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• Published: 26 June 2024

The long and at times sordid history of the juvenile justice system in the United States

• James A. Stockman III 1 &
• Elizabeth S. Barnert   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1664-4551 2  

Pediatric Research ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The American Pediatric Society ‘Issue of the Year’ (2023–2024) has been focused on increasing access to quality healthcare for children who are incarcerated. Addressing the future of youth in the juvenile justice system requires that pediatricians understand the history of how that system has gotten to where it is now. This commentary examines the creation and growth of the United States juvenile justice system since its establishment 125 years ago, so as to guide a way forward.

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Barnert, E. & DeBaun, M. R. Increasing access to quality healthcare for children who are incarcerated: American Pediatric Society issue of the year (2023–2024). Pediatr. Res. 95 , 610–612 (2024).

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The Progressive Era Key Facts. Britannica https://www.britannica.com/summary/The-Progressive-Era-Key-Facts . Accessed April 5, 2024.

The Juvenile Justice System. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2001. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/9747 .

Tuthill, Richard Stanley. (1841–1920). Jane Adams Digital Edition. https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/2919 . Accessed April 6, 2024.

Robin W. Sterling, Fundamental Unfairness: In re Gault and the Road Not Taken, 72 Md. L. Rev. 607 (2013). https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3555&context=mlr . Accessed April 6, 2024.

National Archives. “Sister Tries to Save Her Kidnapped Brother, 1903.” Records of Rights, General Records of the Department of Justice. https://www.archives.gov/ . Accessed April 6, 2024.

Library of Congress. OCTOBER TERM, 1970 Syllabus 403. McKEIVER ET AL. v. PENNSYLVANIA APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA No. 322. Argued December 10, 1970-Decided June 21, 1971. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep403/usrep403528/usrep403528.pdf . Accessed. April 6, 2024.

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Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, Public Law 93–41. Sept 7, 1974. S 821. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-88/pdf/STATUTE-88-Pg1109.pdf .

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Acknowledgements

With permission of the American Board of Pediatrics, the content of this Commentary has been excerpted in part from the American Board of Pediatrics Maintenance of Certification Module “Question of the Week” authored by Dr. Stockman.

J.A.S. acknowledges no sources of funding. E.B. is supported by the UCLA Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute. The information, content and/or conclusions are those of the authors and should not be construed as the official position of our institutions.

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James A Stockman III, American Board of Pediatrics, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

James A. Stockman III

Elizabeth Barnert, Department of Pediatrics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

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J.A.S. and E.B. confirm joint responsibility for the article conception and design, and manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to James A. Stockman III or Elizabeth S. Barnert .

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E.B. volunteers as Chair of the Juvenile Health Committee of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and serves on its Board of Directors. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

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Stockman, J.A., Barnert, E.S. The long and at times sordid history of the juvenile justice system in the United States. Pediatr Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-024-03334-w

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System Reforms to Reduce Youth Incarceration: Why We Must Explore Every Option Before Removing Any Young Person from Home

New report highlights reforms that states and local youth justice systems can and should adopt to combat the overuse of incarceration and maximize the success of youth who are placed in alternative-to-incarceration programs.

Related to: Youth Justice, Incarceration

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Executive Summary

Well designed alternative-to-incarceration programs, such as those highlighted in Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration: What Works With Youth Who Pose Serious Risks to Public Safety , 1 are critically important for reducing overreliance on incarceration. But support for good programs is not the only or even the most important ingredient for minimizing youth incarceration.

To reduce overreliance on youth incarceration, alternative-to-incarceration programs must be supported by youth justice systems that heed adolescent development research, make timely and evidence-informed decisions about how delinquency cases are handled, and institutionalize youth only as a last resort when they pose an immediate threat to public safety. In addition, systems must make concerted, determined efforts to reduce the longstanding biases which have perpetuated the American youth justice system’s glaring racial and ethnic disparities in confinement.

This report will highlight state and local laws, policies and practices that have maximized the effective use of alternative-to-incarceration programs and minimized the unnecessary incarceration of youth who can be safely supervised and supported at home.

Why Does Youth Incarceration Fail, and What are the Alternatives?

Compelling research finds that incarceration is not necessary or effective in the vast majority of delinquency cases. Rather, as The Sentencing Project documented in Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence , 2 removing young people from their homes, schools, and communities, and placing them in institutions, is most often counterproductive. It increases the likelihood that youth will return to the justice system 3 and reduces young people’s future success and wellbeing. 4 Incarceration also exposes many youth to abuse. 5 It contradicts clear lessons from adolescent development research by interfering with the natural process of maturation that helps most youth desist from delinquency, 5 and it exacerbates trauma that many court-involved youth have suffered earlier in life. 5 All of these harms of incarceration are inflicted disproportionately on youth of color. Several alternative-to-incarceration program models have proven far more effective than incarceration in steering youth who pose a significant risk to public safety away from delinquency. 8

System Reforms to Minimize Youth Incarceration

This report describes reforms that states and local justice systems can and should adopt to combat the overuse of incarceration and maximize the success of youth who are placed in alternative-to-incarceration programs. Most state and local youth justice systems continue to employ problematic policies and practices that often lead to incarceration of youth who pose minimal or modest risk to public safety. The report outlines an agenda of promising and proven reforms, citing examples from across the nation where reforms are being employed constructively.

State Reforms. State policies and budgets are centrally important in any effort to minimize youth incarceration. Following are proven strategies some states are employing to reduce overuse of incarceration.

• Prohibit incarceration in state-funded youth correctional facilities for some offenses. California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah have all enacted laws in recent years limiting eligibility for incarceration in state facilities.
• Create fiscal incentives that discourage local courts from committing youth to state custody, such as those enacted by California, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
• Redirect savings from decarceration to fund alternative-to-incarceration programs. Connecticut increased its annual budget for evidence-based non-residential intervention programs from $300,000 in 2000 to $39 million in 2009. Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, and Washington State also invest substantial sums in local alternative programs.
• Ensure access to rigorous treatment to prevent incarceration of youth with mental illnesses, following the examples set in Ohio and Texas.
• Shorten the duration of confinement for those who are incarcerated, emulating reform laws in Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Local Reforms. Too often, local youth justice systems employ practices that ignore the lessons of adolescent development research and conflict with the evidence of what works to steer youth away from delinquency. As a result, systems can propel even youth without any history of serious offending down a path toward incarceration. 9 Therefore, in addition to developing high-quality alternative to incarceration programs, local youth justice systems should replicate promising reforms underway in several parts of the country to:

• Narrow the pipeline to incarceration in the early stages of the justice system process: avoiding arrests for less serious behavior; diverting from court a substantial majority of referred cases; and minimizing the use of pre-trial detention. Heeding the research showing that these stages play a crucial role in fueling overreliance on incarceration and exacerbating disparities, many jurisdictions nationwide are pursuing reforms in these critical early stages.
• Transform probation practices to focus on connecting youth with opportunities and positive influences that support their long-term success, rather than trying to coerce behavior change by monitoring compliance with probation rules in the short term. New York City, Pierce County (Tacoma), WA, and several Ohio counties are among the jurisdictions that are vigorously pursuing probation practice reforms.
• Stop incarcerating youth for violating probation rules and conditions. Among jurisdictions that have sharply reduced confinement for violations are Santa Cruz County, CA, St. Louis, MO, and Lucas County (Toledo), OH.
• Undertake comprehensive race-conscious system reform aimed at reducing correctional placements. The twelve jurisdictions that employed this approach in a recent demonstration project reduced correctional placements by far more than the national average; and rates fell as much or more for Black youth than for the total youth population.
• Convene a stakeholder meeting to explore every alternative to incarceration before placing any young person into a longterm facility, as is done in Lucas, County (Toledo), OH, Pierce County (Tacoma), WA. Santa Cruz County, CA, and Summit County (Akron), OH.

The policies and practices described in this report are critically important, as are the intervention programs described in our Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration report. In the end, however, the most essential ingredient for reducing overreliance on youth incarceration is a mindset—a determination to seize every opportunity to keep young people safely at home with their parents and families, in their schools and communities.

Introduction

Decades of research clearly demonstrate that incarceration is not necessary or effective in the vast majority of cases of adolescent lawbreaking. Rather, as The Sentencing Project documented in, Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence , 10 removing youth from their homes most often harms public safety by increasing the likelihood that youth will commit new offenses and return to the justice system. Moreover, incarceration worsens young people’s likelihood of success in education and employment, and it exposes many youth to abuse. These harms of incarceration are inflicted disproportionately on youth of color, particularly Black youth.

Despite a large drop over the past two decades, 11 the number of youth in correctional custody remains far too large. Fewer than one-third of youth in correctional custody on a typical day are incarcerated for serious violent offenses. 12 Significant opportunities remain for state and local youth justice systems to further reduce reliance on incarceration in ways that protect the public and enhance young people’s well-being. Pursuing these opportunities – ending the wasteful, unnecessary, counterproductive, racially unjust, and often abusive confinement of adolescents – should be a top priority of youth justice reform nationwide.

The Sentencing Project’s Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration , the first of two follow up reports to Why Youth Incarceration Fails , describes promising programs that can be used to safely supervise youth who commit serious offenses and pose a significant risk of reoffending and endangering public safety. Specifically, the report identifies six model alternative-to-incarceration intervention models – all with powerful evidence of effectiveness as well as strong support for replication – that can be employed instead of incarceration for youth who pose high risk to public safety. Effective Alternatives also details the essential characteristics required for any alternative-to-incarceration program—including homegrown programs developed by local justice system leaders and community partners—to reduce young people’s likelihood of reoffending and steer them to success.

This report focuses on state and local justice system reforms that are necessary to minimize the use of incarceration for youth who do not pose a serious or immediate threat to public safety. These system reforms are crucial because, while effective alternative-to-incarceration programs are essential for youth justice systems to reduce overreliance on incarceration, they are not sufficient.

Rather, to reduce youth incarceration, effective programs must be supported by youth justice systems that steer youth away from further involvement in the justice system as often as possible at every stage of the court process. State and local justice systems must work closely with families and community partners to explore all available options to keep young people home—placing youth into institutions only as a last resort when they pose an immediate threat to public safety. Youth justice systems must implement alternative-to-incarceration programs carefully by adhering to the essential core elements of the models and ensuring that staff are highly-motivated and well-trained. Finally, systems must make concerted, determined efforts to reduce the longstanding biases which have perpetuated the glaring racial and ethnic disparities in confinement that remain American youth justice’s most prominent and troubling characteristic.

System reforms are necessary to maximize the use of effective alternatives and prevent unnecessary incarceration of youth who can be safely supervised and supported in their homes. These reforms must be pursued both at the state level, where critically important laws, policies and budgets are crafted, and at the local level where, in most states, local courts, prosecutors and probation agencies make critical decisions about how young people’s cases are handled, what punishments, rules and restrictions are placed on them, and what if any alternative programs are offered.

Maryland: A Determined Shift Away From Youth Incarceration

Back in 2014, Maryland sent nearly 1,500 young people to correctional placements as a consequence for delinquency. That was 50% more youth than it enrolled in evidence-based family therapy interventions that allowed young people to remain at home and continue attending school. More than 70 percent of youth sent to placements had committed only misdemeanors or other low level misdeeds such as traffic violations or status offenses – not crimes of serious violence or other felony offenses. And few youth served by home-based therapy programs – just one in five — were adjudicated for crimes of violence or other felonies.

Eight years later, Maryland sent only 260 youth to placement facilities – an 83% decline – most of them for serious offenses. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many youth (465) participated in evidence-based family therapy programs while living at home, including a substantially larger share of youth adjudicated for serious offenses — 33%, up from 20% in 2014. 13

The turnabout resulted from a fundamental philosophical shift at the state’s Department of Juvenile Services (DJS). Sam Abed, who served as Maryland’ DJS Secretary from May 2011 to January 2023, noted in 2019 that “We really have drawn a line at the agency… that we don’t want kids incarcerated unless there is a public safety need to do that.” 14

“For low-level offenses, we should not be using incarceration. That shouldn’t be an option,” Abed said in 2021. “What we are trying to do is not punish kids, but change their behavior. We don’t need to use a criminal justice response to change the behavior.” 15

In 2022, Maryland further expanded its commitment to reducing youth incarceration when the state’s legislature enacted a new youth justice reform law. Among other provisions, the new law prohibits incarceration both for probation rule violations and for any misdemeanor offense except handgun crimes. 16

State Reforms

State policies and budgets are crucial in any effort to minimize youth incarceration. In nearly every state, youth corrections facilities are overseen by the state government; however, in many states, local jurisdictions administer juvenile delinquency courts, operate some or all detention centers, or provide juvenile probation services. 17 Though these funding arrangements vary, many state governments provide much of the funding required to support all of the necessary functions of the youth justice system, even when these functions are overseen by counties.

Following are strategies states can employ – and some states are already employing – to reduce overuse of incarceration.

• Enact rules to prohibit incarceration in state facilities for some offenses.
• Create fiscal incentives that discourage local courts from committing youth to state custody.
• Redirect savings from decarceration to fund alternative-to-incarceration programs.
• Ensure access to rigorous treatment to prevent incarceration of youth with mental illnesses.
• Shorten the duration of confinement for those who must be incarcerated.

1. Enact rules that prohibit incarceration in state facilities for some offenses.

Recognizing that incarceration is costly and counterproductive for youth accused of less serious offenses, several states in recent years have enacted rules prohibiting incarceration for status offenses and all or most misdemeanors. Some states have also prohibited correctional placements for non-violent felony offenses and for probation rule violations that do not involve a new offense.

For instance:

• California enacted legislation in 2007 allowing state commitments only for youth adjudicated (found guilty) for serious or violent felony offenses. 18 Over the subsequent six years, the population confined in state youth correctional facilities declined 69% (from 2,115 to 659). 19
• In 2006 Texas prohibited incarceration in state facilities for misdemeanor offenses, and over the next five years new commitments to state facilities fell 69% (from 2,738 to 860). 20
• Florida , Georgia , Hawaii , Illinois , Kansas , Kentucky , Mississippi , South Dakota , and Utah have also prohibited state incarceration for most or all misdemeanor offenses, and in some cases lower-level felonies as well. 21
• In 2022, Maryland enacted a comprehensive juvenile justice reform bill that prohibits state incarceration not only for youth who have committed misdemeanors, but also youth who have been cited for violating probation rules. 22 These restrictions are pivotal given that nearly 60% of all Maryland youth committed to state custody a decade ago had a misdemeanor or probation violation as their most serious offense. 23

2. Create fiscal incentives that discourage local courts from committing youth to state custody. 

In many states, juvenile delinquency courts are funded and operated at the local level, and county probation offices are responsible for overseeing youth who are not committed to state custody. 17 Youth correctional facilities, on the other hand, are most often funded and overseen by the states. This arrangement can create a perverse fiscal incentive that encourages courts to commit youth to state custody even though incarceration yields worse results than effective alternative-to-incarceration programs and carries a far higher overall price tag. To shift these incentives, several states have enacted new funding arrangements that encourage greater use of community alternatives, leading to dramatic reductions in confined youth populations. For example:

• In the late 1990s, California instituted a sliding scale funding formula requiring counties to pay a high share of correctional costs for youth committed to state facilities for minor offenses, and a lesser and lesser share for offenses with increasingly greater severity. This change was a key factor in helping California reduce the population in its state-run facilities from 10,000 in 1996 to 2,500 in 2007. 25
• Since the 1990s, Wisconsin has incentivized community treatment of youth by providing each county with a fixed sum to support juvenile justice programs, and then charging the counties to pay the full costs of every youth placed in state correctional institutions. 26 As of 2023, these funds total over $100 million per year. 27
• Perhaps the most ambitious use of incentives in recent times has been the RECLAIM Ohio program, which allocates $32 million per year to Ohio counties to support local alternatives to state incarceration. 28 Under the program, each county’s annual allocation is calculated based on its success in limiting the number of youth committed to state facilities. Under RECLAIM, the population confined in Ohio’s state-operated youth corrections facilities declined from over 2,500 in 1992, when RECLAIM began, to just over 300 in 2021. 29
• Beginning in 2005, Illinois launched a fiscal incentive program, called Redeploy Illinois, based on Ohio’s model. The Illinois program had far more modest funding initially – less than $3 million per year through the 2013 fiscal year. 30 Yet participating counties reduced commitments in the 28 participating counties by 51% from 2005 to 2010. 31 By December 2021, Redeploy Illinois was operational in 45 of the state’s 102 counties, with a budget of more than $10 million, and had served nearly 5,000 youth since 2005. 32

3. Redirect savings gained from decarceration to fund alternative-to-incarceration programs.

Many of the states that have prohibited incarceration for some offense categories or created fiscal incentives to discourage incarceration have devoted some or all of the funds saved from reduced correctional populations to support community-based alternative-to-incarceration programs.

• Of all the states, Connecticut has made perhaps the greatest investment in alternative to incarceration programming. After a series of scandals in its overcrowded correctional facilities in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Connecticut invested heavily in evidence-based alternative programs for court-involved youth – increasing its annual budget for evidence-based non-residential intervention programs from $300,000 in the year 2000 to $39 million by 2009. 33 In 2019, the latest year for which data are available, Connecticut had the third lowest rate in the nation of youth in correctional custody. 34
• Ohio , in addition to the original RECLAIM program described above, has created a Targeted RECLAIM program that provides $6 million per year to support evidence-based alternative-to-incarceration programs specifically for youth who would otherwise be placed in correctional facilities. 35 Evaluations show that Targeted RECLAIM participants are far more successful than comparable peers who are placed in state youth correctional facilities. 36
• In 2013, as part of a juvenile justice reform package that prohibited commitments for misdemeanor offenses, Georgia created an incentive grant that counties can use to place system-involved youth into any of 10 evidence-based programs to reduce delinquency. 37 The grants, funded with more than $8 million in Fiscal Year 2021, 38 served 5,640 young people in the first five years. 39 Compared to the 2012 pre-reform baseline – delinquency courts in participating counties incarcerated fewer than half as many youth in each of the grant program’s first five years. 40
• Mississippi included substantial new funding for alternative-to-incarceration programs as part of juvenile justice reform laws enacted in 2005 and 2006, and the state now requires every county statewide to offer community-based alternatives to incarceration. 41
• Washington State provided more than $10 million to county youth justice systems in 2023 to support evidence-based and promising programs aimed at reducing delinquency. 42 Programs approved for these funds include Functional Family Therapy, Multisystemic Therapy, a cognitive behavioral therapy curriculum and a program to boost success in education and employment, all of them provided in the community and geared toward youth at high or moderate risk to reoffend. 43

However, it is important for states to ensure that counties use state funds to support effective alternatives to incarceration rather than expanding funding for local incarceration facilities and correctional programs. After prohibiting incarceration in state facilities for misdemeanor offenses, both California and Texas established large new funding streams to support counties’ work with delinquent youth. In 2007, California created a new Youth Offender Block Grant which provided more than $1 billion in the first decade to help counties oversee youth who could no longer be sent to state custody. 44 Likewise, Texas has created several well-funded grant programs to support county youth justice systems. 45 However, in both of these states the bulk of these funds have been allocated to residential confinement facilities or to funding additional probation staff, rather than to effective alternative-to-incarceration programs rooted in the community. 46 States should also provide training and technical assistance to help local youth justice systems implement alternative-to-incarceration programs effectively.

4. Ensure access to rigorous treatment to prevent incarceration of youth with mental illnesses.

Roughly 70% of young people in the youth justice system suffer from one or more mental illnesses, with the most common being conduct disorder, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, or ADHD. Most youth have multiple disorders, and an estimated 20% suffer with more serious conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder that require immediate treatment. 47 Yet effective community-based treatment for these conditions is scarce throughout most of the nation, and the youth justice system has in many jurisdictions become a default provider of mental health services for youth with mental illnesses. 48 Josh Weber, who directs the Council of State Governments Justice Center’s juvenile justice program, calls the absence of behavioral health programming as “a big gap” – describing it as perhaps the single biggest reason for unnecessary youth incarceration nationwide. 49

Some states have taken effective action to address the need for community-based mental health care to help youth with mental health issues avoid behavior problems and remain at home:

• Ohio’s Behavioral Health/Juvenile Justice (BH/JJ) Initiative provides intensive evidence-based mental health treatment for court-involved youth with mental health diagnoses who score as high risk to reoffend. Operated as a partnership between the state’s juvenile corrections and mental health agencies, the program has provided Functional Family Therapy, Multisystemic Therapy, or other evidence-based mental health interventions to more than 5,000 youth since 2006. 50 The most recent evaluation showed that participating youth saw significant improvements in mental health and a large drop (roughly half) in both delinquency charges and suspension/expulsion from school after enrolling in BH/JJ programs. 51
• Texas has long funded two programs for court-involved youth with mental health issues in the earlier stages of the court process. The Front-End Diversion Initiative assigns youth with mental illnesses who are accused of delinquent offenses but not yet adjudicated to probation officers who are specially trained on mental health issues. A 2012 evaluation showed that participants received far more mental health care and were connected far more often to community resources than comparable youth placed on standard probation, and the program sharply reduced recidivism. 52 Texas’ Special Needs Diversionary Program provides a similar intervention for youth who have already been adjudicated delinquent. Two evaluation studies have found that this program also reduced recidivism. 53

5. Shorten the duration of confinement for those who must be incarcerated.

Once youth are incarcerated, keeping them away from home for a longer period than necessary is wasteful and counterproductive. Research has clearly demonstrated that longer periods of incarceration (lasting more than six months) do not improve recidivism outcomes, 54 with mixed findings even for high-risk youth. 55 In fact, many studies find that longer periods of incarceration increase recidivism. 56 Yet in many states youth are incarcerated for an average of well over one year. 57

Some states in recent years have taken steps to reduce lengths of stay for youth placed in correctional facilities or other institutions:

• In Virginia , after data analysis revealed that longer periods of incarceration were associated with higher recidivism, the state’s Board of Justice approved new guidelines in 2015 reducing the duration of incarceration for youth committed to state correctional facilities. Within three years, the average length of stay fell from 14 months to 8 months. 58
• In Kentucky and West Virginia comprehensive new juvenile justice laws passed in 2014 and 2015, respectively, included limitations on lengths-of-stay for youth in correctional placements. 59

New York City: Reducing Incarceration Through Strong Alternatives And Better Decision-Making

In the early years of this century, well over 1,000 New York City young people were confined in state-funded institutions every night as a consequence for delinquency, 60 the vast majority of them Black or Latinx. 61 Most of the facilities were located upstate and staffed mostly by white correctional officers who had little in common with the incarcerated young people. 62

Outcomes were terrible: 70% of boys released from state facilities were re-arrested within two years; 63 by age 28, 89% of boys were re-arrested and 71% were re-incarcerated as adults. 64 A 2009 federal justice department investigation found that the facilities were violent and abusive: excessive use of force by staff caused “an alarming number of serious injuries to youth, including concussions, broken or knocked-out teeth, and spiral fractures.” 65

Today, New York City doesn’t place any youth in state-funded youth correctional facilities. In 2022, it sent fewer than 100 youth into any type of residential placement, and these youth are now housed in small, therapeutically oriented facilities within the City. 66

The City’s remarkable reduction in youth incarceration stems from a series of reform steps.

• In 2003, the City introduced an objective screening process to reduce the use of pre-trial detention, launched a variety of alternative-to-incarceration programs and announced a goal to reduce state commitments to zero. 67
• Those reforms and revelations of abuse within state facilities 68 were key factors behind a 55% drop in commitments from city courts between 2003 and 2011. 69
• In 2009, a state task force recommended: using correctional placements only for youth who posed high risk for reoffense; and expanding the use of community-based alternatives to placement. 70
• Since 2010, the NYC Department of Probation has accelerated the pace of reform by introducing a structured decision-making grid to minimize unnecessary correctional placements; increasing the share of youth diverted from formal court processing; decreasing the use of detention in response to probation rule violations; and further expanding the use of community-based alternative-to-incarceration programs. 71
• In 2012, New York’s state legislature approved the “Close to Home Initiative,” which allowed New York City to stop sending youth to state correctional facilities. Instead, the City created its own network of small, privately operated, therapeutically-oriented facilities. 72

“By developing strong alternative programs and improving decision making at every stage of the process, NY City has shown what it takes to drastically reduce incarceration,” said Bermudez, “and to do it safely.” 73

Local Reforms

How local system players manage the cases of youth referred for prosecution or placed on probation, and the mindset they bring to their work, are pivotal in reducing the unnecessary use of incarceration. Too often, youth justice systems employ practices that ignore the lessons of adolescent development research and conflict with the evidence of what works to steer youth away from delinquency. As a result, systems can propel youth – even those without a history of serious offending – down a path toward incarceration.

To correct these problematic practices and minimize overreliance on incarceration, local youth justice systems can emulate innovative jurisdictions that are taking steps to:

• Narrow the pipeline to incarceration by reducing arrests, expanding diversion (in lieu of formal court processing), and reducing use of pretrial detention.
• Transform probation practices to align with adolescent development research and focus on youth success.
• Stop incarcerating youth for violating probation rules and conditions.
• Undertake comprehensive race-conscious system reform aimed at reducing correctional placements.
• Explore every option before removing any young person from home.

1. Narrow the pipeline to incarceration.

Young people’s likelihood of being incarcerated is heavily dependent on decisions made in the early stages of the justice system. Whenever young people are arrested (versus given a warning by police or a civil citation), whenever they are referred on delinquency charges and have their cases formally processed in juvenile court (instead of diverted), and whenever young people are locked in detention pending their court hearings (instead of being allowed to remain at home), their odds of continued involvement in the justice system – and subsequent incarceration – increase substantially. 74

Overuse of arrests, formal court processing, and detention play a critical role in perpetuating racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration. These early stages of the process have the greatest disparities in the youth justice system, and studies consistently find that these disparities are driven at least partly by biased decision-making.

Therefore, among the most important steps local justice systems can take to reduce overreliance on incarceration – and many systems are taking – include reforms to:

• Avoid arrests for less serious misbehavior at school and in the community: Many studies show that youth who get arrested during adolescence have substantially more involvement in the justice system – and substantially higher dropout rates – than comparable youth who engage in similar misbehaviors but don’t get arrested. 75 Local jurisdictions have taken a variety of steps to reduce arrests.
• In the wake of national protests after George Floyd’s murder, nearly 50 jurisdictions removed law enforcement officers from their schools. 76 Unfortunately, some jurisdictions have reversed course since 2020 and returned law enforcement officers to schools; 77 however, there remains no evidence that stationing officers in schools improves public safety, and considerable evidence that it harms student wellbeing. 78
• Jurisdictions such as Clayton County, GA , and Philadelphia, PA , have drastically reduced arrests at school after crafting new rules that prohibit arrests at school for a variety of less serious offenses. 79
• Still other jurisdictions – like Baltimore City, MD – have vastly reduced school arrests after embracing a restorative justice approach to school discipling. 80
• For misbehavior outside of school, police officers can be empowered to refer youth to pre-arrest diversion programs in lieu of arrest, or to issue civil citations. For instance, Florida police issued civil citations (instead of making arrests) to more than 11,000 youth in 2022, 81 and research shows these youth are far less likely to re-enter the justice system than comparable peers who get arrested for the same offenses. 82
• Divert from court a substantial majority of referred cases and allow community organizations, rather than courts or probation, to address misbehavior outside the justice system. Powerful new research makes abundantly clear that formally processing youth in juvenile court – criminalizing adolescent misbehavior – results in far worse outcomes: far higher subsequent involvement in the justice system, and worse educational and career success. 83 For the large majority of delinquency cases – other than youth involved in serious offending – diversion from the justice system yields better outcomes both for public safety and youth success. 84 Davidson County (Nashville), TN more than tripled the share of new cases diverted from 2013 to 2020 (from 17% to 54%) and empowered a network of community-based youth development organizations to oversee their cases. 85
• Minimize the use of locked detention for youth pending their court hearings. Research finds that detention in the pre-trial period substantially increases the likelihood that youth will be placed in a residential facility if found delinquent by a judge; and even short stays in detention reduce educational attainment and increase the likelihood of subsequent involvement in the justice system. 86 Through its Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), the Annie E. Casey Foundation has created a comprehensive and effective model for combatting overreliance on detention based on eight core principles. 87 More than 300 jurisdictions nationwide – home to nearly one-third of all US children – adopted the JDAI model, and participating sites reduced average daily detention populations in detention by 50%, with no harm to public safety. 88 An independent evaluation found that jurisdictions participating in JDAI reduced their detention populations five times more than other jurisdictions within their states. 89 Tellingly, participating JDAI sites reduced their commitments to state custody by 63% — even more than they reduced detention admissions. 90
• Research finds that youth of color are often treated more harshly than white youth at these critical early stages, and disparities tend to be especially large. 91 Therefore, local justice systems should collect and carefully analyze data by race and ethnicity at these early stages, and they should use the data to identify problematic practices that exacerbate disparities and institute reforms that ensure greater equity.

2. Transform probation practices to align with adolescent development research and focus on youth success.

Probation is by far the most common outcome in cases referred to juvenile delinquency courts nationwide. Two-thirds of youth adjudicated delinquent in 2020 (analogous to being found guilty in criminal court; 89,000 youth) were ordered to probation, and nearly as many more were placed on informal probation either as part of a deferred prosecution agreement or consent decree (an additional 44,000 youth) or after their case was diverted from formal court processing (an additional 32,000 youth). 92 Yet voluminous research shows that the traditional approach to juvenile probation, in which courts hand youth a long list of standard rules and conditions and then a probation officer monitors their compliance, has little or no effect on future offending. 93 Many of the most common practices in probation conflict with research and expert opinion on effective interventions to stem delinquent conduct. 94

For instance, imposing long lists of standard conditions and focusing probation on compliance conflicts with the lessons of adolescent behavior and brain development research. 95 Attempting to coerce behavior change through threats of punishment rather than incentives for positive behavior ignores the evidence showing that teens are unlikely to be swayed by threats of future punishment, but highly responsive to positive incentives. 96 Also, probation agencies too often make critical decisions about young people’s cases without involving their parents and families. 97 Research shows that parents continue to play a pivotal role in their children’s lives, and many of the most effective intervention models for combatting delinquency focus on families. 98 Yet most probation agencies still struggle with, or do not prioritize, family engagement to ensure that families are integrally involved in crafting their children’s case plans and making key decisions. 99

Since 2018, several leading organizations in the youth justice field—including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the National Center for Juvenile Justice—have called on juvenile courts and probation agencies to reorient probation away from the traditional surveillance-compliance mindset. 100 Specifically, the new best-practice guidance urges youth justice system leaders to:

• Stop ordering all youth on probation to comply with a standard list of probation rules and conditions. 101
• Shift probation’s focus away from compliance monitoring and toward case planning, brokering helpful services and opportunities in the community, and support for young people’s success. 102
• Adopt a family-engaged case planning process in which probation officers partner with youth and families to identify goals and activities that will help the young person avoid problem behaviors and achieve long-term success. 103
• Encourage positive behavior change through incentives and rewards for youth to meet behavior expectations and achieve their case plan goals. 104
• Connect young people with activities in the community where youth can develop new skills and build relationships with caring adults and positive peers. 105
• Carefully monitor data measuring probation’s impact on youth by race, ethnicity and gender, and make reducing disparities a clear and explicit goal for probation. 106

A number of local justice systems around the country are adopting these principles. In 2011 and 2012, New York City’s Department of Probation pioneered the development of the family-engaged case planning model which has subsequently been documented in a practice guide available to jurisdictions nationwide. 107 Pierce County (Tacoma), WA has created an Opportunity-Based Probation model that offers an array of rewards and incentives for youth on probation to achieve the goals of their case plans. 108 Pierce County has also created a network of local community-based organizations that provide positive youth development opportunities for youth on probation. 109 Ohio’s Department of Juvenile Justice has made probation transformation a statewide goal, organized in-depth regional training sessions on probation transformation, and made advancing key elements of probation transformation a requirement for counties in their applications for state juvenile justice funding. 110

3. Stop incarcerating youth solely for violating probation rules and conditions.

While the case for transforming probation is compelling, even jurisdictions that do not embrace this new paradigm can and should stop incarcerating youth solely for rule-breaking behaviors and non-compliance with probation orders that do not involve new crimes. Research makes clear that this practice is counterproductive for both public safety and youth success, and that it exacerbates racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration. 111 Yet, as the Center for Children’s Law and Policy has explained, “In many jurisdictions, technical violations represent one of the leading reasons for admission to detention or out-of-home placement.” 112 In South Carolina, for instance, the top four offenses among youth committed to state custody in 2019 all involved probation violations. 113 In Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ, 48% of youth sent to state custody in Fiscal Year 2020 were committed for probation violations. 114 In Maryland, 27% of commitments to state custody in 2013 were the result of probation violations, not new offenses. 115

In a 2017 resolution, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) urged juvenile courts nationwide to “ensure that detention or incarceration is never used as a sanction” for youth who violate probation rules. 116 In a new 2022 toolkit on judges’ roles in reforming juvenile probation, NCJFCJ again urged juvenile courts to stop confining youth as a consequence for rule violations, and – noting that youth of color are confined for violations disproportionately – the toolkit stated that “rejecting the use of confinement as a response to probation rule violations… represents one of the single most important and valuable steps that juvenile courts can take to reduce system disparities.” 117

To reduce the use of incarceration in response to rule violations, Santa Cruz County, CA no longer places youth into correctional or residential treatment facilities as a consequence for rule violations, and it has dramatically reduced the number of youth placed in short-term detention for violations. 118 St. Louis, MO and Lucas County (Toledo), OH have also sharply reduced detention in response to rule violations. 119

4. Undertake comprehensive race-conscious system reform aimed at reducing correctional placements.

America’s youth justice systems continue to incarcerate youth of color, especially Black youth, at far higher rates than their white peers. In 2020, the last year for which data are available, 41% of youth newly incarcerated nationwide were Black, even though Black youth make up 15% of the total youth population. 120

From 2012 through 2020, 12 jurisdictions participated in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s “Deep End Initiative” to reduce out-of-home placements following adjudication, especially for youth of color. 121 As part of the initiative, the sites reviewed all decision points where youth may enter the justice system or penetrate deeper to more serious levels of supervision (arrest, formal processing in court, revocation of diversion for non-compliance, filing of a probation violation, incarceration), as well as mechanisms at each decision point that allow youth to exit the justice system or at least to remain at home (no arrest, diversion from formal processing, placement on probation or another at-home disposition). Sites examined how each stage affected Black youth and other youth of color differently than white youth, and they strategized to address the disparities they uncovered and to reduce the share of youth – especially youth of color – who were propelled at each stage to deeper involvement in the justice system. 122

The Casey Foundation reported that participating sites reduced the number of new correctional placements by far more than the national average. By 2017, sites that started in 2012 had reduced their correctional placements by 54% (versus a national decline of 25%), and sites that started in 2014 reduced correctional placements by 37% (versus a national decline of 8%). Just as encouraging, correctional placements for the sites fell as much or more for African American youth as for the total youth population. Also, in all nine Deep End sites that provided complete data, the decline in placements for African American youth far outpaced the national average. 123

While the Casey Foundation’s Deep End Initiative is no longer operating, the tools and techniques employed to achieve these favorable results can be applied by any jurisdiction, at any time. A “Deep End Toolkit” is still available on the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s website. 124

5. Explore every option before removing any young person from home.

The final step local youth justice systems can take to minimize incarceration comes when a young person commits serious offenses or reoffends repeatedly, and therefore becomes a candidate for placement in a correctional facility or other residential program. Rather than routinely endorsing decisions to remove any young person from home in these circumstances, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recommended in 2022 that juvenile courts and probation agencies: “Make it a practice to convene a family-team meeting and/or case staffing for any young person being considered for residential placement, and use these review sessions to explore every available option or alternative to placement.” 125

Among the jurisdictions that have instituted this practice are Santa Cruz County, CA, Lucas County (Toledo) and Summit County (Akron), Ohio , and Pierce County, WA . 126 Typically, the meetings include system staff, mental health experts, and representatives from child-serving organizations in the community – and often the young person, his or her family, and other important figures in the child’s life. The NCJFCJ toolkit urged that: “All parties participating in these meetings should generate ideas together seeking to answer the question: what will it take to keep this young person at home under probation safely?” 125

Santa Cruz: Child and Family Team Meetings Doing What It Takes To Keep Young People Home Safely

In the nearly 25 years since it became a model site for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, Santa Cruz County has drastically reduced its reliance not only on pre-trial detention, but also on incarceration for youth found delinquent in court. Indeed, in recent years correctional placements have continued to plummet: Santa Cruz County sent 26 youth to placement in 2015 but only five in 2022 – a drop of 81%. 128

Among Santa Cruz County’s most important strategies to minimize placements is the “Child and Family Team” meeting, where “professionals from various county agencies and community-based organizations . . . come together to meet with the family and strategize how to best meet the needs of the youth and family.” 129

Some CFT meetings are convened early in a young person’s case, to help identify caring adults in the young person’s life who might provide support and to craft a probation plan that best meets the needs of the young person and family. In other cases, the meetings are called to seek alternatives to placement for youth who have just been adjudicated for a serious offense, or for youth on probation or in home-based wraparound care who continue to break rules or engage in unsafe behaviors.

Recently, deputy probation officer Gina Castaneda described the case of a boy, then 15, who was arrested in 2021 for possession of a loaded firearm. The boy was suspected of gang involvement, had serious problems with school attendance and achievement, and got little supervision from his parents who had demanding work schedules, Castaneda said. 130

At the CFT meeting, probation staff introduced the family to community-based service providers and worked with the family to devise a supervision plan that would allow the boy to remain at home. Under the plan, the boy re-enrolled in school, participated in electronic monitoring, and agreed to remain at home, except for school, counseling and other approved activities. To enhance supervision at home, the boy’s grandmother got more involved in his life, while the probation department connected the father with parenting skills training. The probation department also encouraged the father to set aside at least 10 minutes every day for father-son conversations and provided gift cards to pay for family outings. 131

In addition, the probation department enrolled the boy in a community-based youth center, the Azteca clubhouse, and a counseling program. Probation personnel also phoned the boy every day and transported him to and from one activity or another every day after school. 132

Not everything went smoothly in the boy’s case, Castaneda reports. He received several probation violations due to uneven school attendance or poor grades, missing scheduled counseling appointments, and more. Things started to improve, Castaneda recalls, when probation referred him to the County’s evening reporting center program, which suited him better than the Azteca clubhouse. 133

Despite his ups and downs, the boy has never again been placed in custody. He remains in school, and he has matured significantly, Castaneda says, in part because he recently became a father and takes an active part in his child’s life. 134

“We met the family where they are at and listened to what they needed. We worked with them, and the youth, and connected them to our community partners,” says Jose Flores, Director of the Santa Cruz County Probation Department’s Juvenile Division. “We have been able to help him stay out of serious trouble. That’s our goal.”

The leaders of youth justice systems nationwide as well as the legislators who enact laws and approve budgets for youth justice must heed the compelling evidence showing that incarceration is a failed strategy for reversing delinquent behavior – and that it is imposed disproportionately on youth of color. They must recognize that incarceration should be imposed only on young people who present a serious and immediate threat to other people’s safety, and they must fund and deliver effective alternative-to-incarceration programs to keep many youth at home safely who are currently being incarcerated.

In the end, the most essential ingredient for reducing overreliance on youth incarceration is a determination to explore every option to keep young people at home safely, providing youth with the support and assistance they require to avoid further offending, participate in the normal rites of adolescence, and mature toward a healthy adulthood.

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Youth and the Juvenile Justice System: 2022 National Report

This report is the fifth edition of a comprehensive report on youth victimization, offending by youth, and the juvenile justice system; it presents the most-requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the U.S., drawing on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to them when they enter the juvenile justice system.

This report is part of a series, previously titled “Juvenile Offenders and Victims,” that presents the most-requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the U.S. The report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to them when they enter the juvenile justice system. The target audience of the report includes Congress, state legislators, other state and local policymakers, educators, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens. It offers empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of youth victimization and offending, and the justice system’s response. Chapter topics are as follows: youth population characteristics; youth victims; offending by youth; juvenile justice system structure and process; law enforcement and youth; youth in juvenile court; and youth in corrections. The report is structured as a series of briefing papers on specific topics and includes information on youth and their involvement with the U.S. justice system through the 2019 data year; each chapter ends with a list of data sources.

Additional Details

• PDF (Full Report)
• Introduction

Related Topics

Similar publications.

• Finding an answer in time: Assessing change in needs scores on time to recidivism among justice-involved youth
• Practice Brief 9: Honoring Indigenous Lifeways: For the Children
• Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Processing of Delinquency Cases

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Five Things About Juvenile Delinquency Intervention and Treatment

Juvenile delinquency intervention and treatment programs have the broad goals of preventing crime and reducing recidivism by providing treatment and services to youth who have committed crimes.

The five statements below are based on practices and programs rated by CrimeSolutions. [1]

1. Juvenile awareness programs may be ineffective and potentially harmful.

Juvenile awareness programs — like Scared Straight — involve organized visits to adult prison facilities for adjudicated youth and youth at risk of adjudication. Based on the review and rating by CrimeSolutions of two meta-analyses of existing research , youth participating in these types of programs were more likely to commit offenses in the future than adjudicated youth and youth at risk of adjudication who did not. Consequently, recidivism rates were, on average, higher for participants compared to juveniles who went through regular case processing.

The results suggest that not only are juvenile awareness programs ineffective at deterring youth from committing crimes, but youth exposed to them are more likely to commit offenses in the future.

Read the practice profile Juvenile Awareness Programs (Scared Straight) to learn more.

2. Cognitive behavioral therapy can effectively reduce aggression in children and adolescents.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a problem-focused, therapeutic approach that attempts to help people identify and change the dysfunctional beliefs, thoughts, and patterns that contribute to their problem behaviors. CBT programs are delivered in various settings, including juvenile detention facilities. Based on the review and rating by CrimeSolutions of two meta-analyses of existing research , a variant of CBT focused specifically on children and adolescents who have anger-related problems is effective for reducing aggression and anger expression, and for improving self-control, problem-solving, and social competencies.

Read the practice profile Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anger-Related Problems in Children and Adolescents to learn more.

3. Multisystemic therapy for juveniles reduces recidivism, rearrests, and the total number of days incarcerated.

Multisystemic therapy is a family- and community-based treatment program for adolescents with criminal offense histories and serious antisocial, delinquent, and other problem behaviors. Based on the review and rating by CrimeSolutions of three randomized controlled trials (each evaluating a program in a different state), the program effectively reduced rearrests and number of days incarcerated.

Read the program profile Multisystemic Therapy to learn more.

4. Intensive supervision of juveniles — the conditions of which may vary — has not been found to reduce recidivism.

This practice consists of increased supervision and control of youth on probation in the community, compared with those on traditional community supervision. Intensive supervision programs have three primary features: 1) smaller caseloads for juvenile probation officers, 2) more frequent face-to-face contacts, and 3) strict conditions of compliance with stiffer penalties for violations. Other conditions may vary, but they can include electronic monitoring, drug/urinalysis testing, and participation in programming (such as tutoring, counseling, or job training). Based on the review and rating by CrimeSolutions of three meta-analyses of existing research , the practice does not reduce recidivism.

Read the practice profile Juvenile Intensive Supervision Programs to learn more.

5. Incarceration-based therapeutic communities for juveniles with substance use disorders have not been found to reduce recidivism after release.

Incarceration-based therapeutic communities employ a comprehensive, residential drug-treatment program model for youth in a detention facility who have substance use disorders. Therapeutic communities are designed to foster changes in attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors related to substance use and to reduce subsequent criminal offending. Based on the review and rating by CrimeSolutions of two meta-analyses of existing research , incarceration-based therapeutic communities have not been found to reduce recidivism after release for those who participate.

Read the practice profile Incarceration-Based Therapeutic Communities for Juveniles to learn more.

[note 1] As defined by CrimeSolutions, a practice is a general category of programs, strategies, or procedures that share similar characteristics with regard to the issues they address and how they address them. Practice profiles tell us about the average results from multiple evaluations of similar programs, strategies, or procedures. A program is a specific set of activities carried out according to guidelines to achieve a defined purpose. Program profiles on CrimeSolutions tell us whether a specific program was found to achieve its goals when it was carefully evaluated.

Practice ratings do not take into account variations in implementation or other program-specific factors which may impact the effectiveness of a specific program. Practices may be rated differently on outcomes not included here.

CrimeSolutions helps practitioners and policymakers understand what works in justice-related programs and practices. CrimeSolutions is funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Programs and practices profiles related to juveniles also appear on OJJDP’s Model Programs Guide .

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Juvenile Justice

From 1996 to 2019, we made 425 grants totaling $218 million.

From 1996 to 2019, we supported reform in 40 states with a goal of accelerating a national movement to improve the lives of young people in contact with the law, while enhancing public safety and holding young offenders accountable for their actions. Primarily through the Models for Change initiative, we developed tools and research that advanced reforms to make the juvenile justice system more fair, effective, and developmentally appropriate.  

We supported research, training, practical interventions, policy analysis, and public education that promoted a juvenile justice system that recognizes the developmental differences between adolescents and adults, links to other relevant agencies and organizations, and is accountable for public safety and the rehabilitation of young offenders. We took a distinctive approach to juvenile justice reform–one that was grounded in the growing body of behavioral and neuroscience research on youth development. The premise of our work was that an understanding of the scientific research on child and adolescent development and mental health would help policymakers and practitioners to make more informed choices in individual cases.

We implemented this strategy at four levels: developing a knowledge base and tools to inform decisions in policy and practice; developing and promoting model demonstrations of system-wide reform in targeted sites; translating knowledge into action through advocacy and dissemination; and accelerating the pace of state policy reform nationally. As the work came to a close, we focused on expanding the use of successful tools and approaches developed through Models for Change, including support for the network of resource centers that provide assistance to system leaders in the top areas of concern.

View the Models for Change archive ›

History of the Program

During the 1990s, 47 states passed laws that put more juveniles in adult criminal court, instituted harsher sanctions, and allowed adults and youths to be imprisoned in the same facilities. In 1996, we set a goal to reverse this course and to promote a rational, evidence-based juvenile justice system that holds young offenders accountable for their actions, promotes rehabilitation, enhances public safety, and lowers costs to taxpayers.  We posited that policies informed by an improved understanding of adolescent psychological development and mental health would lead to greater public safety and better outcomes for youth.

Starting in 1996, we supported research, training, policy analysis, public education, and practical interventions across 14 states. The  Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice  provided the cornerstone of our juvenile justice strategy: its findings over ten years made it clear that adolescents are fundamentally different from adults. We found that treating juvenile offenders as adults, relying on incarceration, and failing to commit resources to rehabilitation and treatment is expensive, produces negative consequences, jeopardizes public safety, and compromises future life chances.

After five years, we expanded on the groundwork laid by the Research Network to help states become models of juvenile justice reform. In 2003, we launched  Models for Change: Systems Reform in Juvenile Justice , a $100 million effort to develop successful state-based models of system-wide reform that other states could learn from and emulate. The initiative did not advance a single “model” system. Rather, it sought to demonstrate different ways to improve systems performance and outcomes in four core states—Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, and Washington. Through Models for Change, we endeavored to create a wave of juvenile justice reform built on new scientific evidence and knowledge of best practices, and we built on existing state and local reform efforts that were practical and feasible.

Targeted issues included racial and ethnic disparities, re-entry after incarceration, mental health, diversion, evidence-based practices, and the boundary between the juvenile and adult criminal systems. Local demonstration sites modeled best practices in these targeted areas and, once success had been demonstrated, promoted the activities as models for other jurisdictions to adopt.  

Grantmaking Priorities

Models of systems reform.

Through Models for Change, we supported efforts in key states to bring about changes in law, policy, and practice and to heighten interest in and provide models for juvenile justice reform nationwide. Initiative goals included greater use of evidence-based practices, improving re-entry and mental health services, and increasing community-based alternatives to incarceration. All sites worked to improve data collection and analysis for decision making and to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities. 

Models for Change was active in 16 states: the four core states of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, and Washington and 12 others—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin—through " action networks ” focused on racial and ethnic disparities, mental health services, and the quality of juvenile indigent defense. These networks shared resources, learnings, and policy solutions that could be adapted to different local context, helping spread success state-to-state.   

National Campaign to Reform State Juvenile Justice Systems 

In 2011, we began a multi-funder collaborative effort to share the lessons of Models for Change and other reform initiatives to help build a wave of juvenile justice policy reform across the country. National campaign operations and activities included a central office that identified target states for policy reform and oversees state-based campaigns; investments in as many as 16 states to reform juvenile justice law and policy; and national communications and outreach to advance a national dialogue in support of widespread juvenile justice reform across the country.    

We supported research to inform the development of effective juvenile justice policies and practices, such as the Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice whose research addressed the competence of young people to stand trial, youthful immaturity and criminal responsibility, and desistance from criminal behavior. More recent research examined the process and effectiveness of systems reform in the Models for Change states, including studies of the consequences of mental health screening in pretrial detention, risk/needs assessment, financing systems change, benefit-cost analysis of juvenile justice programs and services, and interactions between schools and juvenile justice. 

We sought comprehensive systems change with research, network collaboration, national advocacy and continuing resources. Research from the program was cited in supreme court decisions that limited life sentences and outlawed the death penalty for juveniles, and many states raised the age at which adolescents can remain under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system or changed the law to require that a young person’s legal competency be assessed before he or she is transferred adult court. Action networks achieved positive results, implementing changes in practice or policy, supporting policy replication in other jurisdictions, sustaining changes beyond an initial implementation period, and in some cases acquiring sustaining funding for reforms from other sources. National campaign efforts resulted in the implementation of 208 reforms that promoted a fairer and safer juvenile justice system. Models for Change advanced reform in 35 states and continues to be a resource with research, tools, findings, and lessons for juvenile justice reform aimed at improving outcomes for youth and communities.

Program Evaluations

Evaluation of the Models for Change Initiative

Grantmaking Highlights

Landmark Developments in Juvenile Justice Reform

Online Tool Tracks Juvenile Justice Policy and Practice Changes

Research network findings on juveniles cited in supreme court cases, supreme court eliminates mandatory life without parole for juveniles, supreme court limits life without parole for juveniles, supreme court ruling protects miranda rights of children.

The Effects of Incarceration of Youth on Family Members

Additional resources.

• Laurie Garduque, Director
• Maurice Claussen, Program Officer
• Patrick Griffin, Program Officer
• Soledad McGrath, Program Officer

McCourt School of Public Policy

Juvenile Justice Agency Partners Sought for “Teens on Probation” Research Study

Posted in Announcements

Professors Craig Schwalbe (Columbia University) and Debi Koetzle (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) are seeking juvenile justice agency partners for an important study on youth comprehension. Below is a description of the “Teens on Probation Study.”  

If you are a leader of a juvenile justice agency and are interested in adding to the body of knowledge in the field by participating in this study, please contact Professors Schwalbe and Koetzle directly at  [email protected]  and  [email protected] .

“Teens on Probation Study”

Reforming the juvenile justice system along developmental principles is an urgent priority for many states and local jurisdictions. Adolescents on probation encounter systems of rules, obligations, and conditions that place them in daily jeopardy of non-compliance and failure. Youth who are non-compliant are more likely to have continued involvement in the juvenile justice system, institutional placement, and chronic involvement with the criminal justice system as adults. There is emerging evidence to suggest that non-compliance is exaggerated when adolescents have an inadequate understanding of the rules and conditions imposed on them. 

The current study has two aims. The first is to explore the relationship between comprehension and compliance and whether it differs based on individual perceptions and experience. The second is to test whether comprehension can be enhanced and whether improved comprehension improves outcomes with regards to court orders and probation conditions. Overall, this study will provide practical guidance and strategies to juvenile justice agencies by individualizing their approaches according to the developmental needs of adolescents they serve.

Using an experimental design, this study will test (1) the relationship between comprehension and compliance and (2) the efficacy of the comprehension enhancement interview (CEI) with a sample of adolescents on probation (N = 200). The CEI was adapted from teach-back interventions in medicine and nursing to improve treatment adherence and is designed to strengthen three aspects of adolescent comprehension: specific content knowledge about probation rules and conditions, knowledge about rewards and consequences for compliance and non-compliance (reasoning), and knowledge for the relevance of their rules and conditions for their long-term goals and ambitions (appreciation). In addition, the study will explore the three dimensions of adolescent development that are hypothesized to moderate the relationship between comprehension and compliance: (1) legal socialization and legal cynicism, (2) socio-emotional development, and (3) identity development. Outcomes of the study include legal outcomes reported in probation case files (minimum 3-months), parental report of adolescent behavioral outcomes (6-week follow up), and adolescent daily self-report of their compliance within a 1-month follow-up period. All study procedures have been approved by the Columbia University and John Jay College Institutional Review Boards.

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Firearm-violence public health crisis ‘a wake-up call for solutions’

Researchers cited in U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory available for interviews

Media Information

• Release Date: June 25, 2024

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Kristin Samuelson

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Stephanie Kulke

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CHICAGO --- U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy on Tuesday declared America’s firearm violence a public health crisis. Northwestern University faculty cited for their work in firearm violence in the Firearm Violence Advisory offer quotes below and are available for interviews with the media.

Community violence intervention 

“This report is another wake-up call for solutions to address the staggering toll gun violence continues to inflict on Americans each year,” said Andrew Papachristos , whose research on secondary traumatic stress among community violence interventionists in Chicago was cited on page 14 of the advisory. “Our research points to a way forward. It starts with an investment in street outreach workers, who use their lived experiences with gun violence to help break the cycle of violence.” (Read his full quote below to learn more about his research)  

Professor Papachristos is the director of the Institute for Policy Research, the John G. Searle Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) at Northwestern. His research applies network science to the study of gun violence, police misconduct, illegal gun markets, street gangs and urban neighborhoods. He can be reached at [email protected] or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at [email protected] . (His availability for interviews is limited June 24 – 28, but reporters may use the quotes provided in this advisory.)

Safe firearm storage

“Calling collective action on firearm injury and mortality as a public health crisis is something we can and must attend to. We have things that work; we need to implement them and study them,” said Rinad Beidas , whose research on long-term consequences of youth exposure to firearm injury was cited on page 14 of the advisory. The report calls out the need to conduct implementation research to improve effectiveness of prevention strategies. Beidas has published work on implementing a safe firearm storage program via pediatrician visits and currently is funded to do a much larger trial with that program. “This is a non-political, relatively inexpensive and scalable approach to save lives.”  

Beidas is chair of medical social sciences and the Ralph Seal Paffenbarger Professor of implementation in medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Reporters can schedule an interview with Kristin Samuelson at [email protected] .

Mental disorder and violence 

“While the nation’s youth and young adults are disproportionately affected by the daily occurrence of firearm deaths and non-fatal firearm injuries, our research shows youth who have been previously involved with the juvenile justice system had up to 23 times the rate of firearm mortality than the general population,” said Linda Teplin , whose research on crime victimization in adults with severe mental illness was cited in the advisory. (Read her full quote below to learn more about this research)

Linda Teplin is vice chair for research and Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Professor at Feinberg. Teplin also is the primary investigator for the Northwestern Juvenile Project, the first large-scale longitudinal study of mental health needs and outcomes of delinquent youth after detention. She can be reached at [email protected] or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at [email protected] .

More quotes from Prof. Teplin:

“To reduce firearm violence, a creative and multidisciplinary approach is needed, one that involves legal and health care professionals, street outreach workers and public health researchers. People who have been shot are more likely to be injured again or killed. Therefore, hospital emergency departments are ideal settings to implement violence prevention interventions. Poverty also begets violence. We need to address the compound issues that lead to urban blight, such as inadequate housing, unemployment and poor infrastructure. “The public cares a great deal about mass shootings, but they comprise less than 4% of all firearm deaths. We need to focus on the other 96% of everyday violence that disproportionately affects poor, urban youth, especially people of color.”

More quotes from Prof. Papachristos:

“These unarmed workers work in community violence intervention, or CVI, programs in communities that see the most violence. In one Chicago CVI program, we saw a double-digit decline   in violence-related arrests. The participants   stopped carrying guns, getting into fights, and robbing or shooting people — calming communities and saving lives. But this job takes a massive toll on outreach workers, who experience extremely high levels of trauma and violence. One of our studies revealed more of them were shot at while working on the job (12%) than police officers (1%). Another uncovered that 94% of outreach workers reported signs of secondary traumatic stress. So, to stop this public health crisis, we also have to take care of — and invest in — these critical frontline workers and build a community-focused violence prevention infrastructure to support them.”

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Recidivism Among Justice-Involved Youth: Findings From JJ-TRIALS

Angela a. robertson.

Mississippi State University

DORIS WEILAND

Temple University

Texas Christian University

SHEENA GARDNER

Richard dembo.

University of South Florida

LARKIN MCREYNOLDS

Columbia University

MEGAN DICKSON

University of Kentucky

JENNIFER PANKOW

Michael dennis.

Chestnut Health Systems

KATHERINE ELKINGTON

Associated data.

Recidivism, and the factors related to it, remains a highly significant concern among juvenile justice researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Recent studies highlight the need to examine multiple measures of recidivism as well as conduct multilevel analyses of this phenomenon. Using data collected in a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) cooperative agreement, we examined individual- and site-level factors related to 1-year recidivism among probation youth in 20 sites in five states to answer research questions related to how recidivism rates differ across sites and the relationships between individual-level variables and a county-level concentrated disadvantage measure and recidivism. Our findings of large site differences in recidivism rates, and complex relationships between individual and county-level predictors of recidivism, highlight the need for more nuanced, contextually informed, multilevel approaches in studying recidivism among juveniles.

Preventing recidivism among juveniles remains a priority for the juvenile justice (JJ) system. In addition to the significant costs associated with juvenile delinquency ( Welsh et al., 2008 ), problems such as increased rates of substance use (SU) ( Welty et al., 2017 ), dropping out of school ( kirk & Sampson, 2013 ), and continued offending into adulthood ( Stouthamer-Loeber, 2010 ) are also correlated with juvenile offending. given these far-reaching effects and the commonly-held goal across JJ systems of reducing recidivism ( Harris et al., 2009 ), recidivism rates have been a traditional metric of program effectiveness within JJ.

MEASURING RECIDIVISM

Measuring and reporting recidivism is vital for tracking probation outcomes; for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions; and for informing JJ policy, practice, and resource allocation, yet no consensus exists with respect to defining recidivism or the length of follow-up period for determining occurrences of recidivism ( Deal et al., 2015 ). A new offense or rearrest is the most commonly used indicator by researchers and program evaluators ( Harris, Lockwood, et al., 2011 ). Other commonly used definitions include delinquency adjudication within the juvenile system (the equivalent of conviction in the adult criminal justice system) for a subsequent arrest and re-incarceration/commitment to a juvenile correctional facility ( Cottle et al., 2001 ). Some have argued that rearrest rates are better for understanding offending patterns in the community, while delinquency adjudication rates, which may result in more intensive community supervision or out-of-home placements, are better for guiding probation practices and programming for high-risk youth ( Hyatt & Barnes, 2017 ). Among 40 states responding to a survey, researchers found that JJ agencies typically utilized more than one measure and that nearly half (48%) used adjudication and/or commitment decisions to define recidivism ( Harris et al., 2009 ).

The definition (i.e., new offense/rearrest, adjudication, or re-incarceration/commitment), the length of the tracking period, and youth characteristics used influence recidivism rates differently. Because the number of youth decreases at each subsequent case processing decision point ( Snyder & Sickmund, 2006 ), the use of rearrest as an indicator of recidivism produces higher rates than adjudication, since only a subset of youth arrested will be adjudicated. For example, the 12-month rates for juveniles on probation in Virginia were 34.1% and 23.3% in 2015 ( Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, 2018 ).

The duration of the follow-up period is also important, as a longer tracking period offers more opportunity for youth to come back into contact with the justice system ( Deal et al., 2015 ). Among those who recidivate, the recidivism event is most likely to occur within the first year, but the percentage who recidivate continues to rise over longer follow-up periods ( Mulder et al., 2011 ). For example, rates were 22.0% within six months, 34.1% within 12 months, 51.2% within 24 months, and 61.2% within 36 months ( Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, 2018 ).

The population of interest also affects the recidivism rate. In a series of studies of Florida juveniles who completed community-based services, the rearrest rate for all youth was 19.4% ( Wolff et al., 2015 ), but the rate for a sample was 41% ( Wolff et al., 2016 ). The difference in these rates is attributed to the proportion of youth assessed as low risk for reoffending (i.e., 75.5% in the population vs. 39% in the sample) and higher rates of males and Black youth in the sample. Studies of recidivism among juveniles committing serious offenses have found 1-year rearrest rates of 67% among males returning to New Jersey communities from juvenile correctional facilities ( LeBaron, 2002 ).

Recidivism is important for determining the effectiveness of JJ interventions and for informing JJ policy. However, no consensus on the definition or tracking period exists. In response to issues related to measuring and using recidivism data to inform policy, practice, and resource allocation, the Council of State governments Justice Center (2014) developed several recommendations, including measuring recidivism multiple ways and analyzing recidivism data to account for youth risk levels as well as other key characteristics, such as service needs.

JURISDICTIONAL DIFFERENCES IN RECIDIVISM

Another issue in the study of juvenile recidivism is the generalizability of findings across studies. Even if recidivism is defined in the same way and similar types of individuals are tracked for the same amount of time, recidivism rates can vary considerably across studies ( Cottle et al., 2001 ), by state ( Snyder & Sickmund, 2006 ), within the same state ( Wolff et al., 2015 ), and even among neighborhoods within a single municipality ( grunwald et al., 2010 ). The few studies that have examined recidivism across multiple sites have found significant differences across sites ( Aalsma et al., 2015 ; Schweitzer et al., 2017 ). Neither study, however, included site-specific or contextual level variables that might help explain the site differences in recidivism rates.

Given growing empirical support for the effects of community context on delinquency and crime ( Sampson, 2012 ; Sampson & groves, 1989 ), a number of juvenile recidivism studies have included contextual variables, especially neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage. The results are mixed. Two studies did not find an association between contextual factors and recidivism ( Harris, Mennis et al., 2011 ; Leverso et al., 2015 ), while others have found significant and positive relationships with juvenile recidivism ( kalist et al., 2015 ; Wolff, Baglivio, Intravia, et al., 2017 ; Wolff et al., 2015 , 2016 ; yan, 2009 ).

Finally, some studies found that the impact of neighborhood context matters for some. Neighborhood-level disadvantage and social capital were associated with drug offense recidivism, but not with violent, property or general recidivism among delinquent males ( grunwald et al., 2010 ). While not directly associated with self-reported violence and delinquent behavior post-release, residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood was associated with witnessing violence, which in turn was associated with violent and delinquent behaviors among Black girls ( Chauhan & Reppucci, 2009 ). A study analyzing the effects of concentrated disadvantage on reoffending by racial/ethnic groups (i.e., Black, White, and Latinx) identified concentrated disadvantage as a significant predictor among Black youth ( Craig et al., 2017 ).

Recidivism rates can vary significantly across geographic units, suggesting that context matters. However, findings from juvenile recidivism studies that included concentrated disadvantage as a contextual factor are mixed. Multisite research reporting the range of recidivism rates across sites, rather than an overall or average rate, and research including contextual and other site-specific factors are needed to help explain why recidivism rates may vary across sites.

The current article uses data collected as part of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)–funded Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) cooperative agreement to measure recidivism in two ways and explore the relationships between individual-level and county-level factors, specifically addressing three research questions:

• How do rates of rearrest/re-referral and adjudication differ across 20 sites?
• Is county-level concentrated disadvantage associated with re-arrest/re-referral recidivism?
• Do relationships between individual-level variables and recidivism risk vary across sites? If so, which factors help to explain site differences in recidivism?

Data were drawn from the NIDA-funded JJ-TRIALS cooperative agreement, which consisted of six research centers (RCs) and a coordinating center. The primary aim of JJ-TRIALS was to improve the delivery of evidence-based SU services for JJ involved youth by working with JJ agencies providing community supervision (e.g., diversion, probation, parole) and their community-based SU services partners to implement customized organizational-level changes. The JJ-TRIALS study involved representatives from state-level JJ agencies throughout the study development, design, and implementation ( Leukefeld et al., 2017 ). Each RC submitted the JJ-TRIALS protocol to their respective institutional review board (IRB) and received approval (see knight et al., 2016 for additional details about the JJ-TRIALS protocol).

Although there were 33 research sites participating in JJ-TRIALS, this investigation only uses youth case records from 20 sites with accurate baseline data capable of determining recidivism according to the two definitions. The baseline phase, March 2014 through August 2015, occurred prior to the implementation of strategies to promote SU problem identification and linkage to services among participating sites. After excluding 98 cases that were either missing data on race/ethnicity or classified as mixed race, the analytic sample included a total of 6,771 youths at risk for recidivism for at least one year.

RCs obtained electronic JJ case records from participating sites and extracted de-identified information pertaining to youth demographics, alleged offenses/reasons for referral, and justice referral, JJ agency intake, and court hearing/case disposition dates. Unique youth identification numbers were used to track juveniles over time to identify subsequent contact with the JJ system.

Two measures of recidivism were selected, with the first defined as a new arrest or subsequent referral to the JJ system within the 12 months following the youth’s initial intake into the JJ agency. Because of jurisdiction-related idiosyncrasies related to intake documentation within electronic data systems and the collapsing of multiple cases occurring within a short time period, a uniform standard was applied to all sites in which a subsequent referral/arrest was counted as recidivism only if it occurred 30 or more days after the initial JJ intake date.

The second measure of recidivism, adjudication, is defined as a judicial finding of delinquency for an offense related to a subsequent referral/arrest. Owing to system delays in the handling of juvenile court cases, adjudication may not occur within 12 months. However, our JJ partners were particularly interested in this measure of recidivism because rearrest or re-referral to the JJ system does not necessarily result in the case moving beyond intake. Because the lag time between intake and adjudication hearing dates varied considerably across sites, RCs categorized cases using a distinct coding system. Cases diverted away from the system or cases where either no action was taken or the youth was not found delinquent were coded “no.” Cases were coded “yes” only when there was a hearing in which the juvenile was adjudicated delinquent. There was also a subset of youth who were rearrested/re-referred (18.8%) that were coded as “case pending.” This occurred in instances when there was evidence that the case had proceeded beyond intake, such as the filing of a court petition or a hearing date being noted, but the disposition of the case was not yet entered into the JJ database.

Demographics

Gender and race/ethnicity variables are included among the individual-level predictors. Male gender is a consistent predictor of recidivism ( Cottle et al., 2001 ). There is also evidence of racial differences in recidivism rates. Compared with White youth, Black youth are more likely to be arrested and to recidivate ( kakade et al., 2012 ; Wolff et al., 2015 ). To make the classification of race and ethnicity comparable across sites, youth were placed into one of three categories: Non-Latinx White, Non-Latinx Black, and Latinx.

Offense types

RCs obtained the specific reason(s) for referral/arrest and classified the charges into offense types. For this study, we focused on violent offenses (e.g., homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, other violent offenses), property offenses (e.g., burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, vandalism, trespassing, shoplifting), probation/parole violations (PPV), and alcohol or other drug (AOD)–related law violations (e.g., driving under the influence, public intoxication, drug distribution, manufacture, or possession).

Each RC was also responsible for determining the charge level of the most serious offense as felony, misdemeanor, summary/citation, or status. In many cases, unless the charge grade was part of the JJ case record, it was difficult to determine the maximum charge level. Because there was a large amount of missing data for maximum charge level, we recoded the variable as felony (1) versus all other charge levels and missing (0).

Level of supervision

We created a variable whereby the case disposition was coded as “more” (coded 2) if the youth was placed on formal community supervision (i.e., probation or parole) or in a juvenile drug treatment court program, “less” (coded 1) if the youth was handled informally or diverted, and a catch-all “other” group (coded 0) for all dispositions not involving community supervision, such as paying a fine or doing community service.

Need for Su services

Juveniles with SU problems have more risk factors for recidivism ( Van der Put et al., 2014 ) and are more likely to recidivate compared with those without such problems ( McReynolds et al., 2010 ; Schubert et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, youth with SU disorders reoffended more frequently and committed more severe offenses when they reoffended ( Hoeve et al., 2013 ). Determination of need for SU services (yes = 1, no = 0) was based on the presence of one or more of the following indicators: referral to the court for AOD-related offenses; results from drug testing, screening tools, and clinical assessments; JJ staff recommendations; and judicial mandates.

Concentrated disadvantage

We constructed a measure of concentrated disadvantage in line with previous research examining contextual effects on juvenile recidivism (e.g., grunwald et al., 2010 ; Wolff et al., 2016 ; yan, 2009 ). Because we did not have access to youth addresses, our measure is at the county level as we were unable to use zip code or census tract to address neighborhood context. While not ideal, there is some justification for considering surrounding neighborhoods and “geographic spillover” rather than just focusing on the neighborhood of residence ( Sampson, 2012 ) and prior studies have also measured contextual effects at the county level ( Mears et al., 2008 ; Tillyer & Vose, 2011 ). Furthermore, all of our research sites were county youth courts and juvenile probation departments, and all youth resided within the JJ agency county of jurisdiction.

Using 2015 census data, we constructed a composite measure of concentrated disadvantage consisting of (1) percentage receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)/Food Stamp benefits, (2) unemployment rate, (3) percentage of families with children under the poverty line, (4) percentage of single-parent households with children, and (5) percentage of adults 25 years and older without a high school diploma or equivalent (α = .89). Factor analysis using principal axis factoring indicated the measures loaded on a single factor with a kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (kMO) measure of sampling adequacy of .78, indicating a distinct and reliable factor ( Field, 2013 ). We retained the factor scores as the values of our scale. The difference between our operationalization of county-level disadvantage and that used in previous research is that we did not include median family income because it substantially decreased the reliability of the scale and financial disadvantage is already represented by measures of poverty and public assistance.

DATA ANALYSIS

Data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS software (Version 26) and R (Version 3.5.2). SPSS was used to generate descriptive statistics and chi-square tests of independence for contingency tables. R was used to conduct all the other analyses, including exploratory analyses of each variable and relationships among the variables using correlation matrix and multilevel regression modeling for predicting recidivism.

Multilevel analyses were only conducted on predictors of re-arrest/re-referral recidivism. We elected not to examine adjudication recidivism using multilevel modeling because of reduction in sample size from excluding those cases pending an adjudication hearing. First, we estimated the proportion of the total variance in the recidivism risks (rates) that was attributable to between-county differences. This was done by performing a one-way random effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) model that included an intercept and county as a random effect ( Mcgraw & Wong, 1996 ). On the basis of this model, we calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), also called variance partition coefficient (VPC). The ICC here was estimated using the latent variable approach, where the logistic distribution for the level-one residual implies a variance of π 2 /3 = 3.29, and this implies that for a two-level logistic random intercept model with an intercept variance of τ 0 2 , the ICC is τ 0 2 / τ 0 2 + 3.29 ( Snijders & Bosker, 1999 ).

Second, a hierarchical generalized linear mixed effect model (HgLM) was used to estimate the associations of the individual-level variables and county-level disadvantage with the recidivism risks, in which the response variable was the binary outcome for recidivism. This modeling technique can be applied to any situation where there are lower-level units (e.g., individual-level variables) nested within higher-level units (e.g., county-level variables) ( Woltman et al., 2012 ). For these analyses, the intercept is assumed as a random effect and the effects of predictors are assumed to be fixed effects. These random effects capture how the recidivism risks vary across counties. These HgLM models were fitted using R, using the generalized linear mixed-effects model (gLMM) or glmer function of package lme4 ( Finch et al., 2014 ). The regression coefficients of the predictors characterize the population-level associations between each individual-level or county-level factor and recidivism risk when the other predictors were held constant. In addition, to investigate the proportion of total variance that can be explained by the individual-level and county-level predictors, we fit a HgLM model with individual-level fixed effects only and a HgLM model with both individual-level and county-level fixed effects, respectively. It should be kept in mind that the individual-level variance and the county-level variance are not directly comparable. While the county-level residual variance is on the logistic scale, the individual-level residual variance is on the probability scale. To address this technical issue, we applied the latent variable approach proposed by Snijders and Bosker to transform the individual-level and county-level components of the variance into the same scale before computing VPC or ICC ( Snijders & Bosker, 1999 ). The total variance is decomposed into the individual-level residual variance, which is fixed to 3.29 as above, the county-level intercept variance τ 0 2 and the variance σ F 2 of the linear predictor from the fixed effects of the model.

Then VPC can be evaluated by τ 0 2 / ( τ 0 2 + σ F 2 + 3.29 ) , and this is the proportion of the total variance that can be explained by county-level random effects.

Third, after the fixed effects were inspected, we examined whether the association between the recidivism risks and individual-level predictors varied across counties. This was done by the forward selection method. We started with a model with a random intercept for county as the only random effect. We compared it with a larger model which includes an additional random effect of the interaction between the county and each individual-level predictor. We used the likelihood ratio test to test for the significance of the additional random effect. Under the null hypothesis that the random interaction is not significant, the statistic follows a chi-square distribution with the degrees of freedom equal to the difference of the number of parameters in the two models ( Hox et al., 2017 ). If all random interactions are non-significant, then associations do not vary across counties; otherwise, we selected the most significant random interaction. We continued adding another random interaction between the counties and each of the remaining individual-level predictors to identify the most significant one. The selection process stopped when none of the additional random interactions were significant.

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for youth characteristics. A quarter of the sample is female. The sample is also diverse, as non-Latinx Blacks comprise 47.3% of the sample, followed by non-Latinx Whites (29.5%), and Latinx (23.2%). Over a quarter of the sample were charged with a violent offense (27.4%) or with a property offense (29.1%), and 7.6% violated conditions of probation or parole; 35% committed a felony offense. In addition, the disposition of half (50.2%) of the cases was to place the youth on a “more” intensive level of community supervision, whereas 46.4% received “less” intensive or informal supervision, and the remainder (3.4%) received some other disposition that did not involve community supervision. Just over half (52.6%) of youth were determined to be in need of treatment services for SU problems, while 18.2% had an AOD-related charge.

Descriptive Statistics for Individual-Level Predictors and Recidivism Rates ( N = 6,771)

Note. Chi-square test. SU = substance use; AOD = alcohol or other drug.

While the overall rate for rearrest-based recidivism was 33.1%, rearrest recidivism rates for each of the 20 sites ranged from 6.9% to 69.2% (see Figure 1 ). Overall, 11.6% of youth were adjudicated delinquent for a new offense, 15.3% were not adjudicated (either the case was not carried forward for a hearing or the youth was found “not delinquent”), and 6.2% were pending an adjudication hearing. Across the 20 sites, adjudication recidivism rates ranged from 1.9% to 27.8%, non-adjudication rates ranged from zero to 65%, and the percentage with cases pending adjudication hearings ranged from zero to 19.6%. Because a substantial proportion of the cases were awaiting an adjudication hearing in some sites, it is difficult to know the true rate of recidivism based on adjudication status. For these reasons, subsequent analyses focus on rearrest/re-referral recidivism.

Youth Recidivism by Rate of adjudication

Bivariate analyses (not displayed) of the characteristics of the 20 sites revealed potentially important differences between the counties. Based on the 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes, eleven of the sites are in metropolitan areas of one million population or more and six other counties were considered urban with populations between 250,000 and one million; 95% of the sample reside in these urban counties. The percentage of families with children in the county living below the poverty line ranged from 8.3% to 42.0%, while families receiving SNAP benefits ranged from 5.9% to 25.0%. The percentage of single-parent households with children ranged from 7.6% to 14.8%. The unemployment rate ranged from 4.5% to 12.6%, and the rate of adults without a high school education ranged from 6.5% to 20.4%.

The composition of the justice-involved youth at each site varied significantly. The percentage of females across the 20 sites ranged from 9.1% to 46.4%, the percentage of Black youth ranged from 1.1% to 94.5%, and the percentage of Latinx youth ranged from zero to 49.9%. The types of offenses and level of supervision also varied significantly. The percentage of youth charged with violent offenses ranged from 1.6% to 46.1%, while the percentage with property offenses ranged from 6.4% to 56.6%. The percentage with felony offenses ranged from 10.4 to 83.6, and the percentage with PPVs ranged from zero to 32.0. keeping in mind that sanctions imposed upon youth are influenced by state laws, JJ agency policies and practices, and judicial discretion, the percentage of cases placed on the most intensive level of supervision ranged from 17.8% to 100%. The percentage of juveniles in need of SU treatment services ranged from 13.4% to almost all (99.5%). The rates of SU service need observed across JJ-TRIALS sites probably reflect differing SU screening practices rather than true differences in juvenile SU problems across our study sites.

Also displayed in Table 1 are recidivism rates for each youth characteristic based on the two definitions of recidivism used in this study. Using the rearrest/re-referral recidivism definition, males; youth of color; youth referred to the court for violent, property, or felony offenses; youth placed on more intensive community supervision; and youth in need of SU treatment services were more likely to recidivate than their counterparts. An initial referral for an AOD-related charge was not associated with recidivism in bivariate analyses. This variable was dropped from multivariate analyses because having an AOD-related charge is one of the indicators used to determine need for SU services. The rates for adjudication recidivism were significantly related to being male, youth of color, more supervision, and need for SU treatment services.

CORRELATIONAL ANALYSES AMONG POTENTIAL PREDICTORS

Bivariate correlations among all variables and rearrest recidivism are displayed in Table 2 . Most correlations are small to moderate in size ( Cohen, 1992 ) and several correlations are of note. First, need of SU service was negatively associated with less supervision (i.e., informal community supervision or diversion, ( r = −.29), while more intensive community supervision was positively associated ( r = .32). Second, concentrated disadvantage is associated with all variables except for PPV. Notably, youth residing in counties with higher levels of concentrated disadvantage are less likely to be White ( r = −.22), more likely to be Black ( r = .15), less likely to receive less intensive supervision ( r = −.35), and more likely to recidivate ( r = .09).

Bivariate Correlations Among Individual-Level Variables, County-Level Disadvantage, and Rearrest Recidivism ( N = 6,771)

Note. Individuals nested within 20 juvenile justice agencies. PPV = probation/parole violations; SU = substance use.

MULTILEVEL ANALYSES

The purpose of the one-way random effects ANOVA model (Model 1 in Table 3 ) was to assess the amount of variability in re-arrest recidivism across counties and the type of analysis needed. The random intercept is significant with the estimate of 0.75 ( p < .001) using the likelihood ratio test. This indicates that the recidivism risks varied significantly across counties. In addition, the ICC was 0.18, which indicates that 18.46% of the total variability in the recidivism risk is due to the counties, while the remaining 81.54% is due to systematic differences between individuals.

Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models of Rearrest/Re-Referral Recidivism Risk ( N = 6,771)

Note. Individuals nested within 20 sites. ANOVA = analysis of variance; HGLM = hierarchical generalized linear mixed effect model; OR = odds ratio.

A model with random intercept and individual-level fixed effects only (Model 2) was fitted. Compared with Model 1, this model included all the individual-level variables as fixed effects. The third model (Model 3) included a county-level variable, concentrated disadvantage, in addition to the individual-level effects. The estimated regression coefficients, estimated odds ratios, and estimated variance of the random effects are reported in Table 3 . The results show that the county-level disadvantage variable is not significantly associated with recidivism. Also, both Model 2 and Model 3 produced the same estimates of between-county variance, 0.83, and the corresponding VPCs are 0.18 for Model 2 and 0.18 for Model 3, which implies that the county-level disadvantage variable had almost no contribution in explaining the variation in recidivism risks.

In the next step, a forward selection method was implemented to choose significant random interaction between the county and individual-level predictors. This step leads to the fourth model (Model 4), in which the fixed effects are the same as Model 3, but the random effects include a random effect for counties and a random interaction effect between counties and need for SU service. Although other random interactions with violent charge (χ 2 = 10.798, p = .005), property charge (χ 2 = 25.64, p < .001), PPV (χ 2 = 12.81, p = .002), felony offense (χ 2 = 8.95, p = .011), and levels of supervision (χ 2 = 61.34, p < .001) are significant, the random interaction with the need for SU service is the most significant (χ 2 = 66.13, p < .001) via likelihood ratio tests among all the interaction between counties and each individual-level predictor. Findings from all the candidate models on the random interaction with violent charge, property charge, PPV, felony offense, and levels of supervision respectively are available in the supplemental materials (see Table A1 ).

Table 3 reports the estimated regression coefficients for the fixed effects with their standard errors and corresponding odds ratio for each model. In Model 4, most of the individual-level predictors were significantly associated with recidivism risk, except male gender, felony charge, and need for SU services. Male gender and need for SU services are highly correlated ( r = .14, p < .001). By controlling the need for SU service, the effect of male gender is not significant because the need for SU service has explained the variation in the recidivism risks. In other words, the association of male gender and recidivism risks is confounded by the need for SU services. We tested a model without need for SU services and found that being male is significantly associated with rearrest recidivism. The model is available in the supplemental materials (see Table 2A ). With respect to race/ethnicity, being non-Latinx Black (odds ratio, OR = 1.67, p < .001) or being Latinx (OR = 1.20, p = .042) increased the odds of rearrest/re-referral by 66.7% and 19.6%, respectively, over being non-Latinx White when controlling for all other predictors. Regarding the types of offense, the results also show that there is a higher rearrest/re-referral recidivism risk among those with a violent offense charge (OR = 1.22, p = .005), a property offense charge (OR = 1.44, p < .001), or a probation or parole violation (OR = 2.50, p < .001). Interestingly, the results did not find recidivism risk to be significantly related to felony charge (OR = 0.92, p = .209) or need of SU treatment service (OR = 1.08, p = .761). The youth who were coded as “more” on supervision level, when compared to those coded as “less,” had the highest odds of being rearrested or re-referred (OR = 2.62, p < .001). In addition, similar to Model 3, county-level concentrated disadvantage was not significantly related to recidivism.

In Model 4, both the random effects of counties and random interaction between counties and need for SU services are significant, implying that the impact of need for SU services (χ 2 = 66.13, p < .001) is significantly different across counties. Note that this predictor is not significant as a fixed effect in Model 4, meaning that the effect of need for SU services on recidivism is not significant on average over the whole population (pooling the data from all the counties). Specifically, when we compare a youth with need for SU services versus one without need while controlling for all the other factors, the overall OR of recidivism risk is 1.08 ( p = .761), given that the subjects are randomly chosen from the population in the 20 counties. However, if we look into individual counties, the relationship between SU service need and recidivism varies substantially across different JJ agencies. Therefore, when addressing need for SU services as a predictor of recidivism based on rearrest/re-referral, it needs to be done separately for each county. For example, in county 23, the odds of recidivism for a youth with need for SU services is 18.5% of that for a youth without the need, but in county 42, the odds of a youth with the need is about twice that of a youth without the need. A caterpillar plot and a table showing the random effects estimate of need for SU services by county (see Figure A ) and a table of the odds ratio in each county (see Table 3A ) are available in supplemental materials .

Guided by recommendations to measure recidivism multiple ways ( Council of State governments Justice Center, 2014 ), we defined recidivism for the cohorts of youth entering participating sites as rearrest or new referral and adjudication on a subsequent offense occurring within 12 months of the initial intake into the JJ agency. Overall, 33% of youth in our study reoffended within 1 year, and the adjudication recidivism rate was roughly one-third of the rate for rearrest/re-referrals. Our 12-month rearrest recidivism rate is similar to that of juvenile probationers in Virginia (34%), but our adjudication recidivism rate is half that of the Virginia rate (23%, Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, 2018 ). Although some have argued for generalizability of findings to other jurisdictions with similar socioeconomic and demographic profiles ( kubrin & Stewart, 2006 ), comparisons across jurisdictions may not be meaningful even when using the same definition of recidivism and tracking youth for the same time period.

There are several possible explanations for differences in recidivism rates across jurisdictions. The variation in recidivism rates may be (1) due to contextual-level factors independent of the types of youth who reside there, (2) due to the characteristics of juveniles who reside within the jurisdiction, (3) a function of JJ policies and procedures, or (4) some combination of these factors.

With regards to contextual factors, we found an association between concentrated disadvantage and rearrest recidivism in bivariate analyses but not in multivariate models controlling for all individual-level predictors. The lack of convergence in our findings with the concentrated disadvantage literature reviewed earlier may be due to the county-level measure of concentrated disadvantage we used in our analyses. A county may be too large a geographic area, encompassing both urban and rural areas, with census tracts containing multiple communities with varying degrees of social disorganization ( Osgood & Chambers, 2000 ). It is possible that limited variation in disadvantage across a small number of counties in our study explains our finding. At the same time, even studies with large numbers of “neighborhoods” as the Level 2 unit of analyses found that the magnitude of neighborhood disadvantage was small and that most of the variance in recidivism was attributable to individual-level factors ( Wolff et al., 2015 ).

Given the mixed support for the hypothesis that individual risk for reoffending is increased by residing in a socioeconomically disadvantaged community, it may be that other community characteristics associated with socioeconomic disadvantage are better contextual-level predictors of recidivism. There is ample evidence that disadvantaged communities expose residents to violence and victimization ( Attar et al., 1994 ; Chauhan & Reppucci, 2009 ; Sampson et al., 1997 ) as well as deviant peer groups ( Harris, Mennis, et al., 2011 ), both associated with recidivism. Furthermore, the co-occurrence of living in a high-poverty and high-crime neighborhood may affect some residents more than others ( Chauhan & Reppucci, 2009 ; Craig et al., 2017 ; Wolff, Baglivio, & Piquero, 2017 ). We found that concentrated disadvantage was negatively associated with being White and positively associated with being Black or Latinx.

Another explanation for site differences in recidivism rates is the characteristics of the youth who reside within the jurisdiction of the JJ agency. The majority of variation between our sites was accounted for by individual-level factors. We found that JJ agencies differed with respect to the percentage of youth of color and the type and severity of crimes committed by the youth in their jurisdictions. Sites with the above-average recidivism rates also had the highest percentage of youth of color. This is not surprising given well-established, disproportionate overrepresentation of youth of color in the JJ system ( Donnelly, 2017 ). In addition, the two sites with the highest reoffending recidivism rates also had the highest percentage of property and felony offenses. Furthermore, when testing possible random effects of all individual-level variables, the relationship between offense types and recidivism differed by site. Therefore, the site differences in youth demographic characteristics and offending behaviors appears to account for noted differences in recidivism rates across jurisdictions.

A third explanation for site differences in recidivism rates is that there are differences in agency policies and practices. Jurisdictions differ in how they respond to youth having contact with law enforcement. Some jurisdictions will arrest and process youth involved in status offenses (e.g., a child being considered ungovernable), some have pre-arrest diversion programs for youth having contact with law enforcement for minor misdemeanor offenses (e.g., petit theft), whereas other jurisdictions primarily arrest and process youth engaging in more serious offenses (e.g., aggravated assault, grand larceny). Our sites also differed significantly in their handling of juvenile cases in terms of community supervision. In our sample, juveniles placed on a “more” intensive level of community supervision were more likely to recidivate than youth receiving other dispositions. This finding is consistent with research on the impact of intensive supervision on youth outcomes that found mixed results for reducing reoffending (i.e., either no different from standard probation or higher reoffending rates) but noted increases in probation violations and increases in incarceration ( Hyatt & Barnes, 2017 ; Petersilia & Turner, 1993 ). Evidence-based juvenile case management practices dictate that the duration and frequency of community supervision be based upon the level of risk and that the delivery of services be based on an assessment of needs ( Hyatt & Barnes, 2017 ). This is particularly true for high-risk juveniles. Match between assessed needs and interventions that addressed identified needs was associated with a 37.9% reduction in the likelihood of recidivism; the absence of interventions to address identified needs was associated with an 81.7% increase in likelihood of recidivism ( Luong & Wormith, 2011 ).

Another indication of differences in JJ policies and practices across our sites is that the identification of youth in need of SU services varied significantly across our sites and that the relationship between SU service need and recidivism varied substantially across different JJ agencies. Our findings suggest that the interplay between SU treatment need and recidivism is complex and is likely a result of a combination of contextual, agency, and youth factors. A national study found that few JJ community supervision agencies provide mental health and SU treatment services directly to youth and families but rely on community-based providers for these services ( Scott et al., 2019 ). However, more intensive SU and mental health, aftercare, and recovery support services were limited in availability ( Scott et al., 2019 ). Rates of screening for SU problems varied across all 33 JJ-TRIALS sites and among those in need of services only about 15% were referred to SU treatment and about 10% initiated treatment ( Dennis et al., 2019 ). Our findings related to site differences in the identification of need for SU services and recidivism may reflect agencies referral practices and the availability of services in the community.

LIMITATIONS

Several limitations to the study should be noted. First, this study represents the experiences of 20 sites located in five states and is not a random sample of JJ agencies. Second, for certain variables (e.g., charge level and disposition), information was missing because of the varying record keeping practices of the JJ offices, so that missing data provided a challenge to interpretation. It is possible that those sites that collected more systematic information differed in other ways from those that did not, perhaps further contributing to the site differences observed. Each site (or state) relied on its own data system or systems. Even state data systems did not guarantee uniform record-keeping practices and policies across JJ agencies. This may further explain the considerable variability across sites in several areas.

Being restricted to gathering a small set of common variables available from participating JJ agencies limited our ability to examine a broader range of individual-level predictors, including dynamic factors such as recidivism risk level. While most JJ agencies use some method for assessing risk, information on recidivism risk level was either not comparable across JJ-TRIALS sites or not available from all research sites. We examined youth demographic and offense characteristics commonly used as individual-level predictors in recidivism research ( Cottle et al., 2001 ), and our findings are similar to those of other studies, with one exception. Contrary to prior research ( Craig et al., 2017 ; Wolff et al., 2015 ; yan, 2009 ), being male was not associated with increased risk for recidivism once other factors were taken into consideration. This seemingly anomalous finding is due to the high correlation between male gender and need for SU services. When we ran the multivariate model without the need for SU services variable, male gender was significantly associated with rearrest recidivism.

Another limitation is the length of the follow-up period. We recognize that a 12-month follow-up period may not be long enough when recidivism is defined as adjudication of a subsequent offense as additional time may be needed for judicial processing of the case. However, a 12-month follow-up is commonly used by state JJ agencies and program evaluators regardless of how recidivism is defined ( Harris, Lockwood, et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, of the few studies examining adjudication/conviction recidivism ( Lowenkamp et al., 2010 ; Sullivan & Latessa, 2011 ; Tillyer & Vose, 2011 ; Wolff et al., 2018 ), Wolff and colleagues (2018) tracked juveniles for 365 days from the youth’s completion of community-based supervision or court-ordered services.

Finally, our Level 2 sample size of 20 JJ sites is underpowered. A sample of 20 for the Level 2 unit of analysis is at the lower bounds of Level 2 sample size for powering multilevel modeling if Level 1 (youth within JJ jurisdictions) sample sizes are relatively large ( Browne, 2006 ). Unfortunately, the number of youth per site was unbalanced (ranging from 54 to 1023), and after conducting a power analysis, we determined that we are underpowered for some of the variables in our multilevel models ( Browne et al., 2009 ).

Despite these limitations, our findings add to the recidivism literature in several ways. First, findings of large differences in recidivism rates across sites in five states suggests a lack of generalizability of rates from one state to another even when recidivism is measured in the same way on the same type of youth. These findings also point to a continued need to account for both contextual and individual-level factors across sites when studying recidivism, as those have a potentially differential impact on recidivism risk. Our findings also stress the importance of identifying and addressing significant site differences in recidivism. Differences in youth demographic characteristics and offending behaviors across jurisdictions as well as agency practices with regards to case disposition and SU screening appear to account for noted differences in recidivism rates across jurisdictions. It is also likely that other site-specific and contextual factors not measured in our study account for differences in recidivism rates. Finally, the complex relationships between individual- and county-level predictors of recidivism require more nuanced, contextually informed, multilevel approaches in studying juvenile recidivism.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental material, acknowledgments.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors gratefully acknowledge the collaborative contributions of National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and support from the following grant awards: Chestnut Health Systems (U01DA03622); Columbia University (U01DA036226); Emory University (U01DA036233); Mississippi State University (U01DA036176); Temple University (U01DA036225); Texas Christian University (U01DA036224); and University of Kentucky (U01DA036158). NIDA Science Officer on this project is Tisha Wiley. Clinical Trials Registration: {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT02672150","term_id":"NCT02672150"}} NCT02672150 . The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), or the participating universities or juvenile justice systems. This study was funded under the JJ-TRIALS cooperative agreement, funded at the NIDA by the NIH.

Angela A. Robertson , PhD, is a research professor at the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University. Her research includes measurement and prediction of recidivism, behavioral health interventions for substance misusing and offender populations, and racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system.

Zhou Fang is currently a third year PhD student concentrating in statistics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Mississippi State University. He is interested in the impact of unbalance on statistical analyses of multi-environment data and longitudinal data analysis.

Doris Weiland is a senior research associate in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. Her research interests include substance use treatment for persons involved in the criminal and juvenile justice systems and justice system reform.

George Joe , EdD, is a senior research scientist at Texas Christian University’s Institute of Behavioral Research. His research focuses on components of the treatment process, evaluation models for treatment effectiveness and associated relationships of social and organizational factors in those models, etiology of drug abuse, and statistical methodology.

Sheena Gardner , PhD, is an assistant research professor in the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University. Her work centers on the implementation and evaluation of organizational and system-level change with a primary interest in the juvenile justice system.

Richard Dembo , PhD, is professor of criminology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has been a major party in the flow of federal, state, and local funds into the Tampa Bay area for research and service delivery projects addressing the needs of high-risk youth, their families, and their surrounding communities.

Larkin McReynolds , PhD, is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University and the NyS Psychiatric Institute. Her research interests include the role of psychiatric disorders and juvenile delinquency/recidivism, cross-system linkages, and the long-term consequences of exposure to adverse childhood experiences.

Megan Dickson , PhD, is an assistant professor in the University of Kentucky’s Department of Behavioral Science. Her research focuses on individual and sociocultural factors that affect re-entry success, relapse, and recidivism among substance-using criminal offenders, including health and service disparities.

Jennifer Pankow is an associate research scientist with Texas Christian University Institute of Behavioral Research and a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. She conducts organizational and individual-level research in criminal justice settings.

Michael Dennis , PhD, is a senior research psychologist with Chestnut Health Systems. He is a methodologist and applied researcher focused on understanding the service cascade and recovery over time in general and specifically as they related to adolescents.

Katherine Elkington , PhD, is an associate professor of clinical medical psychology at Columbia University and the NYS Psychiatric Institute. Her research focuses on the interrelationships between mental health problems, substance use sexual risk behaviors, health outcomes, and recidivism among justice-involved youth.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Supplemental Material is available in the online version of this article at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/cjb

Contributor Information

ANGELA A. ROBERTSON, Mississippi State University.

ZHOU FANG, Mississippi State University.

DORIS WEILAND, Temple University.

GEORGE JOE, Texas Christian University.

SHEENA GARDNER, Mississippi State University.

RICHARD DEMBO, University of South Florida.

LARKIN MCREYNOLDS, Columbia University.

MEGAN DICKSON, University of Kentucky.

JENNIFER PANKOW, Texas Christian University.

MICHAEL DENNIS, Chestnut Health Systems.

KATHERINE ELKINGTON, Columbia University.

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View: Session 9A: Percolator: Theory and Praxis of Liberatory Justice in Public Service Organizations: Rewards, Challenges, and the Way Forward 08:30 , , and 08:30 important intermediate mechanisms in the causal linkage between PBF and student success. A few studies have examined PBF-driven shifts in spending patterns in public institutions, finding only marginal to null average treatment effects on financial priorities of public four-year institutions (Rabovsky, 2012; Kelchen & Stedrak, 2016; Hu et al., 2022). However, changes in institutional processes often take time and financial priorities of incentivized institutions may evolve over time as institutions learn and adapt to their changing state funding environments (Heinrich & Marschke, 2010; Mizrahi, 2020). This study examines the dynamic shifts in institutional spending in public four-year institutions subject to PBF policies and by minority-serving institution (MSI) status. The study leverages institution-level data from IPEDS and a comprehensive state-level PBF dataset and employs event study analysis. Understanding the dynamic changes in institutional spending over multiple periods may provide information on why PBF policies continue to yield limited improvements in college completion outcomes. Evidence on the dynamic shifts in institutional spending may also enable states to better design and implement performance incentives that induce desirable institutional changes and improve student outcomes ultimately.                08:45 , and 09:00 09:15 and 08:30 08:45 and 09:00 and 09:15 , and Our analysis employs multivariate regression and other methods, considering variables for major threat categories, consequences of terrorist attacks, and terrorist funding potential through irregular trade. Additional control variables include political, power, and demographic factors. This approach provides a more comprehensive assessment of terrorism risks and funding allocation efficiency. 08:30 and The latter has become especially salient in public administration, with social equity being elevated as a core public service value and the demonstrated performance benefits of a(n) (effectively managed) diverse workforce. More historically, public organizations have sought to be demographically representative institutions, with recognizable implications for responsiveness among street-level bureaucrats, especially in arenas with administrative discretion (Keiser et al., 2002). The objective of this paper is to address these policy-salient concerns by examining what qualities of public sector jobs are most attractive across age groups, as well as race and gender. To do so, we utilize a large-scale pre-registered conjoint experiment that allows us to make valid inferences on the impact of our independent variables on job attractiveness. Our contributions are two-fold: first, we compare the simultaneous effects of a range of variables on job attractiveness whereas previous work has examined them in isolation; and secondly, we devote specific attention to comparing differences in the needs and work values of individuals across age groups. The findings highlight what matters the most in how job seekers self-select into differing organizational/policy domains, professional contexts, as well as job characteristics. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and future work to advance this area of research. 08:45 and This study focuses on one such stressed organizational context -child welfare services- and uses the job demands-resource model to unpack the reform needed to motivate and engage child welfare caseworkers. By doing so, it builds on the literature of how work engagement in public sector contexts, especially highly stressed ones, may be differently affected by clusters of job demands and resources. Using an explanatory sequential mixed method approach, the study first identifies the clusters of job demands and job resources that are antecedents of high satisfaction and overall work commitment in child welfare caseworkers. This is done by analyzing secondary survey data from the second cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being(NSCAW II). This analysis is followed by in-depth interviews with current child welfare caseworkers to understand the relative importance of the identified job demand and resource clusters. Additionally, the interviews will add richness to the study by unpacking the personal experiences of caseworkers in the post-pandemic public sector human service work environment. The study, therefore, will provide useful insights to better inform the design and implementation of human resource policy reforms in the public sector. 09:00 and In this paper, we develop a model for understanding where organizations fall on the continuum of preventing exclusion to promoting inclusion in their DEIA work. Preventing exclusion is associated with legal compliance, internal processes, and diversity inputs while promoting inclusion is associated with creating equitable environments where individuals feel a sense of belonging. We test this model using survey data from veteran serving organizations (VSOs) participating in 18 AmericaServes networks across the United States (n=1,000) and individual surveys of veterans utilizing services (n=2,731). We propose that how organizations define and do DEIA work has profound impacts for whether historically marginalized groups access and utilize services. We conclude with guidance for organizations to develop and implement substantive and systematic DEIA work. This work is funded by USAA and done in partnership with the D’Aniello Institute for Veteran and Military Families. 09:15 Specifically, this study explores the impact of organizational inclusion and justice on the behavioral pathways that employees strategically choose in response to harassment experiences and their willingness to report such incidents. The findings reveal diverse effects on behavioral choices: Enhanced justice significantly predicts both the willingness to report incidents and turnover intention, though it is not significantly associated with changes in assignment or transfer. Inclusion, conversely, exhibits nuanced effects across behavioral strategies, significantly predicting the willingness to report but demonstrating positive associations with turnover intention and transfer. Qualitative data further confirm that organizational inclusion and justice play a crucial role in reshaping policies to protect victims, although mixed perspectives exist among employees regarding their behavioral choices when addressing harassment experiences. The study highlights the substantial impact of organizational inclusion and justice as proactive measures in curbing misconduct within highly bureaucratic settings. However, it underscores the necessity for delicate management strategies to ensure effectiveness in addressing workplace harassment. 08:30 and 08:44 , and To address the gaps, we employ a quasi-experimental method, regression discontinuity (RD) design, based on school performance data and ratings from New York City public schools from 2007 to 2013. We find that performance signals affect overall turnover, but only at the lower end of performance ratings. Compared with schools earning a C grade, schools earning a D grade have higher levels of teacher turnover. Moreover, teachers from different racial groups respond to low-performance signals differently. Compared to their counterparts in schools that earned a C, white teachers in D schools are more likely to transfer to higher-rated schools. In contrast, Black teachers in D schools are more likely to exit NYC schools to join other districts or leave the profession entirely. This study deepens our understanding of employee turnover under performance regimes and shows an unintended effect of performance management: performance regimes drive minority teachers away and worsen the lack of representation. 08:58 , and This case study analyzes interviews with 23 CoC representatives, a survey of 114 CoCs (33% response rate), and HUD performance data. We find limited evidence that funding levels are associated with reported measures of performance. Broadly, our data show that governance complexities and environmental constraints violate many of the principal-agent assumptions embodied within performance management doctrine. At the same time, interviews suggest that some CoCs use HUD reporting requirements for varied purposes, including catalytic and discursive capacities (Musso and Weare, 2019; Moynihan, 2008; Nathan 2008). Overall, CoCs are building performance management systems capacities, but still face challenges regarding sustainable organizational culture. Impediments to performance include both internal organizational factors and external factors such as lack of housing, limited funding, and regulatory restrictions. Overall, the evidence supports a more cooperative and discursive model for capacity building rather than a top-down view of performance management governance in networked grant-in-aid systems. 09:12 and Our paper contributes to the collaborative performance literature. We argue that to understand shared data use during the implementation phase, we need to examine groups’ engagement with performance practices during the earlier planning and coordination phases using a temporal view. We also submit that the three mechanisms constitute broader theoretical streams that call for theorizing about specific causal pathways within them. We identify and examine three lower-level mechanisms that can help explain collective data use: ambiguity reduction, formality-informality complementarity, and identity creation. To develop and illustrate our arguments, we employ a mechanism-based case study. This approach relies on the use of explanatory narratives, and it is particularly appropriate if the unit of the analysis is a social, interactive process. As our case, we selected the Citizen Security Plan in Jamaica (2020-2023). The Plan is an initiative that aims to combine addressing crime and safety issues with efforts of community development. It was selected because it requires government to collaborate; it relies on the use of goals and data; and it allowed us to observe changes across project phases. 08:30 and This study conducts a nationwide survey of 50,000+ faculty at public postsecondary education institutions to assess what factors impact their awareness of student homelessness. We will conduct exploratory factor analysis to investigate a myriad of personal backgrounds, professional experience, university engagement, and campus resource item variables. We hypothesize that faculty with personal experience with homelessness, those in human service and social work fields, and those who frequently engage with their university resources are more likely to have increased awareness of student homelessness. Data collection was completed in December 2023. 08:45 To accomplish this, I will employ a two-way fixed-effect model using data sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau, Georgia Department of Education, Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The dataset spans the school years from 2011 to 2019, with dependent variables of financial outcomes (total expenditure, instructional expenditure, fixed cost) and student outcomes (Georgia Milestones scores, graduation rate, school safety index). 09:00 09:15 08:30 , and To study this, we investigate disaster resilience planning in a rural county in the Southeast of the US exposed to several natural disasters, including tornadoes, ice storms, and strong winds. The county is characterized as having a high level of social vulnerability compared to the rest of the US (US Federal Emergency Management Administration, 2023). The empirical base includes data from observations of local government public meetings, content analysis of relevant planning documents, and interviews with collaborative partners. The data are analyzed using social network analysis methods, including descriptive and inferential techniques. The findings have implications for public management theory and practice in resilience planning. 08:45 , and 09:00 09:15 and 08:30 Ordinal representation pertains to altering the order of representation among bureaucrats when cardinal representation cannot be improved. For instance, in an organization with four bureaucrats where two are female and two are male regarding gender representation, cardinal representation cannot be enhanced. To address the question of whether ordinal representation holds significance in coproduction, this study examines the ordinal effects of gender representation on individuals’ decisions to coproduce. By employing two distinct policy areas—recycling and emergency preparedness—the study randomizes the order of female officials in a setting with two males and two females, where gender representation cannot be enhanced in a cardinal manner. Both experiments failed to consistently identify evidence of the ordinal effects resulting from placing females in different orders on citizens’ overall willingness to coproduce. However, the results revealed a pattern indicating that the gender of the chief leader influences an increase in the willingness of others of the same gender—and simultaneously decreases the willingness of their gender counterparts—to participate in coproduction. 08:45 09:00 , and 08:30 08:45 , and 09:00 and 09:15 08:30 and This paper addresses the widening academic gap and examines the role of public education in fostering academic equity. This study responds to the call for a more holistic understanding of what perpetuates academically successful youth from historically inequitable backgrounds by linking the individual with their greater environment (McCoy & Bowen, 2015). Specifically, we ask, “what individual and institutional factors promote equitable access to higher education across marginalized student identities?” We propose a two-level, intersectional public education equity framework. The framework is tested using data from surveys conducted among 1,400+ high school seniors and 50 guidance counselors in ten public high schools in the United States. The findings reveal misalignments between schools and individuals regarding perceptions of protective factors for social equity, indicating significant variations in the factors believed to impact access to higher education. Additionally, the study identifies certain risk factors for academic inequity, such as homelessness, first-generation status, lack of school resources, and financial constraints, which can be mitigated through protective factors such as societal expectations, family support, mentorship programs, and peer norming. 08:45 Research on place-based incentives has primarily focused on single incentive programs, concentrating on property values or job creation as desired outcomes. Few studies have compared multiple place-based investments or evaluated the combination of investments and resulting changes in equitable access to capital for neighborhood residents. This paper contributes to existing research by analyzing several programs—Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Neighborhood Opportunity Fund (NOF), New Market Tax Credit (NMTC), Property Tax Abatement (PTA), Small Business Improvement Fund (SBIF), and Tax Increment Financing (TIF)—and how the related investments alter the racial composition of neighborhoods as a result of home loan approvals. In doing so, this paper offers a better understanding of and policy prescriptions for enhancing social equity when redeveloping and revitalizing local communities in need. 09:00 , and We explore these tensions by drawing on quality rating data from England's Care Quality Commission to compare service quality across health and social care organizations that are government-run, CICs "spun-out" of the state, or privately-founded CICs. Specifically, we use ordered logit regression models to compare over 2,000 quality ratings of these three types of providers across five dimensions: safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led, plus an overall rating. We draw on a 'publicness' theoretical framework to explore whether and to what extent public or private ownership, as well as the loss of public ownership through the ‘spin-out’ of public services into independent social enterprises, impacts quality. Our initial results show that overall, both types of social enterprise CICs performed better than government-run services, whilst non-spin-out CICs performed best on caring and responsive and spin-out CICs performed best on safe and effective dimensions. 09:15 and 08:30 and 08:45 and Understanding this is important, first, because officials often have a more comprehensive view of local financial health than objective financial indicators can capture alone. Compared to information contained in financial statements, commonly used for indicators, local practitioners possess broader relevant data and a nuanced understanding of what it means in the local context. Second, local government officials, i.e. individuals positioned within a network of government and community actors, ultimately make local investment, policy, and programmatic decisions. As such, when it comes to understanding policy outputs, their perceptions of their municipality’s financial condition arguably matter more than objective measures. Drawing from open system theory and the literature on perceived organizational outcomes, this research aims to explore whether public managers holding positions in different city departments have systematically different views on financial health. This research examines survey data from city officials in 273 Kansas cities with populations over 500. The survey, conducted between September 2023 and January 2024, targeted professionals in five positions—City Administrator and Directors of Public Works, Planning and Finance. Through descriptive and empirical analysis, this research illuminates how perceived local financial conditions in influence the decisions and fiscal responses across different organizations. 09:00 and 09:15 , , , and 10:15 and Building upon previous works on policy designs of net energy metering, which have gained less attention despite its prevalence, we explore different tariff designs and create indexes encompassing various NEM tariffs. Using panel data (about 200 investor-owned utilities in 50 states from 2013 to 2021), we evaluate how different tariff designs have affected the penetration of distributed solar. By studying the correlation between policy designs and the adoption of DERs, our study contributes to policy design literature, understanding how various policy designs affect policy outcomes and how to design policies for other distributed resources. 10:30 and Strategic management is often touted as an approach for integrating strategy formulation and implementation in response to environmental challenges. As one of the popular approaches used by the public sector, strategic management is often touted as a means for effective public service delivery. However, it is unclear whether current strategic management approaches are up to the task of addressing climate-related threats to the sustainability of public services at the local level where problems are fundamentally transboundary and require coordination across typical silos. We address this gap by asking: What manager-led processes drive resource-constrained cities to adapt their capabilities to the accelerating impacts of climate change? Using a novel mixed methods approach combining survey, text analysis of planning documents, and interviews, we examine how resource-constrained cities in Indiana integrate their capabilities and planning in response to climate change in the context of GSI. 10:45 11:00 and While regulatory competition suggests a state would relax its enforcement on an entity when its corporate siblings (entities that belong to the same company) in other states have been penalized for violations, regulatory learning theory, predicts otherwise. When an entity’s corporate siblings become violators, it tarnishes the reputation of the whole company and indicates possible wrongdoing of the focal entity itself, prompting regulators to increase scrutiny on the focal entity. We test the two competing theories using a facility-level panel dataset of Clean Air Act enforcement actions. Preliminary results show a mixed pattern. While regulators increase enforcement on a facility when its same-industry siblings located in the same state become high priority violators (regulatory learning dominates), they relax enforcement on the focal facility if the same-industry violator siblings are in competitor states (regulatory competition dominates). 10:15 10:30 , , and 10:45 Public Administration scholars must pay attention to this restructuring and its impacts to agency adjudication practices. This working systematic review of the Federal Administrative Judiciary will analyze distinct approaches employed by legal and public administration scholars to explore the conceptual and very practical tension between judicial independence and bureaucratic discretion. As the first systematic review regarding this topic, I expect to chronicle the development of these positions within the federal government by exploring institutional collaboration and influences. And finally, I hope to identify topics that may bolster comprehension of administrative adjudication in the USA. This presentation is relevant to the overall theme of “Bringing Theory to Practice”. As a heavily applied social science, public administration scholars focusing in management must attend to the legal discourse, particularly regarding judicialized employees. ALJs are in such a position within an agency to provide a unique bridge between public administration and the legal discipline. With the ongoing restructuring of their position, there are ample opportunities for practice to also inform theoretical innovation. 10:15 and 10:29 , , , and 10:43 , and 10:57 and The aim of our review is twofold. First, given the potential of relational contracting as an alternative to traditional contracting in complex situations, we aim to examine how relational approaches may or may not be a viable alternative to traditional transactional approaches. Second, we aim to contribute to the existing literature by developing an integrative framework of relational contracting as a way of managing buyer-supplier relationships in public procurement. Using ASReview Lab, an open-source machine learning software, we identify, collect, and assess relevant articles on this topic. Based on the findings, we develop an integrative framework of relational contracting in public procurement and present a research agenda to tackle theoretical and empirical lacunas in research into relational contracting. 10:15 , , , and While previous literature discusses how politics and power structure shape global public policy and governance transformation, there is a notable gap in understanding grassroots-based practices that explore innovative narratives, actors, and strategies to establish a community of practices for poverty reduction in the global south. To address this research gap, we outline a processual, multilevel, network-centric perspective by investigating two community-based poverty reduction cases in Africa and China. Our findings reveal that development narratives, actors’ networks, and pragmatically evolutionary practices constitute the three key pillars for building a community of practice focused on poverty reduction in the global south. The paper contributes to the literatures on the role of action research in poverty reduction in the global south, aligning with the first priority of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Meanwhile, it highlights the significance of knowledge network in the formulation and implementation of public policies. The study also bridges the knowledge gap between development theory and practical applications in poverty reduction in the global south. 10:30 10:45 and 11:00 and Our mixed method study takes place in the Puget Sound Basin of Washington state, where we gather data on stakeholder perceptions from approximately 48 CGRs working on ecosystem recovery. We use an exploratory sequential design, starting with interviews to generate a list of indicators with which stakeholders evaluate usefulness of scientific information. We then draw on this list to develop a survey sent to approximately 800 stakeholders. Our initial data show that scientific information is considered most useful when it comes from a reputable source and is produced transparently. Unexpectedly, less valuable indicators of usability included peer-review and co-production with information users. Our study contributes to CGR theory on knowledge management, identifying qualities that may enhance likelihood that information influences joint decisions. It also offers policy implications for information producers, suggesting ways to enhance information’s usability for practitioners in ecosystem recovery. 10:15 , , and 10:30 and 10:45 and Our quantitative study investigates the link between learning organization and job satisfaction and the mediating role of psychological safety in a policing context. We use the dimensions of learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ) developed by Watkins and Marsick (1997), Edmonson’s (1999) instrument for measuring psychological safety and the short index of job satisfaction (Sinval & Marôco, 2020). The participants in our study are experienced German police officers selected for future leadership positions. 11:00 Seeking to identify effective and efficient outreach methods, in 2023 the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District conducted a field experiment involving 56,000 households in the Cleveland, Ohio metropolitan area. Using a conjoint design, the experiment randomly assigned households to a control condition or one of up to 56 combinations of treatments. Treatments included black and white postcards, color postcards, letters from the utility, letters from a community organization, English-only messages, bilingual messages, and multiple mailings. Some mailings framed assistance in terms of dollar value, while others expressed benefits as percentage discounts. Results indicate that direct mail significantly increased CAP inquiries, and that a single, simple black-and-white postcard was the most cost-effective medium. Surprisingly, messaging variables did not drive significantly different response rates. The study is a model of university-government collaboration, and its findings provide unprecedented evidence about direct mail as a means of reducing learning burdens for public assistance programs. 10:15 10:30 , , and 10:45 To understand data and data skills in city governments, this research proposal uses survey results from local government chief administrators in the census west region of the United States. The findings of this exploratory research suggest that 1) a data-skills gap exists in local government, 2) data skill expertise contributes indirectly to a chief administrator’s satisfaction in their organization’s overall data skills, and 3) data capture, curation, and analysis skills have smaller skill gaps compared to data communication and application skills. The findings provide important insight into the data skill needs of local governments and help identify important research questions for local governments and the acquisition of data skills. 11:00 , and To answer this question, we employ a conjoint experiment on high-level directors in local government to determine their interest in applying to management positions given different job characteristics. Our conjoint survey experiment asks respondents to make four discrete choices between paired job descriptions. These job descriptions vary in characteristics of the work of city managers including the flexibility of the schedule, after-hours commitments, paid time off, perceived stability of the position, and requirements for public engagement. The data is then analyzed considering the respondent characteristics, position, mentorship, and family life considerations to more comprehensively explore the propensity of women to seek out next-level managerial roles based on these job requirements. This paper disentangles the question of whether women would be more interested in applying to city management roles if the position was designed differently. This study offers local governments recommendations for rethinking the nature of the city manager role. 10:15 , and 10:30 , and 10:45 and Our findings indicate that self-motivation emerges as a significant factor positively influencing innovative behavior among national civil servants. Individuals who exhibit a strong internal drive and intrinsic motivation are more likely to engage in innovative practices, contributing to a culture of creativity within the public sector. Peer trust also emerges as a noteworthy factor associated with enhanced innovative behavior. Surprisingly, institutional support, often considered as a key determinant in fostering innovation, was not found to have a significant impact on innovative behavior in our study. Similarly, the presence of competition among organizations within the public sector was not found to significantly influence innovative behavior among national civil servants. This nuanced finding invites a deeper exploration of the nature of competition and its implications for fostering innovation within the unique dynamics of national civil service environments. The implications of these findings are substantial for public sector leaders and policymakers:.recognizing the importance of cultivating self-motivation and fostering peer trust can serve as a strategic approach to promote innovative behavior among civil servants. 11:00 and 10:15 10:30 10:45 and We argue that team leadership assignments are gendered in ways that will disadvantage women. Whereas men are likely to be given leadership assignments that are conducive to continuing career progress within their organizations, women are likely to be given leadership assignments that hamper their progress. One reason for this is *structural*: Women and men begin their careers in different types of teams, and consequently accumulate early-career experiences that delimit their future leadership opportunities in divergent ways. A second reason is *aspirational*: Women who are candidates for open leadership positions will be inclined to doubt their qualifications, to be skeptical of their leadership capabilities, and to experience anxiety about assuming formal team-level leadership responsibilities. And a third reason is *stereotypical*: Organizational stakeholders who have input into promotion decisions will harbor differing expectations about women's and men's leadership potential, expectations that will tend to be more negative when it comes to women's leadership capacities. We test these expectations using longitudinal, individual-level personnel data on United States federal employees. 10:15 However, in contrast to employees, politicians can be conceived as organizational outsiders. Instead, we therefore argue that political considerations affect how politicians assess and value performance measures. Specifically, we hypothesize that (a) politicians will perceive performance information featuring high and low performance signals differently, but also that (b) political ideology in terms of being aligned/opposed to the measured public services and (c) being affiliated/in opposition to the ruling political coalition will affect their perceptions. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a pre-registered survey experiment among political candidates for Danish regional councils charged primarily with governing health care services (n=885). Respondents were randomly exposed to either no information or true performance information (high/low) about their own region’s health care system. They were then asked to evaluate the validity, legitimacy, and usefulness of the information, and whether they wanted to receive additional information. The results have potentially important practical implications concerning when political decision-makers are willing to trust and use performance information and policy evidence. 10:30 The model captures three dimensions at which legitimacy can be created or undermined: the political articulation of public interests (input), the administrative implementation process (throughput), and the results achieved for citizens (output). A comprehensive review of the literature will be structured along the ITO model. Initial findings suggest that results for 1) input and 2) output are mixed, while they are most promising regarding 3) throughput legitimacy. First, while performance systems can increase political control, they are modest regarding strengthening minority interests. The management literature laments that a stronger results focus has not been accompanied by more resource autonomy, but such an increase in control is not a problem from a legitimacy perspective. At the same time, though performance systems can be pluralist in nature, evidence suggests they often reinforce existing power differentials. Second, research documents that performance systems improve outcomes, but gains may not be necessarily equitable. Third, they can enhance the evidence base for decision making, and bias here is less of an issue from a democratic perspective if it reflects political values. Performance systems create process legitimacy if they capture citizen feedback, structure interactions between government and civil society, and increase citizen trust. 10:45 and In this paper, we revisit the relationship between politics and administration, emphasizing how politics can influence agency performance even in the most professional and high performing agencies. We describe the mechanisms by which political alignment or misalignment influence performance. We detail how presidents work to 1) change outputs by directly influencing agency capacity (e.g., budget and personnel levels) and 2) change outputs without directly targeting capacity by using the tools of the administrative presidency to let capacity idle, reorient capacity, or diminish capacity indirectly. We test these relationships using newly created measures of agency performance for 139 U.S. federal agencies during the 2000-2022 period. The new measures combine dozens of subjective and objective measures of performance that vary across agencies and time. We conclude with the implications of our findings for future research focusing on the intersection of both politics and management. 11:00 10:15 , , and 10:30 10:45 and 10:15 , and 10:30 , and 10:45 , and Three years after police reforms, Black Bostonians report harassment and lack of trust at higher rates than other groups A survey of Bostonians found wide disparities in the ways different racial groups experience their relationship with law enforcement, and negative interactions are also associated with trauma and chronic health conditions.  Three years after sweeping law enforcement reforms were enacted in Boston to address long-standing concerns of unequal treatment, there is still a striking difference in the way Bostonians of different races experience their interactions with their city’s police force, according to new findings from a team of Harvard Kennedy School researchers.  Not only did the research find large racial disparities in reports of police harassment and in trust in law enforcement, but it also showed a strong association between negative interactions with police and trauma and chronic health conditions. The report was conducted by a research team at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice (PCJ) and was led by Sandra Susan Smith , the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice at HKS. Smith is faculty chair of PCJ and director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy . The team surveyed a representative sample of 1,407 Boston residents—including 286 Black, 245 Latino, 143 Asian American and Pacific Islander, and 667 white residents—about their contact with, and trust in, law enforcement, and about the impacts that those encounters have on their lives and their communities. The survey was conducted in January and February of 2024. The survey’s key findings include: Black Bostonians report various types of police harassment at much higher rates than non-Black Bostonians. In contrast to non-Black Bostonians, Black Bostonians feel a deep distrust towards law enforcement, and their distrust is strongly associated with experiences of police harassment. More than half of Boston residents report that law enforcement has made their community feel safer, but rates vary by race/ethnicity and are informed by experiences of police harassment and harassment perceived to be racially motivated. Among Bostonians, police harassment isn’t just predictive of distrust and feelings of community safety, it is also predictive of symptoms of trauma, especially so for Boston’s Black men. For some Bostonians, most notably AAPI residents, police harassment and associated distrust and trauma symptoms are linked with chronic health conditions. In June 2020, Boston’s then-mayor Marty Walsh formed a task force to review Boston Police policies and procedures. The move was part of a national reexamination of policing following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 and the wave of national protests and outrage that followed. The task force recommendations, ultimately accepted by the mayor, included expanding the use of body-worn cameras; diversifying the police force and creating a culture of inclusion and belonging; engaging officers in implicit-bias training; creating an independent oversight review board; and enhancing police use-of-force policies. “All things considered, are there any signs to suggest that law enforcement officers treat Black residents of Boston the same as people from other racial and ethnic groups?” the report asks. “Based on results of analysis of these survey data, we have little reason to believe that Black Bostonians are treated the same as people from other racial and ethnic groups. “Racial disparities in police harassment, including harassment perceived to be racially motivated, are large and consistent with police patterns and practices in Boston described by many in the Black community in the years and decades before George Floyd’s murder, during that year of global protest, and in the years since. It is unclear that reforms responding to Boston’s racial reckoning have done much to alter these very troubling and long-standing patterns.” “The social costs associated with police harassment are far greater than we have imagined, extending well beyond penal system outcomes and distrust in law enforcement to include trauma and chronic health conditions.” Sandra susan smith. The survey also sought to measure the extent to which encounters with police were linked with mental health vulnerabilities. They asked respondents to remember an experience with police and then were asked the extent to which they agreed with a series of statements that might be indicative of trauma. “Black Bostonians responded affirmatively to a greater number of these statements,” the report found. While, on average, Latinos, AAPI, and white Bostonians agreed with 1.1, 1,  and 1.2 statements affirmatively, Black residents responded yes to 1.8. “Further, it is not just that a significantly lower percentage of Black Bostonians responded ‘no’ to all the trauma statements—43% relative to 65%, 63%, and 51% of Latino, AAPI, and White residents, respectively—it is also that a significantly higher percentage of Black Bostonians responded ‘yes’ to between 3 and 6 statements—34% relative to 20% of the other racial/ethnic groups.” “A growing body of research links aggressive policing to poor mental and physical health outcomes in communities targeted for such interventions,” according to the report. “In fact, in addition to mental health vulnerabilities like depression and PTSD-like symptoms, aggressive policing practices have been linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity/overweight.” While the analysis “produced several statistically significant findings, they are not always in the direction we would predict, and the strongest associations are not necessarily for the groups we might expect.” For example, “among Black Bostonians, self-reported high blood pressure is negatively associated with both racially motivated police harassment and distrust; a lower percentage of those who reported racially motivated police harassment and distrust also reported having high blood pressure. The opposite is true for AAPI residents, however; self-reported high blood pressure is positively associated not only with police harassment and racially motivated police harassment but also with trauma symptoms. Among Latino residents, distrust in the police is associated with high blood pressure as well.” “As with prior research conducted in other cities, findings from this Boston-based study suggest that the social costs associated with police harassment are far greater than we have imagined, extending well beyond penal system outcomes and distrust in law enforcement to include trauma and chronic health conditions,” Smith said. “Thus, even while Boston should be celebrated for the low rates at which its residents die immediately after contact with law enforcement, we should acknowledge and address the extent to which the slow violence of police harassment and the trauma and chronic health conditions it produces diminishes both the quality and likely the length of Bostonians’ lives, especially so for Bostonians of color, and particularly for its Black residents.”  _ Photography Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images. More from HKS Want a jury to be fair, impartial, and engaged in higher-quality deliberations diversify the jury pool, harvard researchers say., experts argue that more work is needed to remove the stigma of a criminal record on job applications, history, culture, and policy all influence the state of black america and democracy today, hks faculty explain. Get smart & reliable public policy insights right in your inbox.  For Grad Students Graduate Justice Fellowship Graduate Student Institute for Engaged Research and Teaching Higgins Labor Program Common Good Initiative Spanish Community-Engaged Learning Programs for Education in Prison Poverty Studies Interdisciplinary Minor SPIRE: The Global Catholic Social Tradition Network Just Wage Initiative Journal of Poverty and Public Policy Virtues and Vocations Signs of the Times Arts of Dignity MVP Fridays The Labor Café Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Annual Lecture Biennial Catholic Social Tradition Conference Social Concerns Fair University of Notre Dame South Bend’s Clemente Course graduates reflect on ‘taking that first step’ into college June 27, 2024. As a college student in the early 1970s, Oletha Jones started to feel a bit guilty seeing her father, a construction worker, struggle to pay tuition amid the ups and downs of the construction industry. Even though higher education was a priority in her family, she decided to stop attending Indiana University South Bend to find gainful employment and work for a while before continuing toward her degree. Then she met her husband, and they started a family. “From there, I just really focused on my family,” she said. “But I always had the intention of going back to college.” Jones had an opportunity to resume her education last fall when the Clemente Course in the Humanities became available locally through a partnership between the IU South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center and the Center for Social Concerns. Bard College established the Clemente Course in 1996 out of the recognition that many people from low-income backgrounds and marginalized groups have had limited access to higher education. The program makes college-level courses available to people at no cost, including free books and course materials as well as transportation and child care. The Center for Social Concerns has promoted the democratization of education through other initiatives, such as Notre Dame Programs for Education in Prison . The partnership to bring the Clemente Course to South Bend is another way to extend the transformative opportunity of a college education to more community members. In May, Jones and five other students in South Bend’s inaugural cohort of the Clemente Course celebrated their graduation from the program. During the academic year, the students — who ranged in age from 19 to 75 — took courses in philosophy, U.S. history, literature, art history, and critical thinking and writing. They’re eligible to earn six credits from Bard College for their work and could transfer those credits to another college or university as they continue their education. “Being part of this program was liberating and allowed me to be creative, which has really intensified my yearning to continue,” Jones said. “It gave me a thirst. It felt good to be in the classroom again.” Professor Darryl Heller , director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center and a faculty fellow of the Center for Social Concerns, called Jones and her classmates trailblazers for future Clemente students in the South Bend area. The program started small last year, but Heller said the goal is to enroll 25 students this coming fall. “At heart, Clemente Courses rest on the premise that a liberal arts education is, well, liberatory,” Heller said in May at the graduation ceremony for the South Bend class. “Thus, our premise is grounded on the conviction that reflection in the humanities can create a foundation for people to engage the world around them in new ways.” Pam Blair, another graduate of the inaugural Clemente class, is an academic programs assistant for Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She is also a poet and visual artist who hosts South Bend’s monthly Poetry Den. “I went to art college out of high school, but I only completed three years due to financial difficulties,” Blair said. “The Clemente Course has started something in me where I want to finish that degree.” Heller, who also served as the academic director for the Clemente Course in South Bend, taught the U.S. history course. The other four courses were taught by two IU South Bend professors and two Notre Dame professors. “All of our professors were excellent,” Blair said. “They were accommodating to all the individuals. We had older, middle-aged, and young students in there. Our teachers were really good about navigating that diversity in the classroom.” Blair said the environment in the classroom was conducive to dialogue and learning for its own sake. “There were no bad questions,” she said. “The experience really opens your mind.” Mark Sanders , a professor of English and Africana studies at Notre Dame and a faculty fellow of the Center for Social Concerns, taught the Clemente Course’s literature class. He said the Clemente Course makes an enormous contribution to the community by providing entry-level college courses for adults finding their way into higher education. “In my course, this year’s students embraced the challenge of reading William Shakespeare, Rita Dove, and Gabriel García Márquez, among many other authors, to immerse themselves in literary analysis’ intricacies and rewards,” Sanders said. “They developed many of the critical reading and writing skills essential for upper-level classes. And equally as importantly, they read and wrote in pursuit of greater knowledge, understanding, and discernment, indeed an independence of thought crucial for sustaining a democracy.” Jones said she hopes others in the South Bend region take advantage of the opportunity the Clemente Course offers. “Take that first step and open yourself up to get out of your comfort zone. At least take that first step. That’s what I did,” she said. “I made up my mind that I was just going to start and see where it would lead.” Anyone interested in enrolling in the Clemente Course in the Humanities should contact Professor Darryl Heller at [email protected] . Related Stories McNeill Common Good Fellows explore issues of justice through summer research Virtues & Vocations hosts 2024 conference on higher education and human flourishing Postdoc Geneva Hutchinson uses art as an entry point to conversations about justice Senior Send-Off celebrates the Class of 2024’s commitment to the common good Sign up for The Current, our monthly newsletter Upcoming Events 2024 welcome back bash, mvp fridays: ross douthat, 2024 summer research awards ceremony and reception, mvp fridays: javier zamora, book launch: virtue in virtual spaces, mvp fridays: ilyon woo, mvp fridays (stanford). 363 IMAGES (PDF) The effectiveness of the juvenile justice system PPT (PDF) Comparative/International Research on Juvenile Justice Issues: A (PDF) JUVENILE JUSTICE AND SOCIAL WORK A critical analysis on juvenile justice Juvenile Justice and Delinquency: 9780763760564 COMMENTS PDF Youth and the Juvenile Justice System This report was prepared by the National Center for Juvenile Justice, the research division of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and was supported by cooperative agree- ment #2019-JX-FX-K001, awarded and managed by the National Institute of Justice with funding Critical Issues for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System The tough on crime era described for criminal justice in the 1980's and 1990's translated into a paradigm shift for juvenile justice as well, with rehabilitation becoming a far less realized goal than child arrest and child confinement, which ultimately peaked in 2002 (OJJDP, 2015; Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). The past 15 years have ... Evidence-based Programs The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) encourages the use of evidence-based programs and practices. Evidence-based programs and practices generally have one or more rigorous outcome evaluations that demonstrated effectiveness by measuring the relationship between the program and its intended outcome(s). This includes measuring the direction and size of a change in ... Research & Statistics Research grantees should work with their assigned program manager on specific questions. The OJJDP Research Grantee Guidance web page outlines the general policies and procedures of those conditions. ... NACJD facilitates research in criminal and juvenile justice through the preservation, enhancement, and sharing of computerized data resources ... Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice: Sage Journals Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice: An Interdisciplinary Journal (YVJJ), provides academics and practitioners in juvenile justice and related fields with a resource for publishing current empirical research on programs, policies, and practices in the areas of youth violence and juvenile justice.Emphasis is placed on such topics as serious and violent juvenile offenders, juvenile offender ... Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems: A systematic review of A logical next step is a review of the empirical research to determine which practices or policies produce positive impacts on outcomes for youth, staff, and the broader agency environment, which will help refine the core definitional elements that comprise a unified theory of trauma-informed practice for juvenile justice. ... ("juvenile ... Evidence‐based juvenile justice programs and practices: A critical ENDNOTES. 1 In reviewing the evidence for Treatment in Secure Corrections for Serious Juvenile Offenders, we found it difficult to ascertain the common features that characterize it and how fidelity to the practice might be measured.The practice is described as including clinical, psychological, educational and behavioral programs. 2 In describing what "effective implementation" of a ... JJR&R Lab Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab. For more than 20 years, the interdisciplinary JJR&R Lab has worked to promote best practices in the juvenile justice system by more closely aligning juvenile justice policies and procedures with adolescents' developmental capacities. ... All of the lab's work is conducted in collaboration with community ... Juvenile delinquency, welfare, justice and therapeutic interventions: a Abstract. This review considers juvenile delinquency and justice from an international perspective. Youth crime is a growing concern. Many young offenders are also victims with complex needs, leading to a public health approach that requires a balance of welfare and justice models. However, around the world there are variable and inadequate ... The long and at times sordid history of the juvenile justice system in The 1968 Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act recommended reforms in the juvenile court system related to youths charged with noncriminal offenses. 11 In 1974 Congress passed the 1974 ... Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence To help readers put this research to work on reducing incarceration, the report offers nine recommendations for state and local justice systems: ... A 2013 study of more than 35,000 youth in the juvenile justice system of Cook County ... department and into a new Department of Youth Development. 154 Based on a plan developed by a community-led ... Research Network on Adolescent Development & Juvenile Justice About This Network. When the MacArthur Foundation's Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice began its work in 1997, the juvenile justice system had grown increasingly punitive and the boundaries between the juvenile and criminal systems had eroded. Alarmed by a rising tide of crime, states across the country had increased the ... Youth Justice NIJ works closely with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to support high-quality, rigorous research, evaluations, and statistical analyses related to juvenile justice, as well as preventing and responding to juvenile delinquency and victimization. This research provides information about the risk and protective factors that contribute to or deter youth's involvement ... PDF The Role of Social Work in Juvenile Justice undertaken by social work professionals within the overall juvenile justice framework. To do so, the paper first briefly reviews experience of social work in the Central and Eastern European/Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) region since it is against this background that the realization of the potential of social work in PDF Understanding Research and Practice Gaps in Juvenile Justice December 2016. The research base on what works to prevent juvenile justice system involvement and improve outcomes for youth has grown significantly over the past few decades, but research and practice gaps persist. Current knowledge does not always reach the practitioners and system stakeholders who work directly with system-involved youth and ... System Reforms to Reduce Youth Incarceration: Why We Must Explore Every Since 2018, several leading organizations in the youth justice field—including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the National Center for Juvenile Justice—have called on juvenile courts and probation agencies to reorient probation away from the traditional surveillance-compliance ... PDF OJJDP Research: Making a Difference for Juveniles The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was established by the President and Con-gress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, Public Law 93-415, as ... The work produced through OJJDP research, evaluation, and statistics programs is used by: ... Youth and the Juvenile Justice System: 2022 National Report This report is the fifth edition of a comprehensive report on youth victimization, offending by youth, and the juvenile justice system; it presents the most-requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the U.S., drawing on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to them ... Youth Involved with the Juvenile Justice System Fifty-two percent (220,000) of those disposed cases were adjudicated delinquent in 2018. 2. Youth are referred to the juvenile justice system for different types of offenses. Figure 1 illustrates the percent of referrals based on the types of offenses for youth between the ages of 12 and 17 in 2018. 3. Figure 1: Percent of Juvenile Court ... Five Things About Juvenile Delinquency Intervention and Treatment The five statements below are based on practices and programs rated by CrimeSolutions. [1] 1. Juvenile awareness programs may be ineffective and potentially harmful. Juvenile awareness programs — like Scared Straight — involve organized visits to adult prison facilities for adjudicated youth and youth at risk of adjudication. Juvenile Justice National campaign efforts resulted in the implementation of 208 reforms that promoted a fairer and safer juvenile justice system. Models for Change advanced reform in 35 states and continues to be a resource with research, tools, findings, and lessons for juvenile justice reform aimed at improving outcomes for youth and communities. Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, and the Transition to Adulthood: A Given the large number of transition age youth involved with the juvenile justice, it is important for this system to be well-informed about the significant changes in educational, vocational, and relational roles, including reduced family influence and changing social networks, inherent to this age group (Arnett, 2000).This developmental period poses challenges for even the most well-adjusted ... Juvenile Justice Agency Partners Sought for "Teens on Probation Professors Craig Schwalbe (Columbia University) and Debi Koetzle (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) are seeking juvenile justice agency partners for an important study on youth comprehension. Below is a description of the "Teens on Probation Study." If you are a leader of a juvenile justice agency and are interested in adding to the body […] Youth diversion programs crucial for Alabama juvenile justice reform Alabama has the eighth-highest youth incarceration rate in the nation and juvenile justice advocates said more diversion programs could be key to changing the trend. A report from The Sentencing ... Firearm-violence public health crisis 'a wake-up call for solutions' "While the nation's youth and young adults are disproportionately affected by the daily occurrence of firearm deaths and non-fatal firearm injuries, our research shows youth who have been previously involved with the juvenile justice system had up to 23 times the rate of firearm mortality than the general population," said Linda Teplin ... McNeill Common Good Fellows explore issues of justice through summer As a chemistry major, rising junior Charlie Desnoyers said his experience in the McNeill Common Good Fellowship has led him to think more about why and how the work of chemistry is done. And he has begun recognizing questions of justice while doing chemistry research. This summer, Desnoyers is working in a chemistry lab on Notre Dame's campus. Recidivism Among Justice-Involved Youth: Findings From JJ-TRIALS Her work centers on the implementation and evaluation of organizational and system-level change with a primary interest in the juvenile justice system. ... The benefits of community and juvenile justice involvement in organizational research. Journal of Juvenile Justice, 6 (1), 112-124. Program for Saturday, June 29th The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and future work to advance this area of research. 08:45: Anita Dhillon and Xiaoyang Xu. Job Satisfaction and Work Commitment in Stressed Public Organizational Contexts. PRESENTER: ... This study draws on the juvenile justice system and inquires if youth outcomes (i.e., arrests and probation) vary ... Three years after police reforms, Black Bostonians report harassment Three years after sweeping law enforcement reforms were enacted in Boston to address long-standing concerns of unequal treatment, there is still a striking difference in the way Bostonians of different races experience their interactions with their city's police force, according to new findings from a team of Harvard Kennedy School researchers. South Bend's Clemente Course graduates reflect on 'taking that first Professor Darryl Heller, director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center and a faculty fellow of the Center for Social Concerns, called Jones and her classmates trailblazers for future Clemente students in the South Bend area.The program started small last year, but Heller said the goal is to enroll 25 students this coming fall. "At heart, Clemente Courses rest on the premise that a liberal ... assignment essay homework paper phd report review speech thesis