By Pedro Carneiro, Sarah Cattan, Gabriella Conti, Claire Crawford, Elaine Drayton, Christine Farquharson, Nick Ridpath    

Introduced in 1999, Sure Start was an ambitious, large-scale early years programme in England aimed at improving the life chances of children, particularly those growing up in poverty. The programme’s reach peaked in the late 2000s, with a network of around 3,300 centres operating as ‘one-stop shops’ for families with children under 5. Sure Start centres offered a wide range of services, from baby weighing clinics to childcare provision to employment support for parents. These services were designed primarily to target school readiness and children’s health, and recent evidence suggests the programme was successful in achieving these aims: in a series of reports, Cattan et al. (2022) and Carneiro et al. (2024a) document positive impacts of Sure Start for child health and school attainment, particularly for children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.    Given the efficacy of the Sure Start programme for health and educational outcomes, a natural question is whether it had broader impacts on children. This report details the findings from a robust evaluation of the impact of access to Sure Start on children’s absence and suspensions at school, youth offending and contacts with the children’s social care system. Missing school, committing a crime or experiencing social services involvement can entail significant welfare costs for children. There is a case that investment in joined-up services and early intervention can prevent children from experiencing these poor outcomes. For instance, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (MacAlister, 2022) highlighted the potential of tailored services based in community settings to contribute to earlier identification of families in need and reduce social services intervention. It is important to understand whether an integrated early years programme delivered in local neighbourhoods, such as Sure Start, was able to influence the need for costlier interventions, such as those delivered through children’s social care and the youth justice 

Key Findings

1. Access to a nearby Sure Start centre between ages 0 and 4 significantly reduced youth crime that resulted in convictions or custodial sentences. Living within 2.5 kilometres of a Sure Start centre reduced the share of 16-year-olds who had ever received a criminal conviction by 13%. Meanwhile, custodial sentences – the most severe sanction – fell by a fifth due to access to Sure Start. Reductions in youth offending were concentrated on convictions for theft, the most common category of offence (20% reduction), and for drug offences (20% reduction).2. While access to Sure Start reduced serious youth crime, it had more mixed impacts on less severe contact with the criminal justice system. Those with access to Sure Start committed offences earlier – a 10% increase in less serious misdemeanours by age 12 – and saw rises in cautions for criminal damage and violent crime, although overall numbers of young people experiencing cautions by age 16 were unchanged.  3. Misbehaviour also increased within school settings: the proportion of children suspended from secondary school increased by 10%, and absence rates increased by 7%. Part of the increase in poor behaviour, both in schools and for younger adolescents in the criminal justice system, may reflect a diversion of children away from more severe offences towards lower-level infractions, but it also likely represents an increase in misbehaviour for some children. This could align with evidence that group-based childcare, a key component of Sure Start’s services, can adversely affect the behavioural development of some children.4. Access to Sure Start had no significant effect on referrals to children’s social services or on receiving support as a child in need (CIN) or as a child looked after (CLA) between ages 7 and 16. Children in care during late primary school (age 7 to 11) did spend around 13% less time being looked after if they had access to Sure Start during their first five years of life, potentially indicating that children’s needs were somewhat less severe or that they benefited more quickly from support from social services. 5. The youth justice system and children’s social care involve significant costs for government, as well as the individuals involved. We estimate that for every pound spent at its peak in 2010, Sure Start averted approximately 19 pence in public spending on youth justice and children’s social care, equivalent to £500 million (in today’s prices) of savings per cohort attending at the time. Savings mostly come from costs of youth custody and children looked after, reflecting the high costs of these intensive interventions (and so the large financial benefits of reducing need for these institutions). Future work will provide an overall cost–benefit analysis of the programme, incorporating the effects on educational achievement and health identified in our previous work, while taking account of how these different domains relate to one another to avoid double-counting benefits.

IFS Report R338 London: The Institute for Fiscal Studies, October 2024, 75p.

By Storm Ervin, Lily Robin, Lindsey Cramer, Paige Thompson, Rod Martinez, Jesse Jannetta

Aspects such as community engagement, partnerships, flexible eligibility criteria, credible messengers, and relationships with law enforcement are critical to successful implementation of youth antiviolence interventions. Urban conducted a scan of practice of 14 interventions intended to reduce youth group and gun violence implemented across the country to learn more about implementing antiviolence strategies and to identify critical elements of implementation often missing from the research base. In this report, Urban aims to lift up the tactics, approaches, and methods intervention staff and partners, law enforcement professionals, justice system personnel, and community members deemed essential for successful implementation. The findings from the scan of practice informed the recommendations identified in Urban’s accompanying practice guide.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2022. 86p.

By James C. Howell

  At both the adolescent and adult levels, ongoing gang involvement often facilitates or demands individual participation in violence, drug use, and drug trafficking—and these crimes often cooccur. In short, gang activity and its associated violence remain a significant component of the U.S. crime problem. Growing requests for guidance from juvenile and criminal justice system components prompted us to develop a repository of studies that could provide guidance and support in preventing and controlling gang violence. With that demand in mind, we set out to update the gang bibliography that we had maintained earlier at the National Gang Center. The intended audience is state and local juvenile and criminal justice officials and legislators, school administrators, and concerned citizens. In addition, the Office of Justice Programs can use this bibliography to guide researchers who wish to submit applications—to explain more succinctly how their proposed search could add knowledge and best practices to the existing body of gang research. In the long term, we are hopeful that this gang research bibliography will help substantiate and expedite the work of all assiduous gang researchers. The impetus for generating an up-to-date bibliography of gang research emanated from the National Gang Center’s recognition several years ago that gang problems in the United States were not diminishing, and it was apparent that state and local governments needed more assistance with growing gang activity. To expand the National Gang Center bibliography, we first extracted bibliographies from numerous seminal gang research publications that made a unique contribution to the body of knowledge concerning gang involvement. On an ongoing basis, we extracted unique references from online publications for which we had subscriptions. We also searched accessible publications of leading gang researchers and various gang research groups that contain many trustworthy findings that mainly emanated from numerous rigorous gang studies. We added references generated from their work to the gang research bibliography that we had begun compiling at the National Gang Center, including published youth and street gang studies on a variety of topic areas along with additional research findings that were not yet accessible. Next, we extracted references published to the internet by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Washington, DC: National Gang Center, 2024. 149p.

By Natalie Beck and Jennifer S. Wong

The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to determine the effectiveness of wilderness therapy in addressing youth delinquency. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using 27 electronic databases and numerous gray literature sources, surveying literature published from 1990 to 2020. The search identified 189 potential studies for inclusion, resulting in a final study pool of 11 studies contributing 14 effect sizes from a total sample of 1,874 treatment youths. Both self-reported delinquency and caregiver-reported delinquency were examined using separate random-effects models. Pooled analyses yielded large, positive, and significant effects of 0.832 and 1.054 respectively, indicating that wilderness therapy is potentially an effective tool for addressing delinquent behaviors among youth. Limitations of the study include a lack of moderator analyses due to the small sample sizes. Wilderness therapy is a promising form of diversion programming and further investigation into this treatment modality is warranted.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Volume 49, Issue 5, May 2022, Pages 700-729

By Caitlin Cavanagh

Adolescents are developmentally distinct from adults in ways that merit a tailored response to juvenile crime. Normative adolescent brain development is associated with increases in risk taking, which may include criminal behavior. Juvenile delinquency peaks during the adolescent years and declines in concert with psychosocial maturation. However, current U.S. approaches to juvenile justice are misaligned with youth's developmental needs and may undermine the very psychosocial development necessary for youth to transition out of crime and lead healthy adult lives. In this article, I discuss empirically supported and efficacious responses to juvenile crime in the United States, as well as opportunities for further developmental reform of the juvenile justice system. Developmentally appropriate responses to juvenile crime prioritize community-based corrections and engage youth's social context in the rehabilitative process. The juvenile justice system shares the responsibility to prepare youth to live fulfilling, productive adult lives; that responsibility can be achieved by partnering with developmental scientists to inform juvenile justice practice and policy.

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 16, Issue 3 Sept. 2022 pages 125-187

By Revolving Doors

Revolving Doors was commissioned by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) to produce a review of good and promising local practices that is tackling ethnic disparity and over-representation in youth justice across England and Wales. The table below summarises the examples covered as case studies in the report. The focus is on community-based practice which aligns with anti-racist and the Child First evidence base about what improves outcomes for children in youth justice. The examples included are not exhaustive and we recognize that changes to practice need to be accompanied by wider policy and cultural change for the persistent issues of overrepresentation to be addressed in the long-term. We aim to show that a range of interventions can be introduced, working directly with children, or influencing specific parts of the system, and to encourage youth justice services and their partners to consider whether such practice could be adapted or adopted elsewhere. The monitoring and evaluation that underpins the learning or outcomes reported here are usually measured via self-report before and after recipients engage in the program. In most cases, therefore, even where external evaluation has been conducted, findings are only able to tell us about a program or intervention’s potential or promise to improve outcomes. In most cases, the outcomes reported cannot be used as confirmation of whether engaging in the program is effective relative to not receiving the program, or receiving an alternative program, or whether the intervention has had a direct impact on addressing racial disparities in that area.  

London: Revolving Doors, 2024. 54p.

By John Reddy and John Reddy, Sean Redmond

This Research Evidence into Policy, Programmes, and Practice (REPPP) study examined outcome measurement in youth justice programmes, youth work, and human services. Outcomes for young people are the effects or contribution to effects for young people that can reasonably be attributed to their participation in a programme. The research was commissioned by the Department of Justice to support improved measurement in Garda Youth Diversion Projects (GYDPs). Messages from Literature and Practice Reports The evidence presented indicates that timely information from practice helps to strengthen programmes, improve standards, and provide accountability. Service providers use information collected in their work with young people to measure the impacts of programmes. Programmes collect data about a young person’s circumstances, demographics and ethnicity, offence history and likelihood of reoffending, referral and placement information, and their interaction with other services. This data informs case management and intervention planning and service-use evaluations such as the number and costs of programmes delivered, and any gaps in service. To date, there has been a tendency to assess programmes using ‘hard’ programme input and output data (e.g. programme completion numbers, young people’s participation in education/training, school attendance, and rates of offending behaviour) at the expense of harder to measure positive or negative changes in behaviour.  Evidence of change in a young person’s social and emotional capabilities (soft outcomes) is increasingly regarded as intrinsic in efforts to effectively evaluate outcomes for young people. Programmes that gather soft data typically do so by embedding observation and recording processes into practice routines. When aligned to policy and programme objectives, data reflective of practice with young people can assist service providers to contextualise the ‘hard’ data produced by standardised measurement instruments. Data processes that included soft data were suggested as providing programmes with enhanced capacity to evaluate a young person’s engagement in the programme, their development, and changes in their behaviours and attitudes. Integrating soft information can help service providers to identify factors that may have shaped a young person’s life: identifying the part that a young person played in the changes observed, a practitioner’s role in achieving change, and how project activities may have contributed. The following table presents findings from a rapid (realist) review of outcome measurement literature and practice reports:  Outcomes for young people in programmes: 7 step measurement checklist 1. Measure outcomes for young people in programmes: To maintain and improve the quality of a programme and demonstrate its impact and value To ensure accountability and transparency in the delivery of public services To record what young people describe as important to them and barriers they face in achieving a good life • To improve efficiencies, realign resources, maintain standards, and strengthen practices 2. Things to consider when measuring outcomes for young people in programmes: Performance-led data alone rarely produces assessments that reflect a programme’s true value Developing young people’s social and emotional capabilities is associated with positive life outcomes Understanding how participants experience programmes provides a basis for better decision-making Evidencing improvements in personal development can be difficult due to the many influences impacting on young people’s lives 3. What can help the measurement of outcomes for young people in programmes? A logic model identifying outcomes can focus programme delivery and measurement practices Research and practice collaboration on data and monitoring processes A mix of measures and/or the development of new data processes to suit the task Active data leadership, specialised data skills, and support and technical assistance 4. Factors influencing outcome measurement: Integrating quantitative and qualitative data is associated with comprehensive assessments Qualitative data improves understanding of the factors contributing to outcomes Data quality and accuracy is linked to the quality of relationships established between a practitioner and a young person, their families, and other services Data practices can provide opportunities for young people to contribute to identifying outcomes and working towards these goals 5. It is important that the tools used to measure outcomes: Are relevant to the programme, local contexts, and culturally appropriate Produce quality data that is timely and comparable across groups and programme types Are comprehensible to practitioners and those completing them Are sensitive to change, reliable, consistent, and repeatable Produce useful practice and policy information 6. Challenges in measuring outcomes: Measurement can be a lengthy process, from design to collection to analysis and reporting Tools may not be designed to meet programme needs, be costly, untested, and difficult to adapt Tools may be difficult for young people to complete and may not differentiate between aspects of youth development 7. Things to consider when analysing data from practice: Evidence of a young person’s progress can be observed, interpreted, and documented Data collection and analysis processes should be documented for transparency and credibility Focus on a particular outcome and identify from the data if an anticipated change has occurred Time, resources, sample size, practitioner bias, and research expertise all impact the quality of  Messages from Practice Outcomes for young people in programmes should align with youth justice policies to reduce offending and improve attitudes and behaviours. GYDPs collate significant volumes of information from young people using routine administrative and assessment procedures. This data is predominantly quantitative (input/output) and details participation in a project, education, health, safety, and risk of offending/re-offending. However, service providers have advocated for greater use and reporting of supplementary data collected through observational processes implemented by practitioners. They suggested that integrating ‘soft’ data into existing outcome measurement processes would be a welcome and useful addition to efforts to evaluate outcomes for young people and to demonstrate the value of their work. This research aimed to establish a robust knowledge-base of outcome measurement from literature and practice for practical application by GYDPs. One additional but critical dimension was the challenge to bring scientific evidence of soft outcome measurement to bear on realworld constraints. This is compounded by the complexities of diverse administrative systems within the overall GYDP structure. Of the 105 Projects now operating nationwide, many are national youth organisations providing multiple services and operating well-developed information technology (IT), while others are more local and operate with less IT resources. In acknowledging organisational diversity in GYDPs, the study established a common minimum threshold for applying the scientific evidence of soft outcome monitoring in practice. To this degree, the report has been necessarily pragmatic. The report provides three data options that balance substantive progress in outcome-based recording practices with the need to ensure implementation with the minimum of disruption and impact on frontline work. REPPP recommends developing and embedding a non-invasive routine observation and recording process into GYDP practice to assess a young person’s engagement in the programme, their development, and changes in their behaviours and attitudes. A time-efficient evaluation template could record information from practice based on the expected outcomes of the Garda Youth Diversion Programme to address behaviour and offending problems and to facilitate personal development. When combined with existing data processes, this data could yield a more nuanced understanding of the outcomes for young people in GYDPs and inform judgements about the impacts of interventions.

Limerick: University of Limerick, 2022. 59p.     

By Naughton, Catherine and Redmond, Sean and O'Meara Daly, Eoin (2020) 

  The Redtown study aimed to replicate the Greentown study. The Greentown study was innovative in methodology and purpose. It examined the context of the minority of young people in Ireland who engaged in ‘atypical’ crimes (burglary and drugs1 for sale and supply), where criminal activity tended to be more serious and prolific. It identified the presence of a local criminal network and found that engagement in the network contributed to, or was plausibly associated with, repeat offending among certain vulnerable young people. Two replication case studies aimed to examine if the Greentown findings resonated in other locations in Ireland. The current study aimed to identify whether the Greentown findings could be generalised to another anonymised Garda sub-district, Redtown. The Twinsight methodology Redmond (2016) specifically designed the Twinsight methodology for the Greentown study. Local network maps constructed from PULSE2 crime data illustrated crime transactions (burglary and drugs for sale or supply) including transactions between adults and young people in Redtown during 2014–2015. The network map provided a framework to harness the expert knowledge of members of An Garda Síochána in Redtown, and facilitated confidential and anonymised discussions around key incidences, young people’s contexts and relationships. Key findings Garda narratives centred on three 16-year-old boys. They all came from chaotic backgrounds, including family histories of crime, problematic substance use, mental health concerns and social deprivation, and each had lost his mother at a young age. The three young people were early school leavers and, together with their older siblings and peers, were involved in repeat burglary offences in the Redtown area in 2014–2015. Gardaí described one young person, referred to as R5, as the leader who identified crime targets, sourced transport and organised the sale of stolen goods. Illicit substance use was commonplace and normalised among this group of young people. Indeed, Gardaí identified drug-related crime as an overarching concern in Redtown.

The Redtown findings suggest that the interaction between three factors – (a) young people’s experiences of childhood adversity, (b) involvement in problematic peer groups and (c) pro-criminal norms (held by both families and peers) – that drove expectations to commit crime contributed to the young people’s engagement in the Redtown criminal network. Membership of the network in turn may have provided additional opportunities for the young people to access illicit drugs, while their vulnerabilities (traumatic experiences) may have facilitated the development of problematic drug use and drug debt obligations. Drug debt obligations in turn drove further offending and this was identified as a key contributing factor to young people’s retention within the network and their atypical offending patterns. Conclusion While there were many similarities between the Redtown and Greentown findings, notably the chaotic backgrounds, familial/peer crime norms and sustained presence of the network within the area, there were also notable differences. The Greentown findings suggest the network was a hierarchical structure governed by a core family, which was sustained through a culture of fear and compliance. Although family was an important component of the Redtown network, as a source of pro-criminal norms and adversity, the families that dominated the Gardaí narrative were relativity low status. The Greentown findings suggest one cohesive network (with semi-autonomous clusters of members); however, the Redtown findings indicate differences in network structure dependent on crime type (burglary or drugs for sale and supply). While the combination of Redtown and Greentown findings indicates that the structure and dynamics of networks may be context-specific, both sets of findings suggest that engagement in the local criminal network may have contributed to the young people’s ‘atypical’ criminal activity    

Limerick, Ireland:  School of Law, University of Limerick , 2020. 60p.

By O'Meara Daly, Eoin and Redmond, Sean and Naughton, Catherine 

The Bluetown study aimed to replicate the Greentown study. The Greentown study was innovative in methodology and purpose. It examined the context of the minority of young people in Ireland who engaged in ‘atypical’ crimes (burglary and drugs for sale and supply), where criminal activity tended to be more serious and prolific. It identified the presence of a local criminal network and found that engagement in the network was plausibly associated with repeat offending. Two replication case studies, Bluetown and Redtown, aimed to examine if the Greentown findings resonated in other locations in Ireland. The current study aimed to identify if the Greentown findings could be generalised to another anonymised Garda sub-district, Bluetown. The Twinsight methodology Redmond (2016) specifically designed the Twinsight methodology for the Greentown study. In Greentown, local criminal network maps constructed from PULSE crime data illustrated crime transactions (focusing on burglary and drugs for sale or supply) including transactions between adults and young people. Similarly, criminal network maps were constructed for Bluetown during the period of 2014–2015. The network map provided a framework to harness the expert knowledge of members of An Garda Síochána in Bluetown and facilitated confidential discussions around key incidents, young people’s contexts and relationships. Key findings Garda narratives centred on four area-based criminal networks that existed in Bluetown. These were distinct from each other and spread over a large geographical area. Network 1 was family based and hierarchical in nature, with Networks 2 and 3 grounded in peer relationships and their locality. Garda respondents described Network 4 as a drugs network with a loose organisational structure. According to Gardaí, all four networks in Bluetown contained relationships with different levels of trust between members and this affected network strength and stability. Criminal network strength and stability was also influenced by fear and intimidation. Similar to Greentown, each network contained members with family connections to crime and involved young people with a combination of risk factors. In Bluetown, proximity to offending peers and the normalisation of criminal behaviour were additional factors with networks developing in localities for sustained periods.

Conclusion There was sufficient consistency between the original Greentown findings and the replication study in Bluetown: notably regarding Network 1 and its family orientation, in addition to the chaotic backgrounds of young people in problematic peer groups. One difference between Greentown and Bluetown was that the latter represented a large urban sub-district with four distinct criminal networks identified by Garda respondents on the criminal network map. As a result, some Garda respondents were limited in their knowledge of all areas on the PULSE informed map. In Greentown we identified that engagement in local criminal networks contributed to young people developing more serious and prolific crime trajectories. Likewise, in Bluetown the findings suggest that engagement in networks contributed to a significant number of young people developing more serious and prolific offending patterns. The combination of Bluetown and Greentown findings indicates that the structure and dynamics of networks may be context-specific. Both sets of findings suggest that engagement in a local criminal network may have contributed to the young people’s ‘atypical’ criminal activity    

 Limerick: School of Law, University of Limerick. 2020. 64p.

By Heather Hunt and Gene Nichol

To better understand the role of poverty in shaping outcomes in North Carolina’s juvenile justice system, the authors conducted interviews and surveyed attorneys, social workers, scholars and youth advocates. This report summarizes those findings, highlighting the challenges faced by poor youth and their families.

Key Findings:

One in five North Carolina youth under the age of 18, and about one in three Black and Latinx youth, are poor. Juvenile courts in North Carolina can order a youth to pay a fine or restitution, and are statutorily authorized to assess a range of fees against parents, including fees for a court-appointed attorney, community service, evaluation and treatment, and probation.Attorney fees were the most common fees mentioned in the survey and interviews, although assessment can vary widely across the state. Other common fees include electronic monitoring and restitution.Youth charged as adults are subject to the full range of court costs, fines and fees faced by all adult criminal defendants. In addition to court-ordered fees and costs, involvement in the juvenile system imposes more indirect costs such as transportation and time. All survey respondents identified the time commitment required by a delinquency case as a serious hardship for poor families, and almost all (91 percent) answered that parents were unable to get time off from work.Over a third of survey participants estimated that their most recent or typical client had to travel more than 10 miles from home to the courthouse.Housing instability, can upend a juvenile case when amenities like phone or internet service are not available and a parent cannot be reached. Because of the juvenile system’s emphasis on meeting the needs of the child through services, parents without the resources to corral services in the early stages of a case are at a deep disadvantage.Financial status can impact access to, and the availability of, court-ordered treatment programs. All children in delinquency cases in North Carolina are entitled to a court-appointed attorney, but the quality of representation provided can depend on geography. Parents who are unable to comply with court orders risk criminal contempt which is punishable with a fine up to $500 and/or imprisonment, plus the additional court costs and fees that may be assessed.

North Carolina Poverty Research Fund, 2921, 34p.

By Garner Clancey, Sindy Wang and Brenda Lin

The administration of youth justice systems in Australia is a state and territory responsibility. Almost all states and territories have in recent years undertaken extensive reviews of their youth justice systems. In addition, various oversight bodies (such as ombudsmen, inspectors of custodial services, children’s guardians and advocates), Commonwealth agencies (such as the Australian Law Reform Commission), and non-government organisations (such as Amnesty International) have also completed reviews and published reports in this area. The catalysts for some of these reviews were incidents in youth justice detention centres which captured national (and international) attention. A key theme arising from many of these reviews is the need for youth justice detention to be a measure of last resort. Detention, especially for young people who have been victims of abuse and neglect or who have mental illness and intellectual disabilities, is often detrimental and has little benefit in reducing recidivism. This paper explores this and other key themes arising from the recent reviews into Australian youth justice systems.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 605. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.2020. 19p.

By Kamarah Pooley

A large body of literature has attempted to answer the question: what works in reducing youth reoffending? However, this literature often fails to provide specific guidance on program implementation. This review consolidates research on the practical implementation of tertiary youth offender programs to identify the design, delivery and implementation factors associated with positive changes in youth offending behaviours. A systematic review of 44 studies revealed nine common components of effective programs. These components have been empirically associated with program effectiveness in methodologically diverse studies conducted in various contexts, suggesting they may contribute to reduced reoffending among young people who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 604. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 22p.

By Catherine H. Augustine, Andrea Phillips, Susannah Faxon-Mills, Abigail Kessler

In this report, the authors examine two strategies implemented by the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) to address the school-to-prison pipeline in San Diego County: training educators to use restorative practices and running a program to divert youth from the justice system before charges are filed. The report begins by describing how NCRC became an intermediary focused on supporting at-risk youth in San Diego. It then assesses signs of success and opportunities to improve the implementation of the two NCRC strategies to address the pipeline. It concludes with insights to inform NCRC’s next steps and the field more broadly. 

Key Findings

• Youth and families most highly valued the diversion program case managers; NCRC provided increasing support to them over time.

• At the end of the diversion program, youth and families reported continued disengagement from school. Diversion program leaders might prioritize tutoring or mentoring on educational engagement and achievement.

• Youth worried about falling back into old habits after the diversion program ended. Diversion leaders might prioritize preparing families to better support youth after programs end.

• Restorative practice coaches described some adults as suspicious of restorative practices. Modeling the practices with adults first helped to increase buy-in for using the practices with students.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024. 43p.

By the National Autistic Society (UK)

Autistic people, like anyone else, can sometimes come into contact with the criminal justice system.  Our new report illustrates how a lack of support for young autistic people, both before entering and within the system, can have profoundly negative consequences on future life chances.  The experiences of people in our report illustrate clearly what changes need to happen, reaffirming recommendations we have been calling and campaigning for.

Preventative support is needed for autistic young people at risk 

•  The average age range for early concerns for both autistic adults and parent/carers is 13-15 years 

• Many autistic respondents had not had their autism diagnosis until adulthood, whereas most relatives of parent/carers were diagnosed at primary school age

• 75% of autistic adults and 86% of parent/carers reported that they had been visited at least once by the police 

The top early concerns for parent/carers and professionals were being easily led or influenced by peers, violence or aggression toward others, damage to property or fire setting and being excluded from school. 

Failings in understanding and support from schools, statutory services, healthcare and the criminal justice system have also been defining factors, as illustrated from the following case study:

“For 18 months, I had been suffering from severe suicidal ideation...The GP still did nothing… so I tried other ways of getting help and therapy, but that had led to nowhere because waiting lists were so phenomenally long, so I committed the index offence in the context of trying to draw attention to my plight and need.”

More support is needed for autistic young people in the criminal justice system

• 71% of criminal justice professionals believe processes for identifying autistic offenders are ineffective or only effective in a minority of cases 

• 64% of professionals (from a variety of sectors) only occasionally or rarely get the support they need to support autistic people 

• Up to 54% of relatives of parent/carers disclose their autism diagnosis, whereas up to 47% of autistic adults did not have an autism diagnosis to disclose when first involved with the justice system

In most cases both autistic adults and parent/carers received no reasonable adjustments from all sections of the criminal justice system. When they were put in place, adjustments that were common when being interviewed by police were use of an appropriate adult and clear language when questioning. In court the most common adjustments were assessment by a psychologist or psychiatrist and being told in advance what to expect. For professionals in our sample, the main barriers to implementing reasonable adjustments were lack of awareness and understanding of autism and effective identification processes. To address this both the survey and interviews have highlighted the need to develop consistent infrastructure for identifying, diagnostic referral routes and more efficient sharing of information between internal and external agencies. 

Some of our top recommendations 

Our research findings reaffirm recommendations made by our charity in the past, as well as the All Party Parliamentary Group on Autism (APPGA) and the HM Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation services report in regards to awareness and support, which can be summarised as:

• Mandatory autism training across all sections of the criminal justice system and other sectors such as schools and health & social care services 

• Improved access to post diagnostic support and low-level support which can tackle early concerns of young autistic people

• Accreditation, quality assurance and monitoring of autism best practice across services 

• Improved access to specialist resources and key services for professionals when supporting, screening or referring for diagnosis.

• Improved awareness on what reasonable adjustments can be used and how to implement them within all criminal justice sectors 

• Access to best practice teams and autism champions

Clare Hughes, Criminal Justice Manager at the National Autistic Society, said: “No autistic child or young person should be at greater risk of being in the criminal justice system just because they are autistic. But our research shows the impact can be devastating when it happens.

“There needs to be better understanding of autism and support for autistic young people in every part of the system. The right early support must also be available to stop autistic young people from entering the system in the first place, including mental health support to navigate what can feel like a chaotic and overwhelming world.

“Staff working in the criminal justice system must be supported to understand what autism is and how to meet autistic young people’s needs. Autistic young people have already been failed by entering the system in the first place, there is no excuse to fail them further.

“We’ve been calling for many of these recommendations for years. Government must act now, once and for all, to ensure that autistic young people in the justice system are not forgotten.”

Laurie Hunte, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at Barrow Cadbury Trust/T2A (Transition to Adulthood), said:  

 “I welcome this new report from National Autistic Society focusing on autistic young people and the criminal justice system. It reveals how autistic young people need a distinct approach both to recognise the difficulties of their transition into adulthood, but also to support their needs as autistic young people in the Criminal Justice System.

The report highlights how a failure to diagnose autism early on means a young person is more likely to get involved with the criminal justice system, a system which is not geared up to support young autistic people.” 

London: National Autistic Society, 2022. 41p.

By Spark Inside

We believe that well-being support for young men in prison — particularly for young Black men — should be prioritized and should be tailored to meet their specific needs.

Why is this important?

Young people in prison have untapped potential but have different needs from older people in prison, and are less likely to be able to access the support they need to flourish and build new lives. In addition, psychological maturity is essential for young people’s success in and after prison. Therefore, we know that young people in prison have distinct needs that must be met to enable effective rehabilitation. Furthermore, we know that young Black men, who are over-represented in the prison system, face further barriers to their rehabilitation. This is due to their experiences of social and economic inequalities, institutional racism, and a lack of services that take into account different cultures and Black identity. Black men in prison suffer from worse outcomes and experiences than white prisoners. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many of the challenges facing young people in prison, but with proper support from specialists working in prisons, young people make positive choices that lead to better rehabilitative outcomes and improved wellbeing, including better physical, mental and social health.

The call to action

The Being Well Being Equal campaign is calling for urgent action from the Government, prison policy-makers and practitioners to:

• Prioritise wellbeing services in prisons for young men and young Black men;

• Tailor wellbeing services to take into account and meet the specific needs of young men in prison and young Black men in prison;

• Provide better support and guidance for professionals in prison working with and caring for young men and young Black men.

The report presents a consolidation of the research, policy, and practice concerned with the wellbeing of young men in custody, as well as insight from expert organizations and, most importantly, young men themselves. It is hoped, that by bringing together the evidence, this report will enable practitioners, policymakers, and commissioners to have a more informed understanding of how to promote Being Well and Being Equal amongst young men in custody. Practice examples throughout the report provide tangible solutions to meeting the needs of young men, developed by voluntary sector organizations that bring significant knowledge, skills, and experience. Young adults make up 15% of the prison population, (around 12,000 individuals), with 18-20 year-olds representing the highest level of Black and ethnic minority over-representation in the adult prison estate.Prison population projections suggest that there will be a 50% increase in the number of 18 to 20 year olds in custody between 2021 and 20264 . The Health Foundation states ‘the health of a country’s young people is one of the greatest assets it holds’5 and yet for the 0.4% of young adults in prison in England and Wales, their distinct wellbeing needs are often overlooked. Well-being, as defined by the Department of Health, is ‘about feeling good and functioning well and comprises an individual’s experience of their life and a comparison of life circumstances with social norms and values’. Repeat evidence presented by HM Inspectorate (2021), the Justice Select Committee (2016), and the Harris Review (2015) demonstrates that young adult well-being in the prison system is significantly poorer than for older prisoners – with more negative experiences of relationships, physical environments, mental health and safety. This experience is often exacerbated for Black and minority ethnic prisoners with fewer feeling safe, supported, or respected. Alongside the fundamental difference in cognitive maturity between adult men and young adult men, 18-25-year-olds in custody represent some of the most vulnerable individuals in our communities. They account for 22% of incidences of self-harm in the prison estate8 and are more likely to have experienced poverty, childhood trauma, and being in care than the general population. In addition, young Black men experience the social, emotional, economic, and structural impact of racism. While in custody there is an opportunity to ensure that young men have access to the support they need to flourish and build new lives. In order to unlock their potential and improve their well-being, prison policy, practice, and commissioning must differentiate between the needs of 18-25-year-olds and the older prison population. There are only three distinct young adult establishments in England and Wales with a total operating capacity of around 1000. Almost 90% of young adults reside in the wider adult estate where HM Inspectorate of Prisons has found little differentiation between meeting the needs of 18-25-year-olds and older prisoners  

London: Spark Inside, 2023. 73p.

By Samantha Francois, Kimberly Wu, Erica Doe, Amber Tucker, Katherine Theall

Racism in all its manifestations is violence. This study examines the effect of discrimination-based racial violence in neighborhoods and schools on adolescent psychological and behavioral outcomes, while also testing the moderating influence of civic engagement. Researchers used a cross-sectional survey design to measure neighborhood and school-based racial discrimination, civic engagement, racial identity development, racism-based stress, and aggressive behaviors in a sample of 167, 13 to 23-year-old adolescents and emerging adults. Participants were recruited through a cluster randomized trial to test the impact of blight remediation in preventing youth violence. Study researchers hypothesized a direct effect of racial discrimination on adolescents' racism-based stress and aggressive behaviors and a buffering effect of civic engagement on these relationships. Researchers also examined these relationships in participants with higher-than-average racial identity development scores. Multivariate regression models revealed a significant direct effect of both neighborhood and school discrimination on adolescents' aggressive behaviors. Civic engagement had a positive buffering effect on the relationship between neighborhood discrimination and aggressive behaviors. Similar relationships were observed among adolescents with a high racial identity with a stronger effect. Study findings have implications for understanding the behavioral impact of racial violence and investing in civic engagement to mitigate its impact in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

Res Hum Dev. 2023;20(1-2):48-64. Epub 2023 Feb 24.

By Yotam Shem-Tov, Steven Raphael and Alissa Skog 

 The Make-it-Right (MIR) restorative justice conferencing program serves youth ages 13 to 17 who would have otherwise faced relatively serious felony charges (e.g., burglary, assault, unlawful taking of a vehicle). Following extensive preparation, participating youth meet with the people they have harmed or a surrogate, accept responsibility for the impact of their actions, and come to an agreement on how the youth can repair to the greatest extent possible the harm they caused. If the youth follow through with the repair actions outlined in the agreement, charges against them are never filed. If they do not, they face traditional juvenile felony prosecution. In this study, eligible youth were randomly assigned to participate in MIR or to a control group in which they faced felony prosecution. We find that youth allowed to participate in MIR had a 19-percentage-point lower likelihood of a rearrest within six months, a 44 percent reduction relative to the control group of youth who were prosecuted in the traditional juvenile justice system. The reduction in justice-system contact persists even four years after the offer of participation, providing strong evidence that restorative justice community conferencing can reduce subsequent justice-system involvement among youth charged with relatively serious offenses and can be an effective alternative to traditional prosecution.

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2022. 5p.

By Peggy Nicholson

In many respects, the evolution of juvenile court reform and school discipline reform follow similar trajectories. This Article begins by tracking those respective evolutions. Part I outlines the evolution of the juvenile court system in the United States and focuses on the fledgling system’s distinction of children from adults and its “rehabilitative ideal” that children could outgrow challenging behavior if given the right treatment and services. After a long period of “adultification” of the juvenile court in response to rising crime rates, more recent reform efforts have focused on returning to the early court’s rehabilitative model, including policies that would keep young children out of juvenile court altogether. With the context of the juvenile court’s evolution in mind, Part II tracks the history of exclusionary school discipline, which is defined as any school disciplinary action, typically a suspension or expulsion, that removes a student from his or her typical education setting. Many of the same rationales for the “adultification” of the juvenile court, including the myth of the juvenile superpredator and the rise of a zero-tolerance approach to discipline, led to a sharp increase in the use of exclusionary discipline throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. However, with a growing body of research showing the harm and inefficacy of exclusionary discipline, advocates for discipline reform have pushed to decrease its use, which has included proposals to ban or limit exclusionary discipline for young students. The efforts to protect young children from both juvenile court intervention and exclusionary discipline are explored respectively in Parts III and IV. Part III describes the movement to “Raise the Minimum Age” of juvenile court jurisdiction as an avenue to bar court processing for young children. Notably, Part III outlines the variety of rationales that have been used to support raising the minimum age and charts the success of the movement in the last decade. Against this backdrop, Part IV turns to the movement to end exclusionary discipline for young children. Although important differences between the juvenile court and school discipline exist, many of the same rationales that support keeping young children out of juvenile court also apply to protecting young children from exclusionary discipline. Despite these similar rationales, which are explored in Part IV, the movement to end exclusionary discipline for young children has had less success, with fewer states adopting these measures. Further, most states that have passed laws limiting school exclusion for young students still allow exclusions to move forward in many circumstances. Part IV tracks existing statewide efforts to limit exclusionary discipline for young children and describes some of the challenges faced by these reform efforts. Despite the challenges, there are also opportunities. Part V highlights lessons learned from the “Raise the Minimum Age” movement to make recommendations for building momentum for states to end exclusionary discipline for young children. Given the willingness in many states to protect young children from juvenile court intervention, there is hope that similar arguments and advocacy strategies can be utilized to advance statewide policies that will protect those same young children from the harm of exclusionary discipline.

11 Belmont Law Review 334-383 (2024)

By Ian A. Silver; Daniel C. Semenza, Joseph L. Nedelec

Youths incarcerated in adult correctional facilities are exposed to a variety of adverse circumstances that could diminish psychological and physical health, potentially leading to early mortality. Objective: To evaluate whether being incarcerated in an adult correctional facility as a youth was associated with mortality between 18 and 39 years of age. Design, setting, and participants: This cohort study relied on longitudinal data collected from 1997 to 2019 as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997, a nationally representative sample of 8984 individuals born in the United States between January 1, 1980, and December 1, 1984. The data analyzed for the current study were derived from annual interviews between 1997 and 2011 and interviews every other year from 2013 to 2019 (19 interviews in total). Participants were limited to respondents aged 17 years or younger during the 1997 interview and alive during their 18th birthday (8951 individuals; >99% of the original sample). Statistical analysis was performed from November 2022 to May 2023. Intervention: Incarceration in an adult correctional facility before the age of 18 years compared with being arrested before the age of 18 years or never arrested or incarcerated before the age of 18 years. Main outcomes and measures: The main outcome for the study was age at mortality between 18 and 39 years of age. Results: The sample of 8951 individuals included 4582 male participants (51%), 61 American Indian or Alaska Native participants (1%), 157 Asian participants (2%), 2438 Black participants (27%), 1895 Hispanic participants (21%), 1065 participants of other race (12%), and 5233 White participants (59%). A total of 225 participants (3%) died during the study period, with a mean (SD) age at death of 27.7 (5.9) years. Incarceration in an adult correctional facility before the age of 18 years was associated with an increased risk of earlier mortality between 18 and 39 years of age compared with individuals who were never arrested or incarcerated before the age of 18 years (time ratio, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.47-0.95). Being arrested before the age of 18 years was associated with an increased risk of earlier mortality between 18 and 39 years of age when compared with individuals who were never arrested or incarcerated before the age of 18 years (time ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.73-0.93). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study of 8951 youths, the survival model suggested that being incarcerated in an adult correctional facility may be associated with an increased risk of early mortality between 18 and 39 years of age

July 2023, JAMA Network Open 6(7)

By  Brendan Lantz, and Kyle G. Knapp

The analysis, entitled, Trends in Juvenile Offending: What You Need to Know, focuses on trends in offending from 2016 through 2022 by examining changes in the frequency of juvenile offending by crime type, demographics, and several other characteristics. This study uses incident information from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) from 2016 to 2022. The study period begins in 2016 because of notable increases in agency participation in reporting crime statistics to NIBRS following 2015; it ends in 2022 because that was the most recent year of data available at the time the report was prepared. To produce these data, offense, victim, and offender segment-level information was aggregated to the incident level for each year. The year files were then appended into a master incident-level file, in which incidents were restricted to those (a) involving at least one juvenile offender; and (b) from agencies that reported to NIBRS each month during the study period. From this file, totals were created for each month in every year. Some totals represent the total number of offender participations, while other totals represent the total number of incidents with one or more characteristics of interest. The outline below walks through each segment of NIBRS, how information was aggregated, how cases were dropped, and how totals were generated. 

2024. 20p.