Harnessing Implementation Science to Reform Juvenile Services: A Roadmap for Change 



Special Issue Article: Translational Research and the Future of Juvenile Services

Highlights

• Interdisciplinary collaboration is needed to transform the youth legal system.
• Restorative justice programs can reduce juvenile filing rates and recidivism.
• Applying implementation science to Juvenile Services requires a new approach.
• Research shows the application of implementation science across fields.

Abstract

The research-to-practice gap in juvenile services is substantial, as it is in most other fields. This gap contributes to adverse psychosocial outcomes for youth that are juvenile-legal service and system-involved, such as mental health concerns. Implementation science emerged to reduce discrepancies between research and practice. This article introduces implementation science and explains how it may be harnessed to enhance youth outcomes and bring about systemic change in the juvenile-legal services sector. An overview of implementation science is provided, with a particular emphasis on accelerating the adoption of evidence-based practices, like restorative justice as a diversionary tactic and graduated response as an alternative approach towards probationary youth, within the juvenile-legal system. Given the field’s focus on implementation, we emphasize opportunities for researchers and practitioners to incorporate implementation science into practice and research, and we offer helpful examples and suggestions for juvenile services practitioners looking to integrate evidence-based methods in their contexts.

Keywords

Leadership, Reform, Root Cause Analysis, Safety and Quality, Quality Assurance

INTRODUCTION

The juvenile-legal system has been in place for over one hundred years and has changed quite a bit over that time. At first the juvenile-legal system focused on out-of-home placement for kids (i.e., placing youth in institutions) to provide targeted treatment for youth who were at risk for delinquent behavior (Pisciotta, 1984; Randall et al., 1999; Teeters, 1960). During this time, the goal was to provide the safest possible housing for youth to prevent future delinquency. Next, with the establishment of a dedicated juvenile court in Chicago in 1899, the focus expanded to include punishment of delinquent behaviors through specialized social service referrals for youth (Bishop & Decker, 2008; Fox, 1970). Soon after, the system transitioned from focusing on youth safety to the safety of society (i.e., the "tough on crime" era in policies), which led to system-involved youth being incarcerated at increasing rates (Tanenhaus & Drizin, 2002; Trulson et al., 2016). Between 1993 and 1999, a span of just six years, the number of incarcerated youths in America doubled from approximately 4,300 to 9,500 per year (Aimes, 2024). Just 20 years later, in 2019, that number had rapidly quadrupled to 36,479 youths incarcerated per year (Anne E. Casey Foundation, 2021), which is just a portion of the total number of youths who interact with the juvenile-legal system on an annual basis. These rates are troubling, as youth involvement in the juvenile-legal system has a known association with adverse psychosocial outcomes (Gilman et al., 2021). These outcomes include increased mental health concerns (Krupa, 2024; Sugie & Turney, 2017; Turney et al., 2022), unemployment (Apel & Sweeten, 2010; Padgaonkar et al., 2021; Silver et al., 2024), housing instability (Geller & Curtis, 2011), and vulnerability to complex trauma (Fox et al., 2015; Duron et al., 2021). As one example of mental health outcomes, adjudicated youth report higher rates of depression and suicidal ideation compared to both youth who are arrested (but not adjudicated) and youth who have no legal system contact (Krupa, 2024). A historical study on legal system involvement’s impact on employment status found that system involvement forced youth to be removed from the workforce, and disrupted their school completion (which later impacts employment opportunities) (Apel & Sweeten, 2010). Regarding vulnerability to trauma, 90% of youth who are system-involved have experienced at least one form of childhood trauma before their involvement, and 96.8% of youth who are subsequently incarcerated experience additional traumatic events (e.g., physical abuse, denial of food, solitary confinement) during incarceration (Dierkhising et al., 2014; Owen et al., 2020). This can contribute to youth experiencing posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms (Dierkhising et al., 2014; Owen et al., 2020). Similar negative outcomes like these have pushed researchers and practitioners to identify ways to prevent youth involvement in the legal system.

The Sequential Intercept Model (SIM; Heilbrun et al., 2017; Munetz & Griffin, 2006) was originally developed to elucidate opportunities to divert adults away from the carceral system, but was later adapted to highlight potential intercepts or touchpoints for diversion among youth (Heilbrun et al., 2017). Within the SIM for youth, there are six intercepts. In recent years, Intercept 0 emerged to underscore that communities can divert youth from ever engaging in the juvenile-legal system by offering quality community-based services (e.g., resource-rich schools, summer camps) that focus on the prevention of delinquent behaviors (Abreu et al., 2017; Bonfine & Nadler, 2019; Comartin et al., 2021). Intercept 1 typically involves law enforcement and emergency services and represents the initial point of contact when a youth is arrested. Intercept 2 occurs when the youth is detained. This is followed by Intercept 3, where a youth has an initial hearing or trial. Intercept 4 occurs when a youth re-enters the community, which may involve returning to their family home or being placed in a community-based carceral setting (e.g., a residential treatment center). Lastly, Intercept 5 consists of any form of community corrections, such as probation. Each of these intercepts is an opportunity to identify the root causes of a youth’s behavior and provide effective services rather than pushing the youth further into the juvenile-legal system. Diversion programs across the SIM have been found to be effective at reducing recidivism above traditional judicial interventions (Wilson & Hoge, 2013b). While the degree of effectiveness is program-dependent (Wilson & Hoge, 2013a), youth who are provided alternatives to carceral settings are less likely to re-offend (Muñoz et al., 2022; NeMoyer et al., 2020; Wilson & Hoge, 2013a; Wright et al., 2020) and, therefore, have a lower likelihood of experiencing negative psychosocial outcomes. 

Ensuring this effectiveness is particularly important for Black and Brown youth, who are overrepresented in the juvenile-legal system across all intercepts and are therefore disproportionately affected by the juvenile-legal system’s iatrogenic effects (Desai et al., 2012; Leiber et al., 2011; Leiber & Fox, 2005; Leiber & Rodriguez, 2011; Rodriguez, 2010; Sickmund et al., 2021). At Intercept 1, communities of color are over-policed compared to predominantly white communities, as communities of color are more often the target of police activity and surveillance (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Campos-Manzo et al., 2020; Solis et al., 2009). For instance, the use of stop, question, and frisk practices implemented in New York from 1964 through 2014 primarily targeted young minoritized people (Weisburd et al., 2016), which in turn contributed to higher levels of psychological distress and increased feelings of nervousness and worthlessness (Sewell et al., 2016). The most recent analysis of contacts between the police and the public demonstrated that 86% of Black citizens experienced threats or force, while only 2% of white citizens had a similar experience when in contact with the police (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018). 

At Intercept 2, Black and Brown youth are placed in juvenile detention centers at disproportionate rates, with Black youth four times as likely to be detained than white youth (Desai et al., 2012; Leiber et al., 2011; Leiber & Fox, 2005; Leiber & Rodriguez, 2011; Rodriguez, 2010; Sickmund et al., 2021). Together, the data point to youth of color having less opportunity in their environment than their white peers (Intercept 1) and, as a result, becoming involved in the legal system at unequal rates, further perpetuating racial inequities. This inequity is conceptualized as structural racism, as it occurs at the structural level (e.g., access to services, neighborhood environments) and not solely at the individual level (Adkins-Jackson et al., 2022; Dragomir & Tadros, 2020; Groos et al., 2018). Many research and practice efforts have attempted to address these and similar inequities (e.g., gender inequity) by adopting diversion programs.

To date, there has been great success in reducing the number of youths placed in carceral settings with research aimed at Intercept 2: juvenile detention. In particular, the Anne E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) developed and implemented a model of detention reform in several pilot detention centers (JDAI Progress Report, 2014). The model relies on a collaboration across the local juvenile courts, probation agencies, legal experts, and community organizations to assess this reform effort, and intensely monitors the conditions of confinement for youth who are detained (JDAI Progress Report, 2014). The model was initially implemented in the 1990s and is now utilized across 250 U.S. counties due to its success, with efforts resulting in a 65% reduction in youth detention rates (JDAI Progress Report, 2014). See the ‘Transforming Juvenile Probation: A Vision for Getting it Right’ for explicit highlights of counties who have adopted the model with great success (link; Mendel, 2018).

While these and similar efforts have been successful, there is a need to focus research and practice at Intercept 1. This shift is critical to youth outcomes, because diversion at Intercept 1 provides the rare opportunity to divert youth away from the juvenile-legal system altogether, ultimately eliminating the staggering iatrogenic effects of becoming system-involved. One such approach is through the use of restorative justice at Intercept 1. Restorative justice is a framework that advocates for meaningful relational repair between the offender, victim, and surrounding community, ideally through non-carceral mechanisms (Menkel-Meadow, 2007). This approach has three primary foci: (1) the healing of the victim, (2) the behavioral transformation of the offender, and (3) the empowerment of the surrounding community to address the current offense and prevent future harm (Zehr, 1990). Restorative justice theory emphasizes that the adversarial, punitive nature of the current criminal-legal system (including its juvenile-legal arm) prevents authentic correction of wrongdoing (Zehr, 1997). This theory holds that offenders should engage in restitution, reflection, and behavioral transformation outside the carceral context whenever possible. Thus, we argue that restorative justice as a framework is inherently oriented toward diversion and may represent a liberatory alternative to how the current juvenile-legal system operates.

The utility of restorative justice as a diversionary tactic at Intercept 1 has been demonstrated in existing research. For instance, the recent installment of pre-file restorative justice programs in Colorado reduced juvenile filing rates across the state (Sliva & Plassmeyer, 2021). However, these effects varied across judicial districts due to differences in implementation. Researchers found that implementation of a pre-file restorative justice program contributed to an immediate decline in juvenile filing rates across all districts, but the decline was sustained for districts that continued to receive ongoing funding, suggesting that funding is a particularly important implementation factor in such programs. There is also strong evidence that restorative justice-based diversion programs reduce later youth recidivism, which benefits the individual youth (April et al., 2023; Bergseth & Bouffard, 2007, 2013; Kimbrell et al., 2023; Rodriguez, 2007; Sawin et al., 2023).

While the current research supports the application of restorative justice as a diversionary program, the formal implementation and evaluation of such programs are limited. In 2016, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) conducted a series of roundtables and interviews to better understand why there is a gap when translating evidence-based research into practice, particularly in legal system settings (Love & Harvell, 2016). The researchers found that providers often face barriers when accessing the research, either due to limitations in the practitioner’s capacity to seek out new research or because of the complicated way the research findings are presented to practitioners. Additionally, the researchers identified barriers related to how legal-system leaders perceive the research, which can lead to a lack of funds allocated to implementing the evidence-based practice in their setting or inadequate training given to providers to execute the evidence-based practice. Given these barriers, the field of implementation science could accelerate the implementation of restorative justice and other diversionary models within the juvenile-legal system by addressing the barriers identified by practitioners.

In this paper, we aim to further introduce juvenile legal practitioners and researchers to implementation science theories, models, and frameworks so they can incorporate it into their ongoing implementation work to successfully implement diversionary approaches. While the juvenile services field is very focused on implementation, research in legal settings often fails to pull from extant implementation science literature (Van Deinse et al., 2023). To ground this introduction, we will build upon the example of restorative justice, which has emerging evidence as a successful diversionary tactic at Intercept 1. We first provide an overview of existing implementation science theories, models, and frameworks which can be employed as a specific methodology to achieve successful implementation of restorative justice. We then propose a potential application of these implementation science tools using a fictitious yet feasible example of a diversionary strategy being adopted, implemented, and sustained in one county. Finally, we will highlight potential considerations of using implementation science as a methodological approach within juvenile services.

IMPLEMENTATION PRACTICE AND RESEARCH AS A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Introduction to Implementation Science and Practice

One way to bridge the gap between research findings and practice is to harness implementation science methods. The formal definition of implementation science is the “scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of proven clinical treatments, practices, organizational, and management interventions into routine practice” (Eccles et al., 2012). Clinical research is often conceptualized as a stepwise approach and visualized as a “subway schematic,” such that each “subway stop” is an opportunity to build upon the previous step (Figure 1; adapted from Lane-Fall et al., 2019). When scientists develop a new intervention, the first "stop” on the subway is to evaluate its safety and efficacy (e.g., does the intervention work in a controlled setting; Bauer & Kirchner, 2020). Once success is shown, the following “stop” is studying the impact or effectiveness of the intervention in a real-world setting (e.g., does the intervention work outside of a controlled setting?). Finally, the last “stop” is studying how to ensure the intervention is adopted and implemented widely to make certain the public benefits.   

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