Restorative Justice: New Horizons in Juvenile Offender Counseling

Treatment strategies of the juvenile justice system focus singularly on rehabilitation of offenders, and victims and communities are excluded from the rehabilitative process. Restorative justice views victims and communities as essential components in rehabilitative efforts. Implications for juvenile offender counselors are discussed.     

Counseling and Juvenile Justice Education

Independent surveys of juvenile justice personnel in Michigan indicate counseling as a priority curriculum for graduate education. Implications for counselor education programs are discussed.     

Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice

The central question examined in this address is, “Do children's crimes make them adults?” I begin by focusing on the concept and history of adolescence in our society, I then examine the development and philosophy of the juvenile justice system. Adolescent development and juvenile justice are brought together around the concepts of maturity, judgment, and competence, followed by a brief introduction to some current research that we are engaged in regarding the issues of adjudicatory and culpability competence. I conclude with suggested directions for future work.     

Correlates of Victimization in a Juvenile Justice Population

The Practical Adolescent Dual Diagnostic Interview is a structured diagnostic interview designed to gather basic information about mental health conditions; past emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; suicide attempts; and substance use disorders. This instrument was administered to 435 males and 61 females in juvenile justice facilities and adolescent diversion courts to assess prevalence of mental health and substance use disorders relative to maltreatment (defined as physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse). Results showed that the majority of juveniles who experienced maltreatment were more likely to have diagnostic indications of behavioral health conditions. Additionally, for both males and females the odds of the individual having attempted suicide were more than twice as high for those acknowledging some form of maltreatment.     

A Research Framework for Understanding the Practical Impact of Family Involvement in the Juvenile Justice System: The Juvenile Justice Family Involvement Model

Family involvement is recognized as a critical element of service planning for children’s mental health, welfare and education. For the juvenile justice system, however, parents’ roles in this system are complex due to youths’ legal rights, public safety, a process which can legally position parents as plaintiffs, and a historical legacy of blaming parents for youth indiscretions. Three recent national surveys of juvenile justice‐involved parents reveal that the current paradigm elicits feelings of stress, shame and distrust among parents and is likely leading to worse outcomes for youth, families and communities. While research on the impact of family involvement in the justice system is starting to emerge, the field currently has no organizing framework to guide a research agenda, interpret outcomes or translate findings for practitioners. We propose a research framework for family involvement that is informed by a comprehensive review and content analysis of current, published arguments for family involvement in juvenile justice along with a synthesis of family involvement efforts in other child‐serving systems. In this model, family involvement is presented as an ascending, ordinal concept beginning with (1) exclusion, and moving toward climates characterized by (2) information‐giving, (3) information‐eliciting and (4) full, decision‐making partnerships. Specific examples of how courts and facilities might align with these levels are described. Further, the model makes predictions for how involvement will impact outcomes at multiple levels with applications for other child‐serving systems.     

Initial Implementation of the ARC Framework in Juvenile Justice Settings

Virtually all youth in detention have been exposed at least one traumatic event in their family system or in the community, and a vast majority have experienced cumulative traumatic events that led to major dysregulated states. Building on several seminal works on trauma-informed juvenile justice programs and on implementation research, this theoretical research-based paper aims to describe the preparation stage for implementation of the Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency framework (ARC) to a population of youth in detention. The ARC framework is well-suited to meet the complex needs of young offenders by focusing on building blocks that promote resiliency, including caregiver affect management and attunement, affect identification and modulation, and executive functions and self-identity. Based on this extensive preparation stage and a case illustration, recommendations and best practice protocols for making a shift towards a trauma-informed youth justice system are highlighted.     

Central New York Psychiatric Center: an approach to the treatment of co-occurring disorders in the New York State correctional mental health system

Central New York Psychiatric Center operates a maximum security inpatient treatment hospital and outpatient mental health services for all of the 72 New York State prisons. In this article prevalence data, patient characteristics, and interventions offered to inmates diagnosed with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders in the New York State prison system are reviewed and discussed. Available interventions have resulted from the close collaboration of the State Department of Correctional Services and State Office of Mental Health. Aspects of current programs and plans for future service developments are discussed along with implications for the treatment of an offender population diagnosed with a co-occurring disorder.     

Development of the Juvenile Justice Anger Management Treatment for Girls

Female juvenile offenders exhibit high levels of anger, relational aggression, and physical aggression, but the population has long been ignored in research and practice. No anger management treatments have been developed specifically for this population, and no established anger management treatments are empirically supported for use with delinquent girls. Thus, to alleviate anger and reduce the frequency and severity of aggressive behaviors in this underserved population, we developed the gender-specific, Juvenile Justice Anger Management (JJAM) Treatment for Girls. This cognitive-behavioral intervention was adapted from the Coping Power Program (Lochman & Wells, 2002), a school-based anger management treatment for younger children that has established efficacy and effectiveness findings with its target populations. This paper describes how the content of JJAM was developed to meet the unique needs of adolescent girls in residential juvenile justice placements. It also traces the process of developing a manualized treatment and the steps taken to enhance efficacy and clinical utility. An overview of the treatment, a session-by-session outline, an example session activity, and an example homework assignment are provided. A randomized controlled trial is currently being conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the JJAM Treatment for Girls.     

Validity of the Modified Child Psychopathy Scale for Juvenile Justice Center Residents

Adult psychopathy has proven to be an important clinical and forensic construct, but much less is known about juvenile psychopathy. In the present study, we examined the construct validity of the self report modified Child Psychopathy Scale mCPS; Lynam (Psychological Bulletin 120:(2), 209-234, 1997) in a sample of 57 adolescents residing in a Dutch juvenile justice center, aged between 13 and 22?years. The mCPS total score was reliably related to high externalizing problems, low empathy, high anger and aggression, high impulsivity, high (violent) delinquency, and high alcohol/drug use. Unique relations were found for the antisocial-impulsive (mCPS Factor 2), but not the callous-unemotional facet of psychopathy (mCPS Factor 1). Our findings support the validity of the mCPS in that it encompasses the antisocial-impulsive facet of psychopathy, but it is less clear whether the mCPS sufficiently captures the affective-interpersonal facet of psychopathy.     

Transformative Justice: Psychological Services in the Criminal, Family, and Juvenile Justice Centres of the Subordinate Courts of Singapore

Les tribunaux de première instance de Singapour assurent la prévention et une justice rapide, loyale et efficace; ils font en outre preuve d'innovation. Les tribunaux sont perçus comme étant un creuset de conflits, de traumarismes et de dysfonctions relationnelles, ce qui exige d'eux une grande compétence dans le traitement des problèmes humains complexes. Les services de la psychologie vont au-delà de la fourniture classique d'un profil criminel pour devenir une aide au système judiciaire, ce qui peut constituer une force majeure de transformation individuelle, familiale et sociale. On présente trois interventions des services de la psychologie: les conférences familiales, les critères du comportement délinquant juvènile, et le projet HEART. Chaque intervention entraîne des transformations dans un cadre de légalité judiciaire.
In addition to being a centre for the expeditious, fair, and effective administration of justice and the disposition of deterrence, the Subordinate Courts of Singapore have developed as a centre of innovation. Courts are also conceptualised as a crucible of human conflicts, traumas, and relational dysfunctions, thus requiring expertise in dealing with complex human problems. Psychological Services go beyond the conventional notion of providing expert criminal profiling to becoming an adjunct to a judiciary which can become a driving force behind individual, familial, and societal transformation. Three functions of the Psychological Services are presented—Family Conferences; the Juvenile Offender Behaviour (JOB) Criteria; Project HEART. Each function reflects transformation within a forensic-legal framework.     

Mapping Juvenile Justice: Identifying Existing Structural Barriers to Accessing Probation Services

The majority of justice‐involved youth are placed on probation; however, many of those same youth struggle to comply with probation requirements and are subsequently confined. In Baltimore, 20% of newly committed youth were detained for violations of probation. While there are various reasons youth fail to comply with probation requirements, there have been recent calls to consider the impact of structural and spatial barriers to accessing probation programs and services. Centering the goals of community psychology, we aim to identify how existing structural barriers in Baltimore City may be contributing to social injustice through inequitable access to probation services for youth and their families. In this study, we take a novel, interdisciplinary approach to identify structural or spatial barriers facing justice‐involved youth in Baltimore, MD. Specifically, we explore transportation barriers (i.e., vehicle access) and spatial disparities between youth residences and probation office locations. Our findings suggest that there are several barriers facing Baltimore’s justice‐involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with juvenile probation. Specifically, we found that 1 in 3 youths reside in areas with extremely low levels of vehicle access and where the median household income is 25% below the city median. We also find that the majority of youth live beyond walking distances; many would require lengthy transit commutes. These findings highlight the structural and spatial barriers facing justice‐involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with probation services.     

Association with Delinquent Peers: Intervention Effects for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

Although association with delinquent peers is a recognized precursor to ongoing delinquency problems, youth in the juvenile justice system are commonly prescribed intervention services that aggregate delinquent youth. However, little is known about the process variables that mediate the relationship between aggregating youth in intervention settings and poor subsequent outcomes. We examined data from two randomized intervention trials (one male sample and one female sample) with delinquent adolescents placed either in Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) or in group care. Path analyses suggested that the MTFC youth had fewer associations with delinquent peers at 12 months than did the group care youth. Further, associating with delinquent peers during the course of the intervention mediated the relationship between group condition and 12-month delinquent peer association. Implications for the development of interventions with delinquent youth are discussed.