2022 Issues

Data were obtained from a county juvenile probation department in Pennsylvania to examine the predictive ability of the Youth Level of Service Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) relative to the number of days a juvenile delinquent spent in a residential treatment facility. An analysis of 152 delinquents in placement (n=152) revealed that there is no relationship between scores on the YLS and days spent in a treatment facility. In addition, no relationship was found between days spent in placement and any of the covariates examined.

KEYWORDS: Delinquency, treatment, prediction, regression analysis 

Received September 2021; Accepted July 2022; Published August 2022  

Exposure to trauma is considered a critical factor in explaining the onset and maintenance of youth aggression. Integrating trauma-responsive practices into the operations of youth-serving systems improves incarcerated youths’ adaptive functioning and ability to succeed when back in society and serves as an opportunity to reduce the likelihood of future aggression. The Sanctuary Model is an approach to organizational culture change based on the structural development of processes that facilitate trauma-responsiveness within a therapeutic community environment. The Colorado Division of Youth Services adopted the Sanctuary Model as part of the primary foundational organizational model of care in 2014. This conceptual article first describes the Sanctuary Model and discusses its implementation using Bowen and Murshid’s (2016) social justice and trauma-informed social policy framework. The article provides an analysis that leads to seven recommendations that will assist organizational leaders in justifying the model at every stage of implementation, including the ongoing sustainability of the practices.  

KEYWORDS: Sanctuary Model, organizational culture, trauma-responsive, social policy 

Received September 2021; Accepted June 2022; Published September 2022 

In juvenile probation, noncompliance with probation conditions is a common occurrence. To deal with this, juvenile probation officers (JPOs) may use different strategies, such as sanctions and incentives. This study uses survey and focus group data from 19 JPOs to evaluate their perceptions of the effectiveness of sanctions and incentives in reducing youth noncompliance, specifically in the form of substance use. Results show that there are two distinct groups of JPOs: those who believe sanctions are an effective deterrent strategy and those who do not. Perceptually and demographically these two groups contain significant differences. Notably, both groups have similar views of social incentives, but JPOs who believe sanctions are ineffective are significantly more likely to have positive views of tangible incentives. This study has implications for how the field of juvenile probation can target JPO perceptions to move toward incentive-based strategies rather than sanction-based strategies for reducing youth substance use. 

KEYWORDS: Juvenile Probation, Juvenile Probation Officers, Probation Strategies, Sanctions, Incentives 

Received May 2022; Accepted September 2022; Published October 2022 

This study uses in-depth interviews to explore the relationships between staff and juveniles residing and working in a private juvenile correctional facility in the Midwest. Because staff play a key role in shaping the experience of incarceration and can influence the degree of rehabilitation or punishment carried out within the facility, this is a crucial dynamic to analyze for an understanding of juvenile corrections. Findings from the interviews demonstrate the importance of building trust as a basis for positive, rehabilitative relationships with staff. Most staff expressed the shared goal of rehabilitation for the youth; however, they differed regarding the best approach for achieving this. While previous research notes the value of a mentoring relationship between staff and juveniles for rehabilitative efforts; staff at this facility varied in their perspectives of the role they played and the correctional response they found most appropriate. Gender and age of the staff influenced these views. 

KEYWORDS: juvenile, corrections, rehabilitation, qualitative 

Received May 2021; Accepted October 2022; Published November 2022