Juvenile and Family Court Journal最新文献

Research on juvenile drug court (JDC) effectiveness has been largely underwhelming, generally showing mixed results. These findings, however, could be blamed on a deeper court problem: the inaccurate matching of services to needs. Data from a large juvenile court (N = 1,198) show that juveniles with substance abuse needs recidivate less when receiving JDC services than conventional ones. Likewise, juveniles without drug/alcohol needs receiving conventional services recidivate less than similar youth receiving JDC services. The present study contends that JDCs are an effective complement to conventional juvenile court intervention and demonstrates the importance of matching in delivering effective court services.

Having police officers in schools (school resource officers - SROs) is controversial with a growing debate as their presence has proliferated nationally over the past twenty years. A majority of high schools and middle schools today have police on campus providing a variety of services, though primarily law enforcement. While the intent is to provide improved school safety and protection to students, unexpectedly this has not been the outcome for many school campuses when reviewing most criminal activity or, tragically, school shootings. While the presence of SROs is complicated, the unintended impact has harmed more students than ever anticipated by criminalizing misbehaviors and disorderly conduct, making the learning environment less conducive by negatively changing school climates, and disproportionately impacting many already at-risk young people – those of color, those with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ. While recent Black Lives Matter movement advocacy has removed SROs from a small number of school districts across the country, additional change looks to be quite difficult even though ongoing research continues to find disparate and unexpected negative student, school, and justice system pathway outcomes, while not making schools safer. This paper reviews this empirical, practice, and policy conundrum, and the impact on the juvenile courts.

As juvenile justice systems across the country explore ways to best serve youth who have been commercially sexually exploited, challenges may arise between youths' clinically indicated needs and the probation-driven requirements of CSEC specialty court involvement. This article explores some of the clinical-probation dualities CSEC specialty courts may encounter, conceptualized as tensions related to issues of confidentiality, responses to behaviors that jeopardize youths' safety, and the timing of healing. Future directions for consideration to better meet the needs of youth involved in the justice system who have experienced sexual exploitation are also discussed.

Patterns of incarceration transmit generationally causing damage to families and communities across decades. Literature is replete with studies on the harmful impact of parental incarceration but is missing the voice of those living within this cycle. This study highlights the perspectives and lived experiences of those who have parents who have been incarcerated, are currently incarcerated themselves, and have children of their own. This middle generation sheds light on how and why they followed in their parents' footsteps and their desire to break this pattern for their own children. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

This study examined judge-juvenile verbal interaction characteristics, demographics, and demographic match at adjudication and their associations with juveniles’ behavioral outcomes. Data were collected from audio recordings of hearings and case files from 86 delinquency cases adjudicated in an urban juvenile court in the Southwestern United States as part of a larger research project involving observable procedural justice. Results suggest that some juvenile, judge, and match characteristics had significant associations with both judge-juvenile interactions (e.g., length of conversations) and juvenile case outcomes (e.g., fewer continuances). We detail these findings and offer considerations for court practice.

We examined judges’ perceptions of facility dogs used to comfort witnesses during testimony in courtrooms. Content analysis of an open-ended survey question revealed that most judges support facility dog use to some degree, especially for children and in family, dependency, or juvenile courts. Perceived benefits included providing emotional support for witnesses who then could be calmer and provide better testimony (e.g., more accurate, more truthful, clearer). Perceived drawbacks included potential disruption, access issues for those allergic to or afraid of dogs, and bias. We discuss future research and implications for judges, advocates, and researchers.

The polyvagal theory introduces the premise that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has an essential role in detecting threats and calming social engagement. In busy courtrooms, the subtle nuances of communication can be missed or overlooked. Messages of threat activate an autonomic state from calm to agitated beneath conscious awareness. When shifts occur, information can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, resulting in overly defensive responses from all parties. The polyvagal theory suggests a perspective that encourages self-reflection and awareness to counterbalance the inevitable physical and mental stress of managing todays’ courtrooms.

Family Treatment Drug Courts are multidisciplinary teams that engage child welfare families in substance use treatment and reunification court services. This quasi-experimental study evaluates the impact of engagement strategies with 36 participants. Participants experienced high levels of engagement with the court, child welfare workers, and their clinical providers. There were significant differences in engagement by race as well. Participants who successfully graduated the program had higher rates of engagement compared to those who dropped out. This study demonstrates the importance of measuring engagement with multiple providers for client success. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense change and stress among adolescents. Yet, little is known about youths’ concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is particularly true among youth who have been highly impacted by the pandemic—namely, justice system-involved youth, low-income youth, and youth who consider themselves to be low status. Youth from the community, youth on probation, and incarcerated youth completed a survey describing their concerns related to COVID-19 across three concern domains: economic, social concerns, and COVID-19 itself. Results suggested that, with respect to economic concerns, incarcerated youth felt more concern about their ability to get a job if needed than youth on probation or community youth (accounting for gender and household income), and more concerned about food security (accounting for gender and subjective social status). With respect to social concerns, both incarcerated youth and youth on probation felt that the quality of their relationship with family members had decreased as a result of the pandemic, relative to community youth (accounting for gender and income), while incarcerated youth only felt that the quality of their friendships had decreased (accounting for gender and subjective social status). With respect to concerns about COVID-19, no group differences were observed about getting sick or dying from COVID-19, but low-income youth regardless of justice system status were more concerned about dying of COVID-19 than their affluent counterparts. Overall, the study gives voice to the concerns of the most vulnerable youth during the pandemic.