This conflict has been addressed with opposite results by the highest state courts in New York and Texas. In New York, the court upheld the prosecution for prostitution of a 12-year-old minor who was below the age of consent under state rape law. The court reasoned that the age of consent for rape was

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irrelevant to prosecution under the N.Y. prostitution law, which contained no age requirement (In re Nicolette R., 2004). However, the Texas Supreme Court found it: . . . difficult to reconcile the Legislature’s recognition of the special vulnerability of children, and its passage of laws for their protection, with an intent to find that children under 14 understand the nature and consequences of their conduct when they agree to commit a sexual act for money. (In re B.W., 2010, pp. 821–822) To resolve this conflict, the Court overturned the 13-year-old’s prostitution adjudication and held that it was unlawful to prosecute a minor under 14 for prostitution because elsewhere in Texas law children under the age of 14 do not have the capacity to consent to sex. These New York and Texas cases highlight the need for state legislatures and courts to explicitly reflect the psychology of the child victim of commercial sexual exploitation by recognizing that children do not freely choose to be sexually exploited and cannot be found to consent to their exploitation. Yet, the notion of a willfully “precocious” teenage girl in need of justice system control animates the history of girls in the U.S. juvenile justice system, which has been used to control “wayward” girls whose sexual behaviors have often triggered state intervention (Brenzel, 1983; Knupfer, 2001). The juvenile justice system’s paternalistic application of law and policy to girls whose behaviors run counter to social expectations is well-documented (ChesneyLind & Shelden, 1998). For girls who are commercially sexually exploited, the paternalism in the juvenile justice system is compounded by a moralistic and uncomfortable attitude about prostitution and the women and girls involved.

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In fact, theories explaining prostitution that date back to Freud blamed the prostituted women and girls, positing biologic or psychological issues as explanations (Flowers, 2001). Young women experiencing CSEC and many advocates object to both the offender and victim labels, believing that neither captures the girls’ experiences and both deprive them of opportunities for individual growth and empowerment that can come out of their experiences of sexual exploitation (Friedman, 2005; Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009). A 2009 participatory action research study by young women who experienced commercial sexual exploitation supports a harm reduction approach, which is controversial and contrary to the prevailing system view that girls must fully leave CSEC in order to recover from their abuse (Kristoff & WuDunn, 2009). The young women researchers are reluctant to rely on official responses to assist them, in part because they experienced “institutional violence” when they were turned away by nonprofits and hospitals that misunderstood their experiences and were biased against them. These young women also describe exploitation and degradation by police who were supposed to protect them. Their mantra, “resilience is the beginning of resistance,” expresses the coexistence of autonomy and victimization in their experience of commercial sexual exploitation and raises important questions about how to structure the system’s response (Friedman, 2005; Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009; see also Kristoff & WuDunn, 2009). CSEC: INCIDENCE AND THE EXPERIENCE The exact number of youth who are commercially sexually exploited in the United States is unknown. Although a variety of methods have

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been used to attempt to quantify CSEC in the United States and provide accurate demographic information about those involved, the data are always extrapolated from less targeted data sources (e.g., arrests, victims of crime, juvenile detention), making an accurate count impossible (Smith et al., 2009; U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). Moreover, CSEC is a “low-visibility” crime, so that law enforcement, which is the most common source of data, has difficulty identifying and quantifying it (Mukasey et al., 2007; see also U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). In the most in-depth study to date, Estes and Weiner (2001) estimated that between 244,000 and 325,000 youth in the United States (boys, girls, and transgender youth) are considered “at risk” for sexual exploitation, and it is estimated that 199,000 incidents of sexual exploitation of minors occur each year in the United States. These figures, however, are likely well below the number of youth encountered by practitioners on the frontlines, nationwide. Because so many runaway and thrownaway youth are sexually exploited through prostitution (Estes & Weiner, 2001; Flowers, 2001; U.S. Department of Justice, 2010), it is useful to look at the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrown-away Children (NISMART-2) for additional data about prevalence. In 1999, approximately 1,682,900 youth were runaway or thrown-away at some point; approximately 71% of them were considered at risk for prostitution (Hammer, Finkelhor, & Sedlak, 2002). Estes and Weiner estimate that 10–15% of children living on the streets are trafficked for sex (2001; see also Mukasey et al., 2007), while ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) estimates that one third of teens on the street will be exploited

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within 48 hours of their appearance there (Friedman, 2005). National arrest data are useful but limited because they rely exclusively on law enforcement’s ability to identify and arrest involved youth who are trained by their pimps to evade authorities and lie about their age (Smith et al., 2009). Moreover, there are different views among law enforcement as to whether victims of CSEC are indeed victims or offenders, and therefore how and if to record data when they come into contact with an exploited minor. Finally there is evidence that commercial sexual exploitation of girls, in particular, is increasingly occurring “indoors,” out of sight of law enforcement (Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2004). It is not surprising then that the official data sources all acknowledge that their counts are lower than the actual incidence. As imperfect as they are, official data show that nationwide, out of 2,111,200 juvenile arrests in 2008, only 500 were for prostitution and commercialized vice. Of these youth, 76% were female, and 11% of all minors arrested for prostitution were under the age of 15 (Puzzanchera, 2009). Two federal data collection efforts highlight the limitations of existing official data. Data from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) collected from 1997 to 2000 by 19 states showed 14,230 prostitution incidents known to the police (in both victim and offender data) and, of those, 240 incidents involved a minor as a victim or offender. Similarly, a 2009 Department of Justice report on data from the federal Human Trafficking Reporting System reported only 391 incidents of child sex trafficking identified for 2007–2008, prompting critiques of the data collection methodology (Kyckelhahn, Beck, & Cohen, 2009; McGaha & Evans, 2009). Due to the limitations of national data, advocates and programs tend to rely on local

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data (Friedman, 2005), but individual states and localities also struggle to capture the prevalence of this “underground and transient population” (Lloyd, 2005). A 2001 report estimates that 5,000 adolescents in New York City alone are exploited annually through prostitution (Spangenberg, 2001). A 2001 effort to count the incidence of prostitution in Chicago estimated that 1,800–4,000 girls and women were involved in on-street and off-street prostitution (O’Leary & Howard, 2001), and a 2008 report estimated that 250 girls are exploited through prostitution in Georgia each month, concentrated in Atlanta (Lynch & Widner, 2008). Some states have developed collaborative reporting mechanisms to better capture these numbers. Within the greater Boston area, from 2001 to 2003, the child abuse unit of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office received only seven referrals for sexually exploited children (S. Goldfarb, personal communication, 2010). Other partner agencies, including the Department of Children and Families and the police, had comparably small numbers. Anecdotal information from law enforcement, programs, and advocates, however, indicated a far larger number of child victims. To more accurately capture the number of child victims, the SEEN Coalition (Support to End Exploitation Now) launched a database in March 2005 as a clearinghouse for such cases, which could now be reported centrally by law enforcement, social services, juvenile justice, public health, and community-based agencies, all of which had some, but not exclusive, contact with CSEC in Boston. Between March 2005 and March 2011, the database in Suffolk County totaled over 400 cases of sexually exploited and highrisk youth. Although this is likely still an undercount, this database affords some description of youth identified as potential

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victims of CSEC. Of the 400 youth in the database, 52% were 13–15 years old at time of referral, and 39% were 16–17. The 400 are also disproportionately minority youth: 40% Black, 21% Hispanic, and 27% White. The vast majority of adolescents arrested for prostitution are identified as “White” or “Black,” which reflects well-known limitations of human services and juvenile justice race data (Flowers, 2001), and the age of entry into prostitution appears to be younger for girls of color (Raphael, 2004). Further, as with much delinquency, African American girls and women are arrested for prostitution at a far higher rate than their White counterparts (Flowers, 2001; MacKinnon & Dworkin, 1997; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). As summarized by Vednita Carter, a leading service provider for exploited women and girls, “This fight against sexual slavery is the key to dismantling systems of dual oppression—of racism and sexism” (quoted in Farley, 2003). CSEC affects adolescents from families across the income spectrum. However, researchers, service providers, and law enforcement acknowledge that poverty renders youth disproportionately at risk for recruitment into prostitution, and makes it more difficult to exit and more likely that a girl will be arrested (Estes & Weiner, 2001; Irazola, Williamson, Chen, Garrett, & Clawson, 2008; Lloyd, 2005). Entry Into Commercial Sexual Exploitation Adolescent girls likely to take risks, to feel misunderstood by their parents, and to seek romantic relationships are vulnerable to predators, who capitalize on those developmentally normal characteristics. However, girls with histories of childhood sexual abuse are at increased risk of recruitment, and that history

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remains the most common characteristic of commercially sexually exploited girls. Among adult women who were first prostituted during their adolescent years, reports estimate that between 33% and 90% had been abused (Harlan, Rodgers, & Slattery, 1981; Raphael, 2004). For example, of 106 adult women studied in Boston who were incarcerated or arrested for prostitutionrelated offenses, 68% reported having been sexually abused and almost half reported being raped before the age of 10 (Norton-Hawk, 2002). This finding is repeated in many smaller studies and appears regardless of other factors, such as running away and substance abuse (Tyler, Hoyt, Whitbeck, & Cauce, 2001). For example, the Huckleberry House Project in San Francisco reported that 90% of girls in their program who were exploited through prostitution, had been sexually molested (Harlan et al., 1981). Two other studies of juveniles place the percentage of girls with sexual abuse histories between 70% and 80% (Bagley & Young, 1987; Silbert & Pines, 1982). The Letot Center, a juvenile justice facility in Dallas, Texas, working with commercially sexually exploited children, found that 93–95% of commercially sexually exploited children had been previously physically and sexually abused (Smith et al., 2009). Most exploited girls have survived a childhood trauma history of chronic physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by multiple perpetrators (Farley & Kelly, 2000; Williams & Frederick, 2009). Specifically, exploited girls are likely to be victims of incest (Silbert & Pines, 1982), leading Dworkin (1997) to describe incest as “boot camp” for prostitution. Children who were sexually abused are 28 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution at some point in their lives than children who were not sexually abused (Widom, 1995). The younger a girl is when she first becomes

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commercially sexually exploited, the greater the likelihood that she has a history of child sexual abuse, and the greater the extent of the abuse is likely to have been (Council for Prostitution Alternatives, 1991). In addition to a history of childhood abuse, commercially sexually exploited girls are likely to have experienced other forms of family disruption and loss (Clawson et al., 2009). Multiple studies have found that exploited girls frequently come from homes where one or more caregiver was addicted to alcohol or other drugs (Raphael, 2004). One study of 222 prostituted women in Chicago found that 83% were raised in a home where one or both parents had an active addiction (O’Leary & Howard, 2001). Further, prostituted girls are likely to have witnessed their mother being beaten by an intimate partner (Raphael, 2004). In addition, many girls exploited through prostitution have experienced the loss of a parent through death, divorce, or abandonment (Norton-Hawk, 2002; Raphael & Shapiro, 2002). Research has also shown a correlation between school-related problems, including learning disabilities, and commercial sexual exploitation (Clawson et al., 2009; Williams & Frederick, 2009). These findings suggest that these girls experience school failure and the low self-esteem that accompanies it, which may make them more vulnerable to recruitment by a pimp (Harway & Liss, 1999). These significant family disruptions often result in a girl’s involvement in the child and family services system, including placement in foster care or group homes, which, through running away as well as the fact that pimps target these programs, places her at high risk for commercial sexual exploitation. As an illustration, one study in Canada of 47 women in prostitution found that 64% had been involved in the child welfare system, and, of these, 77.8% were in foster care or group

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homes (Nixon, Tutty, Downe, Gorkoff, & Ursel, 2002). Girls who run from their homes, group homes, foster homes, and treatment centers are at greater risk of being targeted by a pimp (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Williams & Frederick, 2009). Researchers have found that the majority of prostituted women were runaways as children: 96% in San Francisco (Silbert & Pines, 1981), 72% in Boston (Norton-Hawk, 2002), and 56% in Chicago (Raphael & Shapiro, 2002). A survey of 103 CSEC victims conducted by the Clark County, Nevada, Public Defenders Office– Juvenile Division calculated that the average age a prostituted youth first ran away from home was 13 years old (Smith et al., 2009). Experts anecdotally state that within 48 hours of running away an adolescent will be approached to participate in prostitution or another form of commercial sexual exploitation (Friedman, 2005). Recruitment CSEC is brutal, and has been called modern day slavery. The vast majority of commercially sexually exploited girls have pimps (D. Gavin, personal communication, 2009; Finkelhor & Ormrod, 2004; Giobbe, 1993). For example, as of mid-2008, Boston police had identified approximately 90 pimps in the Boston area (K. O’Connell, personal communication, 2008). Pimps actively seek girls in the child and family services system, knowing that traumatized girls without a stable support system are their easiest prey. Girls who have survived child sexual abuse have already been taught lessons prior to their recruitment that make the pimp’s job easier—their bodies are not their own, adults having sex with children is normal, secrets are to be kept, and no one can keep you safe (Flowers, 2001; Lloyd, 2005; Raphael, 2004; Spangenberg, 2001). Of the

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first 40 girls living in group homes served by the My Life My Choice Project in Boston, 38 had been approached by a pimp at some time (Smith et al., 2009). In addition, pimps frequent areas where they hope to find runaways, including bus stops and train stations, and spend time where they know that they can find girls, including at schools and malls. Social networking sites (including MySpace) have also provided fertile ground for pimps to reach multiple girls at one time. Once connected to these girls in some way, pimps may use a variety of tactics, including force and coercion, to recruit young women. The most common tactic, however, is seduction (Flowers, 2001; Lloyd, 2005; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2002; Raphael, 2004). Pimps traditionally spend time “grooming” a young woman, slowly isolating her and increasing her dependence on him for both material items and emotional sustenance. Within a year, the pimp will begin the process of “turning her out.” This process, and the violence, degradation, and brainwashing that follows, renders an adolescent girl in a state similar to a battered woman—both terrified of her perpetrator and willing to lay down her life, and her body, for his needs (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Lloyd, 2005; Raphael, 2004; Spangenberg, 2001). Further, approximately 20% of youth—both girls and boys—are trafficked nationally by organized criminal networks, crossing the United States through well-established prostitution tracks (Estes & Weiner, 2001). Over the past 10 years, the picture of CSEC has changed dramatically. A decade ago, the vast majority of exploitation of girls occurred on the streets, in plain sight of law enforcement and the community. Today, in most communities across the country, the buying and selling of children has gone indoors. Pimps routinely sell girls over the

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Internet, on sites such as Craigslist. Girls are placed in a motel room, apartment, or private home and are required to service a steady stream of “tricks” to meet their quota, on average 10–20 per night (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Smith et al., 2009; U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). Impact of CSEC Victims of CSEC report experiencing daily, routine violence by pimps, johns, other women, and even law enforcement (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Nixon et al., 2002; Norton-Hawk, 2002; Raphael, 2004; Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009). One study of 800 women found that 85% had experienced rapes, 95% assaults, and 77% kidnapping by pimps (Council for Prostitution Alternatives, 1991). A similar study found that almost 20% of the women interviewed had been assaulted, sexually assaulted, or propositioned by law enforcement (Nixon et al., 2002) and these experiences of “institutional violence” are confirmed by young women exploited by CSEC (Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009). One research study described prostituted women as “[T]he most raped class of women in the history of our planet” (Hunter & Reed, 1990; see also Kristoff & WuDunn, 2009). Most of this violence goes unreported by the victims due to fear of retaliation or that law enforcement may arrest them or return them to their abusive homes (Flowers, 2001). Girls’ reproductive health, including exposure to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as HIV, is consistently compromised by their exploitation (Farley & Kelly, 2000). In response to this brutality, girls often use substances in order to survive their daily trauma (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009). One large study of homeless youth exploited

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

through prostitution found that more than 75% “abuse” alcohol or drugs, while virtually all admitted to some level of use. These rates were notably higher than for homeless youth not exploited through prostitution (Yates, Mackenzie, Pennbridge, & Swofford, 1991). While a significant percentage of girls enter prostitution with no drug or alcohol abuse history (Farley & Kelly, 2000), some studies suggest that girls who become exploited are likely to have begun using substances at an earlier age than their “at risk” peers who do not become exploited (Inciardi, Pottieger, Forney, Chitwood, & McBride, 1991; Nadon, Koverola, & Schluderman, 1998). Despite the profound physical impact of being commercially sexually exploited, girls rarely receive regular prophylactic health care and are, in fact, often restricted from obtaining health care by their pimps until their health issue becomes critical. Therefore, these girls are seen most frequently in emergency rooms and clinics where providers are likely not to have an ongoing relationship with them. In addition to the physical consequences, girls suffer severe psychological consequences of commercial sexual exploitation (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009). Women and girls who have survived prostitution demonstrate high rates of dissociative disorders, self-destructive behaviors (including cutting), suicide attempts, and clinical depression (Farley & Kelly, 2000; Giobbe, 1993; Lloyd, 2005; Nixon et al., 2002). Almost 50% of prostituted women in one study had attempted suicide, and approximately 20% engaged in self-mutilation, such as cutting (Parriott, 1994). One prostituted woman stated, “When I’m in pain, I like to hurt myself because the pain goes away” (Nixon et al., 2002, p. 1032). As a result of the chronic psychological and physical violence, commercially sexually exploited girls often develop symptoms of

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posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009). Farley and colleagues found that almost 75% of prostituted women in five countries and 68% in the United States met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD (Farley, Baral, Kiremire, & Sezgin, 1998). Their feelings of powerlessness are reinforced by social isolation, captivity, verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, sexual assaults, and physical abuse—all of which are common practice for pimps (Dworkin, 1997; Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Silbert & Pines, 1981). Some exploited girls may display symptoms of “the Stockholm Syndrome,” otherwise most frequently seen among POWs (Graham & Wish, 1994). Here, as a means of emotional and physical survival, the girl identifies with her captor, expressing extreme gratitude over the smallest acts of kindness or mercy (i.e., “he didn’t beat me today”), denying the extent of violence and injury, rooting for her pimp, being hypervigilant about his needs, and identifying anyone trying to persecute him or help her escape as the enemy. She may lash out at law enforcement or anyone else attempting to help her exit and insist that she is fine and happy in her current situation (Graham & Wish, 1994; Lloyd, 2005). Further, the manifestations of her trauma may make her reluctant to trust outsiders trying to help her (Friedman, 2005; Goldblatt Grace, 2008/2009; Raphael, 2004). The clinical manifestations of PTSD “can limit an individual’s ability to function effectively, decreasing the likelihood that he or she can take advantage of available resources and possibly minimizing any likelihood of leaving prostitution” (Valera, Sawyer, & Schiraldi, 2001, p. 59). Further, her self-esteem is so battered that she does not believe she could ever warrant being cared for, being respected in her community, or valued in her personal relationships (Farley, 1998). “It is sadly the

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sense of being without real hope, without a sense of possibility, without a belief in their inherent ability to grow and change that keeps so many girls and young women trapped in the commercial sex industry” (Lloyd, 2008, p. 2). Like soldiers returning from a war zone, these girls have been damaged mind, body, and soul by their experiences. And yet, they must return to that war zone every night.

COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND THE LAW There are international, federal, and state sources of law and policy relating to CSEC, which can be categorized as: &

&

Laws aimed at aiding and enhancing prosecution of perpetrators of CSEC (i.e., pimps, johns); and Laws aimed at providing legal protection, services or compensation to victims of CSEC (recently called “Safe Harbor” laws.

Legislation may have elements of both and may also encourage or mandate research and expanded data collection to better understand the issue (see Table 16.1). Although research supports the view that youth are victims of CSEC, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA, 2000), the critical U.S. federal legislation addressing CSEC, clearly takes that position, comprehensive legislation addressing CSEC is not present in all states. Over the past two years, there has been a great deal of U.S. state legislative activity aimed at CSEC and an increasing effort to pass laws to protect its victims, yet a survey of state legislation shows it is still more heavily weighted toward laws easing and enhancing prosecution of perpetrators than laws providing

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victim assistance and protection (see Table 16.1). In the absence of comprehensive legislation and policy addressing this issue, the twin goals animating all legislation, policy, and practice—law enforcement and victim protection—can conflict, with neither goal being fully realized. Absent comprehensive legislation directed at this multifaceted issue, existing laws can be misapplied or have unintended consequences, yielding results contrary to sound public policy and research. International CSEC and Trafficking of Minors Advocates for victims of sexual exploitation within the United States argue that efforts to address international trafficking of minors receive far more funding, official support, and sympathetic media attention than do efforts within the United States. They argue that this is misguided since research shows that only about 10% of CSEC occurring in the United States appears to be tied to international networks (Mukasey et al., 2007). While international efforts to address trafficking may have limited direct effect on eradicating CSEC within the United States, they set an important standard by defining the problem in human rights terms and spotlighting its connection to the broader issues of global physical, psychological, and economic exploitation of women and girls (Kristof & WuDunn, 2009). The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol The Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography (United Nations, 2000) seeks to criminalize among its signatory countries “. . . offering, delivering, or accepting, by

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

whatever means, a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation . . . ” (Optional Protocol, CRC 3(i)(a)), which is defined broadly as “. . . the use of a child in sexual activities for remuneration or any other form of consideration” (Optional Protocol, CRC 2(b)). The Protocol takes a holistic approach, and, while it emphasizes prosecution of those who sexually exploit children, it focuses much of its attention on protecting the rights of the child victims at all stages of that prosecution and providing services to prevent children from becoming exploited. It takes the position that sexual exploitation is the result of “. . . under-development, poverty, economic disparities, inequitable socioeconomic structures, disfunctioning families, lack of education . . . gender discrimination, [and] irresponsible adult sexual behaviour” (Optional Protocol, CRC Preamble; Lynch & Widner, 2008). The United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Optional Protocol; however, its holistic approach and clarity about the victimization of children through prostitution is consistent with that expressed in the federal TVPA (2000). Moreover, as with many human rights protocols, it provides a framework, which can be useful to document and reform the incidence of and response to domestic CSEC (Lynch & Widner, 2008). United States Federal Law In 2000, Congress passed the TVPA, which was reauthorized and expanded in 2003, 2005, and 2008 and sets federal policy concerning CSEC today. The TVPA provides a comprehensive federal framework, clearly defining commercially sexually exploited children as victims and addressing both law enforcement and protection of both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens

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(Hyland, 2001). Using the language of trafficking, it defines an extensive set of rights for victims of CSEC, but its policy of protecting minors who are victims of sexual exploitation has not been communicated clearly and implemented comprehensively by the states (Smith et al., 2009) and so, while a victim protection focus is increasing among the states, the TVPA has largely been used in the prosecution of pimps (Mukasey et al., 2007). Aiding and Enhancing Prosecution of Perpetrators Federal legislation focused on criminalizing and aiding law enforcement efforts around sex trafficking began with the White Slave Traffic Act, popularly known as the Mann Act, originally passed in 1910, which prohibited knowingly transporting individuals in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution or any criminalized sex act. The PROTECTAct (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today) enhanced the Mann Act by broadening the crime and increasing penalties for certain sexual offenses related to children (2003). The framework for prosecution was expanded in the TVPA, which creates crimes of: (a) forced labor; (b) trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor; (c) sex trafficking of children or by force, fraud, or coercion; and (d) unlawful conduct with documents in furtherance of trafficking. The TVPA’s emphasis on protecting minors is reflected in the fact that proof of force, fraud, or coercion is not needed if the victim is under 18 years of age (TVPA, 22 U.S.C. § 7102 (8)(A); 42 U.S.C. § 14044e (2007)) and sex trafficking is defined broadly as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” (TVPA, 22 U.S.C. §§ 7102). Although the vast majority of prosecutions and services provided under the TVPA

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have involved international trafficking, it is applicable in cases of domestic sex trafficking and even in cases of intrastate sex trafficking. Despite the name, transportation of a person is not required to make a case of trafficking, nor is movement across state lines needed to prove that the crime was “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce,” which is a requirement for federal jurisdiction (Smith et al., 2009). Federal courts have rejected challenges to prosecutions of intrastate trafficking on the grounds that the conduct did not affect interstate commerce, finding that intrastate trafficking feeds the interstate economy through the use of hotels, phones, and products from other states sufficient for federal jurisdiction under the TVPA (see, e.g., United States v. Evans, 2007; United States v. Paris, 2007). In an August 2010 report to Congress, the Department of Justice noted that [S]ince its inception in 2003, the Innocence Lost National Initiative (ILNI) has located and recovered 918 children, resulting in 369 indictments and 554 convictions of traffickers in the federal and state criminal justice systems, disruption of 92 criminal enterprises disrupted [sic], and dismantling of 44 criminal enterprises. (p. 33) The ILNI is a federal/state partnership focusing on child victims of domestic commercial sexual exploitation. The report goes on to note the lengthy sentences received by many of the pimps prosecuted under federal law. The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have also expanded efforts to prosecute individuals engaged in child pornography through the Internet and U.S. mail as another form of CSEC (Mukasey et al., 2007; U.S. Department of Justice, 2010; U.S. Government Report, 2001). These efforts have been

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bolstered by U.S. Supreme Court decisions allowing child pornography prosecutions under federal and state law holding that child pornography is not protected as free speech under the first amendment as long as the statute is not overbroad (see, e.g., New York v. Ferber, 1982; United States v. Williams, 2008). Providing Services, Compensation, or Protection to Victims The TVPA has extensive provisions aimed at protecting victims of CSEC including the T-visa nonimmigrant status, which provides legal status to nonU.S. citizens who are victims of severe forms of trafficking (child victims of sex trafficking are considered severe victims) (22 U.S.C. §7101 (b)(19)(2007)). Notably, the TVPA sets out a framework of protections for CSEC victims who are in custody that reinforces its policy against criminal treatment of CSEC victims, including protections not to be detained in facilities inappropriate to their status as crime victims; [to] receive necessary medical care and other assistance; and [to] be provided protection if a victim’s safety is at risk. . . . (TVPA, 22 U.S.C. § 7105 (c)(1)(A-C) (2007)) The TVPA also requires data collection and reporting on incidence of severe sex trafficking, and expanded services to trafficking victims from federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education (22 U.S.C.A. § 7109a). Under these provisions a number of street outreach and legal services programs have been funded, but funds have been slow to come to others, most notably residential programs for juvenile victims of sex trafficking (Smith et al., 2009; U.S. Department of Justice, 2009, 2010).

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

While the TVPA’s language provides strong leadership to address CSEC, its principles have not been consistently implemented by states and local jurisdictions. The TVPA’s protections against the use of detention are routinely violated as states and local jurisdictions use delinquency charges and juvenile justice intervention to hold girls who are victims of CSEC. Over the years, the failure of states to implement these protections has resulted from a lack of local understanding of TVPA protections; a lack of training of local authorities; conflicts between local law enforcement, social services, and advocacy communities about how to define and address CSEC; and a lack of targeted federal resources to the states (Smith et al., 2009). State Responses CSEC obviously violates laws existing on the books in every state, but, while more states are legislating in this area, most do not have intentional and comprehensive legislative responses to the issue as we now understand it. At the local level, girls exploited through CSEC are commonly charged with a range of delinquency or status offenses, which misidentify them and trigger incorrect official responses that can be harmful to the girls initially and into their futures (Lynch & Widner, 2008; Smith et al., 2009). Since 2000, almost every state and the District of Columbia have passed some law addressing CSEC by (a) enhancing and aiding prosecution of perpetrators (pimps and johns), and/or (b) protecting and assisting the child victim. The U.S. Department of Justice created a Model State Anti-Trafficking Criminal Statute (U.S. Department of Justice, 2004) to promote a uniform response across the states focusing on prosecution, and as Table 16.1 indicates, state statues have also focused on enhancing and aiding prosecution of perpetrators of CSEC. Among states with laws

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targeting CSEC, those enhancing prosecution still outnumber those focusing on victim protection. Thus, even with the recent flurry of state legislation, many girls who are victims of CSEC lack a well-designed safety net and continue to be handled within the juvenile and criminal justice systems while state and county child and family services, juvenile justice, and public health systems struggle to develop appropriate and comprehensive responses to the issue. Laws Aimed at Aiding and Enhancing Prosecution of Perpetrators of CSEC Almost every state has statutes to assist the prosecution of pimps and johns who sexually exploit youth, and/or to enhance penalties for those convicted. The best of these accomplish their goal by defining commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking broadly to be consistent with the TVPA and by expanding existing crimes and enhancing sentences when crimes involve trafficking of minors. For example, these statutes address all forms of trafficking and eliminate the requirement of force or coercion for trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation of minors (Polaris Project, 2006). It is important to note that while statutes aimed at prosecuting perpetrators are widespread, many state laws define CSEC or trafficking too narrowly to address the problem fully (Polaris Project, 2006). Laws Aimed at Providing Legal Protection, Services, or Compensation to Victims As Table 16.1 reflects, fewer states have legislation directed at protecting the victims of CSEC than at prosecuting the perpetrator. Among state laws directed at victim protection, the most common provide social services to CSEC victims or create commissions and task forces to study the issue. Far less common are laws providing legal protection to CSEC victims,

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Table 16.1. Count of States with Laws in Illustrative Categories Categories of State Statutes Addressing Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

Number of States with Provision

Human Trafficking and/or Commercial Sexual Exploitation Defined: Statutes that make human trafficking and/or commercial sexual exploitation a crime, defining its elements and degrees. These statutes often address sentencing. Prosecution of Perpetrators: Statutes that create enhanced sentences or expand existing crimes for traffickers, pimps, and/or johns. These statutes are frequently based on the age of the trafficking victim. Assistance and Protective Services for Victims: Statutorily created resources for victims of trafficking. These include forms of legal protection, as well as public assistance, safe homes, and administrative bodies to assist victims of trafficking. Protections for Juveniles Charged With Prostitution and Prostitution-Related Crimes: Statutes that allow for trafficking as a full defense to prosecution, set an age floor under which minors cannot be charged with prostitution, or allow a juvenile to enter a diversion program or be adjudicated a child in need of services instead of a delinquent when charged with prostitution. This category also includes statutes allowing juveniles to seal convictions for prostitution-related crimes. Research Commission and/or Task Force Established: Statutorily created commissions and task forces to deal exclusively with the problem of human trafficking. Civil Cause of Action: Allowing victims of trafficking to bring civil causes of action against their traffickers to recover damages such as restitution and punitive damages.

45 and DC; 3 pending



50 and DC 29 and DC; 5 pending

17; 5 pending

27 and DC; 2 pending 17 & DC; 3 pending

The count of state provisions is current as of March 2011.

such as protection from prosecution by creating a defense of coercion by trafficking, setting a minimum age under which one could not be charged with prostitution, or sealing records of convictions for prostitution related crimes. Also less common are state laws allowing victims of CSEC to seek civil remedies against traffickers. Texas has one such statute passed in 2009, which allows the victim to recover damages arising from trafficking from a defendant who “engages in the trafficking of persons or who intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics another person” (V.T.C.A. § 98.002). Having been acquitted or not prosecuted is no defense to this civil claim, which is clearly written to cover both pimps and johns. The reluctance of states to pass protective legislation for child victims of sexual exploitation is striking given what we know about the backgrounds of these girls and the experience of CSEC, and given federal and state statements that sexually exploited children are victims (Mukasey et al., 2009; TVPA, 2000;

U.S. Department of Justice, 2010). Inexplicably, states that define the crime of commercial sexual exploitation in terms clearly denoting the minor as a victim also fail to provide services or legal protections for that child victim (see Table 16.1). As with Raquel in the opening case example, once charged with delinquency, either for prostitution or any number of related offenses such as trespass, larceny, simple assault, or running away; girls may be detained preadjudication, committed to the juvenile justice agency, and face ancillary consequences of delinquency such as exclusion from school (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). Moreover, individuals found delinquent for certain sex acts or solicitation of those acts may be required to register on state sex offender registries, which sweep in hundreds of prostituted individuals, including minors who are victims of sexual exploitation (Duncan, 2009). Finally, being charged with a crime can prevent girls from receiving federal funds available for victims of violent crime (Smith et al., 2009).

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

Use of the juvenile justice process and system for these girls is not surprising, given its history as a social institution to reform girls of “immoral” conduct. Some commentators note that the sexual behavior of girls has always been a particular concern of the juvenile court, as girls were often charged with “incorrigibility” as a proxy for being sexually active (Chesney-Lind & Shelden, 1998). In this way, arguments for less juvenile justice response and more child and family services protection push against extensive juvenile justice history (Brenzel, 1983; Knupfer, 2001). The legal inconsistency that results when girls, who cannot consent to sex under statutory rape laws, are charged with prostitution was corrected in Michigan and Illinois, by amendments that provide an age under which a girl cannot be charged with prostitution— Michigan, 16; Illinois, 18—(e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.448, § 750.449 (2007); Lynch & Widner, 2008). Other states have similar legislative age requirements pending. Advocates for girls caution that juvenile justice intervention, which often includes detention, tells the exploited girl that she is to blame for her victimization, contrary to reality and best treatment practices (Smith et al., 2009). However, absent specific statutory language, state courts frustrated by the system’s inability to protect girls from sexual exploitation may uphold prosecutions of exploited girls for prostitution (see e.g., In the Matter of B.D.S.D., 2009; In re Nicolette R., 2004; Annitto, in press). Prompted by the tensions inherent in prosecutions of victims of sexual exploitation and the recognition that commercially sexually exploited youth present a unique service profile, four states (New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Washington)1 have passed comprehensive “Safe Harbor” legislation offering a targeted 1

Current as of March 2011.

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social service network as well as legal protection for victims of CSEC (Annitto, in press). New York’s Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Act was the first of these (Annitto, in press; Smith et al., 2009). The Act expands the definition of PINS (Persons in Need of Services), which is the New York state status offender law, to include sexually exploited children, and requires the PINS petition be substituted, by defense motion, in every charge of prostitution of an individual below 18 years of age (NY Fam. Ct. § 311.4; 712; 732 (2007)). The Act further requires specialized services for sexually exploited children including “safe and secure long term housing and specialized services” (NY Soc. Serv. § 447-a & 447-b (2007)). The Act further provides a presumption that youth under its provisions meet criteria for certification as victims of a severe form of trafficking under the TVPA (NY Soc. Serv. 447-a (2007)). Finally, the Act allows the court to reinstate the delinquency charges if the youth is unwilling to cooperate with specialized services (NY Fam. Ct. § 311.4 (2007)). The Act is significant, in part, because it allows exploited girls to be properly identified rather than categorized with other youth, and through that characterization it triggers a set of responses designed for this unique population.

A COMPREHENSIVE RESPONSE States should formalize their prosecution and protection responses in comprehensive legislation. On the protective side, state laws and regulations should support a continuum of services that are central to engaging and supporting commercially sexually exploited girls. Providing a treatment continuum is imperative so “women and girls . . . believe that a full recovery is possible and that someone will be there to listen to them and support them

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through the process” (Raphael, 2004, p. 213). Specifically, a full continuum of services for commercially sexually exploited girls would include the following (Clawson et al., 2009). Identification Identifying domestic victims of CSEC can be difficult, especially if states rely exclusively on law enforcement. Each agency conducting outreach to this population seems to utilize their own assessment tools; however, there are no published protocols for medical providers and child protection workers like there are for domestic violence and international trafficking victims. A multidisciplinary approach to identification is critical; finding these often invisible victims requires a coordinated effort, including service providers, law enforcement, school based personnel, and the faith community. In order to ensure that identification is possible, providers across disciplines must receive effective training about victimization and CSEC, shifting provider attitudes from believing that prostitution is “a victimless crime.” Providers must learn to ask appropriate questions on every intake and assessment of an adolescent girl, including, “Have you ever had to exchange sex for money, food, or shelter?” This type of questioning will open dialogue and improve access to services. One adult survivor recalls being an adolescent and going to a local clinic four separate times for abortion services while she was under the control of a pimp. Not once was this young woman asked what was leading to these pregnancies, and this window of opportunity to provide her with some support and a path to exit was lost each time. Outreach Services in Places Where Exploited Youth Congregate or Work Outreach services must be offered in a nonjudgmental, careful way that begins the trust-

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building process. Developing a trusting relationship with a girl who is being prostituted is extremely difficult for a variety of reasons, including her trauma history, threats to her safety by her pimp, and possibly her prior experiences with “the system” (Clawson et al., 2009). Outreach workers must be willing to attempt to build a relationship with a victim over and over again, for as long a period as necessary. This relationship can slowly, over time, begin to erode her dependence on her pimp and facilitate access to resources (MacInnes, 1998). One approach used by agencies is to establish drop-in centers to meet the short-term needs of exploited youth (i.e., food, hygiene products, etc.), in an effort to build relationships aimed at long-term change (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, 2009; N. Hotaling, personal communication, 2006; Priebe & Suhr, 2005).

Comprehensive Case Management Aimed at Short-Term Stabilization and Long-Term Planning Each of the most well-established programs for commercially sexually exploited girls include comprehensive case management (K. Carlson, personal communication, 2009; Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, 2009; N. Hotaling, personal communication, 2006; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2002). The most important facet of case management is the relationship formed between the case manager and the victim. There are multiple examples of this type of trusting relationship around the country, including the Gaining Independence for Tomorrow (GIFT) Program in Boston, Massachusetts. Funded by the child and family services system, GIFT pairs commercially sexually exploited girls or girls considered at high risk of exploitation with a “life coach,” an

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

intensive case manager who provides daily support, both emotional and in terms of concrete resources (K. Carlson, personal communication, 2009). Effective case managers are able to leverage their relationship with a victim to help her find and access resources, with a focus on physical safety and basic needs (K. Carlson, personal communication, 2009; Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, 2009; N. Hotaling, personal communication, 2006; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2002). Intensive case management should include, but not be limited to, support and guidance in the following realms: access to and organizing medical care, educational and vocational planning, legal services, shelter/ housing; and navigating the child and family services and juvenile justice systems. All of this must occur with a positive youth development approach that emphasizes supporting the whole girl, helping her find her strengths and her passions (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). Supportive Housing and Therapeutic Recovery Services Girls exiting “the life” rarely have safe, supportive homes to which they can return, and frequently do not find foster homes and group homes well versed in their experiences and needs. Housing programs serving adult women leaving prostitution emphasize the importance of a housing community that is both nurturing and therapeutic to prevent relapse and build stability (Carter, 2003; Hotaling, Burris, Johnson, Bird, & Melbye, 2003; Rabinovitch, 2003; Raphael, 2004). Women often enter these homes with both skepticism and a desperate desire to live: as described by a survivor interviewed by Raphael (2004), “I didn’t have an ounce of hope. I never thought in a million years it

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would work. I was just tired, tired, and vulnerable enough to be willing to stay” (Howard, in Raphael, 2004, p. 147). There are currently not nearly enough residential programs serving commercially sexually exploited girls in the United States. The Los Angeles Times reported that more than a month after 52 children were found during a nationwide FBI initiative, one girl remained in detention and the others had been sent home or to foster care (Markman, 2009). The residential programs that exist are most often relatively small (6–10 beds) and provide a comprehensive array of services, including mental health services, family support services, education support, career planning, life skills education, and recreational programming. Therapeutic housing programs range from those that explicitly focus only on commercially sexually exploited girls (such as Girls Educational & Mentoring Services [GEMS]. Angela’s House, and ACT Group Home of Germaine Lawrence) to those that serve a range of traumatized girls but have developed specific expertise with victims of CSEC (e.g., residential treatment programs of Germaine Lawrence). A primary focus of housing programs must be supporting a girl’s recovery through understanding her trauma history, and the survival and coping skills she learned in “the life,” which must be unlearned and replaced. While programs have data supporting their impact, more evaluation is needed to determine what makes a program successful and, indeed, to determine what constitutes success. Germaine Lawrence, for example, has been focusing on program evaluation. During its first year of operation, the ACT Group Home (“Acknowledge, Commit, Transform”), when compared to a previous treatment program at the same site, demonstrated a 78% decrease in the number of young

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women who had unplanned discharges due to running away, hospitalizations, and incarcerations (Thomson, Hirshberg, Howley, Corbett, & Valila, 2011). Relapse Prevention and Aftercare Girls who have been commercially sexually exploited need long-term services as they transition into the community. Victims must receive support in changing their identity from a victim to a leader and valued member of society (Lloyd, 2008; A. Porter, personal communication, 2006; M. Smith, personal communication, 2006). Programs that employ survivors, such as GEMS, Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), and My Life My Choice, believe strongly in the need for such internships and employment opportunities. Further, to promote girls’ stability, programs must offer them long-term opportunities to participate in case management and support as well as skill building groups through adulthood. Given the range of needs of sexually exploited girls and the fact that they enter the system at different points, cross-system and public/private collaborations are critical to a comprehensive response (Clawson et al., 2009; MacInnes, 1998; see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). Effective programs engage multidisciplinary allies in order to develop efficacious partnerships on behalf of these victims (A. Adams, personal communication, March 2006; N. Hotaling, personal communication, June 2006; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2002; K. Seitz, personal communication, October 2006). To ensure that these partnerships are grounded in a mutual understanding of the needs of commercially sexually exploited girls, focused training on commercial sexual exploitation

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for all service providers (including law enforcement) is paramount (Raphael, 2004). There are examples of such collaborations throughout the United States and Canada. In the SEEN Coalition of the Suffolk County Children’s Advocacy Center, for example, with a collective goal of increasing awareness of, identification of, and services to commercially sexually exploited adolescents, project partners developed “Multidisciplinary Team Guidelines,” which were launched in October 2006. These guidelines ensure that within 48 hours of any agency identifying a youth who may be exploited, representatives from all relevant agencies (including law enforcement, child protective services, medical providers, district attorneys, etc.) convene via phone or in person to develop an immediate service plan aimed at ensuring her safety and planning for her recovery. The model is predicated on working in collaboration with a victim; however, the team will convene to exchange information, whether the victim is ready to receive these services or not. If the victim is not yet ready to receive services, the collaboration ensures that she does not “fall through the cracks” of the systems (Clawson et al., 2009; SEEN Coalition, 2009).

CONCLUSION Commercially sexually exploited girls in our communities require a coordinated and empathic response from the service providers they encounter. This means that law enforcement, child and family services, juvenile justice systems, medical providers, school-based personnel, and the like, need to work in collaboration to weave a safety net that has heretofore been absent in the lives of exploited girls. To do this effectively, our legislation must encompass not only the procedures and penalties associated

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls

with prosecution of those who exploit these girls, but a mandate to protect and support girls who have been commercially sexually exploited. We need to move beyond the victim/offender dichotomy and build a more nuanced and comprehensive approach that invests in each girl’s recovery as much as we invest in her exit. Only then will we begin to stem the tide of commercial sexual exploitation in this country, and build communities where every child has a right to safety and support.

REFERENCES Annitto, M. (in press). Consent, coercion, and compassion: Crafting a commonsense approach to commercial sexual exploitation of minors. Yale Law & Policy Review, 30, 1. Bagley, C., & Young, L. (1987). Juvenile prostitution and child sexual abuse: A controlled study. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 6, 5–26. Brenzel, B. A. (1983). Daughters of the state. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Carter, V. (2003). Providing services to African American prostituted women. In M. Farley (Ed.), Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress (pp. 213–222). New York, NY: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press. Chesney-Lind, M., & Shelden, R. (1998). Girls, delinquency and juvenile justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Clawson, H. J., Dutch, N., Solomon, A., & Goldblatt Grace, L. (2009). Human trafficking into and within the United States: A review of the literature. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/ HumanTrafficking/LitRev/ Council for Prostitution Alternatives. (1991). Characteristics of 800 CPA participants. In R. Weitzer (Ed.), Sex for sale: Prostitution, pornography, and the sex industry (pp. 139–155). New York, NY: Routledge. Duncan, K. M. (2009). A crime against common sense: How Louisiana’s implementation of the Adam Walsh Act exposes the law’s most significant flaw. Tulane Law Review, 84, 429–467. Dworkin, A. (1997). Prostitution and male supremacy. In A. Dworkin (Ed.), Life and death: Unapologetic writings

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of the continuing war against women (pp. 139–151). New York, NY: Free Press. Estes, R., & Weiner, N. (2001). The commercial sexual exploitation of children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Farley, M. (2003). Prostitution and the invisibility of harm. Women & Therapy, 26(3/4), 247–280. Farley, M., Baral, I., Kiremire, M., & Sezgin, U. (1998). Prostitution in five countries: Violence and posttraumatic stress disorder. Feminism & Psychology, 8(4), 405–426. Farley, M., & Kelly, V. (2000). Prostitution: A critical review of the medical and social sciences literature. Women & Criminal Justice, 11(4), 29–64. Finkelhor, D., & Ormrod, R. (2004). Prostitution of juveniles: Patterns from NIBRS. Juvenile Justice Bulletin (NCJ203946). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Flowers, R. B. (2001). Runaway kids and teenage prostitution. Westport, CT: Praeger. Friedman, S. (2005). Who is there to help us: How the system fails sexually exploited girls in the United States. New York, NY: ECPAT-USA. Giobbe, E. (1993). An analysis of individual, institutional, and cultural pimping. Michigan Journal of Gender Law, 1, 33–57. Girls Educational & Mentoring Services. (2009). What we do: Programs. Retrieved from www.gems-girls .org/what-we-do Glosser, A., Gardiner, K. & Fishman, M. (2004). Statutory rape: A guide to state laws and reporting requirements. Retrieved from www.lewin.com/Lewin_Publications /Human_Services/StateLaws_Report.htm Goldblatt Grace, L. (2008/2009). Understanding the commercial exploitation of children. The Link: Connecting Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, 7(2), 1–13. Graham, M., & Wish, E. (1994). Drug use among female arrestees: Onset, patterns, and relationships to prostitution. Journal of Drug Issues, 24(2), 315–329. Hammer, H., Finkelhor, D., & Sedlak, A. (2002). Runaway/thrown away children: National estimates and characteristics. NISMART: National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Harlan, S., Rodgers, L., & Slattery, B. (1981). Male and female adolescent prostitution: Huckleberry House Sexual Minority Youth Services Project. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Harway, M., & Liss, M. (1999). Dating violence and teen prostitution: Adolescent girls in the justice system. In N. G. Johnson, M. C. Roberts, & J. P. Worell (Eds.), Beyond appearance: A new look at adolescent girls. (pp. 277–300). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hotaling, N., Burris, A., Johnson, B., Bird, Y., & Melbye, K. (2003). Been there done that: SAGE, a peer leadership model among prostitution survivors. In M. Farley (Ed.), Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress (pp. 255–265). New York, NY: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press. Hunter, S., & Reed, K. (July, 1990). Taking the side of bought and sold rape. Paper presented at National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Washington, DC. Hyland, K. (2001). Protecting human victims of trafficking: An American framework. Berkley Women’s Law Journal, 16, 29–71. In the Matter of B.D.S.D., 289 S.W.3d 889 (2009). In the Matter of B.W., 53 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 854, 313 S.W.3d 818 (2010). In re Nicolette R., 9 A.D.3d 270, 779 N.Y.S.2d 487 (2004). Inciardi, J., Pottieger, A., Forney, M., Chitwood, D., & McBride, D. (1991). Prostitution, IV drug use, and sex-for-crack exchanges among serious delinquents: Risks for IV infection. Criminology, 29(2), 221–235. Irazola, S., Williamson, E., Chen, C., Garrett, A., & Clawson, H. J. (2008). Trafficking of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents: The forgotten victims and survivors. Fairfax, VA: ICF International, Inc. Retrieved from www.icfi.com/docs/traffickingcitizens.pdf Knupfer, A. M. (2001). Reform and resistance. New York, NY: Routledge. Kristof, N., & WuDunn, S. (2009) Half the sky. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Kyckelhahn, T., Beck, A. J., & Cohen, T. H. (2009). Characteristics of suspected human trafficking incidents, 2007–2008. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Lloyd, R. (2005). Acceptable victims? Sexually exploited youth in the U.S. Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, 18(3), 6–18. Lloyd, R. (2008). From victim to survivor, from survivor to leader: The importance of leadership programming and opportunities for commercially sexually exploited and trafficked young women. Retrieved from www .gems-girls.org/WhitePaper.pdf

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Lynch, D., & Widner, K. (2008). Commercial sexual exploitation of children in Georgia. Atlanta, GA: Emory University School of Law. Retrieved from http:// childwelfare.net/activities/legislative2008/CSEC20 080131.pdf MacInnes, R. (1998). Children in the game: Child prostitution strategies for recovery. Calgary, Alberta: Street Teams. MacKinnon, C., & Dworkin, A. (1997). In harm’s way: The pornography civil rights hearings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Markman, J. (2009, December 28). Rescued child prostitutes not receiving help. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec /08/nation/la-na-child-prostitution8-2009dec08 McGaha, J. E., & Evans, A. (2009). Where are the victims? The credibility gap in human trafficking research. Intercultural Human Rights Law Review, 4, 239–266. Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.448; 750.449 (2007). Mukasey, M. B., Daley, C. K., & Hagy, D. W. (2007). Commercial sexual exploitation of children: What do we know and what do we do about it? Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Nadon, S., Koverola, C. & Schludermann, E. (1998). Antecedents to prostitution. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 13(2), 206–221. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (2002). Female juvenile prostitution: Problem and response. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982). Nixon, K., Tutty, L., Downe, P., Gorkoff, K., & Ursel, J. (2002). The everyday occurrence: Violence in the lives of girls exploited through prostitution. Violence Against Women, 8(9), 1016–1043. Norton-Hawk, M. (2002). The lifecourse of prostitution. Women, Girls & Criminal Justice, 3(1), 7–9. O’Leary, C., & Howard, O. (2001). The prostitution of women and girls in metropolitan Chicago: A preliminary prevalence report. Chicago, IL: Center for Impact Research. Parriott, R. (1994). Health experiences of Twin Cities women used in prostitution. Unpublished survey initiated by WHISPER, Minneapolis, MN. Polaris Project. (2006). Top 15 problem areas in state bills on trafficking in persons. Washington, DC: Polaris Project. Retrieved from Polaris Project Web site: www .polarisproject.org Polaris Project. U.S. Policy Program. Accessed online at www.trendtrack.com/texis/cq/viewrpt?event¼ 49f99ef0e9

The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls Priebe, A., & Suhr, C. (2005). Hidden in plain view: The commercial sexual exploitation of girls in Atlanta. Atlanta, GA: The Atlanta Women’s Agenda. PROTECT Act of 2003, Pub.L. 108–21, 117 Stat. 650, S. 151 (2003). Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile arrests 2008. Juvenile justice bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Rabinovitch, J. (2003). PEERS: The Prostitutes’ Empowerment, Education, and Resource Society. In M. Farley (Ed.), Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress (pp. 239–253). New York, NY: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press. Raphael, J. (2004). Listening to Olivia: Violence, poverty, and prostitution. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Raphael, J., & Shapiro, D. (2002). Sisters speak out: The lives and needs of prostituted women in Chicago: A research study. Chicago, IL: Center for Impact Research. Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act, S.3175–C. S.2 Amending sections 447-a and 447-b of the NY Social Service Act and sections 311.4, 712, and 732 of the NY Family Court Act (2007). SEEN Coalition. (2011). Analysis of SEEN Database. Unpublished raw data. Silbert, M., & Pines, A. (1981). Occupational hazards of street prostitutes. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 8(4), 395–399. Silbert, M., & Pines, A. (1982). Entrance into prostitution. Youth & Society, 13(4), 471–500. Smith, L. A., Vardaman, S. H., & Snow, M. A. (2009). The national report on domestic minor sex trafficking: America’s prostituted children. Vancouver, WA: Shared Hope International. Spangenberg, M. (2001). Prostituted youth in New York City: An overview. New York City: ECPAT-USA. Thomson, S., Hirshberg, D., Howley, D., Corbett, A., & Valila, N. (2011). Acknowledge, Commit, Transform (ACT): Treating sexually exploited adolescent girls at Germaine Lawrence’s ACT Group Home. Unpublished manuscript. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, Div. A of Pub. L. No. 106–386, § 108, as amended (2008). Tyler, K., Hoyt, D., Whitbeck, L., & Cauce, A. (2001). The impact of childhood sexual abuse on later sexual victimization among runaway youth. Journal of Research on Adolescents, 11, 151–176. United Nations. (2000). Optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

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G.A. Res. 54/263, Annex II, 54 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 6, U.N. Doc. A/54/49, Vol. III. Entered into force January 18, 2002. Retrieved from www1 .umn.edu/humanrts/instree/childprotsale.html United States v. Evans, 476 F.3d 1176 (11th Cir. 2007). United States v. Paris, No. 03:06-CR-64 (CFD), 2007 WL 3124724 (D. Conn. 2007). United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008). The Second World Congress on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. United States Government Report, December 2001, Yokohama, Japan. U.S. Department of Justice. (2004). Model state antitrafficking criminal statute. Retrieved from legislationline.org/download/ . . . /id/ . . . /5b6fb5af 473eb70407d29b957330.pdf U.S. Department of Justice. (2009). Attorney General’s annual report to Congress and assessment of U.S. government activities to combat trafficking in persons in fiscal year 2008. Retrieved from www.justice.gov/olp /human_trafficking.htm U.S. Department of Justice. (2010). A national strategy for child exploitation prevention and interdiction: A report to Congress (August 2010). Retrieved from www.projectsafechildhood.gov/docs/natstrategy report.pdf Valera, R. J., Sawyer, R. G., & Schiraldi. G. R. (2001). Perceived health needs of inner-city street prostitutes: A preliminary study. American Journal of Health Behavior, 25(1), 50–59. Vernon Texas Code and Statutes Annotated, §98.002 (2009) White Slave Traffic Act of 1910. Ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825; codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. § 2421–2424 (1910). Widom, C. Z. (1995). Victims of childhood sexual abuse: Later criminal consequences. National Institute of Justice. Research in Brief. (NIJ, 1995, NCJ 151525). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Williams, L. M., & Frederick, M. E. (2009). Pathways into and out of commercial sexual victimization of children: Understanding and responding to sexually exploited teens. Lowell, MA: University of Massachusetts Lowell. Yates, G., Mackenzie, R., Pennbridge, J., & Swofford, A. (1991). A risk profile comparison of homeless youth involved in prostitution and homeless youth not involved. Adolescent Health, 12, 547–548. Young Women’s Empowerment Project. (2009). Girls do what they have to do to survive: Illuminating methods used by girls in the sex trade and street economy to fight back and heal. Chicago, IL: Young Women’s Empowerment Project.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

17

How American Government Frames Youth Problems TIMOTHY ROSS

AND

JOEL MILLER

For purposes of assigning children into a system we label them as Bad, Sad, Mad or Can’t Add. It is like attaching a mailing label—the Bad child gets sent to juvenile justice system. The Sad child goes into the child welfare system. The Mad child enters the mental health system. Can’t Add goes to special education. Sorting often depends upon issues of race and class. Minority and poor children are more likely to be labeled Bad. —Robert Schwartz, 2005

structure of American government, combined with bureaucratic service delivery systems, leads to fragmented and at times inconsistent policies concerning youth, including youth caught up in the juvenile justice system. The chapter then describes the types of issues this fragmentation creates for youth involved in multiple youth-serving systems. The chapter uses several illustrations, such as how youth in foster care who become involved in the juvenile justice system are sent to detention facilities at higher rates than their nonfoster peers, as examples of how fragmentation can contribute to negative outcomes for youth. The chapter contains several examples of solutions to these problems and concludes that efforts to solve fragmentation issues are making a difference in the lives of youth.

A

cross the country, mayors, commissioners, superintendents, governors, and state policy makers are innovating to address the needs of vulnerableyouth. These efforts take many forms: restructuring high schools to improve graduation rates, creating developmentally appropriate interventions to reduce juvenile delinquency, and revamping child welfare practices to keep more youth safely in their homes are just a few of these strategies. Many initiatives, however, are plagued by “crosscutting problems”—issues that cut across the different agencies that serve youth. Unless crosscutting issues are addressed proactively, they may undermine reform initiatives. This chapter examines how government in the United States frames youth problems. The chapter starts by describing how the

THE ROLE OF FEDERALISM IN FRAMING YOUTH ISSUES The structure of American government creates a patchwork of policy and responsibility in youth services. This section describes how federalism—the division of responsibilities and authority between national and state governments and among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government— 352

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influences juvenile justice policy. While juvenile justice is the example used here, the same description of the role of federalism in framing youth issues applies to other youth-serving systems, such as education and child welfare, and to other social services (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume). Juvenile justice authorities have an awesome power—the right to authorize the monitoring of youth behavior, to compel youth to participate in programs, and ultimately the right to separate youth from their families and communities in secure facilities. Many levels of government are involved in the regulation of this power. At the federal level, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), a part of the United States Department of Justice, carries out federal juvenile justice policy. OJJDP was established by Congress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, Public Law 93-415. Federal officials work to ensure compliance with federal juvenile justice laws and distribute funding for programs and research. In fiscal year 2008, OJJDP distributed $60 million of “formula grants” and millions more in special programs and research (see Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008). State governments, however, play a dominant role in juvenile justice policy. State laws, for example, delineate what constitutes a delinquent act within their boundaries and the circumstances in which youth can be “bootstrapped” to criminal court to be prosecuted as adults. States usually provide substantial funding to cover the costs of incarceration and for alternatives to incarceration. Funding decisions play a major role in influencing how individual cases will be handled, in part by determining the types of programs available to youth and the number of slots available (see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume).

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Moreover, different states organize responsibility for juvenile justice in different ways. In some states, agencies within departments of corrections or criminal justice are in charge of juvenile justice, while in others, this responsibility lies with departments of health and human services. States also vary in the balance of authority between state and local juvenile justice agencies. In some states, state officials maintain most authority over juvenile justice, while in others, responsibility is decentralized to local counties or cities—with many states having decentralized some responsibilities while maintaining central control over others (King, 2006). The organization of juvenile justice services influences the orientation of the executive branch toward youth involved in the juvenile justice system. Agency affiliation can dictate salaries, union affiliations, and qualifications of personnel hired to work with youth. Juvenile justice staff affiliated with social service departments, for example, are likely to use their discretion in carrying out policy in different ways than staff housed in corrections departments. The legislative and judicial branches of state and federal government also influence specific areas of juvenile justice policy. Congress has long played a role in establishing the legal framework and funding of juvenile justice through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and its reauthorizations. As part of these laws, Congress passed four mandates down to the states. States, for example, are required to deinstitutionalize status offenders (youth engaged in behavior that is not illegal, but because of their status as minors makes them a concern for government) (Ross, 2009) and develop plans to alleviate disproportionate minority contact (when the proportion of minority youth involved in the juvenile justice system exceeds the proportion in the general population). In exchange for compliance with

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these mandates, the federal government provides juvenile justice funding to the states. In areas outside of federal mandates, state legislatures influence juvenile justice practice by passing laws that define and categorize juvenile acts, providing funding, and conducting oversight hearings, as do city councils in many large urban jurisdictions. In addition to its role in overseeing individual cases, the judiciary also makes decisions that influence juvenile justice policy. In many jurisdictions, judicial rulings have established rights or determined that the executive branch has failed to abide by laws and regulations. Such suits may be filed in state or federal courts. The federal Supreme Court has set constitutionally minimum rights, with which the states must comply, in many areas of the juvenile justice process. For example, In re Gault (1969) determined that juveniles have many of the same due process rights as adults as established by the 14th Amendment, including the right to a lawyer and the protection against self-incrimination. States, by legislation or court decision, can exceed these federal minimums as some states have done by providing for the right to a jury in delinquency trials, even though the federal Supreme Court decided that one was not required (McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 1971; see Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). The Role of Democracy in Framing Youth Issues Democratic governments are not isolated from their citizens. All three branches of government are attuned to public opinion, with the job security of elected officials closely tied to the passions of the electorate. In the juvenile justice arena, three groups play particularly active roles: economic stakeholders in juvenile

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justice, nonprofit research and advocacy groups, and professional organizations. Economic stakeholders in juvenile justice include staff at juvenile incarceration facilities, alternative programs, and probation officers. In some jurisdictions, these groups are part of public employee unions that work to increase pay, job security, and working conditions for their members. In New York, for example, the executive branch of the state government sought to consolidate youth prison operations, use more communitybased options, and close down several facilities in 2007 and 2008. These efforts were stymied by the legislature, under pressure from public employee unions (Confessore, 2009). Legislators who opposed this effort acted in part to protect the jobs of their constituents. Concerns about public safety rang hollow: The consolidation would not have resulted in the release of prisoners. Even if it had, most of the youth prisons are located in low-income, rural districts, while most youth prisoners come from urban population centers, especially New York City. Released prisoners would not return to the districts of the legislators who opposed shutting the youth prisons. Similarly, many nonprofit service organizations, either individually or through membership associations, lobby for increased funding for the programs they operate (see Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). The juvenile justice field includes many nonprofit research and advocacy groups. For an extensive list that includes hyperlinks to group home pages, see www.act4jj.org or the Children’s Defense Fund juvenile justice resources page [www.childrensdefense.org]. These groups are often able to influence policy by demonstrating new programs, raising public awareness, and providing expertise and

How American Government Frames Youth Problems

research. The Vera Institute of Justice (www .vera.org), for example, has demonstrated and evaluated several innovative programs such as community service, substance abuse treatment, and family therapy for court-involved youth (Roberts, 2009). Where evaluations found them to be successful, the demonstrations became freestanding nonprofits that ran programs and worked with other jurisdictions to replicate innovations. The Burns Institute has drawn public attention to, and developed solutions for, disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system (www .burnsinstitute.org). Private philanthropic funders such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation (www.aecf.org) have advanced reforms such as the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, and influenced juvenile justice and youth policy by providing funding to study new issues or evaluate promising practices and programs (see Mendel, 2009; see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume; Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). National professional associations such as the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the American Bar Association, and the National District Attorneys Association and their local branches also influence policy. In 2009, for example, the chair of the National District Attorneys Association, speaking at a congressional hearing, opposed legislation that would require parole hearings for all juvenile offenders sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole every 3 years after they serve the first 15 years of their sentence. Representatives value the positions of these associations for at least two reasons. In addition to their expertise, compared to other citizens, association members are often directly affected by policy changes and are far

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more likely to base their votes on juvenile justice issues. This constellation of stakeholders and policy makers in the juvenile justice system is replicated throughout youth services, from adolescent mental health to afterschool programs. Democratic federalism’s checks and balances have many advantages: democratic accountability, oversight, forums for debate, flexibility for adapting to local conditions, and other benefits associated with American government. These are huge advantages that should not be minimized. At the same time, the multiple nodes of influence present a challenge to developing a coordinated and coherent youth service policy. There are many other challenges as well, and a better understanding of how government frames youth services requires a brief foray into how bureaucracies organize their work. The Role of Bureaucracy in Framing Youth Issues Understanding and applying policy in a particular field at a particular time requires specialized knowledge and ongoing attention to changes at the local, state, and federal levels. In part to grapple with this complexity, government is divided into functional organizations. Departments of education operate the schools, police enforce laws, and sanitation departments collect refuse. This specialization allows individual departments to develop knowledge and expertise in a particular area and gives agency staff a better chance to stay abreast of the many developments within their field. It also results in staff that are trained in narrow disciplines and narrow codes of conduct (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume). Agency executives and their staff are responsible for meeting specific obligations in a specific service domain. Moreover, they must

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meet these obligations efficiently, for agencies usually face high demand with a minimum of resources. They must also treat their clients equally, an aspect of fairness that is valued in democracies and is often embedded in rules and regulations. The challenge, then, is to organize staff to meet as much of the demand as possible within the agency’s resources without giving preferential treatment to any particular group. This set of constraints encourages bureaucratic behavior—that is, behavior that is closely structured by institutional rules—within agencies (Allison, 1971; Lipsky, 1980; Wilson, 1989). To meet these challenges, bureaucracies develop standard operating procedures, or SOPs. SOPs are directives, usually written in a guide or manual, which tell employees how to handle specific situations. They embody policy, regulation, and law. For example, when a youth enters a juvenile detention facility, an SOP will direct detention staff on what questions intake staff are to ask the youth, when they are supposed to be seen by medical staff for a physical, and how they are to assign the youth a place in a cell. SOPs are usually designed to ensure that staff prioritize the core mission of their agency. They are an efficient way to handle many service demands, allow staff to develop further expertise through repetition, and can be easily communicated to new staff. Moreover, SOPs prevent staff from engaging in activities that they may be restricted from, either legally, ethically, or by policy. Usually, SOPs are established and then develop over several years. Once in place, they are difficult to change. Thus far, this chapter has focused on two points. First, the form of American government creates many opportunities for influence, but creates a patchwork of funding, laws, and policies in any one area of youth services. Second, to make carrying out policy

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manageable, responsibility for youth services is divided into bureaucracies that focus on a specific set of issues (e.g., juvenile justice, child welfare, education) and that operate in predictable ways. We now turn to some of the problems this creates for vulnerable youth who come in contact with government agencies— and eventually to some of their solutions.

THE TUNNEL PROBLEM, OR “PROBLEM SOLVED!” The public agency that first provides services to a youth often determines the public response regardless of whether it has conducted a broad assessment of the youth’s underlying problems. Each of the many systems that serve youth has fixed services or solutions to offer. Because most agency SOPs call primarily for solutions within their systems, agency staff usually send youth down one of a small number of “service tunnels.” The tunnel may be the most appropriate pathway among that particular agency’s options, but it may not be an effective course of action overall. Once a young person starts down a particular tunnel, it is often hard to reverse course and take a different path. And because youth often have issues that cut across several areas of specialization, there are many situations where many youth serving agencies need to coordinate their efforts (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Sherman & Greenstone, Chapter 7, this volume). A clinically depressed youth who often skips school and occasionally self-medicates with marijuana, for example, will receive markedly different treatment depending on which tunnel she enters. If the teen receives a referral to the mental health system, she will likely receive some counseling. The school system, or the police if they pick up the youth for skipping

How American Government Frames Youth Problems

school, may demand that the parent file a status offense petition to address the truancy. This may result in services that focus on truancy or other educational issues, or merely a warning from a probation officer. Depending on the relationship between the youth and her parents, a status offense petition—a formal legal document that alleges the youth is a status offender— might lead to a court appearance and placement in foster care. School officials might bypass the status offender system and file an educational neglect petition that triggers a child protective services investigation. If police or school safety officials arrest the youth for smoking marijuana, she will enter the juvenile justice system. Juvenile justice officials may end up putting the youth on probation, sending her to an alternative program, or ordering her to placement in a secure facility—youth prison. The tunnel problem can lead to perverse and unintended consequences. In an example based on an actual case, police arrested a mother and her teen daughter who were working together to sell marijuana. Though the daughter might be seen as a child welfare case, the arrest sent the daughter into the juvenile justice tunnel. Juvenile justice officials felt uncomfortable giving the daughter probation because of her unstable home life and recommended that she be sent to placement. State law mandates that the minimum sentence to juvenile placement is 12 months. In contrast, the mother received a 30-day jail sentence. In another example, a study of the implications of a status offender law found that several schools routinely threatened to make child maltreatment reports of educational neglect if a parent did not file a status offender petition (Souweine & Khashu, 2001). Yet a study on the educational impact of child welfare placement shows that school attendance rates decline among status offenders

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who enter the child welfare system (Conger & Rebeck, 2001). Another study found that over half of all status offenders placed in foster care in one jurisdiction left these placements after 2 months, and 90% returned to their families (Ross, Wamsley, & Khashu, 2001). These quick turnarounds meant that youth did not have time to form bonds or mentoring relationships with child care workers. Indeed, knowing that most status offenders leave foster care quickly, child care workers have more of an incentive to invest their time and energy working with other youth, leaving status offenders without appropriate services targeted to their needs. This may be one reason status offenders leave care without permission (“go AWOL”) at far higher rates than youth who enter foster care for other reasons (Finkelstein, Wamsley, Currie, & Miranda, 2004; Ross et al., 2001). Attempting to resolve a truancy problem may lead youth down a tunnel that exacerbates the issue and creates further obstacles to his or her healthy development. Any discussion of the services that youth receive would be incomplete without a discussion of racial bias. Youth of color, especially African Americans, are more likely to receive harsher treatment for similar infractions when involved in school discipline proceedings, child welfare cases, or the juvenile justice system (Bishop, 2005; Leiber, Johnson, Fox, & Lacks, 2007; Mooradian, 2007; Pope, Lovell, & Hsia, 2002; Skiba, 2000; Sheppard & Benjamin-Coleman, 2001; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). In juvenile justice, this has led to widespread concern with disproportionate minority contact, which occurs when the proportion of youth of color who come into contact with the juvenile justice system and, most specifically, are detained or confined in secure

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detention facilities, secure correctional facilities, jails, and lockups, exceeds the proportion of such groups in the general population. Disproportionate minority contact increases as juveniles penetrate deeper into the juvenile justice system (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume). Concern over the overrepresentation of minority youth (defined by OJJDP as youth of African American, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic dissent) in the juvenile justice system led Congress to incorporate the disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) mandate within its 1988 reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act ( JJDPA) of 1974, which required states to assess the extent of DMC and take steps to address the problem. Racially biased results in the juvenile justice system occur for many reasons (Mauer, 2000; Penn, Greene, & Gabbidon, 2005; Pope & Leiber, 2005; see also Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). Our point here is not that most juvenile justice officials have overt racial animus—indeed, outward expressions of racism are rare, juvenile justice personnel are a diverse group, and many staff choose to work in the field out of compassion for vulnerable youth. In addition to conscious and unconscious racial bias, the unequal distribution of resources across racial and ethnic groups and bias in society as a whole contribute to biased results in the juvenile justice and other youth-serving systems (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006; Arya, Augarten, & Shelton, 2008; Fulbright-Anderson et al., 2005). Decisions at arrest, adjudication, detention, and disposition are all influenced by racial stereotypes and cultural markers such as dress and demeanor, as well as by concerns about the family, neighborhood, and community resources available to court-involved youth. In neighborhoods of concentrated

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disadvantage, which are disproportionately composed of racial and ethnic minorities, fewer available resources contribute to decisions that send minority youth down more punitive service tunnels than their White peers. Tunneling, then, is not only a function of a youth’s entry point, but is also influenced by conscious and unconscious biases on the part of individuals and in institutional procedures. These examples demonstrate how tunneling can lead to government responses that are either arbitrary or inappropriate. And once youth enter a particular tunnel, the fractured systems that serve youth may cause additional problems for both kids and agencies. SOPs are usually designed to process cases, not to reverse what has already taken place, and so serve to move youth further down the tunnel they have already entered. Challenges to Service Coordination and Coherence Three challenges obstruct efforts to mitigate the tunnel problem in youth services. The following section discusses how limited information flows, diffusion of responsibility, and unloading cases contributes to the fragmentation of youth service delivery. Each section includes a discussion of solutions to these problems.

LIMITED INFORMATION FLOW, OR “I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEM” Many crosscutting issues revolve around the difficulties of sharing information across agencies (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). Agency databases rarely “talk” to each other for bureaucratic, legal, budgetary, and technological reasons, and this lack of

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communication is reflected in the practices of caseworkers and other staff in different agencies. Laws and regulations often protect the confidentiality of youth involved in the juvenile justice, child welfare, educational, and other systems—and inappropriate releases of information can result in criminal or civil penalties for individuals and institutions (e.g., Gudeman 2006). Legal issues are only one aspect of the problem. Communication challenges are also related to the size of youth service agencies and the complexity of their organization. Departments and the nonprofit service providers with whom they often contract employ many people. Even in medium-sized counties, youth service agencies each have dozens of employees focused on their agency’s particular mission. In major urban centers, human service agencies have hundreds or even thousands of staff and may contract with dozens of nonprofit service providers. Coordinating the flow of information within and across organizations of this size and number is challenging even when the organizations agree to share information and have a compatible view of how to handle most situations (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004; Ross, 2009; Wildavsky & Pressman, 1973). In many parts of government including youth services, however, agencies and their leaders frequently see themselves in competition with one another for budget allocations, for leadership of important initiatives, or for other resources. Moreover, the particular mission of an agency often shapes its organizational culture in ways that conflict with other youth service agencies. Thus, trust among youth-serving agencies may be low even when leaders and staff at these agencies share many of the same values. Low levels of trust hinder information flow. Project Confirm, an effort to bridge the gap between the child welfare and juvenile

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justice systems that started in the late 1990s and continues today, arose out of a common feeling among New York City family court judges, juvenile justice officials, and child welfare staff that the lack of a release resource (an adult present in court who is authorized to take custody of a youth) caused arrested foster youth to be unnecessarily detained in juvenile detention facilities. None of these actors knew the extent of the problem, in part because the data systems of the different agencies were not integrated. Electronic matching of the data showed that foster youth accounted for 2% of all youth in New York City but 15% of detained youth, even though foster youth were not arrested for more serious delinquency charges than their nonfoster peers (Conger & Ross, 2006; Ross & Conger, 2002). This information persuaded officials to take action that led to the creation of Project Confirm: a relatively simple intervention that eliminated “the foster care bias” in detention decisions for low-level first-time delinquent youth. “Real time” matching of administrative data—cross-checking juvenile entries into detention, as they happened, with the city child welfare database—allowed Project Confirm staff to learn if youth coming into the juvenile justice system were in foster care. If they were, project staff contacted their child welfare caseworker and insured that they appeared in court, advocated for the youth, and took the youth back to their placements if the court allowed release. Prior to Project Confirm, caseworkers rarely found out if youth on their caseload had been arrested and did not know how to proceed if they did learn of an arrest. Information-sharing issues may complicate efforts by juvenile justice and medical staff to coordinate care and follow best medical practices (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3,

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this volume). To prevent substance abuse, some juvenile facilities confiscate all drugs when a youth enters detention. While drugs for diabetes and other conditions are allowed, a youth’s condition often needs to be confirmed in writing before medications are permitted. Parents may bring medications, in appropriately marked pharmaceutical containers, to detention facilities, assuming the parents have been contacted and have the means to travel to the facility where their child is detained. State laws and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protect the privacy of health information, and can lead to delays in confirming medical conditions. Delays and other issues in providing medical care in juvenile facilities have led to numerous high-profile scandals concerning harm to medically fragile youth (Shirk, 2004). Information-sharing challenges can make it difficult to continue a youth’s education when he or she is involved in the juvenile justice system. Like health records, education records are protected information that require written authorization to release, as mandated by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (known as FERPA or the Buckley Amendment, 20 U.S.C. § 1232). While juvenile justice agencies usually have information sharing agreements with education agencies, education staff may place a lower priority on processing records requests from juvenile justice staff compared to requests from supervisors in their own department. Moreover, since involvement in the juvenile justice system is not a typical experience for most students, education staff may not know the SOPs and legal agreements that facilitate record sharing. The lack of information may lead to educational programs for youth in juvenile justice facilities that are at an inappropriate level or fail to

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take the special aptitudes or disabilities of individual youth into consideration. The lack of appropriate educational placement may contribute to school failure. Advances in information technology have created many opportunities to resolve these issues. OJJDP has worked with the Center for Network Development for several years to create guidelines for sharing information across agencies and to establish technical standards such as Juvenile XML to facilitate the electronic transfer of information while complying with privacy laws. In 2006, OJJDP endorsed a set of guidelines for information exchange and several states have created multiagency collaboratives (see Mankey, Baca, Rondenell, Webb, & McHugh, 2006). To facilitate this process, this initiative produced an online compendium of state confidentiality laws in different youth serving fields. In child welfare, the Administration for Children and Families Court Improvement Program is working with states and localities to develop data sharing agreements and model protocols for the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/ programs_fund/state_tribal/ct_imprv.htm). The American Bar Association, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Children’s Partnership have also advanced the issue.

DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY, OR “IT’S NOT MY PROBLEM” Information sharing is only one step in ameliorating cross-agency problems. Even when agencies know that they have a common client, tension around appropriate roles and responsibilities—especially in periods when high caseloads are the norm—often results in a lack of follow-through by frontline staff and their managers. When responsibility is

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diffuse, youth fall through the cracks (see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume). During the implementation of Project Confirm, many child welfare caseworkers assumed that once police arrested a foster youth, their responsibilities ended because “the kid belonged to juvenile justice” (Ross & Conger, 2002). In other words, many caseworkers thought that only one government agency took responsibility for an individual child at any one time. Because parents are either unable or forbidden to help an arrested foster youth, caseworkers need to come to court to advocate for youth and to take youth back to their placements if the court decides to release them. To educate caseworkers about their responsibilities concerning arrested youth in foster care, Project Confirm routinely faxed a letter to caseworkers and their supervisors from the commissioner of child welfare that reiterated caseworkers’ responsibility to go to court on delinquency cases. Program planners made numerous presentations to agency staff and foster care providers to educate them on the problem of foster children being unnecessarily detained and their responsibility in resolving it. Nonetheless, the rate of caseworker appearances at court in delinquency cases exceeded 90% only after program staff met caseworkers at court—and informed the caseworkers’ supervisors if they did not appear. Status offender systems also encounter diffusion of responsibility problems. As mentioned above, status offenders are youth who have not committed delinquent acts, but their behavior concerns government because of their status as minors. Status offenses include running away from home, not obeying parents, truancy, and drinking alcohol. Social service and juvenile probation staff may see youth running away from home as a missing persons issue that police should handle. Police

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may view such events, especially repeat runaways from the same home, as a child welfare or juvenile probation issue, not a law enforcement matter. All agencies, including the family court, look to parents to take responsibility for their children’s actions, especially for issues like running away, which may take place several times over brief periods. With responsibility diffused across many agencies, and with permanent solutions not readily available, the chances that no one will take responsibility for a troubled youth increase. As social service systems have evolved, many systems have identified situations where the diffusion of responsibility is an impediment to helping youth and have developed SOPs to address this issue. In New York City, detailed protocols now exist for allocating responsibility for finding youth who run away from home. Because most runaway cases are resolved within 24 hours without police intervention, parents are not referred to the police automatically. In many instances, parents know the whereabouts of their son or daughter and want police assistance in returning their children to their custody—a situation where a social service intervention focused on family functioning likely offers a more effective and long lasting solution. SOPs crafted with other agencies can establish shared understandings of problems and create trust among frontline staff that leads to a problemsolving orientation rather than competition (Ross, 2009). The One City, One Community initiative in Brooklyn, New York, is another example of such an effort. One City, One Community involves 10 human service agencies providing family services, including agencies focused on juvenile justice, child welfare, education, health, and housing. Problems that overlap two or more of the agencies may be referred to case conferencing. The case conference not only seeks to

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resolve the individual case, but also to develop SOPs and shared understandings so that the next time the same problem arises, case conferencing is unnecessary (for more information, see www.actnyc.org/Onecity.html).

UNLOADING CASES AND SHIFTING BURDENS, OR “IT’S YOUR PROBLEM NOW” As the examples above demonstrate, officials and staff often want to solve cross-agency problems when they have the tools to do so. In some instances, however, agencies, staff, and parents act to rid themselves of responsibility for troubled youth. Often, “unloading a case” results in a youth entering a more punitive system, as the following example illustrates. Hard data on this phenomenon are rare, but there are enough anecdotes and stories to suggest the dynamic is not uncommon (Morris, 2005; Morris & Freundlich, 2004; Ross & Conger, 2002). While planning Project Confirm, program designers heard many stories of foster care staff who called police to have youth in their care arrested—often for minor incidents that biological parents resolve without police interference. Though there are situations where police intervention is necessary and appropriate, some frontline child welfare staff acknowledged calling the police as a way to assert authority or to have responsibility for a difficult youth transferred to juvenile justice. In some cases, these youth may have suffered from mental health issues, but the lack of access to mental health services led to voluntary placements in foster care. According to the Rochester Youth Study, one in five male delinquents and one in three female delinquents has a diagnosable mental health problem (Huizinga, Loeber, Thornberry, &

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Cothern, 2000; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; Thornberry, Krohn, Smith, Lizotte, & Porter, 2003). The same dynamic occurs in schools. It is increasingly common for teachers and school administrators to rely on police arrests to impose discipline, assert authority, and have responsibility for youth transferred to another agency. The New York Civil Liberties Union, for example, cited hundreds of cases of juvenile arrests by school safety officers for behavior not classified as criminal (Hentoff, 2008). In many jurisdictions, school safety officers are now part of the police department, leading to concerns that youth, especially African American youth, are being funneled into a school-toprison pipeline (Miller, Ross, & Sturgis, 2005; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund, Inc., 2007; Ofer et al., 2009; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Once a youth has a juvenile record, other agencies may avoid reassuming a responsibility that falls within their domain. Detained youth in New York City, for example, are automatically enrolled in an in-facility educational program. Many court-involved youth are already behind educationally, but ironically, New York City students taking courses while in detention receive only half credit for their efforts. Upon discharge from detention or other juvenile justice facilities, youth need to register at a new school or reregister at their previous school. According to J.G. et al. v. Mills et al., a lawsuit filed in 2004, many schools either refused to register youth with juvenile records or made the process so cumbersome that enrollment was significantly delayed—leading to truancy and further educational disadvantage, and increasing the risk of further involvement with the justice system (www.advocatesforchildren.org/jg.php; Garry, 1996). When court-involved youth did register

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at a school, school policies and administrative actions led to youth being pushed to drop out in some situations (Fine, 1991; Ruiz v. Pedota, 2004). When agencies shift burdens or refuse to assume their responsibilities, youth do not receive the services they need. Left unaddressed, youth problems may fester and deepen, reducing the chances they will be resolved. The deeper a youth’s problems, the more likely punitive systems such as juvenile justice will become involved in a youth’s life (see Beyer, Chapter 1, this volume). This pessimistic conclusion should be balanced by acknowledging that in many of these examples, agency managers worked together across systems to resolve the issues once they were identified. Reducing the unnecessary detention of foster youth, for example, required the coordination of nonprofit service providers, the public child welfare agency, the juvenile justice agency, the family court, and others for Project Confirm to work. Despite that challenge, the effort succeeded. The lawsuits cited above, J.G. et al. v. Mills et al. (2005) and Ruiz v. Pedota (2004), prompted education officials to work that much harder with state and local juvenile justice agencies and nonprofit service providers to ensure access to education. In both if these cases, advocacy and working across agency boundaries led to strong efforts to ameliorate problems.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL? This chapter highlights how a fragmented system of services for youth can lead to undesirable outcomes and arbitrary patterns of service provision, as divergent service “tunnels” direct similar youth in quite different directions. Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely

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this fragmentation that may yet provide the basis for solutions. In recent years, agencies and actors at different levels of government have engaged in a broad spectrum of local innovation and experimentation. Problem-solving courts, assessment and screening tools for objective identification and targeting of needs, communitybased alternatives to residential placement, and evidence-based therapies for troubled youth represent only a sampling of the many promising models that have emerged. Contact information, funding, and other information for model programs in juvenile justice can be found at the OJJDP Model Programs Guide Web site (www2.dsgonline.com/ mpg/). In turn, a vibrant civil society ranging from shoestring community organizations to philanthropies managing billions of dollars have advocated for, financed, and helped direct these innovations. The successes of this activity have created new pressures for reform on youth-serving systems across the nation. Three specific trends hold particular promise for addressing the problems of fragmentation and tunneling described in this chapter: an improved understanding of youth development, a renewed commitment to effective programming across settings, and evidence of increasing integration of services and systems for youth across sectors. Enhanced Knowledge of Youth Development Advances in knowledge about youth, the contexts in which they live, the systems they encounter, and the services they receive are a reason for optimism. Longitudinal studies have highlighted the multiple and cumulative impacts of a range of systems on the development of young people, highlighting both “risk” and “protective” factors in their

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successful transition to adolescence and adulthood (Horton, 2004; Thornberry, Huizinga, & Loeber, 2004; Wasserman et al., 2003). These advances have led to a greater emphasis on “positive youth development,” instead of a focus only on youth problems (see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). Knowledge of the links between brain and social development has increased our understanding of youth capacities, leading to better insight into the likely effectiveness of different interventions (e.g., Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009). Studies of neighborhood violence show how repeated exposure leads to traumatic reactions and other mental health issues that are associated with various negative behaviors (Foy & Goguen, 1998; Gibson, Morris, & Beaver, 2009; Osofsky, 1995). Effective Programming for Youth Across Sectors This enhanced understanding has led to a greater emphasis on effective programming for youth, particularly services that take multiple problems into consideration. Program evaluations have provided a body of knowledge about what works with children and youth. Lifecourse Interventions to Nurture Kids Successfully (LINKS), for example, is a continually updated online database of what works (and what does not work) that contains information on over 400 programs evaluated using a random assignment, intent-to-treat methodology—the gold standard in research (www.childtrends.org/links). Similarly, Blueprints for Violence Prevention at the Center for the Study of Violence maintains an up-todate list of state-of-the-art evidence-based programs for youth (www.colorado.edu/ cspv/blueprints) (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume; Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume).

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Multisystemic Therapy (MST) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) are among the more popular programs drawn from these lists. Reflecting up-to-date knowledge about youth development, these programs locate the source and the solution of youth’s troubles in family dynamics and other social systems in which youth are embedded. By working with youth and their caregivers, these programs aim to establish or reestablish appropriate and supportive parent–child relationships and improve functioning across a range of social environments. Many of these programs can be used to address mental health, substance abuse, child welfare, and/or delinquency issues. As government has increased its use of contracted services over the past few decades, the programs have become available across juvenile justice, child welfare, and mental health settings. As more agencies across youth-serving sectors begin to embrace these core programs, it may begin to matter a little less which tunnel a youth goes down. Tackling Fragmentation Finally, many government agencies are paying increased attention to interagency partnerships that aim to coordinate youth-service sectors. This represents a direct assault on the problems of tunneling described in this chapter. From improvements in technology to the redefinition of traditional roles and responsibilities among practitioners, evidence of this trend is increasing. By 2005, for example, over half of the states had formal agreements for collaboration between child welfare and juvenile justice agencies for “dually involved” youth (Petro, 2005). In Arkansas, a recent law mandates that placement decisions for dually involved youth be made by a single judge. The Child Welfare League of America, under the

How American Government Frames Youth Problems

sponsorship of the MacArthur Foundation, has developed a “system coordination and integration” approach, piloted in a number of local sites, to strengthen coordination of child welfare and juvenile justice systems by helping local jurisdictions revise policies and develop protocols to better manage the needs of youth across multiple systems (Wiig & Tuell, 2008).

EMERGING LESSONS There are some important lessons to be learned from efforts to overcome fragmentation and tunneling. First, clear lines of responsibility for addressing coordination issues must be established, usually by agency leaders. Where responsibility is diffuse, the persistence and urgency needed to come to agreements on how to resolve problems dissipates. A clear mandate supported by an agency head increases the odds of solving interagency problems. Second, the office or person in charge of the effort must have resources that are useful to multiple agencies. Although these resources may include funding, often the more important resource is the ability to solve the problems of other agencies. In some instances, this may be an ability to facilitate information flow, resulting in an exchange of information that resolves issues for two or more agencies. In other cases, a critical resource may be access to small amounts of time from specialized staff, such as lawyers, database developers, or accounting experts. Being able to expand or coordinate training to include staff from multiple agencies is another resource, as is having the authority to order changes in procedures in one agency that are causing difficulties in another. For the person or office mandated to find solutions, these resources provide the political bargaining chips “to get things done.”

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Acquiring and using these resources requires a person with strong managerial and political skills. An ever-present awareness of how decisions and actions will be perceived by a range of partners is needed to detect and avoid the minefields of turf wars, conflicting role definitions, and legal obstacles. Third, successful initiatives institutionalize change by modifying standard operating procedures so that staff are able to routinely solve coordination issues. Talented leaders repeatedly asked to resolve the same issues not only grow weary, but, by making their presence necessary to resolve problems, undermine their own efforts. If solutions are not institutionalized, staff reversion to the patterns that caused the problems occurs easily and often. To ensure that new SOPs have taken root, managers need data to detect when procedures are failing and to take corrective actions. Successful SOPs not only incorporate detailed discussions of responsibilities, but also provide for routine interagency data sharing and monitoring. A final characteristic of successful efforts is political will. Initiatives succeed when executives, managers, and staff believe in the effort and are willing to spend their political capital to help them overcome the inevitable obstacles that appear. After all, if coordinating youth services were easy, it would have happened long ago, as the costs to young people, their families and communities, and the public are enormous.

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(2003, April). Risk and protective factors of child delinquency (Child Delinquency Bulletin Series). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Wiig, J. K., & Tuell, J. A. (2008). Guidebook for juvenile justice and child welfare system coordination and

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integration: Framework for improved outcomes. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. Wildavsky, A., & Pressman, J. (1973). Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wilson, J. Q. (1989). Bureaucracy: What government agencies do and why they do it. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

18

Youth Perspectives on Health Care RACHEL OLIVERI, ILA DESHMUKH TOWERY, L E A H J A C O B S , A N D F R A N C I N E H. J A C O B S

A

growing body of research on the health issues faced by young people who are considered “at risk” suggests that they disproportionately experience negative physical and mental health outcomes (Acoca, 2000; Juszczak & Cooper, 2002). Youth involved in the juvenile justice system are at particular risk for poor health outcomes (Acoca, 2000; Golzari, Hunt, & Anoshiravani, 2006; Pumariega et al., 1999; Shelton, 2002; Teplin et al., 2005; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2006) as they make transitions to and from their communities and correctional facilities (Golzari et al., 2006) and experience ensuing gaps in health care. Despite a positive association between access to health and human services and successful community reentry and reintegration for system-involved youth (Maschi, Hatcher, Schwalbe, & Rosato, 2008), little is known about how young people involved in the juvenile justice system gain access to, prefer to receive, and use health-care (Atkins et al., 1999; Maschi et al., 2008; Soler, 2002). This chapter explores the health-care experiences of 11 system-involved youth of color—6 boys and 5 girls. In contrast to typical approaches to understanding health-care access and utilization that view youth behavior primarily from a deficit-based perspective (e.g., by focusing on what these youth do not do), we look to the

youth themselves to illuminate their perspectives about the barriers and facilitators to their health-care access. This alternative orientation reframes the discourse as youth centered, so that the systems of care these youth encounter can be more responsive to their needs. In the following literature review, we explore facilitators and barriers to care relevant to adolescents in general, examine the health risks and health-care disparities particular to system-involved youth, and then offer an ecological framework as a useful theoretical model for understanding the relationship between these youth and the systems with which they interact.

A DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXT Standard recommendations for maintaining health are straightforward: engaging in preventive care and living a healthy lifestyle can dramatically decrease the risk of illness and injury (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). However, people of color and those with low socioeconomic status continue to disproportionately experience disease and injury, and face barriers to accessing and utilizing preventive, high-quality, and seamless care shown to play an important role in improving health outcomes (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 369

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2000, 2006; Dietrich & Marton, 1982; Institute of Medicine, 1996; see also Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Further, adolescents in the United States and elsewhere face some of the most significant barriers to preventive and seamless care (Weineck, Zuvekas, & Drilea, 1996; Gleeson, Robinson, & Neal, 2002; Klein, Wilson, McNulty, Kapphahn, & Collins, 1999; Weineck, Zuvekas, & Drilea, 1996), including cost or lack of adequate insurance, inconvenience, lack of information about services, and a history of negative interactions or relationships with health-care providers (Tylee, Haller, Graham, Churchill, & Sanci, 2007). Adolescents may also experience emotions associated with their developmental status that can impede their access to, and use of, health care. For instance, they may feel embarrassed when asked to disclose private health information (especially regarding sexual health and substance use) (Ackard & Neumark-Sztainer, 2001; Oppong-Odiseng & Heycock, 1997). Moreover, at a time when they are seeking greater independence, adolescents often are not given the opportunity to speak with their providers privately, may feel vulnerable to breaches in confidentiality, and, as a result, may be reluctant to confide in their providers (Klein, McNulty, & Flatau, 1998; Klein et al., 2006), worrying that a parent will find out about particular health issues (Tylee et al., 2007). As a result of their minor status, youth are often dependent on others, especially their parents or other family members, to provide information about, and access to, health care (Ackard & Neumark-Sztainer, 2001; Marcell & Halpern, 2007). Mothers in particular play an important role here (Ackard & NeumarkSztainer, 2001; Jacobs, Oliveri, & Greenstone, 2009; Marcell & Halpern, 2007; Tinsley, Markey, Ericksen, Kwasman, & Ortiz, 2002). Surveying over 6,500 youth, Ackard

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and Neumark-Sztainer (2001) found mothers, over other family members, professionals, or peers, most frequently identified as the primary source of health-related information. More specifically, mothers have been found to play an important role in influencing teen sexual behaviors, as they most frequently initiate conversations pertaining to sex (Marcell & Halpern, 2007). In sum, the role of familial supports, or lack thereof, appears critical to our understanding of youth’s access to, and utilization of, health care. Understanding How System-Involved Youth Access Care Youth engaged in the juvenile justice system are particularly vulnerable to disparities in access to quality and preventive health care. Health risks for system-involved youth include increased risk for sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, psychological disorders, asthma, orthopedic problems and dental problems (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001; Soler, 2002; Teplin et al., 2006). Factors associated with involvement in the juvenile justice system, such as poverty and involvement with the child welfare system, increase the likelihood that these youth will have physical and mental health problems, and decrease the likelihood that they will have access to highquality and consistent health-care services throughout their childhoods (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Feinstein, Lampkin, Lorish, Klerman, Maisiak, and Oh (1998) found that two thirds of youth entering detainment did not have a regular source of health care, and four fifths did not have a primary health-care provider. Systeminvolved youth are more likely to lack health insurance and to receive inadequate and disjointed health care than are youth who are not system-involved (American Academy

Youth Perspectives on Health Care

of Pediatrics, 2001; Golzari, Hunt, & Chamberlain, 2008; Sherman, 2005; Teplin et al., 2006; see also Sherman & Blitzman, Chapter 4, this volume). While disparities in access to appropriate health-care services exist, recent studies suggest that improved access to care upon community reentry, especially through “continuous,” “wraparound,” and “medical home” models, help youth make the transition from detainment to their communities (Baltodano, Mathur, & Rutherford, 2005; Golzari et al., 2008; Hussey, Drinkard, Falletta, & Flannery, 2008; Maschi et al., 2008; Pullmann et al., 2006). However, there remains much to learn about the types of services necessary to engage youth in care and how to best provide services to youth. While research has begun to seek out youth perspectives on health-care access and utilization, we still know little about health maintenance behaviors and preferences of youth involved with the juvenile justice system. In a small survey (n ¼ 50) of system-involved youth, Anderson, Vostanis, and Spencer (2004) found these youth more likely than non-system-involved youth to seek out care primarily in times of crisis, and therefore access emergency medical care more frequently than primary medical care. In terms of perceptions of health, these youth expressed stigmatized views of mental health disorders, expressing reluctance to visit a mental health clinician. It is not surprising that system-involved youth may be hesitant to seek medical care. In addition to the barriers in access to care generally associated with adolescence, these youth also experience disincentives and barriers associated with their involvement in the juvenile justice system (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001; Atkins et al., 1999; Golzari et al., 2008). They may be disempowered due to the biases and diagnoses of practitioners and the treatments prescribed to them

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(e.g., in-patient psychiatric services instead of community-based services). They may also be less likely to actually receive care given the stigma they face in society, which frames them as “troublemakers” or “delinquents.” System-involved youth want a say in their health care; and in light of their systemic disenfranchisement, providing them that voice may benefit their overall health and wellbeing. Results from an adapted administration of the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that, out of a sample of 1,780 detained youth, over 80% are interested in learning more about personal health care, and 68% would participate in developing health education programming (Morris et al., 1995). In addition, scholars in the areas of juvenile delinquency and medicine, as well as public health, believe that responding to the health needs of juvenile system–involved youth is a societal responsibility that must be addressed systemically (Foster, Qaseem, & Connor, 2004; National Mental Health Association, 2006; Shelton, 2002; Shi & Stephens, 2005).

THE ECOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: A THEORETICAL MODEL FOR UNDERSTANDING YOUTH’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM Researchers suggest that a young person’s ecological context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2001)—the nested systems (e.g., family and community) within which youth development is situated—is critical in shaping young people’s health-care beliefs and practices, as well as in structuring their access to care (Jacobs, 2007; Kreipe, Ryan, & Seibold-Simpson, 2004; Prothrow-Stith & Spivak, 2004; Shi & Stevens, 2005; Wickrama, Conger, Wallace, & Elder, 1999). An ecological framework proposes that

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development is the product of complex, repeated interactions among the individual, with his or her individual qualities and abilities, and the multiple systems within which that individual is situated. Explicating the relationship between the child and his or her developmental outcomes requires a close examination of his or her ecological contexts and the processes through which he or she interacts with these contexts. The ecological framework is particularly useful for exploring youth perception of the health-care system because it allows us to consider an individual in relation to the multiple systems—both immediate and more distant— in which he or she is situated. Bronfenbrenner (1979, 2001) described four interrelated systems that both affect and are affected by an individual: the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystem. The microsystem is the immediate environment within which the child is located and with which he/she interacts directly. This might mean, for example, the relationship that occurs between a child and his or her mother in the home. The mesosystem is a group of microsystems with which the child interacts at a certain point in time, such as juvenile detention in the case of system-involved youth or a health center. The exosystem involves the multiple contexts with which the child is not directly involved, but that indirectly affect a child’s development, such as a parent’s place of employment, which may or may not allow parents time off to take their child to see a physician. Finally, the macrosystem affects the child both directly and indirectly through cultural, political, and economic forces, by shaping the child’s interaction with all other ecological systems. For a child involved with the juvenile justice system, cultural values pertaining to the level of acceptable punishment and political ideologies that shape funding of rehabilitative and health-care

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programming would be examples of macrosystem effects (see Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). The ecological framework is a useful heuristic for examining the complex relationships among youth and the multiple systems with which they interact as they develop health behaviors and maintain, or neglect, their health. Thus, it provides the basic scaffolding for this chapter. Understanding youth’s beliefs and experiences from their own perspective is also a critical feature of this analysis, and we forefront their voices for this reason. We next describe our methodology for this study, presenting an argument for incorporating youth perspectives in research, outlining our data collection and analysis methods, and describing the study participants. We then present analysis and findings from our interviews with these youth. Finally, we conclude with a summary of the lessons learned from this investigation, and its implications for future programs, policies, and research to improve health-care quality and access for system-involved youth.

METHODS This study forefronts the voices of systeminvolved youth whose perspectives on health and health care are often omitted from research, yet which are critical both to understanding adolescent barriers to health care and to crafting solutions to which youth will respond (Armstrong, Hill, & Secker, 2000; Chandra & Minkovitz, 2006). The absence of youth perspectives on their own health and health care may reflect the positioning of the overall health care and juvenile justice systems, which hold power and seek control over this minority group (Foucault, 1980; Oakley, 1972; Mayall, 1998; Smith, 1988). Broadening

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medical knowledge and practice to include the knowledge, concerns, and preferences of patients can help destabilize these power relationships such that the needs of these youth are adequately met. In the case of systeminvolved youth, this would mean incorporating the perspective of youth who are currently disengaged and may be distrustful of systeminvolved professionals (Hawkins & Weis, 1985), and may also be unlikely to receive support in attaining health care (Feinstein et al., 1998). Data Collection and Analysis This study examines a subset of data in the form of in-depth, open-ended, one-on-one interviews focused on the experiences of youth of color as they reenter their communities from residential juvenile justice facilities. By choosing to use interviews as a way of getting at experience and perspective, we draw on a conception of self as subject rather than object (Foucault, 1980; Gubrium & Holstein, 2001; Scheurich, 1997), arguing for the possibility that an individual can “reflect on his or her individual experience, personally describe it, and communicate opinions about it and its surrounding world in his or her own terms” (Gubrium & Holstein, 2001, p. 6). We analyze the interviews in an iterative and inductive manner, using within-case and cross-case analysis to identify broad themes that emerged. We then examine smaller sections of interview data to develop hypotheses and identify overarching themes about the experiences being described (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984; Scheurich, 1997). In some cases, we highlight themes that appear across interviews, and in others, we focus on particular experiences of one or two youth that illustrate what we understand to be a more general dilemma in the lives of these youth.

Participants This chapter highlights the experiences of 11 youth, 6 girls and 5 boys, ranging in age from 15 to 20 years old. These young people—all African American or Latino/a, and recently reentering their communities—were interviewed as part of a broader evaluation of the Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP) (Jacobs et al., 2009), a program designed to connect reentering teens to health services in their communities. Through their connection to MHPP, these youth had access to health-care services; however, not all of them chose to use these services, and many had a limited connection to MHPP. Each youth was interviewed once, for approximately 1 hour, at a location of his or her choice. The interviews covered the youth’s health-care utilization patterns, their health-care preferences, and the possible factors that facilitated or impeded their access to health-care services.

FINDINGS The study findings are organized into two overarching, obviously related themes: connection to care and lack of connection to care. The first includes positive and consistent relationships with providers, support from mothers, and youth taking an active role in managing their care; the second includes lack of trust in providers, inconsistent care, and inefficient and inaccessible care. Table 18.1 presents an overview of our findings, noting the facilitators and barriers to care each study participant identified. Connection to Care Whether they saw primary care doctors or used walk-in health clinics or the emergency room, all of the youth had access to some form of health care, and recognized it as important.

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Table 18.1. Summary of Findings by Participant1

Name

Age

Alisha Andre Darrell Jasmine Jose Leo Linda Maria Monique Shade Tyrone

17 19 17 15 15 20 16 18 17 15 21

1

Positive and Consistent Relationships With Providers X X

Support From Mothers X

Youth Taking an Active Role in Managing Health Care X X

X X X

X X X

Inconsistent Care and Lack of Trust in Providers

Inefficient and Inaccessible Health Care

X X

X X X

X X X

X X X X

X X X

X

Names have been changed in order to protect the anonymity of the youth interviewed.

In part this was predetermined for the youth we interviewed who, as system-involved youth in Massachusetts, are provided with MassHealth (the state version of Medicaid). In addition, all these youth were enrolled in MHPP, which was poised to facilitate their access to and use of care; indeed, several youth identified it as an important source of support. Others did so with support from people in their lives, especially their primary care providers, their mothers, and the youth’s own initiative; particular features of the clinics they visited also played a key role. Positive and Consistent Relationships with Providers The youth identified their relationships with health-care providers as a key factor in their use of health care. Eight youth reported seeing a primary care doctor on a regular basis, in some cases even making their own appointments as well as appointments for other members of their families. The majority of youth had been seeing the same primary care doctor for many years (some since childhood) and, in most cases, these doctors saw other members of their families as well.

More than half of the youth described positive relationships with their doctors, which facilitated their receiving “continuity of care.” For instance, Jasmine, whose pediatrician had been seeing her and many members of her family since birth, described trusting her doctor both because he was familiar to her and because he was “straightforward”—he knew her well enough to know when something was really wrong with her and when she was “pretending” to be sick. She contrasted this relationship with experiences she had with doctors she saw while in foster care and in DYS (Department of Youth Services) custody: What I like about him is he gets to the point, he doesn’t, like, beat around the bush like normal doctors would. . . . I’ve been locked up before [where I had a different doctor]. . . . And when I was in foster homes, I had a different doctor [and those doctors “beat around the bush”]. It’s kind of funny. I think it’s kind of funny—I was, like, pretending I was sick and he’s so real. Like, I had to go to the

Youth Perspectives on Health Care

doctors and he told my mom I wasn’t sick at all, that I was just pretending, so I think he’s really straightforward. Similarly, Monique, who, along with several close family members, had been seeing her doctors at a specific medical practice for many years, described having a very good relationship with these doctors that was marked by warmth, trust, and familiarity. Several times during her interview, Monique linked this warm relationship to the practice with her desire to continue seeing him rather than other medical professionals. For instance, when explaining why she liked the health service she received from this practice, she said: They are very generous and nice, and I like to stay with them because I’m used to them now, so . . . I would rather, you know, stick with the same person instead of going to somebody different that don’t know me. And later on in the interview, when talking about her resistance to seeing different health-care providers, Monique said about one practitioner: She is so stupid. I don’t know what is wrong with her but she don’t know anything, and she, like, tells you something way different. One of my friends went to go see her and she said, “Oh, I think you have like an infection in your ear” but then she was like “Oh, I think you have a cyst,” and like my friend was like “No, what are you talking about?” You know it had nothing to do with what she went to see her for. Like it was, I don’t know. But like [the MHPP nurse]

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here, she’s great, I think, but for me, it’s different because I’m so close with my doctor, so you know, I never have any, there is no point in me going to see anybody here or anything. Monique pointed out that having a personal relationship with her doctors, with whom she is “so close,” plays an important role in both her preferences for her medical care as well as the perceived quality of care she receives. Like Jasmine, Monique believed a long-term, close relationship with a doctor allows for appropriate medical diagnoses. For Jasmine, this close relationship meant, for example, that her doctor knew when she was not really sick. Meanwhile, Monique did not trust a provider who did not “know” her to give her an accurate diagnosis. The importance of trust in facilitating a positive relationship between providers and youth also comes through in the interview with Jose, who described himself as in “good health” but experiencing some problems with his vision. He reported going to his doctor of six years every two or three months and conveyed that his trust in his doctors overrides any fears he may have: I trust them. I won’t be scared because my brother, he goes there too, and he be scared to get the needles. I be laughing at him, but I trust them. They say they know where they’re going and I trust them. Jose repeatedly noted that he trusts his doctors. Though he did not elaborate on how he came to trust them, factors such as the longevity of the relationship, that other family members go to the same health center, and that, as Jose reported, “they call, they check” about his appointments every few

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months, likely contributed to Jose’s developing this sense of trust. Unlike Jasmine, Monique, and Jose, Tyrone and Andre did not have a long-term relationship with their doctor, to whom they were connected through MHPP, yet they nonetheless succeeded in developing a personal connection with him. Both of these young men, in their late teens at the time of the interview, said that prior to this MHPPaffiliated doctor, “Dr. Evans,” they had not seen a primary care physician since childhood. While they had been going to Dr. Evans for less than a year at the time they were interviewed, they reported seeing him fairly frequently. In a 10-month period, Tyrone, who mentioned having dental and nutritional needs, as well as being hit by a car and sustaining a serious injury, reported seeing Dr. Evans seven times. Andre, whose health concerns included sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing and a dermatological problem, reported seeing him three times in the same period. Tyrone’s close relationship with Dr. Evans appeared to have contributed to his desire to keep his doctor informed about his health: “I came to see him because I always update him on my medical history: I just got hit by a car, this is what is going on with me.” Tyrone also indicated his trust in Dr. Evans’s medical advice, noting: “I’d tell him the situation, and if he understood what I was describing to him, follow whatever he says.” Finally, Tyrone referred to Dr. Evans by his first name and said he would call him or go in to see him with any concerning medical problem: “ . . . if I’m having a pain in my neck or something, I’ll talk to Mark.” While Tyrone did not make explicit what about Dr. Evans made him feel especially connected to him, Andre did. Andre described Dr. Evans as “nice” and expressed his appreciation for the way Dr. Evans “just talked about

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everything before he did it and explained things.” Andre also spoke favorably of the staff at the health center where Dr. Evans is located: . . . They just keep it short and sweet and they pay attention. When they talk to you, they don’t make you feel like it’s routine. . . . They come in with you, you sit down wherever you want—you can even sit down in their rolling chair. . . . They just don’t, “Okay wait right there, we’ll be back,” and they come back, do the same thing like routine. When they don’t do that it makes it seem like they’re more concerned. They make you feel more comfortable. Andre pointed to the ways in which the health center staff were attentive and respectful to him, which helped him to feel “more comfortable” and cared for than perhaps he has felt in other health-care settings. Given his positive orientation toward both Dr. Evans and the health center, it is not surprising that Andre also answered affirmatively when asked if he planned to continue seeing Dr. Evans regularly, and if he thought Dr. Evans would be in his life for a while. Tyrone’s and Andre’s stories suggest that the opportunity to participate in a program like MHPP, which connected them to a doctor and a health center committed to serving disenfranchised youth populations, as well as the active role these young men played in their health care (e.g., communicating regularly with Dr. Evans and attending their appointments) most likely contributed to their experiencing continuity of care. Support from Mothers Several youth we interviewed identified their mothers as their primary source of health-care support. They

Youth Perspectives on Health Care

described how they talk to their mothers about their health concerns and how their mothers facilitate their access to care by scheduling, reminding them, and getting them to appointments. When asked how he knows when to go to the doctor, Jose said in addition to his doctor calling to remind him, “My mom knows. She always schedules for me.” Darrell described his mother’s persistence with his doctor’s appointments: My mother always be like, “You got a doctor’s appointment so cancel whatever you’re doing.” She’s always pressuring me about my doctor’s appointments because she thinks that’s healthy for me too. She’s always on top of that with me. Similarly, Leo noted how his mother makes his appointments and takes him to the doctor when he is sick. He also described how his mother was his health advocate during his experience with childhood asthma, refusing the doctor’s recommended daily treatment for fear he might become dependent on the medication. Alisha and Shade also cited maternal support as important, ranging from their mothers’ making doctors appointments for them to accompanying them to the doctor. As Alisha noted: Whatever happens to me basically she’s there, she has to be there, I’m only 17. If I’m 18 I can go on my own, but she’s the one that gets me to MassHealth, or whatever. . . . Cause honestly, if I didn’t have no one, like I said I’m close to her, if I didn’t have no one to relate to and let them know what’s going on, I mean I don’t know how I would be. I probably would be a whole different person.

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Youth Taking an Active Role in Managing Health Care Several youth took an active role in their health care—for instance, finding their own doctors, keeping their doctors informed about their health concerns, and picking up their own prescriptions. Andre, for example, made the initial contact with MHPP himself. As he explained: “I wanted to get a STI check up and I called [the MHPP advocate] and she told me about the program and I came down here.“ When asked how he knew what number to call, he explained: “I knew her [the MHPP staff person] from DYS and her card is up there at the CRC [community reentry center] so when I did go there I took down her number.” In some cases, these young people primarily managed their own care because there was no one else to do so. But in others, they did so even when they had parents in their lives who were involved in their health care. For instance, Alisha, who described being very close with her mother and wanting her mother to be aware of her health issues, also said that she, not her mother, made her doctors’ appointments. This combination of maternal support and independence seemed to reflect the examples her mother set about how to take care of herself: INTERVIEWER: What do you feel is the most important thing you’ve learned from your mom about your health and health care? ALISHA: She, I don’t know, she shows me how to do things like I’m supposed to take care of myself. When I have to get an appointment, she tells me never forget that appointment that you made, you have to take the bus, taxi, whatever is available, and she tells me basically to be on top of it. INTERVIEWER: Mmm. And do you feel you are? ALISHA: Yeah.

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Alisha’s description of what she learned from her mother suggests that it was her mother’s example that facilitated her subsequent independence in managing her health. Jasmine, whose mother was very minimally involved in her health care, also sought out doctors on her own. Jasmine described her parents and family members as having different beliefs about health than her own. She said, in her family, “If we’re just feeling ill, we usually just take some Tylenol, lie down, or something. Or sometimes we just ignore it, just do what we have to do. But if we have to see the doctor we would go to the doctors.” However, Jasmine described experiencing a number of health concerns, including sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy scares, along with worries about her parents’ health. These issues contributed to Jasmine’s concerns for her own health and seemed to prompt her to take an active role in managing her own care. A fear of experiencing problems like those of the adults in their lives also shaped the youth’s interest in gaining access to regular care. Like Alisha, who was worried that she would develop diabetes as other members of her family had, Monique, whose aunt was going blind as a result of diabetes and whose mother rarely went to the doctor, was worried both about her family members and herself. She said that when she gets sick, her mother tells her to “ride it through,” but that she calls the doctor anyway, “just in case.” And when she was asked to identify her health concerns for herself and her family, Monique replied: “Only to just go to the doctors so they won’t end up like my aunt.” Notably, then, while Alisha’s ownership over her health care seemed to stem from what she considered to be positive modeling by her mother, Jasmine’s and Monique’s seemed to be a reaction to the perceived negative examples set for them.

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A desire for independence, autonomy, and privacy was also a factor in some of the youth’s taking an active role in their health care. Four of the six girls—Jasmine, Shade, Monique, and Linda—spoke about wanting private, confidential relationships with their doctors to control the flow of information about their health issues, particularly where gynecological issues were concerned. In addition, they linked their preferences for independent relationships with their doctors to their growing older. For instance, when asked how she would feel if her doctor contacted a parent, Monique, whose mother had played a big role in her health care while she was growing up, said: “I think that they shouldn’t because that’s . . . I don’t know how to say it, but you know . . . confidential. And yeah, I don’t think, yeah, I wouldn’t like it.” And when asked why she felt this way, she said, I don’t know, I’m getting older now so . . . I just feel like everything, not everything, well yeah most of the things I do is me, I’m just confidential and independent. . . . But once I turned like 10 I think, I just, I think 10, 12, I was just like, I’m going by myself, you know, you don’t have to be here, especially when I had like my first Pap smear, I was like no . . . I don’t want you around. However, at the same time as they wanted independence in their health care, some of the girls we interviewed also wanted their parents involved. Jasmine, for example, spoke about both wanting and not wanting her parents to know about her health issues: Sometimes I would like for them to know what’s going on with me . . . sometimes I just want to be grown

Youth Perspectives on Health Care

and do everything by myself. I think when it gets really serious like STD, if I get one or if I overdose on drugs or if I’m like really sick in the hospital or have to be kept overnight, [then I would want my parents to know], [but like] when [I have] pregnancy scares. I don’t like my parents in my business when that happened. Given their developmental context, these girls’ dual desire for parental involvement and independence is not surprising—as adolescents, they are both beginning to seek autonomy while continuing to seek some support or guidance from their caregivers. Though it was unclear if family played any role in Tyrone’s independent management of this health care, he described setting up his own appointments (medical and dental) and going to his appointments by himself. He also played an active role in sustaining his relationship with his doctor, describing how he “comes to see,” “updates,” “follows,” and “talks to” his doctor on a regular basis. Notably, when Tyrone was asked if he knew of other youth participating in MHPP, he said no and continues, “ . . . not a lot of them are independent . . . the youngest are like mighty young so somebody might set it [their health care] up for them,” perhaps acknowledging that not all youth in the system are able to be as independent as he is. Lack of Connection to Care These youth also identified experiencing points of discontinuity in their health care. Based on their descriptions, factors that seem to have played a role here included the lack of trusting relationships with health-care providers, a history of inconsistent care, and perceptions of the health-care system as inefficient or inaccessible.

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Inconsistent Care and Lack of Trust Youth were aware of discontinuity in their health care arising from communication breakdowns that occurred when multiple, unrelated doctors saw them. Alisha, for instance, described being diagnosed with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)—a hard-to-treat strain of staph infection—while in DYS custody. She noted that DYS medical providers treated her, but that the responsibility for following up on her treatment with her primary care doctor fell to her and her mother, leaving Alisha uncertain about what her doctor knew about the infection and her treatment: ALISHA: . . . When I was locked up, they gave [my mom] a lot of options for services for me and when I got MRSA in there, they told her and they told her when I got home how to treat it and whatever. . . . INTERVIEWER: So they told your mom what to do. And in terms of your medical documents, you obviously received medical care while you were in lockup, do you know if your own doctor, who you’ve been seeing since you were little, do you know if that doctor knows what you got in lockup? ALISHA: No. No I don’t think so. INTERVIEWER: You don’t think so? Do you think it’s important for him to know? ALISHA: Yeah I do, I think it’s important for him to know . . . well he knows now because I told him, but I told him, “Well I got MRSA here,” and he was like, “I didn’t hear about that, when did you get that?” and I was like, “When I was locked up.” And he asked my mom for the paperwork. INTERVIEWER: Whose job do you think it is to communicate, like let’s say you’re in lockup and you already have a doctor from when you were like little, whose job is it to communicate what happens during lockup to that other doctor?

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ALISHA: The nurses, the nurse staff that works in the lockup facilities. . . . I mean ’cause she is the one treating you for everything so she should be the one letting your doctor, your primary care know. Alisha’s experience highlights how discontinuities in care, paired with unclear lines of communication, could lead to insufficient follow-up—if she hadn’t brought up her infection with her doctor on her own, he would never have known she had had it. Moreover, even after she made her doctor aware of her health issues while in DYS, she was still unsure about whether her records had been properly handed over to him. Two youth, Maria and Linda, reported that they did not have primary care doctors and relied on hospital emergency rooms (ERs) for their care—not because they preferred the ER, but because they either did not have or were unable to find doctors whom they trusted. Maria, who reported she was often sick with respiratory infections, said she knew she was “supposed to have a doctor.” However, she chose not to see him because he was not solving her recurrent problems. So she said she often went to the ER when she got sick, but did not find this care to be helpful either. Maria describes how she began using the ER rather than her primary care doctor and how her dissatisfaction with both—in terms of the quality of care she was receiving and in terms of the quality of her relationship to her doctors—led her to revert to over-the-counter self-care: MARIA: I don’t know, I had [my primary care doctor] and she told me that it was asthma that was what was going on with me. But then when I went to the hospital they told me it was respiratory infection. And it keeps happening, like four times in six

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months I can’t breathe. And they made me sit in the waiting room for 2 hours . . . and I don’t know the lady, my doctor’s name, they don’t know it, so I don’t know, and I don’t like waiting for them. I get better eventually. INTERVIEWER: And in general when you feel sick then, what’s the first thing that comes to mind for you to do? MARIA: I go buy the pills from the store, like Nyquil and stuff, and Tylenol. Because I know that [going to the doctor] is a waste of time. By the time I get an appointment, it will probably be over with. And if I go to the emergency room, it just makes me mad because I have to wait all the time—I left like three times when I went. I was waiting there for three hours and I left. INTERVIEWER: So right now you don’t have a medical provider? MARIA: No. INTERVIEWER: Okay, and what are you looking for in a medical provider? MARIA: I don’t know, like for them to be normal . . . for them to actually care to help me, not just think it’s another job, actually care to help. INTERVIEWER: Okay, do you feel that that’s happened to you a lot, you’ve come across doctors who don’t care? MARIA: Yeah, they have other appointments so they hurry up and rush, and they just make whatever they say goes and it might not even be right that time. . . . INTERVIEWER: You feel you’ve been rushed through. This last time, you said that you, you were told that it was asthma or some kind of asthma related and then you went to the ER and they actually, is that right you went to the ER and they said . . . MARIA: Yeah . . . INTERVIEWER: . . . that it was a respiratory infection? Did they give you anything?

Youth Perspectives on Health Care

MARIA: I had two ear infections with it. And . . . INTERVIEWER: So you had a respiratory infection and ear infections . . . MARIA: Two ear infections. And I went in there, they gave me four pills, Domax, [and] it didn’t go away after them four pills. It was there for another week and a half, so I don’t know why they just gave me four pills, but yeah . . . INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it sounds like you are really frustrated. MARIA: I know that’s why I don’t go no more . . . INTERVIEWER: And do you feel that there are any consequences to you not going? MARIA: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong. When I was younger I had surgery, I don’t know what it was for, like bladder or something, and I was supposed to get it checked back, and I never went, I don’t know what the hell is going on with me now. INTERVIEWER: You feel there is something going on bladder-wise? MARIA: No, they gave me surgery to not get UTI’s anymore and like, at the end of last year I had one. And I went to [my doctor], and I gave him my number and everything and he never called me back to tell me nothing. So . . . maybe there is nothing wrong. But he never called me. Several factors contributed to Maria’s frustration. First, her primary care doctor offered her diagnoses that were not confirmed by the doctors she saw in the ER, and the treatments she was receiving did not seem to be working— her health problems recurred. In addition, when she visited the ER, Maria experienced very long wait times and visits with doctors who seemed not to “care.” As evidence of doctors’ lack of care, Maria cited being

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“rushed” in and out by doctors whose names she did not know and vice versa. She was further frustrated with what she perceived as a lack of communication on the part of her doctors, for instance, when her doctor failed to call her back to let her know if anything was wrong following a urinary tract infection (UTI). As with other youth, having a caring, responsive relationship with her doctor(s) was very important to Maria; and in the absence of that relationship, she chose self-diagnosis and self-care, and remained worried about her health. Linda also spoke about frequenting the ER, rather than a primary care doctor, for her own and her child’s health care. She noted that although she did call primary care doctors when she or her son had a problem, the ER held a certain appeal because she did not have to wait for an appointment and could get immediate care. Linda also explained that she was following the example her mother set for her when she was growing up: “If [my son is] sick, I bring him straight to the emergency. . . . I call the doctor and if they can’t bring me in, I bring him to the emergency room. . . . And that’s what my mom did with me.” Linda’s current preferences had not always been the case. She explained that she had seen a doctor regularly—one whom she had been seeing since she was 5 years old and with whom she felt comfortable—until he “disappeared.” Linda was not sure whether he quit or had been fired, but she was unable to track him down and subsequently did not seek out another regular doctor because she was “scared” and did not “want to go to anyone else.” From that point on, Linda went to the doctor only when she had to, for instance, when she was pregnant and needed prenatal care. INTERVIEWER: You say you don’t have a medical provider. Are you looking for one?

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LINDA: No. . . . I know I need one, because I know I need to go to . . . but I don’t like that. INTERVIEWER: You don’t like what? LINDA: To go to the doctors. Like even my prenatal checkups, I only went because I had to. But like if I couldn’t have went, I wouldn’t have went. . . . INTERVIEWER: How come? LINDA: I don’t like doctors. Like, I don’t know, once [my childhood doctor] left me, I was like “what a loser,” you know. And I don’t feel comfortable like going to the doctors and getting in one of those Johnny’s, like . . . INTERVIEWER: Okay, so you had your doctor, did you like him? LINDA: Yeah . . . I really liked him because he was like always my doctor and then once he left I was like, “Well, I’m not just going to go to any person” so . . . I tried to track him down, but it didn’t work. Like I called a lot of offices, like “do you have a [childhood doctor’s name]” and they were like “no.” INTERVIEWER: And they didn’t tell you what happened to him? LINDA: They said “he’s not here anymore” and then they like referred me to this other lady. . . . [so] I just kind of left the office. Linda’s explanation suggests that multiple factors, including the immediacy of care she received, the absence of a personal relationship with a primary care doctor, and the example set by her mother, played a role in her choice to use the ER. Notably, Linda said that she “know[s] she need[s]” a regular primary care doctor, but was reluctant to try and start a relationship with someone she was unfamiliar with, preferring to use the ER instead. In this sense, Linda’s preferences for a personal relationship with her doctor echoed the preferences of the other interviewees, who all

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noted that having a trusting, personal relationship with their doctors was critical. And further, Maria’s and Linda’s stories suggest that the absence of such a relationship may lead a young person to rely on the ER or over-thecounter self-care. The lack of a trusting, personal relationship with doctors was also implicated in the discontinuity of care experienced by Darrell and Leo. Darrell, who said, “I think about my health a lot,” was not asked and did not offer how long he had been seeing his doctor, though he did say he went to the doctor annually. He confided: I didn’t used to like to go to the doctors when I was younger. I didn’t like needles or nothing. Now when I go to the doctors I be thinking about what they be puttin’ in them needles. They know what they doin’, but I don’t know. . . . They don’t hurt, but I don’t like the look of needles. Darrell’s fear of something he does not understand contributes to his feelings of ambivalence about doctors. Leo, who did not report having a current personal connection to a doctor or health center, explained that he used to go to the doctor regularly but “now that I’m grown it slowed down.” He said he used to worry about his health “because I grew up with asthma,” but since outgrowing it, he is no longer too concerned about his health. Leo reported that he used to have a regular doctor whom he liked because “she knew me—she was straight.” Similar to some of the other youth, Leo expressed an appreciation for his former doctor’s familiarity with him, and straightforward approach to care. Leo did not offer an explanation for why he no longer sees his childhood doctor, and he

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reported mixed perceptions of doctors in general. At one point he said he has had “positive” experiences going to doctors “because when I need something done, it gets done.” However, later in the interview, he conveyed a strong lack of trust in them:

LEO: Yeah, you need this . . . you need that. . . . INTERVIEWER: You think you mainly feel this way because of that experience with the asthma when you’re younger? LEO: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Would the members of your family go to the doctors if they weren’t feeling well? LEO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do they trust doctors? LEO: Me personally, I don’t. I can’t speak for everyone in my family. They [doctors] think everything is a problem. You need drugs. INTERVIEWER: So you don’t trust medicine, but . . . LEO: See, I grew up with asthma. My mother noticed that it would get worse in February. She realized it was seasonal. So they [doctors] told her to give it to me daily, but she wouldn’t do it. She told them straight up, “I’m not doing it. I’m not getting my baby hooked on drugs.” So she didn’t and it’s a good thing because I grew out of it. I would probably still be messing with it every day. INTERVIEWER: So she would just give it to you when you needed it? LEO: When I needed it. INTERVIEWER: So you don’t trust medicine. Would you say that you trust doctors? LEO: Doctors my age, they don’t know anything. They be trying to operate on things early. Some don’t even know what they’re talking about. Unless you have gray hair on your head, I’m not messing with you. If I think you are anywhere near my age—you don’t know what you’re talking about. INTERVIEWER: So you will trust a doctor if they’re experienced? LEO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: You think they tend to exaggerate stuff?

Leo’s experience with childhood asthma appears to have instilled in him an enduring mistrust of doctors and a strong preference for doctors who are experienced and knowledgeable. Inefficient and Inaccessible Health Care A number of youth identified the health-care system’s inefficiency or inaccessibility as an impediment to accessing regular, preventive care. Waiting a long time for care was a common complaint and source of disconnection from the health-care system among our interviewees. For instance, Leo noted, “If the line’s too long and I get tired of waiting, then it’s time to go.” Similarly, Linda said having to wait for an appointment was one reason that she chose to use the ER, and Maria, who described being frustrated even with the wait time for the ER, reverted to over-the-counter self-care. Conversely, when the wait at a health center is “short and sweet” as Andre described what happens at the MHPP-affiliated health center, it has great appeal: . . . When it really comes down to it, that’s all you want is to get what you came here for . . . it’s fast and easy. Other clinics would just be so long and then they’d be overcrowded and overbooked. Some of our informants also raised concerns related to the ability to travel to and afford care. Tyrone noted that he lived a long

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distance from the MHPP-affiliated clinic, requiring several modes of public transportation to get there. Jose said he could not get to the eye doctor because he would need to take the bus and did not have a bus pass (earlier in the interview he noted how expensive the bus is). Leo raised concerns about health insurance, comparing coverage within and outside the DYS facilities: “Out here you have to worry about whether or not insurance is going to cover it. In there you got no choice. They pay for it. So you’re going to take it.” While Leo resides in Massachusetts, where he receives state-sponsored health insurance as long as he is committed to DYS, he may have been worried about his coverage, as he was soon to age out of the system. His concern may also reflect a misunderstanding about his health coverage benefits, and thus speaks to the need for DYS staff and/or health-care providers to educate youth about the coverage to which they are entitled. It also underscores the critical need for affordable health-care coverage for system-involved youth nationwide.

CONCLUSIONS The system-involved youth of color in this study reported health concerns similar to those documented in the literature, including sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, asthma, dental problems, and serious injury (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001; Soler, 2002; Teplin et al., 2006). While much of the extant literature assumes a deficit orientation, describing the many risks and vulnerabilities of system-involved youth of color, the majority of youth in this study reported greater access to and utilization of preventive and quality health-care services than found in other studies of system-involved youth reviewed here. These youth revealed valuable assets and

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supports that facilitated their access to and utilization of care, including positive relationships with their doctors, support from their mothers, personal initiative in managing their care, and connection to MHPP. In addition, the youth in this study benefited from receiving health insurance coverage for the duration of their involvement in the juvenile justice system, unlike many youth nationwide. Nevertheless, despite their many personal assets and external supports, several youth experienced inadequate and disjointed care, reflecting the literature on system-involved youth and health care (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001; Golzari et al., 2008; Maschi et al., 2008; Sherman, 2005). Figure 18.1 outlines the various factors that, according to the youth in this study, connected them to or prevented them from connecting to the health-care system, as well as the outcomes of these connections and missed connections. This model illustrates how, on one hand, specific relationships and support systems facilitate continuity of care and potentially result in improved health outcomes, such as increased health-care utilization and appropriate diagnoses. On the other hand, breakdowns in these very relationships and systems contribute to discontinuity of care and potentially result in negative health outcomes, such as decreased preventive health-care utilization, reliance on the emergency room, and self-diagnoses. Youth perspectives on their health-care preferences, facilitators, and barriers to care are lacking in the literature, and seem essential to informing practice and policy aimed at improving health outcomes for systeminvolved youth. This study brings a select set of youth voices into the conversation and examines the relationships between these youth and the multiple systems within which they interact (e.g., family, health, juvenile

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Youth Perspectives on Health Care Figure 18.1 Factors Connecting or Disconnecting Youth from Care

Continuity of Care REPORTED CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

REPORTED OUTCOMES

Positive relationship with doctor Support from mothers Independent health-care maintenance

Receipt of routine, preventive care Increased health-care utilization Appropriate diagnoses

Discontinuity of Care

Inconsistent care Lack of trust in providers Inefficient and inaccessible health-care system

justice). Applying the ecological framework to this study allowed us to examine systeminvolved youth in context and better understand their perceptions of, and relationship to, the health-care system. For example, several youth in the study independently managed their health care or expressed a preference for autonomy from parents and privacy regarding their health concerns. Others welcomed the involvement of parents and other external supports in their care while others desired both independence and some support. These findings suggest that providing effective care requires sensitivity on the part of healthcare providers to each youth’s individual desires and preferences. In addition to their personal preferences for care, youth’s family relationships, in particular their relationships with their mothers, played a key role in their health-care practices. The majority of youth we interviewed cited their mothers’ influence on the frequency and type of their health-care utilization. For most of these youth, maternal involvement served as a facilitator to positive health outcomes.

Absence of regular, preventive care Lack of treatment Undiagnosed or misdiagnosed health issues

However, the example of the young woman who reported seeking care at the emergency room, where her mother had always taken her, suggests that some types of familial modeling may serve as a barrier to preventive care. Youth also spoke of their relationships to doctors and to community and system supports such as MHPP as key to their health-care access and utilization. They noted in particular that trust, longevity of the relationship, and efficiency of care were important characteristics that enabled them to have more positive experiences receiving care. Lerner and Castellino (2002) suggest that enhancing developmental outcomes during adolescence is not necessarily a matter of changing the adolescent or the systems in which she is situated. Instead, enhancing development involves making changes to the nature of the relationship of the adolescent to those systems. This study suggests that listening and responding to youth’s preferences for care are critical to improving the relationship between system-involved youth and the health-care system. We imagine the youth in this study

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are not entirely atypical of the general population of system-involved youth, in that they are interested and involved in their health care and they benefit from external supports in maintaining their health and in navigating the health-care system. Families, communities, and the juvenile justice and health-care systems share the responsibility for improving the accessibility, efficiency, and quality of care for these youth. Advocates of preventive and quality health and mental health care for system-involved youth assert that such care will likely enhance their quality of life and decrease recidivism, reducing further costly system involvement (Pumariega et al., 1999; Teplin et al., 2002). Further, Golzari et al. (2008) argue that the time of a committed youth’s release from the juvenile detention system provides a “critical opportunity” for connecting his or her to the health-care system. They make a case for paying special attention to ensuring youth confined to correctional facilities are connected to a “medical home” prior to release, as articulated in a 2001 policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The concept of a “medical home” involves “health care delivered or directed by a physician who provides preventive, acute, and chronic care that is accessible, continuous, comprehensive, compassionate, and coordinated with specialized services such as mental health provided by community agencies” (Golzari et al., 2008, p. 397).1 It is this type of accessible, continuous, and compassionate care that the systeminvolved youth in this study desire. They emphasize, in particular, close, trusting relationships with, and support from, doctors, 1

The need for a medical or health-care “home” for system-involved youth was among the findings and recommendations of the evaluation of MHPP ( Jacobs et al., 2009).

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health centers, mothers, and staff of community-based health access programs as the core facilitator of their connection to the healthcare system. It thus seems imperative that policies and programs aiming to improve health-care access and utilization for systeminvolved youth pay particular attention to developing such relationships at all levels (e. g., between youth and parents, between parents and the health-care system, and between the juvenile justice and health-care systems). Moreover, this study underscores the central role youth voices can and should play in informing policies and programs.

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Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

S ECTION IV

WORKING FOR CHANGE

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

CHAPTER

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Youth-Led Change BARRY DYM, KEN TANGVIK, JESUS GERENA,

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y now, it is a matter of faith—and knowledge, too—that young people are influenced by the families and communities in which they grow up (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Lerner, 2006; Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2004). Educational opportunities shape work trajectories. Reading at home influences educational success (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). Securely attached relationships with parents go a long way toward creating a solid sense of self (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). These influences are both positive and negative. When the most alluring work opportunity is running drugs, for example, that then becomes a regular trajectory. When parental violence and abuse fill the home, it is likely to spill over onto the lives of the children. Conflict-ridden family environments may perpetuate and even amplify youth hostility and aggression (Kolko, 2002). Young people replay violent experiences from childhood, sometimes recasting themselves as victims, other times internalizing the role of aggressor (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975). Generally, troubled contexts are more likely to produce troubled youth, and cycles of violence continue (Kaufman & Zigler, 1989). But the reverse is also true. Positive environments support youth who succeed in life; and even in the presence of deeply flawed relationships, benevolent influences within youth ecologies beget resilient pathways of growth (Lieberman, Padron, Van Horn, & Harris, 2005).

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This chapter is a case study of one organization, the Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF), in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Its purpose is to illustrate how young people, equipped with the right supports, are capable of carrying the burden of organizational and community change, and by so doing avoid many of the risks that lead to incarceration in the juvenile justice system. As such, much of its theoretical foundation is woven through the story.

HYDE SQUARE TASK FORCE We are in Jamaica Plain, a largely Latino Boston neighborhood. The time is early evening, July 1989. Claudio Martinez, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force, is remembering his experience of the area that gave rise to the Task Force, as it is known. I was walking along Centre Street with Neil, my 2-year-old son. At almost every corner, dealers offer me drugs, especially cocaine. The Boston Police Department used to call this neighborhood—the neighborhood I live in, by the way—the cocaine capital of the city. There are abandoned buildings strewn throughout, abandoned by landlords because property values had sunk so low that they were money 391

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sinks. Some had become “crack houses.” Others had fallen to arson, an attempt to realize at least some gain on investment. There are daily shootings in JP [ Jamaica Plain]. Landlords aren’t the only ones who have abandoned the Hyde Square area. Most elected officials ignore it because almost no one votes. So they, the politicians, can’t be held accountable. The police department has largely abandoned it—not officially, of course, but they never come around. In fact, there is no local police station in the area, so when young people are shot the response from the nearest police precinct (West Roxbury, a middle-class, mostly white neighborhood) takes hours, with little or no follow up to catch the criminal. And without their presence, there’s nothing to stop the rule of the dealers, mostly members of street gangs, always on the ready to protect their markets. Some residents describe the scene as the Wild West. Most importantly, youth have abandoned the streets. Parents of young people work hard to protect them from the violence, the prostitution, the drugs. The best practice is to keep them locked inside their homes. One of the leaders of the Hyde Square Task Force, Brenda Rodriguez, used to tell me about peering, hour after hour, day after day, out of the second floor window of her family’s apartment, viewing the scene below like a movie. The message to the children? Go to school and come home, do not stray. It’s a matter of life and death. Outside of school, there are very few opportunities for the children.

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This is the Hyde/Jackson Square area in the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury in Boston during the late 80s and early 90s. This was going to be the legacy I’d leave to my son if we didn’t do anything about it. (C. Martinez, personal communication, April 27, 2007) But they did do something about it. By all accounts, the young people of JP were subject to many positive and negative influences, but, if school dropout rates and single-parent families or rates of violence are any measure, the destructive outweighed the constructive— or, at least, far outpaced national averages (O’Keefe, Cohen, & Nyberg, 2009). In the year 2000, 17% of adults (age 25 and older) did not have a high school diploma or GED, and 28% of children (under age 18) lived below the poverty level (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2010). Today, the Hyde Square area is vibrant and alive with street traffic. It is lined with small, locally owned stores. Mozart Park, once the center of drug trade, has been refurbished with swings, seesaws, and murals painted by young people. In fact, young people themselves have had a large hand in reviving the neighborhood. This is the story of how a youth community organization, under the guidance and protective wing of the Hyde Square Task Force, helped to change their own community.

YOUTH AND DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS The attention to familial and community influence has surely been an advance on the idea that children have a basic character, ready to unfold in orderly stages no matter what the

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context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Erikson, 1950; Lerner, 2006; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). As early as the 17th century, English philosopher John Locke rejected the Cartesian notion that the qualities one has from birth dictate development over the course of a lifetime. In its place, he proposed that the human mind was a blank slate—a tabula rasa—empty of ideas yet well equipped to acquire knowledge through experience (Locke, 1892). But one-directional frameworks taking either side of the nature–nurture debate inevitably lead to oversimplified descriptions of developmental processes. An exclusive focus on the environments in which young people develop, then, also bears certain problems and maybe creates problems, as well. For example, the “inventionist” argument that the stage of adolescence is merely a social construction (Bakan, 1972) takes the nurture position to its logical extreme (Steinberg, 2005). Youth development is undeniably a socially mediated process (Vygotsky, 1978), but the idea that contexts are the sole determinant of development generally reinforces the belief that children are passive recipients, or even victims, of their surroundings. It may be easy to sympathize with at-risk youth and their families and easy to conceptualize programmatic interventions that put more and better content into them. It is even easy to make a case for charitable contribution directed their way. The field of social work emerged from this model. Friendly visitors from the upper class volunteered to lessen the burden of the poor by helping to instill them with better behavior (Barker, 1998); and our culture’s proclivity to correct other people’s “pathology” continues to the present day (Saleebey, 2009). But hierarchical interventions based on reducing personal deficits reinforce the distance between the empowered and disempowered, and fail to

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acknowledge the reciprocity of relationships. No matter how good the input—love, knowledge, opportunity—the youth we seek to help remain passive, unable to affect the course of their lives. We can also agree that children affect their surroundings (Bell, 1968; Bell & Chapman, 1986; Lewis & Rosenblum, 1974; see also Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). They may arrive in the world helpless and dependent, but infants are far from passive beings. On the road to independence, children are active contributors to their environments, shaping others’ actions and emotions as much as they are shaped by them (Lerner, 2002; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Any new parents can tell you that. The birth of a child disrupts the rhythm of their days, the roles they play in their marriage, their extended family, and, often enough, their work lives. Patterns of intimacy and financial well-being shift in expected and unexpected ways (Minuchin, 1974). The same is true for new teachers, whose personal character and security are supported and challenged in a variety of ways by the children they are asked to “mold” (Klein & Gilkerson, 2000). Even grandparents feel the change (Smith & Drew, 2002). Children and youth develop in the context of complex transactions with their environments and the people in them (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Ford & Lerner, 1992; Gottlieb, 1997; Magnusson, 1995). In light of this fact, simple cause-and-effect statements, standing alone, oversimplify complicated developmental realities in at least three ways. First, there are other factors, such as genetic predispositions toward health and illness, strength and weakness, resilience, and the tendency to fall prey to contextual influence (Masten & Powell, 2003; Rutter, 2007; see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume).

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There are received conditions, like fetal alcohol syndrome (Olson, O’Connor, & Fitzgerald, 2000; Shonkoff & Marshall, 2000), and environmental conditions, such as moldy apartments that increase chances of asthma (Jaakkola & Williams, 2003; Zock, Jarvis, Luczynska, Sunyer, & Burney, 2002). There are cultural assumptions—for example, some children are more worthy of our attention than others and therefore deserve more of society’s resources; others are less deserving and may even deserve to be punished for their transgressions. These cultural beliefs are woven into youth policy and practice. In the United States, for instance, fluctuations in juvenile justice policy have alternated between the goals of rehabilitation and punishment, reflecting ongoing shifts in our attitudes about youth, responsibility, and delinquency (Barton, 2006; see also Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). There are also economic and educational conditions that increase or decrease the likelihood that youth will have access to society’s resources. The negative end of this continuum has garnered much attention from experts. Kozol (1991) observed “savage inequalities” in our nation’s education of poor children; Garbarino (1995) described “socially toxic” environments that cheat children out of a healthy future. (See also Bruyere & Garbarino, Chapter 13, this volume.) When more than 13 million American children are living in poverty, including 35% of African American children and 31% of Hispanic children, families are less likely to be able to fulfill children’s basic needs—healthy food, safe housing, effective health care, and educational opportunity (Wight, Chau, & Aratani, 2010). On the other end of the spectrum, we know that when children are raised in nurturing environments and given sufficient resources,

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they thrive (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). They also grow into youth and adults who “give back” to society (Lerner, 2004). And there is more good news. Several decades of scientific research on children’s response to stress supports a more optimistic view—that even in the presence of adversity, young people are innately self-righting. That is, positive adaptation to adversity, or resilience, arises from ordinary developmental processes (Masten, 2001; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Werner & Smith, 2001). Accordingly, we need only protect and enhance extant adaptive systems to “steer development in a more favorable direction” (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998, p. 216).

YOUTH AND SYSTEMIC CHANGE A more thoroughly systemic and ecological perspective envisions youth within a complex field of action in which they are also active participants (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Magnusson & Stattin, 1998). Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979), for example, described children developing through their interaction with layer upon layer of psychological, social, and cultural dynamics. In this evolving, ever more complex process, biology, behavior, family, school, and community—the child’s immediate environment—are inseparable from, and interwoven with, cultural values and norms, with each of these factors fueling and modifying one another and individual development over time. Influence among children and adults, youth and communities, is therefore multidirectional, multidimensional, and temporal (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Lerner, 2006; Rutter, 2007). According to ecological perspectives, then, it is impossible to understand youth without direct knowledge of the environments in which they live and grow (Magnusson & Stattin, 1998).

Youth-Led Change

If all children and all relationships between children and adults exist within larger contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Garbarino, 1995; Lerner, 1991), it makes no sense, for example, to say that I influence you, and the action stops there. As we know, it doesn’t. You respond to my influence, I to yours, and both of us to others who are affected by our change. Things get complicated. At least, we should speak about reciprocal influence and patterns of interaction in which certain behaviors appear regularly—and which make specific behaviors, like dropping out of school or having children, much harder to change. Consider, for instance, an adolescent girl, growing up in an impoverished neighborhood. She is struggling in school and has many friends and family members who had children during their teen years. She is also more likely to become pregnant than her socially advantaged peers (Moore & Brooks-Gunn, 2002). It seems unlikely that providing her with information about birth control will, in and of itself, prevent her from becoming pregnant. Indeed, despite substantial funding, intervention programs have had little success in postponing sexual initiation and curbing early pregnancy (Leadbeater & Banister, 2007). These disappointing results may well reflect models of intervention that do not adequately account for the powerful impact of youth ecologies. It follows, then, that we should be concerned with the ongoing, complex, and often unpredictable interaction of youth and their environment as much as with any single influence. The pattern’s the thing (Bateson, 1979). This is particularly true when trying to understand the maintenance of the status quo. Set patterns undermine change and maintain stability. If you change one element in a complex field without changing the others, the change will not last, which is why young people often

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have to leave their communities to “better” themselves. The implication that this kind of systems theory has for intervention and change efforts needs to be drawn sharply: In order to change one part of a system, you need to change other aspects of the system as well. You need to support change in adolescent behavior, for example, by strengthening the peer groups in which youth live (Brown, 2004). In order to change attitudes toward schools, you probably have to change or build those community attitudes that work against school failure. Not that some children would not pull through admirably in virtually any context, but many will not, and most certainly will not in a sustained way. Sustained change in individuals requires an edifice of change. Or, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a community to raise— and to change—a child (Clinton, 1996). Fortunately and unfortunately, a developmental systems approach to youth change complicates the matter. Because the approach encompasses a multitude of transactions and settings (Delgado, 2002), interventions aimed at altering the behavior of young people (or families) without consideration of the larger context in which they are embedded are not sufficient to effect lasting change. A holistic view of young people considers person-incontext relations and resists temptation to privilege any particular capacity or interaction (Damon, 2004; Lerner, 2004). If, as a positive youth development (PYD) framework suggests, youth are resources to be developed (Roth, Brooks-Gunn, Murray, & Foster, 1998; see also Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume), so must their environments be cultivated. For instance, the family context is a key component of positive youth development even when school is the primary target. According to Melvin Delgado, a leading expert on youth development, “(B)roadening

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the concept of youth development to include family or community serves to ground it and give it context, as well as give it a vehicle with limitless possibilities” (Delgado, 2002, p. 28).

ALIGNING SYSTEMS FOR POSITIVE CHANGE The question, then, is how to get all or enough of the pieces in complex systems moving in the same direction at the same time so they can support one another. One of the more efficient ways to do so is through the introduction of virtuous cycles (Dym & Hutson, 2005), in which one good thing leads to another and then another. These cycles form a very concise way to conceptualize the interaction of individual and social change. In vicious cycles, one troublesome experience leads to another, which leads to yet another, each event bolstering the others (Dym & Hutson, 2005). It is easy enough, for example, to conceptualize the Jamaica Plain described earlier by Martinez as representing a powerful vicious cycle. As drugs and violence begin to build in the Hyde Square neighborhood, countervailing forces, like close-knit community, education and afterschool activities for youth, begin to dissipate or depart. As they depart, there is more room for violence and drugs. With the increased violence, the countervailing forces decline further, and so forth. This kind of cycle would be discouraging enough, but often, like a vortex, vicious cycles draw other forces into their downward pull. Over time, for example, property values fall, opening the door to more absentee landlords, who tend minimally to the rental units, which begin to attract residents who care less about the dilapidated apartments than they would for well-kept ones. Neither the landlords nor the

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residents now care as much about, or identify with, the neighborhood, and so it goes. There is no single starting place for vicious or virtuous cycles. We could have focused first on the poverty in the neighborhood that opened the doors to drug dealers and prostitutes, or on the schools that did not challenge the dealers for the loyalty of the children, or the landlords and their perfidious pursuit of profit at the expense of vulnerable people. But once we begin, we can weave the other forces into the cycle in order to portray it as a vivid phenomenon with a life virtually of its own, or seemingly independent of each of the other parts. In this deteriorating situation, you might expect Martinez and others like him to leave the neighborhood. But he did not. With Nelson Aroyo, a local Whole Foods Market butcher, and the Task Force’s board president, Martinez stayed and contributed to the creation of virtuous cycles that gradually challenged and eventually began to compete powerfully with the downward pull. According to cybernetic and systems theory (Ashby, 1956; von Bertalanffy, 1968; Wiener, 1948), one can begin to describe vicious and virtuous cycles anywhere, that is, with any single part of the cycle. So it is in describing the virtuous cycle experienced in JP. We could begin by noting the Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants who came to live in the Hyde Square area of JP, and who brought with them large, tight-knit families that were less vulnerable to the downward pull. Or we might begin with the perception of an improved political climate—more receptivity to the concerns of immigrant communities—in city and state politics (C. Martinez, personal communication, April 27, 2007). But we will begin with the youth organizers and their community bias, because the focus of this chapter is on the capacity of young people to contribute to, and even lead, social change.

Youth-Led Change

Let us return to a contained description of a vicious cycle, in order to see how it might be turned around. For instance, poor school systems and minimal parental expectations in the JP of 1987 led to poor academic performance and the alienation of young people from schools, which, in turn, made it harder for schools to perform effectively, which in turn made it harder to attract good teachers, which in turn further alienated young people—and so it went. Sadly, this kind of downward drift represents a great deal of experience in urban school systems (Kozol, 1991). Here is one way to think about turning these school systems around. Young people, with the guidance of caring and connected adults, begin to demand better teachers and a curriculum that is more connected with their personal and cultural experience. A few teachers respond, leading to better engagement among students, leading to more teachers responding. The principal, who began with a tepid response, now warms to the possibilities, hiring teachers who want to work with each of these students in ways that better engage them. Eventually, parents, who had been alienated from the “Anglo” school that they felt condescended to them, grow more engaged. This further emboldens the principal, who engages the students as allies in change. In this virtuous cycle, parents are drawn to the school and become integral to the upward trend. These are the kinds of cycles we want to nurture as antidotes to and bulwarks against the vicious kinds. Again, within a more reciprocal worldview, young people are active players (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Magnusson & Stattin, 1998). On their own, most probably, they cannot determine their own destiny—at least, not completely—but they can take the lead, and they can partner with others who lead the cycle upward (Delgado, 2002). And as they

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participate in this civic process, their confidence and skills can grow; so, too, their belief in themselves, and their belief that collective action can have identifiable, positive impacts on their own and their community’s lives. What is more, the young people’s changes are integral to other changes. With time and the initiation of more virtuous cycles, the changing identity of the Jamaica Plain youth has grown embedded in community development. In a way, JP is a culture that has learned to need a proactive response from young people. It needs the leadership of youth. No matter how well planned and how talented the social planners, however, most change efforts do not get off the ground. They may begin well. They may attract some others to their cause. But it is very hard to change a system—a person, community, or organization—when it is tightly organized and on balance (Dym & Hutson, 1997). No matter how we might dislike the JP of 1987, poverty and social disorganization had built strong roots. To initiate change, it is almost always necessary to create or discover moments when systems are less stable (Barton, 1994; Gould, 1980; Minuchin, 1974). As the physicist Ilia Prigogine put it, systems that are far from equilibrium are also vulnerable to change (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). Patterns of interaction are not so closely tied; there is room for new ideas and new behaviors. If, as Prigogine suggested, all systems oscillate between states of equilibrium and disequilibrium, there is truly ample opportunity for change. Those who like their change in tidy, unthreatening increments may dislike or mistrust such ideas when applied to communities, particularly their own. But it bears out in general and specifically with the Hyde Square Task Force. Time after time, their change projects are initiated by a jolt to the system

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(Jesus Gerena, personal communication, June 23, 2007). They protested and fought the introduction of Kmart into the business district of JP because they believed it would crowd out so many of the community’s own small businesses. The fight was messy and long but opened the possibility of constructive, youth-led change. Similar jolts have been administered to the Boston Public Schools (BPS) around issues of cultural discrimination and the neglect of adolescent health and education concerns. Currently, HSTF is taking on the cause of young immigrants, who are so readily “lost” in educational and other American institutions, with a similarly aggressive beginning; there will be more on this matter later when we describe the youth community leadership model of the Task Force.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND THE HYDE SQUARE TASK FORCE Before describing the HSTF model of youth development, it is important to understand the way members view the community and the local political context that frames their work: The Hyde/Jackson Square area of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury is known as Boston’s “Latin Quarter.” The area has a predominantly Latino population—mostly people from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It also has a long history of poor voter participation in city elections compared to more affluent, White neighborhoods, traditionally lagging 10–20% below citywide averages (Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, 2010). Because JP’s residents are of more modest means as well, the Task Force believes that JP commands less of the city’s attention and resources than do other neighborhoods. Indeed, it sees Boston and Massachusetts as somewhere between

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uncaring and hostile to the Latino and African American youth who constitute the majority of the JP community. In its view, this is a world in which immigrant and other minority children do not get to live and work on a level playing field. The work of the Task Force, then, begins with this assumption: Young people will feel empowered only when they are empowered, and that empowerment is not simply a psychological phenomenon. It is at least equally a political determination. It is essential to marry the psychological and political within the context of a supportive community—not one that already exists, not one that you hope is there, but one that you help to create. Through political campaigns and community improvement projects—such as the radical transformation of Mozart Park, the attractive murals on T (subway and bus) stations, dance concerts, annual dinners, and a host of other activities—the young people of HSTF “build” community by bringing together the people, expressing cultural preferences in public spaces, and enjoying ordinary activities with neighbors. Most of all, however, youth empowerment is closely associated with changing the distribution of power and privilege in Jamaica Plain and beyond, in Boston and Massachusetts. For an organization rooted in community, this effort begins with bringing out the vote. Every July, young people from the Task Force target those who do not vote and begin to knock on their doors to inform them how their behavior is impeding the opportunity of community children and youth. They call this annual project the “Vote for Me” campaign. The campaign is led by young people. The more seasoned and experienced youth leaders develop a strategy and target nonvoters of the district. They develop a 3-month plan that includes hundreds of hours door knocking,

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phone banking, and educating the neighborhood. Their goal is to contact their targets a minimum of five times before the election and to track those contacts to make sure it works. In 2008, they targeted 1,584 individuals, motivated them to go to the polls, and succeeded in getting 80% of them to vote (Ken Tangvik, personal communication, May 15, 2007). In the past 10 years, their collective work has helped turned one of the lowest voting districts in the city into one on par with their more affluent peers. The HSTF has been able to articulate and refine a model of youth development that grew primarily out of its own distinctive experience. The journey began with the effort to make the Hyde Square area of Jamaica Plain safe for its citizens. With the safety program under way and showing signs of success— police were finally a presence, and violent crime rates were down—the Task Force shifted its emphasis to providing opportunities to poor, mostly Latino youth. At first, they practiced what would now be known as largely a prevention model. Through safety and after-school programs, they tried to get young people out of harm’s way and into productive activities. Soon, prevention was not enough; and there was certainly no desire to rescue the youth by helping them to leave Hyde Square. Instead, the Task Force insisted that the young people create or help to create their own opportunities, and that they do so within the cultural and political fabric of their community. In the once prominent prevention model, teenagers are seen as potential problems that need to be short-circuited for the good of the larger society (Delgado, 2002). Programs are established to keep the kids busy and off the streets until they reach the safer confines of young adulthood. This is a deficit model, which was replaced by a more developmental

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perspective (National Youth Development Information Center [NYDIC], 1998; Roth et al., 1998). There are at least two phases or strains in the youth community development (YCD) model: One sees teenagers having multiple potential pathways and an intervention’s job as steering them along the positive pathways; the other emphasizes not only youth’s capacity to live out productive lives for themselves, but also to become assets to the communities in which they live (Hart, 1998). Ken Tangvik, HSTF Program Manager and a founding member of the Task Force (and also professor of literature at Roxbury Community College) identifies YCD’s operating assumptions as the following: In a youth development model, teens develop their academic, social, cultural, creative and life skills so that they can reach their personal goals and develop a lifelong commitment to serving in their community. We expect that teens will experience the intrinsic rewards that are gained through serving others. A fundamental belief of the youth development model is that when youth are fully engaged and play an active role in their community, they are able to make better decisions about their lives, have a sense of responsibility for their actions, perform better in school, have high self-esteem, and have more options in choosing a college. Youth can play a role in influencing their community’s capacity and in doing so, they enhance their own capacities. (Tangvik, 2007, p. 6) The YCD model accepts much of the optimistic perspective of the earlier version,

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but shifts emphasis from individual development and contribution to a more collective view (Tangvik, 2007). As John F. Kennedy might have put it, “Ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community.” From the youth community development perspective, this is more than an ethical imperative, it is cold, hard psychological and sociological reality. Young people, in effect, cannot fully develop as solid citizens and good people without roots in, and contribution to, the community in which they live. This model is predicated on the belief that individual development is tied to community development—tied not just to the community as it is but as it might be. In other words, YCD is intimately tied to the imperative of change, to the idea that, ultimately, young people will only thrive in a more just society. This is not a just society that they discover or join, but a society that they help to create (Tangvik, 2007). According to the Task Force’s reading of the YCD model, young people can and should lead the way to a just society. They have the greatest stake in the future. They understand the communities in which they live better than the planners and politicians. They have the potential to be what, over the centuries, has been called a vanguard, but with a particular flavor: local. HSTF’s youth community organizers (YCOs) are a local vanguard, largely sticking to their own affairs but visible to others to emulate or join. It is also a very sophisticated model rooted in ecological or systemic thinking, in which all parts are connected and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; von Bertalanffy, 1968). Tangvik continues: This model, which utilizes the inherent idealism of teens, rests on the philosophy that we must develop

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comprehensive and seamless community-wide efforts that promote positive youth development for all youth, not only the youth involved in our programs. Those engaged in youth community development realize that organizations serving youth cannot do this work alone. We understand that it is our role to mobilize the community, so that all sectors of society are involved in providing for the needs of youth. In the YCD model, youth development should be imbedded within the consciousness of the entire community so that an ecology that supports and understands youth development is created and maintained. (2007, p. 7) In order to engage at the YCD level, YCO’s must examine all of the social, economic, and political forces acting on themselves, their families, and communities (Delgado, 2002). The youth take the lead in challenging the levels of inequality that leave many urban minority communities impoverished and isolated. In YCD, youth are supported by caring adults who work with them to develop strategy and implement political action. In this process, teens learn the rules of political engagement in society but they also develop the awareness that they can be a historical force that can create a new, exciting, diverse society with new rules of engagement. Through these activities, youth develop a new consciousness, and build a sense of personal efficacy and a belief that social change is possible (Dominguez, 2000). In the dynamic interaction between teens and adult staff and volunteers, the adults are also transformed through a process that organizational theorist Scharmer (2009) describes as “generative listening,” when:

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you realize at the end of the conversation that you are no longer the same person you were when it began. You have gone through a subtle but profound change that has connected you to a deeper source of knowing, including the knowledge of your best future possibility and self. (p.13) Thus, adults working in the field of youth community development also experience the process of transformation, which makes this work both challenging and exciting. In the youth community development model we don’t only prepare youth for the future; we expect youth to play a critical role in creating a new future for themselves and their community. (p.13) Readiness and Change How exactly does the HSTF initiate the change that is so critical to its idea of youth development? In its most concise form, the method goes like this: The young people identify injustice, analyze its roots, determine the levers of power to resist or encourage change, then create projects that redress injustice and introduce new, more democratic programs. An often unnamed part of this method—preparing the ground for all of these steps to have their intended impact—is critical to its success. We call the prepared ground readiness (Dym, 1995). When ready, all people, organizations, communities—systems of all kinds—can change with relative ease. Earlier, we referred to Prigogine’s observation about systems far from equilibrium. HSTF often begins its interventions by shocking, jolting,

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or threatening the people and systems it wishes to change, thus throwing them or threatening to throw them into disequilibrium. Its first major intervention, for example, began with a protest against the introduction of Kmart into the Hyde Square neighborhood. The protest claimed that Kmart would, first, cause many of the small, local businesses to fail or flee, thus undercutting a key element of the JP culture, and, second, enforce an entry-level pay scale consistent with living in poverty. For months the HSTF disrupted planning and construction, until the planners gave up and joined with the Task Force in community-based economic development programs. Similar protests have targeted government agencies and the Boston School Committee. Invariably, young people appear before the television cameras to express their point of view—both their protest and their proposals for a better way. Behind almost every programmatic suggestion is the threat to jolt the system, to throw it into disequilibrium. But, as chaos theorists (e.g., Lazlo, 1987; Maturana & Varela, 1980; Selvini Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin, & Prata, 1978) of all stripes know, you do not have to jolt systems to create readiness for change. There are regularly occurring moments in which confusion and doubt reign, when a lack of confidence or the sheer lack of answers opens organizations to suggestion and change (Dym & Hutson, 1997, 2005). Currently, for example, Martinez has discovered that several thousand Spanishspeaking children had fallen between the cracks of the Boston Public Schools—had essentially received very little formal education. He publicized the oversight but no great protest was necessary. The system knew it did not know what to do and readied itself for change (C. Martinez, personal communication, March 14, 2009).

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There are moments when organizations and communities are receptive to, and even eager for, change—moments when they are determined to get to a better place. When change agents have become sensitive to these states of readiness, when they have become opportunistic at the core and look for great moments to introduce innovative ideas, they exponentially increase their chances of success (Dym & Hutson, 1997, 2005). This, we believe, is the current state of affairs for the Task Force. Over a couple of decades now, the Task Force has both proven its ability to be both disruptive and constructive when the opportunity arises. The YCOs, moreover, have bolstered these abilities with traditional political clout: their tenacious and dependable ability to bring out the vote. As a result, the young people are more and more welcomed into the halls of power. The YCOs have almost become key and integral players on the Boston scene, able to influence policy—and the perception of Latinos, in general, and of Latino youth, in particular. Core Principles of the YCD Model A summary of the core principles of this model is as follows: &

&

Creating readiness for change. As we have suggested, the young people do this either by creating disequilibrium in the institutions that constrain their development or by looking for openings in those institutions. Planning to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. The youth organizing team identifies injustice— discrimination or unequal distribution of resources, for example— studies its causes and context, and

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&

&

analyzes the levers of power (the people who maintain the injustice or who have the power to change it). Based on these analyses, the young people devise a plan to make the change. Parenthetically, the analytical appetite and capacity, easily applied to other aspects of life, has been whetted and honed immensely during these activities. Introducing a virtuous cycle. The youth introduce a plan—for instance, writing a civics curriculum that includes the experience of Latinos, even before the voyage to the United States. They then gain support from those in power, who introduce them to resources to implement the plan. As the plan—let’s say the curriculum— gets under way, it is shared with others who have community and institutional support. When their “buy in” is achieved, the youth might turn to the distribution and teaching of the curriculum, and so the cycle grows in strength and in breadth of support. Connecting the virtuous cycle to other virtuous cycles. Youth organizing teams, currently or in the past, may have worked in other arenas, such as improving the experience of immigrants. These activities would have touched on similar themes as well as encountered similar institutional impediments and supports—in political and educational arenas, among grassroots organizations and networks that have built up around the Task Force. When two, three, and four virtuous cycles begin to mesh, the potential for large systems change is greatest.

Youth-Led Change

&

Initiating personal change. The engagement in this kind of social change, in turn, changes those involved. This comes from the experience of efficacy and the confidence it builds. It comes from public recognition and the transformation of one’s position in society from problem to asset, from troubled youth to active citizen.

This is the core of the Hyde Square program. To live freely, participants believe, you should change society for the better—not by whining but through effort, thought, discipline, and teamwork. The young people become leaders on a personal level by taking charge of their own, individual lives, on a social level by initiating and carrying forth projects. Throughout the projects, they, in effect, make promises to their communities. Thus, they put the pressure on themselves by embedding expectations in a very public way. A distinctive element of the Task Force is that, while the adult members are pleased when the young people go off to college, that is not the central objective. The central objective is to help raise good citizens, with a strong sense of themselves within their community—social activists, not for the sake of protest and criticism, but for the sake of raising up their community. By raising the social, educational, and economic opportunities around them, the youth continually affirm their own value.

A THEORY OF CHANGE: INTERSECTING AND REINFORCING VIRTUOUS CYCLES In 2006, the Hyde Square Task Force constructed its strategic plan. The organization had been successful, along many indices, for

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years and had begun to think about expansion. It could open branches in other areas of the city or in other, nearby cities. It could franchise its method, teaching other youthdevelopment organizations how to be successful in the Hyde Square way. And there were outsiders, funders and supporters who encouraged this path. The staff and youth—who participated equally in the planning activities—would have none of it. They were rooted in a community—the Hyde Square section of Jamaica Plain—and they liked it that way, felt loyal to, and strengthened by, being part of a community. As seems true for so many of the younger generations, there is a suspicion among Task Force staff and youth about universal solutions, even those progressive solutions, like socialism, that have animated past generations of social justice advocates. If they were going to spread the word about youth community development, it was going to be through partnerships with other rooted community groups or with institutions that could be influenced from the outside—institutions such as the Boston Public Schools and a variety of health-care organizations. At a “macro” level, the theory goes essentially like this: One organization after another, in sequence or simultaneously, gets worked up against an injustice. It could be immigration policy, an unjust war, or consistently inadequate educational opportunities for the poor. Gradually, spontaneously, and in a great variety of ways, various local groups develop approaches or solutions to the problem. At first, these groups and approaches are distinct, even unknown to others. But gradually information flows, in either the old-fashioned way—word of mouth at conferences and informal get-togethers, or through contemporary forms of communication, like e-mail,

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Web sites, and blogs—social media. As communication builds and commonalities are noted, a spontaneous growth builds: there is a gathering of force, a “viral” spread. The Seattle protest against the International Monetary Fund is given as an example of this viral spread. Sometimes, for example, immigrants’ rights movements, which may lack central organization or even centrally agreed upon principles, take this form (Hardt & Negri, 2004). It is a form of large social action that depends on the convergence of many locally fed, locally oriented, locally intended movements. While this idea of linked local and viral social movements has a kind of elegance to it, it is difficult to place a great deal of faith in it. At the local level, however, the idea of linked local movements is easier to visualize, and we would like to do so as linked virtuous cycles, phenomena in which one good result leads to another, then another. These virtuous cycles can encompass a single arena, say education, health care, or immigrants’ rights. One example was an earlier virtuous cycle, in which the youth community organizing team at HSTF called for the inclusion of Dominican and Puerto Rican history and culture within its civic curriculum. At the very local level, some teachers, and then the principal, grew interested, which in turn drew parents into the “movement.” This virtuous cycle might have stopped here, but because the YCOs had earlier worked with the Boston Public Schools to create an adolescent health curriculum, they had enough credibility to gain the attention of the BPS. Moreover, they always approached purveyors of injustice with the threat of disruption—protest, articles in the newspapers, and the like. The BPS agreed that a more inclusive civics program was a good thing for a school system whose student

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body majority consisted of people of color. So the BPS and HSTF began to collaborate on curriculum development, which brought funders and politicians into the fold ( J. Gerena, personal communication, May 7, 2009). Thus, the scope of the cycle widened. Here is how it links to another, then another. The Task Force is also interested in immigrants’ rights and the development of immigrants during adolescence; one of its key staff members, Ken Tangvik, developed a youth community organizing approach that he believes can be adaptable in other places. The Task Force readily found funding for a pilot project in Boston to try it out. The educational materials and motivational techniques it uses overlap but do not duplicate the BPS project; they have begun to draw in political groups that are not part of the curriculum project. A second, linked virtuous cycle has been created; each supports the other.

CONCLUSION Hopefully, the idea of linked, virtuous cycles, with the potential for exponential growth— perhaps viral growth—is now possible to visualize. We certainly do not know enough about how to encourage or feed these links, how to build several linkages into viral experience, but the idea is surely intriguing, and its potential seems within reach. Throughout the United States and the world, there are many examples of youthled change and youth community development (Coyle, 2000; Hardiman, 1998; IMPACT, 1998; Sanchez, 2000). We have chosen the Hyde Square Task Force because of our familiarity with it and because it so beautifully embodies the emerging theory of youth community development.

Youth-Led Change

We begin with the idea that the fate of young people is inextricably connected to the families, communities, and institutions in which they live. When young people can both affirm these connections and act to change them for the better, they deepen their sense of belonging, build their sense of efficacy, grow in confidence, and confirm the possibility of a constructive—or constructed—future. The act of engaging and changing society is transformational to individuals, groups, communities, and institutions. This transformational activity, in turn, strengthens a community’s ability to raise the next generation of youth. This is the essence of civic engagement and civil society. A Note of Gratitude to Hyde Square Task Force Our thanks to the HSTF staff for offering the program to us to serve as the example of youth-led change in our chapter. HSTF staff, with the backing and support of community youth, have effectively positioned themselves to leverage projects generated by young people. By capitalizing on opportunities, youth and staff and HSTF have helped change the perception of young people and helped shape the policies and future initiatives across Boston. Here is a brief introduction to key HSTF staff members: Claudio Martinez, Executive Director: Claudio has been appointed by the Mayor to the Boston School Committee, the city-wide governing body for the Boston Public Schools. He also sits on the boards of some of the city’s major foundations, such as The Boston Foundation and the Nellie Mae Foundation, which provide him a bully pulpit from which to influence

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the course of philanthropy—more oriented to social justice and strategic intervention than to “charity”—and to address social issues in general. Jesus Gerena, former Deputy Director and Director of Organizing: Jesus has been an elected member of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council since 2001 and Chair of this body. He is cochair of the English for New Bostonians Oversight Committee, a member of the Boston Grants Initiative Oversight Committee, a former board member of City-Life/Vida Urbana, where he served as its treasurer and president. He is also leading an effort to create a youth organizing collaborative for education reform, a first in the City of Boston. Jesus is currently the Boston Director of the Family Independence Initiative. Ken Tangvik, Director of Program Development: Ken is one of the HSTF founders, a longtime political activist in Boston, and creator of many of the Task Force’s signature programs, such as the one that currently focuses on English Language Learners. In addition, Ken is a professor at Roxbury Community College, where he focuses on English language literacy and literature. Brenda Rodriguez-Andujar, Director of SchoolBased and Cultural Programs: Brenda is cochair of the Program Design and Curriculum Committee of the statewide Latino After-School Initiative, and is engaged in various initiatives with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Berklee College of Music, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Yi Chin Chen, Director of Lifelong Learning and Economic Development: Yi Chin

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represents HSTF on several city and statewide committees, advisory boards, and initiatives on higher education, youth leadership, and community health, such as Harvard School of Public Health Community Engagement Committee, Children’s Hospital Nutrition and Obesity Working Group, Boston Youth Service Network, Boston Food and Fitness Collaborative, and Boston After-School and Beyond Teen Initiative Working Group. Chrismaldi Vasquez, Manager of Organizing and Policy Initiatives: A former youth involved with HSTF, Chrismaldi is a member of the City of Boston’s Election Advisory Committee, and the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s (MBTA) Police Community Advisory Group. Ana Almeida, After School and Women Engaged in Physical Activity (WEPA) Programs Manager: Ana is currently a member of the Curley Consortium, and is a representative of HSTF in both the Boston Girls’ Sports Coalition and the BostNet Middle School Advisory Council. Galicia Escafullery, Boston Climate Action Leadership Committee. Galicia is a former HSTF youth. REFERENCES Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331–341. Ashby, W. R. (1956). Introduction to cybernetics. London, England: Chapman & Hall. Bakan, D. (1972). Adolescence in America: From idea to social fact. In J. Kagan & R. Coles (Eds.), Twelve to sixteen: Early adolescence (pp. 979–995). New York, NY: Norton.

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Barker, R. L. (1998). Milestones in the development of social work and social welfare. Washington, DC: NASW Press. Barton, S. (1994). Chaos, self-organization, and psychology. American Psychologist, 49, 5–14. Barton, W. H. (2006). Juvenile justice policies and programs. In J. M. Jenson & M. W. Fraser (Eds.), Social policy for children & families: A risk and resilience perspective (pp. 231–264). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. New York, NY: E. P. Dutton. Bell, R. Q. (1968). A reinterpretation of the direction of effects in studies of socialization. Psychological Review, 75, 81–95. Bell, R. Q., & Chapman, M. (1986). Child effects in studies using experimental or brief longitudinal approaches to socialization. Developmental Psychology, 22, 595–603. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brown, B. B., (2004). Adolescents’ relationships with peers. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (2nd ed., pp. 363–394). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Clinton, H. R. (1996). It takes a village and other lessons children teach us. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Coyle, J. (2000). More wilderness for more children: Club program gives disadvantaged youth new chances to learn about nature. Sierra Club, 1–4. Damon, W. (2004). What is positive youth development? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 13–24. Delgado, M. (2002). New frontiers for youth development in the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Dominguez, S. (2000). Community youth development policy. Boston, MA: Unpublished manuscript. Dym, B. (1995). Readiness and change in couple therapy. New York, NY: Basic Books. Dym, B., & Hutson, H. (1997). Utilizing states of organizational readiness. OD Practitioner, 29(2), 32–43. Dym, B. M., & Hutson, H. (2005). Leadership in nonprofit organizations: Lessons from the third sector. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York, NY: Norton. Ford, D. H., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems theory: An integrative approach. Newbury Park, NJ: Sage.

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Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975) Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 387–421. Garbarino, J. (1995). Raising children in a socially toxic environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Gottlieb, G. (1997). Synthesizing nature–nurture: Prenatal roots of instinctive behavior. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Gould, S. J. (1980). Ever since Darwin. New York, NY: Norton. Hardiman, C. M. (1998). Taking Mexican art beyond borders: Chicago’s Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. Americas, 50, 56–57. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire. New York, NY: Penguin. Hart, A. F. (1998). Urban America as a context for the development of moral identity in adolescence. Journal of Social Issues, 54, 513–530. Jaakkola, M. S., Williams, D. (2003, May 19). Respiratory health effects of molds. Presented at the annual conference of the American Thoracic Society, Seattle, WA. Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation. Educate, mobilize, vote! Retrieved from www.jpndc.org/community/index.html Kaufman, J., & Zigler, E. (1989). The intergenerational transmission of child abuse. In D. Cicchetti & V. Carlson (Eds.), Child maltreatment: Theory, and research on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect (pp. 129–150). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Klein, N. K., & Gilkerson, L. (2000). Personnel preparation for early childhood intervention programs. In J. P. Shonkoff & S. J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood intervention (2nd ed., pp. 454–483). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Kolko, D. J. (2002). Child physical abuse. In J. E. B. Myers, L. Berliner, J. Briere, C. T. Hendrix, C. Jenny, & T. A. Reid (Eds.), The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment (2nd ed., pp. 21–54). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Lazlo, E. (1987). Evolution: The grand synthesis. Boston, MA: New Science Library. Leadbeater, B. J. R., & Banister, E. (2007). To stay or leave? How do mentoring groups support healthy dating relationships in high-risk girls? In B. J. R. Leadbeater & N. Way (Eds.), Urban girls

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revisited: Building strengths (pp. 121–141). New York: New York University Press. Lerner, R. M. (1991). Changing organism-context relations as the basic process of development: A developmental contextual perspective. Developmental Psychology, 27, 27–32. Lerner, R. M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among America’s youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lerner, R. M. (2006). Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 1–17). Editors-in-chief: W. Damon & R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Naudeau, S., . . . von Eye, A. (2006). Towards a new vision and vocabulary about adolescence: Theoretical and empirical bases of a “positive youth development” perspective. In L. Balter & C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues (pp. 447–469). New York, NY: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis. Leventhal, T., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2004) Diversity in developmental trajectories across adolescence: Neighborhood influences. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (451–486). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lewis, M., & Rosenblum, L. A. (1974). The effect of the infant on its caregiver. New York, NY: Wiley. Lieberman, A. F., Padron, E., Van Horn, P., & Harris, W. W. (2005). Angels in the nursery: The intergenerational transmission of benevolent parental influences. Infant Mental Health Journal, 26(6), 504–520. Locke, J. (1892). Some thoughts concerning education. In R.H. Quick (Ed.), Locke on education (pp. 1–236). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Magnusson, D. (1995). Individual development: A holistic integrated model. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder, & K. Lusher (Eds.), Linking lives and contexts: Perspectives on the ecology of human development (pp. 16–60). Washington, DC: APA Books. Magnusson, D., & Stattin, H. (1998). Person-context interaction theories. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 685–759). New York, NY: Wiley.

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Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons from research on successful children. American Psychologist, 53(2), 205–220. Masten, A. S., & Powell, J. L. (2003). A resiliency framework for research, policy and practice. In Luthar, S. (Ed.), Resiliency and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversity (pp. 1–29). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of living. Boston, MA: Reidel. Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, M. R., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2002). Adolescent parenthood. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Being and becoming a parent (Vol. 3, pp. 173–214). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. National Youth Development Information Center (NYDIC). (1998). Definitions of youth development (and related terms). Washington, DC: Author. O’Keefe, G., Cohen, B., & Nyberg, S. (2009, February). Massachusetts births 2007. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Olson. H. C., O’Connor, M. J., & Fitzgerald, H. E. (2000). Lessons learned from the study of the developmental impact of parent alcohol use. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(3), 271–290. Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Roth, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., Murray, L., & Foster, W. (1998). Promoting healthy adolescents: Synthesis of youth development program evaluations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8, 423–459. Rutter, M. (2007). Gene-environment interdependence. Developmental Science, 10(1), 12–18. Saleebey, D. (2009). Power in the people. In D. Saleebey (Ed.), The strengths perspective in social work practice (5th ed., pp. 1–23). Boston, MA: Pearson.

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Sanchez, A. (2000). The power of nature: Using trees to build community. CYD Journal: Community Youth Development, 1, 7–13. Scharmer, O. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges (p. 13). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Selvini Palazzoli, M., Boscolo, L., Cecchin, G., & Prata, G. (1978) Paradox and counterparadox. New York, NY: Aronson. Shonkoff, J. P., & Marshall, P. C. (2000). The biology of developmental vulnerability. In J. P. Shonkoff & S. J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood intervention (2nd ed., pp. 35–53). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. (Eds.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Smith, P. K., & Drew, L. M. (2002). Grandparenthood. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 3. Being and becoming a parent (pp. 141–172). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Steinberg, L. (2005). Adolescence (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Tangvik, K. (2007). The Hyde Square Task Force model of youth community development and methodology. Unpublished manuscript. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. American FactFinder 2000. Retrieved from http:// factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang ¼en von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General system theory: Foundations, development, applications. New York, NY: Braziller. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Werner, E. & Smith, R. (2001). Journeys from childhood to midlife: Risk, resilience, and recovery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wiener, N. (1948) Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wight, V. R., Chau, M., & Aratani, Y. (2010, January). Who are America’s poor children? The official story. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty. Zock J. P., Jarvis, D., Luczynska, C., Sunyer, J., & Burney, P. (2002). Housing characteristics, reported mold exposure, and asthma in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey. Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology, 110, 285–292.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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The End of the Reform School? VINCENT SCHIRALDI, MARC SCHINDLER,

The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country —Churchill, 1910

S E A N J. G O L I D A Y 

After a 14-year-old girl at a state boot camp died while being forced to exercise without water, stories of human rights abuses poured out of South Dakota’s facilities for delinquent youth. Guards shackled youth to fixed restraints on the floor or beds after cutting their clothes off, chained youth inside their cells and placed them in isolation for 23 hours a day for extended periods of time, and sprayed them with pepper spray while naked and handcuffed, spread-eagled to their beds (Human Rights Watch, 2000). Over 160 years ago, in 1848, American reformers began experimenting with a new approach to troubled youth. Dubbed alternatively “training schools” or “reform schools,” these large, congregate care facilities have been guilty of scandalous abuses, unconstitutional conditions, and disappointing public safety outcomes almost since their inception. This chapter will briefly outline the troubled history of the training school model— historically viewed as a correctional institution intended1 as a vehicle for rehabilitating or caring for delinquent and status offending youth primarily through confinement and vocational training. Research on the impact of reform school institutionalization on young people’s recidivism, mental health, suicide risk,

Young girls are stripped naked and placed in dank, unlit rooms in a Mississippi youth correctional facility for days at a time for relatively minor misbehavior. While there, they urinate and defecate through a hole in the floor. For punishment, youth report staff force them to eat their own vomit or risk being physically assaulted —U.S. Department of Justice, 2003

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oung people confined in our nation’s capital take their shirts off at night, stuffing them around the toilets in their cells to avoid rats and cockroaches crawling on them while they sleep (see Jerry M. v. District of Columbia,1986). Girls in this same Washington, DC, facility are deprived of feminine napkins when they have their periods, forcing them to sneak napkins from the cafeteria (S. Harrison, personal communication, September 15, 2008).



AND

Vincent Schiraldi, MSW, is the former Director of DC DYRS; Marc Schindler, JD, is the former Chief of Staff at DC DYRS, and Sean J. Goliday, PhD, is a former Research Analyst at DC DYRS.

1

Training schools are usually state operated large, congregrate care juvenile facilities, akin to state prisons for adult offenders.

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educational attainment, and future employability will be examined. The outcomes of some promising approaches to working with multiple contact delinquent youth in noninstitutional settings will then be reviewed. We will then examine three jurisdictions—Massachusetts, Missouri, and the District of Columbia—that have entirely eschewed the use of large state reform schools and look at the outcomes in those states. Next, we will look at the move to substantially downsize locked custody in the nation’s three largest states, California, Texas, and New York, along with the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, which is helping to reduce detention and, in some cases, training school populations in jurisdictions throughout the country. Finally, we will summarize the implications of this analysis, which we believe makes a strong case for the elimination of the use of reform schools in favor of a rational, evidence-based approach to working with delinquent youth. This approach includes the use of a rigorous continuum of services, supports, and opportunities, including small, homelike and decent secure care for the small percentage of youth who need to be so confined. The approach is premised on the tenets of positive youth development (PYD), a strengths-based way of thinking about the development of children and youth and the factors that facilitate or impede their individual growth and their achievement of key developmental stages (Butts, Bazemore, & Meroe, 2010; Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, 2005; Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lerner et al., 2005; Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume).

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE REFORM SCHOOL We have 100 boys sleeping in one room 40 by 80 feet, low ceiling, and the beds are

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“two story”; there are no bathroom privileges of any kind in the building . . . . Can we not prevail upon this assembly to give us relief? In the name of humanity! —Mayor’s message with accompany documents to the municipal assembly of St. Louis, 1893 These reports are shocking. It’s appalling to think of guards cutting the clothes off of children, shackling them naked to their beds, or chaining them to their doors. Americans criticize other societies who treat their children this way. They should not allow these kinds of practices to take place in their own country. —Bochenek, 2000 For the first half of the19th century, children were treated as simply smaller versions of adults when it came to arrest, trial, conviction and incarceration. For young and old, conviction and sentencing meant confinement in “penitentiaries” with brutal and mindnumbing conditions, ranging from harsh physical labor, to beatings, to enforced silence whose violation was severely punished. Gradually, reformers, elected officials, and judges began a form of nullification, refusing to convict or sentence youthful offenders to incarceration due to the appalling conditions they would experience in confinement. In the mid-1800s states began to create separate but similar facilities for youthful offenders to imprison them apart from adults (Miller, 1991). In 1886, the Lyman School for Boys opened in Lyman, Massachusetts, the first in what would become a nationwide experiment with placing troubled youth into prisonlike facilities to achieve their reformation. Ironically, in 1971, the Lyman School

The End of the Reform School?

would be the final training school to be shuttered by Massachusetts Department of Youth Services Secretary Jerome Miller, part of what became the United States’ first systemwide deinstitutionalization of a state training school system during which five reform schools were closed in a 2-year period and replaced with small secure facilities and a continuum of community-based programs (Loughran, 1997).

IMPACT OF REFORM SCHOOLS ON THEIR WARDS When custody meets care, custody always wins. —Rothman, 1971 Research has borne out that the reformers’, advocates’, and civil litigators’ cause for alarm was justified. Increasingly sophisticated studies have found that placement in congregate care facilities like reform schools may expose youth to more intensely delinquent or disturbed youth, increase recidivism, destabilize the mental health of young people and place them at greater risk of suicide, and retard employment and educational prospects. In their summary of the growing body of research on the impact of congregate care confinement of delinquent youth, Holman and Ziedenberg (2006) observe that the intuitive belief that training schools are “schools for crime” has some support in the research literature. For example, careful studies of youth in Arkansas’s juvenile justice system found that, controlling for other factors, prior juvenile justice institutionalization was the strongest predictor of future reoffending (Benda & Tollet, 1999). The chances of being recommitted to the Arkansas Department of Youth Services

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(DYS) increased 13-fold for youth with prior commitments. As a predictor of recommitment to DYS, previous commitment was 4 times stronger than carrying a weapon, 6 times stronger than membership in a gang, and 22 times stronger than poor parental relationships. The Oregon Social Learning Center coined the phrase peer deviancy training to explain their findings that delinquent youth grouped in congregate care were significantly more likely to reoffend than those who receive individualized treatment (Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999). Such youth also experienced higher rates of substance abuse, school difficulties, violence, and adjustment difficulties. Researchers have also shown that delinquent behavior, even serious delinquency, is normative behavior for teenage males and that incarceration can slow the natural process of maturing out of delinquency. Elliott (1994) has found that as many as one third of adolescent males engage in serious and violent delinquent behavior but that most “age out” of their delinquency in young adulthood, particularly if they establish a relationship with a significant other or obtain gainful employment. Incarceration may interrupt this maturation process as it disrupts the youth’s natural engagement with significant others and employment (Golub, 1990). Grisso (2004) estimates that as many as two thirds of youth in confinement meet diagnostic criteria for mental illness, with one third needing ongoing clinical care (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Yet such facilities often appear to exacerbate mental illness rather than treat it. Forrest, Tambor, Riley, Ensminger, and Starfield (2000) observe that transition into incarceration itself may be responsible for some of these psychological outcomes. Kashani and colleagues (1980) found that, for one third of

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incarcerated youth diagnosed with depression, the onset of their depression occurred postconfinement. Youth in confinement are 2 to 4 times as likely to commit suicide as youth in the general public, a particularly appalling finding given that staff at such facilities are specifically charged with the duty of preventing suicides (Parent et al., 1994). Approximately 11,000 youth engaged in 17,000 suicidal acts in juvenile justice facilities annually, and juvenile justice systems often engage in practices, such as the use of isolation (Parent et al., 1994), that are antithetical to suicide prevention (Hayes, 2009). In a 2009 report published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Mendel found that confinement is associated with a variety of “negative life consequences” including rendering youth less likely to complete high school, avoid rearrest, find employment, and form stable families (see Figure 20.1). Far too often, education and employment for youth in confinement is irrevocably interrupted, giving the lie to the “reform school”

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euphemism (see also Vaught, Chapter 15, this volume). The U.S. Department of Education has found that 43% of incarcerated youth receiving remedial education services in detention did not return to school after release, and another 16% dropped out within five months (LeBlanc, 1991). Balfanz, Spiridakis, Neild, and Legters (2003) found that within a year, two thirds to three quarters of ninth graders released from incarceration had dropped out. This failure to reconnect with schools, combined with the stigma associated with incarceration, negatively impacts job prospects for former training school residents. One study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that incarcerating youth reduced work time over the next decade by 25–30% (Freeman, 1991). Western and Beckett (1999) found that, when controlling for other factors, youth who had been incarcerated spent three fewer weeks working in the following year, on average, than nonincarcerated youth; for African American youth, it was five fewer workweeks postincarceration.

Figure 20.1 Outcomes for Youth Released from Detention

Sources: America’s Promise report on national rates of high school dropouts. Retrieved from www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23889321/; LeBlanc, 1991; The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University; Office of State Courts Administrator, Florida Juvenile Delinquency Court Assessment (2003); Substance use, abuse, and dependence among youths who have been in jail of a detention center. (2004). The NSDUH report.

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One researcher concluded “the process of incarceration could actually change an individual into a less stable employee” (Bushway, 1998).

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICES AND PROGRAMMING APPROACHES These “negative life consequences,” as the Mendel report dubs them, stand in stark contrast to some of the outcomes being experienced by evidence based programs and promising approaches. The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, in its Blueprints for Violence Prevention initiative, has studied and written extensively about which violence prevention programs are effective. CSPV has reviewed more than 800 programs and has found 11 that meet the criteria for “model” programs and 17 that meet the criteria for “promising approaches” (Tolan & Guerra, 1994; see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume, for a detailed discussion of evidence-based practice). Three of the Blueprints’ evidence-based model programs are widely used with youth in the juvenile justice system: &

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is an intensive treatment program for serious youth offenders focused on improving the family’s capacity to overcome the known causes of delinquency. A master’s-level therapist with a very small caseload comes to the youth’s home and other places where the youth is involved in the community, and is available to the family 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. MST interventions typically aim to improve

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families’ discipline practices and abilities to communicate, decrease youth association with deviant peers, increase youth association with positive peers and recreational activities, improve youth school or vocational performance, and develop a support network of extended family, neighbors, and friends to help youth and their families achieve and maintain such changes (www.colorado.edu). MST has been shown to decrease recidivism up to 70% as well as achieving other positive outcomes (mstservices.com). Functional Family Therapy. (FFT) is a structured, family-based prevention and intervention program for at-risk youth that works to change behaviors by engaging and motivating families and youth (Alexander et al., 1998). A short-term intervention of up to 30 hours offered mainly in clinical settings but sometimes in-home, this therapy focuses on family communication, parenting skills, and conflict management skills. FFT has been shown to reduce recidivism between 25% and 60% (Alexander et al., 1998). Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. (MTFC) places adolescents who need out-of-home placement due to serious delinquency in specially trained and supported foster homes, rather than incarceration or group home settings. The foster care placements, which last for six to nine months, focus on academic and positive living skills; daily structure and supervision based on clear expectations, limits and consequences; and support for youth in developing positive peer relationships. At the same time, the youth’s family receives therapy and parenting

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skills training to promote successful return after the program (Westermark, Hannsson, & Vinnerljung, 2008). Studies have found that placement in MTFC can prevent escalation of delinquency and other problem behaviors such as youth violence. MTFC is more economical and effective than placement in group or congregate care settings, such as reform schools, in decreasing offense and incarceration rates after program completion (Leve & Chamberlain, 2007). Another emerging approach to working with youth in the juvenile justice system is based on the tenets of positive youth development (PYD) (Butts et al., 2005; Lerner et al., 2005). Evidence-based practices like MST, FFT, and MTFC are individual programs that do not necessarily equate to systemic reform. PYD, however, represents a paradigm shift, reconceptualizing the focus of juvenile justice efforts from one informed by the deficits of these youth to an alternative that also reflects their individual, family, and community assets (see Lerner et al., Chapter 5, this volume). While most juvenile justice practice seeks (often unsuccessfully) only to extinguish negative behaviors, jurisdictions are beginning to embrace PYD as a key to preventing and reducing delinquent behavior through a combination of identifying and building on youth’s strengths as well as meeting their needs. PYD, as it is being defined by the District of Columbia Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), means purposefully seeking to meet the needs of young people and building their competencies to enable them to become successful adults. Rather than seeing young people as problems, this developmental approach views youth and their families as resources and builds on their strengths and capabilities.

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Thus, a PYD approach views the youth as an active participant in the change process, instead of as a client or target of change. While traditional juvenile justice work with young people has often favored control of their behavior as a central goal, for PYD, connecting the youth with community resources is the focus. For example, a traditional juvenile justice approach might involve sending a youth to job counseling and ordering community service as a punishment; PYD, in contrast, looks to engage the youth in career exploration and career-path work experience and use community service as service learning and job preparation. Most important, in the traditional juvenile justice approach, the aim is to diminish a youth’s problems or deficits; in the PYD approach, it is to build on a youth’s strengths and assets. DYRS’s leadership decided to implement this approach based on a review of the research literature (e.g., Butts et al., 2005; Butts, 2008; Schwartz, 2000), that led it to conclude that this approach is the best way to improve public safety in communities.

SMALLER IS BETTER Juvenile facilities should be small enough so the facility administrator can know the life story of every kid in them. —P. DeMuro, 1988 Although there had been calls to reform the training school model almost since its inception, the first successful juvenile justice deinstitutionalization effort came in the early 1970s in Massachusetts under the stewardship of Jerome G. Miller, then secretary of the Department of Youth Services. After spending years attempting to reform the state’s training schools, Miller decided that it was the

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institutional model itself that was broken and should be dismantled. Over a 2-year period, Miller closed all eight training schools in Massachusetts, which at the time housed approximately 1,000 youth, replacing them with two 30-bed facilities and a network of inhome services, group homes, and residential placements (Krisberg & Austin, 1998). Two separate analyses found numerous benefits to Miller’s deinstitutionalized and regionalized system. Harvard researchers Coates, Miller, and Ohlin (1978) found that, while overall recidivism rates for youth in the Massachusetts system rose slightly shortly following the closing of the institutions (from 66% in the institution-based system, pre-Miller, to 74% postreforms), regions of the state where a fuller continuum of care was put into place experienced a significant decline in recidivism. In addition, “graduates” of the new system were half as likely to go to adult prison as participants in the old, institution-based system. The second analysis conducted by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) (Austin, Elms, Krisberg, & Steele, 1991) was published after recidivism rates for youth in the deinstitutionalized Massachusetts system had declined considerably, and concluded that, 15 years after the “Massachusetts Experiment:” &

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Massachusetts ranked 46th nationally in overall rates of juvenile delinquency. Department of Youth Services youth made up only 1.3% of all youth arrests statewide in 1984. In the decade following Miller’s reforms, the number of DYS youth arraigned for new offenses declined by 36%. Not only were there fewer arraignments of DYS youth since the reforms, but those arraignments were for less serious offenses.

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By 1985, only 51% of DYS youth were rearraigned within a year of release, a significant decline from the 74% figure reported by Coates, Miller, and Ohlin shortly after the closing of the institutions in 1974. Recidivism rates for youth in Massachusetts’s system were lower than for delinquent youth in nine other state systems analyzed by NCCD. If Massachusetts were to return to confining youth for the average length of stay for most systems nationwide at the time (1985), the state would have needed to spend an additional $11 million annually and open 287 new secure beds.

Although the Massachusetts Experiment did not unleash a wave of successful juvenile justice deinstitutionalization efforts in other states, it did provide policy makers, researchers, lawyers, and advocates with a strong alternative example of a system that did not rely on large, locked institutions as its foundation, and yet was able to provide public safety and youth rehabilitation. Miller’s innovations also helped lay the groundwork for robust continua of care for delinquent youth—a model that is considered the “gold standard” nationally for diversifying youth services and reducing overreliance on training schools to the present day. With an eye to Massachusetts’s experiment, Missouri officials began to experiment with smaller secure care facilities in the 1970s. The experiment really took off in the early 1980s when, in 1981, the state closed Chillicothe, its one girls’ reform school, and closed the brutal Booneville training school for boys in 1983 (Abrams, 2004). In their place, Missouri had begun opening small secure care facilities throughout the state, generally much closer to the youth’s

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homes than the distant training schools had been. At first, these facilities were located in abandoned schools, residential homes, even a convent—none larger than three dozen beds. Eventually, as the “Missouri Model” began to take off, the state built new facilities of 40 or fewer beds, in dormitory settings. At first, as Mendel (2009) points out, going small was no panacea, and the youth in the Missouri facilities began to act out in their smaller, more decent and less hardware-driven facilities. But in 1988, Mark Steward took over as the department’s director and initiated a successful effort to reform DYS inside and out. He launched a positive peer culture (PPC) environment in DYS’s secure units, which is a peer-helping model designed to improve social competence and cultivate strengths in troubled and troubling youth by demanding responsibility and empowering youth to discover their greatest human potential (www .cachildwelfareclearinghouse.org). Moreover, he improved case management and case coordination with secure care programming, and created a network of day treatment centers to help ease the transition of youth back into the community following release from secure care. The results have been impressive. As of 2003, 3 years after discharge, 91% of DYS youth had avoided reincarceration and 70% have remained crime free (Decker, 2009). Eighty-four percent of DYS youth were productively involved in their communities through either school or work. Outcomes such as these led to Missouri’s receipt of the prestigious Innovations in American Government award from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2008, being named a Guiding Light in Reform by the American Youth Policy Forum, and being designated as a model site by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

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As Missouri’s outcomes have garnered attention, replication of the Missouri model has begun in several jurisdictions throughout the country. In 2005, Steward retired and started a consulting firm—the Missouri Youth Services Institute (MYSI)—with several former DYS staff. MYSI is now providing training, coaching, and technical assistance to juvenile justice agencies in the District of Columbia, Louisiana, New Mexico, and San Francisco County, California, and has recently completed work in Santa Clara County, California. Steward reports (personal communication, December 15, 2009) that they have had inquiries for technical assistance from another half dozen states. Washington, DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services In the District of Columbia, the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS)— Washington, DC’s cabinet-level juvenile justice agency—has been engaged in a major reform effort since 2005. Between 2005 and 2009, the agency reduced the population of committed youth in locked custody by half, closed its one remaining large (212-bed) training school, and replaced it with a 60-bed facility—the New Beginnings Youth Development Center—partially modeled after the Hillsborough facility outside of St. Louis. All of the agency’s staff at New Beginnings have been trained on the “DC model” (DC’s version of the “Missouri model”) by MYSI staff, which provides ongoing coaching and technical assistance as the agency makes the difficult transition from a correctional model to a deinstitutionalized system. DYRS’s innovation is noteworthy given that the agency has been deeply troubled for decades. DYRS is in its 24th year under a court consent decree for deplorable conditions in its

The End of the Reform School?

facilities and inadequate community-based services ( Jerry M. v. District of Columbia,1986). In 2004, plaintiffs in the lawsuit moved to place the agency in court receivership, then withdrew the motion in December 2007, as the reforms progressed. Reducing unnecessary use of incarceration has been a hallmark of the reform effort. For youth in locked custody, DYRS has reduced the population in its one secure facility for committed youth from 130 committed youth in 2005 to 60 in 2009, and from approximately 125 pretrial detained youth in 2005 to an average of 94 in 2008. As a participating jurisdiction in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative ( JDAI), city agencies and the courts have developed an array of detention alternatives, including evening reporting centers, balanced and restorative justice centers, third-party monitoring, and others. Between January 2006 and December 2009, 93% of youth released from a DYRS alternative to detention appeared in court without rearrest while awaiting their hearings, with only 5% rearrested and 2% failing to appear for a court hearing. DYRS has revised its approach to direct care within its facilities to create a positive peer culture and therapeutic milieu modeled after the Missouri Division of Youth Services. Consistent with a PYD approach, DYRS has engaged youth in positive activities such as performing Shakespeare in their communities, rebuilding homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, participating in citywide football and basketball leagues (including being the junior varsity champions in 2006), and engaging in a wilderness/cultural exchange on the Navajo Nation in the Southwest, that simply were not permitted or encouraged during the agency’s prior correctional-oriented era. For youth under DYRS’s care who are in the community, DYRS is creating a continuum of youth- and family-focused, assets-based

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services, supports, and opportunities for youth either in lieu of secure confinement or as aftercare following secure confinement. As DYRS adopted a PYD focus in 2005, it achieved a substantial movement of less seriously delinquent youth from deep-end, secure custody to community-based care, thereby reserving the most expensive (i.e., locked) programming for the youth with the most serious offenses. DYRS concurrently improved secure care for youth involved in serious and violent offenses, assuring that they remain confined longer in order to receive appropriate treatment services. In 2005, fully 42% of youth in DYRS’s most secure setting, the Oak Hill Youth Center, were Tier 3 (low offense severity) youth, compared to only 30% who were Tier 1, high-severity youth. In December 2007, the numbers were dramatically different: 59% of Oak Hill youth were Tier 1, while only 10% were Tier 3 youth. In 2005, 19% of the youth committed to DYRS were confined in Oak Hill, 22% were in distant residential treatment centers (RTCs), and only 28% were in their own homes. By 2007, 12% of DYRS committed youth were confined in Oak Hill, 11% were in RTCs, and 45% were in their own homes (Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, 2008). The DYRS reform has substantially reduced the number of youth in secure care, while improving conditions for those who remain confined, all through a strengths-based approach. Importantly, these changes have occurred while there has also been a reduction in recidivism among DYRS youth compared to 2004, and a continued decline in serious juvenile crime in Washington, D.C. (see Figure 20.2). DYRS has also added evidence-based, promising programs based on research from OJJDP and others and consistent with the tenets of PYD. For example, the Civic Justice Corps (CJC) is a workforce development

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Figure 20.2 End of Fiscal Year Population for Committed Youth in Custody in the District of Columbia, 2004 to 2009

Note: 2009 population count as of August 31, 2009. Source: DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

program modeled on the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps program. DYRS has also helped to create MST, MTFC, and FFT as part of its communitybased continuum of care. These have all been utilized to build on young people’s assets in noninstitutional settings. In addition, DYRS has created a Youth Family Team Meeting (YFTM) case planning process, combined with a basic screening system to develop case plans for all DYRS-committed youth. In its YFTMs, youth and their parents have a substantial voice in developing the youth’s case plan (now called an “individual development plan”), and each case plan builds on the youth’s strengths as well as attempts to meet his or her needs. This in turn helps steer youth into appropriate placements in either community settings or secure confinement. The Structured Decision Making (SDM) assessment used by DYRS is a validated risk instrument used to ensure that all youth are assessed using an equitable set of criteria.

DYRS’ adaptation of SDM seeks to balance public safety concerns with effective individualized service interventions, based on the tenets of positive youth development. The SDM model used by DYRS is driven by a robust risk assessment that collects data along two axes: risk and current offense severity. Each axis produces a composite scale that takes into account a number of factors known to stimulate or buffer against future delinquency. For example, the SDM risk assessment axis considers such factors as age at first offense, number of prior adjudications, number of prior adjudications for violent offenses, number of prior placements, school attendance, substance abuse, family criminality, abuse and neglect. Each factor is assigned a weighted numeric value (positive or negative, depending on the relationship to delinquency) and they are then summed to generate two composite scores: (1) one related to offense severity and (2) another related to the risk level. These two scores are subsequently combined, and

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each youth is placed in a nine-cell matrix created to determine the level of restrictiveness for each youth. DYRS youth typically fall in one of three risk categories: &

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High risk. Those youth with a high risk and high offense score, who pose very serious risk to public safety and/or self, and require 24-hour close supervision in a residential, staff-secured facility (e.g., DYRS’ New Beginnings Youth Development Center or Residential Treatment Center). Medium risk. Those youth with a moderate SDM score, who pose a serious threat to public safety and/ or self, and require intense supervision and close monitoring. They can be placed in a staff-supervised facility, in a homelike environment in a community setting, or closely monitored home environment (e.g., group home or foster care). Low risk. Those youth with a low SDM score, who pose minimum risk to public safety and/or self, and require strong and effective in-home supervision by vendor or parent/guardian (e.g., at-home wraparound services or independent living program with moderate to low supervision).

DYRS uses this information in each Youth Family Team Meeting to determine the level of restrictiveness and to ensure that youth are linked to the appropriate services, supports, and opportunities. In 2005, when the reforms were first initiated, DYRS engaged a representative cross-section of community stakeholders and interagency representatives in a planning process to guide and inform the development of a

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community-based continuum of services, supports, and opportunities for court-involved youth in the District of Columbia (see Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume). These stakeholders recommended that DYRS implement a decentralized and regionally based structure that would support youth as much as possible within their own families and neighborhoods, referred to as the Lead Entity/ Service Coalition model. Based on the design recommendations, in 2009 DYRS established the Lead Entities/ Service Coalition framework, in which two lead entities (community-based organizations) were identified to implement service coalitions for defined regions of the District of Columbia. Region I, with the East of the River Clergy Police Partnership as the Lead Entity, was comprised of youth residing in Wards 7 and 8 (east of the river); Region II, with Progressive Life, Inc, as the Lead Entity, was comprised of youth residing in Wards 1–6 (west of the river). The traditional approach to working with youth involved in the juvenile justice system has provided scant investment, involvement, and input from families or the community. Research finds that youth from disjointed neighborhoods end up in the juvenile justice systems at higher rates than youth from more organized communities (Nakhaie & Sacco, 2009). Paradoxically, research also shows that incarcerating large numbers of people from neighborhoods further destabilizes those neighborhoods (Clear, Rose, & Rider, 2001). The Lead Entity/Service Coalition concept incorporates these research findings in an approach that will focus on building the capacity of DC’s communities to work with their own court-involved youth. An important part of the Service Coalition concept is to help rebuild fragmented communities and involve young people and their families in community development, thereby improving them and

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their communities by promoting community cohesiveness, encouraging reliance on community resources, contributing to community development, and enhancing community capacity to respond to the needs of DYRS youth and families. Strengthening communities in the service of better outcomes for youth is another component of the DYRS reforms that is consistent with the PYD framework. The tension between public safety and providing court-involved youth with the opportunity to become productive citizens by building on their and their families’ strengths in the least restrictive, most homelike environment was paramount in the design of the Lead Entity/Service Coalition concept. Community service plans for youth, which the Lead Entities/Service Coalitions will be responsible for resourcing, will be guided by a series of complementary formal assessments and the Youth Family Team Meeting case-planning process. The Youth Family Team Meetings will inform decisions on: (a) services needed to support the youth and their family; (b) whether a youth can be served safely in the community; and (c) the level of restrictiveness that is needed to accommodate the youth’s needs, which could include placement in a residential treatment facility, secure care facility, independent living, or home. Effective community organizing and partnerships will be key to successful implementation of the Lead Entity/Service Coalition concept. These relationships will result in increased monitoring and support of youth involved in the juvenile justice system, ultimately through a shared responsibility between government and the community in which youth live. Creating this sense of shared responsibility and accountability for our youth will no longer rest with a single case manager or government agency. The Lead Entities will have the ability to provide increased oversight

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and monitoring of youth through the Service Coalition partners; develop, maintain, and sustain working partnerships with critical public sector agencies; educate, motivate, organize, and mobilize communities in which they work to support DYRS youth and their families consistent with the principles of PYD; and establish partnerships/relationships with an array of neighborhood/community-based youth- and family-serving organizations, programs and individuals that have strong ties to the community and experience and/or a desire to work with DYRS youth and families. The Service Coalitions will be responsible for arranging the provision of core services, supports, and opportunities that will include but not be limited to the following: independent and transitional living, transformative mentoring, third-party monitoring, residential services (therapeutic group homes, etc.), mental health and substance abuse services, work readiness, job placement, tutoring, recreation and sports activities, leadership development, college preparation, vocational training, arts, and cultural activities, as well as parent/family support. The Lead Entity/Service Coalition concept will be the centerpiece of the DYRS’ reform effort in creating an effective neighborhood/community-based network of caring and support for committed youth and their families that will have the capacity to extend beyond a youth’s formal involvement with DYRS while helping to support families and strengthen communities. While DYRS has undergone significant reform, many challenges remain. Many correctional-minded staff have been resistant to the strengths-based approach. Personnel policies and civil service protections reduce the ability of management to make the kinds of sweeping staff changes required to dramatically affect the required change in agency culture.

The End of the Reform School?

Similarly, community providers in the District of Columbia were accustomed to a correctionaloriented approach to working with delinquent youth. Although community vendors are generally more familiar with youth development practices and therefore less resistant to these reforms than DYRS secure custody staff, DYRS expects that new PYD-oriented requests for proposals for community-based programming and a systemwide PYD training requirement for all DYRS vendors will improve practice even further and make the DYRS continuum even more asset based.

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stark contrast to the relentless growth of prison populations, which have grown approximately 29% during this same time period, and have increased nationally every year since 1977, despite a substantial decline in the nation’s crime rate (Glaze, Minton, & West, 2009). Illustrative of this trend are the nation’s three largest states—California, New York, and Texas—each of which has experienced substantial declines in juvenile training school populations and has gone about reducing incarcerated populations in diverse ways. Following are brief presentations of their approaches. Texas

LESS IS MORE An honest appraisal of the long-term consequences of confining juveniles demonstrates its destructiveness. —Horn, 2009 After what seemed like an unrelenting increase in incarcerated juvenile justice populations in the waning decades of the 20th century, states around the country have begun to make more sparing use of incarceration in the new millennium. While these states are not necessarily entirely abandoning the use of reform schools, the substantial and widespread decline in the population of youth in custody in America has not been widely publicized and is a positive development given the poor outcomes exhibited by the training school model. In a National Center for Juvenile Justice report sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice Prevention, Sickmund (in press) reports that the number of youth in custody in America, defined as youth who are both detained preadjudication and committed postadjudication, has declined by 27% from 2000 to 2008. Youth custody rates declined in 35 states from 1997 to 2007 (see Figure 20.3). This stands in

In 2006, Texas experienced a series of wellpublicized scandals in facilities operated by the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). The following year, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 103, which precluded courts from confining misdemeanants in TYC facilities. SB 103 also created a centralized review board to evaluate extensions of lengths of stay for youth, which were common before the law’s passage (W. Harrell, personal communication, August 7, 2009). Now a release review panel reviews any proposed extension of a youth’s stay. Overall, TYC’s population has declined by 51.4% since 2006 (see Figure 20.4), almost all of which occurred since the 2007 scandals broke and SB 103 took effect. Initial signs are that the decline in the population has not negatively affected youth crime. From 2006 to 2008, there was a 4.4% drop in overall juvenile arrests in Texas (Texas Department of Public Safety, 2009). New York In 2004, under the leadership of Commissioner Martin Horn, New York City’s Probation Department launched “Project Zero,” whose ambitious goal was to have “ZERO New York City kids sent to out-of-city

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Figure 20.3 Change in the Number of Youth in Custody in the United States, 1997 to 2007

Data Sources: Census of juveniles in residential placement [machine-readable data files], 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007; Children in custody census of public and private juvenile detention, correctional, and shelter facilities [machine-readable data files], 1995; Juvenile residential facility census [machine-ready data files], 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008; Sickmund, in press.

Figure 20.4 End of Fiscal Year Population for Youth in Custody in State Operated Facilities in Texas 2006 to 2008

Source: Texas Youth Commission.

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placement” (Horn, 2009, p. 4). Notably, Project Zero was a finalist in the prestigious Innovations in Government Awards granted by the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Citing an 81% rearrest rate upon release from state custody, Horn (2009) describes that Project Zero was developed in response to the poor long-term consequences of confining juveniles. Horn’s department created a research-validated instrument to guide sentencing recommendations that resulted in a reduction in placement recommendations from 40% (1,257) to 18% (795) between 2004 and 2007. The Probation Department also increased the number of youth it diverted by 206% from 1,070 youth in 2002 to 3,271 in 2007. Between 2006 and 2008, incarcerations of New York youth declined overall by 38%, with the greatest reductions experienced in the low (52%) and medium (33%) risk categories (New York City Juvenile Justice Programming, 2009). One of the ways New York’s Probation Department was able to reduce state commitments was through the use of a communitybased intensive care program, Project Esperanza. Youth participating in Project Esperanza experienced a drop in recidivism from 50% in 1999 to 16% in 2007 (Morais, 2008). In February 2007, New York City Children’s Services, under the leadership of Commissioner John Mattingly, launched its Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI), whose goals are to “reduce the number of delinquent youth in residential facilities; shorten lengths of stay of those youth that are placed in residential care; reduce recidivism; and improve individual and family functioning.” JJI brings together the three evidencebased practices mentioned earlier in this chapter—Multisystemic Therapy (MST), Functional Family Therapy (FFT), and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care

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(MTFC)—along with its “Blue Sky Project,” a first-ever combination of these three evidence-based programs that will allow youth to transition from one such program to another as their and their families’ needs dictate. While it is impossible to separate the impact of JJI from Project Zero, the number of youth from New York City placed in the Office of Children and Family Services’ (OCFS) facilities and Residential Placements has declined from 1,523 to 955 between 2005 and 2008, in all likelihood due to the combined impact of these two programs. In 2002, 14.3% of all New York City youth arrested were incarcerated in state facilities; by 2008, that had declined to 6.1% (see Figure 20.5). In addition to the alternative programs that have drastically reduced the number of New York City youth confined in state training schools, state–county partnerships have helped drive down the population of youth in OCFS facilities coming from other parts of the state. For example, the state’s Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives has funded the adoption of evidence-based correctional alternatives in seven counties: Dutchess, Monroe, Niagra, Onandoga, Orange, Oswego, and Schenectedy. Remarkably, Onandoga’s Probation Rehabilitation Intensive Services and Management (PRISM) contributed to a 73% reduction in commitments from Onandoga County to OCFS between 1995 and 2008 (from 103 to 28). As the population in OCFS facilities has declined, the agency, under the leadership of Commissioner Gladys Carrion, has sought to close a remarkable number of facilities and shift a small portion of the funds saved to community-based programs. Since 2007 the state has closed or downsized a total of 13 facilities: In 2007 the state approved the closure of one facility and four more the following year. In 2009, the state legislature agreed to

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Figure 20.5 End of Fiscal Year Population for Youth in Custody in State Operated Facilities in New York, 2005 to 2008

Source: State of New York Office of Children and Family Services.

close six additional facilities along with merging two distant facilities in the Adirondack Mountains and closing one wing of the Lansing facility for girls. The state allocated $5 million from the cost savings to support local alternatives to detention. In 2010, OCFS has proposed closing two additional facilities, including the notorious Tryon Center for boys. The primary reason Commissioner Carrion has fought to close down facilities is her recognition that these remote institutions, with their entrenched punitive culture, are harmful and dangerous places for young people. In August 2009, the United States Justice Department filed a report outlining abusive conditions in four OCFS facilities, raising the specter of litigation. The Justice Department documented numerous instances of excessive use of force by staff, including broken bones and knocked-out teeth for minor transgressions like talking in line or swiping food. Rather than disputing the Justice Department’s findings, OCFS officials

have pointed to them as evidence for the need to further downsize the state’s youth prison system. Upon Commissioner Carrion’s urging, New York Governor David Patterson established a Task Force on Transforming the Juvenile Justice System chaired by John Jay College of Criminal Justice president and former Justice Department official Jeremy Travis with representation by key stakeholders from throughout the state. In December 2009, the Task Force concluded that: New York State’s current approach fails the young people who are drawn into the system, the public whose safety it is intended to protect, and the principles of good governance that demand effective use of scarce state resources (2009 New York Task Force on Reforming Transforming Juvenile Justice Report, p. 88).

The End of the Reform School?

Summarizing the finding of the report, New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore wrote: New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education, according to a report by a state panel. The problems are so acute that the state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York’s Family Court judges not to send youth to any of them unless they are a significant risk to public safety, recommending alternatives, like therapeutic foster care. (Confessore, 2009, p. 1) Travis himself put it more succinctly, “I was not proud of my state when I saw some of these facilities.” After the release of the Task Force’s report, Commissioner Carrion circulated a letter to all New York City’s juvenile court judges urging them not to send adjudicated youth to OCFS facilities. However, despite the serious problems in OCFS facilities, intense opposition from the legislators representing the districts where the facilities are located has often made it difficult for the state to shut down facilities and realign savings to help fund workable alternatives. In 2008, OCFS announced its intention to close six underutilized facilities, but state legislators reduced that number to four. Due to the insistence of Senator Catherine Young, the legislature agreed to keep open the Great Valley Juvenile Center—although the facility was virtually empty. In addition, the legislature did not reinvest the cost savings for community-based programming in 2008. According to State Assemblyman William Scarborough, a Queens

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assemblyman who supported closing all six facilities, legislators received letters from unions that represent prison employees with the message, “You can’t close our facilities—they contribute a million dollars to our economy.” State Senator Carl Kruger contends that Project Zero is asking too much when it seeks to have the state transfer funds to the city as facilities close to help pay for alternatives. “The city would like the state to pay for everything,” Kruger said. “They would like to hijack as much money from us as they can” (Morais, 2008). California In California, however, that kind of realignment of funds and fiscal incentives is credited with spurring what is likely the most significant percentage reduction in the size of a state juvenile correctional system since the Massachusetts deinstitutionalization of the 1970s. In 1996, California’s youth corrections population peaked at 9,572, by far the largest system in the country (nearly double the size of the Texas Youth Commission, for example). By the end of 2008, that number had declined to 1,568, an 83.6% decline over a 12-year period. This decline is even more dramatic when juxtaposed with the 21% increase in California’s adult prison population between 1996 and 2008 (see Figure 20.6). In 1996, after years of criticism about the conditions of confinement in California’s juvenile prisons, media and academic exposes, and unacceptably high recidivism rates, the California legislature passed a law charging counties on a sliding scale for the state confinement of nonviolent youth. This initiated a sharp decline in the population of what was then known as the California Youth Authority. Still, conditions of confinement continued to be appalling. In 2004, there were several suicides in CYA facilities. In 2005, guards at the Chaderjian Youth Facility were videotaped

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Figure 20.6 End of Fiscal Year Population for Youth in Custody in California State Operated Facilities, 1996 to 2008

Source: California Division of Juvenile Justice.

beating young wards who lay helpless on the floor. The tape aired in newscasts throughout the state, and State Senator Gloria Romero took this opportunity to call for major system reforms. Public outcry reached a fever pitch, legislative hearings ensued, and the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit prisoners’ rights group, filed the Margaret Farrell v. Matthew Cate lawsuit. That suit resulted in a consent decree requiring the state to implement a set of six remedial plans guaranteeing ward safety; improving conditions of confinement; and upgrading its education, health care, sex offender treatment, and other programs. To implement these court-ordered changes, the Legislature began to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s youth corrections system. This, combined with the population decline and the state’s refusal to close partially filled facilities, drove the unit

cost of state youth confinement to new heights. Between 1996 and 2008, annual institutional costs in California’s training schools rose almost sevenfold, from $36,000 per ward per year to $ 252,0002 (see Figure 20.7). 2

New York policy makers should take note here. In 2009, the United States Justice Department investigated several New York facilities and sent a CRIPA Investigation Letter. As of the writing of this chapter, New York officials are in negotiations with the Justice Department over a consent decree concerning facility conditions. Meanwhile, in January 2009, New York’s Legal Aid Society filed a class action lawsuit against OCFS. The downsizing of OCFS facilities, coupled with the increased costs that will almost certainly be attendant upon litigation, could make a California-style realignment of juvenile services to the counties more attractive to both state and county policy makers. Indeed, in the recently released Task Force for Transforming Juvenile Justice report, New York Governor Patterson’s Task Force recommends a realignment of juvenile services from the state to the counties.

The End of the Reform School?

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Figure 20.7 California Division of Juvenile Facilities Annual Institutional Cost per Ward, 1996 to 2008

Sources: California state budgets, California Department of Finance, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

For decades, state policy makers and advocates had been discussing the realignment of juvenile justice from the behemoth state system to counties, but could not agree on the mechanism and a dollar figure for diverted youth. A string of California governors protected the troubled state youth agency as a “tough on crime” political necessity. County governments turned away from realignment because they were afraid the state would not provide adequate funds for the caseload shift—a fear based in part on their disappointing experience with California’s old “Probation Subsidy” program, in which counties were charged for sending offenders to state prison but received everdecreasing funds from the state to fund alternative programs. These obstacles to realignment began to evaporate as the cost of operating the state system approached $250,000 per youth per year. Aghast at the cost and under pressure from advocates and disgruntled lawmakers,

Governor Schwarzenegger finally offered counties a youth corrections realignment deal they could live with. The result, in 2007, was the landmark California youth corrections realignment measure known as Senate Bill 81. SB 81 banned all future commitments of nonviolent youth to the state system, allowing state commitment only if the youth was found to have committed an offense on the statutory list of crimes for which juveniles could be tried as adults. SB 81 phased all currently confined nonviolent youth out of state custody. Importantly, SB 81 established a state Youthful Offender Block Grant fund that paid counties the equivalent of $117,000 for each nonviolent youth retained by or returned to county control. This subsidy to counties is meant to be ongoing, renewed from year to year. For fiscal year 2009–2010, this fund provided nearly $100 million to counties based on a statutory

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distribution formula. Modest one-time funding ($100 million) was also made available to renovate or build new county juvenile facilities. Since its enactment in 2007, the realignment package has caused a rapid decline in the state youth training school population, from 2,500 to 1,500 inmates within two years. While an analysis of the impact of California’s dwindling state training school population on juvenile crime rates is beyond the scope of this chapter, changes in California’s youth crime rates at least support the contention that the massive downsizing of state juvenile corrections in California has not created a juvenile crime wave in the Golden State. While the incarcerated state youth population in California declined by 83.6% from 1996 to 2008, the juvenile arrest rate per 100,000 juveniles declined by 32.2%. Meanwhile, as

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the adult prison population was increasing by 21.2%, the adult arrest rate per 100,000 declined by a more modest 14.5%. So, despite the fact that the state of California made very deliberate, dichotomous choices about the use of incarceration for its adult and juvenile populations, substantially increasing its adult prison population while substantially decreasing its population of confined juveniles, juvenile arrest rates fell at more than twice the rate of the decline in adult arrests, demonstrating that public safety can be achieved, or at least not compromised, by a reduced use of incarceration (see Figure 20.8). Recently, lawyers from the Prison Law Office moved to place the remainder of the state system into receivership for the state’s alleged failure to comply with the terms of the consent decree. Both the state’s Little Hoover Commission and the California Legislative

Figure 20.8 Adult and Juvenile Arrests and Incarceration Rates in California, 1996 to 2008

Note: CA arrest rates were based on arrests per 100,000 for total law violations and were only available up to 2007. Sources: California Department of Justice, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The End of the Reform School?

Analyst Office have called for the complete closure of the state juvenile corrections system, recommending a full realignment of youth corrections to the counties. As of the writing of this chapter, the fate of the remaining vestige of the once largest juvenile justice agency in the nation hangs very much in the balance.

&

JUVENILE DETENTION ALTERNATIVES INITIATIVE (JDAI)

&

Although its primary focus is on preadjudicated, detained populations, no narrative of the juvenile deinstitutionalization movement would be complete without including a discussion of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative ( JDAI), pioneered by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. JDAI, which has been in effect since 1994, is an initiative that brings together a jurisdiction’s key stakeholders to “right size” their use of juvenile detention, improve risk screening, decrease case processing times, improve/expand alternatives to detention, and reduce disproportionate detention of minority youth. Started 15 years ago as a pilot in five sites, JDAI is now operating in 110 jurisdictions in 27 states and the District of Columbia. By August 2009, JDAI sites will be home to 35% of the nation’s young people (see Bell & Mariscal, Chapter 6, this volume; Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). During its impressive replication period, JDAI boasts the following accomplishments: &

&

JDAI sites have seen their detention populations decline by 35% versus pre-JDAI, in excess of the declines witnessed in non-JDAI jurisdictions. From 2003 to 2006, JDAI sites witnessed a greater reduction in detention population than the remainder of U.S. jurisdictions combined.

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JDAI model sites Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), New Mexico; Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon; and Santa Cruz County, California, have experienced declines in juvenile arrests for serious offenses of 27%, 43%, and 46%, respectively—a far better decline than juvenile violent arrests for the same time period nationally. Twenty-seven JDAI sites have closed detention units or whole facilities, and a handful of others have obviated the need to construct new facilities, saving taxpayers millions of dollars in construction and operation costs (Mendel, 2009).

In addition, and perhaps most germane to our discussion, there is increasing evidence that, in addition to salutary impacts on detention populations, successful JDAI sites are experiencing reductions in training school commitments. Given the connection between detention and subsequent conviction and incarceration, this is hardly surprising. Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, another of JDAI’s model sites, reduced state training school commitments by half between 1997 and 2004, while model site Santa Cruz eliminated state corrections commitments entirely and reduced commitments to its county ranch from 35 to 5 and to residential treatment from 104 to 38 from 1996 to 2005. JDAI sites in Virginia reduced commitments by 45%, while Alabama’s JDAI counties reduced commitments by 27%. Overall, combined JDAI sites committed 2,015 fewer youth to state training schools in 2007 than they did prior to joining JDAI, a 23% decline. Data such as these have prompted the Casey Foundation to announce the future expansion of JDAI to focus on training school populations as well as detention.

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THE END OF THE REFORM SCHOOL? It is certainly too soon to sound the death knell for the United States’ 168-year experiment with the reform school. Despite ample evidence of the negative outcomes of training school commitments in terms of welldocumented abuses of youth in custody, exacerbating effects on recidivism, and debilitating impacts on mental health, education, and employment—the training school model remains the bulwark of most state systems in the 21st century. However, there are many promising signs that the reform school’s veneer is irreparably cracked, particularly in comparison to the continued growth of America’s prisons. The United States Justice Department and numerous research organizations are promoting the use of evidence-based practices targeted at training school-bound youth that achieve far better outcomes. More assets-based positive youth development programs are showing promising initial signs in the District of Columbia. Massachusetts, Missouri, and now the District of Columbia have closed their training schools and opened significantly smaller rehabilitative programs in their place, utilizing assets-based approaches as their underpinning. More than two thirds of the states have reduced institutional populations since 2000. The nation’s largest three states, California, Texas, and New York, have actively and successfully promoted policies to reduce state training school commitments by 84%, 51%, and 37%, respectfully. New York City’s former probation commissioner has proposed committing no New York City youth to state training schools (which San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Clara counties in California have already achieved), and California’s remaining state training schools are facing the

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very real possibility of being realigned out of existence. Policy makers now have a broad menu of approaches to achieve complete deinstitutionalization and replacement of their training school-based systems with a positive youth development/evidence-based continuum of care that, at its deepest end, utilizes small, homelike, Missouri-style facilities that promote rehabilitation and family/community reintegration. The available evidence and experience recommends such an approach over the current institution-based system. If juvenile justice leaders and policy makers pay attention to this kind of evidence, they might truly bring about the end of the reform school.

REFERENCES Abrams, D. E. (2004). Lessons from juvenile justice history in the United States. Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies, 4, 7–24. Alexander, J., Barton, C., Gordon, D., Grotpeter, J., Hansson, K., Harrison, R., . . . Sexton, T. (1998). Functional family therapy: Blueprints for violence prevention, book three. Boulder: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado. Austin, J., Elms, W., Krisberg, B., & Steele, P. (1991). Unlocking juvenile corrections: Evaluating the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. Oakland, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Balfanz, R., Spiridakis, K., Neild, R., & Legters, N. (2003). Neighborhood schools and the Juvenile Justice System: How neither helps the other and how that could change. Presented at the School to Jail Pipeline Conference, Harvard University. Benda, B. B., & Tollet, C. L. (1999). A study of recidivism of serious and persistent offenders among adolescents. Journal of Criminal Justice, 27(2), 111–126. Bushway, S. D. (1998). The impact of an arrest on the job stability of young White American men. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 34(4), 454–479. Butts, J. (2008). A sensible model for juvenile justice. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago.

The End of the Reform School? Butts, J., Bazemore, G., & Meroe, A. S. (2010). Positive youth justice: Framing justice interventions using the concepts of positive youth development. Washington, DC: Coalition for Juvenile Justice. Butts, J., Mayer, S., & Ruth, G. (2005). Focusing juvenile justice on positive youth development. Issue Brief. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago. California Department Corrections and Rehabilitation. (2009a). Juvenile population projection reports 2003 to 2009. Retrieved from www.cdcr.ca.gov California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. (2009b). Adult population projection reports 2003 to 2009. Retrieved from www.cdcr.ca.gov California Department of Justice. (2009). Crime data report 1994 to 2008. Retrieved from www.ag.ca .gov/crime.php Churchill, W. (1910, July 20). House of Commons speech, given while Home Secretary. Clear, T. R., Rose, D. R., & Rider J. A. (2001). Incarceration and the community: The problem of removing and returning offenders. Crime and Delinquency, 47(3), 335–351. Coates, R. B., Miller, A. D., & Ohlin, L. E. (1978). Diversity in a youth correctional system: Handling delinquents in Massachusetts. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Confessore, N. (2009, December 14). New York finds extreme crisis in youth prisons. New York Times, p. A1. Decker, T. (2009). The Missouri Division of Youth Services and juvenile justice system: Brief overview. Retrieved from www.dss.mo.gov/dys/. DeMuro, P., DeMuro A., & Lerner, S. (1988). Reforming the CYA: How to end crowding, diversify treatment, and protect the public without spending more money. Bolinas: CA: Common Knowledge Press. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. (2008). DYRS public safety outcomes among DYRS youth. Research and Quality Assurance Division, unpublished raw data. Dishion, T. J., McCord, J., & Poulin, F. (1999). When interventions harm: Peer groups and problem behavior. American Psychologist, 54(9), 755–764. Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Elliott, D. S. (1994). Serious violent offenders: Onset, developmental course, and termination. Criminology, 32, 1–21.

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Forrest, C. B., Tambor, E., Riley, A. W., Ensminger, M. E., & Starfield, B. (2000). The health profile of incarcerated male youths. Pediatrics, 105(1), 286–291. Freeman, R. B. (1991). Crime and the employment disadvantage of youth. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Glaze, L., Minton, T., & West, H. (2009). Correctional populations in the United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys (The National Prisoner Statistics Program, Annual Survey of Jails, Annual Probation Survey, and Annual Parole Survey), 1997 to 2007. Golub, A. (1990). The termination rate of adult criminal careers. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon. Grisso, T. (2004). Double jeopardy: Adolescent offenders with mental disorders. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hayes, L. M. 2009, (February). Characteristics of juvenile suicide in confinement. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Retrieved from www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/ 214434.pdf Holman, B., & Ziedenberg, J. (2006). The dangers of detention: The impact of incarcerating youth in detention and other secure congregate facilities. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Horn, M. (2009, June 5). Keynote address. Presented at Juvenile Justice Research Symposium, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Human Rights Watch. 2000, (March 5). South Dakota: Stop abuses of detained kids. Retrieved from www .hrw.org/en/news/2000/03/05/south-dakota-stopabuses-detained-kids Jerry M. v. District of Columbia, Civil Action, No. 1519-85 (amended complaint filed April 15, 1986; consent decree entered July 10, 1986). Kashani, J. H., Manning, G. W., McKnew D. H., Cytryn, L., Simonds, J. F. & Wooderson, P. C. (1980). Depression among incarcerated delinquents. Psychiatry Resources, 3, 185–191. King, L. (2009, August 14). Investigation of the Lansing Residential Center, Louis Gossett, Jr. Residential Center, Tryon Residential Center, and Tryon Girls Center. Findings letter to Governor Patterson. U.S. Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division. Krisberg, B., & Austin, J. (1998). What works with juvenile offenders: The Massachusetts experiment. In D. Macallair & V. Schiraldi (Eds.), Reforming juvenile justice: Reasons and strategies for the 21st Century (pp. 173–196). New York, NY: Kendall Hunt.

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LeBlanc, L. A. (1991). Unlocking learning. (ECIA Chapter 1 in correctional facilities) Longitudinal study findings: National study of the Chapter 1 Neglected or Delinquent Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdottir, S., . . . von Eye, A. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17–71. Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. (2007). A randomized evaluation of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care: Effects on school attendance and homework completion in juvenile justice girls. Research on Social Work Practice, 17(6), 657–663. Loughran, E. J. (1997). The Massachusetts Experience: A historical review of reform in the Department of Youth Services. Social Justice, 24, 170–186. Margaret Farrell v. Matthew Cate, Civil Action, No. RG 03079344, September 28, 2008. The mayor’s message with accompany documents to the municipal assembly of St. Louis. (1893). St. Louis, MO: Nixon-Jones Publishing. Mendel, R. A. (2009). Two decades of JDAI: From demonstration project to national standard. Washington, DC: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Miller, J. G. (1991). Last one over the wall. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Morais, B. (2008, July 7). Close to home treatment for youths gains notice. City Limits Weekly, 647. Retrieved from www.citylimits.org/news/article.cfm? article_id¼3587&content_type¼1&media_type¼3 Nakhaie, M. R., & Sacco, V. F. (2006). Social capital, individual disorders and property offences. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 32(6), 392–399. New York City Juvenile Justice Programming. 2009, (November). Presented at Conference on Evidence-Based Re-entry Practice, Research and Policy; Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. Retrieved from www.avans.nl/avm/Lectoraat/Expertisecentrum_ Veiligheid/091207%20presentatie%20Gibbs.pdf New York State Office of Children and Family Services: Division of Juvenile Justice and Opportunities for

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Youth. (2007). Youth in care: 2007 annual report. Retrieved from www.ocfs.state.ny.us Parent, D. G., Leiter, V., Kennedy, S., Livens, L., Wentworth, D., & Wilcox, S. (1994). Conditions of confinement: Juvenile detention and corrections facilities. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Rothman, D. J. (1971). On prisons, asylums, and other decaying institutions. Public Interest, Winter. Schwartz, R. (2000). Juvenile justice and positive youth development. In N. Jaffe, (Ed.), Youth development: Issues, challenges and directions (pp. 233–280). Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures. Sickmund, M. (in press) National & state trends in residential placement of juvenile offenders: 1995–2008. OJJDP fact sheet. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice. (2009). Charting a new course: A blueprint for transforming juvenile justice in New York State. The Vera Institute of Justice. Retrieved from www.vera.org/download? file¼2944/Charting-a-new-course-A-blueprint-fortransforming-juvenile-justice-in-New-York-State .pdf Texas Department of Public Safety. (2009). The Texas crime report for 2008. Retrieved from www.txdps .state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/pages/ crimestatistics.htm Tolan, P., & Guerra, N. (1994). What works in reducing adolescent violence: An empirical review of the field. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. U.S. Department of Justice. (2003). The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) of state of Mississippi’s juvenile justice facilities. Retrieved from www.usdoj.gov Westermark, P., Hannsson, K., Vinnerljung, B. (2008). Does MTFC reduce placement breakdown in foster care? International Journal of Child & Family Welfare, 4, 155–171. Western, B., & Beckett, K. (1999). How unregulated is the U.S. labor market? The penal system as a labor market institution. American Journal of Sociology, 104, 1030–1060.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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21

Collaboration in the Service of Better Systems for Youth A N N E F. F A R R E L L

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A

lthough virtually every change effort directed at public systems exhorts its constituents to collaborate, little research exists on best practices, and the effectiveness of collaborative efforts often goes undocumented. It is widely assumed that collaboration is the preferred vehicle for the successful integration of services from various stakeholders, yet empirical scrutiny of collaborative practices is scarce. Rarely does research assess the effect of collaboration as a variable separate from other aspects of intervention under investigation. In fact, some might argue that interventions might be more successful were inefficient collaboration between agencies eliminated from the equation. Alternatively, collaboration has potential to address the fragmented and sometimes adversarial nature of interventions that necessarily cross systemic boundaries. At-risk youth, and those with experiences in the juvenile justice system, are often served by at least five categorical agencies: child welfare, mental health, public health, education, and juvenile justice (England & Cole, 1992; Maschi, Hatcher, Schwalbe, & Rosato, 2008). Within the juvenile justice system, youth interface with law enforcement, the courts, juvenile justice residential facilities (JJRFs), parole and probation officers, and various agencies that work to provide

alternatives to incarceration, outreach and tracking, rehabilitation, probation services, and community behavioral health services. The experiences—and outcomes—of youth involved in components of juvenile justice are undoubtedly influenced by this array of agencies and personnel. It behooves the juvenile justice community, then, to ensure that various components are not working at cross purposes; beyond that, a shared vision and collaborative efforts within and across these systems has potential to positively influence youth. Indeed, as we write this, promising work is under way, and we review some of it. As researchers and practitioners, our work across youth-serving systems is informed by prevention logic and reliance on an everevolving evidence base. Implicit in this chapter is an endorsement of a public health perspective, one that emphasizes the need for a multitiered approach that consists of (a) prevention; (b) early identification of, and intervention for, youth at risk and with emerging problems; and (c) intensive interventions for youth with established problems. We begin with an overview of juvenile justice today, review definitions of collaboration, and then examine the literature on the processes, challenges, benefits, and outcomes of cross-system collaborations. We discuss collaborative change efforts to date. In so doing, we mention initiatives 433

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whose components have been articulated sufficiently to support replication, with results that have been published or otherwise disseminated to a professional audience. We do not assert these examples to be exhaustive or conclusive; to the contrary, we regret that space does not permit a fuller review.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: ONE SYSTEM OR MANY? Juvenile justice is complex and diverse. A single youth’s pathway through juvenile justice may begin with the school truant officer and conclude years later with postincarceration monitoring by a parole department. As earlier chapters in this volume delineate, that youth is likely to have fit a profile of individual and social/environmental risk and received a range of interventions, supports, deterrents, and consequences. Many individuals and entities, governmental and nongovernmental, interact with the youth and his or her family along the way. Yet, the experience of “the system” is typically a fragmented one in which no unifying approach can be discerned; prevention efforts are minimal and disjointed; approaches taken by various entities are inconsistent (or incompatible); the health, mental health, and educational needs of youth may be neglected; various domains of the youth’s functioning are addressed by separate agencies; and the interventions applied lack empirical support (Myers & Farrell, 2008). There is mounting evidence that involvement in the juvenile justice system itself is iatrogenic beyond known risk factors; that is, the grouping of youth with deviant behaviors can exacerbate rather than reduce problem behavior (Cecile & Born, 2009; Dodge, Dishion, & Lansford, 2006; Gatti, Tremblay, & Vitaro, 2009; Huizinga, Schumann, Ehret, & Elliott, 2001).

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The evolution of juvenile justice mirrors the history of social services in general (Levine, 1979). New programs are created in response to needs or fashions, and they emerge in relative isolation by virtue of expediency; that is, collaborative development of new programs is prohibitively cumbersome. Another dimension of fragmentation is the wide variability in its organization and administration (King, 2006), which reflects the piecemeal manner of U.S. policy making in the social arena (Gallagher, 1981), and shifts in the guiding social philosophy behind the treatment of youth offenders (Bazemore & Umbreit, 1995; Fass & Pi, 2002; Nelson, Jolivette, Leone, & Mathur, 2010). The United States lacks national policy on offenders, and states treat juveniles differently by such factors as age and offense and take a wide range of approaches to sentencing, diversion, incarceration, and rehabilitation. This variation complicates any attempt to replicate strategies demonstrated to be effective. The juvenile justice “system” has traditionally functioned as a constellation of youth service agencies whose primary mission was to accept children for whom no other individual or agency would take responsibility (Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice [FACJJ], 2009). Whereas there is recognition of how ill-equipped juvenile justice entities are to manage the range of adolescent needs, the system continues to “serve” thousands of youth with rates of disabilities, mental health problems, substance abuse, and abuse and neglect that are higher than the general population (Abram, Teplin, McClelland, & Dulcan, 2003; Gagnon & Barber, 2010; Teplin et al., 2006; see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Juvenile justice serves as a “holding facility” for youth who lack access to community care (Cauffman, Scholle, Mulvey, & Kelleher, 2005). A U.S. Congress

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report (2004) indicated that two thirds of detention facilities confine youth who await treatment. In some cases, parents relinquish custody of their children to child welfare and juvenile justice agencies for the purpose of securing otherwise unavailable behavioral health services (Government Accountability Office, 2003). Despite this, comprehensive screening for health and mental health difficulties and appropriate treatment for identified disorders is a rarity (Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007; Hoge, 2002), health-care practices are inconsistent, and there are almost no data on the effectiveness of services provided during incarceration (Desai et al., 2006; Gallagher & Dobrin, 2007; Houchins, Jolivette, Shippen, & Lambert, 2010). The question of whether juvenile justice can be a single, integrated system remains unanswered. At present, it is a patchwork of public and private entities operating with diverse levels of integration, varying forms of governance, and insufficient evaluation (Myers & Farrell, 2008). While a fragmented and ineffective state of affairs seems to largely characterize juvenile justice, there is cause for optimism. The shared wisdom of the contributors to this volume, criticism of “get tough” approaches (e.g., Skiba, 2000), the burgeoning number of innovative collaborations and alternatives to incarceration (e.g., Skowyra & Cocozza, 2007; Tuell, 2000), and the growing application of research-supported approaches (e.g., Nelson et al., 2010; Quinn & Shera, 2009; Zahn, Day, Mihalic, & Tichavsky, 2009), all suggest that positive change may be under way. Achieving and sustaining change, however, requires consistent application, data collection, evaluation, and “scaling up” of promising and successful initiatives (e.g., Horner & Sugai, 2006). Rather than viewing juvenile justice as separate from other systems, we advocate a reorientation that

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envisions a linked continuum of interventions along the pathway of youth who are at risk for and demonstrate delinquent behavior (see also Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). Effective collaboration across and within youth-serving systems appears necessary to address the complex problem of juvenile crime.

COLLABORATION: THE NEW IMPERATIVE Collaboration is sometimes a necessity for private, public, and private-public endeavors in human services. In this section we discuss collaboration as “the new imperative,” define and distinguish collaboration and other means of interaction, and discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration. Definitions, Preconditions, and Benefits Before undertaking a discussion of collaboration, we review its increasing prominence, define and distinguish it from other forms of organizational interface, and discuss the preconditions to, benefits of, and barriers to collaboration The New Imperative Three distinct sets of organizations operate within the United States: public (governmental), private (business), and the voluntary sector, including nongovernmental organizations such as independent agencies, nonprofits, and philanthropies (Najam, 2000). As government has become increasingly reliant on the private sector for delivery of publicly financed services (Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Salamon, 2002; Selsky & Parker, 2005), discussion of the promise and perils of “new governance” (i.e., the public sector’s increasing reliance

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on and integration with private and voluntary agencies for service delivery, with some expectation of accountability) has gained prominence. Scholarly scrutiny of collaboration has increased as well, with the context for examination ranging from infant–toddler care (Peterson, 1991) to nuclear weapons complexes (Butterfield, Reed, & Lemak, 2004). Gazley and Brudney (2007) state that collaboration research has focused primarily on the private sector and assert the existence of a research gap with respect to “new governance.” Whereas public funding often carries an evaluation mandate (Lane & Turner, 1999), there is insufficient evidence that intersector and interagency initiatives produce sustained change (Charles & Horwath, 2009). Existing evaluation practices may lack the breadth, depth, longevity, and developmental focus needed to address complex, multilevel projects (Benjamin & Greene, 2009; Fetterman, 2001; see also Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume). Three interrelated factors have influenced the collaboration imperative. First, there is a fundamental understanding that the multidetermined, sometimes intransigent nature of delinquency compels the involvement of multiple systems and the organizations that comprise them. Some collaboration arises spontaneously from recognition that a single agency cannot “do it alone.” In the midst of program implementation, an agency may find its mission “creeping” toward functions that it is marginally or inadequately prepared to fulfill. The second factor emerges from the (first) fundamental presumption: public and philanthropic funders require organizations to demonstrate collaboration within networked environments in order to address complex policy goals (Thomson, Perry, & Miller, 2007). A third factor relates to organizational uncertainty with respect to resources; coalitions emerge during economic downturns or when public policy results in the

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reallocation of resources. Within the array of collaborations there exists a dramatic tension between a demand for standardized, replicable components and a preference for initiatives that reflect unique regional or community characteristics. The juvenile justice system is inherently interagency and intersector, so the absence of intentional collaboration can become problematic as stakeholders with diverse interests approach problems ranging from the disposition of an individual youth to the integration of prevention and intervention initiatives (see Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). Stakeholder theory examines collaboration from three perspectives: as motivated by instrumental or strategic advantage, as demanded by moral or ethical obligation to stakeholders (e.g., to public benefit), and by describing its characteristics and operation (Butterfield et al., 2004). Butterfield and colleagues define a stakeholder as a group or individual who can affect or be affected by organizational actions. The stakeholders to change efforts in juvenile justice include: governmental entities with direct involvement (e.g., U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ] and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP]); federal agencies with youth, family, and public health-related missions (U.S. Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], including the Administration for Children and Families, the National Institutes of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA]) and their state counterparts; a myriad of private agencies who fund and provide services; and the private citizens these efforts are intended to benefit. In sum, then, collaboration has emerged as an imperative for organizations addressing complex social problems such as juvenile

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justice, and most funders require both collaboration and program evaluation, although the extent, quality, and consequences of evaluation vary (Benjamin & Greene, 2009). A vast array of organizations and individuals are involved in and affected by change efforts in juvenile justice. As a consequence, collaboration is necessary—but not sufficient—to improve outcomes. Collaboration is the vehicle for reform efforts, a means to an end. Effective collaboration occurs in a stagelike process that requires extensive preparation, ongoing communication, rigorous examination, sustained commitment, and a longitudinal focus. In short, effective collaboration is hard work of long duration. In the sections that follow, we describe the preconditions, processes, and outcomes of collaboration, and apply them to juvenile justice. Definitions and Distinctions The motivation to collaborate is influenced by common perceptions of its components, the depth and level of collaboration required to meet programmatic objectives, and the potential benefits of and barriers to collaborating. What Is Collaboration? There is no singular or universal definition. A number of related terms describe the processes by which multiple organizations aim to achieve short- and longterm goals that would not be attained in independent efforts. Among them are coordination, collaboration, cooperation, strategic alliance, partnership, coalition, task force, and network. Perhaps the most widely referenced definition of collaboration was provided by Wood and Gray (1991), “Collaboration occurs when a group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem domain engage in an interactive process, using shared rules, norms, and structures, to act or decide on issues related to that domain” (p. 146).

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Several authors have distinguished collaboration from other activities that are jointly undertaken. Peterson (1991, p. 90) stated that interagency coordination occurs when “two or more agencies synchronize their activities to promote compatible schedules, events, services, or other kinds of work that contribute to the achievement of each agency’s individual mission and goals.” She contrasts coordination, in which autonomous agencies work together on a common task, with collaboration, which entails “a much more intensive and continuous interaction among agencies involving a joint commitment and joint activity” that is “guided by a common plan and set of implementation strategies designed and approved by all agencies involved” (p. 91). Similarly, Fosler (2002, p. 19) stated that collaboration requires “a higher degree of mutual planning . . . conscious alignment of goals, strategies, agendas, resources, and activities; an equitable commitment.” Cooperation and coordination do not typically entail explicit negotiation of roles, resources, and allocation of power. Whereas collaboration, partnership, and strategic alliance appear to be nearly synonymous (Gajda, 2004), they do not appear to be functionally equivalent to networking, coordination, and task forces. Despite some subtle definitional differences, this chapter employs the terms collaboration and partnership interchangeably, and does not assume that all partnerships involve equal contributions. Depth and Level of Collaboration Sowa (2008) examined interagency collaborations in human services and categorized them according to depth: shallow, medium, and deep. Shallow collaborations involve time-limited interactions that do not extend beyond their contractual mandates, demonstrate little to no cross-training of staff, and rarely include the development of new managerial entities and

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processes. Capacity-building collaborations, categorized as medium, include an exchange of human and other resources, including sharing of personnel, training, and policies. They have a discernible impact on participating agencies and may also affect other providers as well as third-party conveners (e.g., public or private funders). The deepest level of collaboration is community building, which is similar to (and includes the effects of ) capacity building, but extends beyond that, largely by virtue of dissemination of effective strategies that emerge. The Strategic Alliance Formative Assessment Rubric (SAFAR; Gajda, 2004) represents various levels of integration and their corresponding purposes, strategies, and features, essentially describing a continuum of collaboration-related activities. Networking is a flexible web of communication with little structure and virtually no group decision making. In cooperation, agencies work together to ensure task completion. Structure is minimal, communication is informal, and there may be some facilitative leaders. Partnership entails sharing resources to achieve common goals, requires a central, guiding group of individuals, involves shared decision making, and includes formal systems and channels for communication, yet each entity maintains autonomy. Levels of integration beyond partnership are merging and unifying. In a merger, resources are pooled to create a new project, program, or organization. When unifying occurs, one entity is subsumed or assimilated into the other. SAFAR’s relevance to the current discussion lies not just in delineating levels of collaboration but also in the extent to which agencies may hesitate to engage in collaboration due to concerns about abdicating their organizational priorities, sharing scarce human and other capital, and being subsumed by another entity.

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Why Collaborate? Benefits of Interagency Partnerships Several authors discuss motivating factors and perceived benefits of interagency partnerships. For example, Gazley and Brudney (2007) surveyed 285 nonprofit leaders and 311 public (governmental) executives regarding their experiences in cross-agency collaborations. Several motivations to collaborate were common across these two groups, including the benefits of jointly addressing problems, cost effectiveness, improved access to services, stronger communities, better community relations, and promotion of shared goals. Nonprofit leaders were more inclined to view collaboration as an opportunity to gain resources and build relationships, and government leaders were more likely to cite the likelihood of improving service quality. The literature addresses additional factors that motivate interorganizational collaboration: mandate (e.g., statute, regulation); asymmetry (one organization imposes collaboration on another); reciprocity, mutuality of interest, or complementarity; desire for efficiency, stability, predictability, or access to resources; perceived crisis; buffer economic stress and risk; generation of collective benefit (power or influence); and enhanced legitimacy or prestige (Andranovich, 1995; Butterfield et al., 2004; Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Heugens, Van Den Bosch, & Van Riel, 2002; Rosenheck et al., 1998; Thomson et al., 2007; Wood & Gray, 1991). Foster and Meinhard’s (2002) survey concludes that the predisposition to collaboration emerges from a combination of agency, environmental, and attitudinal factors. Environment motivates agencies to collaborate when leaders are uncertain about the future climate for their work and discourages collaboration when the climate for operation appears secure. Organizational size does not reliably predict the likelihood or quality of collaboration (Foster & Meinhard, 2002).

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Why Not Collaborate? Perceived and Actual Barriers As discussed above, inducements to and the benefits of collaboration are detailed in the literature, and (as discussed below) there is ample information on “what works.” There are doubtless unsuccessful collaborations from which lessons can be drawn. Despite the fact that there is likely much to be learned by examining failed, incomplete, or partially successful collaborations, there is very little discussion of “what doesn’t work” (the bias in the scholarly literature is toward publication of studies with significant effect). Caruso, Rogers, and Bazerman (2009) list three reasons for failed collaborations: intergroup bias, territoriality, and poor negotiation and communication. Sherif ’s seminal work in social psychology (M. Sherif & Sherif, 1969) demonstrated that groups with separate identities, interpersonal norms, goals, values, and histories demonstrate conflict and competition. Intergroup bias, the tendency to trust one’s own group members more, interferes with the development of working relationships and communication. Although cross-agency collaborations often involve an expectation that personnel work together productively, Sherif ’s work implies that “turf issues” can readily sabotage attempts at collaboration, particularly when collaborations are mandated, coerced, hastily convened, or occur in a competitive or hostile climate. Their experiments involving intergroup relations also revealed that working together on superordinate goals is an effective means of reducing conflict and inducing change among participants. Some authors have examined barriers to collaboration. Results of Gazley and Brudney’s (2007) survey indicate that reluctance to collaborate emerges from a perception of limited organizational capacity to manage relations and anticipation that the quality of relations

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emerging from collaboration may not be altogether helpful. In the case of government– nonprofit collaborations, nonprofit leaders were concerned about the possibility that their organizations would “lose out,” expressed concern about governments not fulfilling their commitments, and expressed concerns that their agencies would lose volunteers or donors as a consequence. Using data from 440 organizations, Thomson and colleagues (2007) examined the construct validity of a multidimensional model of collaboration. The responses of experienced collaborators were examined against five hypothesized dimensions of collaboration: governance, administration, organizational autonomy, mutuality, and norms (reciprocity and trust). With the exception of the reciprocity norm, the model demonstrated good fit, essentially endorsing that the five stated dimensions constitute collaboration. Presumably, the absence of these dimensions would negate the likelihood of successful, sustainable collaboration. Lane and Turner (1999) discuss the value of collaboration in a restorative justice intervention in California. Although their report is descriptive (not empirical), these authors note several factors whose absence would be detrimental to success. This includes letting go of preexisting interorganizational animosities, compromising one’s interests for the greater needs of the project, establishing role expectations (in particular for the organizational representatives who worked most closely with other agencies), and embedding evaluation personnel and procedures prior to project initiation. In sum, the collaboration literature is mostly descriptive, includes a number of definitions, and falls short of comprehensive theory. In spite of this, its elements have been examined and validated, although there is an understandable bias toward demonstration of

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the outcomes of fruitful elements and collaborations. Consistent with intergroup relations theory, barriers to collaboration include preexisting animosity, squabbles and resentments over turf infringements, and ineffective planning and communication. In the next section, we provide a context for collaboration in juvenile justice.

JUVENILE JUSTICE COLLABORATIONS IN SERVICE OF SYSTEMS CHANGE In this section we describe the public health model, which includes primary prevention, intervention for at-risk groups, and tertiary interventions for established problems. This approach drives models and systems in much

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of human services and demonstrates promise as an approach to both framing and conducting intervention in juvenile justice. The Public Health Context The public health approach to prevention and intervention has been applied successfully to and is widely embraced in preventive efforts across systems (health, education, child welfare, youth violence, and mental health) and disciplines (e.g., Walker et al., 1996). The Commission on Chronic Illness (1957) first promulgated preventive public health approaches over 50 years ago. Often represented by a triangle with three levels (see Figure 21.1), the public health model encompasses primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions.

Figure 21.1 Public Health Model

Tertiary: Individualized interventions for established problems

Secondary: Targeted intervention for atrisk groups

Primary (universal) preventions for all members of population

Source: Adapted from the Center for Positive Interventions and Supports (www.pbis.org).

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The first level, primary prevention, is universal and designed to benefit all members of a population by preventing future problems. In the case of youth, preventive interventions range from social services, education, and health care to tobacco and substance abuse resistance efforts and public safety messages about seat belts. Secondary interventions provide targeted interventions for groups of individuals who are at risk, and for those who did not respond to primary prevention. Secondary interventions are designed to reverse, stop, or slow a condition’s progress (Evans & Seligman, 2005). Frequent developmental surveillance for children with asthma, group counseling for individuals predisposed toward substance abuse, and skills training for youth with school discipline infractions are examples of secondary interventions. They often entail increased surveillance (monitoring) by professionals to examine and address risk. Tertiary interventions are undertaken when individuals do not respond to primary or secondary levels of prevention and are indicated for problems warranting individualized, relatively intensive care. In recognition that primary and secondary strategies are not always effective; tertiary interventions are comprehensive, initiated promptly, and of duration commensurate with need. Tertiary interventions may involve a greater degree of segregation from the general population. Inpatient hospital stays, individual and family therapy, and special education are tertiary interventions. Tertiary prevention strategies aim to reduce the disability associated with a problem in order to restore maximal function (Commission on Chronic Illness, 1957). Framed in the public health perspective, entry into state custody is a tertiary intervention. Youth enter JJRFs because they have not responded to primary (e.g., school and community) and secondary (e.g., probation,

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detention, diversion) efforts. Whereas the public health model would suggest that the primary aim of a tertiary intervention is rehabilitation, a punishment orientation has exerted influence on juvenile justice. In part due to this excessive reliance on punishment, some researchers recently extended positive behavior interventions and supports into juvenile justice settings (Jolivette & Nelson, 2010). How Effective Are Interventions for Youth? A model of universal care is a convenient heuristic, however, how useful is it if we lack effective primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions for youth? Weisz, Sandler, Durlak, and Anton (2005) summarized the evidence base for youth mental health interventions across an array of systems. These authors reported mean effect sizes in the .50s (medium effects) for generic prevention studies and significant long-term benefit (lower delinquency rates) for prevention programs that combine youth and family supports. Taken in the aggregate, these studies provide solid support for the effectiveness of universal and targeted interventions. The magnitude of treatment effects for established problems (tertiary interventions) was similarly impressive across age groups. Youth who received interventions were better off than 75% of children in control groups. Weisz et al. (2005) also report impressive outcomes for specific modalities, including substantial effects for cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), respectable outcomes for family therapy, and moderate effects for school interventions. Other authors document the effectiveness of primary, secondary, and tertiary school interventions conducted within positive behavior interventions and supports (Hawken, Adolphson, MacLeod, & Schumann, 2009; Sugai & Horner, 2009). Empirical support

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for comprehensive team approaches such as wraparound (Eber et al., 2009) and Multisystemic Therapy (MST: Schaeffer & Borduin, 2005) is also emerging (see also Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). Andrews et al. (1990) defined effective interventions for delinquent youth as affecting recidivism and adhering to three principles. They: (1) address criminogenic factors (e.g., those that predict criminality, including peer group, self-control, and substance use); (2) are responsive (e.g., alter criminogenic factors); and (3) address risk. Effect sizes for programs that do not meet these principles are virtually zero (Andrews & Bonta, 2006). Programs that address these critical factors, usually based on social learning and cognitive-behavioral approaches, have effect sizes equating to a 50% reduction in recidivism. Perhaps the most striking finding of Lipsey’s (2009) meta-analysis of interventions for juvenile offenders was the absence of relationship between level of juvenile justice supervision and recidivism. The effects of interventions on youth with similar profiles (risk, age, gender, ethnicity) did not differ whether the offender underwent treatment in the community following diversion, during incarceration, or on probation or parole. Quality of program implementation outweighed the effects of level of juvenile supervision. The best predictors of recidivism were overall risk (higher recidivism) and history of aggression (lower recidivism). Counseling interventions were effective in reducing recidivism by 10–13%. Nontherapeutic interventions (deterrence and discipline) were not effective, demonstrating no effect and increasing recidivism, respectively. Although Lipsey’s findings suggest that decision making regarding the context for juvenile intervention (community,

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JJRF, etc.) may not reflect a systematic approach, they are encouraging because “good programs can be effective within institutional environments” (p. 143). Weisz et al. (2005) note that publication bias may artificially inflate effect sizes to some extent, but even if that is the case, the data nevertheless indicate the existence of a range of interventions that make a meaningful difference in the lives of youth and families. It is also likely that they result in savings when the cost of managing delinquent behavior is considered. We conclude that the service systems that comprise juvenile justice have access to empirically supported interventions. Delivering these interventions with fidelity and efficacy requires a commitment to early detection and intervention and the collective efforts of all stakeholders. Juvenile Justice Collaborations Although effective collaboration may occur within and between individual organizations, the sheer number of stakeholders makes it a daunting task. Presumably, all agencies charged with responsibility in the field of juvenile justice strive to meet similar goals, such as reducing juvenile crime, decreasing recidivism rates, and preventing delinquency (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). Despite common purposes, there are philosophical, logistical, procedural, and systemic issues that impede cohesive delivery of services. Agencies may approach treatment differently. Legal, technical, and territorial obstacles prevent adequate interagency communication. In addition, service providers define outcomes and track data differently, making it difficult to assess effects and identify areas requiring attention. Change must occur across all involved systems, a challenge that has thus far hindered large-scale collaborative efforts (Nelson et al., 2010).

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As the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice (FACJJ) states (2009, p. 1), there has been a “deficit of leadership” with respect to juvenile justice. Its annual report articulates a number of challenges, poses solutions from policy and research to practice, and calls for “bold leadership.” Serious efforts toward systemwide change must begin at the top. This likely means the federal level, where there needs to be increased focus on the development of national outcomes, unified systems, and a consistent way of tracking data allowing for assessment of progress toward national goals. To some extent, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) has addressed the leadership void. The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF, 2009) established the JDAI in 1992 with the aim of reducing the inappropriate and unnecessary confinement of youth and impelling reform. The JDAI’s first core strategy is collaboration between major juvenile justice agencies, other governmental entities, and community organizations, which is presumed to be a factor in observed reductions in juvenile crime, diminished numbers of youth in detention and related changes among JDAI sites. By beginning with a systematic approach to connecting interagency stakeholders, JDAI jurisdictions establish the foundation necessary to support reform efforts. Because juvenile justice is driven largely by the states, an interconnected data system is vital. With common definitions, categories, and databases, the U.S. would more accurately be able to assess trends, recidivism rates, and successes in the juvenile justice system and be better equipped to enact prevention and treatment (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). This call for national, interagency collaboration does not diminish existing and emerging collaborative initiatives. There is evidence, as delineated below that collaboration can

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result in a more efficient, effective system (see e.g., Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). The challenge, then, is this: How do we replicate successful small to midscale collaborations on a national level? The following sections outline some collaborative efforts and suggest how those efforts may fit into a vision of a systemwide, multitier intervention model. Examples of Collaboration in Juvenile Justice For would-be collaborators in the juvenile justice system, there are many common goals: decreased recidivism, improved academic and vocational outcomes, more cohesive service provision, better communication among service providers, and the development of systems and strategies for working together. Below are examples of collaborations that exemplify characteristics that, if applied at a large-scale level, could change the fragmented nature of service delivery to the vulnerable youth in our juvenile justice facilities. Many collaborative efforts have focused on prevention. JDAI stresses reduction of secure confinement in over 100 sites. Its sites have demonstrated impressive initial outcomes including lower numbers of juveniles in detention, reduced racial disparities, and leveraging fiscal support for alternatives to detention (AECF, 2009). The Center for Families, Children, and the Courts (CFCC) in California has established Collaborative Justice for Juvenile Offenders, which features collaboration across courts (e.g., family court, juvenile drug court, youth mental health court) and processing, planning, and decision making (CFCC, 2009). Several states feature collaboratives; many focus on similar outcomes such as reducing recidivism, decreasing racial overrepresentation, and providing better

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service coordination. Questions remain, however: Are observed changes attributable to change efforts and/or are there other factors at work? Is it the collaboration per se that leverages change, or is it specific qualities of the interventions or agencies themselves? Without more focused, rigorous research, these questions remain unanswered. It behooves policy makers and funders to ask why time-consuming and costly interventions are needed, and it behooves the juvenile justice community to communicate why they are warranted. National Collaborative Efforts in Juvenile Justice One of the most disheartening statistics about youth in juvenile justice facilities is their underachievement in academics (e.g., Burrell & Warboys, 2000; Center on Crime, Communities, and Culture, 1997; Gemignani, 1994; Leone, Quinn, & Osher, 2002; Mathur & Schoenfeld, 2010; see also Boundy & Karger, Chapter 14, this volume). Academic failure is associated with poor outcomes inside and outside of juvenile justice. Educational and vocational outcomes for youth in juvenile justice reflect the fragmentation in education, a lack of meaningful focus on behavior in schools, a disproportionate number of poor minority students requiring special education services, and the challenge of collaboration between local education authorities and juvenile justice entities. The National Collaboration Project assists states with implementing the juvenile justice requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; Blomberg, Blomberg, Waldo, Pesta, & Bellows, 2006). The project, housed at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and funded through Congress, seeks to meet the following

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goals: (a) identify the administrative structure of each state’s juvenile justice education system; (b) determine education evaluation capacities and detect any common problems shared by several states, as well as unique problems; (c) develop a national network of agencies, evaluators, and administrators to assume responsibility for juvenile justice education; (d) provide NCLB information to all states; and (e) measure and report progress on states’ abilities to meet NCLB requirements and evaluation procedures (Blomberg et al., 2006). The goals of the project are daunting but necessary if juvenile justice facilities are to be in compliance with federal education law— and if youth exiting juvenile justice will be prepared to function in society. The National Collaboration Project’s ambitious goals reflect critical elements of an effective collaboration between the country’s educational leaders and the juvenile justice community. The Project aims to achieve successful interstate collaboration by: determining each state’s ability to collect data and self-evaluate, disseminating relevant information and standards, and establishing a national support staff. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice have recognized the quality of Florida’s juvenile justice education system as exemplary (Blomberg et al., 2006). Accordingly, the National Collaboration Project seeks to apply Florida’s model nationwide by replicating its successful elements. Another example of collaborative potential within juvenile justice is the Blueprint for Change, which is a comprehensive model for the identification and treatment of youth with mental health needs. The Blueprint was developed by the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice as a framework to improve the delivery of mental health services to youth in the juvenile justice system (Skowyra & Cocozza, 2006). A cornerstone of the Blueprint

Collaboration in the Service of Better Systems for Youth

is collaboration: “the juvenile justice system and mental health systems should collaborate in all areas and at all critical intervention points” (Skowyra & Cocozza, 2006, p. 4). It calls for inclusion of family members and caregivers, joint identification of funding mechanisms, collaboration at every stage of juvenile justice processing, and cross-training for juvenile justice and mental health staff. All interagency collaborations require this cross-training to ensure that all service providers are fluent with the terms and systems of each agency; this is a critical feature of successful collaboration that cannot be overlooked. A shared feature of these two examples is the development of a national model based on research conducted with smaller scale programs. A specific interagency collaborative example cited in the Blueprint is the Integrated Treatment Model established by the Washington State Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration, which uses evidence-based practices (e.g., Functional Family Therapy, cognitivebehavioral therapy) to provide treatment to youth from admittance to release (see Greenwood&Turner,Chapter23,thisvolume). All staff are trained in these practices, which are extended into aftercare during community reentry (Skowyra & Cocozza, 2006). One case study investigated the relationship between Medicaid and the delivery of health and mental health services to youth in the juvenile justice system in four states (Hanlon, May, & Kaye, 2008). Based on this work, Hanlon et al. identified strategies to combat barriers to collaboration, including improving the knowledge of how involved systems operate and giving collaborators the tools to work together to address challenges with effects across programs and systems. Interestingly, these authors note parallel complications in juvenile justice and youth health care. In spite of the fact that Medicaid is a

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federal program, it is partly state funded and is administered at the state level; as a consequence, both Medicaid and juvenile justice systems and processes vary greatly across the 50 states. Whereas their report was not positioned primarily as a demonstration of collaboration, Hanlon and colleagues cited collaboration as “key to surfacing and addressing the barriers to physical and mental health coverage and care” (p. 15). They emphasize that recommended practices such as screening, early identification, provider continuity, interdisciplinary teaming, and empirically supported interventions can all be achieved under Medicaid when providers and systems operate in coordination. A fourth example of national interagency collaboration is the Juvenile Justice Division of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). This project focuses on developing a multisystem, integrated approach to service delivery and program development (Tuell, 2008). The CWLA Juvenile Justice Division has worked to help state and local jurisdictions provide more cohesive services to adjudicated youth. Components of the CWLA approach include identifying goals and barriers, data collection, outcome evaluation, and adherence to best practices—all critical features of successful collaboration. While the CWLA is the leader of the collaborative effort, there is an executive committee and a stakeholder-oversight committee, both of which facilitate implementation of CWLA objectives at sites across the country. CWLA partners, while acknowledging the need for multisystem collaboration, also acknowledge the challenges that accompany the implementation, coordination, and integration of services. Critical to their efforts are the presence of a guiding, integrative national entity and the partners at the state and local levels.

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Learning From Collaborations What we can learn from collaborations is constrained by the evaluation models used to assess their successes. The descriptions above suggest progress in the nature and extent of collaboration, yet the evaluation designs employed are largely descriptive and research progress is yet to be reflected in the peerreviewed (scholarly) literature, a critical benchmark. Assessment of adherence (fidelity) to existing models of intervention or of the collaboration itself is scant to nonexistent. (We take up this point later.) Further, while the examples above do reveal momentum toward collaboration, they tend to focus on the partnership between juvenile justice and one key stakeholder or system (i.e., education, health/ mental health, and child welfare). In order to have a chance at success, youth in juvenile justice need coordinated care that meets their substantial needs from the moment of their arrest, throughout their incarceration, and during their parole in the community, all of which fall under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system. In addition, there needs to be a general consensus on what is considered “success” for these youth: Is it not recidivating? Is it earning a high school diploma or a college degree? Is it finding gainful employment? Independent housing? A family? Until we can operationally define and measure “success” for adjudicated youth, it will be difficult to determine if we are making progress toward that outcome. For youth at risk, the main goal is clear: avoid entry into the system. A primary level of intervention requires collaboration between the judicial system, the health-care system (both mental and physical health), the education system, and any other service providers (e.g., child welfare, substance abuse treatment). The challenge that remains is to effect collaboration between

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the juvenile justice system and all other systems that impact the lives of youth in juvenile justice facilities: How can we get all of the necessary agencies to overcome logistical, territorial, and bureaucratic barriers to collaborate and best serve this country’s most vulnerable youth? DIMENSIONS OF EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION: RECOMMENDED PRACTICES How can collaborative reform efforts of national significance be undertaken within a fragmented system that is populated by a vastly diverse constellation of entities and approaches; governed by federal, state, and local legislative mandates; subject to inconsistent or dwindling fiscal support; hampered by a shifting mission, demonstrating a poor track record; and subject to limited or ambivalent public support? It is clear that collaboration is necessary, desirable, and challenging. To be successful, collaborations in juvenile justice need to adhere to general principles as well as attending to specific elements that reflect the unique characteristics of the juvenile justice environment. General Guidelines and Processes An examination of the collaboration literature and a synthesis of the inherent benefits and challenges of collaboration reveal some key guidelines, processes, and procedures that are summarized in Table 21.1. As mentioned earlier, Thomson et al. (2007) validated five dimensions of collaboration: governance, administration, organizational autonomy, mutuality, and norms. An explicit, prospective approach must be taken to establishing and revising these dimensions. Before involving all

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Table 21.1. General Guidelines for Interagency and Cross-System Collaboration &

A prospective approach to establishing governance and administration and ensuring organizational autonomy while encouraging compromise and shared vision

&

Means to motivate and promote interagency norms of reciprocity and trust

&

“Buy in” and visible support from organizational leadership

&

Sufficient resources for training, support, and to ensure fidelity

&

Mutual agreement on channels and frequency of communication, negotiation/compromise, and personnel roles

&

A stagelike view of collaboration with dialogue, decision making, action, and evaluation

&

Third party evaluation, both formative and summative, of processes and outcomes

&

Leadership or co-leadership by a skilled convener with both role and personal power

&

Rapport and consensus building activities at all levels of collaboration

&

Flexible allocation and use of resources, and incentives for discovery and use of new resources and other explicit means of avoiding “fixed pie” myth

levels of their organizations, leaders of collaborating agencies need to agree upon ground rules for communication, negotiation, and personnel roles. Sowa cautions that structures and procedures that appear “similar in theory or on paper may operate in significantly different ways when implemented, ways that have important implications for the efficacy of programs or services” (2008, p. 317). Applying an existing collaborative model in a new context may require thoughtful adaptations that both tailor the intervention to local need and maintain fidelity to the model. For example, Jolivette and Nelson (2010) describe contextual factors and adaptations to consider in planning the implementation of PBIS within secure facilities. These authors call for a leadership team with representation across systems, buildings, shifts, and staff from intake workers to security. Members of the leadership team need to secure “buy in” and establish a common vernacular among diverse roles. Gajda and Koliba (2007) state that successful collaboration requires preparation, and the first priority is the development of a sense of shared purpose. These authors propose the development of “communities of practice” that develop into cycles of inquiry, involving

four components: dialogue, decision making, action, and evaluation. Ongoing evaluation should be conducted by a third party who is integrally involved in all parts of the cycle of inquiry. Before embarking on collaboration, it is important to increase collaboration literacy among stakeholders and to identify and inventory individual and shared resources. Once collaboration is initiated, the evaluator is responsible to formatively assess quality and development and to analyze outcomes in close dialogue with participants (Gajda & Koliba, 2007). Wood and Gray (1991) propose the use of a skilled convener who has both legitimate expertise and interpersonal power, and who employs a variety of tactics to promote a sense of common purpose. Because of the risk that intergroup bias will undermine the development of a shared psychological ownership of problems, it is critical to link the interests of individuals and agencies to the superordinate goals of the collaboration and to cast the collaboration as a solution to mutual needs. Within a given collaboration, it is common for stakeholders to assume a “fixed pie” of resources, that is to assume that resources are static and limited, instead of adopting creative

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and collaborative strategies to attain new resources and use existing ones in novel ways (Caruso et al., 2009). Recommendations for Collaboration in Juvenile Justice The limited success of juvenile justice to date illustrates some principles that simply do not work (Leone et al., 2002): single strategies, categorical focus, fragmented services, and reactive approaches. Distilling generic elements of collaboration, considering the unique problems facing the juvenile justice community, and recognizing the contributions of scholars and practitioners to date, we recommend a series of strategies and components. Overarching Strategies We identify five overarching strategies to promote the likelihood that collaborations will meet success in the form of improved outcomes. First, a preventive, proactive, public health framework is critical to systems change in juvenile justice (Leone et al., 2002; Myers & Farrell, 2008; Nelson et al., 2010). That is, screening and assessment of youth risks and problems is a critical strategy across the continuum of youth and family-serving entities and systems. Second, a solid evidence base must form the rationale for the inclusion of an intervention. Third, interagency collaborations need to be prospective, articulate a shared vision of problems and solutions, and incorporate evolving knowledge about effective collaboration. Fourth, universal and consistent data collection systems are critical, and there needs to be a core set of youth factors, intervention components, and outcomes that are required within funded initiatives. Fifth, evaluation needs to be meaningfully and formatively embedded in collaboration efforts. There are methodological hurdles, but these are surmountable.

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Recommended Components Any juvenile justice collaboration that hopes to be successful needs to adopt a planful, phaselike approach. Critical elements of that approach appear in Table 21.2 (Altschuler, Armstrong, & Mackenzie, 1999; Andrews et al., 1990; R. Axelsson & Axelsson, 2006; Lane & Turner, 1999; Leone et al., 2002; Lipsey, 2009; Rosenheck et al., 1998; Soler, 1992; Sowa, 2008;Wood & Gray, 1991). As the table suggests, vigorous, healthy, participatory leadership is critical to success of cross-agency and cross-system collaboration, but collaboration needs to be enacted at all levels because shared endeavors often outlast the tenure of leaders and participants. This underscores the need for explicit development of and respect for norms, communication and conflict resolution, and relationship building from leadership to line participants. Because collaboration may initially result in perceived threat, opportunities for positive interpersonal contact, consensus building, cross-training, and program development need to occur at multiple levels and include community input. Figure 21.2 is a schematic of the components and processes of collaboration. It emphasizes a prospective approach and ongoing monitoring of the components of collaboration and the processes by which they are achieved. The Future: Shared Vision and Universal Commitment We have little doubt that these strategies and components are evident in current collaborations. Achieving widespread, significant change requires a national commitment (FACJJ, 2009) and a context for implementation. Creating the context for systems change requires efforts in policy, systems of care, and information systems.

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Table 21.2. Recommended Components of Collaborations in Juvenile Justice Leadership Presence and Multilevel Input Effective leadership that seeks input from all levels of organizations involved and solicits meaningful community input about local problems and resources Leaders attend interorganizational meetings and training sessions and participate actively in cross training and establishment of norms Leadership support for establishment and endorsement of clear goals, target population, fidelity, and baseline data Organizational Commitment Evidenced By: Prospective approach and universal participation Explicit standards and methods for communication within and across collaborating agencies, including opportunities for “top down” and “bottom up” information sharing Time and fiscal support for staff involvement in the form of travel and time release, workload adjustments, etc. Staff training to support novel roles and functions assumed under the collaboration (including increasing collaboration literacy) Ensure generic collaboration literacy (e.g., effective strategies) and working knowledge of the norms, culture, and mandates of other organizations (regulations), professions (e.g., jargon used by the courts, mental health professionals, corrections personnel, etc.), and work environments (e.g., labor considerations) Organizational staff take an active role in training personnel from other agencies regarding their work, professions, roles, jargon, etc., with emphasis on shared objectives To minimize in-group bias, encouragement and support for cross-agency and system collaboration at all levels (e.g., meetings, collaborative presentations and reports) Data Collection, Evaluation, and Outcomes Universal commitment to collecting and sharing data, with corresponding definitional clarity, data input methods and standards, and periodic reporting; positive consequences for adherence to data protocols Incentives for cross-agency and cross-system collaboration in service of dissemination (e.g., coauthored reports, publicly accessible datasets for secondary data analysis) Ongoing dialogue with third-party evaluators and openness to course corrections Interventions Consensus building on the use of research supported methods An array of services that are responsive to the specific needs and risk factors apparent in the target population and reflect the available systems of care Emphasis on the family as the unit of intervention rather than a sole focus on the identified youth Case management and youth support that includes “brokering” and advocacy for cross-categorical services and transition Service integration at all levels, especially at top and at client level case management teams (e.g., MST and wraparound approaches) Shared problem solving and resource building on ability to deliver evidence-based interventions throughout the multiple systems (e.g., education, child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice) and contexts for youth care and supervision (school, community, JJRFs, probation)

Policy For new and innovative collaborations to thrive, predictable, flexible funding is needed. Policy changes are needed to eliminate or reduce categorical funding requirements and to revise confidentiality strictures to allow information sharing and cross-agency communication (while also protecting youth interests). Public funding should require collaborations to articulate their anticipated and actual level of integration (e.g., networking, coordinating, collaborating/partnership) with partners, to report on the extent to which partnerships adhere

to recommended strategies for collaboration, demonstrate fidelity to empirically supported methods, and engage in coordinated evaluation and reporting. Incentives are needed for the dissemination of effective efforts, in the peerreviewed literature as well as in more translational and interdisciplinary outlets. As the field evolves, it will be critical to “scale up” models with demonstrated effectiveness, allowing ample time for planning and implementation. Additionally, information sharing, dissemination, and data systems will require fiscal support.

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Figure 21.2 Schematic of Process of Collaboration

Systems of Care Efforts are needed to reduce and remove interagency rivalries, and these can be undertaken in advance of formal collaborations. Examples include working

groups at the national, state, and local levels and through professional organizations. For a culture of collaboration to develop, collaboration literacy is needed, along with additional

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mechanisms for managing interagency communication. Personnel preparation efforts and staff training can more effectively shape personnel expectations to reflect cross-agency, interdisciplinary, and cross-systems perspectives. A climate of collaboration must include openness to evaluation and data collection efforts and a commitment to collective scrutiny of efforts. Information Sharing, Data Systems, Research, and Dissemination Because a feedback loop is essential to creating, implementing and replicating effective collaborations (see Figure 21.2), a leadership group comprised of public officials, researchers, providers, and technicians should be convened to develop consensus on youth factors, intervention elements, and outcomes to be monitored. Such a panel might also establish operational definitions for these variables, define the infrastructure needed to achieve them, and develop and disseminate products to communicate these standards. Likewise, we advise the formation of an evaluation advisory committee that includes researchers, policy makers, funders, and practitioners. Building on common definitions and jointly derived outcomes, the group would develop standards and guidelines for evaluating juvenile justice change efforts, particularly collaborative ones. Collaborative ventures should employ models with demonstrated success, assessing fidelity to the model as part of evaluation. For example, we (Myers & Farrell, 2008) and others (Hanlon et al., 2008) have advocated the use of evidence-based interventions such as MST and CBT. It is possible to create multiphase, multicomponent, multisite models in which the process and products of collaboration are evaluated within the research design. As such, the effectiveness of MST can be evaluated within and

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outside of formal collaborations, with site and participant selection conducted according to predetermined criteria (e.g., random, matched) and incrementally across time (sites or components are added in varying phases of the project and events with potential to threaten internal validity are monitored). The use of untried interventions within collaborations necessitate a more complex implementation plan and corresponding evaluation components, but can be accommodated within a careful, prospective evaluation plan.

CONCLUSION The juvenile justice system, defined broadly to include all youth serving systems, has multiple opportunities to benefit youth at risk, those with emerging and established problems, and youth in detention, along with their families and the larger society. There are evidencebased interventions across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of intervention and these can be leveraged successfully across contexts ranging from schools and community clinics to locked detention facilities. Realizing the system’s potential to improve lives requires a shared vision, universal commitment, and the sustained effort of entities with their own vested interests, histories, values, and guiding principles. Collaborative efforts in juvenile justice face a number of challenges and require planning, human and material resources, data collection, and evaluation. In spite of the challenges, the evidence in this chapter suggests that collaborative efforts in juvenile justice can indeed effect change beyond what any single entity or system can hope to accomplish. What remains to be done is the development of a culture of collaboration, improved surveillance, more widespread application of evidence-based interventions, information

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sharing, abandonment of ineffective strategies, and dissemination and scaling up of effective approaches. This will require scrutiny, sacrifice, compromise, and hard work, but our youth deserve no less.

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Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies STAN SCHNEIDER

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his chapter highlights how the quality, availability, and use of data can either promote or impede the ability of human services agencies to operate, plan, and make sound decisions. Although the chapter’s focus is on how juvenile justice agencies deal with the challenges of deficient information systems, the strategies to address these challenges are applicable to a wide range of human service programs and agencies. The chapter begins with a brief review of the history of juvenile justice agencies, their information systems, and their use of data, as well as an introduction to the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) (Mendel, 2009), which provides technical assistance to some juvenile justice jurisdictions to create, implement, and maintain effective information systems. This background information will provide the context for the subsequent detailed analysis of the technical, logistical, and resource challenges that must be addressed to enable agencies to use data to make policy and programmatic decisions. Important considerations when using a data-driven approach to decision making—one in which data are used to inform changes in policies and practices at each stage of a program’s development and implementation—are also presented. Case studies of three JDAI jurisdictions provide examples of how the sites addressed challenges

by: (a) using data to assess policies and the status of outcomes, (b) asking probing questions, (c) conducting further analyses if needed, (d) identifying strengths and weaknesses of programs and practices, and (e) defining and implementing programmatic solutions. With this approach, the sites implemented needed reforms and provided better outcomes for the youth and communities that they serve. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of future directions for data systems development and implementation.

JUVENILE JUSTICE AGENCIES AND THEIR DATA SYSTEMS As information systems technology has rapidly advanced over the past 50 years, criminal and juvenile justice agencies have undergone substantial transformations in how they maintain and use data. Starting in the 1960s, most state and local criminal and juvenile justice agencies, which had previously maintained exclusively paper files, experienced a dramatic increase in information processing capacity when mainframe computer systems were developed to automate basic information processing tasks. [The term mainframe is generally used to describe any large, institutional 456

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computer that is compatible with computer architecture designed in the 1960s, such as the IBM System/360 that was launched in 1965 (Ebbers, O’Brien, & Ogden, 2006)]. Mainframes have massive capacity for data storage and are typically used by government agencies or large businesses to quickly process high volumes of data. By increasing automation, mainframe computer systems significantly improved agencies’ capacities for data analysis and reporting. Although they reduce agencies’ reliance on maintaining paper files, which is time consuming and inefficient to manage, mainframes do not lend themselves to efficient use of data in day-to-day operations (Morton, 2001). Perhaps the most substantial problem with these systems is that, because they are designed to address the operational needs of a single agency, they operate by integrating information vertically within an agency, not horizontally with systems in other agencies (Marks, 2003). In general, information is not automatically exchanged between mainframe systems, and even discrete data transfers or information requests between systems are sometimes impossible because of different technological standards, such as computer language and content format (Marks, 2003). Until the 1980s, not only did juvenile justice agencies seldom share information, but many maintained substantially less data than they do today. Courts tended to be the main repository for juvenile justice data because they were the only agency legally required to collect and maintain information about juvenile cases (Etten & Petrone, 1994); other juvenile justice agencies often had to collect their own data or go without, in part due to the lack of capacity for data exchange with mainframe computers. In the past 10–20 years, these mainframe computer systems have increasingly been replaced by integrated information systems

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that can maintain data from several departments within an organization and further improve data quality and facilitate data analysis and sharing of information within and between agencies. For example, an integrated information system for JDAI may include data from juvenile court intake, probation intake, detention admission, and programs offering alternatives to detention. Despite the introduction of integrated information systems, agencies must overcome a number of obstacles so that data are readily available to use for assessment, planning, and accountability; to inform day-to-day use by caseworkers; and to share with other legitimate agencies that provide related services. The inability to share information, either between departments in the same agency or across agencies, has often prevented agencies from reaching their goals, such as providing better services or monitoring juvenile offenders in the justice system. Service delivery by agencies that serve the same youth and family populations may remain fragmented due to challenges related to system fragmentation, lack of data sharing, inadequate analytical personnel, and lack of quality controls. These agencies often lack the ability to effectively plan, monitor, and evaluate efforts to attain youth and family outcomes, or hold accountable the community-based organizations that receive government funding. These challenges can also have devastating consequences. For example, an assessment of Minnesota’s criminal and juvenile justice information systems in the 1990s found that information systems statewide contained incomplete records and substantial gaps in information, in part due to the inability of agencies and departments to share information related to criminal records. The incomplete records impeded the investigation of a suspect who went on to commit a murder–kidnapping in 1999, inciting public

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outrage about the quality of information management and sharing statewide (Morton, 2001). Recognition of these kinds of challenges has provided the impetus for several juvenile justice jurisdictions to invest in improved information systems and data sharing protocols. Although many of the challenges and solutions described in this chapter are related to the experiences of JDAI and its sites, they are applicable to a wide range of human services agencies that depend on data to establish policies and make programmatic decisions.

THE JUVENILE DETENTION ALTERNATIVES INITIATIVE In December 1992, the Annie E. Casey Foundation launched JDAI, a multi-year, multi-site project to demonstrate that juvenile justice jurisdictions can establish more effective and efficient systems to accomplish the purposes of juvenile detention. Based on its positive early experience in Broward County, Florida, the Foundation made the decision to invest considerable fiscal resources and Foundation staff time to develop and implement the initiative in other jurisdictions. The decision to move forward with the project was also given impetus by the rapidly increasing number of youth being held in secure detention nationally. Nationwide each year, police make 2.2 million juvenile arrests. Of these, 1.7 million cases are referred to juvenile courts; an estimated 400,000 young people cycle through juvenile detention centers; and nearly 100,000 youth are confined in juvenile jails, prisons, boot camps, and other residential facilities on any given night (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2008, p. 6). Jurisdictions apply to participate in the Initiative, and those that are selected receive modest grant support from the Foundation for training, planning, and coordination, as well as an elaborate mix

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of technical support, staff training, resource materials, and opportunities to learn from a growing network of other JDAI reform sites. JDAI helps sites to increase their capacity to collect and use data to assess the state of juvenile detention, plan and develop policies, and evaluate outcomes. Sites use these data in working toward JDAI’s five objectives for reform in the juvenile justice system: 1. Decrease the number of youth offenders unnecessarily or inappropriately detained. 2. Reduce the number of youth who fail to appear for a scheduled court appointment, or reoffend pending adjudication. 3. Redirect public funds toward effective juvenile justice processes and public safety strategies. 4. Reduce the disproportionate minority confinement and contact of the juvenile justice system. 5. Improve conditions in secure detention facilities. JDAI began operations in five jurisdictions, known as “sites,” that served as learning partners and worked with the Foundation to test the hypotheses of the Initiative. These sites’ experiences helped to shape and direct the Initiative as it moved toward further development and wider implementation. By 2009, JDAI reform efforts were underway in more than 100 sites in 24 states and the District of Columbia. It is estimated that JDAI is now operational in sites that cumulatively are responsible for almost 75% of the country’s detained population (Mendel, 2009; see, e.g., Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). Sites that receive a JDAI grant agree to limit secure detention to those youth who are

Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

likely to reoffend and/or miss their court dates if not detained. Thus, sites need data at the outset of their participation in JDAI to characterize detention utilization, inform decisions regarding changes in policy and practice, and assess the results of those decisions. Many sites begin JDAI with less than ideal information systems and with data that are incomplete or invalid. Moreover, the sites have neither the time nor the resources to develop and implement the ideal information system. In fact, in the beginning, sites tended to base their policies on anecdotal information rather than on data (Busch, 1999). Metis Associates—a research and evaluation firm based in New York City—is among a number of technical assistance providers working with JDAI sites on specific topics. Metis provides customized technical assistance to local JDAI “team leaders”—retired judges, prosecutors, attorneys, policy makers, and probation officers—and helps to address the sites’ needs for computer-infrastructure assistance, data quality assurance, and human resources to manage and interpret data.

CHALLENGES TO USING A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO DECISION MAKING It is important for juvenile justice agencies to use data to guide assessment and planning, inform their actions and strategies at key decision points—including, for example, law enforcement referrals or arrests, court intake and petition filing, juvenile hearings, and detention admission—and make appropriate and timely referrals to other agencies for coordinated treatment and services. However, these agencies, and others that serve youth, face a variety of challenges—technical and logistical issues and lack of resources—in this regard.

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Although most juvenile justice jurisdictions use data from their computer information systems to prepare reports on the numbers and characteristics of youth in their systems, they do not regularly use the data to inform and guide policy decisions (Busch, 1999; see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume). The data are also not regularly obtained from, or shared with, other agencies to promote “the interagency collaboration that is at the heart of juvenile justice reform” (Busch, 1999, p. 12), which can lead to “resentment between agency staff, duplication of data collection efforts, and a breakdown in communications and functioning of the juvenile justice system” (Etten & Petrone, 1994, p. 65). The challenges described next are common to JDAI sites and are illustrative of the limitations and difficulties often faced by other public agencies. Fragmented Systems That Are Not Designed to Effectively Integrate Data Several state and local systems’ (e.g., the juvenile court system) JDAI sites are undergoing major, multi-year conversions to new and upgraded information systems. However, lengthy delays in developing and implementing the new systems and difficulties associated with obtaining data from different departments (e.g., detention and probation), can create confusion for sites regarding how they can access and manage information contained in different information systems. In addition, the data systems that agencies now have were not developed for the systematic examination of youth in detention, which is now required by juvenile justice agencies and JDAI. One common problem is the presence of “system smokestacks”—multiple information systems that do not share data with each other,

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thereby increasing costs and creating inefficiencies such as increased case processing time. This problem particularly pertains to large, mainframe information systems that exist throughout human services agencies. Thus, statewide initiatives such as JDAI strive to influence the development of statewide systems and the data they will contain, as well as how those data will be defined. Until their information systems can be improved, some JDAI sites are using “workaround” approaches, such as simple Excel spreadsheets, so they can begin immediately using data for their JDAI work. For example, some sites use spreadsheets to maintain data on detention admissions that can be partitioned by various indicators, such as race/ ethnicity. The data in these spreadsheets can be merged with information from other databases to create a more complete case record. Inefficiencies Resulting From Lack of Data Sharing and Duplicative Data Collection Because youth in the juvenile justice system often have multiple presenting needs and underlying problems, a variety of outside agencies may be involved with these youth including agencies that provide social services (e.g., child welfare), probation, mental health, substance abuse prevention and treatment, education, and employment preparation. Staff at these agencies are often overwhelmed by the size and complexity of their caseloads and struggle to find time to carry out their responsibilities; their efforts would be more efficient were there greater coordination within and across multiple agencies (Howell, Kelly, Palmer, & Magnum, 2004; see Farrell & Myers, Chapter 21, this volume; Ross & Miller, Chapter 17, this volume). However, a core problem associated with each agency’s current information system is that

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it contains both data that are common across multiple agencies as well as data that are idiosyncratic for the youth served within that particular agency. Inefficiencies arise and extra costs are incurred when multiple agencies collect and maintain the same data. Although the creation and implementation of an integrated information system—one that holds data across departments within an agency as well as across agencies—can be costly and time consuming, agencies with such systems have enjoyed many benefits of optimal information sharing. Indeed, the sharing of these data provides agencies and service providers with a more complete and accurate picture of the characteristics, strengths, and needs of the youth being served, so that treatments, services, and referrals can be adjusted accordingly. In addition, the time for data collection and entry is substantially reduced because redundant data collection and entry across agencies is eliminated, leaving frontline staff more time to deal directly with the youth for whom they are responsible. As stated by Etten and Petrone, “Because of overlapping goals of juvenile justice agencies, there are overlapping information needs among these agencies. As expected, with little or no information sharing between agencies in many jurisdictions, several agencies collect the same data” (1994, p. 45). Eliminating redundant data collection and entry can also reduce unnecessary staffing costs and lower the chances of data entry error. Even in jurisdictions that previously managed to share information between multiple agencies while maintaining separate stand-alone information systems, the data sharing process has generally been streamlined by using an integrated computer system. In fact, the immediate and seamless automated data-sharing processes of integrated systems are generally less labor and resource intensive than data

Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

transfers that are arranged between two standalone systems (Morton, 2001). Inadequate Quality Control Procedures to Ensure That Data Are Complete and Accurate The quality of data is directly linked to both the quality of the information systems and personnel and to the importance placed on data quality in the local organizational culture. For example, some new JDAI sites face challenges related to missing cases or missing key data—such as geographic coding, average daily population (ADP), average length of stay (ALOS), and outcomes information associated with alternatives to detention (ATD) programs—that are required to conduct JDAI work. In other cases, these data may only exist in paper form. In addition, rigorous quality control procedures must be developed and applied to the data processing life cycle—particularly data entry—where errors can be introduced. A data dictionary that describes each variable, its location in various systems, its legitimate codes, the data ranges, and other key items is an important component of a quality control procedure. It is also important for the information system to check for matches on the case name and unique case ID number, and for agency staff to develop a process for identifying duplicated cases and determining the cause of the problem. Lack of Standardization of Data Variables The quality of data is a product of the systems through which the data are collected and managed, and the data collected by JDAI are no exception. Changing from older mainframe systems to one integrated system can affect the information, even if the

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change improves the collection and management of data. Because JDAI is a data-driven initiative, sites must rely on a proper information system at the beginning of their involvement with the initiative; when system changes do occur, their effects on data need to be understood and factored into the interpretation of findings. For example, when the systems used by JDAI sites are improved and data become more complete and accurate, the ADP of youth in detention might increase strictly as a consequence of changes in the computer system, even if a site has made programmatic changes that should result in a reduction in ADP. It is therefore essential that sites make consistent use of the definitions of JDAI indicators, and exceptions should require some form of approval and always be noted as metadata. Lack of standardization in defining and reporting data can also adversely affect an agency’s ability to detect trends over time and conduct comparisons. Insufficient Analytical Personnel to Analyze and Interpret Data Juvenile justice agencies often lack staff with adequate training and experience to extract, analyze, interpret, and display data. Agencies should develop a written job description that specifies these requisite skills and should be able to certify that a person/persons with these skills will be available, either through internal staff or external consultants. Often, the best approach for quickly acquiring technical support is to seek assistance from a local source, such as a university/college faculty member with expertise in juvenile justice research and analysis. In some cases, local JDAI site coordinators, who are local staff hired to implement JDAI reform efforts, have become more involved in data analysis as a

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consequence of bringing in local consulting support. For example, a local criminal justice advocacy group has been helping one JDAI site coordinator to analyze and review case-level data to identify discrepancies. In these situations, it is important to develop a memorandum of understanding with the external resource that clarifies the resource’s roles and responsibilities, work tasks, deliverables, and timelines, and that also includes statements about data ownership and confidentiality protection. Reluctance and/or Inability of Stakeholders to Use Data to Make Program Changes Even when agencies have access to basic data and sufficient data analysis capacity, stakeholder partners often lack the will or capability to make changes in policy and practice on the basis of quantitative findings, or to perform more in-depth analyses of the data to gain further insight regarding a given problem or condition.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS WHEN USING A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO DECISION MAKING The challenges previously noted must be met before attempting to implement a datadriven approach to decision making. Once that is done, however, the following considerations must be addressed to construct a quality system. Ensure the Confidentiality of Case-Level Data Agencies that seek to integrate information systems and share data may face legal barriers related to confidentiality. Juvenile justice agencies, for example, generally must abide

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by a constellation of federal, state, and local laws regarding sharing juvenile records. Most state laws require that juvenile records be kept confidential and shared only with the juvenile, his or her family, and the agency itself except under specific circumstances. Additionally, the circumstances under which juvenile records may be shared vary substantially from state to state. The array of state and local laws governing data sharing can be confusing, leading some agency staff to unfortunately avoid information sharing altogether, even when it is legal and appropriate (Etten & Petrone, 1994). Based on their review of federal and state legal barriers to sharing information, many of which deal with the issue of confidentiality, Etten and Petrone (1994) concluded that “there are very few legal barriers to information sharing among juvenile justice agencies, but instead the barriers are often a product of long-standing agency practice and mistrust among agencies” (p. 79). Etten and Petrone refer to this embedded reluctance to share information within and across agencies as information territorialism. In response to the complex array of information sharing laws that can prevent the exchange of juvenile justice data, the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2009) has authorized the development of an online resource outlining juvenile information guidelines for each state, called the State Statutes on Juvenile Interagency Information and Record Sharing. This Web site is designed to assist state and local officials in understanding their state’s requirements for information sharing. Analyze and Interpret Data to Inform Policy and Management Decisions Complete, accurate, and timely data can help decision makers better understand who is

Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

served by their agency; the nature of their living conditions; the treatments and services being provided; and the discernible impact of those conditions, treatments, and services on their well-being. When these data are not readily available to decision makers, decisions are made anecdotally or in a crisis-driven manner. As Busch (1999) observes, “The harder it is to generate reports, the less useful an information system is to policy-makers” (p. 39). Even when complete, accurate, and timely data are available, it is not always easy to correctly interpret their meaning. The correct interpretation requires appropriately framing the questions to be answered or the hypotheses to be tested. For example, if a jurisdiction suspects that race may be a factor in the treatment and degree of success of youth in its juvenile justice system, it might seek information on any disparate treatment or results at various decision points in the system. If there appears to be disparate treatment or results, this could lead to further investigation and dialogue with staff members to determine if race was a factor in decisions made at that decision point. A broad systems view is also required of those who make agency decisions and set policy. Such a systems view requires “a shift from thinking about individual cases and somewhat vague generalities to thinking about how real changes in decision making would affect real groups of youth” (Busch, 1999, p. 37). Sharing Data From Systems for Real-Time Use in Making Day-to-Day Decisions Juvenile justice agencies have begun to recognize the value of sharing information for improving their work, especially at decision points (Roberts, 2004). Instances where justice professionals can benefit from timely access to other agencies’ information systems

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abound. For example, a probation officer needs to know about a youth’s history of program placements in order to decide which program to recommend. A judge needs to know information about an individual’s prior arrests and convictions when making decisions at a juvenile hearing, and a judge also must know a youth’s history of running away and failing to appear for court dates when deciding whether to detain him or her at pre-trial (Etten & Petrone, 1994). Furthermore, investigators have often suggested that cases could be solved more efficiently if they had access to related information held by other agencies and neighboring jurisdictions (Mitchell, 2008). A final example is that law enforcement officers responding to a 911 call from a particular address often need to know information about prior incidents at that home and the criminal records of the individuals residing there (Morton, 2001). In short, integrated information systems can lead to better overall quality of operations across agencies. Information sharing is most useful when information can be accessed immediately and regardless of location. In addition, information should be available to those staff members who are responsible for decisions and actions at key decision points. At each point in the decisionmaking process, information regarding that decision needs to be available to the staff who will be making further decisions, which is challenging when the data reside in other agencies’ information systems. A reasonable level of interagency trust and communication is needed to ensure cross-agency data sharing to help staff make more informed decisions. Case Studies: Agencies Working Through System-Related Challenges This section of the chapter offers illustrative examples of successful JDAI sites that have

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used data to assess progress, identify program and practice strengths and weaknesses, and define and implement solutions. In each case, stakeholders were on board and committed to JDAI goals. The necessary in-depth analyses were driven by the data and led by site personnel—either internally or externally—who understood how to interpret and organize data in meaningful ways. These personnel were also capable of providing direction and coaching to the stakeholders about what the data suggest. To some extent, each of these agencies and their stakeholders valued data; invested in computer systems, analytical personnel resources, and quality controls to improve data validity; and developed interagency data-sharing agreements with related agencies, such as law enforcement agencies, schools, and child welfare agencies in the case of JDAI. This framework can be adopted in almost any organization that relies on data to inform policy and practice changes.

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The JDAI Approach JDAI begins with a systematic assessment of each site’s data management and utilization capacity in its first year of JDAI implementation. The assessment covers the information systems available to organize and manage the data needed for detention reform; the site’s in-house analytical resources and capacity to collect, analyze, and interpret data; and the site’s ability to produce reports and analyses partitioned by gender, race/ethnicity, and geographic location. Figure 22.1 shows JDAI’s approach to using data to address challenges as presented at the workshop on Using Data Reports to Affect Policy, Practice, and Community Good Will at the JDAI National Inter-Site Conference in 2008. Technical assistance providers offer advice and support for using a Risk Assessment Instrument (RAI), also referred to in some sites as a Detention Risk Assessment Instrument (DRAI), which is used to objectively screen youth to determine the likelihood that the

Figure 22.1 The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Approach to Addressing Challenges

5 Define and implement programmatic solutions

4

Assess the work and 1 status of outcomes through data reports and analyses

Identify practice and program strengths and weaknesses based on the data analysis

Ask 2 probing questions about the data

Conduct further analyses (dig down) when needed

3 Source: From Using Data Reports to Affect Policy, Practice, and Community Good Will facilitated by L. Simpson at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

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Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies Table 22.1. Secure Detention: Percentage of ADP by Offense Type: Norfolk, Virginia Fiscal Year 2003 2004 2005

Felonies

Misdemeanors

Violations

Contempt of Court for Failure to Appear

35.6% 39.3% 40.7%

23.0% 23.1% 23.3%

32.8% 30.1% 30.8%

4.1% 4.7% 3.8%

Source: From Data-Driven Management: An Effective Strategy for Management Juveniles, Programs, Services, and Other Resources. Presented by C. Overton at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

youth will be arrested again if released from detention; manage and utilize data; and identify and address racial and ethnic disparities. Metis Associates is one of the technical assistance providers for data management and data utilization and works closely with the JDAI team leaders and other site personnel to help them manage and use data, prepare reports and analyses to examine reform changes, and monitor progress. The three JDAI sites presented as case studies in this chapter were selected because they not only have the proper computer systems and resources to effectively collect and manage data, but they also exemplify the JDAI approach to using data to address challenges. The examples illustrate how the sites used data to identify detention-related policies and practices that can reduce inappropriate detention and lead to less costly alternatives to detention. The experiences of these sites are instructive because they exemplify the rewards of having an adequate information system infrastructure, a focus on data quality, and a culture that values data for program assessment, planning and decision making. Case Study 1: Norfolk, Virginia The Norfolk, Virginia, Department of Juvenile Justice began implementing JDAI in Fall 2005. The Norfolk Court Service Unit is under the state Department of Juvenile Services, and the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center is managed locally. Both the Norfolk Court Service Unit and the

Detention Center use the statewide, integrated Juvenile Tracking System ( JTS). This system has been in use since the mid-1990s, and over the years has gone through many enhancements.1 When the site began JDAI, it was experiencing chronic and severe overcrowding. Its goals as a JDAI site were to guarantee public safety by ensuring that the youth appear in court, ensure that the right youth are detained for the right amount of time, improve conditions of confinement, and eliminate overcrowding. As shown in Table 22.1, the percentage of youth in detention in 2005 due to violations of probation (VOP) was 31%, compared to 23% for misdemeanors, 41% for felonies, and 4% for contempt of court for failure to appear. In addition, detention admissions had peaked before fiscal year 2005 at 754. Table 22.2 shows that African American youth comprised 89% of the population in detention for VOP (versus 57% of the overall youth population in Norfolk, Virginia), in contrast with White youth, who comprised 10% of the population in detention for VOP (versus 36% of the overall youth population in Norfolk, Virginia). Based on these statistics, the Norfolk site began its work in JDAI by focusing on three strategies: (1) updating the admissions policy by modifying use of Norfolk’s Detention 1

Claudette Overton (2008), the director of Norfolk Court Service Unit presented this case study at the JDAI National Inter-Site Conference in 2008.

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Table 22.2. Probation Violations by Race: Norfolk, Virginia Group American Indian Asian African American Hispanic White Total

Probation Violation Holds

Norfolk’s Youth Population (Ages 10–17)

 1%  1% 89%  1% 10% 100% (N ¼ 226)

0.4% 2.7% 57.0% 3.8% 36.2% 100% (N ¼ 24,311)

Source: From Data-Driven Management: An Effective Strategy for Management Juveniles, Programs, Services, and Other Resources. Presented by C. Overton at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

Assessment Instrument (DAI), (2) using data to drive decision making, and (3) ensuring strong and effective collaboration by establishing a steering committee. The steering committee, which includes 30 high-ranking officials with policy-making authority to oversee the detention reform process, provides a system of communication, coordination, and collaboration, and approves the detention vision, goals, and work plans. Subcommittees include 50 supervisors and line staff with specialized knowledge who are charged with making recommendations to the steering committee. In the 4 years since beginning JDAI, the site has made substantial progress. In the first year, the site reduced overcrowding. In the second year, it eliminated overcrowding, implemented comprehensive screening procedures, worked on reducing the number of charges for failure to appear, added a court expeditor to help ease bottlenecks in processing youth, and revised its VOP policy. The site uses a statewide, integrated computerized information system and has adequate personnel to support data analysis, submit required JDAI reports, and use data to examine and monitor progress. To reduce the number of youth charged for violating probation, the Department: &

Made rigorous use of a formalized system of graduated sanctions and incentives;

&

&

&

&

&

&

&

Ensured the timely response to violations; Made better use of community-based services; Implemented an administrative review by supervisors; Required supervisory approval for detainment and recommendation on court dates; Introduced mandatory risk screening at intake using the DAI; Required violations to be filed on youth charged as absent without leave (AWOL) or for misdemeanors within 48 hours and for youth charged with felonies within 24 hours; and Made recommendations for using less restrictive alternatives to detention.

Likely as a result of these changes in VOP policy, there was a 63% reduction in VOP filings, from a high of 244 in 2004 to 90 in 2008 (Figure 22.2). By 2008, there was a 100% reduction in the number of days of overcapacity from the high in 2004 of 321 days (Figure 22.3). The site was much more data driven and had achieved sustainability with regard to improvements and progress resulting from changes in admissions policies and practices. Upon reviewing the site’s quarterly data, the Court Service Unit director, the JDAI

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Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies Figure 22.2 Trends in Probation Violations: Norfolk, Virginia

300

Probation Violations

250

230

238

244 226.1

200 164

150

110 100

90

50 0 2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Year Source: From Data-Driven Management: An Effective Strategy for Management Juveniles, Programs, Services, and Other Resources. Presented by C. Overton at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

site coordinator, and other staff including managers and an analyst, began to notice an increase in the ALOS for youth held on probation violations in 2007 after the initial

VOP policy was implemented. Following a preliminary review of some of the relevant data, the Norfolk work group began to analyze the length of stay of probation violators by:

Figure 22.3 Secure Detention: Trend in Number of Days over Capacity: Norfolk, Virginia

350 Number of Days over Capacity

321 300 284 250

235

200 150 100 44

50

39

0 2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

0 2008

Year Source: From Data-Driven Management: An Effective Strategy for Management Juveniles, Programs, Services, and Other Resources. Presented by C. Overton at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

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&

& & &

& &

&

&

&

&

FOR

Creating a work group of supervisors and line staff; Examining scores from the DAI; Examining the youth’s initial charges; Examining who was filing the charges (e.g., probation officer/supervisor); Determining who the judge was; Determining if a written plan of action was prepared by the probation officer and submitted to the judge at the hearing; Examining how many youth were AWOL; Examining the factors that impacted the length of stay; Consulting other court service units on AWOLs; and Receiving input from the detention utilization subcommittee.

Figure 22.4 presents ALOS over time. A review of the data showed that the probation officers’ practices varied across locations where they worked. Three quarters of the youth held

CHANGE

on VOP filings were youth who were AWOL when the VOP was filed, regardless of their DAI score, and when the youth were eventually picked up, they were placed in detention. Only 25% of these cases had a plan submitted to the court at the initial hearing, resulting in youth staying longer in detention. These findings led the Court Service Unit staff to revise the first VOP policy and develop a sanction grid as a guide to address probation violations and other issues of noncompliance. Input was sought from probation officers through focus groups, and trained probation officers on the revised policy, how to use the new sanction grid, and when it is appropriate to file a violation against a youth on probation. By 2008, the site’s third year of JDAI implementation, the average length of stay on VOP cases decreased from 33 days in 2007 to 28 days (Figure 22.4). This is still considered too long, and the site continues to use data to monitor changes in these policies and practices. The site also examined the number of youth who failed to appear for their court

Figure 22.4 Secure Detention: Trend in ALOS on Probation Violations: Norfolk, Virginia

ALOS on Probation Violations

50

40

36

37

35

35

33 28

30

20

10

0 2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Year Source: From Data-Driven Management: An Effective Strategy for Management Juveniles, Programs, Services, and Other Resources. Presented by C. Overton at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies

dates. A more in-depth analysis of the data showed that when summonses were issued to the youth, no notification was given to the parent by the arresting officer, and no effort was made by the arresting officer or Court Service Unit staff to contact the parents. Staff also used data from the detention report to determine that there had been a substantial reduction in contempt of court/violate court orders. Clark County, Nevada The Clark County, Nevada, Department of Juvenile Justice Services (DJJS) began JDAI in 2003. DJJS uses FamilyTRACS, an automated case management application that is used for multiple purposes by multiple agencies. This system holds all case-related data on youth at all stages of their involvement with DJJS and is the primary source of data for reports that support JDAI reform efforts. The JDAI site coordinator is a member of the Department’s management team and also sits on all JDAI-related committees, creating an organic flow of information among all internal and external stakeholders. In addition, he has a background in juvenile justice, probation, and data analysis, as well as experience teaching at one of the most severely “at-risk” high schools in Las Vegas.2 A review of the data from the site’s first quarter in JDAI (January to March 2007) raised a question regarding racial disparity in the ADP of youth in detention. The data showed that Hispanic youth represented 37% of the total ADP, which was an 18% increase from the previous quarter and a substantially higher proportion compared to White and African American youth for the same period. The management team conducted a yearlong monthly trend analysis of 2

Michael Walker (2008), the JDAI site coordinator and management analyst, presented this case study at the JDAI National Inter-Site Conference in 2008.

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the ADP, disaggregated by gender and race/ ethnicity, to determine why and how this disparity occurred and if the finding was a regularly occurring trend. The trend analysis revealed that the Hispanic population in detention closely followed the school calendar; detention admissions for these youth showed the greatest increases shortly after the beginning of each new semester. The committee on disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) took on the issue, and met with representatives from juvenile probation, intake, booking, and the interpreter’s office to establish hypotheses regarding the disparity. A monthly detention population report partitioned by gender, race/ethnicity, and charge showed that Hispanic youth constituted 47% of cases with bench warrants issued by a judge (e.g., for failure to appear). The DMC and management team agreed that there was a disparity for Hispanic youth, and then began to investigate the bench warrants. Their analysis first examined the proportion of warrants issued, dismissed, and served over a 1-year period, and then examined identifiable trends over a 5-year period. This analysis led to the creation of a process for examining detention use, issues related to DMC, and racial and ethnic disparities. In conducting these analyses, the management team and committee had to overcome their “culture of politeness” and start asking probing questions (Table 22.3), even if some of the questions regarding race were uncomfortable. The next step in the site’s investigation was to carefully examine the county’s demographics by reviewing data from the school district. Using these data, the team was able to show that there had not been a dramatic increase in the population of Hispanic youth in the jurisdiction. In fact, the data showed that Hispanic youth ages 8–17 accounted for just 29% of the district’s student body but

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Table 22.3. Asking the Right Questions: Clark County, Nevada JDAI Begins the Probe

DMC Deepens the Probe

Who’s at the front doors of the system (detention?) Why are they there?

Who exactly is over-represented in the system? What do we know about them? Are system policies and practices biased and/or subjective? Are policy and program decisions data-driven? How long is the judicial process? Is there disparity in LOS for kids of color? Why?

How long do they stay? (LOS)

Source: From Developing DMC Strategies: Using Data and Geo-Mapping. Presented by M. Walker at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

accounted for 35% of the referrals and 47% of the bench warrants (Figure 22.5). Again challenging what they came to see as their culture of politeness, the management team asked more specific, probing questions and conducted an in-depth analysis to answer the following questions: & &

Where are the referrals coming from? Who lives in these neighborhoods?

&

What other factors might be influencing the situation?

The first step in answering these questions was to map the home zip codes for all youth with bench warrants in the past year and examine any other factors that might contribute to the racial disparity (Figure 22.6). The team also used other indicators from the following sources to geocode the map:

Figure 22.5 Comparison of Racial/Ethnic Demographics for School District Population and Referrals to Detention: Clark County, Nevada School District Population Ages 8–17 by Race/Ethnicity

Annual Referrals to Detention by Race/Ethnicity

Black 13%

White 28%

White 51%

Black 33%

Hispanic 29%

Other 4% Other 7%

Hispanic 35%

Source: From Developing DMC Strategies: Using Data and Geo-Mapping. Presented by M. Walker at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

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Figure 22.6 Bench Warrants by Zip Code: Clark County, Nevada

Source: From Developing DMC Strategies: Using Data and Geo-Mapping. Presented by M. Walker at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

&

& & & &

Statistics from DJJS, Clark County School District, Department of Family Services, and U.S. Census Bureau; Juvenile arrests; Attendance and dropout rates; Abuse and neglect referrals; and Socioeconomic indicators.

The team used these data to develop a summary risk assessment chart to identify the most at-risk youth in Las Vegas for the DJJS to target for prevention and intervention programs. The findings from the geocoding confirmed the site’s anecdotal beliefs and stereotypes about some of the neighborhoods where the youth live. Staff members in the department were able to work with community organizations from those neighborhoods without creating distance and distrust. By

showing the organizations that the department staff were considering social and economic risk factors, such as felony referrals, high school dropout rates, child protective services referrals, and socioeconomics indicators, they removed the subjectivity and were able to quantify and identify at-risk youth in a way that was less judgmental. Once the DMC committee understood more about the youth with bench warrants, including where they lived and what other factors were involved in their cases, the next step was to determine why a disproportionate number of bench warrants were issued for Hispanic youth in Clark County. The committee held meetings with key stakeholders from juvenile probation, juvenile intake, juvenile booking, the interpreter’s office, and the public defender’s office, and the

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committee also interviewed Hispanic youth in detention. The committee’s findings fell into two categories: 1. There is a culturally based distrust or fear of the justice system among Hispanics. 2. Clark County does not use adequate communication strategies to address its Spanish-speaking population. The DMC committee began working in collaboration with the school district, the Nevada Association of Latin Americans (NALA), and the Latin Chamber of Commerce to implement community-based programs in schools that were identified through the summary risk assessment chart. DJJS and the district attorney’s office began working with NALA and the interpreter’s office to recreate all outgoing communications in an English/Spanish format, and with the public defender’s office to develop a bilingual court information system. DJJS is now monitoring the implementation of the new policies to address inadequate written communication by DJJS to Hispanic youth and their parents, as well as their culturally based distrust and fear of the justice system. The site believes that once the programs are in place and the court communications have been reproduced in a bilingual format, there will be a steady, measurable reduction in the number of Hispanic youth receiving bench warrants, thereby reducing the current disparity. Indianapolis, Indiana (Marion County) Indianapolis began implementing JDAI in 2006. The site developed a unique and effective partnership with two external consultants—a professor at Indiana–Purdue University School of Social Work, and an assistant professor of

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public and environmental affairs at Indiana– Purdue University, Indianapolis campus—to provide needed analytical support using the court’s computerized infrastructure. One was involved as a volunteer and the other was under contract by Marion County. At the beginning of the site’s experience with JDAI, the site coordinator, a former juvenile court public defender with a solid background in juvenile justice issues, was unfamiliar with JDAI data indicators, analyses, and reporting requirements, but support from the University filled a critical gap in helping this site to become more data driven.3 Previously, the site had purchased a private proprietary computer system called QUEST, which is a court case management database that makes standard reports available to the courts and detention and probation staff. QUEST was used by both the detention facility and the probation department. Although the system was effective in that it contained the basic court and detention admissions data, there were a number of challenges associated with data completeness and accuracy, as well as with reporting issues. In consultation with the University contractor, a graduate student, and the appropriation of funds for the enhancement and ongoing maintenance of QUEST, the site later overcame these challenges. A review of this JDAI site’s data showed a high number of overrides—youth placed into secure detention, despite low RAI scores, for nonoffense reasons (e.g., parent/guardian refused custody, safety of youth, inability to contact parent/guardian)—which reflected an inadequate supply of nonsecure beds in the community. The admissions subcommittee examined the reasons for these overrides as well as the screening scores of youth to 3

Dr. William H. Barton, PhD, presented the case study at the JDAI National Inter-site Conference in 2008.

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Getting on Board With Juvenile Justice Information Technologies Table 22.4. Summary of Intake Decisions: Indianapolis, Indiana (July 2007 to June 2008) RAI Decisions Release Release with conditions Detain Total

Number

Percent

3,953 1,577 1,621 7,151

55.3% 22.1% 22.7% 100.0%

Source: From Using Data to Develop Programs and Policies in Marion County, Indiana. Presented by W. H. Barton, C. Ball, and K. Riley at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

determine whether the detention decisions were attributable to gender, race/ethnicity, or age. The admissions subcommittee reviewed the site’s quarterly data on screening decisions by race/ethnicity, gender, and age, and monitored and tracked the reasons for overrides. The subcommittee (Barton, Ball, & Riley, 2008) concluded that the overrides may reflect a screener’s discomfort with using the RAI, inadequacies with the instrument itself, or a lack of appropriate alternatives to secure detention. The subcommittee also looked for patterns that might suggest a need to modify the RAI and/or a need for more or different alternatives to detention. Tables 22.4 and 22.5 present the data reviewed by the subcommittee. The admissions team conducted a preliminary cost analysis regarding ALOS of youth who were securely detained because the site did not have sufficient alternatives in place in the community (e.g., for violations of probation, warrants, failure to appear). The data were used to document the cost of detaining these youth and to demonstrate to county

legislators that it cost $1 million to securely detain youth with RAI scores between 7.2 and 8.4 (youth with risk scores between 6 and 11 points are generally released with conditions rather than securely held). Upon review of the data, the court’s director of finance asked the team to identify the projected number of securely detained youth who could be appropriately placed in ATD programs. The probation and ATD teams worked together to identify youth who could be diverted into ATD programs. The group examined data on youth who were securely detained on the basis of violations, warrants, and failure to appear, because they believed that the number of such youth continued to be too high. When the JDAI team leaders conducted a site assessment in April 2007, VOPs were the main reason for the arrest and placement of youth into detention. The probation department, which reports to the juvenile court, is responsible for entering data into QUEST. The Indiana University team, site coordinator, and probation staff conducted a

Table 22.5. Frequency of Overrides and Underrides: Indianapolis, Indiana (July 2007 to June 2008) Override Decisions

Number

Percent

No override/underride Overrides Underrides Total

6,103 707 341 7,151

85.3% 9.9% 4.8% 100.0%

Source: From Using Data to Develop Programs and Policies in Marion County, Indiana. Presented by W. H. Barton, C. Ball, and K. Riley at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

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manual review of the case-level data to confirm the accuracy and completeness of what was being reported, and they discovered that failures to appear were being erroneously counted as VOPs. In August 2007, the probation graduated sanctions grid was adapted from one used in Multnomah County, Oregon, and implemented to guide probation officers in addressing probation violations, and VOPs filed with the court decreased by 40%. To estimate the number of override cases that could be placed in a nonsecure setting in the community, the consultant team extracted case-level data from QUEST and met with site personnel to examine the intake decisions and override reasons over a 1-year period (July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008). Table 22.6 presents the data reviewed by the subcommittee. Based on the analysis, the group estimated the number of youth that could be diverted into ATD programs, as well as the estimated cost savings. The proposed ATD programs included a reception center with a per diem cost per youth of $2.70, a day reporting center with a per diem cost of $80, an evening reporting center with a per diem cost of $20, and community supervision with a per diem cost of $2. These costs are all substantially lower than the per diem cost of $178 for secure

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detention in Indianapolis. At a meeting of the Public Policy and Criminal Justice Committee of the City–County Council, the Executive Committee of the Marion Superior Court presented a request, using data generated by JDAI, to amend the court’s budget to include $1.5 million for ATD programs. Several council members expressed support for alternatives, and an initially skeptical judge has now become a supporter. Commonalities Across the Case Study Sites Each of the three case study sites followed JDAI’s approach to addressing challenges by using data to assess the number of unnecessary and inappropriate youth detained, ask probing questions, conduct additional analyses when needed, identifying practice/program strengths and weaknesses, and defining and implementing programmatic solutions. Indeed, all of the sites have invested resources to use the latest technology, and to employ analytical personnel, either internal or external, to support their juvenile justice reform efforts. More important, the sites know that they must continue to invest in their computer system infrastructure, quality controls, and analytical resources.

Table 22.6. Estimates of Override Cases That Could Be Placed in a Nonsecure Setting: Indianapolis, Indiana (July 2007 to June 2008)

Override Reason Parent/guardian refused custody High risk of runaway Safety of the youth Victim is in the home Parent unable to pick up youth Unable to contact parent/guardian Other Total

Number of Youth 77 222 15 12 19 36 161 542

Youth That Could Be Diverted Number Percent 77 22.2 7.5 12 19 36 80.5 254.2

100% 10% 50% 100% 100% 100% 50% 47%

Source: From Using Data to Develop Programs and Policies in Marion County, Indiana. Presented by W. H. Barton, C. Ball, and K. Riley at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Indianapolis, 2008.

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As shown by these case studies, the use of data has resulted in benefits for the youth and for the communities that these participating JDAI sites serve. A similar commitment to data-driven decision making can be adopted by other social services organizations experiencing similar technological and resources challenges.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR DATA SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION Based on our work with JDAI sites, Metis Associates offers the following lessons regarding the challenges of developing and implementing data systems. Agencies should strive to implement immediate, workaround solutions, rather than waiting for the large, “perfect” information system to be put in place. Agencies can adopt many effective short-term solutions, such as simple Excel spreadsheets and database tools. The technical assistance provided to JDAI sites is intentionally focused on helping the sites to develop short-term system solutions in cases where there are fragmented information systems resulting from statewide system conversions. There is an ongoing need for data analysis capacity that conforms to the requirements of the questions being addressed. Data-driven decision making requires a process of carefully guided steps within relevant committees to define which specific pieces of data to examine. These committees are typically led by high-level managers, site coordinators, or external (e.g., university) personnel. Data should be presented to stakeholders in an easy-to-read format (e.g., charts and graphs), and the stakeholders should be given direction and coaching on how to use the data to make informed decisions. This also involves, when necessary, advocating for agencies to develop partnerships with other agencies

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or outside entities (e.g., in the case of JDAI, local universities with criminal justice departments or experienced nonprofit organizations) to help them with ongoing data analysis and reporting needs. Sociopolitical challenges loom as large as, or larger than, the technical challenges that emerge. Stakeholders must realize that effective reform cannot be achieved without committing to using the data that have been prepared for that purpose. For example, it may be difficult for juvenile justice staff to remain dedicated to reform efforts if the next data tabulation shows that low-risk youth are still taking up detention beds. Agencies and their stakeholders must value data; invest in computer systems, analytical personnel resources, and quality controls to improve data validity; and develop interagency data sharing agreements with related agencies, such as law enforcement agencies, schools, and child welfare agencies. There is value in integrating the data that staff need to do their work with data that are used for program planning and assessment. Compiling data for planning, assessment, and daily operational use by frontline staff should not be an extra burden. For example, frontline staff such as probation officers need case management data and updates on the progress of individual youth whom they supervise, and these same data are needed at a higher level for managers to examine outcomes on specific indicators (e.g., the number of probation violations filed by a probation officer, the reason for violation, and the location/neighborhood of the probation officer’s supervision of cases). Data systems primed for decision making can improve the operations of public agencies and thereby promote general public welfare. It is past time for juvenile justice and human services agencies to adopt this approach.

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REFERENCES Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2008). Kids count data book: State profiles of child well-being. Retrieved from http://datacenter.kidscount.org/db_08pdf/2008_ databook.pdf Barton, W. H., Ball, C., & Riley, K. (2008, September). Using data to develop programs and policies in Marion County, Indiana. Paper presented at the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative National Inter-site Conference, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Indianapolis. Busch, D. (1999). By the numbers: The role of data and information in detention reform. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Ebbers, M., O’Brien, W., & Ogden, B. (2006). Introduction to the new mainframe: Z/OS basics. IBM International Technical Support Organization. Retrieved from http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/ zoslib/pdf/zosbasic.pdf Etten, T. J., & Petrone, R. F. (1994). Sharing data and information in juvenile justice: Legal, ethical, and practical considerations. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 45, 65–92. Howell, J. C., Kelly, M. R., Palmer, J., & Magnum, R. L. (2004). Integrating child welfare, juvenile justice,

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and other agencies in a continuum of services. Child Welfare, 83(2), 143–156. Marks, J. (2003). NCSL state legislative brief: Improving justice technology infrastructure. National Council of State Legislatures. Retrieved from http://ecom .ncsl.org/bookstore/productdetail.htm?prodid¼01 73022812&catsel¼xcrj%3BCriminal%20Justice Mendel, R. (2009). Two decades of JDAI. A progress report: From demonstration project to national standard. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Mitchell, R. L. (2008). Criminal negligence: The state of law enforcement data sharing. Computerworld. Retrieved from www.computerworld.com/s/article /317970/Criminal_Negligence_The_state_of_law _enforcement_data_sharing Morton, H. (2001). Integrated criminal justice information systems. National Council of State Legislatures. Retrieved from www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/intjust /report01.htm Roberts, D. J. (2004). Integration in the context of justice information system: A common understanding. Sacramento, CA: SEARCH Institute. U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2009). State statutes on juvenile interagency information and record sharing web site. Retrieved from http://dept.fvtc.edu/ojjdp/states.htm

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Establishing Effective Community-Based Care in Juvenile Justice P E T E R W. G R E E N W O O D

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here are many reasons to prevent juveniles from becoming delinquents or from continuing to engage in delinquent behavior, the most obvious of which is that delinquency puts a youth at risk for drug use and dependency, dropping out of school, incarceration, injury, early pregnancy, and adult criminality. Saving youth from delinquency saves them from wasted lives (Farrington & Welsh, 2007). But there are other reasons as well. Most of those who become adult criminals begin their so-called “criminal careers” as juveniles. One’s delinquency record is one of the strongest predictors of adult criminality. Preventing delinquency prevents the onset of adult criminal careers and thus reduces the burden of crime on its victims and on society. Delinquents and adult offenders take a heavy toll, both financially and emotionally, on victims and on taxpayers, who must share the cost of arresting, prosecuting, incarcerating, and treating offenders. Corrections has been the fastest growing part of most state budgets over the past decade and now runs into the billions of dollars a year. Yet recent analyses have shown that investments in appropriate delinquency prevention programs can save taxpayers $7–$10 for every dollar invested, primarily in the form of reduced spending on prisons (Drake, Aos, & Miller, 2009).

The prospect of reaping such savings by preventing delinquency is not a new one; the achievement of these savings was one of the original missions of the Juvenile Court. Only recently have officials begun to measure how well this mission is being fulfilled (Greenwood, 2006, 2008). Only during the past 15 years have researchers begun clearly identifying both the risk factors that promote delinquency and those interventions that consistently reduce the likelihood that it will occur. Some of the identified risk factors for delinquency are genetic or biological and cannot easily be changed. Others are dynamic, involving the quality of parenting, school involvement, peer group associations, or skill deficits, and are more readily altered (see Braverman & Morris, Chapter 3, this volume). Ongoing analyses that carefully monitor the social development of cohorts of at-risk youth beginning in infancy and early childhood continue to refine how these risk factors develop and interact over time (Lipsey & Derzon, 1998). Fairly strong evidence now demonstrates the effectiveness of a dozen or so “brand name” delinquency prevention program models and another dozen generalized strategies (Elliott, 1996). Brand name programs such as Functional Family Therapy are usually developed by a single research team. Effective 477

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generic strategies, such as group counseling or cognitive-behavioral therapy, are identified through meta-analyses reviewing many different programs following the same general approach. Somewhat weaker evidence supports the effectiveness of another 20 to 30 “promising” programs that are still being tested. A number of public and private providers have been implementing proven programs for more than five years so that their experiences, some of which have been closely monitored by independent evaluators, can benefit others (Mihalic, Fagan, Irwin, Ballard, & Elliott, 2002). In this chapter, we review where the concept of evidence-based practice in juvenile justice now stands, its benefits, and the challenges it may pose for those who adopt it. We begin by reviewing the methods now being used to identify the best programs, and the standards they must meet, and follow that with a comprehensive overview of programs that work, with some information about programs that are proven failures. We conclude by describing how jurisdictions are implementing the best of these programs and overcoming the challenges they meet.

DETERMINING WHAT WORKS: EVOLVING STANDARDS Measuring the effects of delinquency prevention programs is challenging because the behavior the programs attempt to change is often covert and the full benefits extend over long periods of time. For more than a century, efforts to prevent delinquency have been guided more by the prevailing theories about the causes of delinquent behavior than by whether the efforts achieved the desired effects. At various times the primary causes of delinquency were thought to be the

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juvenile’s: home, neighborhood, lack of socializing experiences, lack of job opportunities, or the labeling effects of the juvenile justice system (Rosenheim et al., 2002). The preventive strategies promoted by these theories included: removal of urban children to more rural settings, residential training schools, industrial schools, summer camps, job programs, and diversion from the juvenile justice system. Yet none turned out to be consistently helpful. In 1994 a systematic review of rigorous evaluations of these strategies, by a special panel of the National Research Council, concluded that none could be described as effective (Reiss & Roth, 1993). These conclusions reaffirmed similar conclusions reached by Robert Martinson and his colleagues two decades earlier (Lipton, Martinson, & Wilks, 1975). Estimating the effects of interventions to prevent delinquency—as with any developmental problem—can be problematic because it can take years for effects to become apparent, making it difficult to observe or measure them. The passage of time cuts both ways. On the one hand, interventions in childhood may have effects on delinquency that are not evident until adolescence. Likewise, interventions during adolescence may reap benefits in labor force participation only in young adulthood. On the other hand, an intervention may initially lessen problem behavior in children only to have those effects diminish over time. The “gold standard” for evaluations in the social sciences—experiments that compare the effects on youth who have been assigned randomly to alternative interventions—is seldom used in criminal justice settings (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). Although such rigorous designs, along with long-term follow-up, are required to accurately assess the lasting effect of an intervention, they are far too expensive for

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most local agencies, or even state governments, to conduct. Such evaluations are thus fairly rare and not always applied to the most promising programs. Instead, researchers typically evaluate delinquency prevention programs using a quasiexperimental design that compares outcomes for the experimental treatment group with outcomes for some nonrandom comparison group, which is claimed to be similar in characteristics to the experimental group, but seldom is. The reliability of the results from quasiexperimental studies is highly dependent on the technical skills and objectivity of the analysts involved, which are often hard for an outsider to evaluate. The second problem in identifying successful programs is a lack of consistency in how analysts review the research base, which makes it hard to compare programs. Some reviews simply summarize the information contained in selected studies, grouping evaluations together to arrive at conclusions about particular strategies or approaches that they have defined. Such reviews are highly subjective, with no standard rules for choosing which evaluations to include or how their results are to be interpreted. More rigorous reviews use meta-analysis, a statistical method of combining results across studies, to develop specific estimates of effects for alternative intervention strategies. Finally, some “rating or certification systems” use expert panels or some other screening process to assess the integrity of individual evaluations, as well as specific criteria to identify proven, promising, or exemplary programs. These reviews also differ from each other in the particular outcomes they emphasize (e.g., delinquency, drug use, mental health, or school-related behaviors), their criteria for selection, and the rigor with which the evidence is screened and reviewed. Cost-effectiveness and costbenefit studies make it possible to compare

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the efficiency of programs that produce similar results, allowing policy makers to achieve the largest possible crime prevention effect for a given level of funding.

WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T For anyone in a position to decide which programs should be continued or enhanced, which should be scrapped, and which new programs should be adopted, the ultimate question is “what works” and “how well” does it work? The most recent reviews, meta-analyses, certified lists, and cost-benefit analyses provide a variety of perspectives and wealth of information regarding what does and does not work in reducing youth crime, violence, and delinquency. The problem for practitioners and policy makers is that these various sources sometimes do not agree, because of differences in focus, rating criteria, or the timing of their reviews. The most useful review sites and authority for those concerned with juvenile justice are described below. The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy (www.evidencebasedpolicy.org) was created to assess social interventions for scientifically demonstrated effectiveness in the areas of early childhood, education, youth development, crime and violence prevention, substance abuse, mental health, employment and welfare, and international development. In association with the Coalition, a Top Tier program designation is being developed under the guidance of a distinguished advisory group, focusing only on findings produced by the strongest research designs. As of the date of this publication, this Top Tier list consists of six programs, not all of which are relevant to juvenile justice, and another 20 or so considered highly promising.

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Blueprints for Violence Prevention (www .colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/) provides a list of proven and promising program models developed by a research team headed by Delbert Elliott (1996) at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado. For Blueprints to certify a brand name program as proven (“model”), the program must demonstrate its effects on problem behaviors with a rigorous experimental design, show that its effects persist after youth leave the program, and be successfully replicated at least once. In order for a brand name program to be certified as promising, the program must demonstrate effects using a rigorous experimental design. The current Blueprints Web site lists 11 “model” programs and 19 “promising” programs. Peabody Research Institute (http://peabody .vanderbilt.edu/Peabody_Research_Institute .xml) Director, Mark Lipsey and his colleagues conducted a series of meta-analyses that focused specifically on juvenile justice (Landenberger & Lipsey, 2005; Lipsey, 1992, 2006, 2009; Wilson & Lipsey, 2007). In the most basic terms, a metaanalysis combines the results of independent studies with a shared research focus in order to analyze an overall effect, specifically called an effect size. Accordingly, Lipsey’s analysis did not identify specific programs but did begin to identify specific strategies and methods that were more likely to be effective than others. Lipsey continued to expand and refine this work to include additional studies and many additional characteristics of each study (Lipsey, 2006, 2009). Lipsey (2009) found that effective programs and strategies were those implemented well and directed to high-risk offenders. He also found strategies with a therapeutic component, such as counseling and skill building, are more effective than those with a control component, such as surveillance or harsh

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discipline. Finally, Lipsey found no effects on outcomes by age, race or gender, after controlling for other relevant factors. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) (www.wsipp.wa.gov) uses metaanalysis methodology to conduct evaluations of evidence-based practices but also considers the cost of such programs and strategies to taxpayers and crime victims and weighs these costs against possible benefits. Programs and strategies are not ranked, but their effect on recidivism is measured and their number of evaluations is reported. Recidivism, cost to taxpayers and crime victims, and benefits are estimated using data specific to Washington State. In this chapter, all cost and benefit information refers to the analysis conducted by WSIPP for the State of Washington (Drake, Aos, & Miller, 2009). Accordingly, the information should be considered only an estimate of the potential cost and dollar benefits for other states. In reviewing these four sources of information regarding program effectiveness, or most any other sources, the following seven categories will be identified: 1. Program models, such as Functional Family Therapy (FFT) or Multisystemic Therapy (MST), that have been rigorously tested, proven to work, and usually replicated in hundreds of sites; 2. Generic strategies, such as juvenile drug courts or group counseling, that have been subject to independent study and testing by a number of parties and generally found to be effective; 3. Promising programs that have been evaluated and found effective in one good test but have no replication; 4. Principles of effectiveness that appear to apply to all programs, such as focusing more attention on the higher risk cases;

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5. Programs for which there is insufficient evidence to judge their effectiveness; 6. Programs proven to be ineffective in one or more tests; and 7. Programs proven to increase delinquency. Programs, strategies, and principles overlap. Most of the Blueprints model programs represent an outstanding performer within a generic category. For example, the four experimental trials of FFT, shown by brackets in Figure 23.1, represent about 10% of all family therapy program evaluations. Figure 23.1 contains a histogram, plotted by Lipsey, showing the number of family therapy evaluations demonstrating various effect sizes (Lipsey, Landenberger, & Wilson, 2007). Although a number of evaluations found negative effects, the average for all is well above zero. None of the four FFTevaluations found negative effects, and three are well toward the upper end of the distribution. Figure 23.1 indicates that family therapy works as a generalized approach and

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that FFT works even better, when done correctly. Similarly, the other Blueprints models, on average, produce larger effect sizes than the average for the generic category of which they are a part. All of the proven models utilize the principles of effectiveness, and applying the principles to any strategy is likely to improve outcomes.

WHAT WORKS We begin this review of programs that have scientific evidence of effectiveness by focusing on secondary prevention efforts targeting atrisk youth before they become delinquent, then discuss community-based programs that can divert first-time offenders from further encounters with the justice system or facilitate reentry for youth after an institutional placement. We conclude with programs for youth in custodial settings within the community.

Figure 23.1 Family Therapy Effect Sizes With Functional Family Therapy Highlighted (N = 43)

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Prevention Programs In this context, the first opportunity for prevention is with pregnant teenagers or at-risk children in early childhood. The preeminent program in this category is David Olds’s Nurse Home Visitation Program (Olds, 2006), which trains and supervises registered nurses as the home visitors. This program is found on just about every list of promising strategies (e.g., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), based on the strength of evidence regarding its significant longterm effects and portability (Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 2010). It attempts to identify first-time mothers, most of whom are low-income, unmarried, and teenagers, early in their pregnancy. The sequence of approximately 20 home visits begins during the prenatal period and continues over the first two years of the child’s life, with declining frequency. In addition to providing transportation and linkage to other services, the nurse home visitors follow a detailed protocol that provides child care training and social skills development for the mother. A 19-year follow-up of the Prenatal/Early Infancy Project in Elmira, New York, showed that the nurse home visits significantly reduced arrest rates for the children and mothers (Eckenrode et al., 2010). The women who received the program also spent much less time on welfare; those who were poor and unmarried had significantly fewer subsequent births. Many less costly and less structured home visiting models have been tested, using social workers or other professionals, rather than nurses, but none has achieved the same success or consistency as the Olds program with nurses (Olds et al., 2004). The Olds model, now called the Nurse Family Partnership, has been successfully evaluated in several sites

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and is now replicated in more than 200 counties and many foreign countries. For slightly older children, preschool education for at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds is an effective prevention strategy, particularly when the program includes home visits or work with parents in some other way. The Perry Preschool in Ypsilanti, Michigan (Schweinhart, Montie, Xiang, Barnett, Belfield, & Nores, 2005), is the most well-evaluated model, but other well-run programs are effective as well. Numerous school- or classroom-based programs have proven effective in preventing drug use, delinquency, anti-social behavior, and early school dropout, all behaviors that can lead to criminal behavior (Gottfredson, Wilson, & Najaka, 2002). The programs vary widely in their goals, although they share some common themes: collaborative planning and problem solving involving teachers, parents, students, community members, and administrators; grouping of students into small selfcontained clusters; career education; integrated curriculum; student involvement in rule setting and enforcement, and various strategies to reduce drop out rates. The Incredible Years program (WebsterStratton & Reid, 2010) helps teachers, parents, and peers work with kindergartners and first graders who are experiencing behavioral problems in school. The program provides skills, coaching, and specific activities for changing disruptive behavior. The Bullying Prevention Program (Olweus, 2005) was developed with elementary and junior high school students in Bergen, Norway. The program involves teachers and parents in setting and enforcing clear rules against bullying. Two years after the intervention, bullying problems had declined 50% in treated schools. Furthermore, other forms of delinquency declined as well, and school climate improved (Olweus, Limber, &

Establishing Effective Community-Based Care in Juvenile Justice

Mihalic, 1999). The Bullying Prevention Program is one of the 11 Blueprints model programs and is listed as promising by the Surgeon General (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Multiple evaluations of Life Skills Training (LST), a classroom-based approach to substance abuse prevention, have shown it to reduce the use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana among participants. The reductions in alcohol and cigarette use are sustained through the end of high school (Botvin & Griffin, 2007; Botvin, Griffin, & Nichols, 2006; Griffin, Botvin, & Nichols, 2006). LST is listed as a model program by Blueprints (Botvin, Mihalic, & Grotpeter, 1998), the Surgeon General (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), and most other compilations of proven programs. The program has been widely disseminated throughout the United States over the past decade with funding from government agencies and private foundations. Community-Based Interventions Delinquency prevention programs in community settings can be created for various purposes, such as diverting youth from the juvenile justice system, serving youth placed on informal or formal probation, or serving youth on parole who are returning to the community after a residential placement. Settings can range from individual homes, to schools, to teen centers, to parks, to the special facilities of private providers. Their services can range from a 1-hour monthly meeting to intensive family therapy and services. The most successful programs are those that emphasize family interactions, probably because related adults are in the best position to supervise and train the child (Greenwood, 2004). More traditional interventions that

483

punish or attempt to frighten the youth are the least successful. For example, for youth on probation, two effective programs are FFT (Alexander et al., 1998; Alexander & Sexton, 2002) and MST (Henggeler, Cunningham, Pickrel, Schoenwald, & Brondino, 1996), family-based interventions designated as proven by Blueprints and the surgeon general. FFT targets youth aged 11–18 facing problems with delinquency, substance abuse, or violence. The program focuses on altering interactions between family members and seeks to improve the functioning of the family unit by increasing family problemsolving skills, enhancing emotional connections, and strengthening parents’ ability to provide appropriate structure, guidance, and limits for their children (Alexander & Sexton, 2002). It is a relatively short-term program that is delivered by individual therapists, usually in the home setting. Each team of four to eight therapists works under the direct supervision and monitoring of several more experienced therapist/trainers. The program is well documented and readily transportable. MST is designed to help parents deal effectively with their youth’s behavior problems, including engaging with deviant peers and poor school performance (Henggeler et al., 1996; Henggeler, Clingempeel, Brondino, & Pickrel, 2002). To accomplish family empowerment, MST also addresses barriers to effective parenting and helps family members build an indigenous social support network (Henggeler, Schoenwald, Borduin, Rowland, & Cunningham, 1998). To increase family collaboration and generalize treatment, MST is typically provided in the home, school, and other community locations. Master level counselors provide 50 hours of face-to-face contact over 4 months.

484

WORKING

MST works with an individual family for as long a period as FFT does, but it is more intensive and more expensive. In addition to working with parents, MST locates and attempts to involve other family members, teachers, school administrators, and other adults in supervising the youth. The model has been adapted to work with sex offenders (Letourneau et al., 2009), drug courts (Henggeler, Halliday-Boykins, Cunningham, Randall, Shapiro, & Chapman, 2006), and many other specialized settings. Most of the generic strategies that have been proven effective are community based. In the therapeutic area, cognitive-behavioral therapy (Bray, 2000; Landenberger & Lipsey, 2005), group counseling (Ferrara, 1991; Joanning, Quinn, Thomas, & Mullen, 1992), individual counseling (Lundman, 2001), family counseling (Alexander et al., 1998, 2000; Coatsworth, Santisteban, McBride, & Szapocznik, 2001), case management (Aledort, 2001; Healey, 1999), and peer counseling have been found effective (Lipsey, 2009; Lipsey, Wilson, & Cothern, 2000). In the skills and education area, mentoring, high school graduation programs, social skills training, skill building programs, challenge programs, academic training, and vocational preparation have been found effective (Lipsey, 2009). Strategies that aim to improve justice and reduce recidivism include teen court, mediation, restitution, and restorative justice (Butts, Buck, & Coggeshall, 2002). Community-based programs that focus on surveillance and punishment as a deterrence, rather than on skill building or therapy, are less successful. Ineffective probation programs and strategies include intensive supervision, early release, vocational training, and deterrence approaches such as Scared Straight (Lipsey, 2009).

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CHANGE

Residential Programs Juvenile courts, like criminal courts, function as a screening agent for the purpose of sanctions and services. Juvenile offenders’ needs for treatment must be balanced against the demands of accountability (punishment) and community safety. Only a fraction of the cases reaching any one stage of the system are passed on to the next stage. The proportion of cases handled informally rose from 46% in 1985 to 58% in the late 1990s and then fell slightly to 56% in 2005 (Sickmund, 2009). The vast majority of cases are not detained (79% in 2005) during their court processing; just over 20% are ordered to residential placement as the most severe outcome (Sickmund, 2009). Out of all delinquency cases in 2005, approximately 18% were dismissed at intake, 26% were handled informally, and 56% were petitioned for formal handling; less than 0.5% of cases were sent to criminal court by juvenile court judges (Sickmund, 2009). Of those adjudicated delinquent in 2002, 62% were ordered to probation and 23% were placed out of their homes (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006; see also Holsinger, Chapter 2, this volume). This pattern of case dispositions reflects the juvenile court’s preference for informal rather than formal dispositions and the understanding that most programs work better in community, rather than institutional, settings. Nevertheless, juvenile courts will place youth in more secure custodial placements if the home setting is inappropriate and a more suitable community placement is unavailable, or if the youth poses a public safety risk. In these two instances, placement in a group setting is more likely. Youth who are placed out of their homes are referred to a wide variety of group homes, camps, and other residential or correctional institutions. Three generalized program

Establishing Effective Community-Based Care in Juvenile Justice

strategies improve institutional program effectiveness. One is focusing on dynamic or changeable risk factors—low skills, substance abuse, defiant behavior, relationships with delinquent peers. The second is tailoring programs to clients’ needs using evidence-based methods (Andrews & Dowden, 2006). The third is focusing interventions on higher risk youth, where the opportunity for improvement and consequences of failure are both the largest. These three principles provide the basis for the Correctional Program Assessment Inventory (CPAI), a program assessment instrument developed by Gendreau and Andrews (1996) and now being used by Latessa and several colleagues at the University of Cincinnati to rate the quality of programming in individual correctional facilities (Latessa, Listwan, & Hubbard, 2005). Finally, certain program characteristics that are independent of the specific interventions used have been shown to improve outcomes. Mark Lipsey recently analyzed over 540 study samples to identify general factors associated with program effects, as well as to examine the effectiveness of seven different treatment modalities (e.g., counseling, surveillance, deterrence, discipline, etc.) (Lipsey 2009). Three factors emerged as major correlates of program effectiveness: a therapeutic intervention philosophy (as opposed to one focused on control or coercion), serving high-risk offenders, and quality of implementation (Lipsey, 2009). Generally, programs that focus on specific skills issues such as behavior management, interpersonal skills training, family counseling, group counseling, or individual counseling have all demonstrated positive effects in institutional settings. Among the program strategies that work well with institutionalized youth are cognitivebehavioral therapy (CBT; Bray, 2000),

485

aggression replacement training (ART; Goldstein, Glick, & Gibbs, 1998), and Family Integrated Transitions (FIT; Aos, 2004). CBT is a time-limited approach to psychotherapy that uses skill building— instruction and homework assignments—to achieve its goals. It is based on the premise that it is people’s thoughts about what happens to them that cause particular feelings, rather than the events themselves, and its goal is to change thinking processes. It uses various techniques to learn what goals clients have for their lives and to improve skills that can help them achieve those goals (Landenberger & Lipsey, 2005). Aggression Replacement Training also focuses on risk factors that can be changed (Glick, 1996, 2003). It is a cognitive-behavioral intervention with three components. The first is “anger control,” which teaches participants what triggers their anger and how to control their reactions. The second is “behavioral skills,” which teach a series of prosocial skills through modeling, role-playing, and performance feedback. The third is “moral reasoning,” in which participants work through cognitive conflict in dilemma discussion groups (Glick, 1996, 2003). Family Integrated Transitions, developed for the state of Washington, also focuses on tackling dynamic risk factors—substance abuse, mental health issues, and community reentry from residential placement—by combining elements from four proven programs. The most important component is MST, which was previously described. FIT also uses dialectical behavioral therapy (another form of cognitivebehavioral therapy), which provides behavioral analysis and self monitoring; relapse prevention, which helps youth and families anticipate highrisk situations and develop plans for resumption of treatment should a relapse occur; and motivational enhancement therapy, to increase

486

WORKING

the family’s motivation to stay in treatment and remain drug free. It was designed to help youth with mental health or chemical dependency issues who are returning to the community following a residential placement. The only evaluation of the program showed positive results (Aos, 2004). For youth who have traditionally been placed in group homes—living arrangements that are usually licensed to care for six or more youth who need to be removed from their home for an extended period, but do not pose a serious risk to themselves or others—the preferred alternative is Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC; Leve & Chamberlain, 2007; Fisher, Chamberlain, & Leve, 2009). In MTFC, community parents/ families are recruited and trained to take one youth at a time into their home. MTFC parents are paid at a much higher rate than are regular foster parents but have additional responsibilities. One parent, for example, must be at home whenever the child is. Parent training emphasizes behavior management methods to provide youth with a structure and therapeutic living environment. After completing a preservice training, MTFC parents attend a weekly group meeting run by a case manager for ongoing supervision. Supervision and support are also provided to MTFC parents during daily telephone calls and family therapy is provided for biological families. Random assignment evaluations find that arrest rates fall more among participants in the MFTC model than among youth in traditional group homes (e.g., Chamberlain & Mihalic, 1998; Chamberlain, Fisher, & Moore, 2002; Chamberlain et al., 2008). Although it costs approximately $7,000 more per youth to support MFTC than a group home, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy estimates that MFTC produces $33,000 in

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CHANGE

criminal justice system savings and $52,000 in benefits to potential crime victims (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006). Implementing Best Practice With more than 10 years of solid evidence now available regarding what does and does not work in preventing juvenile delinquency and reducing recidivism, jurisdictions should be adopting an evidence-based approach to implementing new programs. Taking this approach will prevent wasted lives, save taxpayer dollars, and protect communities from unnecessary crime victimization. Cost-benefits studies conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP), summarized in the far right-hand column of Table 23.1, indicate that many evidence-based programs, such as FFT, MST, and MTFC can produce savings on the order of 5 to 10 times their cost (Aos, Miller, & Drake, 2006; Drake, Aos, & Miller, 2009). When confronted with a projected requirement to build two additional prisons, the Washington State legislature asked WSIPP to estimate how a substantial increase in spending on evidence-based programs would affect projected prison bed requirements. The analysis, published in 2006, showed that doubling current investments in high-quality programs could eliminate the need for additional prison capacity (Aos, Miller & Drake, 2006). Before a jurisdiction begins identifying successful programs, it must first determine whether there are any gaps in the service and quality of its existing programs. A service gap indicates a lack of suitable treatment options for a particular type of youth; a quality gap indicates a lack of sufficient evidence-based programming. After completing this audit, a jurisdiction can follow one of two basic strategies to identify

487 X

X

Project Toward No Drug Abuse

X

X

Life Skills Training (LST)

SUBSTANCE USE

X

X

Multisystemic Therapy (MST)

Prevention of substance abuse provided in middle school classrooms Prevention of substance abuse aimed at high school youth

Intervention administered by therapist to family and provides assistance with other systems

Intervention administered by trained staff to improve moral reasoning, aggression, and anger management

X

X

38.2% reduction in recidivism for mothers 15.7% reduction in recidivism for children

Outcomes

22% prevalence reduction in 30-day marijuana use 26% prevalence reduction in 30-day hard drug use

50%–75% reduction in tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use

7.7% reduction in recidivism

8.3% reduction in recidivism

17.9% reduction in recidivism

Intervention administered by 18.1% reduction in recidivism therapist in-home focusing on family motivation, engagement and problem solving

Prevention program administered by registered nurses to at-risk mothers in home

Aggression Replacement Training (ART)

X

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC)

X

X

Intervention administered by specially trained foster parents taking teen into their home; therapy for biological parents

X

Functional Family Therapy (FFT)

X

Description

X

X

Nurse-Family Partnership

DELINQUENCY and RECIDIVISM

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

Source of Rating

Costs

$22,058

$23,933

$95,879

$52,156

$4,364

$918

$6,926

$2,380

$27,092.00 $6,336

Benefits

(continued)

$17,694.00

$23,015.00

$88,953.00

$49,776.00

$20,756.00

Benefit Minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

Programs in the PROVEN category are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior in at least two trials, using strong research designs.

Table 23.1. List of Evidence-Based Crime and Violence Prevention and Intervention Practices

PROVEN PROGRAMS

488

X

X

Olweus Anti-Bullying Program

Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS)

X

X

The Incredible Years

Source of Rating

About 33% less likely than control youth to hit someone

Outcomes

Prevention administered by parents and teachers to reduce antisocial behavior

Prevention promoting emotional and social competencies among elementary school children

Reductions in peer aggression in the classroom Reductions in conduct problems at home and school

Decreased report of conduct problems, including aggression Increased ability to tolerate frustration

Prevention administered by school Reduction in reports of bullying staff using school-wide, classrooms and victimization Reduction in general antisocial individual components behavior such as vandalism, fighting, theft, and truancy

Prevention using volunteers as mentors for youth from single parent homes

Description Benefits

Costs

Benefit Minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

Programs in the PROVEN category are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior in at least two trials, using strong research designs.

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR

PROVEN PROGRAMS

Table 23.1. (Continued)

489

X

Group counseling

X

X

X X

Family counseling

Social skills training

X

Teen court

Mixed counseling

X

X

Counseling/psychotherapy

Pre-K education for low-income families

Prevention or intervention using case manager or case team to develop service plan and arranges services for juvenile

X

Case management

Prevention or intervention: teaching social skills

Prevention or intervention: combination of individual, group, and/or family Intervention for juvenile offenders in which they are sentenced by their peers Prevention or intervention: family counseling

Prevention providing high-quality early childhood education

Prevention or intervention: individual counseling

Prevention or intervention using mentoring by volunteer or paraprofessional

X

26% reduction in recidivism (Lipsey) 11% reduction in recidivism (WSIPP)

Outcomes

13% reduction in recidivism

13% reduction in recidivism

14% reduction in recidivism

16% reduction in recidivism

16.6% reduction in recidivism

16.6% reduction in recidivism (WSIPP) 5% reduction in recidivism (Lipsey)

20% reduction in recidivism

21% reduction in recidivism

Prevention or intervention that 22% reduction in recidivism awards selected behaviors Prevention or intervention using 22% reduction in recidivism group counseling led by a therapist Prevention or intervention: 21.1% reduction in recidivism graduation from high school

Prevention or intervention using structured goal setting, planning, and practice

Description

X

Mentoring

X

X

X

Behavioral programs

High school graduation

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

Source of Rating

$16,908

$15,461

Benefits

$937

$612

Costs

(continued)

$15,971.00

$14,849.00

Benefit Minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

STRATEGIES in the PROVEN category are generic program strategies that have been found to reduce recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior in rigorous meta-analysis.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

DELINQUENCY and RECIDIVISM

PROVEN STRATEGIES

490

X X

X X X X

Family crisis counseling

Mediation

Multiple coordinated services

Restorative justice for low-risk offenders

Academic training

Service broker

X X

X

Mixed counseling with referral

Job-related interventions

Peer counseling

Diversion with services

X

Restitution

Sex offender treatment

X

X

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP Description

Outcomes

Intervention using citizen accountability boards and counseling compared to court supervision

Prevention or intervention: peer group plays therapeutic role

Intervention: offender provides financial compensation to victim and/or community service Intervention: supplementary referrals for other services Prevention or intervention: vocational counseling, job placement, training

Benefits

10% reduction in recidivism

10% reduction in recidivism

3.1% reduction in recidivism

4% reduction in recidivism

6% reduction in recidivism

8% reduction in recidivism

9% reduction in recidivism

$57,504

10% reduction in recidivism (Lipsey) $9,609 8% reduction in recidivism (WSIPP)

12% reduction in recidivism

12% reduction in recidivism

12% reduction in recidivism

Intervention using a cognitive9.7% reduction in recidivism behavioral approach specifically for juvenile sex offenders

Intervention using referrals for juvenile services with minimal role afterward

Prevention or intervention: tutoring, GED programs, etc.

Intervention where offender apologizes to victim and meets under supervision Intervention providing a package of multiple services to juveniles Intervention using victim–offender conferences and restitution

Prevention or intervention: shortterm family crisis counseling

12% reduction in recidivism Prevention or intervention: provide opportunities for experimental learning by mastering tasks

$8,702.00

$33,842 $23,662.00

$907

Costs

Benefit Minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

STRATEGIES in the PROVEN category are generic program strategies that have been found to reduce recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior in rigorous meta-analysis. Source of Rating

Challenge programs

PROVEN STRATEGIES

Table 23.1. (Continued)

491 X

X

X

X

Project Northland

Strengthening Families

Strong African American Families Program

X

CASASTART

SUBSTANCE USE

Behavioral Monitoring and Reinforcement Program

Parent–Child Interaction Therapy

X

X

Guiding Good Choices

X

X

TeamChild

X

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

Source of Rating

Lower rates of alcohol initiation 30–60% relative reductions in alcohol use and being drunk Reduced initiation of alcohol use and slowed increase in use over time Developed stronger youth protective factors

Prevention of substance abuse using a family-based approach in African American families

Decreased tendencies to use alcohol Less alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use

Less likely to report use of any drugs, gateway drugs, or stronger drugs Lower levels of violent crime Less likely to be involved in drug sales

Less self-reported delinquency, school-based problems, and unemployment Fewer county court records than peers

5.1% reduction in recidivism

7.2% reduction in recidivism

9.7% reduction in recidivism

10.2% reduction in recidivism

15.7% reduction in recidivism

Outcomes

Prevention using a family-based approach to improve communication and relationships

Intervention implemented throughout the community to reduce substance abuse

Prevention combining case management services, afterschool and summer activities

Prevention program focusing on restructuring the parent-child bond Prevention implemented in schools redirecting at-risk juveniles from delinquency

Intervention administered by parents and teachers using social control and social learning Intervention for the reentry of juveniles with mental illness and substance abuse Intervention: Attorneys advocate on behalf of juvenile for education, treatment, housing Prevention: family-focused improvement of parenting skills

Description

$54,045

Benefits

$9,970

Costs

(continued)

$44,753.00

Benefit minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

Programs in the PROMISING PROGRAMS category are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce delinquency and recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior by using a strong research design, but outcomes have not yet been replicated.

Family Integrated Transitions (FIT)

Seattle Social Development Project

DELINQUENCY and RECIDIVISM

PROMISING PROGRAMS

492 X

X

X

X

FAST Track

1 CAN PROBLEM SOLVE

Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT)

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

Source of Rating

Description

Outcomes

Less aggressive and shy behaviors Better peer nominations of aggressive behavior Reduction in levels of aggression for males Significant reductions in conduct disorder and socialized aggression

30% reduction in initiation of marijuana use 60% reduction in current marijuana use

Prevention school-based program increasing prosocial behavior

Decrease in physical aggression on the playground Significant increase in positive social skills and classroom behavior

Intervention administered by a therapist improving family interactions Prevention to improve family and Better overall ratings by observers peer relationships in the classroom on children’s aggressive, disruptive, and oppositional behavior in the and at home classroom. Prevention school-based program Less impulsive and inhibited teaching social problem solving classroom behavior Better problem-solving skills

Prevention using behavior modification aimed at reducing disruptive behavior in the classroom

Prevention of substance abuse implemented in the classroom

Benefits

Costs

Benefit minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

Programs in the PROMISING PROGRAMS category are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce delinquency and recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior by using a strong research design, but outcomes have not yet been replicated.

Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT)

Good Behavior Game

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Project ALERT

PROMISING PROGRAMS

Table 23.1. (Continued)

493 X

Regular surveillence-oriented parole

Discipline

Scared Straight

X

X

Intensive parole supervision

X

X

Intensive probation supervision

Deterrence

X

Intensive probation

No reduction in recidivism

No reduction in recidivism

Intervention using prison inmates to confront first-time offenders about the downside of criminal life Intervention teaching discipline to succeed and avoid reoffending

8% increase in recidivism

6.1% increase in recidivism

Intervention dramatizing the 2% increase in recidivism negative consequences of behavior

Intervention using more than the usual contacts Intervention involving post-release monitoring

Intervention using more than the usual contacts

X

Court supervision

No reduction in recidivism

Intervention emphasizing drill, No reduction in recidivism teamwork, etc. Intervention using court No reduction in recidivism supervision compared to releasing juvenile without services Intervention using more than usual No reduction in recidivism contact compared to incarceration

X

Boot camps

STRATEGIES

Intervention using a peer group to No reduction in recidivism promote prosocial and restructure peer interaction

X

Guided group interaction

No significant impact on use of alcohol, tobacco, or illicit drugs

Outcomes

Prevention school-based substance abuse program using uniformed police officers

Description

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP

$17,410

$0

$0

$0

Benefits

$60

$1,237

$6,670

$1,650

Costs

(continued)

$17,470.00

$1,237.00

$6,670.00

$1,650.00

Benefit minus Cost

Programs and strategies in the INEFFECTIVE category are those that do not reduce recidivism or risk factors or have an adverse outcome. Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available) Source of Rating

Drug Abuse Resistance Training (DARE)

PROGRAMS

INEFFECTIVE

494

X

X

Communities That Care (CTC)

Tracking outcomes

X

X

Longer duration of treatment

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Top Blueprints Lipsey Tier WSIPP Description

Dosage matters: Too few sessions can be ineffective Prevention forming coalition, determining needs, selecting programs Track outcomes particularly when implementing strategies

More needs, more room for improvement, higher costs of failure

Having procedure to ensure staff stick to protocol improves outcomes

Outcomes

Benefits

Costs

Benefit minus Cost

Cost-Benefit Analysis (if available)

Each of these PRINCIPLES improves outcomes regardless of program or strategy content. Source of Rating

Focus on high-risk youth

FIDELITY: Integrity of treatment implementation

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION

Table 23.1. (Continued)

Establishing Effective Community-Based Care in Juvenile Justice

successful programs. It can follow the Blueprints recommendations and replace existing programs with the Blueprints proven brand models. Or it can use meta-analysis findings as a guide to improve existing programs. The steps involved and financing required for these two approaches are quite different, with the Blueprints approach being the costlier and more intense of the two because of the training, technical assistance, and licensing costs involved. If a jurisdiction opts to implement the Blueprints approach to fill a service gap, for example, in family counseling, it should begin by selecting the program model that best fits both the clients to be served and the capabilities of the agency and staff that will provide the service. In addition to carefully reviewing the Blueprints publication describing the model, the jurisdiction will need to speak with representatives of the model developer, as well as other agencies that have also adopted it. Those considering FFT or MST will find that FFT is less expensive on an individual case-by-case basis, less demanding in terms of therapist qualifications, and a little more flexible in how it is implemented. The second step is to arrange for training. Most developers of the Blueprints model programs have established organizations to provide training, technical assistance, oversight, and certification to sites adopting their model. Most require applicants to meet a number of qualifying conditions before being considered for implementation. Initial training fees for FFT and MST can range from $20,000 to more than $50,000, and annual licensing fees can cost more than $100,000 a year. Some developers offer training on a regular schedule in one or two locations. Others will send their trainers to the applicant’s site if a sufficient number of staff needs to be trained. The waiting period for training may be as long as six to nine months.

495

Once training has been scheduled, the third step is to designate or hire appropriate staff. Many agencies make the mistake of selecting and training staff who are not comfortable with the requirements of the program and do not last long in the job. Some programs require only one type of staff, such as a family therapist, while others require several different types, such as case manager, skills trainer, and family therapist. The fourth step is to “sell” the program to potential customers and agency personnel. Without a strong champion within the host agency, a demanding new program has little chance of ever getting off the ground. The fifth step is to heed the recommendation of most model developers and arrange for ongoing monitoring and feedback, usually by having weekly phone conferences to discuss cases or by reviewing videotapes of project staff in action. The final step, implementing a quality assurance mechanism, usually involves questionnaires or observational rating sheets to assess the fidelity of the program to the original model. If a jurisdiction opts for the meta-analytic approach (see Lipsey, 1992, 2006, 2009; Landenberger & Lipsey, 2005; Wilson & Lipsey, 2007, for examples) to improve the effectiveness of its programs, the first step is to identify the programs to be assessed. The second is to identify key elements of each program (intervention methods, duration, staff qualifications, setting, etc.) and compare them with the “best practice” standards identified by meta-analysis. The third step is to determine the average effect size the combination of elements for each program has produced in previous evaluations. Howell and Lipsey (2004) have used this approach with the states of North Carolina and Arizona to rate all of the programs these states fund.

496

WORKING

If the expected effects of a program are small because it lacks evidence-based elements, an agency can consider adding strategies or principles from Table 23.1, which would raise the anticipated effectiveness. For instance, a residential program containing no evidence-based elements can be made more effective by adding cognitive-behavioral therapy or aggression replacement training. Likewise, a community supervision program with no evidence-based elements can be made more effective by adding a family therapy or a parent training component. After selecting an evidence-based program, an agency should adopt and implement a validated risk assessment instrument that can provide a basis for assigning youth to specific programs, for comparing the effectiveness of alternative programs in treating similar youth, and for measuring the progress of individual youth. These instruments are readily available from a number of vendors, some of whom offer training in using the instrument as well as in online data entry and analysis (Mulvey & Iselin, 2008; Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 2006). The next step in developing an evidencebased practice is to develop a way to assign youth to the most appropriate program, taking into account all the relative costs and differences in effectiveness of each program. Whenever uncertainty exists about which program particular types of youth should be assigned to, an evaluation should be conducted to determine which of the competing alternatives is best. Finally, once programs have been implemented, they must be monitored to ensure that they follow the program model as intended. Vendors of many proven programs have developed their own fidelity measurement instruments. Locally developed

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programs will require local development of such instruments.

A CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATION: DEVELOPING A LIST OF WHAT WORKS The first step for any funding agency that decides to adopt an evidence-based approach to its mission is to settle on a list of evidencebased programs and strategies that it is prepared to support, with both funding and technical assistance. This is the approach adopted by the states of Washington, Florida, Pennsylvania, and many counties. The development of such a list draws a clear line between programs that will be considered evidence based, and those that will not. For example, the California Governor’s Office of Gang and Youth Violence Policy estimated that the state currently spends more than $1.5 billion annually combating gang and youth violence, without any evidence that these funds are having an impact (Seave, 2010). The Office decided to develop a list of programs and strategies that were known to work and could serve as a guide to counties in how to spend their violence prevention money. To develop the ranked list of evidencebased practices and to better understand the challenges of implementation, two groups were formed: The Expert Review Panel and Stakeholders Working Group. The Expert Review Panel, consisting of Steve Aos, deputy director of WSIPP; Mark Lipsey, director of the Peabody Research Institute at Vanderbuilt University and cochair of the Campbell Collaboration; and Richard Catalano, director of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington, was established to provide the best possible advice and

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experience in ranking programs. These individuals have been involved in the identification of proven and promising evidence-based practices for more than 10 years, and are considered the leaders in the field. The Stakeholders Working Group, consisting of several chief probation officers, academics, and representatives from other state funding agencies, was convened by the Governor’s Office of Gang and Youth Violence Policy in order to understand current evidence-based practices and to discuss the particular needs of probation departments in implementation. The programs and strategies reviewed for the purposes of creating a ranked list of evidence-based practices for the Governor’s Office of Gang and Youth Violence Policy are those generated by the sources discussed in this chapter, drawing on different sets of evaluations reviewers that appear to be the most rigorous and reliable covering this field: (a) The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy; (b) Blueprints for Violence Prevention; (c) work published by Mark Lipsey, PhD; and (d) the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. These sources and individuals were chosen because they employ a rigorous scientific standard of evaluation, and focus primarily on delinquency, violence and substance abuse. Although popular, the list published by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP; Mihalic et al., 2002) was specifically not used because its lack of rigor has led to the listing of programs that are not supported by evidence meeting the most minimal standards. Rating Evidence-Based Practices Evidence-based programs and strategies are ranked here (see Table 23.1) by evidence of effectiveness and degree to which the program

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or strategy has been replicated or could be replicated using the findings and conclusions in the above-referenced sources. The rankings used are: &

&

&

&

&

Proven Programs are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce delinquency and recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior in at least two trials by using a strong research design. Proven Strategies are generic strategies that have been shown through rigorous meta-analysis to reduce recidivism. Promising Programs are brand name programs that have been shown to reduce delinquency and recidivism, substance use, and/or antisocial behavior by using a strong research design, but outcomes have not yet been replicated. Proven Principles of Effectiveness are generalized principles that appear to increase effectiveness across the spectrum of programs and strategies. Proven Ineffective are those programs and strategies that have been shown to not reduce recidivism or substance use, or have an adverse outcome.

The ranked list of evidence-based crime and violence prevention practices that resulted from the work in California (Table 23.1) is organized into the five categories described above. Each category contains either brand name programs and/or strategies derived from lists published by the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy (Top Tier), Blueprints, WSIPP, and Lipsey’s meta-analysis (2009). Programs or strategies that can be found on one of these lists, but not found in Table 23.1, were omitted either because the evaluations were outdated or because a program or

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strategy was not evaluated for crime or risk factor effects and outcomes. For the purposes of this project, risk factors for future criminal conduct or delinquency refer to substance abuse and antisocial behavior, such as aggression and disruptive or oppositional behavior. For example, of the six Top Tier programs identified to date, Nurse–Family Partnership, Life Skills Training, and MTFC are the only programs with an established effect on crime and recidivism, and therefore, are the only Top Tier programs considered in this project. Within each category, programs and/or strategies are divided into three sections when applicable: delinquency and recidivism, substance use, and antisocial behavior. The categories of Promising Strategies and Proven Ineffective are not divided because they share the same outcome measure, namely, effect on recidivism (excluding DARE). For purposes of organization, the Proven Ineffective category is divided into program and strategies. When effect on recidivism data is the only outcome listed, programs and strategies were organized from highest reduction in recidivism to lowest within the respective category. Additionally, for each program or strategy the following is provided: &

&

Source of rating. This column indicates from which of the four list(s) the program or strategy derives. The program or strategy may be noted on multiple lists. In those cases a brief summary of effects and outcomes from each source is listed. Description. A brief description of the program or strategy is provided for quick reference. Each description identifies the program or strategy as prevention or intervention and identifies who implements the program or strategy and where it is implemented.

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&

&

The list will be produced in a Webbased version, which will allow the reader to drop-down a more expansive description, however, it is suggested that the reader refer directly to the source of rating for a full description of the program or strategy. Outcomes. Each program and strategy has at least one outcome listed in this column. Generally, the outcome of interest is the effect (if any) on the rate of recidivism. This number is reported as an average percentage reduction in recidivism after a program or strategy is implemented. When recidivism outcomes are not available, other outcomes, such as effects on substance abuse and antisocial behavior, will be listed. Due to limited space, in some cases only a few outcomes are listed. Information about additional outcomes can be obtained by consulting the original source of the ratings. Cost-benefit analysis. When calculated and evaluated by WSIPP (the one source of the four that analyzed cost-benefit), cost-benefit analysis is provided for each program or strategy. Benefits are calculated based on costs paid by taxpayers (for law enforcement, courts, juvenile detention services, etc.) and those suffered by crime victims (monetary and quality of life losses). Costs were estimated based on offender participation in a program or strategy versus not participating. (See www.wsipp.wa.gov for more on the WSIPP’s cost-benefit analysis.)

The next step in this process for California will be funding statewide technical assistance

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for some of the more popular programs and strategies. This has already begun with ART. A subsequent step will be the development of language to be inserted in upcoming requests for proposals that will provide incentives for counties to propose adopting the more highly rated programs on the list.

CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES TO IMPLEMENTING EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE Despite more than 10 years of research on the nature and benefits of evidence-based programs, such programming is the exception rather than the rule. Only about 5% of youth who should be eligible for evidence-based programs participate in one (Hennigan et al., 2007). One reason for this slow progress is the general lack of accountability for performance within the juvenile justice system, or even any ability to measure outcomes. Only rarely does a jurisdiction take delinquency prevention and intervention seriously enough to measure the outcome of its efforts. Rather, it tends to evaluate agencies on how well they meet standards for protecting the health and safety of their charges and preventing runaways or incidents requiring restraints. Without the availability of data on rearrests or high school graduation rates, which could be easily collected by public officials, there is little pressure on agency officials to improve their performance (see Butts & Roman, Chapter 24, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). A second challenge is a lack of funding. Implementing evidence-based programs, especially the Blueprints models, is expensive. Training a single team of therapists and their supervisor can cost more than $25,000. The agency may have to hire new staff who meet

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higher credentialing standards, before start-up without any revenue to cover their costs. State and local agencies have a difficult time finding that kind of funding even in good economic times, no less in times such as the present. Even after referrals to the program begin, it may still take time for the flow of cases to fully occupy all the staff charged to the program. To fund start-up activities, some states have set up grant mechanisms, for which local communities compete. Some jurisdictions seek grants from state or federal agencies. Even after an evidence-based program is implemented, it may be hard to find funds to continue its operation. Most of the savings from effective programs accrue to the state in the form of lower corrections costs. If some of these anticipated savings are not passed down to the local entities that must fund the programs, they may have trouble competing for scarce local funding against better-established programs. Some sites have solved this problem by working with state licensing officials to ensure adequate funding and reimbursement rates from Medicaid, Mental Health, or other federally subsidized funding streams (Hanlon, May, & Kaye, 2008). Another major problem is resistance from staff. It is one matter to sell the director of an agency on the value of evidence-based programs. It is quite another to convince the staff who must adopt the new behaviors, because they have spent their whole career developing their own intuitive approaches. When they begin the training, they are reluctant to admit that someone at some distant university has come up with a better approach than theirs. As in all cognitive-behavioral therapy, there is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when they start applying new methods. It just does not feel right. And, indeed, some staff never overcome this initial resistance and must be shifted to other programs.

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A different question is whether an agency has the competence or capacity to take on a Blueprints program. Some of these programs are very demanding in terms of staff qualifications, supervision, information systems, and quality assurance. Often, program developers find that an applicant agency needs a year or two to develop the capacity even to begin the first steps of implementing their model.

CONCLUSIONS Over the past decade, researchers from a variety of disciplines have identified or developed an array of intervention strategies and specific program models demonstrated to be effective in reducing delinquency and promoting more prosocial development. They have developed a variety of training methods and other technical assistance to help others replicate these successful methods. They have accumulated evidence that many of these programs are cost effective, returning more than 5 times their cost in future taxpayer savings. Evidence also confirms that the general public overwhelmingly prefers treatment and rehabilitation over confinement and punishment for juvenile offenders. Still, only about 5% of the youth who could benefit from these improved programs now have the opportunity to do so. Juvenile justice options in many communities remain mired in the same old tired options of custodial care and community supervision. In the long run, the authority of science may well win out, and the necessary changes will occur. But the authority of science is undermined on a daily basis by those who refuse to distinguish between fact and opinion. Every year of delay in implementing evidencebased reforms consigns another cohort of juvenile offenders to a 50% higher than necessary recidivism rate.

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Practitioners working with juvenile offenders and at-risk youth will have to be trained and monitored to ensure that they are delivering services in the most appropriate and prescribed manner. Achieving the consistency and fidelity that effective programs appear to require will necessitate new ways of supervising and managing those who have direct contact with youth and their families. Shifting from a management focus on preventing abuse or infractions to one that empowers employees to provide effective services to their clients is going to be a major struggle. Those who wish to develop or promote new methods of intervention will have to learn how to play by the new set of rules and protocols that have made possible the programming advances of the past decade. Programs can no longer be promoted for wide-scale dissemination until they have been proven effective by a rigorous evaluation. None of these challenges is impossible. Efforts to expand the use of Blueprints programs in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington have been under way for several years now, with considerable success. Both North Carolina and Arizona have undertaken efforts in collaboration with Lipsey to evaluate all their programs (e.g., Howell & Lipsey, 2004). Hundreds of communities have adopted and implemented proven program models and are reaping the benefits of reduced delinquency and lower system costs. The challenge now is to move beyond these still relatively few early adopters and push these reforms into the mainstream of juvenile justice.

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Butts, J. A., Buck, J., & Coggeshall, M. B. (2002). Impact of teen court on young offenders. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Chamberlain, P., Fisher, P. A., & Moore, K. J. (2002). Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care: Applications of the OSLC intervention model to high-risk youth and their families. In J. B. Reid, G. R. Patterson, & J. Snyder (Eds.), Antisocial behavior in children: Developmental theories and models for intervention (pp. 203–218). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Chamberlain, P., & Mihalic, S. F. (1998). Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care: Blueprints for violence prevention, book eight. Blueprints for Violence Prevention Series (D. S. Elliott, Series Editor). Boulder: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado. Chamberlain, P., Price, J., Leve, L. D., Laurent, H., Landsverk, J. A., & Reid, J. B. (2008). Prevention of behavior problems for children in foster care: Outcomes and mediation effects. Prevention Science, 9, 17–27. Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. (2010). Evidence summary for the nurse–family partnership. Retrieved from http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads//NFP-updated-summary-forrelease-Jan2010 .pdf Coatsworth, J. D., Santisteban, D., McBride, C., & Szapocznik, J. (2001). Brief strategic family therapy versus community control: Engagement, retention, and an exploration of the moderating role of adolescent symptom severity. Family Process, 40, 313–332. Drake, E. K., Aos, S., & Miller, M. G. (2009). Evidencebased public policy options to reduce crime and criminal justice costs: Implications in Washington State. Victims & Offenders, 4(2), 170–196. Eckenrode, J., Campa, M., Luckey, D. W., Henderson, C. R., Jr., Cole, R., Kitzman, H., . . . Powers, D. (2010). Long-term effects of prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation on the life course of youths: 19-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 164(1), 9–15. Elliott, D. (Ed.). (1996). Blueprints for violence prevention series. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Farrington, D. P., & Welsh, B. C. (2007). Saving children from a life of crime: Early risk factors and effective interventions. New York, NY: Oxford University.

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Ferrara, M. L. (1991). Group counseling with juvenile delinquents: The limit and lead approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fisher, P., Chamberlain, P., & Leve, L. (2009). Care matters: Improving the lives of foster children through evidence-based interventions. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 4(2), 122–127. Gendreau, P., & Andrews, D. A. (1996). Correctional Program Assessment Inventory (CPAI) (6th ed.). Saint John, NB: University of New Brunswick. Glick, B. (1996). Aggression Replacement Training in children and adolescents. The Hatherleigh guide to child and adolescent therapy. The Hatherleigh guides series (Vol. 5, pp. 191–226). New York, NY: Hatherleigh Press. Glick, B. (2003). Aggression replacement training—A comprehensive intervention for aggressive youth. In B. K. Schwartz (Ed.), Correctional psychology: Practice, programming, and administration. (pp. 1– 20). Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute. Goldstein, A., Glick, B., & Gibbs, J. (1998). Aggression replacement training: A comprehensive intervention for aggressive youth (rev. ed.). Champaign, IL: Research Press. Gottfredson, D. C., Wilson, D. B., & Najaka, S. S. (2002). School-based crime prevention. In L. W. Sherman (Ed.), Evidence-based crime prevention (pp. 56–164). London, England: Routledge. Greenwood, P. W. (2004). Cost-effective violence prevention through targeted family interventions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1036, 201–214. Greenwood, P.W. (2006). Changing lives: Delinquency prevention as crime control policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Greenwood, P. W. (2008). Prevention and intervention programs for juvenile offenders: The benefits of evidence based practice. Future of Children, 18(1), 185–210. Griffin, K. W., Botvin, G. J., & Nichols, T. R. (2006). Effects of a school-based drug abuse prevention program for adolescents on HIV risk behaviors in young adulthood. Prevention Science, 7, 103–112. Hanlon, C., May, J., & Kaye, N. (2008). A Multi-agency approach to using Medicaid to meet the mental health needs of juvenile justice-involved youth. Washington, DC: National Academy for State Health Policy. Healey, K. M. (1999). Case management in the criminal justice system. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.

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Henggeler, S. W., Clingempeel, W. G., Brondino, M. J., & Pickrel, S. G. (2002). Four-year follow-up of multisystemic therapy with substance abusing and dependent juvenileoffenders.Journalofthe AmericanAcademy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 868–874. Henggeler, S. W., Cunningham, P. B., Pickrel, S. G., Schoenwald, S. K., & Brondino, M. J. (1996). Multisystemic therapy: An effective violence prevention approach for serious juvenile offenders. Journal of Adolescence, 19, 47–61. Henggeler, S. W., Halliday-Boykins, C. A., Cunningham, P. B., Randall, J., Shapiro, S. B., & Chapman, J. E. (2006). Juvenile drug court: Enhancing outcomes by integrating evidence-based treatments. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(1), 42–54. Henggeler, S. W., Schoenwald, S. K., Borduin, C. M., Rowland, M. D., & Cunningham, P. B. (1998). Multisystemic treatment of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Hennigan, K., Kolnick, K., Poplawski, J., Andrews, A., Ball, N., Cheng, C., & Payne, J. (2007). Juvenile Justice Data Project phase 1: Survey of interventions and programs: A continuum of graduated responses for juvenile justice in California. Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Center for Research on Crime. Howell, J. C., & Lipsey, M. W. (2004). A practical approach to evaluating and improving juvenile justice programs. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 55(1), 35–48. Joanning, H., Quinn, W., Thomas, F. & Mullen, R. (1992). Treating adolescent drug abuse: A comparison of family systems therapy, group therapy, and family drug education. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 18, 345–356. Landenberger, N. A., & Lipsey, M. W. (2005). The positive effects of cognitive-behavioral programs for offenders: A meta-analysis of factors associated with effective treatment. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 1(4), 451–476. Latessa, E. J., Listwan, S. J., & Hubbard, D. J. (2005). Correctional interventions: Changing offender behavior. Boston, MA: Roxbury. Letourneau, E. J., Henggeler, S. W., Schewe, P. A., Borduin, C. M., McCart, M. R., Chapman, J. E., & Saldana, L. (2009). Multisystemic therapy for juvenile sexual offenders: 1-year results from a randomized effectiveness trial. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 89–102.

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Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. (2007). A randomized evaluation of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care: Effects on school attendance and homework completion in juvenile justice girls. Research on Social Work Practice, 17, 657–663. Lipsey, M. W. (1992). Juvenile delinquency treatment: A meta-analytic inquiry into the variability of effects. In T. D. Cook, H. Harper, D. A. Condray, H. Hartman, L. V. Hodges, R. J. Light, T. A. Louis, & F. Mosteller (Eds.), Meta-analysis for explanation: A casebook (pp. 83–127). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Lipsey, M. W. (2006). The effects of community-based group treatment for delinquency: A meta-analytic search for cross-study generalizations. In K. A. Dodge, T. J. Dishion, & J. E. Lansford (Eds), Deviant peer influences in programs for youth: Problems and solutions (Chapter 9, pp. 162–184). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Lipsey, M. W. (2009). The primary factors that characterize effective interventions with juvenile offenders: A meta-analytic overview. Victims and Offenders, 4, 124–147. Lipsey, M. W., & Derzon, J. H. (1998). Predictors of violent and serious delinquency in adolescence and early adulthood. In R. Loeber & D. P. Farrington (Eds.), Serious and violent juvenile offenders (pp. 86– 105). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lipsey, M. W., Landenberger, N.A., & Wilson, S.J. (2007). Effects of cognitive-behavioral programs for criminal offenders. Center for Evaluation Research and Methodology, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, The Campbell Collaboration Library. Lipsey, M. W., Wilson, D. B., Cothern, L. (2000). Effective intervention for serious juvenile offenders (pp 1–8). Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Lipton, D., Martinson, R., & Wilks, J. (1975). The effectiveness of correctional treatment: A survey of treatment evaluation studies. New York, NY: Praeger Press. Lundman, R. J. (2001). Prevention and control of juvenile delinquency (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mihalic, S., Fagan, A., Irwin, K, Ballard, D., & Elliott, D. (2002). Blueprints for violence prevention replications: Factors for implementation success. Boulder: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado-Boulder.

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Mulvey, E. P., & Iselin, A. R. (2008). Improving professional judgments of risk and amenability in juvenile justice. Future of Children, 18, 35–57. Olds, D. L. (2006). The nurse-family partnership: An evidence-based preventive intervention. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27(1), 5–25. Olds, D. L., Robinson, J., Pettitt, L., Luckey, D. W., Holmberg, J., Ng, R. K., . . . Henderson, C. R., Jr. (2004). Effects of home visits by paraprofessionals and by nurses: Age 4 follow-up results of a randomized trial. Pediatrics, 114(6), 1560–1568. Olweus, D. (2005). A useful evaluation design, and effects of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11, 389–402. Olweus, D., Limber, S., & Mihalic, S. F. (1999). Blueprints for violence prevention: Bullying prevention program. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. Quinsey, V. L., Harris, G. T., Rice, M., & Cormier, C. A. (2006). Violent offenders: Appraising and managing risk. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Reiss, A. J., & Roth, J. A. (1993). Understanding and preventing violence. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Rosenheim, M. K., Zimring, F. E., Tanenhaus, D. S., & Dohrn, B. (Eds.). (2002). A century of juvenile justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schweinhart, L. J., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Belfield, C. R., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The HighScope Perry Preschool study through age 40. Monographs of the HighScope Educational Research Foundation, 14. Ypsilanti, MI: HighScope Press. Seave, P. (2010). Message from the director. In P. Greenwood (Ed.), Preventing and reducing youth crime and violence: Using evidence-based practices. Sacramento, CA: Governor’s Office of Gang and Youth Violence Policy. Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: HoughtonMifflin. Sickmund, M. (2009). Delinquency cases in criminal court. In J. Slowikowski (Ed.), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention fact sheet. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (2006, March). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 National Report.

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problems. In J. Weisz & A. Kazdin (Eds.), Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents (2nd ed., pp. 194–210). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Wilson, S. J., & Lipsey, M. W. (2007). School-based interventions for aggressive and disruptive behavior: Update of a meta-analysis. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 33(Supplement 2), S130–S143.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Better Research for Better Policies J E F F R E Y A. B U T T S

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o do their jobs effectively, policy makers, professionals, and community partners must be able to access high-quality information about the impact of policies and programs for youth. Recent years have seen an increasing, and appropriate, focus on evidence-based policy. In setting priorities for funding and support, intervention programs demonstrated to be effective and efficient are preferred over programs that are well intentioned but untested by rigorous evaluation. An evidencebased approach is undeniably better than an approach based on faith or anecdotes, but the findings of existing evaluations are not sufficient by themselves as a basis for effective policy making. Translating research into practice requires more than a review of existing studies. It requires knowledge of the research process and its limitations. How do researchers generate evidence? What choices are involved in designing evaluation studies? Who sponsors research and how do they select one study over another? How do researchers and their funding bodies shape and interpret the results of research? Who disseminates research findings and how does the manner of presentation color the impact of information? A clear-eyed investigation of the entire evidence-generating process is an invaluable part of evidence-based policy. There is no such thing as a perfect study. Criticizing social science research takes very little effort. Human behavior is enormously complex and the study of human behavior is

fraught with challenges. Assessing the effect of these challenges is even more difficult due to the natural tendency of researchers to prefer positive findings to negative findings. Researchers typically work harder on factchecking negative results—especially those contrary to their beliefs—than they do examining positive results that may support those same beliefs. Negative findings are scoured for errors while positive findings are accepted more readily. This apparent imbalance might lead one to conclude that the deck should be stacked against making changes to policy and practice simply to avoid risk. Until researchers produce solid evidence of impact, according to this argument, policy makers should stick to convention. We think such an approach is a mistake. Almost no one with detailed knowledge of the juvenile justice system would argue that its current policies and programs offer the best possible strategy for community safety and youth well-being. The take-no-risks approach would create a bias toward the status quo, which we know does not do an adequate job of protecting youth, families, and communities. Policy makers must continue to invest in new solutions and they must do so using the best available evidence, but the absence of perfect evidence should never be an excuse for inaction. This chapter describes the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence-generating process as applied to juvenile justice. We begin by 505

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describing how research fits into the decisionmaking process. We then describe different types of research evidence and how to evaluate the validity of conclusions developed using various strategies and techniques, followed by a description of some of the common obstacles facing efforts to translate evidence into practice. We take up the complex challenges of evaluating changes in policy as opposed to programs and offer ideas for improving evidence-based decision making. Finally, we suggest some practical strategies for reporting research results more clearly and we consider how to support the role of evaluation in designing future policies and programs.

THE RESEARCH MARKETPLACE There is little doubt that research plays a role in the design of social policies and programs, including the selection of one juvenile crime prevention approach over another. There could be a debate, however, about the role that research should play in social policy. Most opinions on the matter fall between two extremes. At one end of the spectrum, it is possible to argue that the design of all policies and programs to address youth crime should be governed by research and that only “evidence-based” solutions merit the support of policy makers (Greenwood, 2006; see also Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume). A lesser standard, after all, risks the possibility of failed policies and wasted resources. At the opposite end of the spectrum, one might argue that research is imperfect and it should never be allowed to exert complete control over which policies and programs are selected for implementation (Schorr, 2009). Research funding and research designs are vulnerable to contamination by bias and institutional self-interest. An extreme

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adherent of such a perspective might assert that the most appropriate sources of inspiration for social policy are the values and preferences of the people and their elected representatives. The role of research is to test whatever policies are pursued by experts and by public officials, not to control the selection of those policies. Both extremes in such a debate, of course, would be impractical. Certainly, research and evaluation will always play some role in youth justice policy; just as certainly, that role will never be absolute or controlling. The design and implementation of policies and programs involves inevitable tension between values, beliefs, material incentives, and evidence. Managing this tension is a never-ending struggle that depends on the particular policy arena in which the debate occurs and on the motivations, abilities, and power of those engaged in the struggle. Public officials are always in favor of making decisions based on evidence. Like most human beings, however, they are usually interested in testing other people’s ideas. They are less interested in scrutinizing their own ideas, believing them to be in need of confirmation rather than investigation. Some policy ideas are never really tested. Ironically, it often seems that the largest questions of policy receive the least empirical examination. During the early years of the second Bush administration in the United States, for example, federal agencies were required to comply with a program of accountability using a procedure called PART (Program Assessment Rating Tool). Administered by the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the PART program directed federal departments to conduct research on their programs and initiatives with the understanding that funding would be cut or reduced for programs that did not meet certain effectiveness thresholds (Frisco & Stalebrink, 2008). The PART program was an ambitious

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effort to bring research-based accountability to the implementation and funding of federal programs. The standards were not always well conceived, however, and not all federal efforts were subjected to the standards in the same way. Social programs were far more likely to be targeted by PART than were military expenditures and foreign policy. The biggest policies are rarely subjected to the same level of evidentiary scrutiny imposed on social programs. Some decisions, in fact, must be made without evidence. No matter how creative and how fair a program of accountability research may be, there will never be sufficient resources for researchers to test all possible beliefs and all possible theories behind a particular policy. Given that evaluation research will never be sweeping and comprehensive, policy makers are forced (and sometimes may prefer) to make some choices without solid evidence. The very fact that research cannot address all policy questions suggests that the funding of research itself is an important part of the policy process. Policy makers engage in the creation of evidence when they decide where, when, and how to deploy the tools of research and evaluation. Which programs and policies should be tested through rigorous research, and which can be assessed using less rigorous methods? Who should be charged with conducting such research? What standards of evidence should be considered minimally acceptable, and who should judge whether specific types of evidence are good enough or persuasive enough to inform policy and practice? Who should be responsible for communicating the findings of research and disseminating research products? In particular, who is responsible for translating the findings of research to audiences outside the self-referential confines of the research community? If scrutinizing the effectiveness

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of social programs is to be more than an insider’s game, the findings of research have to be accessible to nontechnical audiences. These issues are resolved through the competition of ideas and influence. It would be na€ıve, however, to assume that the programs and policies at the top of the evidentiary hierarchy got there solely on their own merits and due to the strength of their outcomes. Policy makers and funding authorities select how and where to invest their limited resources for research. Ideally, their investments would be focused entirely on improving the quality of evidence for the formulation of policy and practice. At times, however, they are subject to broader social dynamics related to politics and economics. A rigorous research program on the impact of juvenile incarceration, for example, would likely reveal basic conflicts over the purposes of juvenile justice. The official policy is that we incarcerate juveniles to facilitate rehabilitation and to ensure public safety; the reality, of course, is more complex. Other factors, such as ideology, fear, anger, and fiscal incentives influence the use of incarceration. Confronting these influences would be disquieting to many policy makers. Thus, we invest more in research to compare the relative effects of various drug treatment approaches than we do measuring the impact of the massive and costly social program called incarceration. As policy makers decide how to invest in research, the cost of evaluation is a prominent concern but feasibility and salience are weighed heavily as well. A low-cost, highly feasible evaluation of a prominent policy issue is much more likely to attract funding and the support of decision makers than a high-cost, risky study of an issue that is less prominent or less understood by the public and by elected officials. Some research projects are more likely to be funded because they conform

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more easily to conventional ways of thinking about social problems. If simply asking a research question threatens powerful interests or institutions, the authorities charged with funding research projects are less likely to risk asking the question. Research helps to shape juvenile justice policy and delinquency prevention programs, but it does so through a complex marketplace of resources, ideas, values, and power.

TYPES OF RESEARCH All forms of research on social policy, including youth justice policies and programs, could be divided along two dimensions: accessibility and precision (see Figure 24.1). Investigative journalists, for example, conduct research and use data to tell a story. This form of research is not very precise, but it can be highly accessible with immediate impact. A small group of lawyers and journalists associated with the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in the United States has been working for nearly 20 years to investigate the inner workings of the criminal justice system in death penalty cases with the goal of freeing prisoners wrongly convicted. Their investigations require extensive data

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collection and analysis, but their methods and results are not technical. Almost anyone can read the work and appreciate its importance. This “research” has resulted in a number of high-profile exonerations and the related stories have documented the origins and impact of wrongful convictions in the U.S. justice system. The stories have prevented several executions and may have helped to alter public opinion about capital punishment. At the opposite end of the continuum, basic science research is often highly precise and targeted on clearly stated, empirical questions. These studies, however, often involve methodologies that require advanced training simply to understand, and they may address research questions that are not salient outside of a small, expert audience. Furthermore, many researchers in the social policy field write poorly. Even high-quality studies are sometimes presented using ponderous, dense language and complex scientific notation that is incompatible with popular consumption. The impact of their findings is often slow to develop at best. They must be translated into simpler language before they can be widely disseminated, and even then they may answer questions that few people care about. Basic science, however, is a critical part of the process that leads to effective policies and

Figure 24.1 Various Types of Research Involve a Trade-off Between Precision and Accessibility

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programs. Within the broader field of social research, it is often true that the people with the most advanced technical skills are found in academic institutions, where researchers are rewarded for pursuing the highly technical studies valued by the social sciences. Their work may be impenetrable to anyone outside their small peer group, and they may be incapable of describing their work to people who do not also share their vocabulary and reading list. Yet, when they are assisted by others who interpret their findings and translate them for a broader audience, basic science investigations can make profound contributions to the development of social policies and programs (see Table 24.1). One recent example is the rapidly growing knowledge of brain functioning that has been facilitated by basic science involving scanning technology (Casey, Tottenham, Liston, & Durston, 2005). The ability to create detailed images of the working brain once seemed rather esoteric, but by the end of the 20th century, applied researchers were using the technique to understand how the brains of adolescents are different from those of

adults. Science revealed that the brain of a 16year-old adolescent, while more advanced than the brain of a 10-year-old child, is not as developed as the brain of a 25-year-old adult. Using scanning technology in applied research made it possible for the first time to show non-technical audiences that cognitive development is a continuous process that does not end suddenly at age 14. The science had a powerful impact on behavioral researchers and on legal thinking in the field of adolescent development, even affecting the reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court when it banned the use of capital punishment for offenders who commit their crimes before age 18 (Scott & Steinberg, 2008). A second example of the effective application of basic science for policy and program development is related to the sociological concept of “collective efficacy” (e.g., Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999). The notion that neighborhood social organization and the structure of interlocking relationships can have an independent effect on social problems that are normally measured at the individual level arose from basic social science on

Table 24.1. Researchers, Audiences, and Methods Professional Group

Primary Audience

Self-Perceived Mission

Preferred Methods

Dissemination Outlets

Basic science researchers

Other researchers

Basic science, hypothesis testing, theory development

Primary data collection, complex analysis, technical writing

Peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences

Statistical policy analysts

Public officials

Evaluation, policy simulation, program demonstration, implementation science

Primary data collection, secondary data analysis, complex analysis, technical writing

Peer-reviewed journals, government publications, professional conferences

Program evaluators

Public officials and practitioners

Evaluation, program demonstration, effectiveness testing, problem solving

Primary data collection, secondary analysis of agency data, basic analysis, accessible writing

Government publications, client reports, professional conferences

Policy advocates

Public officials, practitioners, general public

Reform, policy change, program development

Minimal data analysis, story telling, highly accessible writing

Trade publications, news media

Journalists

General public

Public education, reform

Minimal data analysis, story telling, highly accessible writing

News media

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the formation of social capital and community capacity (Coleman, 1990; see also, Hawkins, Vashchenko, & Davis, Chapter 12, this volume). These findings helped to spark an entirely new direction in crime prevention policy (Browning, Feinberg, & Dietz, 2004; Mazerolle, Wickes, & McBroom 2010; Roman & Chalfin, 2008). Even nonscientists began to understand that criminal and delinquent behavior originates in social and community forces as well as in the individual characteristics of offenders. In between the obvious accessibility of journalism and the admirable precision of basic science, there are several forms of research that play important roles in the formulation of social policies and the design of social programs (see Table 24.1). Policy analysts focus their efforts on specific social interventions, and their work can be just as sophisticated and

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technically complex as the work of researchers pursuing basic science. The mission of policy analysts is to assess the implementation of policies and to conduct quantitative simulations of their likely impact. They may publish their work in academic journals, but they value dissemination in government publications and professional conferences just as much. Like basic science researchers, policy analysts can be very mathematical and their work can be technically complex. Their presentation style is not always accessible to mainstream audiences, but when the findings of policy analysts are translated for broad consumption they can have significant impact. One prominent instance of effective policy analysis involved an examination of the time of day when juvenile crime happens (see Figure 24.2). Beginning in the 1990s, a new type of law enforcement data made it possible

Figure 24.2 Unlike Crime by Adults, Juvenile Violent Crime Peaks in the Afternoon Hours

Source: Snyder and Sickmund, 2006.

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for the U.S. Department of Justice to sponsor studies of juvenile crime according to the time of day when offenses tend to occur. Researchers found that, unlike adults, violent crime by juveniles peaked in the afternoon rather than in the evening hours. After a graphic portrayal of this finding appeared in national newspapers, including the New York Times, it began to change the awareness of the public and to draw the support of policy makers for afterschool programming for youth. The work of another group of researchers, evaluators, is similar to that of policy analysts. Both types of research focus on the effects of policies and programs, but while policy analysis typically forecast future effects, evaluators often measure effects retrospectively (Brewer & deLeon, 1983). Evaluation research can be accessible to nontechnical audiences, although it requires advanced training. Evaluation researchers design their work to affect the understanding and actions of public officials and practitioners. Their work may involve primary data collection, but it often relies on the secondary analysis of agency data. Evaluations appear in government publications and client reports, but they may appear in the popular media as well, especially when the findings contradict conventional wisdom or when they address the impact of controversial or topical policies. One recent example of the power of evaluation on policy formation concerned the antidrugs program, DARE that was started by law enforcement and spread throughout the school systems of America. The first evaluation studies showed that DARE not only failed to reduce the use of drugs among students, it actually seemed to increase their interest in drugs and perhaps lessen their fear of using them (Ennett, Tobler, Ringwalt, & Flewelling, 1994). The ensuing controversy received plenty of media attention, and after an initial period of conflict, the founders of DARE changed their program

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model in an attempt to avoid future negative outcomes (Boyle, 2001). Another example of effective evaluation can be found in studies of the Nurse Home Visitation program (now the Nurse–Family Partnership). Established in the 1970s, the program works with first-time single mothers, mainly teenagers, to improve outcomes for those mothers and their children. Beginning during pregnancy and continuing into the baby’s second year, nurses regularly visit and provide guidance on nutrition and other health issues, as well as advice on parenting. By the 1980s, researchers were able to show that the program generated large, positive effects for both mothers and children (Olds, Henderson, Tatelbaum, & Chamberlin, 1988). In the ensuing years, the evidence had become so convincing that President Obama’s first federal budget included nearly $10 billion for states to implement or expand similar programs (Eckenrode et al., 2010; Olds et al., 2004; Olds et al., 2007). Evaluation research will always be an essential component in the development of social programs. While there is an academic field that focuses on the techniques of evaluation, and while evaluation researchers sometimes publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, evaluators are not always academics. Many professional evaluators work for government agencies, private research organizations, and consulting firms. They consider their audience to be the clients of their work (i.e., the agencies and programs they evaluate) as well as the general public.

JUDGING EVIDENCE At this point, it may be helpful to identity exactly what we mean by research and evidence. In our view, research refers to any systematic investigation that uses a predefined

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standard of quality to determine its methods and to govern the interpretation of evidence. The use of a predefined standard of quality is essential for distinguishing research from argument and speculation (or even fabrication). Ideally, a researcher will apply the highest possible standard in collecting and analyzing evidence to reach a conclusion. The appropriate standard of quality, however, may vary according to the type of research being conducted and the ways in which the findings are to be applied. Within the wide range of investigations that legitimately could be called research, quality standards might vary from sufficient, to persuasive, to exacting. Journalists conduct research, as do literary scholars and lawyers. In these investigations, an appropriate standard of proof may be mere sufficiency, or “a preponderance of the evidence,” or even “most experts agree.” A lawyer may research the content and history of prior court rulings, for instance, to identify an underlying legal logic that was never articulated in the original body of opinions. Legal investigations should not be excluded from the phenomenon we call research simply because they rely on text rather than numerical data, or because they use logic rather than statistics to reach their conclusions. An investigation of legal precedent, however, can also be similar to literary criticism. Some legal investigations may merit the label research, and some may not. Research evidence can take different forms. Some evidence originates from qualitative methods where the data are maintained in the form of stories or narratives and often begin with direct observation. Researchers may conduct interviews with elected officials and program staff and weave together a narrative about a program that identifies its critical components and draws inferences about its success. Qualitative studies have a clear role

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to play in the formation and assessment of delinquency prevention programs, but they rarely achieve the same policy impact as do quantitative, statistical studies. The most influential type of research in delinquency prevention involves quantitative data and statistical procedures. Here also, however, standards of evidence vary. Some quantitative research focuses on the discovery of basic empirical facts and the testing of hypotheses. Does family poverty accelerate school failure, for example, or is the prevalence of vacant buildings in a community associated with its violent crime rate? Other research is designed to inform immediate policy decisions. For instance, should governments fund juvenile drug treatment courts? Do family violence interventions work? Are the effects of preventive health education worth the money it takes to deliver the training? Studies of basic, empirical questions usually rely on statistical significance as their principal metric. Stated in terms of probability, or p values, a researcher might report that, indeed, family poverty is associated with school failure, and that the connection between the two concepts is so strong that there is less than a 1% probability (p < 0.01) that the statistical association could have occurred by chance alone. In other words, policy makers can be confident that such a finding points to something real and genuine. For example, say a particular study finds that the average annual income of youth who dropped out of school is 20% lower than the income of youth who stayed in school through graduation. If the statistical significance of this difference was described using a probability (or, p value) of less than one percent (i.e., p < .01), it would mean that the finding was very unlikely to be a fluke or coincidence. Statistical significance levels are traditionally stated in terms of the probability that a finding could be due to

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chance alone. Researchers choose an appropriate level of probability depending on relevant theory and the findings of previous studies that suggest the extent of statistical variation likely to be found. Traditionally, studies use probability values of 1%, 5%, or 10% to determine the significance of their results, but the particular threshold is set in advance. Research findings are characterized as either significant or not significant; they are not compared, with one finding being termed more or less significant than another. Statistical significance is not the only metric used by researchers, especially in evaluation studies. Significance is often not even the best way to assess the importance of a finding. Significance levels can be misconstrued. The level of significance associated with a particular finding is a function of several factors, but it is mainly derived from the absolute size of a difference in combination with the number of cases or observations (the N) used to establish that difference. Even a seemingly large difference (e.g., 80% of the youth in Group A were rearrested, but only 50% in Group B were) may fail to reach the level of statistical significance because the finding was generated with a very small sample. For example, the study may have collected data on just ten youth in each group. In contrast, even a small difference (e.g., 50% versus 53% recidivism) could be statistically significant if the data set being analyzed was sufficiently large. Few public officials, however, would want to risk their resources or their reputations on a difference of 3 percentage points, unless they could describe the difference in some other way, perhaps economically or in terms of individual public safety (e.g., number of crimes averted). Researchers who focus on statistical significance alone can fail to appreciate the substantive importance of a finding. It is not

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uncommon to hear investigators at academic conferences draw profound conclusions or policy implications from relatively minor differences that are “significant” mainly because they were found using very large data sets. Outside of academic discussions, however, such minor differences are seen as relatively unimportant. In the policy arena, “effect size” increasingly serves as an alternative to statistical significance. Effect size is often defined as the change in an outcome divided by its standard deviation, a traditional measure of statistical variation. Measures of effect size can be constructed in other ways as well, but all of the measures have a common function, which is to estimate the magnitude of a treatment effect given a specified level of intervention. A study might estimate the change in the prevalence of recent drug use among a sample of individuals following their participation in a new type of treatment, or researchers might measure change in the frequency of antisocial behavior in an entire community following the implementation of new juvenile curfew laws. Effect size, rather than statistical significance, is the primary language used to describe the benefits of social interventions. The “effect” of a delinquency program could be the change observed in an important indicator of client behavior (e.g., recidivism). One common way to gauge whether an effect is large or small is to compare the scale of change in recidivism to the mean or average recidivism rate among a population of interest. A program that reduces recidivism by 50% will generally have a larger effect size than a program that lowers recidivism by just 10%. However, percent change is very sensitive to the mean level of the outcome. When mean levels are small, such as when only 10% of a sample is expected to be rearrested in the first place, a change of just 3 percentage points

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(from 10% to 7%) would produce a relative change of 30%. Another way to gauge the size of an effect is to compare the scale of change with the natural variation of the key variable. For example, if recidivism for a particular group of youth was known to fluctuate between 5 and 90%, a change of 3 percentage points would seem trivial. On the other hand, if recidivism rarely varied outside a 5 percentage point range, for example from 45 to 50%, a program able to produce a consistent decline of 3 percentage points would likely have a very strong effect size. In practice, effect sizes for delinquency prevention programs usually fall between .30 (i.e., decreases the likelihood of delinquency) and þ.30 (i.e., increases the likelihood of delinquency). The most successful interventions usually have effect sizes between –0.10 and –0.30. In their summary of program evaluations, Aos, Phipps, Barnoski, and Lieb (2001) reported that Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) reduced crime on average by 22%, which translated to an effect size of –0.37 given the other figures involved. Another wellknown program, Multisystemic Therapy (MST), had an effect size of –0.31. Other programs with strong results have included nurse home visitation programs (–0.29), Functional Family Therapy (FFT) (–0.25), and the Seattle Social Development approach (–0.13) (Greenwood, 2006, p. 150; see also Greenwood & Turner, Chapter 23, this volume; Schiraldi, Schindler, & Goliday, Chapter 20, this volume). Judging the evidence of delinquency interventions according to effect size alone, however, could also be inappropriate in some cases. Programs with lesser effect sizes may still be valuable. Some programs merit the label “evidence-based” because they generate a positive return on investment. A program that costs very little can be a worthwhile investment even if it has a relatively small

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effect size. For example, the Perry Preschool Project is considered highly successful by researchers despite its smaller effect size of 0.10 (Greenwood, 2006). Programs such as the Perry Preschool Project, of course, are the exception. For the most part, effect sizes for delinquency interventions need to fall in the range of –0.15 to –0.30 in order to have a real and lasting impact on policy and practice. Cost is another, increasingly important component of research and evaluation on delinquency prevention programs. Government agencies and even private funders are beginning to require researchers to compare the costs and benefits of interventions. While studies of cost and benefits can take many forms, the usual approach is to first count all of the costs of program or policy inputs and then to develop a measure of program effectiveness. The final step is to translate effectiveness into a standardized measure of effect, usually by converting outcomes to dollars. The advantage of the approach is that comparisons can be made across different types of interventions. Critics argue that human behavior—particularly outcomes for youth—cannot be expressed in dollars and that a strictly economic approach ignores more basic values of justice and equity. Furthermore, estimating net benefits (benefits minus costs) or the ratio of costs to benefits creates an illusion of precision that belies the imprecise nature of evaluating human behavior. Nevertheless, evaluations that enumerate costs and benefits are increasingly common in crime prevention research.

EVALUATING POLICIES VERSUS PROGRAMS Most evaluations are concerned with programs rather than policies, although the distinction can be elusive. By policy, we mean

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any change in law, regulation or procedure that affects members of a group, community, or society. Lowering the upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction from 17 to 16, for example, would affect all 17- and 16-year-olds in a geographic area. A change in such a law would be considered a policy. Wholesale organizational reforms and system change efforts also generally fall within the domain of policy research. By contrast, programs target smaller or more defined populations. A decision to implement a juvenile drug court or to modify drug court procedures would affect just those youth admitted to drug court. It is often easier to evaluate programs than policies. Since the consequences of policy change are potentially more important than programmatic change, however, it is worth discussing the issues that surround policy evaluation. Policy effects can be more difficult to evaluate for a variety of reasons. Policy questions are more likely to be politicized and value based and less amenable to facts and evidence. For example, the debate over determining the proper age for juvenile court jurisdiction has many factual elements, including cost and the relative effectiveness of the adult versus juvenile sanctions in reducing delinquency and promoting prosocial behavior. During an intense policy debate, however, beliefs can be more influential than facts. Those who believe that it is immoral and inhumane to treat juveniles as if they were adults are unlikely to be convinced by statistical evidence. Those who believe that youth offenders are no less culpable than their adult counterparts are similarly difficult to move. It is difficult to imagine an equally volatile debate over some aspect of juvenile probation practice. Even when policy debates are more welcoming to research, the use of evaluation evidence can be difficult to conceptualize and implement. A thought experiment shows

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the difficulty. Suppose that a jurisdiction wants to implement a program that assigns youth to community-based treatment based on their risk factors and need for intervention. At the broadest level, all juveniles entering the system could be triaged with a screening tool that identifies substance disorders, mental health disorders, and other problems associated with delinquency. Youth with evidence of problems could be referred for more complete diagnostic evaluations and then referred to community-based interventions as appropriate. Deep-end services, such as residential treatment and other out-of-home placements would be reserved for youth who did not succeed in the less-restrictive environment of the community-based program. Now, imagine that 1 year after the launch of the new process, local policy makers wanted to test the hypothesis that the juvenile justice system had become more efficient at assigning youth to appropriate intervention programs. How would researchers conduct such a test? Where would they find the needed data? One natural place to look would be in the rearrest data for all system-involved youth. The problem is that a greater rate of arrests overall could be either evidence of success (because a more efficient system would catch a higher percentage of youth violating the terms of their supervision) or evidence of failure (because the new process failed to produce better outcomes). The same problem would exist if an evaluation measured changes in the volume of treatment referrals, since they would be expected to increase initially but then decline as those youth expected to use the most services would be treated more effectively. Researchers could examine changing crime rates overall, but even a very strong program effect for some youth would probably not produce a perceptible change on the community’s crime rate.

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In addition to difficulties in conceptualizing appropriate outcomes, there is the problem of separating causation and correlation. What if an evaluation of a policy or systems change initiative found that crime declined? Was the decline due to the initiative or simply part of a broader trend? Such problems can be solved with a thoughtful, prospective evaluation that articulates the goals and objectives of the change effort, identifies the data necessary to measure the hypothesized change, and observes those data before and after implementation using an experimental design or a credible alternative. Too often, however, evaluations are started only after policy changes have been implemented, when some evidence of success has already appeared or evidence is needed urgently to support continued funding. In such a circumstance, it is nearly impossible to carry out a research effort that will produce credible results or generate real evidence of impact. Some nontraditional evaluation approaches have appeared in recent years that avoid the pitfalls of retrospective analysis. One approach that has received a great deal of attention is the use of instrumental variables. Technically, these models solve the problem of endogeneity, where the outcome is at least a partial cause of the intervention. A classic example is the problem of measuring whether deploying more police lowers the crime rate. Neighborhoods with more crime are going to require more police protection, and thus it is difficult to determine the effect of more officers. The level of criminal offending may predict how many police officers are on patrol, not the other way around. Similar problems emerge on a host of important policy issues where the question is whether a policy change, such as lowering the age of juvenile jurisdiction or increasing the number and length of juvenile commitments, causes or reflects a change in juvenile offending.

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Recently, economists have conducted several studies that try to solve these problems using instrumental variables. Researchers identify a policy that is highly correlated with a particular outcome, but that only affects that outcome through its relationship with another factor. Levitt published a series of articles using this approach to test the effects of prison size on crime rates (1996) and policing (1997; but see McCrary, 2002) on crime, and found strong effects for both. In the prison case, Levitt used prison overcrowding orders (i.e., court injunctions in response to excess populations) to approximate prison population size on the assumption that prison overcrowding orders affect prison populations, and thus crimes rates, but are not directly affected by the crime rate. While the approach is lauded for its creativity, other researchers cautioned against accepting the study’s conclusion that each year of prison time served prevents 15 serious crimes. Useem, Piehl, and Liedka (2001) noted that the study’s conclusion, “depends on a hypothesized symmetry in causal processes between an unusual set of circumstances and a usual set of circumstances” (p. 6). We discuss these issues not to criticize a particular study, but rather to point out the seriousness of the challenges researchers face in disaggregating the effects of policies on outcomes in the very common situation where the same outcomes are at least partly responsible for changes in policy. A second common problem in estimating the effects of crime policies is estimating whether increased enforcement leads to less crime if greater enforcement increases the probability of arrest for crimes that were previously not often reported to police. Determining the effects of added police is confounded by the reality that police not only respond to calls for service; they initiate investigations. For certain kinds of crime, such

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as prostitution and drug offending, more police personnel should lead to more crimes being reported. In the context of juvenile justice, a researcher measuring the effects of added enforcement of juvenile curfew laws would face a similar problem. More arrests would not necessarily indicate an increase in violations, but could indicate an increase in enforcement. In fact, since the true number of juvenile offenders can never be known (because the age of offenders who are not caught cannot be determined) it is generally impossible to determine whether an increase in the number of juvenile arrests is an indicator of an increase in juvenile crime, or merely a byproduct of a change in enforcement practice. As Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, and Visher (1986) noted, “arrest records can be used to infer the volume of unobserved crimes committed” (p. 99), but a wealth of additional information is needed to make that inference. Rates of arrest are potentially important indicators of change in juvenile offending, but the relationship is only a correlation and often of unknown strength. Increases in juvenile arrests rates in the early 1990s caused many communities to implement draconian policies that increased the likelihood that juvenile arrestees would be prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). However, it is far from clear that the deleterious effects of those changes were outweighed by decreases in crime. In fact, the policies may have helped to spur additional crimes among those youth affected (McGowan et al., 2007). A rather infamous example of the serious consequences that may arise from confusing the causes and correlates of crime is the prediction in the 1990s that a new population of youthful “superpredators” was about to savage American communities (Dilulio, 1995). The prediction was based on two trends that were emerging in the early 1990s and that together

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predicted an explosion in crime. John Dilulio warned Americans that they were sitting atop a “demographic crime bomb” with far more boys in the population under ten years of age than in previous decades. He argued that youth in general were becoming more violent, referring to evidence of increasing juvenile arrests for violent crime. Today, as the youth from that cohort of potential “superpredators” enter their mid-20s, youth crime rates are not only lower than they were in 1995, but lower than they have been at any time since the 1970s (Puzzanchera, 2009). One final challenge exists in thinking about evaluating systems changes. The goal of youth serving agencies is to improve the life conditions and well-being of youth and communities. These agencies pay the costs of intervention, but the benefits of their efforts are more diffuse. The main beneficiaries are youth and families in the larger community. Problems emerge when agencies have implemented successful, systems-level changes and then seek funding to sustain those changes. While agencies can point to cost savings from efficiencies gained in delivering services, many of the benefits from large-scale change accrue outside the system and may be of little or no interest to those who determine the size of agency budgets. The increasing use of business models for budgeting social programs means that governments are increasingly interested in funding programs based on their “return on investment.” The conceptualization of investment returns, however, does not extend very far beyond the agency’s administrative costs. It is reasonable at this point to inquire about the causes of what appears to be the sad state of research on juvenile justice policies and programs (see also Jacobs, Miranda-Julian, & Kaplan, Chapter 10, this volume). The simple explanation is that data collection and analysis are low priorities in most justice systems.

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Data are rarely available to be examined at the individual or case level, and thus researchers are forced to work with data that simply are not up to the task, which leads to incorrect inferences (such as the “superpredator” forecast). More insidiously, the lack of data collection also suggests that these systems are not expending much energy investigating whether what they are doing is actually working, or even if they are doing the things they claim to be doing. A broad effort to collect better data would improve our capacity to test whether policy changes had the intended effect by providing a ready comparison that describes systems before they change. The best data systems would integrate information from a variety of ancillary service providers (mentor agencies, job placement assistance, health-care providers, etc.), other actors in the adult or justice system (Family Court) as well as the school system (see Schneider & Simpson, Chapter 22, this volume). Typically, the youth-serving agencies in any one community are concerned with the issue they are responsible for, but no one in the system is responsible for the whole child or the whole family. Data systems are similarly stove-piped and a complete picture of a juvenile’s interaction with the larger service system is difficult, if not impossible to obtain. Thus, neither system insiders nor any outside researchers will be able to determine precisely which interventions are most effective. We would recommend, at minimum, that agencies seeking to implement large-scale systems change think about the types of activities in which they expect to engage—before implementation—and then create a data system that can allow the agency to determine if the program is delivering the services it promises. Jurisdictions seeking to implement such a model need to measure not only whether juveniles are screened, assessed, and directed to the appropriate level of care, but also that

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accurate information about case processing is shared among all relevant decision makers. Each treatment agency in the larger system should measure not only how many youth assessments they conduct, for instance, but also how many assessments lead to referrals, how many referrals lead to successful treatment, how much treatment is actually delivered, and which individuals and agencies are involved in each point of service. More complete data would allow agencies to convince themselves and their stakeholders that they are achieving their stated objectives.

MAKING RESEARCH ACCESSIBLE Communication is essential for good research. Research has little effect unless it reaches an audience that is motivated and prepared to receive it, and unless the members of that audience are in a position to use the lessons of research to improve the well-being of youth. There are always multiple mechanisms for sharing the findings of research, depending on the type of research involved and the specific audience (see Table 24.2). Unfortunately, some researchers view their primary audience as other researchers. Some of the best research on social policies and programs, in fact, is designed merely to advance the understanding of researchers rather than to change social institutions, policy, or practice. Especially among academic researchers, study findings are often disseminated using the insider’s language of theoretical reasoning and incremental advances in understanding. Researchers can be very poor communicators, not always for lack of interest but because their training and professional culture encourages them to restrict the manner in which they communicate. Science, including social science, requires objective scholarship. Throughout their

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Table 24.2. Writing for Impact Regardless of who it is that translates the technical language of researchers into accessible, nontechnical forms, someone must do it. It is simply unacceptable when the information and materials used to shape public policy remain inaccessible to nontechnical audiences, including the general public. We offer a few guiding principles for pursuing this task: & There is no excuse for bad writing. By the time they have finished their professional training, researchers have consumed so much bad writing that they are actually impressed by bad writing, mistaking complexity for importance. Technical information does not have to be presented badly. It may be too late for many researchers to learn how to write plainly, but they should hire others to do it for them. & Writing is teaching. The act of writing about research findings is akin to teaching, or at least it should be. Especially when findings are derived from complex research designs, and when they require elaborate statistical analysis, the results need to be presented in a way that actually communicates the findings to the audience. Every former student can probably remember a math or statistics teacher who stood in front of the room, facing away from the class, writing proofs on the board, as if that were teaching. It is not, and that style of teaching cannot be used to create research reports and articles. Again, if a researcher is incapable of making results accessible, someone who can do that must be added to the research team. & Graphics deliver the message. People often learn more efficiently from visual information. Data graphics are essential and should be designed very carefully. They should be created with both accuracy and ease of interpretation in mind. Ideally, the complete message of a research report should be discernible by perusing the data graphics alone. Data tables are also crucial, but they should communicate effectively to the audience. Tables are not there simply to impress the nontechnical reader with small font sizes and Greek letters. & If a picture is worth a thousand words, you don’t need a thousand pictures. Data graphics are an essential part of communicating research findings, but more is not always better. Graphics should be reserved for conveying the central points of the research and for analytical messages that are complex and multidimensional. They should not be wasted on simple, descriptive tasks.

professional training, researchers are encouraged to view their work as the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. They are trained to gather evidence, analyze it, and report it as if they have no stake in its application. The production of knowledge is supposed to be their only goal. The application of knowledge is either secondary or entirely beyond their concern. One of the worst charges one researcher can make against another is to call that person an “advocate.” Any evidence that a researcher is promoting a particular policy or program suggests that her/his research may not be credible, that he/she may be attempting to tip the scale toward one conclusion versus another. Researchers very much want their efforts to have an impact on social policy, but their occupational culture prohibits them from pursuing such an impact directly. This is especially true when research must be described to general audiences using nontechnical,

straightforward language. Researchers worry that efforts to simplify their findings will gloss over important details and their carefully nuanced conclusions. Researchers seeking to avoid efforts to clarify their communication style often defend their own intransigence by saying that they refuse to “dumb down” their materials or their writing. Certainly, most investigators do crave the recognition and sense of relevance that comes from wide dissemination and application of their study findings. At academic conferences and meetings, researchers often discuss the intersection of their work with the worlds of policy and politics. They may complain their work is misunderstood or disregarded by decision makers and elected officials. They may even lament the sloppy formulation of government policies that fail to apply sound knowledge in solving social problems. But, ultimately, their fear of losing reputational

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capital among other researchers prevents them from investing their time and talents in translating the findings of their studies for a general audience. Making a personal effort to bridge science and policy would be distasteful for many researchers. Within the community of researchers, a person who uses research evidence in an explicit attempt to influence public thinking and public policy is not a researcher, but a politician or an activist, even if the person was trained in research methods. Achieving influence and impact cannot be a researcher’s first priority. Of course, every researcher (if only secretly) dreams of seeing his or her work have real impact on public debate and public policy. It is a question of method and intent. Within the culture of academia, it is acceptable and even laudable to be invited to inform a policy debate by describing the findings of research to key officials and other elite audiences. It is not culturally acceptable, however, to set a course on influencing debate and to seek out opportunities to exercise such influence, whether invited or not. All researchers enjoy being asked for their opinions on important matters of policy, but to design one’s research explicitly to affect policy is an affront to academic culture. For this reason, there must be intermediaries between the spheres of research, policy formulation, and program implementation.

PROTECTING RESEARCH FROM SPONSORS AND CONSUMERS Social programs and social policies would be improved by making research accessible outside of the technically oriented audience of researchers. Translating the findings of research for consumption by policy makers and practitioners would likely help them to

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incorporate the best knowledge about program effectiveness into the conceptualization and design of social interventions. What about the reverse? Are there reasons to be concerned about the possible impact of a stronger user orientation on research itself? Unfortunately, the answer is “yes.” Some researchers, especially those from the social sciences, are naturally resistant to viewing the goal of their efforts as the application and use of research findings. In some disciplines, good research practice requires a clear separation between the development and application of knowledge. Being too “user minded,” some might worry, could lead researchers to change the questions they ask and the methods they use to find answers to questions. Especially in a competitive funding environment, it is instinctive to shape one’s research to meet the needs and expectations of funding agencies. Modifying the methods and tactics of research for competitive reasons could easily undermine the quality of the effort and mislead policy makers and practitioners into following evidence that is less than sound. A recent example can be found in the evaluation field. Researchers in the United States have been working for more than 10 years to assess the efficacy of juvenile drug courts, or juvenile drug treatment courts (e.g., Barnes, Miller, Miller, & Gibson, 2008; Belenko & Dembo, 2003; Butts & Roman, 2004; Hiller et al., 2010). Juvenile drug courts use a potentially persuasive combination of judicial authority and interorganizational coordination to motivate drug-involved offenders to stay in treatment and change their behavior. The courts use case management to coordinate services, drug tests to monitor offender compliance, and frequent court hearings to review case progress and establish effective social bonds between offenders, judges, and other court staff. Adult drug courts

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started 20 years ago and are becoming a permanent part of the American justice system. In part, this is the work of advocacy organizations that promote drug courts, train drug court officials, publish reports extolling the virtues of drug courts, and work with news media to increase public awareness of drug courts. In their enthusiasm, drug court advocates have not always been sufficiently cautious in interpreting research evidence about drug courts, but this is as it should be. New programs need the support of advocates whose passions are impervious to empirical scrutiny. To design effective programs, however, practitioners must put aside their passions and rely on evidence, especially evidence about the effectiveness of specific components of drug courts. Yet, many juvenile drug court evaluations in recent years have not been designed to discover effective program components. They have been designed to confirm the beliefs of practitioners and policy makers, especially those of the judges who operate drug courts and the federal agencies that support drug court programs. In the late 1990s, several practitioner groups made assertions about what they believed to be the “key components” of drug

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courts (see Table 24.3). These components were published in a list, even though the information was not based on any evaluation evidence or even on an articulated theory of program impact (Drug Courts Program Office, 1997). The list was simply the compiled judgment of drug court practitioners. Scores of formative evaluation studies were funded during the next 10 years to hold drug court programs up against the standards set by the list of key components. Researchers were directed to examine the operations of drug courts and to determine whether they did or did not exhibit fidelity to the 10 key components. Because the list of components was not derived from or consistent with any research literature, however, there was no way to judge the importance of these findings. Significant amounts of state and federal resources were expended on what amounted to an extensive series of program audits that did not advance program development or even an empirical understanding of program effects. Finally, another recent development demonstrates a different risk of mandating the connection between research, policy, and practice. In nearly all facets of social policy,

Table 24.3. 10 Key Components of Drug Courts as Identified by the U.S. Department of Justice 1.

The drug court integrates alcohol and other drug treatment services with justice system case processing.

2.

Using a nonadversarial approach, prosecution and defense counsel promote public safety while protecting participants’ due process rights.

3.

Eligible participants are identified early and promptly placed in the drug court program.

4.

The drug court provides access to a continuum of alcohol, drug, and other related treatment and rehabilitative services.

5.

Abstinence is monitored by frequent alcohol and other drug testing.

6.

A coordinated strategy governs drug court responses to participants’ compliance.

7.

Ongoing judicial interaction with each drug court participant is essential.

8.

Monitoring and evaluation measure the achievement of program goals and gauge effectiveness.

9.

Continuing interdisciplinary education promotes effective drug court planning, implementation, and operations.

10.

Forging partnerships among drug courts, public agencies, and community-based organizations generates local support and enhances drug court program effectiveness.

Source: Drug Courts Program Office, 1997.

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policy makers and practitioners are becoming more enthusiastic about evidence-based policy and practice (e.g., see the work of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy in the United States and the Centre for Evidence Based Policy in the United Kingdom). The concepts of evidence-based policy and practice (EBPP) suggest that research findings should be used to weigh the desirability of social interventions and that research evidence should inform decisions to support one intervention model over another. In the best of all possible worlds, where research investment would follow innovation naturally and without bias or prejudice, following a strict EBPP regimen would be a sensible idea. Using research evidence to shape the design and implementation of social programs would make social policies more effective and result in improved social conditions. In our less-than-perfect world, however, research funding is intensely competitive and policy decisions are subject to political wrangling and the self-interests of policy makers. In our environment, a restrictive EBPP approach could stifle innovation and maintain unwanted sectarian control over policies and programs (Schorr, 2009). For example, state and federal agencies in the United States are beginning to require that services for adolescent offenders be evidence based. In the field of crime prevention, however, very few interventions can make such a claim. While there are several early childhood programs that might survive the evidence test, including nurse home visitation programs and educational support programs such as Head Start, few programs for older youth have come close to reaching the status of “proven.” Two such programs are Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multisystemic Therapy (MST). Is this because MSTand FFTare the best possible interventions to prevent and reduce delinquency? For a small minority of offenders,

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this could indeed be true. For the vast majority of youth, however, it is certainly not true. Other interventions, even less expensive interventions, could be effective for many youth, but in a strict EBPP environment, untested programs are less likely to attract the significant investments required to generate high-quality evidence. The resources necessary to identify and disseminate high-quality evidence are limited, and untested programs are not likely to attract the funding necessary to prove their effectiveness if government agencies and private providers are locked into an evidence regime based on pre-existing research. In this way, the simple-minded adherence to evidence-based policy could actually be detrimental to the quality of programs and policies.

RESEARCH VERSUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT After decades of research on hundreds of programs and policy initiatives for justiceinvolved youth, it seems that we have relatively few proven approaches. One reason for this rather slow, haphazard rate of progress is that we spend much of the total pool of research resources on small, more limited studies. Smaller studies can be helpful in measuring the delivery of services or the implementation of new procedures, but they do not often involve random assignment and they cannot produce the experimental results necessary to earn that coveted spot on some future list of evidence-based interventions. Rather than continuing to expend our resources on a multitude of small, inadequate, and potentially redundant evaluations, a new research paradigm may be required. Policy makers could derive greater benefit from a few high-quality impact evaluations that could

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be used to establish operational principles for program implementation and a program of research that monitored quality and client outcomes in a more coordinated fashion. The research funds currently used for numerous small studies could be combined and concentrated on a few high-profile evaluations targeted on very specific research questions. There is a limit to the number of quality studies that can be funded and completed. The number of competent researchers available to do the work is finite, and given shortages in time, expertise, and funding, even the best studies can answer only a few key questions at a time. It is not enough simply to generate an ever-larger number of studies. This strategy has resulted in a glut of poorly conceived and underfunded evaluations, none of them capable of resolving key disputes about program design and policy reform. Rather than continuing to divide the pool of evaluation resources across an uncoordinated array of small studies, policy makers may want to concentrate research funds on a few, well-designed, theoretically oriented investigations of program impact and cost effectiveness. The juvenile justice field could look beyond individual evaluations and start to build a system of research-based program accreditation. An effective accreditation process could relieve individual programs of the burdens imposed by constant evaluation. Standards could be set at the state or national level, and individual programs could demonstrate whether they meet the standards. Programs meeting their standards would then receive a credential. If the standards were carefully developed, accredited youth justice programs could use their credentials to demonstrate their competence and effectiveness to local stakeholders. Such a system would free resources for client services and program management that are currently diverted to inadequate and

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redundant evaluation studies. Policy and practice could be informed by a smaller number of carefully designed studies as long as those studies were used to inform a process of accreditation. An accreditation process for youth justice would have to be sophisticated. It could not be simply an extension of “best practices,” in which program design principles are extrapolated from the opinions and beliefs of practitioners. A rigorous system of accreditation would have to be empirically oriented and based on a foundation of solid evaluation findings. It would likely be years before the justice system was capable of implementing an effective accreditation regime, but the design and development work could begin immediately. Once established, this system of accreditation could profoundly affect juvenile justice programs and the policy environment in which they operate. The strength of the evaluation literature underlying accreditation would put pressure on programs to forego anecdotal evidence and personal preference in designing their procedures. If evaluators found, for example, that consistency in school attendance was associated with decreased probation failures, the accreditation process would encourage juvenile justice officials to work more closely with the schools. Accreditation would help to insulate individual programs against political attack. Currently, a state or local official who wishes to redirect funds away from a particular program merely has to challenge that program to produce evidence of its effectiveness. Unless the program is fortunate enough to have findings from a recent and high-quality study, its funding is vulnerable. A respected accreditation process would allow programs to demonstrate their value using outcome data from other jurisdictions without constantly funding their own small and insufficient evaluations.

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An accreditation-focused evaluation agenda would also free researchers to investigate critical questions about program effectiveness. Currently, a significant amount of research is undertaken not to illuminate the elements of program effectiveness, but to fulfill funding requirements and provide support for future funding requests. Studies conducted under these circumstances are rarely carried out with a true spirit of discovery. Investigators cannot afford the luxury of building an evidence base with precise measurements of a few key program components at a time. They must develop broad indicators of effectiveness, and they must do it as quickly as possible. An accreditation process would allow evaluation researchers to focus on measuring the fundamental components of program effectiveness. An accreditation system could standardize the scheduling and delivery of services and allow practitioners to focus on quality. They could work to develop expanded prevention and intervention programs for juvenile offenders. The accreditation agency could help in answering questions about the effectiveness of program components. It would no longer be necessary for every program manager and every researcher to reinvent the wheel each time a question of effectiveness arose. The accreditation entity would identify, synthesize, and disseminate authoritative research that would be trusted for policy and program development. Practitioners could focus on building programs knowing their models and frameworks were sound.

CONCLUSION Most textbooks for training social science researchers describe a similar set of ingredients needed to cook up effective policy research. According to most recipes, good research starts with complete data on all individuals in all justice agencies and any relevant nonjustice

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agencies, often including social services, drug treatment, housing and employment. An effective research design maximizes the size of the population to which the study results can be generalized but also minimizes the chances of an erroneous conclusion. Randomized, controlled trials are preferred; matched controls are acceptable. Natural experiments are generally frowned upon. Prospective designs are preferred over retrospective designs. Long follow-up periods with multiple observations are optimal. Finally, to be effective in shaping new policy, study results should be disseminated in a way that conveys rigor to the expert but provides clarity to policy makers and to members of the public. Unfortunately, few studies in the youth justice field achieve many of those goals in practice. If all research studies were required to meet each of these standards before being approved for funding, many—if not most— important research questions would go unanswered. The data available to researchers are usually incomplete. Youth justice agencies rarely collect just the right kind of information needed for a particular study. Most researchers have to work with agency officials to generate new data. Next, they have to choose between selecting a research sample that will allow their study to observe a true answer, versus a sample where the study results can be generalized to a broader population. Randomized controlled trials produce rigorous and generalizable results, but they are not feasible in most circumstances. Even when they are feasible, by definition they answer very narrow questions. Natural experiments are the best way to look at broad policy changes, but they fail to control for competing explanations of change or impact. Prospective studies take too long for all but the most patient stakeholders, and thus retrospective studies are usually a more practical alternative. Finally, few writers trained in

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the social sciences are capable of preparing a research report that is accessible enough for the average citizen yet precise enough for an expert audience. Our recommendations for designing and implementing real-world policy research and program evaluation are quite different from those that would be favored in controlled, laboratory settings. In policy research, it may be more important to answer a useful question with less precision than it is to test a narrow hypothesis with great accuracy. Researchers often have to take whatever data they can get, including information from other locations and from other time frames, and even less than rigorous sources, such as interviews, focus groups, and direct observation. Researchers should focus on the comparability of treatment and control groups, which means caring equally about the quality of a study design and how well the study withstands real world inconveniences of lost data points and skewed information. Studies should be designed to create equivalent samples, but also to produce generalizable results knowing that compromises will still have to be made on both objectives. For broader policy questions, natural experiments with pre-post designs are often more informative than well-designed studies that address a more limited range of policy concerns. Study results must be communicated clearly and concisely, respecting clarity as much as precision, and favoring transparency above all else. And finally, all researchers should avoid the missteps that inevitably follow from the presumption that whatever situation they are studying is completely different from anything that others have studied. Every research project is special, but few are truly unique. Social science research will never reach the levels of precision associated with laboratory studies, but such precision is not always necessary to improve youth-serving systems. Thoughtful research that acknowledges but does not succumb to real world obstacles can

lead to substantial improvements in policy and practice. REFERENCES Aos, S., Phipps, P., Barnoski, R. & Lieb, R. (2001). The comparative costs and benefits of programs to reduce crime (Version 4.0). Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Barnes, J. C., Miller, J. M., Miller, H. V., & Gibson, C. (2008). Juvenile drug court program admission, demeanor and cherry-picking: A research note. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 33(2), 166–176. Belenko, S., & Dembo, R. (2003). Treating adolescent substance abuse problems in the juvenile drug court. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 26(1), 87–110. Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., Roth, J. A., & Visher, C. A. (Eds.). (1986). Criminal careers and career criminals (National Research Council, Panel on Research on Criminal Careers, Volume 1). Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Boyle, P. (2001). A DAREing rescue: How intervention by critics and federal officials brought the youth anti-drug program into rehab. Youth today. Washington, DC: American Youth Work Center. Brewer, G. D., & deLeon, P. (1983). The foundations of policy analysis. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. Browning, C. R., Feinberg, S. L., & Dietz, R. D. (2004). The paradox of social organization: Networks, collective efficacy, and violent crime in urban neighborhoods. Social Forces, 83(2), 503–534. Butts, J. A., & Roman, J. (Eds.). (2004). Juvenile drug courts and teen substance abuse. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Casey, B. J., Tottenham, N., Liston, C., & Durston, S. (2005). Imaging the developing brain: What have we learned about cognitive development? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(3), 104–110. Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dilulio, J. J. (1995). The coming of the super-predators. Weekly Standard, 1(11), 23. Drug Courts Program Office. (1997). Defining drug courts: The key components. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program Office. Eckenrode, J., Campa, M., Luckey, D. W., Henderson C. R., Jr., Cole, R., Kitzman, H., . . . Olds, D. L.

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(2010). Long-term effects of prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation on the life course of youths: 19-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 164, 9–15. Ennett, S. T., Tobler, N. S., Ringwalt, C. L., & Flewelling, R. L. (1994). How effective is Drug Abuse Resistance Education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations. American Journal of Public Health, 84(9), 1394–1401. Frisco, V., & Stalebrink, O. J. (2008). Congressional use of the Program Assessment Rating Tool. Public Budgeting & Finance, 28(2), 1–19. Greenwood, P. W. (2006). Changing lives—delinquency prevention as crime-control policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hiller, M. L., Malluche, D., Bryan, V., DuPont, M. L., Martin, B., Abensur, R., . . . Payne, C. (2010). A multisite description of juvenile drug courts. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 54(2), 213–235. Levitt, S. D. (1996). The effect of prison population size on crime rates: Evidence from prison overcrowding litigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111(2), 319–351. Levitt, S. D. (1997). Using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effect of police on crime. American Economic Review, 87(3), 270–290. Mazerolle, L., Wickes, R., & McBroom, J. (2010). Community variations in violence: The role of social ties and collective efficacy in comparative context. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 47(1), 3–30. McCrary, J. (2002). Using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effect of police on crime: Comment. American Economic Review, 92(4), 1236–1243. McGowan, A., Hahn, R., Liberman, A., Crosby, A., Fullilove, M., Johnson, R., . . . Stone, G. (2007). Effects on violence of laws and policies facilitating the transfer of juveniles from the juvenile justice system to the adult justice system: A systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32 (4S), S7–S28.

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Olds, D. L., Henderson, C. R., Jr., Tatelbaum, R., & Chamberlin, R. (1988). Improving the life-course development of socially disadvantaged mothers: A randomized trial of nurse home visitation. American Journal of Public Health, 78(11), 1436–1445. Olds, D. L., Robinson, J., Pettitt, L. M., Luckey, D. W., Holmberg, J., Ng, R. K., . . . Henderson, C. R. Jr. (2004). Effects of home visits by paraprofessionals and by nurses: Age four follow-up results of a randomized trial. Pediatrics, 114(6), 1560–1568. Olds, D. L., Kitzman, H., Hanks, C., Cole, R., Anson, E., Sidora-Arcoleo, K., . . . Bondy, J. (2007). Effects of nurse home visiting on maternal and child functioning: Age nine follow-up of a randomized trial. Pediatrics, 120, e832–e845. Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile arrests 2007. Juvenile justice bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [NCJ 225344]. Roman, C., & Chalfin, A. J. (2008). Fear of walking outdoors: A multilevel ecologic analysis of crime and disorder. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 34, 306–312. Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Earls, F. (1999). Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children. American Sociological Review, 64 (5), 633–660. Schorr, L. B. (2009, August 20). To judge what will best help society’s neediest, let’s use a broad array of evaluation techniques. Chronicle of Philanthropy. Scott, E. S., & Steinberg, L. (2008). Rethinking juvenile justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Snyder, H., & Sickmund, M. (1999). Juvenile offenders and victims: 1999 national report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Useem, B., Piehl, A. M., & Liedka, R. V. (2001). Crimecontrol effect of incarceration: Reconsidering the evidence. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Document No. 188265.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Afterword C O N G R E S S M A N R O B E R T (B O B B Y ) S C O T T Representative, D-VA, Third District

I welcome the opportunity to add a few words at the conclusion of this hopeful volume on juvenile justice. For over 25 years now, the United States has adopted a ‘‘get tough’’ approach to crime and delinquency, passing increasingly more punitive sentencing policies—a practice that has earned us the distinction of being the most punitive nation in the world. Our incarceration rates far exceed the average in many other countries, and for minorities, the situation is much worse—at least twice that of Whites in general, with Blacks at more than 5 times that of Whites. Although there are numerous reasons for this disproportionality, our education system is deeply and inexorably implicated. In an era when education is more critical to successful living than ever, the national high school dropout rate is unacceptably high—almost 30%. And for minorities, it is even higher—a deplorable 50% across major U.S. cities. These figures confirm what those of us in Congress working for better outcomes for all our children and youth already know: that our schools are failing a broad swath of our young people. Among those most poorly served are youth in the foster care and juvenile justice systems— precisely the population that this volume has squarely in its view. As chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, and as a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, the solutions are evident to me: We

must provide our youth a continuum of real opportunities and comprehensive services that will keep them in school and out of the juvenile justice system to begin with. Research demonstrates that such a ‘‘pipeline’’ of supports and interventions can greatly reduce delinquency and other problems among at-risk children, while saving much more than the programs’ cost, in avoided social welfare and criminal justice system expenditures. And what services are these? They start with teen pregnancy prevention to reduce the number of children born to parents too young to care for them adequately; prenatal care for pregnant mothers to reduce the incidence of developmental disabilities in children; wellbaby care; and parental training to increase parental competence and therefore reduce child maltreatment. They continue with Head Start or other quality early care and education to ensure that children start school ready to learn; afterschool care; summer recreation and summer jobs; guaranteed college scholarships for junior high students; school dropout prevention programs; and vocational and on-the-job training for youth who do not go to college. We have lots of experience with these kinds of programs, lots of talented and committed adults who want to work with children, and lots of young people who want to contribute positive energy to the communities in which they live. So what is stopping us? As an elected official, a politician, I know the truth, and it boils down to plain old 527

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politics: All too often, our policy makers at the federal, state, and sometimes even the local level, look for quick-fix, politically expedient ‘‘solutions.’’ And these ‘‘solutions’’ are often poorly conceived, after-the-fact, inadequate responses to problems that have been allowed to fester and infect not only individuals, but communities as well. The chapters in this volume provide an important overview of the research on the strengths and needs of youth in the juvenile justice system and the role that families, communities, and society must play to develop the continuum of supports youth need to move toward positive futures. Although the volume demonstrates that one size does not fit all when it comes to juvenile justice reform, and that much of reform must be local, it seems clear to me that the federal government has an important role to play in leading states and localities toward research-based policies that support youth, families, and communities. Indeed, there are now several important pieces of federal legislation and new policy initiatives that can help lead the way to the sort of developmentally sound youth policy that will support a hopeful future for our teens. A brief summary of the most noteworthy follows here.

JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION ACT REAUTHORIZATION

eliminates the Valid Court Order (VCO) exception to the Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO) mandate, so that states will be required to address the social service needs of status offenders, rather than criminalizing them for noncriminal behavior, which almost always reflects poverty, trauma, family dysfunction, or mental health needs, and is likely to result in more, not less, future delinquency. Since 1998, the JJDPA has required that states examine and address disproportionate minority confinement (now contact, DMC) in their juvenile justice systems. Reauthorization of the JJDPA is an opportunity to strengthen that mandate as well as the data gathering and analysis capacity that states must have to understand how their juvenile justice systems operate and what does and does not work. When it was first passed in 1974, the JJDPA provided groundbreaking protection for juveniles charged with crimes by mandating that they be separated from adults in jails and lockups. Now, thousands of children charged as adults are locked up in adult jails where they are not protected from adult inmates, leading to high rates of youth suicide and victimization. Expanding the JJDPA’s core mandate and separating juveniles from adults, in the adult criminal justice system as well as the juvenile system, will provide critical protection for these youth.

YOUTH PROMISE ACT Since 1974, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) has been the singular and most critical vehicle for federal oversight and guidance to the states on juvenile justice matters. The JJDPA is currently pending reauthorization, which I hope will fully reflect current research in juvenile justice. For example, the Bill which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009 (S.678)

The Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education or ‘‘Youth PROMISE’’ Act, which I introduced in the 111th Congress and plan to introduce in the 112th Congress, implements the best practice and policy recommendations from policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement

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Afterword

officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence- and research-based strategies to reduce youth violence and crime, particularly gang crime. Under the Youth PROMISE Act, communities across the nation facing the greatest youth violence and crime challenges will be able to develop a comprehensive, coordinated, local response to these problems that includes the active involvement of representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social services, health and mental health providers, foster care providers, Boys and Girls Clubs, business-sponsored organizations, and other community-based service organizations, including faith-based organizations. These key players, who are already working with at-risk and delinquent youth, will form a council to conduct scientifically based analysis of the problems the community is experiencing, including what resources are already available and what resources are needed to address the problems with proven strategies. This analysis is then used as the basis for developing a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to reduce the problem. These strategies will be targeted at young people who are involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, violence, gangs, or other paths to lost futures, to redirect them toward productive and lawabiding alternatives. The Youth PROMISE Act embodies the kind of proven approaches that all children need and deserve to ensure that they develop as healthy, capable, and resilient people. Promise Neighborhoods Promise Neighborhoods (Fed. Register doc. 2010-10492), similar to the Youth PROMISE Act, is a policy initiative from the Department of Education to improve the quality of education for children in the most distressed

neighborhoods, which, as this book illustrates, now feed the juvenile justice system. This initiative will build a complete continuum of cradle-through-college-to-career solutions using academic programs and family and community supports. It is a data driven initiative and one that requires agencies to work together, across the usual ‘‘silos’’ to build a comprehensive failsafe system ensuring education and social supports for our most atrisk youth.

PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT STANDARDS AND JUVENILES The passage of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) 2003 officially recognized that children in correctional and detention settings are at high risk of sexual abuse. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics data analysis mandated by PREA, an estimated 12% of adjudicated youth in juvenile facilities experienced sexual abuse in 2008 and 2009. To protect youth from sexual abuse in juvenile and adult facilities, National Prison Rape Elimination Commission Standards to prevent, detect, and respond to prison rape should be adopted with provisions strengthening protection for juveniles in youth and adult facilities.

   In the past decade, we have learned a great deal about what works for youth at greatest risk. Our knowledge of child development, neurology, education, law, and program and policy evaluation has advanced significantly, allowing us to implement juvenile justice policy that can succeed both in crime prevention and in building a next generation of educated young people able to compete in the global economy. We only need the political will to make it all happen. I thank the editors and authors of this volume for moving us a bit more in the right direction.

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

About the Editors

Francine T. Sherman, JD, is a clinical professor at Boston College Law School where she has been teaching juvenile justice for the past 20 years. She founded and directs the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project, a law clinic in which upper level law students provide supervised representation and related policy work for youth in the justice system. She speaks and writes widely about juvenile law and the juvenile justice system and, in particular, about girls in the justice system. She has testified before Congress and serves on a U.S. Department of Justice National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women focusing on children and teens victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault. She is the author of Detention Reform and Girls (2005), a volume of the Pathways to Detention Reform series, and the forthcoming Detention Reform Practice Guide for Girls, both published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She is an ongoing consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative on strategies to reduce the detention of girls nationally and regularly consults with national and local foundations and state systems on

issues of girls and juvenile justice. She has been the principal investigator on a range of projects designed to reduce the use of confinement for juveniles and increase their voice and connection to their communities. Francine H. Jacobs, EdD, is an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, at Tufts University. Dr. Jacobs has published dozens of scholarly and practically oriented articles, and has coedited several books and monographs—two on family program evaluation, one on U.S. child and family policy, a fourvolume Handbook of Applied Developmental Science, and a recent textbook on applied developmental science; she has also consulted on program evaluation to numerous child and family programs, in the United States and abroad. Her research and teaching interests include child welfare, public welfare, juvenile justice, and child care policy; family development and family support programming; and program evaluation and public policy analysis.

531

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Author Index

Abascal, A., 234 Abram, K. M., 9, 39, 47, 50, 52, 53, 61, 134, 288, 362, 369, 434 Abrams, C., 250, 252, 257 Abrams, D. E., 85, 305, 415 Abrams, L. S., 178, 203, 205, 212 Ackard, D. M., 370 Acoca, L., 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 178, 179, 190, 192, 369 Adams, A., 348 Adams, B., 26, 27, 35, 38, 81 Adams, T., 250 Addams, J., 94 Addie, S., 26, 27, 35, 38 Adelson, E., 391 Adolphson, S. L., 441 Ageton, S. S., 31 Agnew, R., 225, 229 Agranoff, R., 359 Aguilar, J. P., 178 Ainsworth, J., 76 Ainsworth, M. D. S., 391 Akerman, A., 7 Akers, R. L., 31 Akiyama, H., 250 Albert, D., 10, 53 Aledort, N., 484 Alemagno, S. A., 134, 138 Alema´n, E., 314 Alexander, J., 208, 413, 483, 484 Alexander, J. F., 483 Alexander, M., 123 Allard, P., 27 Allbright, A., 73 Allen, J., 178 Allen, J. P., 199 Allison, G., 356 Altschuler, D. M., 448 Altshuler S. J., 253 Ames, M. A., 232

Anderson, C., 73, 208 Anderson, J. E., 161 Anderson, L., 186, 371 Anderson, P. M., 214, 276 Anderson, R., 160 Andranovich, G., 438 Andrews, D. A., 442, 448, 485 Annitto, M., 333, 345 Anoshiravani, A., 44, 369 Anthony, E. J., 92, 97 Anton, B. S., 441 Antonucci, T. C., 250 Aos, S., 208, 477, 480, 485, 486, 514 Aratani, Y., 394 Archwamety, T., 303 Armstrong, C., 372 Armstrong, M., 57 Armstrong, T. L., 448 Arnett, J. J., 185 Arnette, J. L., 303, 304 Arseneault, L., 11 Arthur, M., 33 Arthur, M. W., 208 Artiles, A. J., 302 Arya, N., 33, 38, 82, 112, 120, 122, 123, 181, 189, 358 Asgeirsdottir, B. B., 178 Ashby, W. R., 396 Atkins, D. L., 52, 369, 371 Attillasoy, A., 160 Attkisson, C. C., 50 Augarten, I., 38, 82, 122, 358 Austin, J., 415 Austin, J. F., 201 Axelsson, R., 448 Axelsson, S. B., 448 Ayers, R., 310 Ayers, W., 76, 200, 201, 213, 214, 310, 311, 324

533

Babcock, J. C., 238 Baca, P., 360 Bachman, J. G., 32 Bagley, C., 336 Bakan, D., 393 Baker, C. J., 47 Baker, L. L., xxii, 11, 46, 57, 160, 177, 178, 212, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229, 230, 231, 237, 239, 270 Balfanz, R., 412 Ball, C., 473 Ballard, D., 478 Baltodano, H. M., 298, 302, 304, 371 Bandura, A., 227 Banister, E., 395 Bankston, C. L., 251 Banyard, V. L., 232 Baral, I., 339 Barber, B., 434 Barber, B. R., 300 Bardack, S., 287, 288 Barker, R. L., 393 Barnes, J. C., 520 Barnett, W. S., 482 Barnfather, A., 256, 257 Barnoski, R., 514 Baron, S., 248, 254 Barratt, T., 234 Barstow, A., 118 Barth, R. P., 58 Bartholet, E., 85 Bartholomew, K., 227 Bartlett, J. D., 103, 255, 391 Barton, S., 394, 397 Barton, W. H., 279, 472, 473, 474 Bates, J. E., 227 Bateson, G., 199, 395 Bauer, G., 202, 218

534 Bauman, K. E., 227 Bazemore, G., 104, 214, 255, 256, 410, 434 Bazerman, M. H., 439 Beaudoin, C. E., 249 Beaver, K. M., 364 Beck, A., 25, 29 Beck, A. J., 87, 166, 335 Beckett, K., 412 Bedard, C., 272, 274 Bedolla, L. G., 249, 256 Beeman, S. K., 229 Belenko, S., 520 Belfield, C. R., 482 Belknap, J., 231 Bell, D., 316, 324 Bell, J., xxi, 26, 37, 38, 56, 82, 95, 111, 113, 115, 117, 124, 125, 175, 179, 180, 201, 233, 288, 297, 299, 310, 320, 336, 355, 357, 358, 429 Bell, K. C., 303 Bell, N., 250 Bell, R. Q., 393 Belle, D., 250, 255 Bellows, J., 444 Benda, B. B., 168, 411 Bender, M. B., 208 Benefield, T. S., 227 Benekos, P., 83 Benjamin, L. M., 436, 437 Benjamin-Coleman, R., 357 Benner, G. J., 205 Bennett, L., 229 Benson, M. J., 199 Benson, P. L., 97, 99, 100, 102, 199, 275, 276, 279, 280, 282 Berberet, H., 161 Berkheiser, M., 80 Berkman, L. F., 55, 238 Bernard, H. R., 135 Bernburg, J. G., 29 Bernstein, N., 85 Beyer, M., xx, 3, 8, 9, 33, 39, 49, 86, 153, 156, 161, 177, 201, 223, 225, 227, 233, 246, 269, 272, 347, 363 Beythe-Marom, R., 6 Bickman, L., 234 Bilchick, S., 288

AUTHOR INDEX Bird, Y., 347 Birkhead, T. R., 79 Bishop, D., 5, 357 Bishop, D. M., 25, 27, 95, 114, 115, 119 Blair, G., 8 Blanchett, W., 311 Blau, A., 73 Blazei, R. W., 270 Bliesener, T., 271 Blitzman, J., xxi, 25, 27, 68, 72, 78, 79, 83, 117, 118, 122, 123, 200, 203, 206, 210, 214, 269, 274, 344, 353, 354, 371 Blomberg, J., 444 Blomberg, T. G., 287, 298, 301, 303, 444 Bloom, B., 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139 Blumenson, E., 72, 73, 286 Blumstein, A., 31, 517 Blyth, D. A., 199, 279, 280 Bobek, D., 102 Boden, J. M., 223 Boesky, L. M., 49, 50, 52 Bogdan, R., 373 Bogenschneider, K., 208, 210 Bolen, M. G., 205 Bolin, K., 46 Bond, C. E. W., 115 Bonell, C. P., 178 Bonhoeffer, D., xi Bonta, J., 442 Borduin, C. M., 191, 442, 483 Born, M., 434 Boscolo, L., 401 Bottrell, D., 252, 253, 254 Botvin, G. J., 483 Boundy, K. B., xxii–xxiii, 26, 39, 72, 73, 115, 121, 122, 124, 203, 286, 310, 311, 314, 357, 444 Bourdieu, P., 248, 249, 250, 252, 254 Bowen, G. L., 254 Bowers, E., 104 Bowlby, J., 391 Boyce, W. T., 59, 199, 364 Boyle, P., 511 Bradshaw, C. P., 227 Bradshaw, W., 302

Brandtst€adter, J., 98, 101 Brank, E., 208–209 Brank, E. M., 203 Braverman, P., xxi, 11, 32, 39, 44, 124, 125, 133, 134, 245, 272, 282, 288, 359, 370, 393, 411, 434, 477 Bray, C., 484, 485 Brendgen, M., 228 Brennan, R. T., 58 Brentano, C., 214, 276 Brenzel, B. A., 333, 345 Breuner, C. C., 48 Brewer, G. D., 511 Brewer, R. M., 313 Brezina, T., 230 Bridges, G. S., 56, 115 Brill, S., 157 Brindis, C., 178 Brissette, I., 238 Brisson, D., 252, 253, 255 Brock, L., 297, 303, 304 Brody, G. H., 59, 185 Broeking, J., 203, 205, 206, 207, 212 Brondino, M. J., 483 Bronfenbrenner, U., 98, 103, 175, 199, 246, 267, 268, 371, 372, 391, 393, 394, 395, 397, 400 Brooks-Gunn, J., 55–56, 97, 100, 104, 178, 246, 282, 391, 395 Brosky, B. A., 9 Brown, B. B., 395 Brown, G. R., 158 Brown, J., 282 Brown, L., 8 Brown, L. M., 138 Browne, A., 55 Browne, J. A., 299, 310 Browning, C. R., 510 Bruce, C., 44, 48 Brudney, J. L., 435, 436, 438, 439 Brumbaugh, S., 132, 133 Bruyere, E., xxii, 177, 267, 272, 394 Bruyere, E. B., 269 Buck, J., 484 Buckley, H., 232 Buehler, J., 273 Buehler, J. W., 47 Buka, S. L., 55, 58, 279 Bullis, M., 175, 258, 303, 304

Author Index

Burgess-Proctor, A., 122 Burke, N., 125 Burney, P., 394 Burrell, S., 74, 181, 189, 302, 444 Burris, A., 347 Busch, D., 204, 459, 463 Bushway, S. D., 413 Buss, E., 68, 69 Bussiere, A., 74 Butterfield, K. D., 436, 438 Butts, J., 214, 275, 279, 410, 414 Butts, J. A., xxiv, 25, 104, 204, 208, 210, 233, 364, 436, 459, 484, 499, 505, 520 Byrnes, J. B., 7 Cairns, B., 97 Cairns, R. B., 97 Campbell, D., 278 Campbell, D. T., 478 Canady, B. E., 238 Cantor, E., 238 Carlson, E. A., 276 Carlson, K., 346, 347 Carpenter, J. R., 51 Carrion, V. G., 53 Carroll, M., 73 Carspecken, P., 313 Carter, J., 283 Carter, V., 347 Caruso, H. M., 439, 448 Carver, K., 252 Casella, R., 310 Casey, B. J., 509 Casey, R. E., 303 Caspi, A., 59, 270, 271 Cassidy, E., 23 Castellino, D. R., 385 Castillo, J. T., 250 Castor, M. L., 57 Cattell, V., 252 Cauce, A., 336 Cauce, A. M., 160 Cauffman, E., 53, 78, 131, 133, 134, 179, 434 Cecchin, G., 401 Cecile, M., 434 Ceja, M., 319 Cerda, M., 55, 279 Cesaroni, C., 233

Chalfin, A. J., 510 Chamberlain, L. J., 371 Chamberlain, P., 8, 178, 191, 192, 208, 228, 414, 486 Chamberlin, R., 511 Champion, D. J., 82 Chandra, A., 57, 372 Chapman, J. E., 484 Chapman, J. F., 10, 53 Chapman, M., 393 Charles, M., 436 Chaskin, R. J., 246, 248 Chau, M., 394 Chavez-Garcia, M., 116 Chen, C., 336 Chen, R., 206 Chen, S., 311 Chen, X., 160 Cheng, T. L., 227 Chesney-Lind, M., 27, 35, 132, 133, 134, 333, 345 Chiancone, J., 133 Chiodo, D., 10 Chitwood, D., 339 Chodorow, N., 138 Choe, J. Y., 61 Choe, L., 317 Christopher, F. S., 156 Chung, H., 245 Churchill, R., 370 Churchill, W., 409 Cicchetti, D., 7, 10, 230, 246, 247 Clandinin, D. J., 315 Clark, R. D., 58 Clark, S., 57, 58 Clarke, E. E., 119 Clarke, J., 57 Clatts, M. C., 160 Clawson, H. J., 331, 336, 337, 346, 348 Cleak, H., 250 Clear, T. R., 419 Cleary, H. M. D., 206 Cleland, C. M., 178 Clewell, B. C., 302 Clingempeel, W. G., 483 Clinton, H. R., 395 Coates, R., 313 Coates, R. B., 29, 415 Coatsworth, J. D., 394, 484

535 Cochran, B. N., 160, 161 Cocozza, J. J., 49, 50, 51, 52, 288, 435, 444, 445 Coggeshall, M. B., 484 Cohen, B., 392 Cohen, J., 9, 31, 517 Cohen, J. A., 231 Cohen, M. I., 44 Cohen, P., 282 Cohen, T. H., 335 Colbert, P., 10 Colclough, G., 251 Cole, C. M., 158 Cole, R. F., 433 Coleman, J., 510 Coleman, J. S., 248, 249, 253, 254 Collier, V. P., 302 Collins, C., 256 Collins, K. S., 370 Collins, W. A., 276 Confessore, N., 354, 425 Conger, D., 57, 132, 139, 207, 357, 359, 361, 362 Conger, R., 371 Connelly, M., 315 Connolly, J., 227 Connor, T., 371 Cook, T. D., 478 Cook, W., 83 Cooke, D. J., 225, 227 Cooper, K., 369 Corbett, A., 348 Corcoran, M., 250 Cormier, C. A., 496 Corneau, M., 134 Cothern, L., 362, 484 Cottrell, B., 230 Coull, B., 55 Covington, S., 131, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139 Cowen, E. L., 247 Coyle, J., 404 Craddock, K. T., 48, 174, 176, 177, 186, 187, 192, 203, 229, 323 Crenshaw, K., 316 Crenshaw, K. W., 316 Crick, N. R., 225 Croghan, T. W., 57 Crosby, S., 300 Cross, C., 232

536 Cross, T. P., 238 Cross, W. E., Jr., 8 Crouter, A., 268, 276 Crowell, N. A., 298 Csikzentmihalhyi, M., 98, 101 Cuellar, A., 55, 74 Culler, C., 57 Culpe, J. C., 316 Cummings, E., 100, 103 Cunningham, A. J., xxii, 11, 46, 57, 160, 177, 178, 212, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229, 230, 231, 237, 239, 270 Cunningham, L., 69, 76, 81 Cunningham, M., 185 Cunningham, P., 191 Cunningham, P. B., 483, 484 Curran, S. R., 251, 253, 254 Currie, D., 357 Currie, J., 57 Curry, L. P., 116 Cusick, G. R., 303 Cutting, C. A., 300 Dahl, R. E., 199 Dakof, G. A., 48, 132, 178 Dale, M. J., 86 Daley, C. K., 331 Dallaire, D., 182 D’Ambrosio, R., 258 Damon, W., 97, 100, 199, 395 Darling, N., 10 Daro, D., 238 D’Augelli, A. R., 160 Davidson, C., 200 Davidson, H. A., 203, 205, 206 Davies, H. J., 203, 205, 206 Davis, A., 311 Davis, C., xxii, 56, 208, 209, 245, 271, 272, 274, 276, 372, 510 Davis, D. L., 237 Davis, J. E., 311 Davis, L. M., 57 Davis, W. R., 160 Dawes, D., 208 Day, J. C., 32, 208, 435 Dean, C. W., 93 DeBellis, M. D., 231 Deblinger, E., 9 De Carvalho, J., 281

AUTHOR INDEX Decker, T., 211, 216, 217, 416 DeCrescenzo, T., 157 DeCuir, J., 316 Dedel, K., 134, 137 DeFilippis, J., 250 DeGarmo, D., 208 DeGarmo, D. S., 178 Deignan, M., 311 Deitch, M., 118 deLeon, P., 511 Delgado, M., 395–396, 397, 399, 400 Delgado, M. R., 6 Delgado, R., 316, 317, 324, 325 Delgado Bernal, D., 313 Dembo, R., 520 DeMuro, A., 414 DeMuro, P., 414 Denner, J., 139 Dennison, S., 57 Denzin, N. K., 313 de Renzio, P., 248 DeRidder, L. M., 299 Derzon, J. H., 477 Desai, R. A., 49, 54, 435 Deschenes, E. P., 132, 137 Dewey, J., 218–219 Deyhle, D., 316 Diaz, E. M., 159 Diaz, R. M., 9, 157, 160 Dietrich, A. J., 370 Dietrich, T., 57 Dietz, R. D., 510 Dill, P. L., 52 Dilulio, J., xvii Dilulio, J. J., 95, 517 Dingerson, L., 314 Dishion, T. J., 411, 434 Dixon, A., 52 Dixson, A., 316 Dobrin, A., 48, 54, 435 Dodge, K. A., 7, 12, 225, 227, 434 Dohrn, B., 71, 78, 310 Doll, H., 49 Domalanta, D. D., 52 Dominguez, S., 252, 255, 400 Dong, M., 55, 225 Dooley, M., 256 Doreleijers, T. H., 52 Dornbusch, S. M., 10

Dorrell, O., 311 Douds, A. S., 48 Dowden, C., 485 Dowling, E. M., 214, 276 Downe, P., 337 Drake, E., 208, 486 Drake, E. K., 477, 480, 486 Drakeford, W., 302 Drew, L. M., 393 Drilea, S., 370 Drinkard, A. M., 371 Drizin, S., 5, 81 DuBois, D., 236 Dubrow, N., 270, 271 Dukes, R. L., 281 Dulcan, M. K., 39, 47, 50, 52, 134, 288, 362, 369, 434 Dunbar, C., 310 Duncan, G., 282, 313, 316 Duncan, K. M., 344 Dunn, M., 231 Dupree, D., 185 Durlak, J. A., 441 Durston, S., 509 Dutch, N., 331 Dworkin, A., 336, 339 Dym, B., xxiii–xxiv, 103, 255, 269, 391, 396, 397, 401, 402 Dyson, O. L., 183 D’Zurilla, T. J., 237 Earls, F., 58, 509 Earls, M., 158 East, J., 252 Ebbers, M., 457 Eber, L., 442 Eccles, J. S., 7, 12, 100, 410 Eckenrode, J., 482, 511 Eckes, T., 157 Edelman, M. W., xi Edleson, J. L., 225, 229, 238 Egeland, B., 276 Egolf, B. P., 227 Ehrensaft, M. K., 178 Ehret, B., 434 Eisenberg, N., 9 Ekstrom, R. B., 299 Elder, G. H., 371 Elder, G. H., Jr., 94 Elena Kuo, E., 180

Author Index

Elkind, D., 199 Elkington, K. S., 47, 52 Elliott, A., 434 Elliott, D., 477, 478, 480 Elliott, D. S., 31, 411 Elliott, S., 257 Elms, W., 415 Elshtain, J. B., 101 Elster, A., 57 Eme, R., 11 Emerson, D., 55 Emery, C. R., 229 Emlet, C. A., 250 Emory, L. E., 158 Engel, S., 311 England, M. J., 433 English, A., 74 Ennet, S. T., 511 Ennett, S. T., 227 Enos, S., 177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187, 190, 192 Ensminger, M. E., 44, 411 Epstein, M. H., 205 Erbe, C., 255, 256 Erevelles, N., 311 Ericksen, A. J., 370 Erikson, E. H., 7, 96, 156, 199, 393 Ersing, R. L., 251 Escudero, V., 234 Estes, R., 331, 334, 336, 338 Estrada, R., 160, 165, 166 Etten, T. J., 457, 459, 460, 462, 463 Evans, A., 335 Evans, D. L., 441 Evans, W., 53 Eyferth, K., 156 Faessel, R. T., 303 Fagan, A., 478 Fagan, A. A., 208, 223, 227 Fagan, J., 8, 82 Fain, T., 203, 208–209 Falletta, L., 371 Fantuzzo, J. W., 224, 225 Farber, H., 80 Farber, N. B., 251, 255 Fareri, D. S., 6 Farley, M., 336, 338, 339 Farr, J., 253, 254

Farrell, A. F., xi, xxiv, 75, 82, 139, 151, 214, 233, 303, 348, 355, 356, 360, 433, 434, 435, 448, 451, 460 Farrell, C., 249, 250, 255 Farrell-Erickson, M., 274 Farrington, D. P., 31, 58, 178, 273, 477 Farrow, J. A., 48 Fass, S. M., 434 Faust, K., 250 Fazel, S., 49 Feeny, N. C., 236 Feinberg, S. L., 510 Feinstein, R. A., 45, 46, 48, 55, 370, 373 Feiring, C., 178 Feld, B., 81, 82, 94, 116, 118 Feld, B. C., 25, 201 Feldman, R. S., 178 Feldman, S. S., 53 Felitti, V. J., 223 Fenning, P., 310 Ferber, T., 100 Ferguson, A. A., 311, 319 Ferguson, K., 252 Fergusson, D. M., 223, 230 Fermin, L. L., 48, 174, 203, 229, 323 Ferrara, M. L., 484 Ferrer-Wreder, L., 185 Fetterman, D. M., 436 Fhagen-Smith, P., 8 Field, J., 248, 254 Fields, S., 234 Figlio, R. M., 95 Findler, L. S., 250 Fine, M., 314, 315, 363 Finkelhor, D., 223, 225, 230, 232, 238, 332, 333, 334, 335, 337 Finkelstein, M., 357 Finley, L. L., 201 Finley, M., 117 Fischer, D. G., 58 Fisher, B. A., 29 Fisher, P., 51, 486 Fisher, P. A., 486 Fishman, M., 333 Fitzgerald, H. E., 394 Fitzpatrick, K. M., 253, 254, 255

537 Fix, M. E., 302 Flannery, D. J., 371 Flatau, C. N., 370 Flekkoy, M., 274 Flekkoy, M. G., 275 Fleming, M., 57 Flewelling, R. L., 511 Flores, G., 56, 57 Florsheim, P., 234 Flowers, R. B., 334, 336, 337, 338 Floyd, D. T., 100 Foa, E. B., 236 Foley, R. M., 298 Ford, D. H., 393 Ford, J. D., 8, 10, 53 Forman, Y. E., 104 Forney, M., 339 Forrest, C. B., 44, 411 Forrest, M. S., 272 Forst, M. L., 29 Foshee, V. A., 227–228, 232, 238 Fosler, R. S., 437 Foster, E. M., 371 Foster, H., 178 Foster, M. K., 438 Foster, W., 395 Foucault, M., 315, 372, 373 Fox, K., 357 Fox, S. J., 93 Foy, D., 8, 11 Foy, D. W., 364 Fraiberg, S., 391 Fram, M. S., 253 Frankowski, B. L., 157 Fraser, M. W., 275 Frazier, C. E., 25, 27, 95 Frederick, M. E., 336, 337 Freeman, R. B., 412 Freese, T. E., 161 Freud, A., 92, 96, 97 Freundlich, M., 362 Frey, C., 116 Friedlander, M. L., 234 Friedman, M. J., 231 Friedman, S., 334, 335, 337, 339 Frisco, V., 506 Frykberg, E., 238 Fukuyama, F., 251 Fulbright-Anderson, K., 124, 352, 358

538 Funk, S. G., 46 Furby, M., 6 Furman, W., 227 Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., 249, 253, 254 Futterman, D., 158, 160 Gabbidon, S. L., 358 Gaetz, S., 161 Gagnon, J. C., 39, 300, 301, 302, 434 Gagnon, J. H., 156 Gajda, R., 437, 438, 447 Gallagher, C. A., 48, 54, 435 Gallagher, J., 434 Galliher, R. V., 8 Garbarino, J., xxii, 177, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 276, 282, 394, 395 Garcia, I. G., 53 Garcia, R. I., 57 Garcia Coll, C., 7 Garcia-Reid, P., 249, 252, 253, 254 Gardiner, K., 333 Gardner, M., 60, 246 Garfinkel, L. F., 210 Garland, A., 53 Garnets, L. D., 158 Garnette, L., xxi, 9, 156, 166 Garrett, A., 336 Garrido, E., 224 Garry, E. M., 362 Gatti, U., 434 Gau, J. M., 245 Gaudio, C. M., 119 Gavazzi, S. M., 288 Gavin, D., 337 Gaylord, N. K., 229 Gazley, B., 435, 436, 438, 439 Gemignani, R. J., 444 Gendreau, P., 485 Gerena, J., 103, 255, 391, 398, 404 Gerrard, M. D., 160 Giaconia, R. M., 11 Gibbs, J., 485 Gibson, C., 520 Gibson, C. L., 364 Giddens, A., 257 Giedd, J. N., 59 Gilbert, J., 202, 203, 212, 214, 286 Gilbert, R., 223, 224

AUTHOR INDEX Giles, W. H., 56 Gilkerson, L., 393 Gilligan, C., 8, 138 Ginzler, J. A., 160 Giobbe, E., 337, 339 Gitell, R. V., 252 Glass, T., 238 Glaze, L., 421 Gleeson, C. R., 370 Glick, B., 485 Glosser, A., 333 Goerge, R. M., 248, 303 Goertz, M. E., 299 Goguen, C., 8 Goguen, C. A., 364 Gold, M., 31 Goldblatt Grace, L., xxiii, 133, 218, 331, 337, 338, 339 Golden, R., 177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 192 Goldfarb, S., 335 Goldman, L., 158 Goldson, B., 203 Goldstein, A., 485 Goldweber, A., 134 Goliday, S. J., xxiv, 25, 82, 86, 104, 124, 125, 153, 191, 201, 204, 205, 214, 216, 354, 355, 394, 409, 442, 443, 458, 499, 514 Gollub, E. L., 47 Golub, A., 411 Golzari, M., 44, 369, 371, 384, 386 Goodkind, S., 133, 134, 137, 138, 139 Gootman, J., 12, 410 Gootman, J. A., 100 Gore, A., 100, 103 Gorkoff, K., 337 Gorman-Smith, D., 175, 176 Gotanda, N., 316 Gottfredson, D. C., 482 Gottfredson, M., 94, 95 Gottlieb, G., 97, 393 Gould, S. J., 397 Graham, M., 339 Graham, S., 8 Graham, T., 370 Granovetter, M., 248, 250, 252, 254 Gray, B., 437, 438, 447, 448

Green, B. A., 71, 78 Greenberg, G., 97 Greene, H. T., 358 Greene, J., 119, 120, 121 Greene, J. C., 436, 437 Greenstone, J., 209, 210, 370 Greenstone, J. H., xxi, 8, 35, 58, 131, 177, 190, 231, 232, 233, 348, 356 Greenwood, P., 204, 208 Greenwood, P. W., xxiv, 80, 86, 104, 191, 192, 204, 208, 233, 272, 297, 364, 413, 419, 442, 445, 477, 483, 506, 514 Greytak, E. A., 159 Griffin, A., 139 Griffin, K. W., 483 Griffin, P., 287 Grimm, R., 202, 286 Grisso, T., 5, 81, 124, 134, 212, 411 Grogan-Kaylor, A., 57 Grossberg, M., 116 Grossman, D., 270 Grotpeter, J. K., 483 Groves, W. B., 175, 179 Grubb, W. N., 201 Grych, J. H., 228 Gubrium, J. F., 373 Gudeman, R., 359 Gudjonsson, G. H., 178 Guerino, P., 25, 87, 166 Guerra, N., 413 Guest-Warnick, G., 234 Guiltinan, S., 248 Guinier, L., 316, 325 Gupta, R. A., 55, 74 Guthrie, B. J., 134 Guzder, D., 161 Hagan, J., 178 Hagemeister, A. K., 229 Hagy, D. W., 331 Hains, A. A., 177 Hairston, J. C. F., 181 Hall, G. S., 92, 96 Hall, J. S., 247 Haller, D. M., 370 Halliday-Boykins, C. A., 484 Halpern, F., 370 Halpin, D., 314

Author Index

Hamby, S. L., 223 Hamilton, H., 52 Hamilton, S. F., 97, 275 Hammarberg, T., 274, 275 Hammel, R., 134 Hammer, H., 334 Hampel, P., 6 Handelsman, J. B., 234 Haney L opez, I. F., 316 Hanlon, C., 139, 445, 451, 499 Hannsson, K., 414 Hanson, K., 208 Hardiman, C. M., 404 Hardt, M., 404 Hare, R. D., 273 Harlan, S., 336 Harlow, C. W., 298 Harpalani, V., 23, 185 Harrell, W., 421 Harris, A., 316 Harris, C., 316, 317, 318 Harris, G. T., 496 Harris, K. E., xxii, 11, 46, 57, 160, 177, 178, 212, 223, 270 Harris, L. J., 71 Harris, P. B., 199 Harris, P. J., 298, 302 Harris, W. W., 391 Harrison, P., 25 Harrison, P. M., 87, 166 Harrison, S., 409 Harriss, J., 248 Hart, A. F., 399 Hart, S., 274, 276 Hartman, R. G., 76 Hartney, C., 180 Harvell, S., 203, 210 Harvell, S. A. S., 206 Harway, M., 337 Harwell, T. S., 47 Haskins, R., 5 Hatcher, S. S., 201, 369, 433 Havel, E., 175, 303 Hawke, J., 10, 53 Hawken, L. S., 441 Hawkins, D., 373 Hawkins, J. D., 33, 178, 208, 274 Hawkins, R. L., xxii, 12, 56, 208, 209, 245, 248, 249, 250, 251,

252, 255, 256, 257, 271, 272, 274, 276, 372, 510 Hawkins, S. R., 133, 134, 208 Hayes, L. M., 53, 54, 87, 412 Haynie, D. L., 231 Healey, K. M., 484 Heilbrunn, J. Z., 299 Hein, K., 45 Heinecke, W., 314 Heineman, J., 160 Heitzeg, N. A., 313 Henderson, A. J., 227 Henderson, C. R., Jr., 511 Hendey, L., 203 Henggeler, S., 191 Henggeler, S. W., 191, 208, 483, 484 Hennessey, M., 8 Hennigan, K., 499 Henning, K., 69, 71, 72, 78, 80, 202, 203, 214 Henshaw, M. M., 57 Hentoff, N., 362 Herbst, M., 299 Herek, G. M., 158 Herman, D., 84 Hermes, M., 317 Hernandez, G., 126 Hero, R. E., 249, 255 Herrenkohl, E. C., 227 Herrenkohl, R. C., 227, 228 Herrenkohl, T. I., 223, 228 Hershberger, S. L., 160 Heugens, P. P. M., 438 Heycock, E., 370 Heyman, R. E., 224 Hill, D. B., 159 Hill, M., 372 Hiller, M. L., 520 Hiller-Sturmhofel, S., 231 Hirsch, J., 99 Hirschi, T., 94, 95 Hirshberg, D., 348 Ho, J., 228 Hodder, I., 135 Hoey, E., 134 Hoge, R. D., 435 Hoggson, N., 178 Holland, P., 25, 68, 86 Hollis, H. M., 48 Holm, S. M., 60

539 Holman, B., 81, 82, 168, 215, 411 Holmer, H., 256 Holsinger, K., xx–xxi, 24, 111, 112, 134, 161, 174, 175, 201, 231 Holstein, J. A., 373 Holt, A. R., 229 Holt, S., 232 Holton, J. K., 58 Holtrop, K., 122 Homish, D. L., 224 Hope, L. T., 179 Horn, M., 421, 423 Horner, R., 441 Horner, R. H., 435 Horowitz, J. A., 11 Horton, C., 364 Horwath, J., 436 Horwood, L. J., 223, 230 Hosie, A. C. S., 178 Hotaling, N., 346, 347, 348 Houchins, D. E., 300, 302, 303, 435 Hough, R., 53 Howard, O., 335, 337 Howard-Hamilton, M. F., 176, 192 Howe, B. R., 275 Howe, J. L., 250 Howell, J. C., 460, 495, 500 Howell, K. W., 300, 303 Howie, P., 52 Howley, D., 348 Hoyt, D., 160, 336 Hoytt, E., 126 Hsia, H. M., 37, 56, 357 Hsieh, D. K., 124 Hua, L., 48 Hubbard, D. J., 138, 485 Hubsch, A.W., 72 Huebner, D., 9, 160 Huesmann, L. R., 175 Hufft, A. G., 48 Hughes, H. K., 8 Hughes, J., 250 Hughes, M. E., 249, 253, 254 Huguley, S., 229 Huizinga, D., 31, 362, 364, 434 Hungler, K., 256, 257 Hunt, P., 202 Hunt, S. J., 44, 369, 371 Hunter, S., 338 Husain, J., 52

540 Hussey, D. L., 371 Hutchins, K., 47 Hutson, H., 396, 397, 401, 402 Hwang, W., 234 Hyde, J., 160 Hyland, K., 341 Iacono, W. G., 270 Impett, E. A., 156 Inciardi, J., 339 Inderbitzin, M., 179, 184, 186, 187, 192, 205, 209, 245 Ingoldsby, E. M., 55, 179 Irazola, S., 336 Irby, M., 100 Ireland, J. L., 234 Ireland, T. O., 227 Irish, K., 189 Irvine, A., xxi, 9, 156, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167 Irwin, K., 478 Iselin, A. R., 496 Israel, G. E., 157 Jack, G., 249 Jacobs, F., xv, xvii, xxii, 12, 57, 71, 80, 115, 124, 156, 199, 209, 210, 212, 268, 282, 369, 370, 373, 386, 393, 394, 483, 517, 527 Jacobs, L., 57, 209, 268, 369 Jacobs, L. A., 371 Jaffe, P., 223, 231 Jaffee, S. R., 271 James, C. B., 8, 11 Jamieson, J., 203 Janssen, R. S., 47 Jarosik, J., 57 Jarvis, D., 394 Jarvis, P. F., 314 Jashinsky, O., 84 Jelicic, H., 102 Jennings, J., 249, 250 Jenny, C., 158 Jenuwine, M., 53 Jespers, I., 49 Joanning, H., 484 Johansson, P., 228 Johnson, B., 347 Johnson, J., 357

AUTHOR INDEX Johnson, J. G., 282 Johnson, K., 160 Johnston, L. D., 32 Jolivette, K., 300, 302, 434, 435, 441, 447 Jones, D., 46 Jones, M. A., 38 Jonson-Reid, M., 58 Jordan, B., 249 Jouriles, E. N., 224, 225, 228 Juszczak, L., 369 Kadushin, C., 248, 254 Kahne, J., 252 Kaminsky, T., 84 Kang, W., 32 Kaplan, R., xxii, 12, 71, 80, 115, 124, 156, 199, 268, 282, 393, 394, 483, 517 Kapphahn, C., 370 Karger, J., xxii–xxiii, 26, 39, 72, 73, 115, 121, 122, 124, 203, 286, 310, 311, 314, 357, 444 Karver, M. S., 234 Kashani, J. H., 411 Katsiyannis, A., 299, 303 Katz, L. M., 50, 51 Katz, M. H., 47 Katz, S., 8 Kaufman, J., 391 Kaufman, M. J., 455 Kawachi, I., 238, 248, 250, 252 Kaye, N., 139, 445, 499 Kazdin, A., 11 Keegan, N., 297, 303, 304 Kelleher, K. J., 55, 74, 434 Kellogg, T., 47 Kelly, M. R., 460 Kelly, P. J., 134 Kelly, V., 336, 338, 339 Kempf-Leonard, K., 228 Kendall-Tackett, K. A., 223, 232 Kendig, R., 210 Kennair, N., 229 Kennedy, A. C., 229 Kennedy, B., 248, 250 Kenny, E. D., 229 Kerig, P. K., 9 Khan, R., 225, 227 Khashu, A., 357

Khatiwada, I., 159 Khurana, A., 288 Kilburn, R. M., 57 Kilmer, R. P., 247 Kim, A. A., 47 Kim, D. H., 252, 253, 254, 255 Kimbrough-Melton, R. J., 278 Kindlon, D., 10 King, K., 80 King, M., 287, 353, 434 King, P. E., 100 King, R. S., 27, 38 Kintner, E., 134 Kiremire, M., 339 Kirk, D. S., 58 Kirk, S. A., 124 Kisna, M. A., 208 Kitzmann, K. M., 229 Klein, J. D., 370 Klein, N. K., 393 Klein, R., 157 Kleitz, S. J., 191 Klerman, L. V., 48, 370 Knesting, K., 311 Knoff, H. M., 299 Knoll, C., 25, 37, 38 Knupfer, A. M., 333, 345 Ko, S., 8 Ko, S. J., 50, 51 Koegl, C. J., 233 Koh Peters, J., 85 Koliba, C., 447 Kolko, D. J., 391 Konarski, R., 227 Koopman, C., 231 Koposov, R., 51 Kosciw, J. G., 159 Kostelny, K., 270, 271 Koverola, C., 339 Kozol, J., 394, 397 Kramer, T. L., 50 Kreipe, R. E., 371 Kreuter, M. W., 251 Krezmien, M., 300 Krezmien, M. P., 26, 298 Krieger, N., 55 Krisberg, B., 25, 32, 116, 201, 415 Kristof, N., 332, 334, 338, 340 Kroger, J., 7 Krohn, M. D., 29, 362

541

Author Index

Kubisch, A., 124, 352 Kubrin, C., 115 Kulynych, J., 249, 250 Kwasman, A., 370 Kwong, M. J., 227 Kyckelhahn, T., 335 Lacey, C., 117 Lacks, R., 357 Lacour, C. B., 318 Ladson-Billings, G., 316, 317 Lally, S. J., 9 Lambert, R., 435 Lamborn, S. D., 10 Lampkin, A., 370 Lampron, S., 287 Lanctot, N., 134 Landenberger, N. A., 480, 481, 484, 485, 495 Landsverk, J., 10 Lane, J., 95, 203, 208–209, 436, 439, 448 Langabeer, K., 231 Langley, K., 59 Langstrom, N., 49 Lansford, J. E., 223, 224, 227, 229, 250, 434 Lansing, A. E., 53 Lanza-Kaduce, L., 25, 95 Larrea, M. A., 48, 132, 178 Larson, R. W., 6 Latessa, E. J., 485 Lattimore, P. K., 208 Laub, J. H., 58 Lavoie, F., 228 Lawler, S., 135 Lawrence, C., 320 Lawrence, C. R., III, 316 Lawrence, K., 124, 352 Layne, C., 11 Lazerson, M., 201 Lazlo, E., 401 Leadbeater, B. J. R., 395 LeBlanc, L. A., 412 LeCompte, M. D., 315 Lederman, C. S., 48, 52, 132, 133, 134, 178 Lee, S., 322 Leffert, N., 199, 279, 280, 281 Legters, N., 412

Leiber, M., 114, 358 Leiber, M. J., 112, 113, 357 Lemak, D. J., 436 Leo, R., 5 Leone, P., 444, 448 Leone, P. E., 26, 39, 73, 288, 298, 300, 302, 303, 434 Lerner, J. V., 102, 104 Lerner, R., 156 Lerner, R. M., xxi, 4, 7, 12, 33, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 153, 156, 199, 214, 246, 248, 268, 275, 276, 280, 347, 364, 372, 385, 391, 393, 394, 395, 410, 414 Lerner, S., 414 Lesch, K. P., 59 Letourneau, E. J., 484 Letourneau, N., 256, 257 Leve, L., 8, 208, 486 Leve, L. D., 178, 414, 486 Leventhal, T., 55–56, 391 Levick, M. L., 138 Levin, B., 314 Levine, M., 434 Levine, W. C., 47 Levitt, S. D., 516 Lewin-Bizan, S., 103 Lewis, A., 313 Lewis, M., 393 Lexcen, F. J., 134 Lezin, N. A., 251 Li, H., 132, 178 Li, S. D., 298 Liao, Y., 56 Lichter, E. L., 232 Lickliter, R., 97 Lieb, R., 514 Lieberman, A., 9 Lieberman, A. F., 391 Liedka, R. V., 516 Limber, S., 482 Limber, S. P., 275 Limbos, M. A., 238 Lin, N., 248, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 257 Lincoln, Y. S., 313 Lindegren, M. L., 47 Lindsey, D., 201, 215, 217 Lindsey, M. A., 250

Lipman, P., 314 Lipsey, M. W., 208, 442, 448, 477, 480, 481, 484, 485, 489, 490, 495, 497, 500 Lipsky, M., 356 Lipton, D., 478 Liss, M., 337 Liston, C., 509 Listwan, S. J., 485 Litt, I. R., 44 Little, M., 245 Livingston, M., 57 Livsey, S., 29 Lizotte, A. J., 362 Lloyd, R., 331, 332, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 348 Lochner, K., 248, 250, 254 Locke, J., 393 Loeber, R., 224, 362, 364 Loeffler, D. N., 251 Lopez-Williams, A., 180 Lorish, C. D., 370 Losel, F., 271 Losen, D., 310 Losen, D. F., 122 Losen, D. J., 26, 297 Loughran, E. J., 411 Lovell, R., 37, 357 Lowry, B., 8 Lucas, C. P., 51 Luckenbill, W., 204, 205, 216 Luczynska, C., 394 Lukens, L., 118 Lundman, R. J., 484 Luthar, S. S., 8, 246, 247 Lyerla, R., 47 Lynch, D., 133, 335, 341, 343, 345 Lynn, M., 316 Lynskey, M. T., 230 Lyons, J. S., 53 Maas, C., 223, 227, 228 Maccini, P., 300 MacDonald, R., 253 Macinko, J., 56 MacInnes, R., 346, 348 Mackenzie, D. L., 448 Mackenzie, R., 339 MacKinnon, C., 336 MacLeod, K. S., 441

542 Magnum, R. L., 460 Magnusson, D., 98, 393, 394, 397 Mahler, K. A., 231 Mahoney, K., 8 Maimon, D., 231 Maisiak, R., 370 Majd, K., 8, 79, 161, 166, 167, 168, 169 Majone, G., 217 Mallet, S., 160 Mallon, G. P., 157, 161 Malmgren, K. W., 57 Maniglia, R., 137, 138 Manke, B., 225 Mankey, J., 360 Mann, C. R., 318 Mannarino, A., 9 Marcell, A., 370 March, J., 236 Margolin, G., 223, 230, 231, 236 Margolis, H. S., 47 Mariscal, R., xxi, 26, 37, 38, 56, 82, 95, 111, 175, 179, 180, 201, 233, 288, 297, 299, 310, 320, 336, 355, 357, 358, 429 Markey, C. N., 370 Markman, J., 78, 347 Marks, J., 457 Marksamer, J., 8, 9, 157, 161, 165, 166 Marsh, J., 253 Marshall, L. E., 234 Marshall, P. C., 394 Marshall, W. L., 234 Martin, A., 49 Martin, C. L., 159 Martin, L. N., 6 Martin, M., 117 Martin, S. R., 160 Martinez, C., 392, 396, 401 Martinez, E., 134 Martinson, R., 478 Marton, K. I., 370 Marzullo, M. A., 160 Maschi, T., 201, 215, 369, 371, 384, 433 Maslow, A. H., 238 Mason, J., 135 Mason, L., 300 Mason, W. A., 53

AUTHOR INDEX Masten, A. S., 33, 199, 246, 247, 393, 394 Mathur, S. R., 304, 371, 434, 444 Matsuda, M., 316, 325 Matthew, R., 232 Matthews, B., 138 Matthews, Z., 53 Maturana, H., 401 Mauer, M., 181, 358 Maurer, K., 248, 249, 251, 256, 257 Maxfield, M. G., 227 May, C. K., 254 May, J., 139, 445, 499 Mayall, B., 372 Mayer, S., 275, 410 Mays, L. G., 82 Mazerolle, L., 510 Mbilinyi, L. F., 229 McBride, C., 484 McBride, D., 339 McBroom, J., 510 McCabe, K. M., 53 McClard, T., 213 McClelland, G. M., 39, 47, 50, 52, 134, 288, 362, 369, 434 McCloskey, L. A., 232 McConaghy, N., 158 McCord, J., 298, 411 McCrary, J., 516 McCurley, C., 224 McDaniel, B., 9 McDonald, R., 224, 225, 228 McEwen, B. S., 59, 199, 364 McFarland, W., 47 McGaha, J. E., 335 McGlynn, M., 302 McGowan, A., 5, 517 McGue, M., 270 McGuire, M., 359 McHale, R., 56 McHugh, D., 360 McIntyre, T., 301 McKenna, L., 100 McKenzie, M., 239 McLaughlin, J., 159 McNulty, M., 370 McPherson, K., 11, 205, 207, 211, 212, 214 McPherson, K. S., 44, 45, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 73, 87, 298, 299

McReynolds, L. S., 50, 51 McWey, L. M., 205 McWhirter, E. H., 245 Mead, M., 132, 137, 138, 139 Mears, D. P., 25, 29, 208, 256, 297, 303, 304 Meiners, E. R., 311, 313, 319 Meinhard, A. G., 438 Meisel, S. M., 57, 300, 302 Melbye, K., 347 Mellor, D., 229 Melton, G., 191, 274, 275, 276, 278 Melton, G. B., 68 Menard, S., 31 Mendel, R., 82, 111, 125, 204, 355, 456, 458 Mendel, R. A., 191, 412, 416, 429 Mennel, R. M., 24, 116 Mercer, K., 318 Mericle, A. A., 39, 47, 50, 134, 288, 362, 369 Merlo, A., 83 Meroe, A. S., 214, 410 Meroe, S. A., 104 Merschdorf, U., 59 Mertz, K. J., 47 Messinger, L., 159 Meyer, D. D., 68, 69 Meyer, J. R., 5 Meyer, W. J., 158 Michael, R. S., 310 Mihalic, S., 478, 497 Mihalic, S. F., 208, 435, 483, 486 Milburn, N., 160 Milburn, N. G., 160 Miller, A. D., 415 Miller, H. V., 520 Miller, J., xxiii, 58, 72, 75, 124, 134, 139, 151, 201, 214, 303, 352, 362, 435, 460 Miller, J. G., 410 Miller, J. M., 520 Miller, M., 208, 486 Miller, M. G., 477, 480, 486 Miller, T. K., 436 Miller-Cribbs, J. E., 251, 255 Miller-Johnson, S., 178 Miller-Kahn, L., 314 Minkovitz, C. S., 372 Minow, M., 69

Author Index

Minton, T., 421 Minuchin, S., 199, 393, 397 Minze, L. C., 225 Miranda, D., 357 Miranda-Julian, C., xxii, 12, 71, 80, 115, 124, 156, 199, 209, 212, 268, 282, 393, 394, 483, 517 Mitchel, C. C., 208 Mitchell, R. L., 463 Mitzen, J., 257 Mlyniec, W. J., 25, 68, 86 Modecki, K. L., 60, 232 Moeddel, M. A., 9 Moff, J., 160 Moffitt, T., 49 Moffitt, T. E., 50, 51, 270, 271 Mohr, H., 29 Mohr, W. K., 224, 225 Molnar, B. E., 55, 58, 279 Moneta, G., 6 Monk, P., 230 Montie, J., 482 Mooney, M. R., 205 Mooradian, J. K., 357 Moore, K., 8 Moore, K. J., 486 Moore, M. R., 395 Morais, B., 423, 425 Morenoff, J. D., 509 Morgan, M., 137, 138, 139 Morgan, S. L., 255, 256, 257 Moriearty, P. L., 81, 113, 114 Morris, A. S., 9 Morris, L., 362 Morris, P. A., 98, 103, 199 Morris, R., xxi, 11, 32, 39, 44, 124, 125, 133, 134, 245, 272, 282, 288, 359, 370, 393, 411, 434, 477 Morris, R. E., 44, 45, 46, 47, 51, 53, 55, 371 Morris, S. Z., 364 Morrison, T., 318 Morrow, D., 159 Morton, H., 457, 458, 461, 463 Moser, C., 248 Mounts, N. S., 10 Mowbray, M., 250 Mueller, G., 175 Mueller, J., 313

Mueller, M. K., 92 Muhkerjee, D., 251, 252 Mukasey, M. B., 331, 333, 334, 340, 341, 342, 344 Mulcahy, C. A., 298, 300 Mulford, C. F., 208 Mullen, R., 484 Muller, E., 39 Mulvey, E., 434 Mulvey, E. P., 496 Mumola, C. J., 181 Mun˜oz-Miller, M., 185 Murnane, R. J., 298 Murray, J., 178 Murray, K. E., 247 Murray, L., 395 Musick, J. S., 229 Mutcherson, K., 76 Myers, D. M., xi, xxiv, 75, 82, 139, 151, 214, 233, 303, 348, 355, 356, 360, 433, 434, 435, 448, 451, 460 Nadon, S., 339 Najaka, S. S., 482 Najam, A., 435 Nakhaie, M. R., 419 Napolitano, C. M., 92 Nardo, A. C., 310 Neal, R. D., 370 Negri, A., 404 Neild, R., 412 Nellis, A., 27, 38, 111, 114, 117, 125, 181 Nelson, B. J., 218 Nelson, C. M., 302, 434, 435, 441, 442, 447, 448 Nelson, D., 201, 217 Nelson, D. W., 111, 112, 119 Nelson, R., 210 Nesmith, J. D., 48 Neumark-Sztainer, D., 370 Newman, B., 10 Ney, P., 10 Nezu, A. M., 237 Ng, I., 133 Nichols, T. R., 483 Nicholson, H. J., 256 Nilsen, E., 72, 73 Nilsen, E. S., 286

543 Nissen, L., 256 Nixon, K., 337, 338, 339 Noddings, N., 315 Noguera, P., 319 Noone, M. J., 224 Nores, M., 482 Norton-Hawk, M., 336, 337, 338 Norwood, W. D., 228 Novikoff, A. B., 97 Nurse, A. M., 177, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191 Nyberg, S., 392 Nye, F. I., 31 Oakes, J., 298 Oakley, A., 372 O’Boyle, M., 158 Obradovic, J., 246, 247 O’Brien, M. D., 234 O’Brien, W., 457 O’Connell, K., 337 O’Connor, C., 313 O’Connor, M. J., 394 Odgers, C. L., 56 Ofshe, R., 5 Ogden, B., 457 Oh, K., 48 Oh, M. K., 47, 370 Ohlin, L. E., 415 Okamoto, S. K., 132, 133, 134 O’Keefe, G., 392 Olds, D. L., 482, 511 O’Leary, C., 335, 337 Oliveri, R., xxiii, 57, 137, 209, 210, 268, 369, 370 Olson, H. C., 394 Olson, V., 31 Olweus, D., 11, 482 O’Malley, P. M., 32 Ong, A., 322 Onorato, I. M., 47 Oppong-Odiseng, A., 370 Orfield, G., 310 Ormrod, R., 223, 332, 333, 335, 337 Ortega, R. M., 57 Ortiz, R. V., 370 Osgood, D. W., 32 Osher, D. M., 39, 73, 288, 302, 310, 444

544 Osher, T., 202 Oshinsky, D. M., 116 Osofsky, J. D., 4, 364 Overton, C., 465, 466, 467, 468 Overton, W. F., 92, 94, 95, 97, 98 Owen, A. E., 238 Owen, B., 132, 133, 137 Owen, G., 160 Owen, S. V., 134 Owen-Kostelnik, J., 5 Paasch, K., 252 Padnani, A., 122 Padron, E., 391 Pagani, L. S., 230 Pajer, K., 55 Palma, S., 159 Palmer, J., 460 Paradis, A. D., 11 Pardo, C., 271 Parent, D. G., 412 Parker, B., 435 Parker, L., 316 Parnham, J., 202, 286 Parra-Cardona, R. J., 177, 187 Parriott, R., 339 Passamonti, L., 59 Patino, V., 175 Patterson, G. R., 228 Patton, P., 137, 138, 139 Peller, G., 316 Pelton, L. H., 206 Penn, E. B., 358 Pennbridge, J., 339 Pennbridge, J. N., 161 Pennisi, A. J., 47 Pepper, R., 157 Peralez-Dieckmann, E., 134 Perel, J. M., 231 Perez, J. F., 301 Perez, L. M., 55 Perkins, J., 74 Perry, J. L., 436 Pesta, G., 287, 301, 303, 444 Petermann, F., 6 Peters, R. D., 246 Peterson, N. L., 436, 437 Peterson, R., 299 Peterson, R. L., 121, 310

AUTHOR INDEX Peterson-Badali, M., 203, 205, 206, 207, 212, 233 Peterson-Hickey, M., 117 Petro, J., 364 Petrone, R. F., 457, 459, 460, 462, 463 Petrosino, A., 273 Pettingell, S., 160 Pettit, G. S., 227 Petts, R. J., 231 Phelps, E., 102, 104 Phelps, E. D., 102 Philliber, S., 178 Phillips, D., 199, 393, 394 Phipps, P., 514 Pi, C., 434 Piacentini, J. C., 230 Pickett, K. E., 55 Pickrel, S. G., 483 Piehl, A. M., 516 Pinderhughes, E. E., xxii, 48, 174, 203, 229, 323 Pinderhughes, H., 238 Pines, A., 331, 336, 337, 339 Piquero, A., 201 Piquero, A. R., 114, 179, 180, 231, 288 Pittman, K., 100, 101, 103 Planty, M., 122 Platt, A. M., 94 Platt, J. S., 303 Plotkin, A. J., 238 Poe-Yamagata, E., 38 Poirier, J. M., 39, 73, 288, 310 Pollack, J. M., 299 Pollard, J. A., 33 Pollio, D. E., 161 Polo-Tomas, M., 271 Poncz, E., 78 Pope, C., 112, 113 Pope, C. E., 37, 357, 358 Porter, A., 348 Porter, P. K., 362 Portes, A., 248, 251 Pottick, K. J., 124 Pottieger, A., 339 Poulin, F., 411 Poupart, J., 117 Povenmire-Kirk, T., 205, 209 Powell, J. L., 33, 393

Power, S., 314 Powers, D. A., 253 Poyer, K. L., 158 Pranis, K., 119, 120, 121 Prata, G., 401 Pressman, J., 359 Price, J. M., 10 Priebe, A., 346 Prigogine, I., 397 Pritchard, A., 92 Prothrow-Stith, D., 250, 371 Puckett-Patterson, D., 300 Pullmann, M., 371 Pumariega, A. J., 369, 386 Puritz, P., 79 Putnam, F. W., 231 Putnam, R. D., 249 Putnick, D. L., 7 Puzzanchera, C., xvii, 25, 26, 28, 29, 81, 131, 133, 335, 517 Pynoos, R., 8, 11 Pynoos, R. S., 230 Qaseem, A., 371 Quillian, L., 249 Quinn, A., 435 Quinn, M. M., 39, 73, 288, 302, 310, 444 Quinn, W., 484 Quinsey, V. L., 496 Quint, J. C., 229 Rabinovitch, J., 347 Raffaele Mendez, L. M., 299 Ramsey, S. H., 85 Randall, J., 484 Raphael, J., 336, 337, 338, 339, 345, 347, 348 Rathunde, K., 98, 101 Ravoira, L., 132, 134, 137, 175 Rawal, P., 53 Rawana, J., 10 Ray, N., 160, 161 Ream, R. K., 253, 254 Rebeck, A., 357 Rebellon, C. J., 223, 227 Redd, R., 249 Redding, R. E., 95, 208 Redhorse, J., 117 Reed, K., 338 Reed, R., 436

Author Index

Rehkopf, D. H., 55 Reichbach, A., 73 Reid, J., 191 Reid, M. J., 482 Reiman, J., 245, 253 Reinecke, M. A., 236 Reinherz, H. Z., 11 Reiss, A. J., 478 Reppucci, N. D., 5, 93, 177 Retz, W., 59 Retz-Junginger, P., 59 Reutter, L., 256, 257 Reyes, A., 73 Reyes, C., xxi, 8, 9, 156, 161 Reyna, R., 118 Rhoghel, K. L., 59 Ribases, M., 59 Rice, E., 160 Rice, M., 496 Rich, J., 124, 125 Richards, C., 39 Richards, M. H., 6 Richardson, B., 111, 114, 117, 125 Rider, J. A., 419 Ridolfi, L., 113, 115, 117 Ridolfi, L. J., 201 Riley, A. W., 44, 411 Riley, K., 473 Ringwalt, C. L., 511 Risser, J. M., 52 Risser, W. L., 52 Ro, M. J., 55 Roberts, A. L., 279 Roberts, D. J., 463 Roberts, R. E., 50, 52 Roberts, S., 355 Robertson, A. A., 52 Robinson, M. B., 370 Robinson, T., 176, 186, 187, 192 Robinson, T. L., 176, 192 Robson, R., 160 Rock, D. A., 299 Rockwell, S. B., 302 Rodas, B., 203 Rodgers, L., 336 Rodriguez, G. M., 314 Rodriguez, M., 160 Roe-Sepowitz, D. E., 228 Roesler, T. A., 158 Rogers, C. S., 199

Rogers, T., 439 Rogoff, B., 199 Roll, S., 252 Rolle, R. E., 314 Roman, C., 510 Roman, J. K., xxiv, 204, 208, 210, 233, 364, 436, 459, 499, 505, 520 Romansky, J., 53 Romero, E. G., 61 Rondenell, S., 360 Roosevelt, E., 275 Rosario, M., 178 Rosato, N. S., 201, 369, 433 Roschelle, A. R., 250 Rose, D. R., 419 Rose, J., 310 Roseborough, D., 302 Rosenbaum, J., 132, 137 Rosenbaum, J. L., 177 Rosenblatt, A., 50 Rosenblum, L. A., 393 Rosenheck, R., 438, 448 Rosenheim, M. K., 478 Rosenthal, D., 160 Rosler, M., 59 Ross, C., 69, 72, 80, 207 Ross, T., xxiii, 57, 58, 72, 75, 124, 132, 134, 139, 151, 201, 207, 214, 215, 303, 352, 353, 357, 359, 361, 362, 435, 460 Rossman, B. B. R., 228 Rostosky, S. S., 8 Roth, J., 395, 399 Roth, J. A., 478, 517 Roth, J. L., 97, 100, 104 Rotheram-Borus, M. J., 160, 231 Rothman, D. J., 93, 411 Rousseau, C., 316 Rowland, M., 191 Rowland, M. D., 483 Roy, K. M., 183 Rozalski, M., 311 Ruchkin, V., 51 Rudinger, G., 156 Rudy, B., 47 Ruffolo, M. C., 57 Ruiz-de-Velasco, J., 302 Rumberger, R. W., 253, 254 Russell, C. M., 288

545 Ruth, G., 275, 410 Rutherford, R., 371 Rutherford, R. B., 39, 73, 288, 298, 302, 304, 310 Rutter, M., 270, 393, 394 Ryals, J. S., 302 Ryan, C., 9, 157, 158, 160, 165 Ryan, G. W., 135 Ryan, J. B., 303 Ryan, N., 236 Ryan, S. A., 371 Sacco, V. F., 419 Saddler, C., 311 Saewyc, E. M., 160 Safyer, A. W., 161 Salamon, L. A., 435 Saleebey, D., 33, 393 Salzinger, S., 178, 282 Sampson, R. J., 56, 58, 175, 179, 255, 509 Sanchez, A., 404 Sanchez, J., 9, 160 Sanchez, M., 166 Sanci, L. A., 370 Sandler, I. N., 441 Sandy, J. M., 6 Santisteban, D., 484 Santos, L., 51 Sarri, R. C., 133 Savin-Williams, R. C., 158 Sawyer, R. G., 339 Scales, P., 279, 280 Scales, P. C., 97, 199, 275, 280, 281 Schachter, E., 185 Schaeffer, C. M., 191, 442 Scharmer, O., 400 Schensul, J. J., 315 Scheurich, J. J., 373 Schindler, M., xxiv, 25, 82, 86, 104, 119, 124, 125, 153, 191, 192, 201, 204, 205, 214, 216, 354, 355, 394, 409, 442, 443, 458, 499, 514 Schiraldi, G. R., 339 Schiraldi, V., xxiv, 25, 33, 82, 86, 104, 124, 125, 126, 153, 191, 192, 201, 204, 205, 214, 216, 354, 355, 394, 409, 442, 443, 458, 499, 514

546 Schirmer, S., 181 Schlee, B. M., 205 Schlesinger, A., Jr., xvii Schludermann, E., 339 Schmid, K. L., 92 Schneider, B., 252, 253, 254, 255 Schneider, S., xxiv, 39, 40, 82, 152, 161, 204, 355, 358, 429, 443, 456, 518 Schneirla, T. C., 97 Schoenfeld, N., 444 Schoenwald, S., 191, 208 Schoenwald, S. K., 483 Scholle, S. H., 434 Schoon, I., 246, 247 Schoonover, B., 121 Schorr, L., 248 Schorr, L. B., 506, 522 Schuller, T., 248, 254 Schultz, R., 258 Schumann, J., 441 Schumann, K., 434 Schwab-Stone, M., 51 Schwalbe, C. S., 201, 369, 433 Schwartz, R., 201, 213, 214, 414 Schwartz, R. G., 92, 93, 94 Schweinhart, L. J., 482 Scott, E., 25, 92, 93, 105 Scott, E. S., 5, 6, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 105, 199, 201, 509 Scott, K. K., 238 Scott, R., xxv, 529 Scott, T. M., 302 Seave, P., 496 Secker, J., 372 Sedlak, A., 11, 205, 207, 211, 212, 214, 334 Sedlak, A. J., 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 73, 87, 298, 299 Seeman, T. E., 238 Sehgal, A., 203, 208–209 Seibold-Simpson, S. M., 371 Seidel, D., 287 Seidman, E., 55 Seiffe-Krenke, I., 6 Seitz, K., 348 Seligman, M. E. P., 441 Sellers, C. S., 31 Sellin, T., 95 Selsky, J. W., 435

AUTHOR INDEX Selvini Palazzoli, M., 401 Semsa, A., Jr., 97 Serran, G. A., 234 Sesma, A., 275 Sexton, T., 208 Sexton, T. L., 483 Sezgin, U., 339 Shadish, W. R., 478 Shaffer-King, E., 134 Shanahan, R., 205 Shapiro, D., 337 Shapiro, F., 272 Shapiro, S. B., 484 Shapiro, V., 391 Sharp, A. E., 177 Sharp, C., 177, 178 Shaw, D. S., 55 Sheedy, C. F., 237 Sheidow, A. J., 191, 208 Shek, D. T. L., 237 Shelden, R., 27, 333, 345 Shelton, D., 46, 52, 369, 371 Shelton, H., 122, 358 Sheppard, V. B., 357 Shera, W., 435 Sherif, C. W., 439 Sherif, M., 439 Sherman, F., 84, 371, 384 Sherman, F. T., xv, xvii, xxi, xxiii, 8, 25, 27, 35, 58, 68, 117, 118, 122, 123, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 177, 190, 200, 203, 206, 210, 214, 218, 231, 232, 233, 269, 274, 331, 344, 348, 353, 354, 356, 371, 527 Sherman, G., 118 Shi, J., 56 Shi, L., 371 Shields, G., 58 Shildrick, T., 253 Shippen, M. E., 300, 435 Shirk, M., 360 Shoenberg, D., 86, 119, 181, 189 Shonkoff, J., 199 Shonkoff, J. P., 59, 60, 199, 364, 393, 394 Short, J. F., 31 Shortorbani, S., 234 Shrimpton, B., 239

Shufelt, J. L., 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 Shulman, E. P., 134 Shultz, D., 57 Sickmund, M., 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 56, 58, 59, 81, 245, 246, 287, 421, 422, 484, 510, 517 Siddle, P., 270 Siegel, J. A., 231, 232 Siegfried, C., 8 Sigfusdottir, I. D., 178 Sigurdsson, J. F., 178 Silbereisen, R., 156 Silbert, M., 331, 336, 337, 339 Silva, F., 180 Simkins, S., 8 Simon, J., 177, 178 Simon, W., 156 Simpson, D., 253 Simpson, L., xxiv, 39, 40, 56, 82, 152, 161, 204, 355, 358, 429, 443, 456, 518 Sitaraman, B., 251 Siu, A. M. H., 237 Skay, C., 160 Skiba, R., 122, 299, 435 Skiba, R. J., 26, 299, 310, 311, 357 Skopp, N. A., 225 Skowyra, K., 435, 444, 445 Skowyra, K. R., 288 Skyles, A., 248 Sladky, A., 29, 32 Slattery, B., 336 Smetana, J. G., 9 Smink, J., 299 Smith, B., 126 Smith, C., 223 Smith, C. A., 227, 362 Smith, C. D., 298 Smith, D., 8, 372 Smith, D. E., 313 Smith, G. S., 94 Smith, L., 191 Smith, L. A., 331, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345 Smith, L. T., 313 Smith, M., 348

Author Index

Smith, M. L., 314 Smith, P. K., 393 Smith, R., 394 Smith, S. S., 249, 250 Smith Slep, A. M., 224 Smith Stern, C. A., 58 Smith Stern, S. B., 58 Snow, D. A., 186 Snow, M. A., 331 Snyder, H., 510, 517 Snyder, H. N., 26, 27, 28, 33, 35, 38, 39, 56, 58, 59, 224, 245, 246, 287, 484 Soler, M., 86, 87, 119, 181, 189, 190, 192, 369, 370, 384, 448 Soler, M. I., 86 Solomon, A., 331 Solomon, B. S., 227 Solorio, M., 160 Sol orzano, D., 313, 316, 319 Sommer, S., 160 Sorenson, A., 255, 256, 257 Sotheran, J. L., 160 Sousa, C., 223 Souweine, J., 357 Sowa, J. E., 437, 447, 448 Sowell, E. R., 60 Spain, A., 304 Spangenberg, M., 335, 337, 338 Spann, A., 303 Spear, L. P., 6 Spencer, M. B., 7, 8, 99, 176, 177, 179, 181, 182, 185, 186, 191, 192 Spencer, N., 371 Spina, S. U., 249, 253, 254 Spinrad, T. L., 9 Spiridakis, K., 412 Spivak, H., 371 Sprague, J., 313 Spring, M. E., 117 Spry, S. A., 302 Sroufe, L. A., 276, 282 Stake, R. E., 135 Stalebrink, O. J., 506 Stanfield, R., 165 Stanton-Salazar, R. D., 249, 253, 254 Starfield, B., 44, 411 Starling, J., 52

Stashwick, C. K., 11 Stattin, H., 98, 394, 397 Steele, P., 415 Steen, S., 115 Stefancic, J., 316, 317, 324 Stehno, S., 179 Stein, J. A., 281 Stein, S. J., 314 Steinberg, A., 8 Steinberg, A. M., 230 Steinberg, L., 4, 5, 6, 10, 25, 60, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 104, 105, 156, 199, 201, 245, 246, 393, 509 Steiner, H., 53 Steinhart, D., 165 Stengers, I., 397 Stephens, R. D., 303, 304 Sterling, R. W., 79 Stevens, G., 371 Stevens, J., 55 Steward, M., 416 Stewart, A., 57 Stewart, A. J., 160 Stewart, G. D., 180 Stewart, M. J., 256, 257 Stoep, V. A., 180 Stone, W., 250 Stouthamer-Loeber, M., 177, 179, 224 Strauss, M. A., 230 Sturgis, C., 362 Suchindran, C., 228 Sugai, G., 435, 441 Suhr, C., 346 Sullivan, C., 160, 161 Sullivan, M. L., 209, 245 Sum, A., 159 Sunyer, J., 394 Supprian, T., 59 Susi, G., 124, 352 Sutton, S., 124, 352 Swank, P. R., 228 Swanson, C. B., 310 Sweeney, P., 47 Swofford, A., 339 Syme, S. L., 238 Szapocznik, J., 484 Szreter, S., 252 Szymanski, L., 287

547 Tambor, E., 44, 411 Tanenhaus, D. S., 117 Tangvik, K., 103, 255, 391, 399, 400 Tart, C. D., 225 Tarver, D. E., II, 157 Tate, W., 316 Tatelbaum, R., 511 Taylor, A., 271 Taylor, C., 33 Taylor, P. M., 238 Taylor, S. J., 373 Teachman, J. D., 252, 253 Tekin, E., 57 Tepas, J. J., 238 Teplin, L. A., 39, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 61, 134, 288, 362, 369, 370, 371, 384, 386, 434 Theokas, C., 103 Thomas, F., 484 Thomas, K., 316 Thomas, W. P., 302 Thome, J., 59 Thompson, A., 181 Thompson, M., 10 Thompson, P. M., 60 Thompson, S. J., 161 Thomson, A. M., 436, 438, 439, 446 Thomson, S., 348 Thornberry, T. P., 223, 227, 362, 364 Thurau, L., 299 Tian, X., 124 Tichavsky, L., 208, 435 Timmons-Mitchell, J., 132, 134, 208 Tinsley, B. J., 370 Tobach, E., 97 Tobler, N. S., 511 Todis, B., 258 Toga, A. W., 60 Tolan, P., 270, 413 Tolan, P. H., 175 Tollet, C. L., 168, 411 Tolman, D. L., 156 Tomany-Korman, S. C., 56, 57 Tompkins, M., 189 Tong, V. M., 301 Torbet, P., 25, 82 Torres, G., 316

548 Toth, S. L., 10, 230 Tottenham, N., 509 Towery, I. D., 57, 137, 268, 369 Tracy, E. M., 250 Tracy, P. E., 114 Traunter, H. M., 157 Travis, J., 29, 201, 208, 211, 216, 217, 218, 256, 297, 303, 304 Treadwell, H. M., 55 Treadwell, K. R. H., 236 Tremblay, R. E., 228, 434 Trifskin, S., 160 Trinke, S. J., 227 Trino, R., 47 Tucker, P., 56 Tuell, J. A., 365, 435, 445 Tulkin, S. R., 280 Turiel, E., 9 Turner, C. W., 208 Turner, H., 223 Turner, S., xxiv, 80, 86, 104, 191, 192, 203, 204, 208–209, 233, 272, 297, 364, 413, 419, 436, 439, 442, 445, 448, 477, 506, 514 Turpin-Petrosino, C., 273 Tutty, L., 337 Twine, F. W., 313 Twomey, K., 287 Tylee, A., 370 Tyler, K., 160, 336 Udry, J. R., 179 Ulman, A., 230 Ulzen, T. P., 52 Umbreit, M., 434 Undesser, C., 52 Ungar, M., 247 Unruh, D., 175, 205, 209 Unruh, D. K., 245, 248 Urban, J., 103 Ursel, J., 337 Useem, B., 516 Valdes, F., 316 Valentine, C., 287, 301 Valentine, M., 47 Valentine, S. E., 160, 165, 166 Valera, R. J., 339 Valila, N., 348 Van Den Bosch, F. A. J., 438

AUTHOR INDEX van den Brink, W., 52 van der Kolk, B. A., 230 Vanderzee, K. L., 9 VanGeest, J., 57 Van Gundy, K., 223, 227 Van Horn, P., 9, 391 Van Leuwen, J., 160, 161 Van Loan, C., 300 Van Riel, C. B. M., 438 Vardaman, S. H., 331 Varela, F., 401 Varela, N., 234 Varma, K. N., 205, 206, 210, 212 Vashchenko, M., xxii, 12, 56, 208, 209, 245, 271, 272, 274, 276, 372, 510 Vaught, S., 313, 314, 316 Vaught, S. E., xxiii, 26, 37, 115, 121, 122, 124, 177, 233, 245, 297, 299, 303, 310, 358, 362, 412 Vermeiren, R., 49, 50, 51, 52 Vickerman, K. A., 223, 230, 231, 236 Vidal, A., 252 Villanueva, C., 38 Villarruel, F., 38, 114, 120, 122 Villarruel, F. A., 38 Villenas, S., 316 Vinnerljung, B., 414 Visher, C. A., 208, 517 Vitaro, F., 228, 434 Voigt, R. A., 47 von Bertalanffy, L., 97, 199, 396, 400 von Eye, A., 33 Vostanis, P., 371 Vreugdenhil, C., 52 Vygotsky, L. S., 393 Wahlsten, D., 97 Waintrup, M., 258 Waintrup, M. G., 245 Wakefield, S., 257 Wald, J., 26, 122, 297, 299, 310 Waldo, G. P., 444 Waldron, H., 501 Walford, G., 313 Walker, H., 440 Walker, M., 469, 470, 471 Walker, N., 114, 120

Walker, N. E., 38 Wallace, L. E., 371 Wampler, S. R., 177 Wamsley, M., 357 Wang, X., 298 Warboys, L., 302, 444 Ward, G. K., 118 Ward, J., 176, 187, 192 Ward, J. V., 176, 186, 187, 192 Ward, R., 81 Ward, R. M., 9 Warden, R., 5 Warren, J. W., 313 Washburn, J. J., 61 Wasserman, G. A., 50, 51, 52, 53, 364 Wasserman, S., 250 Waterman, J., 53 Watkins, C., 252, 255 Watt, T. T., 179 Watts, I. E., 311 Webb, M., 360 Webster, C., 253 Webster-Stratton, C., 482 Wei, E., 224 Wei, E. H., 177, 179 Weinbaum, C., 47 Weineck, R. M., 370 Weiner, N., 331, 334, 336, 338 Weis, J., 373 Weis, L., 315 Weiss, C. H., 210 Weisz, J. R., 441, 442 Weithorn, L., 76 Weitzman, E. A., 135 Wekerle, C., 238 Wells, C., 26 Welsh, B. C., 273, 477 Werner, E., 394 Werner, E. E., 271 Weseen, S., 315 Wessendorf, S., 302 West, H., 421 Westermark, P., 414 Western, B., 412 Wheeler, K. A., 137, 139 Whelan, S., 232 Whitbeck, L., 336 Whitty, G., 314 Whitworth, A., 133

549

Author Index

Wiatrowski, M. D., 92 Wickes, R., 510 Wickrama, K. A. S., 371 Widner, K., 133, 335, 341, 343, 345 Widom, C. S., 11, 227, 231, 232, 298 Widom, C. Z., 336 Wiener, N., 396 Wigfield, A., 7 Wight, V. R., 394 Wiig, J. K., 365 Wilber, S., xxi, 9, 156, 157, 169 Wildavsky, A., 359 Wilder, I. E., 179 Wilkinson, R. G., 55 Wilks, J., 478 Williams, D., 394 Williams, J. R., 31 Williams, L. M., 231, 232, 336, 337 Williams, P., 311, 322 Williams, R., 248 Williams, R. A., 48 Williams, R. M. C., 301 Williamson, E., 336 Willoughby, B. L. B., 159 Wills, T. A., 6 Wilson, D. B., 482, 484 Wilson, J. Q., 356 Wilson, K. M., 370 Wilson, P. R., 301 Wilson, S., 6 Wilson, S. J., 480, 481, 495 Wish, E., 339

Witbeck, L., 160 Witherell, C., 315 Witte, J., 314 Wolf, A., 175 Wolfe, D., 10 Wolfe, D. A., 238 Wolfgang, M. E., 95 Wolford, B. I., 300, 303 Womack, G., 218 Wong, L., 315 Wood, D. J., 437, 438, 447, 448 Wood, J., 8, 11 Woodhouse, B., 68 Woolard, J., 82 Woolard, J. L., 92, 93, 105, 206 Woolcock, M., 252 Woolcock, M. M., 252 Woolf, A., 46 Woolley, M. E., 249, 253, 254, 255 Woronoff, R., 160 Wouters, L. F., 52 Wright, D. R., 253, 254, 255 Wright, J., 227 WuDunn, S., 332, 334, 338, 340 Wyman, P. A., 247 Xiang, Z., 482 Yaeger, A. M., 6 Yamamoto, S., 205, 209

Yates, G., 339 Yin, R. K., 135 Yorkman, S., 47 Yoshikawa, H., 177 Yosso, T., 313, 316, 319 Young, J., 10 Young, L., 336 Young, M., 27 Yovanoff, P., 175, 303 Zablocki, M. S., 26 Zachry, E., 178 Zahn, M., 8 Zahn, M. A., 35, 132, 133, 134, 208, 435 Zarrett, N., 103 Zatura, A. J., 247 Zavlek, S., 191 Zeldin, S., 199, 208 Zelli, A., 175 Zhang, D., 299, 303 Zhou, M., 251 Ziedenberg, J., 81, 82, 119, 120, 126, 168, 215, 411 Zigler, E., 391 Zimmerman, L., 53 Zimmerman, S., 102 Zimring, F., xvii, 82 Zock, J. P., 394 Zuvekas, S. H., 370

Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice Edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Subject Index

Abuse. See Bullying; Child abuse; Substance abuse; Violence ACT Group Home of Germaine Lawrence, 347–348 Addams, Jane, 117 Administration for Children and Families Court Improvement Program, 360 Adolescents. See Youth Adoption and Safe Families Act, 85, 182 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (2008), 84–85 Adult system transfers: case processing and, 27 historical trends in, 25, 95 racial disparities in, 38, 118, 122–123 youth legal rights in adult system, 82–83 Advocacy groups, 217, 355–356, 520–521 African Americans. See Blacks Aftercare, 29, 185, 304–305, 348 Afterschool programs, 103, 511 Age: adult system transfers regardless of, 82–83, 122–123 state-specific age guidelines, 33, 82–83, 122–123 as system-involved youth demographic, 33–35 Aggression. See also Violence aggression replacement training, 485, 487 parental attitudes on, 227 trauma causing, 10 Alcohol abuse. See Substance abuse

Alexander S. v. Boyd (1995), 165–166, 295, 296 Almeida, Ana, 406 Alsager v. District Ct. of Polk City, 85 American Bar Association, 356, 360 American Correctional Association, 166 Americans with Disabilities Act, 86 Angela’s House, 347 Anger. See Aggression; Violence Annie E. Casey Foundation: advocacy by, 356, 360 confinement report by, 412 JDAI by, xiv, 81–82, 125–126, 429, 443, 458 model designation by, 416 Anxiety disorders, 133, 134, 231 Aos, Steve, 496 Arizona: community-based care in, 500 demographics of youth offenders in, 38 Arkansas: multi-agency jurisdiction in, 364 Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, 36, 56, 162, 466 Attention deficit disorders, 11–12, 59, 231 Babb v. Knox County School System (1992), 297 Bail, 81 B.D.S.D., In the matter of (2009), 345 Bellotti v. Baird (1979), 75, 76 Bell v. Wolfish (1979), 166 Biologic factors: evidence-based research on, 509 youth development role of, 97–98, 231

551

youth health and delinquency impacted by, 59–61 Bisexual youth. See LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth Blacks: adult system transfers of, 38, 118, 122–123 in child welfare system, 85 commercial sexual exploitation of, 336 counterstorytelling by, 316–317 detention of, 180, 469, 470 drug-free zone laws impacting, 119–120 education of, 59, 121–122, 298, 299, 310–327 family structure of, 58 gang affiliations/classifications of, 120–121 LGBTyouth among, 162 menace to society status of, 322 mental health disorders in, 52–53 offense rates of, xi, 36–38, 56, 111, 115, 174–175, 288, 465–466 racial and ethnic identity of, 8 racial/ethnic disparities for (see Racial/ethnic disparities) service tunnels for, 357–358 socioeconomic status of, 55 youth health of, 52–53, 56–57 zero-tolerance laws impacting, 121–122, 299, 310–311 Blueprint for Change, 444–445 Blueprints for Violence Prevention, 191–192, 204, 208, 364, 413–414, 480, 481, 483, 495, 497

552 Bootstrapping, 35, 84, 353 Boys. See also Gender; Youth family violence impacting, 232 (see Family violence for detail) gay (see LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] youth) mental health issues of, 53 offense rate for, 35 STDs of, 47 Breed v. Jones (1975), 79 Brown v. Board of Education, 70, 325 Bullying, 10–11, 159, 166, 167, 482–483 Bullying Prevention Program, 482–483 W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity, 126, 356 Burton, People v. (1971), 80 B.W., In re (2010), 333 California: Collaborative Justice for Juvenile Offenders in, 443 commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 337 community-based care in, 496–499 family participation reforms in, 216 GirlZpace program in, 169 juvenile sentences in, 27 reform schools in, 410, 425–429 youth parent policies in, 189 Campaign for Youth Justice, 217 Carrion, Gladys, 423–424, 425 Carter, Jimmy, 283 Case law. See Legal cases Case studies: on commercial sexual exploitation, 331 on community-based care program rating, 496–499 on data systems, 463–475 on educational racial/ethnic disparities, 312–323 on gender issues in juvenile justice system, 131, 134–137, 139–152 on LGBTyouth juvenile justice experiences, 167 on service tunnels, 357

SUBJECT INDEX on youth development, 3–4, 12–19 on youth health perceptions, 372–386 Catalano, Richard, 496 Caucasians. See Whites Center for Families, Children, and the Courts (CFCC), 443 Center for Network Development, 360 Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV), 364, 413–414, 480. See also Blueprints for Violence Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report, 47 Centre for Evidence Based Policy, 522 Child abuse. See also Family violence commercial sexual exploitation of youth as, 133, 331–349 delinquency links to, 178 girls’ victimization and, 9, 29, 132–133 LGBTyouth suffering, 156, 158, 160, 161 PTSD caused by, 9 youth health impacted by, 57–58 youth legal rights related to, 84–86 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (2003), 84 Children. See Youth Children’s Partnership, 360 Child Welfare League of America, 364–365, 445 Child welfare system. See also Foster care system diffusion of responsibility in, 360–362 information flow in, 358–360 LGBTyouth in, 161 multiple agencies working with (see Multi-agency jurisdiction) racial/ethnic disparities in, 85 unloading cases/shifting burdens in, 362–363 youth legal rights in, 84–86

youth parent issues in, 182–183 Civic Justice Corps (CJC), 417–418 Civil Rights Act (1964), 73 Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (1997), 86 Clonlara, Inc. v. Runkel (1989), 72 Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 479, 497, 522 Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 217 Cognitive-behavioral therapy, 236–237, 441, 484, 485, 489 Collaboration. See also Multi-agency jurisdiction barriers to, 439–440 benefits of, 438 on commercial sexual exploitation relapse prevention, 348 components of, 448, 449 definition of, 437 depth and level of, 437–438 effectiveness of, 441–442 examples of, 443–445 in family violence victim interventions, 233 funding of, 449 in girl-targeted programs, 138–139, 148–152 guidelines and processes for, 446–448 health-related, 440–442, 444–445 information dissemination in, 451 Lead Entity/Service Coalition model of, 419–420 learning from, 446 national, 443, 444–445 as new imperative, 435–437 overview of, 433–435 policy support for, 449 recommended practices for effective, 446–451 shared vision of and universal commitment to, 448–451 stakeholder theory of, 436 strategies for, 448 systems of care for, 450–451 Collaborative Justice for Juvenile Offenders, 443 Commercial sexual exploitation: case management for, 346–347

Subject Index

comprehensive response to, 345–348 demographic statistics on, 334–336 entry into, 336–338 impact of, 338–340 incidence and experience of, 334–340 international, 340 laws related to, 332, 340–345 offender vs. victim status in, 332–334 outreach services related to, 346 overview of, 331–332 perpetrator prosecution for, 343 racial/ethnic disparities in, 336 recruitment into, 337–338 relapse prevention and aftercare, 348 services, compensation or protection to victims of, 342–343, 343–344 supportive housing and therapeutic recovery services for victims of, 347–348 victim identification, 346 victimization through, 133, 331–349 Commission on Chronic Illness, 440 Commonwealth v. Weston (2009), 84 Communication, flow of, 358–360, 449, 451, 457, 460–463, 518–520 Community-based care: assessments of effectiveness of, 479–481 California case study on, 496–499 challenges and obstacles to, 499–500 community-based interventions in, 483–484 evolving standards for, 478–479 funding for, 499 implementing best practices in, 486, 495–496 ineffective programs, 484, 493, 497 overview of, 477–478 prevention programs in, 482–483

principles of effective implementation, 494, 497 promising programs, 491–492, 497 proven programs and strategies, 487–490, 497 rating of, 487–494, 496–499 residential programs and, 484–486 risk assessments in, 496 Community Connections Initiative, 323 Community environment: community-based care in (see Community-based care) community-based youth development programs in, 248 evidence-based research on, 509–510 family participation in community reentry, 208–209 Lead Entity/Service Coalition model focus on, 419–420 planning for reentry into, 238 Promise Neighborhoods, 531 reentry into, 184–185, 192, 208–209, 238, 245, 248, 256–260, 303–305, 312, 323–326, 371, 416 social capital in (see Social capital) social stigma in, 156, 158–159 social support in, 238, 250, 256, 274–282, 302, 346–348 socioeconomic status in (see Socioeconomic status) Strong Communities (SCs) initiative, 276, 278–279 systemic change of, 394–396 urban war zones in, 270, 271 violence in, 267–283 (see also Gangs) virtuous vs. vicious cycles in, 396–398, 402, 403–404 young parents influenced by, 178–179, 183–184 young parents’ reentry into, 184–185, 192 youth community development model, 399–403 youth development influenced by, 12, 102–103, 267–283, 392–396

553 youth health impacted by, 55–56, 371–372 youth-led change in, 391–406 Comprehensive Community Initiatives, 248 Computers, 360, 456–457. See also Data systems; Internet Conduct disorders, 50, 51, 270–271 Confidentiality: of health care, 370, 378 information sharing and, 359, 360, 449, 462 informed consent regarding, 235 of parent–child testimonial, 71–72, 207 Connecticut: adult system transfers in, 123 commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 345 educational requirements in, 295 Contraception, 47 Correctional Program Assessment Inventory, 485 Counsel, right to, 78, 79, 81, 85 Counterstorytelling, 316–317 Court hearings: family participation in, 206–207 Cradle-to-prison pipeline, xi–xii, xiii, xiv Criminal justice system. See Juvenile justice system Criminal offenses: adult system transfers for (see Adult system transfers) historical justice system response to, 24, 76–77, 93 minor, school-related behavior as, 299–300 processing of, 27 status offenses relabeled as, 35, 84, 353 superpredator/predator theory on, xiii, xvii, 93, 95, 99, 118–119, 317 –321, 517 youth legal rights in, 86 Critical Race Theory (CRT), 316 Cross cutting issues. See Multi-agency jurisdiction

554 Crouse, Ex parte (1839), 70, 117 Curfew offenses, 84 DARE program, 493, 511 Data systems: case studies on system-related challenges, 463–475 challenges for, 459–462 confidentiality issues with, 359, 360, 449, 462 considerations when using, 462– 475 data analysis and interpretation, 461–462, 462–463 data-driven decision making, 459–476 data variable standardization, 461 documentation ability using, 204–205 duplicate data collection, 460–461 fragmentation of, 459–460 funding/resources for, 449 future directions for, 475–476 history of, 456–458 information sharing via, 358–360, 449, 451, 457, 460–463, 518 Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative integration of, 457, 458–475 multi-agency integration issues, 359, 443, 449, 457, 459–463, 518 quality control of, 461 real-time use of data, 463 reluctance/inability to use data, 462 Death penalty, xviii, 83, 508, 509 Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO) mandate, 83–84 Democracy, role of, 354–355 Demographics. See also Poverty; Socioeconomic status age as, 33–35 of commercially sexually exploited youth, 334–336 disabilities and mental health as, 38–39 gender as, 35, 132–134 geography as, 38 of LGBTyouth, 161–164 race/ethnicity as, 36–38, 134

SUBJECT INDEX of system-involved youth, 33–39, 132–134, 174–177, 287–288 youth health-related, 55–59, 60, 373 Dental health, 46 Depression: commercial sexual exploitation leading to, 339 family violence comorbidity with, 230, 231, 232 girls with, 133 LGBTyouth with, 9 system-involved youth experiencing, 411–412 trauma causing, 10 Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989), 84 Detention: alternatives to, 414–429 (see also Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative) impact of, 411–413 of LGBTyouth, 163–164, 165–167, 168 medication disbursement in, 360 racial/ethnic disparities in, 112, 175, 180, 469–472 recidivism impacted by, 168, 215, 411 in reform schools (see Reform schools) youth legal rights related to, 81–82, 165–166 Developmental stages. See Youth development Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC), 51 Disabilities, youth with: education of, 39, 73, 288, 293–297, 299, 301–302 learning disabilities in, 5, 11–12, 19, 20, 39, 73 legislation related to, 39, 73, 86, 203, 287, 288, 293–297, 299–300 as system-involved youth demographic, 38–39 Disposition. See Sentences/ disposition

Disproportionate minority confinement/contact, 112–113, 114, 126–127, 357–358, 469 Disproportionate Representation Index (DRI), 113 Dissociative disorders, 53, 339 District of Columbia. See Washington, D. C. Domestic violence. See Child abuse; Family violence Donnell C. v. Illinois State Board of Education (1993), 295 Drug abuse. See Substance abuse Drug-free zones, 119–120 Due process, 78, 79–80 Dusky v. U.S. (1960), 78 Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 416 Education: afterschool programs, 103, 511 at-risk preschooler programs, 482, 514 bullying in school, 10–11, 159, 167, 482–483 collaboration in, 444 commercial sexual exploitation and, 337 curriculum for, 300–301 drug-free zones near schools, 119–120 family violence impacting, 228–229 free and appropriate public education (FAPE), 73, 294, 295, 297 GED programs, 192, 260, 323 governance and organizational structure of, 302–303 on healthy relationships, 237–238 individual education plans (IEPs), 296, 301–302 during juvenile justice involvement, 297, 300–303, 310–327, 362–363 learning disabilities in, 5, 11–12, 19, 20, 39, 73 legislation on, 39, 73, 86, 203, 287, 288–297, 299–300, 301, 444

Subject Index

LGBT school-based harassment, 159, 167 multi-agency issues with, 302–303, 360 post-juvenile justice involvement, 297, 303–305, 412 pre-juvenile justice involvement, 297, 298–300 prevention programs in, 482–483 privatization of, 303, 314 push-out policies in, 26, 121–122, 287, 297, 298–300, 310–311, 362–363 racial/ethnic disparities in, 287, 298, 299, 310–327, 362 right to quality, 286–287, 288–305 school-based violence, 270–271 (see also Bullying) school referrals to juvenile court, 26 school-to-prison pipeline, 122, 297, 298, 310, 313, 362 social capital impacting, 253, 260 socioeconomic status and, 59, 298 teacher qualifications, 301, 314 truancy from, 12, 26, 159, 177, 299, 357 youth health and delinquency impacted by, 58–59 youth-led change in, 397, 398, 401, 402, 404 youth legal rights related to, 72–73, 75, 286–305 youth parenting impacting, 177–178, 229 zero-tolerance school policies, 26, 121–122, 287, 298–299, 310–311 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 73, 287, 288–293, 301 Emerging Young Men’s Program of Domestic Abuse Project, 237 Emotions: emotional literacy, 236–237 emotional regulation, 272 emotional safety, 138, 141–143 Empathic fallacy, 324–325 Empathy, 273, 324–325

Employment: commercially sexually exploited youth finding, 348 education and, 58, 159, 292, 293, 321 family stress and, 175, 230 postdetention, 245, 412–413 race/ethnicity and, 120 reform schools impacting, 411, 412, 413 social capital impacting, 251, 252, 253, 260 young parents and, 178, 184 Environment. See Community environment; Family; Peers Ethnicity. See race/ethnicity-related entries Evans; U.S. v. (2007), 342 Evidence-based practices/research: accessibility of, 508–511, 518–520 accreditation based on, 523–524 causation vs. correlation in, 516–517 collaborative programs using, 445, 451–452 community-based care using, 478, 479–481, 482, 485, 486–494, 496–500 cost-benefit analysis of, 514, 517 effect size of, 513–514 family/parent interventions using, 204, 208, 209–210 funding of, 499, 507–508, 517, 520, 521, 523 girl-targeted programs using, 139 government programs using, 363, 364 instrumental variables in, 516 judging evidence in, 511–514 overview of, 505–506 policy influenced by, 505–525 program vs. policy evaluation using, 514–518 protecting, from sponsors and consumers, 520–522 quality improvement vs., 522–524 reform school initiatives using, 410, 413–414, 417–418, 423, 430

555 research marketplace, 506–508 types of research, 508–511 young parent interventions using, 191 False empathy, 324–325 Family. See also Parents advocacy groups, 217 commercial sexual exploitation and family issues, 336–337 community-based care including, 483–484 family discord of system-involved girls, 132 family response to LGBTyouth, 160, 165, 167 hereditary factors from (see Biologic factors) identity development influenced by, 7 juvenile justice system participation by, 199–219 loss of family relationships, 144 social capital of, 251, 252, 254–255 social support for, 276, 278–279 violence within (see Child abuse; Family violence) young parents influenced by, 178–179, 183–184 youth development impacts in, 225–227, 230–231, 392–394, 395–396 youth health and delinquency impacted by family structure, 57–58 youth health participation/role of, 75–76, 370, 372, 376–377, 377–378 Family Acceptance Project, 165 Family and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, 217 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (1974), 360 Family integrated transitions (FIT), 208, 485–486, 491 Family juvenile justice participation: barriers to, 210–213, 217–218 in court hearings and interrogations, 206–207

556 Family juvenile justice participation (Continued ) documentation of, 204–206 history of, 201 mandatory vs. optional, 203 overview of, 199–201 parens patriae and, 200, 213–215 parents seen as problems vs. partners in, 203–204 in probation and community reentry, 208–209, 212 recommendations on improvements to, 215–217 research on, 204, 208, 209–210 theory vs. practice in, 202–209 during youth incarceration, 207 in youth treatment, 207–208 Family violence. See also Child abuse adolescent criminal behavior influenced by, 224–232 dating violence and, 227–228, 232 emotional literacy of victims of, 236–237 gender differences in, 232 healthy relationship education for victims of, 237–238 help-seeking/safety planning for victims of, 238–239 interventions for youth experiencing, 224, 225, 226, 228, 232–239 mental health impacts of, 230–231, 234–235 overview of, 223–224 reentry planning for victims of, 238 school success compromised by, 228–229 screening/assessment of victims of, 234–236 self-regulation for victims of, 230, 236 sibling violence as, 224, 227 social problem solving of victims of, 237 social support for victims of, 238 substance abuse as coping strategy for, 229, 231 youth abuse of parents as, 224, 229–230

SUBJECT INDEX youth development impacted by, 225–227, 230–231 youth leaving home due to, 231 Fare v. Michael C. (1979), 80 Margaret Farrell v. Matthew Cate, 426 Federalism, 352–356 Females. See Gender; Girls Florida: collaborative efforts in, 444 community-based care in, 496, 500 demographics of youth offenders in, 38 education in, 304, 444 JDAI founding in, 458 juvenile sentences in, 27 Foster Care Independence Act (1999), 74 Foster care system: child abuse leading to, 85 children of incarcerated youth in, 182–183 diffusion of responsibility in, 361 foster care bias, 132, 359 girls in, 132, 136, 141–143, 144, 147 juvenile justice links to, 132 LGBTyouth in, 161 Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC), 191–192, 208, 413–414, 423, 486, 487, 498, 514 status offenders in, 357 unloading cases/shifting burdens in, 362–363 youth health and delinquency impacted by, 57–58, 359 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, 101–102, 103, 104 Friends. See Peers Functional Family Therapy (FFT), 208, 364, 413, 423, 477, 481, 483–484, 487, 495, 514, 522 Funding: of collaboration efforts, 449 of community-based care, 499 of data systems, 449 of evidence-based practices/ research, 499, 507–508, 517, 520, 521, 523

of juvenile justice system, 353–354, 427–428, 449, 474, 499, 523–524 Gaining Independence for Tomorrow (GIFT) program, 346–347 Gangs: racial/ethnic disparities in antigang laws, 120–121 social capital of, 250, 254, 258 youth development and, 3–4 Gault, In re (1967), 24, 70, 71, 76, 77, 79, 94, 118, 354 Gay youth. See LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth Gender. See also Boys; Girls family violence gender differences, 232 gender-specific/responsive principles, 137–162 Grace’s case study of issues related to, 131, 134–137, 139–152 identity, 8–9, 156–158 mental health issues by, 53, 134 as system-involved youth demographic, 35, 132–134 transgender (see LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth) youth parent gender-based issues, 179, 181–182 General Education Development (GED) programs, 192, 260, 323 Genetic factors. See Biologic factors Geography, as demographic, 38 Georgia: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 335 Girls. See also Gender; Youth attention to relationships of, 138, 143–148 collaboration/shared power with, 138–139, 148–152 commercial sexual exploitation of, 133, 331–349 demographics of system-involved, 35, 132–134 family discord of, 132 family violence impacting, 232 (see Family violence for detail)

Subject Index

gender-specific/responsive principles for, 137–162 girl-targeted programs, core considerations in, 137–139 Grace’s case study depicting, 131, 134–137, 139–152 identity development of, 8 lesbian (see LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth) mental health issues of, 53, 133, 134 multi-agency jurisdiction over, 136–137, 151–152 offense rate for, 35 race and class of, 134 risky sexual behavior of, 8, 53, 134 safety/safe spaces for, 138, 139–143 STDs of, 47 victimization of, 9, 29, 132–133, 178–179 youth parenting by (see Young parents) Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, 189 Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS), 347, 348 Girls’ Health Passport Project. See Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP) GirlZpace, 169 Goss v. Lopez (1975), 73 Government: bureaucracy in, 355–356 democratic, 354–355 evidence-based research influencing policies of, 505–525 federalist structure of, 352–356 framing of youth problems by, 352–365 funding by (see Funding) Innovations in American Government award, 416, 423 judiciary of, 353–354 (see also Legal cases; Supreme Court) juvenile justice system of (see Juvenile justice system) legislation by (see Legislation) multiple agencies of (see Multi-agency jurisdiction)

as parens patriae, 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 84, 117, 200, 213–215 police power of, 69, 71, 73, 77, 80 state (see State governments) Graham v. Florida (2010), xviii, 27, 78, 83 Green v. Johnson (1981), 295 Guiding Light in Reform award, 416 Gun Free Schools Act (1994), 121 Hall, Granville Stanley, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education, 96 Health. See Mental health; Youth health Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (2010), 74 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 76, 360 Help-seeking behaviors, 238–239 Heredity factors. See Biologic factors Hillary, In re (2008), 84 Hispanic Americans. See Latinos HIV, 47 Homelessness, 160–161. See also Runaway cases Homosexuals. See LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth Horn, Martin, 421, 423 Houses of Refuge, 116–117 Hull House, 117 Hyde Square Task Force, 391–392, 396–406 Identity: gender, sexual orientation and, 8–9, 156–158 Identity-Focused CulturalEcological (ICE) perspective, 176, 186 identity talk, 186–187 immature, 7–9 racial and ethnic, 8 young parent, 185–187 Illinois: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 335, 337, 345

557 drug-free zone law enforcement in, 119 Immaturity: immature identity, 7–9 immature moral reasoning, 9 immature thinking, 6–7, 60 youth development and, 5, 6–9, 19, 20, 60 Incredible Years program, 482, 488 Indiana: JDAI program in, 472–474 juvenile sentences in, 27 Individual education plans (IEPs), 296, 301–302 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 73, 86, 203, 287, 288, 293–297, 299–300 Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004), 39 Information, flow of, 358–360, 449, 451, 457, 460–463, 518–520 Information technology. See Computers; Data systems; Internet Innocence Lost National Initiative (ILNI), 342 Innocence Project, 508 Innovations in American Government award, 416, 423 Integrated Treatment Model, 445 Interagency issues. See Multi-agency jurisdiction Internet, 239, 338, 342, 403–404 Interrogations, 80–81, 206–207 JDAI. See Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2009), 81 Jerry M. v. District of Columbia (1986), 417 J.G. et al. v. Mills et al. (2004), 362, 363 Jobs. See Employment John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 126–127, 365 Judiciary, role of, 353–354. See also Supreme Court Jury trials, right to, 79 Juvenile Court Act, 117

558 Juvenile Court Statistics, 32, 40 Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI): collaboration in, 443 detention response of, 81–82 establishment of, xiv, 443, 458 integrated information/data system of, 457, 458–475 racial/ethnic disparities addressed in, 125–126 reform school initiatives under, 410, 417, 429 young parent policies under, 181, 189 Juvenile Justice Act, 131 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, xvii, 25, 28, 83, 112–113, 114, 118, 137, 286, 353, 358, 530 Juvenile Justice Initiative, 423 Juvenile justice system: adult system transfers from, 25, 27, 38, 82–83, 95, 118, 122–123 aftercare in, 29, 185, 304–305, 348 alternatives to, xiii–xiv, xviii (see also Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative) bureaucracy influencing, 355–356 case law impacting (see Legal cases) case processing in, 25–29, 484 collaboration in (see Collaboration) commercial sexual exploitation victims in, 133, 331–349 community-based care in (see Community-based care) data systems of (see Data systems) democracy influencing, 354–355 demographics of youth in, 33–39, 132–134, 174–177, 287–288 detention in (see Detention) diffusion of responsibility in, 360–362 due process in, 78, 79–80 education in, 286–287, 288–305, 310–327, 362–363 evidence-based research applied to (see Evidence-based practices/research)

SUBJECT INDEX families and (see Family) funding for, 353–354, 427–428, 449, 474, 499, 523–524 gender issues in (see Boys; Gender; Girls) government impact on (see Government) healthy cultures in, 233–234 historical legacy of, xii, 24–25, 93–95, 115–119, 201, 409, 410–411 information flow in (see Information, flow of) interrogation in, 80–81, 206–207 legislation impacting (see Legislation) lesbian/gay youth in (see LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] youth) multiple agencies working with (see Multi-agency jurisdiction) offenses in (see Criminal offenses; Offense rates/trends; Status offenses) probation in, 28–29, 38, 167, 208–209, 212, 465–469 racial/ethnic disparities in (see Racial/ethnic disparities) recidivism in (see Recidivism) reform of, 39–40, 125–127, 187–192, 215–217, 355 (see also Positive youth development perspective) reform schools in (see Reform schools) residual nature of, 217–218 sentences in (see Sentences/disposition) social capital in, 256–260 social welfare vs. social control in, 77–79, 115 state-specific (see State juvenile justice system) strip searches in, 77 unloading cases/shifting burdens in, 362–363 violence in, 29, 86, 166, 233, 409, 410, 424, 425–426, 531 youth development and (see Youth development) youth health in (see Youth health)

youth legal rights in (see Youth legal rights) youth risks and strengths in (see Risk factors; Youth strengths) Juvenile predator theory, xiii, xvii, 93, 95, 99, 118–119, 317–321, 517 Juveniles. See Youth Kentucky: educational requirements in, 304 Kent v. U.S. (1966), 24, 79, 82 Kruger, Carl, 425 Lassiter v. Department of Social Services (1981), 86 Latinos: adult system transfers of, 122–123 detention of, 180, 469–472 education of, 59, 310 family structure of, 58 gang affiliations/classifications of, 120–121 Hyde Square Task Force participation of, 391–392, 396–404 LGBTyouth among, 162 mental health disorders in, 52–53 offense rates of, 37–38, 56, 111–112, 174–175, 466 racial/ethnic classification of, 113–114 racial/ethnic disparities for (see Racial/ethnic disparities) service tunnels for, 357–358 socioeconomic status of, 55 youth health of, 52–53, 56–57 Lead Entity/Service Coalition model, 419–420 Leadership by youth. See Youth-led change Learning disabilities: as system-involved youth demographic, 39 youth development impacted by, 5, 11–12, 19, 20 youth educational rights related to, 73 Legal cases: Alexander S. v. Boyd (1995), 165–166, 295, 296

Subject Index Alsager v. District Ct. of Polk City, 85 B.W., In re (2010), 333 Babb v. Knox County School System (1992), 297 B.D.S.D., In the matter of (2009), 345 Bellotti v. Baird (1979), 75, 76 Bell v. Wolfish (1979), 166 Breed v. Jones (1975), 79 Brown v. Board of Education, 70, 325 Burton, People v. (1971), 80 Clonlara, Inc. v. Runkel (1989), 72 Commonwealth v. Weston (2009), 84 Crouse, Ex parte (1839), 70, 117 Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989), 84 Donnell C. v. Illinois State Board of Education (1993), 295 Dusky v. U.S. (1960), 78 Evans; U.S. v. (2007), 342 Fare v. Michael C. (1979), 80 Margaret Farrell v. Matthew Cate, 426 Gault, In re (1967), 24, 70, 71, 76, 77, 79, 94, 118, 354 Goss v. Lopez (1975), 73 Graham v. Florida (2010), xviii, 27, 78, 83 Green v. Johnson (1981), 295 Hillary, In re (2008), 84 J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2009), 81 J.G. et al. v. Mills et al. (2004), 362, 363 Jerry M. v. District of Columbia (1986), 417 Kent v. U.S. (1966), 24, 79, 82 Lassiter v. Department of Social Services (1981), 86 McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971), 79, 354 Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), 70 Mills v. District of Columbia Board of Education (1972), 294 Milonas v. Williams (1982), 166 Morgan v. Chris L. (1997), 300

Nashua School District v. State of New Hampshire (1995), 295 Newstrom; State v. (1985), 72 New York v. Ferber (1982), 342 N.G. v. Connecticut (2004), 77 Nicolette R., In re (2004), 333, 345 Ossant v. Millard, 72 Parham v. J.R. (1979), 75–76 Paris; U.S. v. (2007), 342 Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1972), 294 Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), 70 Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth (1976), 76 Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), 70 Ramos v. Town of Vernon (2003), 84 Reno v. Flores (1993), 77 Rettig v. Kent (1981), 297 R.G. v. Koller (2006), 166 Roper v. Simmons (2005), xviii, 78, 83 Rosie D. v. Romney (2006), 74 Ruiz v. Pedota (2004), 363 Safford v. Redding (2009), 77 San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), 72 Santana v. Collaza (1983), 86 Santosky v. Kramer (1984), 86 Schall v. Martin (1984), 71, 81 School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education v. State (2009), 72 S.D. v. Hood (2004), 74 Seattle School District #1 v. B.S. (1996), 296 Smith v. Wheaton (1998), 295, 297 Smook v. Minnehaha County (2006), 77 Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), 83 State of Connecticut - Unified School District #1 v. Connecticut Department of Education (1996), 295, 296 Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), 83 Tilton v. Jefferson County Board of Education (1983), 297 Trammel v. U.S. (1980), 72

559 Troxel v. Granville (2000), 69 Unified School District No. 1 v. Connecticut Department of Education (2001), 295 Williams; U.S. v. (2008), 342 Winship, In re (1970), 24–25, 79 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), 70 Youngberg v. Romeo (1982), 86, 166 Legal rights. See Youth legal rights Legislation: Adoption and Safe Families Act, 85, 182 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (2008), 84–85 Americans with Disabilities Act, 86 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (2003), 84 Civil Rights Act (1964), 73 Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (1997), 86 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 73, 287, 288–293, 301 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (1974), 360 Foster Care Independence Act (1999), 74 Gun Free Schools Act (1994), 121 Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (2010), 74 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 76, 360 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 73, 86, 203, 287, 288, 293–297, 299–300 Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004), 39 Juvenile Court Act, 117 Juvenile Justice Act, 131 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, xvii, 25, 28, 83, 112–113, 114, 118, 137, 286, 353, 358, 530 No Child Left Behind Act, 73, 288–293, 444 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 287

560 Legislation (Continued) Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (2010), 74 Prison Rape Elimination Act, 87, 531 PROTECT (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today) Act, 341 Safe Harbor Act, 340, 345 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), 340, 341–343 White Slave Traffic Act/Mann Act (1910), 341 Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education (Youth PROMISE) Act, 530–531 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth: abuse of, 8–9, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 166, 167 in child welfare system, 161 data on/demographics of, 161–164 detention of, 163–164, 165–167, 168 family response to, 160, 165, 167 harmful policies/practices directed at, 164–168 homelessness of, 160–161 identity development of, 8–9, 156–158 in juvenile justice system, 161–168 mental health of, 9 recommendations related to, 168–170 risk assessments of, 165, 167 risk factors/social stigma for, 156, 158–161 school-based harassment of, 159, 167 sexual orientation of, 8–9, 156–158 social stigma of, 156, 158–159 suicide/suicide attempts of, 9 Lifecourse Interventions to Nurture Kids Successfully (LINKS), 364

SUBJECT INDEX Life Skills Training, 483, 487, 498 Lipsey, Mark, 496 Locke, John, 393 Louisiana: Family and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, 217 juvenile sentences in, 27 Lyman School for Boys, 410–411 MacArthur Foundation, 126–127, 365 Maine: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 educational requirements in, 304 juvenile sentences in, 27 Males. See Boys; Gender Martinez, Claudio, 391–392, 396, 401, 405 Massachusetts: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 335–336, 337–338, 346–347 drug-free zone law enforcement in, 119 educational requirements in, 295, 302–303 Gaining Independence for Tomorrow (GIFT) program, 346–347 Hyde Square Task Force, 391–392, 396–406 reform schools in, 410–411, 414–415 youth health care in, 74 (see also Massachusetts Health Passport Project) youth-led change in, 391–392, 396–406 Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP), xv, xvi, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377 Mattingly, John, 423 McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971), 79, 354 Meaningfulness, creating, 272–273 Medicaid, 74, 445 Medications, 54, 360 Menace to society status, 322 Mental health. See also Suicide/ suicide attempts; specific disorders

biologic factors impacting, 59–61 collaborative efforts related to, 444–445 commercial sexual exploitation impacting, 339 comorbid disorders, 49, 51–52, 124, 134 as demographic, 38–39 family violence impacting, 230–231, 234–235 gender differences in, 53, 134 girls’ mental health issues, 53, 133, 134 of LGBTyouth, 9 prevalence of disorders, 50–51 psychotropic medications for, 54 racial/ethnic disparities in, 52–53, 124, 180 screening and assessment of, 234–235 of system-involved youth, 38–39, 49–55, 124, 134, 288, 411–412 trauma impacting, 9–11, 230–231, 270 Metis Associates, 459, 465, 475 Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), 70 MHPP. See Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP) Michigan: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 345 juvenile sentences in, 27 Miller, Jerome, 414–415 Mills v. District of Columbia Board of Education (1972), 294 Milonas v. Williams (1982), 166 Minnesota: data systems in, 457–458 Emerging Young Men’s Program of Domestic Abuse Project in, 237 Minorities. See Asian/Pacific Islander Americans; Blacks; Latinos; Native Americans; Whites; race/ethnicity-related entries Mississippi: reform schools in, 409 Missouri: educational requirements in, 304–305

Subject Index

Missouri Model, xiii–xiv, xviii, 191, 216, 415–416 reform schools in, 410, 415–416 Missouri Youth Service Institute, 416 Models for Change DMC Action Network, 126–127 Moral reasoning, 9, 485 Morgan v. Chris L. (1997), 300 Multi-agency jurisdiction: challenges to service coordination and coherence, 358–363 collaboration in (see Collaboration) data system integration issues in, 359, 443, 449, 457, 459–463, 518 diffusion of responsibility in, 360–362 educational issues with, 302–303, 360 family participation challenges and, 214–215 in Grace’s case study, 136–137, 151–152 information flow in, 358–360, 449, 451, 457, 460–463, 518 interagency cooperation and, 183 service tunnels of, 356–358 solutions to issues of, 363–365 standard operating procedures in, 356, 365 unloading cases/shifting burdens in, 362–363 wraparound services in, 302, 371 Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC), 191–192, 208, 413–414, 423, 486, 487, 498, 514 Multisystemic Therapy (MST), 191, 208, 364, 413, 423, 451, 483–484, 485, 487, 495, 514, 522 My Life My Choice Project, 338, 348 Nashua School District v. State of New Hampshire (1995), 295 National Center for Juvenile Justice report, 421 National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, 444

National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice, 217 National Collaboration Project, 444 National Commission on Correctional Health Care, 45, 46, 166 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 356 National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 179, 415, 416 National Crime Victimization Survey, 31 National District Attorneys Association, 356 National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), 360 National Juvenile Justice Network, 217 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, 179 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 121 National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), 166 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 45 National Youth Gang Center survey, 121 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 371 National Youth Survey, 31 Native Americans: LGBTyouth among, 162 offense rates of, 36, 37, 466 racial/ethnic disparities impacting, 117 youth health of, 57 Neighborhoods. See Community environment Nevada: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 JDAI program in, 469–472 juvenile sentences in, 27 New Beginnings Youth Development Center, 416 New Hampshire: educational requirements in, 295 Newstrom; State v. (1985), 72

561 New York: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 333, 335, 345 demographics of youth offenders in, 38 educational push-out policies in, 362 family participation reforms in, 216 Juvenile Justice Initiative in, 423 juvenile justice reform attempts in, 355 New York House of Refuge, 116 One City, One Community initiative in, 361–362 Project Confirm in, 359, 361, 362, 363 Project Esperanza in, 423 Project Zero in, 421, 423, 425 reform schools in, 410, 421, 423–425, 426 runaway youths in, 361–362 New York v. Ferber (1982), 342 N.G. v. Connecticut (2004), 77 Nicolette R., In re (2004), 333, 345 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 73, 287, 288–293, 444 No Child Left Behind Collaboration Project (NCLB Project), 301 North Carolina: community-based care in, 500 North Dakota: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 Nurse Home Visitation Program/ Nurse Family Partnership, 482, 487, 498, 511, 514 Oak Hill Youth Center, 417 Obama, Barack, 267, 511 Offense rates/trends, xi, 29–32, 36–38, 56, 111–112, 115, 174–175, 288, 465–466 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): community-based care program list of, 497 conditions of confinement report by, 205, 207 establishment of, 286–287, 353

562 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (Continued) grants by, 353 information sharing guidelines by, 360, 462 model programs guide of, 363 National Center for Juvenile Justice report by, 421 racial/ethnic disparities research/ oversight by, 113, 114, 118 risk factors for adolescents by, 96 Survey of Youth in Residential Placement by, 44–45, 49, 87 Office of Special Education Programs, 295 Ohio: family participation reforms in, 216 Olds, David, 482 One City, One Community initiative, 361–362 Ossant v. Millard, 72 Parens patriae: family juvenile justice system participation and, 200, 213–215 racial/ethnic disparities in, 117 youth legal rights and, 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 84 Parent Advocacy Coalition for Education Rights, 217 Parents. See also Family foster (see Foster care system) health-care decision making by, 75–76 incarceration of, 178, 180–192 juvenile justice system participation by (see Family juvenile justice participation) parental notification during case processing, 26 parent-child testimonial privilege, 71–72, 207 social capital of, 251, 252, 254–255 state serving as (parens patriae), 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 84, 117, 200, 213–215 violence of (see Child abuse; Family violence)

SUBJECT INDEX youth as (see Young parents) youth health participation/role of, 75–76, 370, 372, 376–377, 377–378 youth legal rights in relation to, 69–72, 75–76, 77, 80, 84–86 Parham v. J.R. (1979), 75–76 Paris; U.S. v. (2007), 342 Parole. See Aftercare PART (Program Assessment Rating Tool), 506–507 Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (2010), 74 Patterson, David, 424 Peabody Research Institute, 480 Peers: bullying by, 10–11, 159, 166, 167, 482–483 gang-related, 3–4, 120–121, 250, 254, 258 identity development influenced by, 7 peer intervention processes, 273–274 social capital of, 253–254 Pennsylvania: community-based care in, 496, 500 family participation reforms in, 216 juvenile sentences in, 27 Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1972), 294 People v. See name of opposing party Perry Preschool Project, 482, 514 Physical health, 45–48, 60–61. See also Youth health Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), 70 Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth (1976), 76 Police power, 69, 71, 73, 77, 80 Policies. See also Legislation collaboration supported by, 449 evaluating policies vs. programs, 514–518 evidence-based research influencing, 505–525

harmful, directed at LGBTyouth, 164–168 push-out, in schools, 26, 121–122, 287, 297, 298–300, 310–311, 362–363 young parent, 187–192 zero-tolerance, 26, 121–122, 287, 298–299, 310–311 Political activism, 398–399. See also Youth-led change Positive behavior supports, 302 Positive youth development perspective: components of, 100–103 deficit view of youth development vs., 92–93, 96–97, 105, 414 defining features of, 98–100 emergence of, 96–104 Five/Six Cs of, 100–102, 280 juvenile justice system implications, 103–105, 414 origins of, 97–98 past and current developmental perspectives, 93–96 reform school initiatives using, 417–418 resiliency lens on, 245–247, 394 social supports for, 275–276, 277, 279–282 youth-context alignment promoting, 102–103 youth strengths as focus of, 92–105, 245–247, 275–276, 277, 279–282, 394, 414, 417–418 Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 9, 53, 124, 339–340 Poverty. See also Socioeconomic status juvenile justice system involvement impacted by, xi– xii, 115–116 youth development impacted by, 270, 282 youth health and delinquency influenced by, 55–56, 58, 60 Predator theory, xiii, xvii, 93, 95, 99, 118–119, 317–321, 517. See also Superpredator/predator theory

Subject Index Pregnancy, 48. See also Reproductive health; Young parents Prevention programs, 482–483 Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), 70 Prison Rape Elimination Act, 87, 531 Privacy issues, 360, 378, 462. See also Confidentiality Privilege, parent-child testimonial, 71–72, 207 Probation: case processing leading to, 28–29 family participation in, 208–209, 212 JDAI data system analysis of probation violations, 465–469 LGBTyouth on, 167 racial disparities in, 38 Professional associations, 356 Project Confirm, 359, 361, 362, 363 Project Esperanza, 423 Project Zero, 421, 423, 425 Promise Neighborhoods, 531 Prostitution. See Commercial sexual exploitation Protective factors. See also Youth strengths developmental assets as, 280–282 resilience impacted by, 246–247, 258, 259 PROTECT (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today) Act, 341 Psychological health. See Mental health Psychotropic medications, 54 PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), 9, 53, 124, 339–340 Quality issues: quality control of data systems, 461 quality improvement vs. research, 522–524 right to quality education, 286–287, 288–305 Race/ethnicity: classification by, 113–114 Critical Race Theory (CRT), 316

disparities based on (see Racial/ ethnic disparities) false empathy based on, 324–325 of LGBTyouth, 162 racial and ethnic identity development, 8 social capital impacted by, 250, 253, 256 socioeconomic status relation to, 55, 56 as system-involved youth demographic, 36–38, 134 youth health and delinquency influenced by, 56–57 youth perceptions influenced by, 175–177 Racial/ethnic disparities: in adult system transfers, 38, 118, 122–123 in antigang laws, 120–121 in child welfare system, 85 in commercial sexual exploitation, 336 in detention, 112, 175, 180, 469–472 differential offending vs. differential treatment causing, 114 disproportionate minority confinement/contact as, 112–113, 114, 126–127, 357–358, 469 in drug-free zone laws, 119–120 in education, 287, 298, 299, 310–327, 362 explanations for, 114–115 in family structure, 58 framework of disparities assessments, 112–115 historical legacy of, 115–119 indexes measuring, 113 in juvenile justice system, xi, 36–38, 111–127, 174–175, 179–180, 201, 288 juvenile justice system reforms addressing, 125–127 in mental health, 52–53, 124, 180 myth of race neutrality, 119–124

563 in offense rates, xi, 36–38, 56, 111–112, 115, 174–175, 288, 465–466 in service tunnel selection, 357–358 in state/local practices, 113, 114, 123–124 in substance abuse, 124–125 in youth development, 394 in youth health, 52–53, 56–57, 369 in zero-tolerance school policies, 121–122, 310–311 Ramos v. Town of Vernon (2003), 84 Recidivism: adult system transfers and, 27 aftercare and, 29 collaborative efforts reducing, 442 community-based care program evaluation based on, 487, 489–491, 498 community reentry support and, 185, 192, 248 detention/incarceration leading to, 168, 215, 411 development assets impacting, 279 educational reentry impacting, 297, 303–304 health care impacting, 386 rates of, 202, 215, 246, 415, 416, 423 reform school initiatives impacting, 413, 415, 416, 423 social supports impacting, 274, 302 Reform schools: deinstitutionalization of, 414–421 evidence-based programs/ practices in lieu of, 410, 413–414, 417–418, 423, 430 history of, 409, 410–411 human rights abuses in, 409, 410, 424, 425–426 impact of, 411–413 Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative impacting, 410, 417, 429 state/local initiatives reforming, 414–429

564 Relationships. See also Family; Parents; Peers; Sexual relationships education on healthy, 237–238 gender-specific attention to, 138, 143–148 institutional obstacles to, 144–146 positive, in system, 146–148 social (see Social capital; Social networks; Social support) Relative Representation Index (RRI), 113 Reno v. Flores (1993), 77 Reproductive health, 47–48, 76 Research, evidence-based. See Evidence-based practices/ research Resilience. See also Youth strengths positive adaptation as manifestation of, 245–247, 394 social capital fostering, 247–261, 509–510 Resistance strategies, 176–177, 187, 190 Rettig v. Kent (1981), 297 R.G. v. Koller (2006), 166 Rights. See Youth legal rights Risk assessments: community-based care using, 496 data system instruments for, 464 of LGBTyouth, 165, 167 Structured Decision Making model of, 418–419 Risk factors: disabilities as (see Disabilities, youth with) gangs as, 3–4, 120–121, 250, 254, 258 for girls, 132–134 for LGBTyouth, 156, 158–161 protective factors combating, 246–247, 258, 259, 280–282 (see also Youth strengths) risk accumulation of, 269–270 substance abuse as (see Substance abuse) trauma as (see Trauma) of young parents for juvenile justice entry, 177–180

SUBJECT INDEX Risky behavior: immaturity influencing, 6, 60 positive youth development inverse relationship to, 101, 102 sexual, 8, 53, 134 substance abuse as (see Substance abuse) youth health impacted by, 44, 47–48 Romero, Gloria, 426 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 275 Roper v. Simmons (2005), xviii, 78, 83 Rosie D. v. Romney (2006), 74 Ruiz v. Pedota (2004), 363 Runaway cases, 26, 140, 156, 160–161, 231, 334, 337–338, 361–362 Safe Harbor Act, 340, 345 Safety/safe spaces: emotional, 138, 141–143 in girl-targeted programs, 138, 139–143 in juvenile justice facilities, 233–234, 235–236 physical, 138, 140–141 planning methods of achieving, 238–239 Safford v. Redding (2009), 77 San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), 72 Santana v. Collaza (1983), 86 Santosky v. Kramer (1984), 86 Scarborough, William, 425 Scared Straight program, 273, 484, 493 Schall v. Martin (1984), 71, 81 School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education v. State (2009), 72 Schools. See Education; Reform schools School-to-prison pipeline, 122, 297, 298, 310, 313, 362 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 427 S.D. v. Hood (2004), 74 Search Institute, 277, 279–280, 281 Seattle School District No. 1 v. B. S. (1996), 296

Seattle Social Development approach, 491, 514 Self-regulation, 230, 236, 272 Sentences/disposition: death penalty, xviii, 83, 508, 509 determinate vs. indeterminate, 29 educational success impacting, 319 for LGBTyouth, 167 life, 27, 38, 83 probationary, 28–29, 38, 167, 208–209, 212, 465–469 Serious and Violent Offenders Reentry Initiative, 208 Service tunnels, 356–358 Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), 47, 338 Sexual orientation, 8–9, 156–158. See also LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth Sexual relationships: as child abuse, 9, 132–133 commercial sexual exploitation, 133, 331–349 juvenile justice system sexual victimization, 29, 166 reproductive health impacted by, 47–48, 76 risky behavior in, 8, 53, 134 STDs from, 47, 338 violence in, 8, 29, 53, 132–133, 166, 227–228, 232, 331–349 Shared power, in girl-targeted programs, 138–139, 148–152 Smith v. Wheaton (1998), 295, 297 Smook v. Minnehaha County (2006), 77 Social capital: community-level, 255–256 complexity/multidimensionality of, 251–252 core features of, 251–252 definitions of, 248–250 degree of, 251 evidence-based research on, 509–510 family-based, 251, 252, 254–255 gang-based, 250, 254, 258 in juvenile justice context, 256–260

Subject Index

measuring, 251, 252–253 negative vs. positive, 250, 254, 258 peer-based, 253–254 race/ethnicity impacting, 250, 253, 256 resilience supported by, 247–261 Social deprivation, 270 Social networks, 250. See also Social capital Social problem solving, 237 Social services. See Child welfare system; Education; Foster care system; Multi-agency jurisdiction Social stigma, 156, 158–159 Social support. See also Social capital for commercial sexual exploitation victims, 346–348 community reentry and, 238, 256 definition of, 250 for developmental assets, 277, 279–282 for families and communities, 276, 278–279 positive behavior supports, 302 for positive youth development, 275–276, 277, 279–282 youth development impacted by, 274–282 Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 116 Socioeconomic status: development assets impacted by, 282 education and, 59, 298 juvenile justice system involvement impacted by, xi– xii, 115–116 race/ethnicity and, 55, 56 social capital impacted by, 248, 249, 250, 253, 255, 256 of system-involved girls, 134 youth development impacted by, 270, 282 youth health and delinquency influenced by, 55–56, 58, 59, 60, 179, 369

youth perceptions influenced by, 175–177 South Dakota: reform schools in, 409 Standard operating procedures, 356, 365 Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), 348 Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), 83 State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), 74 State governments. See also specific states by name commercial sexual exploitation laws under, 332, 343, 344–345 educational rights under, 286, 287, 289–293, 294–297, 300–305 federalist structure impacting, 352–356 juvenile justice system of (see State juvenile justice system) youth legal rights under, 72, 73, 74 State juvenile justice system: adult system transfers in, 25, 27, 95, 122–123 age guidelines in, 33, 82–83, 122–123 authority and organization of, 353 collaboration in, 443–444 community-based care in (see Community-based care) demographics of youth in, 38 drug-free zone laws in, 119–120 due process in, 80 educational rights in, 286, 287, 290–291, 292, 294–297, 300–303 federalist structure impacting, 352–356 historical variations in, 25 parent–child testimonial privilege in, 72 racial disparities in, 113, 114, 123–124 reform school changes in, 414–429 school referrals to, 26

565 State of Connecticut - Unified School District #1 v. Connecticut Department of Education (1996), 295, 296 State v. See name of opposing party Status offenses. See also specific offenses (e.g. truancy) bootstrapping of, 35, 84, 353 commercial sexual exploitation as, 343 data collection on, 118 diffusion of responsibility in cases of, 361–362 history of, 25 parental and state rights in, 71 processing of, 27–29 service tunnels for, 357 youth legal rights and, 71, 76, 83–84 Statutory rape laws, 333 STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), 47, 338 Steward, Mark, 416 Stockholm Syndrome, 339 Strategic Alliance Formative Assessment Rubric, 438 Strengths. See Youth strengths Stress, 6–7, 60–61 Strip searches, 77 Strong Communities (SCs) initiative, 276, 278–279 Structured Decision Making model, 418–419 Substance abuse: commercial sexual exploitation leading to, 338–339 community-based programs addressing, 491–492, 493, 511 comorbid disorders, 49, 51–52 drug-free zones, 119–120 family violence triggering, 229, 231 in LGBTyouth, 9 prevalence of, 50–51 prevention programs for, 483 racial/ethnic disparities in, 124–125 trauma leading to, 11 youth health impacted by, 49–55, 124–125

566 Suicide/suicide attempts: commercial sexual exploitation leading to, 339 family violence leading to, 230, 234 of LGBTyouth, 9 prevalence of, 51 sexual abuse leading to, 53 of system-involved youth, 53–54, 412 Superpredator/predator theory, xiii, xvii, 93, 95, 99, 118–119, 317–321, 517 Supreme Court: on commercial sexual exploitation, 342 on death penalty, xviii, 83, 509 on detention, 81 on education, 73 on parental rights, 69–70, 75–76, 85–86, 117 on youth legal rights, 24–25, 71, 72, 73, 75–76, 79, 81, 83, 85–86, 94, 118, 354 Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP), 44–45, 49, 87 Tangvik, Ken, 399, 404, 405 Technology. See Computers; Data systems; Internet Teenagers. See Youth Texas: commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 333, 344 demographics of youth offenders in, 38 juvenile sentences in, 27 reform schools in, 410, 421 Therapeutic housing programs, 347–348 Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), 83 Thriving, 276 Tilton v. Jefferson County Board of Education (1983), 297 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), 340, 341–343 Training schools. See Reform schools Trammel v. U.S. (1980), 72

SUBJECT INDEX Transgender youth. See LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth Trauma: emotion regulation issues due to, 272 family violence as, 230–231 PTSD from, 9, 53, 124, 339–340 youth development impacted by, 4–5, 8, 9–11, 19, 20, 270 youth health impacted by, 9–11, 46, 53, 125, 230–231, 270 Travis, Jeremy, 424 Treatment: aggression replacement training as, 485, 487 cognitive-behavioral therapy as, 236–237, 441, 484, 485, 489 for commercially sexually exploited victims, 345–346, 347–348 community-based (see Community-based care) differential, 114 emotional literacy development as, 236–237 family integrated transitions (FIT) as, 208, 485–486, 491 family participation in, 207–208 family violence victim interventions as, 224, 225, 226, 228, 232–239 Functional Family Therapy (FFT) as, 208, 364, 413, 423, 477, 481, 483–484, 487, 495, 514, 522 healthy relationships education as, 237–238 juvenile justice system goal of, 94 medication as, 54, 360 Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) as, 191–192, 208, 413–414, 423, 486, 487, 498, 514 Multisystemic Therapy (MST) as, 191, 208, 364, 413, 423, 451, 483–484, 485, 487, 495, 514, 522 reentry planning as, 238 self-regulation strengthening as, 236 social problem solving development as, 237

therapeutic housing programs providing, 347–348 youth right to, 86–87 Troxel v. Granville (2000), 69 Truancy, 12, 26, 159, 177, 299, 357 Turning Point: Rethinking Violence, 238 Unified School District No. 1 v. Connecticut Department of Education (2001), 295 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), 29–30, 40 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 68, 267, 269, 274–275, 340–341 United States v. See name of opposing party Urban war zones, 270, 271. See also Community environment: violence in Vera Institute of Justice, 356 Vermont: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 juvenile sentences in, 27 Victimization: by bullies, 10–11, 159, 166, 167, 482–483 commercial sexual exploitation as, 133, 331–349 enhancing empathy for, 273 of family violence victims, 223–240 of LGBTyouth, 8–9, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 166, 167 of system-involved girls, 9, 29, 132–133, 178–179 Vignettes. See Case studies Violence. See also Aggression; Victimization commercial sexual exploitation and, 133, 331–349 community-based, 267–283 (see also Gangs) in families (see Child abuse; Family violence) homophobic, 8–9, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 166, 167

Subject Index

intergenerational transmission of, 227 in juvenile justice system, 29, 86, 166, 233, 409, 410, 424, 425–426, 531 school-based, 270–271 (see also Bullying) sexual, 8, 29, 53, 132–133, 166, 227–228, 232, 331–349 Virginia: Family & Allies of Virginia’s Youth, 217 JDAI program in, 465–469 Virtuous vs. vicious cycles, 396–398, 402, 403–404 ‘‘Vote for Me’’ campaign, 398–399 W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity, 126, 356 ‘‘War zone’’ mentality, 271 Washington: collaborative efforts in, 445 commercial sexual exploitation issues in, 345 community-based care in, 480, 496, 500 Seattle Social Development approach in, 491, 514 Washington State Institute for Public Policy in, 480, 486, 497 Washington, D. C.: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 family participation reforms in, 216 reform schools in, 409, 410, 416–421 West Virginia: demographics of youth offenders in, 38 educational requirements in, 304 juvenile sentences in, 27 Whites: commercial sexual exploitation of, 336 detention of, 180, 469, 470 education of, 59, 310 false empathy by, 324–325 family structure of, 58

gang affiliations/classifications of, 120–121 LGBTyouth among, 162 mental health disorders in, 52–53 offense rates of, xi, 36–38, 112, 115, 174–175, 465–466 racial/ethnic disparities compared to (see Racial/ethnic disparities) youth health of, 52–53, 56–57 White Slave Traffic Act/Mann Act (1910), 341 Williams; U.S. v. (2008), 342 Winship, In re (1970), 24–25, 79 Wisconsin: adult system transfers in, 123 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), 70 Work. See Employment Wraparound services, 302, 371 Young, Catherine, 425 Youngberg v. Romeo (1982), 86, 166 Young parents: child contact during incarceration, 180–181 child welfare-related constraints on, 182–183 community reentry by, 184–185, 192 education of, 177–178, 229 enhanced policies/services for, in juvenile justice system, 187–192 family and community influencing, 178–179, 183–184 gatekeepers impacting, 183–184 gender-based issues for, 179, 181–182 health of, 48 home visitation program for, 482, 487, 498, 511, 514 identity issues facing, 185–187 impact of juvenile justice system on, 180–185 offense rates of, 175 risks for juvenile justice system entry, 177–180 Youth. See also Boys; Girls abuse of (see Bullying; Child abuse; Victimization; Violence) adult charges against, 25, 27, 38, 82–83, 95, 118, 122–123

567 afterschool programs for, 103, 511 case studies on (see Case studies) changes led by (see Youth-led change) child welfare system for (see Child welfare system) collaboration on services for (see Collaboration) commercial sexual exploitation of (see Commercial sexual exploitation) demographics of (see Demographics) developmental stages of (see Youth development) disabilities of (see Disabilities, youth with) education of (see Education) employment of (see Employment) families of (see Family; Parents) gangs involving, 3–4, 120–121, 250, 254, 258 government impact on (see Government) health of (see Youth health) identity of, 7–9, 156–158, 176, 185–187 immaturity of, 5, 6–9, 19, 20, 60 juvenile justice system for (see Juvenile justice system) legal cases on (see Legal cases) legal rights of (see Youth legal rights) legislation impacting (see Legislation) mental health of (see Mental health) multi-agency jurisdiction over (see Multi-agency jurisdiction) parenting by (see Young parents) perceptions of (see Youth perceptions) political activism of, 398–399 (see also Youth-led change) race/ethnicity of (see Race/ ethnicity; Racial/ethnic disparities) recidivism of (see Recidivism) relationships of (see Relationships) resilience of (see Resilience)

568 Youth (Continued ) risk factors for (see Risk factors) sexual orientation of (see LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) youth; Sexual orientation) strengths of (see Youth strengths) substance abuse in (see Substance abuse) suicide/suicide attempts by (see Suicide/suicide attempts) Youth development: biologic factors impacting, 97–98, 231 case studies on, 3–4, 12–19 community environment impacting, 12, 102–103, 267–283, 392–396 core developmental concepts, 4–5 deficit view of, 92–93, 96–97, 105, 399 developmental assets for, 271–274, 277, 279–282 ecological perspective on, 267–274 enhanced knowledge of, improving interventions, 363–364 family impacts of, 225–227, 230–231, 392–394, 395–396 family violence impacting, 225–227, 230–231 gangs influencing, 3–4 health care context of, 369–371 identity development in, 7–9, 156–158, 185–187 immaturity in, 5, 6–9, 19, 20, 60 learning disabilities impacting, 5, 11–12, 19, 20 plasticity of developmental processes, 97–98, 99, 102 positive youth development perspective on, 92–105, 245–247, 275–276, 277, 279–282, 394, 414, 417–418 racial/ethnic disparities in, 394 risk accumulation impacting, 269–270 social deprivation impacting, 270 social supports impacting, 274–282

SUBJECT INDEX socioeconomic status impacting, 270, 282 strengths capitalized during, 12, 20, 102–103, 104, 394 thriving during, 276 trauma impacting, 4–5, 8, 9–11, 19, 20, 270 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child guidelines on, 68, 267, 269, 274–275 ‘‘war zone’’ mentality impacting, 271 youth-led change and, 392–394, 399–403 Youth Family Team Meeting case planning process, 418, 419, 420 Youth health. See also Disabilities, youth with active self-management of, 377–379 collaborative efforts related to, 440–442, 444–445 commercial sexual exploitation impacting, 338–340 community environment impacting, 55–56, 371–372 connection to care for, 373–374, 385 data collection on, 373 demographics related to, 55–59, 60, 373 dental issues, 46 detention and medication disbursement impacting, 360 developmental context of, 369–371 ecological framework for youth health care, 371–372 extent of health problems, 45–46 factors impacting, 55–61 health-care decision making rights, 75–76 health care provider impacting, 374–376, 379–383 health-care standards, 54–55 inconsistent care for, 379–383 inefficient/inaccessible health care for, 383–384

legislation related to, 74, 76, 360 ‘‘medical home’’ for, 386 mental, 9–11, 38–39, 49–55, 59–61, 124, 133, 134, 180, 230–231, 234–235, 270, 288, 339, 411–412, 444–445 (see also Suicide/suicide attempts; specific disorders) overview of, 40–41 parental support of/role in, 75–76, 370, 372, 376–377, 377–378 physical, 45–48, 60–61 racial/ethnic disparities in, 52–53, 56–57, 369 reproductive-related, 47–48, 76 socioeconomic status impacting, 55–56, 58, 59, 60, 179, 369 substance abuse impacting, 49–55, 124–125 of system-involved youth, 370–386 trauma impacting, 9–11, 46, 53, 125, 230–231, 270 trust issues related to, 379–383 youth health care-related rights, 73–75, 75–76 youth perspectives on health care, 369–386 Youth-led change: core principles of, 402–403 education-related, 397, 398, 401, 402, 404 Hyde Square Task Force as, 391–392, 396–406 readiness for, 401–402 system alignment for positive change and, 396–398 systemic change and, 394–396 virtuous vs. vicious cycles addressed by, 396–398, 402, 403–404 youth community development model of, 399–403 youth development and, 392–394, 399–403 Youth legal rights: in adult criminal justice system, 82–83 autonomy-based, 68, 75–76

Subject Index

child abuse-related, 84–86 confidentiality/privacy as (see Confidentiality) to counsel, 78, 79, 81, 85 detention-related, 81–82, 165–166 due process-related, 78, 79–80 education-related, 72–73, 75, 286–305 health care-related, 73–75, 75–76 interrogation-related, 80–81 to jury trial, 79 in juvenile justice system, 24–25, 76–87, 165–166 needs-based, 68, 72–75 overview of, 68–69 parent and state involvement with, 69–72, 75–76, 77, 80, 84

status offenses and, 71, 76, 83–84 Supreme Court/case law on, 24–25, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75–76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85–86, 94, 118, 354 to treatment and services, 86–87 Youth perceptions: family violence influencing, 225 of health care, 369–386 on juvenile justice system, 175–177, 181 race and class influencing, 175–177 resistance strategies and, 176–177, 187, 190 ‘‘war zone’’ mentality, 271 Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and

569 Education (Youth PROMISE) Act, 530–531 Youth strengths. See also Resilience developmental assets as, 271–274, 277, 279–282 positive youth development focus on, 92–105, 245–247, 275–276, 277, 279–282, 394, 414, 417–418 of system-involved youth, 32–33 youth development impacted by, 12, 20, 102–103, 104, 394 youth-led change demonstrating, 391–406 Zero-tolerance laws, 26, 121–122, 287, 298–299, 310–311