By Andreea Matei ; Leigh Courtney; Krista White; Lily Robin; Paige S. Thompson; Rod Martinez; & Janine Zweig

In 2018, the Urban Institute received funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to develop a guide for using research-based practice to reduce youth gun and gang/group violence. The guide aims to translate research into actionable guidance on policy and practice. It is intended to inform local government, law enforcement, and community-violence-intervention stakeholders as they implement new strategies and refine existing ones to reduce youth gang/group and gun violence in their communities. The primary audience for the guide—and for this report—is the leadership of local government bodies (e.g., mayors, county executives, county commissioners, youth violence reduction task forces) because their decisions greatly influence whether violence reduction practices are successfully implemented and sustained. We frame the findings in this report with this audience in mind, although we hope and expect they will be of broader use and interest to any entity involved in designing and implementing violence reduction efforts—including community-based organizations serving youths and young adults—as well as community stakeholders, policymakers, professionals, and researchers working on youth gang and gun violence. We used a narrow scope for this project, focusing on strategies and approaches explicitly intended to reduce gun-related violence committed by young people between the ages of 10 and 25 who may also be associated with gangs/groups (box 1), including interventions that solely or primarily serve youth. 1 We did not focus on all strategies designed to reduce youth gun violence, nor on gang prevention and intervention efforts not expressly intended to reduce gun violence and homicide. Based on this framing, we focus on interventions that are immediate responses to an acute problem, rather than those that address risk factors associated with violence broadly. For this project, the Urban research team conducted the following two core tasks: ■ A review of literature on violence reduction strategies. Urban identified and synthesized research on the implementation and impact of relevant violence prevention, reduction, and control strategies. ■ A scan of practices designed to reduce violence. With input from a group of subject-matter experts advising the project, the NIJ, and the OJJDP, Urban identified 14 violence reduction interventions including focused deterrence, public health efforts, and the Spergel Model of Gang Intervention and Suppression/OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model. Urban worked with leadership from each intervention to collect program materials, observe activities, and interview intervention leadership and staff, community partners, law enforcement and justice system personnel, and program participants. These activities resulted in the practice guide, a scan of practices, and this research synthesis, in which we lay the groundwork for the practice guide by reviewing and synthesizing the state of research about youth gun and gang/group violence.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2022. 51p.

By The Southern Poverty Law Center

When it comes to Georgia’s approach to its youth legal system, the past is prologue. Policies that emphasize youth incarceration over rehabilitation have political roots going back decades in the state. Rather than providing young people with needed services, this approach has led to vast racial disparities, systematic school pushout, well-documented harms meriting federal intervention, and significant fiscal waste. This report explores the policies and practices of Georgia’s youth legal system, as well as the political culture that undergirds it. Georgia has a youth legal system that is designed to incarcerate and punish, not restore or rehabilitate children.

• Georgia has a history of “tough on crime” laws, even though youth crime decreased by 80% in the state between 2000 and 2020. • Georgia is one of the few states in the U.S. that prosecutes 17-yearolds as adults and prosecutes children as young as 13 as adults for certain offenses – detaining them in adult facilities. • Georgia’s youth detention facilities have a well-documented history of physical and sexual abuse – including the death of three teenagers within weeks of each other in 2022. • Georgia’s Macon Youth Development Campus for incarcerated girls is the fourthmost sexually abusive detainment facility in the U.S., according to a national survey. 4 Georgia has a school-to-prison pipeline that is fueled by a reliance on zero-tolerance policies and alternative schools. • While Black children in Georgia’s schools make up 37.5% of students, they also make up well over half of all out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and assignments to alternative schools. • Several Georgia alternative schools, designed to educate students deemed too “disruptive” for traditional school, have dropout rates higher than their graduation rates. • Georgia’s zero-tolerance policies often lead to the suspension of students for minor infractions like vaping, which produced over 22,000 disciplinary actions in the 2022-23 school year. • Only 4.8% of incarcerated children educated in Georgia’s detention facilities tested as “proficient” or better on their 2022-23 end-of-grade assessments, with 29.9% dropping out of school that same year. Georgia’s youth legal system is fiscally wasteful and disproportionately impacts Black children. • Black youth in Georgia are more than twice as likely to be charged with an offense compared to their white counterparts, and more than three times as likely to be charged in court as an adult. • Black youth make up 35.5% of youth in Georgia, but comprise over 60% of all youth court referrals, delinquent adjudications, youth that are incarcerated, and youth sentenced in adult court. • Georgia spends $217,517 annually to incarcerate a child in its system, only to produce a threeyear recidivism rate of 35.1%.Policy reforms in Georgia should commit to a system designed to disrupt the schoolto-prison pipeline, reduce harm to children, and rehabilitate young people in a costproductive way. The Southern Poverty Law Center recommends: 1. Georgia should raise the minimum age of youth incarceration and prosecution to at least 14 years old, while ending the practice of charging and prosecuting 17-year-olds as adults. 2. Georgia schools should enforce fair and consistent due process hearings and end the use of zero-tolerance policies. 3. Georgia should make nonviolent offenses, especially technical violations and minor drug offenses, nonjailable for children. 4. Georgia should prohibit the assessment and collection of court fines and fees against children. 5. Georgia should create more opportunities for diversion and invest greater resources in community-based alternatives to incarceration. 6. Georgia should ban the practice of incarcerating youth in adult facilities and sentencing youth to life without parole.

Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024. 26p.

By Richard Mendel

A detailed analysis of news coverage at six media outlets in the Baltimore area during the first half of 2024 finds that they have been providing their audiences with skewed and misleading information about youth crime. Problematic coverage has been more frequent at the four local TV news stations analyzed than the two newspapers reviewed and especially prevalent on one local station, WBFF Fox45.

For decades media scholars have noted that local news coverage is often sensationalized and framed in ways that heighten public fears of youthful offending. And this tendency has continued since the outset of the pandemic. This coverage has likely contributed to a shift in public opinion toward tough-sounding policies that conflict with the evidence on what works to reduce youth crime and promote youth success. Indeed, problematic coverage appears to have been a factor behind the bipartisan passage of a juvenile justice bill in Maryland in April 2024 that rolled back evidence-based reforms enacted only two years earlier. The new law imposes harsher responses on youth that are not grounded in research and that are likely to worsen crime, damage young people’s futures, and exacerbate the Maryland youth justice system’s already severe racial and ethnic disparities.

Specifically, this analysis of local news coverage in Baltimore reveals:

Disproportionate focus on crimes committed by youth. All six local media outlets in Baltimore, but especially TV news stations (and particularly Fox45), highlighted crimes by young people far out of proportion with their arrest rates.

Misleading representation of youth crime trends. Whereas the available data on youth offending rates in Baltimore show a mix of trends, most of them favorable, all six local media outlets repeatedly asserted a recent spike in youth crime and violence.

Failure to support assertions of rising youth crime rates with accurate and representative statistics. All six of the news outlets often made or echoed claims about rising youth offending rates either without providing statistical evidence, or – when they did offer statistics – doing so in problematic ways.

Widespread use of fear-inducing rhetoric about youth crime. All six outlets published stories that included rhetoric suggesting that youth crime in Baltimore was rampant or out of control.

Fox45, relative to other news outlets, was much more likely to air sensationalized coverage highlighting youth crime incidents and perceived leniency in the justice system. Each of the problems described above were an order of magnitude more intense on Fox45. On that station, viewers were presented with a steady stream of often lengthy stories offering graphic footage of youth crime incidents as well as sharp and fear-inducing rhetoric from select victims, witnesses, experts, and community residents.

The tone of the Fox45 coverage, and to a lesser extent the coverage at other news outlets, fostered an atmosphere of panic around youth crime during Maryland’s 2024 legislative session. The problematic media coverage in Baltimore (the state’s largest city and home to the State Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Delegates) likely contributed to a bipartisan rush to toughen juvenile justice policies that is unsupported by the evidence of what actually works to reduce youth offending and maintain community safety.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 16p.

By Rachel Worsley, Anna Beckett, Charlotte Baker (Ipsos UK) - Kevin Wong, Samuel Larner, Gavin Bailey, Sonny Osman, Anton Roberts and Linda Meadows

This research project investigated the use and quality of pre-sentence reports (PSRs) in the youth justice system. The research also explored whether PSRs might contribute to racial disparity in sentencing decisions as identified by previous YJB-funded research. PSRs bring together important information about the child to help inform the court’s sentencing decision.

Description

The research was conducted by Ipsos, an independent research company in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), funded by the Youth Justice Board (YJB).

The authors analysed a sample of 95 PSRs from five Youth Justice Services (YJSs) in England, assessing their quality and language. They also conducted interviews in England and Wales with youth justice case managers and service managers, defence lawyers, judges, and magistrates.

Key findings

• Purpose: The findings suggest that PSRs generally serve a dual purpose: providing background information on the child and recommending a sentence. However, there’s sometimes tension between advocating for the child and presenting a balanced picture for sentencing.

• Quality: PSRs were generally of good quality – i.e. they broadly reflected the requirements of the YJB Guidance on writing PSRs. Sentencers substantiated this finding, reflecting that the quality of children’s PSRs was typically good in their experience, and of better quality than adult PSRs.

• The authors found no differences in quality between PSRs for Black children compared to White children. However, certain sections – ‘Assessment of Child’ and ‘Conclusions’ – were often weaker overall, but this was the case for all children.

• Language used: The research examined the language used in a sub-sample of PSRs and found differences between PSRs for Black and White children.

  • Differences in number of quotations included from the child themselves (more common for White children) and from victims/witnesses (more common for Black children).

  • Black children’s PSRs were more likely to refer to co-defendants, while White children’s PSRs referred more frequently to co-accused. Additionally, Black children’s PSRs more frequently referred to negative peer influences.

  • It is important to note that these differences were identified in the sample, but due to the small number of PSRs reviewed these findings are not statistically significant meaning we do not know whether we’d find these same differences if we looked at more PSRs. However, they do indicate that further research might be useful.

• The research also found that it can be difficult for children and their families to understand the language and terminology used in PSRs, making it difficult for them to engage with the content of the report.

• Challenges: PSR writers reported challenges in gathering information from schools and colleges, which sometimes resulted in incomplete or inaccurate information in the reports.

• Sentencers also felt the sentencing proposals included in the report may not always align with what’s realistically available in the community. There can also be tension between advocating for the child and maintaining objectivity.

• Limitations: While these findings are an important step in understanding the role and use of PSRs in youth court, the research findings are based on a reasonably small overall sample. Therefore, many of the findings warrant further research to confirm their relevance to all youth justice service.

Recommendations and next steps

The authors recommend reviewing the PSR guidance issued by the YJB, reviewing best practice in drafting PSRs and wider decision-making, and adapting the guidance accordingly.

• Updates to the case management guidance: The YJB provide guidance on case management and the production of PSRs. National guidance was issued in 2019 and updated more recently in 2022. The YJB will draw on the more detailed findings and recommendations to make further updates to the guidance as part of the regular updates in the near future.

• Wider work on courts and assessments: In 2023, all YJSs submitted a self-assessment of their work in court as part of the Standards for Children audit. Alongside an assessment of their court strategy, this audit focussed on the quality of their assessments, including PSRs. The outcomes from this audit will be used alongside the findings of this research to provide best practice on writing and utilising PSRs to the sector.

At the YJB, we remain determined to change the system, but we cannot change it alone. Our work with partners in the courts and youth justice services are important to us making any progress in this area.

London: Youth Justice Board, 2024. 74p.

By Jennifer Maeng

This study, funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice to the University of Virginia in 2020, examined the implementation of student threat assessment in Florida public schools. This project investigated threat assessment training and implementation, the kinds of threat cases that schools experienced, and how they were resolved. Of special interest was whether threat assessment was conducted without disproportionate negative consequences for students across diverse groups defined by race, ethnicity, and special education (disability) status. This project used a mixed-method approach with four broad research questions:

1. What are stakeholder reactions to training and implementation of threat assessment in their school?

2. What are the characteristics of threat assessments conducted in Florida public schools?

3. What relationships exist among academic, disciplinary, and legal outcomes for students receiving a threat assessment?

4. Are there adverse disparities in student outcomes associated with race, ethnicity, or special education status?

Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, 2024. 141p.

By Helen Christensen, Aimy Slade, Alexis Whitton

Recent events have reignited debate over whether social media is the root cause of increasing youth self‐harm and suicide. Social media is a fertile ground for disseminating harmful content, including graphic imagery and messages depicting gendered violence and religious intolerance. This proliferation of harmful content makes social media an unwelcoming space, especially for women, minority groups, and young people, who are more likely to be targeted by such content, strengthening the narrative that social media is at the crux of a youth mental health crisis.

However, the parallel rise in social media use and youth mental health problems does not imply a causal relationship. Increased social media use may be a correlate, exacerbating factor, or a consequence of rising trends in youth self‐harm, which may have entirely separate causes. Despite its potential negative impacts, social media is also a source of information and support for young people experiencing mental health problems. Restricting young people's access to social media could impede pathways for help‐seeking. This complexity highlights the need for a considered approach.

Recommendations

• Understand why some individuals are more susceptible to social media harms.

• Assess alternative explanations for youth self-harm trends.

• Mitigate artificial intelligence (AI)-related risks.

• Evaluate interventions that restrict social media and ensure they are evidence-based.

Medical Journal of Australia Volume 221, Issue10 November 2024 Pages 524-526

By Iain Mansfield, Dr Sean Phillips and Niamh Webb

Across the globe, societies are grappling with the dramatic decline in mental health amongst young people – particularly young women. The phenomenon has been particularly notable since the early 2010s and cannot be attributed simply to greater awareness or reduced stigma because of measurable increases in the prevalence of emotional disorders, such as depression and anxiety, or of loneliness, as well as growth in serious mental illness, self-harm and suicide. One important element of the debate is the link between smartphones, social media and mental health – and, accordingly, whether or not mobile phones should be banned in schools. Policy Exchange submitted Freedom of Information requests to 800 primary and secondary schools across the UK to ascertain both the true state of phone bans in UK schools, and whether there was a link between school performance and a school’s mobile phone policy. We found that while the vast majority of primary schools had effective bans, only 11% of secondary schools had effective bans – with others allowing phones to be used in break or lunch, or permitting pupils to keep phones present on them. By examining the results for secondary schools in England, we found that schools with an effective ban were more than twice as likely to be rated Outstanding as the national average. We also found that children at schools with an effective ban achieved GCSE results that were 1 – 2 grades higher (equivalent to a Progress 8 differential of 0.13 – 0.25) compared to children at schools with laxer policies. This was despite the fact that schools with effective bans had a higher proportion of pupils eligible for Free School Meals than schools with less restrictive policies. Smartphones, Mental Health and Schools A range of factors have been suggested as catalysing or hastening the decline in the mental health of children and young people in recent years. Perhaps the most significant hypothesis examined in recent years has been the link between smartphone ownership, social media use and a greater prevalence of mental and behavioural disorders. The most recent work by influential scholars including Professors Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge however now suggests smartphones represent a causative factor in declining children and adolescent mental health, necessitating a review of our underlying policy assumptions. As Haidt wrote last year, “skepticism was justified in 2019 but is not justified in 2023.” The case for banning smartphones in schools has similarly been developing. UNESCO has found that 1 in 7 countries globally have policies which ban smartphones in schools. In the UK, the decision on whether or not to ban phones is left to the individual school, although the Department for Education earlier this year issued non-statutory guidance that encouraged schools to implement a ban. Research globally has found correlations between bans and a range of positive outcomes, including reduced bullying, an overall reduction in social media usage, increased healthy play, reduced distraction and improved academic attainment. One former study carried out at schools in four English cities found improved student performance in high stakes exams following phone bans – with the impact particularly strong for the lowest achieving pupils. Overall, the academic evidence of the positive impact of school bans is increasingly suggestive, though not yet conclusive – and it is clear that how effectively a ban is enforced, rather than just the existence of a policy, is critical in whether or not a ban will lead to effective results. It is sometimes said that almost all schools in England have policies banning smartphones. This is correct; however, the Government’s most recent National Behaviour Survey found that 38% of teachers and 57% of pupils said that some, most or all lessons has been disrupted by mobile phones in the previous week. We therefore set out to investigate the true state of smartphone usage in UK schools – and whether there was a link to school performance.

London: Policy Exchange, 2024. 64p.

By Jo Deakin, Claire Fox, Raquel Matos

The construction and labelling of groups of young people as ‘risky’ sets off a multifaceted and dynamic social process of stigma that frequently results in reduced life chances and limited opportunities for change. Drawing on case study data from 4 European countries, this paper focuses on the ways in which stigma is reproduced through interactions and interventions that label young people. Our analysis explores how young people experience and understand stigma, and how they respond to it. Framed within a theoretical understanding of stigma as a construct of power we examine its components and cyclical process, its role in shaping policies of social control, and its consequences for groups of ‘risky’ young people. Our analysis develops Link and Phelan’s (2001) concept to include reference to young people’s reactions and responses: alienation and marginalisation; anger and resistance; empathy and generativity. In conclusion, we argue that stigma acts primarily as an inhibitor of young people’s constructive engagement in wider society, serving to reduce beneficial opportunities. However, some young people are able to resist the label, and, for them, resistance can become generative and enabling.

European Journal of Criminology. 19, 4, p. 653-673 21 p., 2022

By Jo Deakin, Claire Fox and Aimee Harragan

This paper considers experiences of penal and voluntary-sector interventions in the lives of young people labelled as ‘troubled’ or ‘at risk’ of criminal behaviour. Drawing on data from a case-study conducted in the north of England, this paper focuses on the narratives of young people ‘on the margins’ of society who were involved with a range of community-based interventions, specifically youth clubs, a support group and a mandatory youth justice course. We consider how young people experience and respond to stigmatising elements prevalent in the structured interventions and everyday interactions with the institutions and agencies intended to support them. We argue that ‘promotive’ relationships between young people and the adults working with them enable young people to challenge risk-based identities and navigate the barriers they face

International Journal of Law in Context. 2022;18(1):100-115. doi:10.1017/S1744552322000064

By Fiona Dyer, Ross Gibson, Pamela Morrison, and Carole Murphy

In this new report, Youth Justice in Scotland: Still Fit for the Future?, CYCJ revisits the ambitious vision set a decade ago to make Scotland a truly rights-respecting nation for children and young people in conflict with the law. This report highlights Scotland’s progress over the last 10 years, including significant legislative milestones such as the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, the UNCRC Incorporation (Scotland) Act 2024, and the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019.

The report is structured to provide a clear, thorough examination of Scotland’s youth justice journey. It first reflects on the state of youth justice when the original vision was set and acknowledges key policy, legislative, and practice changes that have shaped the field. It explores the critical role of children’s rights, including specific UNCRC Articles, and evaluates how these rights are (and are not) reflected in the current system. The report concludes by presenting eight new ambitions for the next decade, aimed at solidifying Scotland’s commitment to protecting and uplifting children and young people in conflict with the law.

Glasgow: Children's and Young People's Centre for Justice, University of Strathclyde, 2024. 25p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

In 2014, when the Justice Policy Institute first analyzed the cost of secure youth confinement, 33 states and the District of Columbia reported an annual cost per youth that eclipsed $100,000. In 2020, despite more than a half-decade of falling youth arrests and declining rates of youth incarceration since 2014, 40 states and Washington, D.C. report spending at least $100,000 annually per confined child, with some states spending more than $500,000 per youth per year. The average state cost for the secure confinement of a young person is now $588 per day, or $214,620 per year, a 44 percent increase from 2014. These cost figures over a six-year period represent the growing economic impact of incarcerating youth. However, the long-term impact of these policies extends well beyond the fiscal cost.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2020. 15p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Punitive sentencing policies and restrictive parole release practices in Maryland have resulted in a deeply racially disproportionate criminal justice system that is acutely impacting those serving the longest prison terms. This is true despite a declining prison population and state leadership in Maryland having undertaken criminal justice reform in recent years. As recently as July 2018, more than 70 percent of Maryland’s prison population was black, compared to 31 percent of the state population. The latest data from the Department of Justice show that the proportion of the Maryland prison population that is black is more than double the national average of 32 percent. These disparities are rooted in decades of unbalanced policies that disproportionately over-police under-resourced communities of color, and a criminal justice system focused on punitive sentencing and parole practices. Disparity Most Pronounced Among Emerging Adults, Especially Those with Long Sentences Racial disparities persist despite the fact that the Maryland prison population has declined by 13 percent since 2014, resulting in nearly 2,700 fewer people incarcerated. These inequalities affect the entire population but are most pronounced among those individuals who were incarcerated as emerging adults (18 to 24 years old) and are serving long prison terms. Nearly eight in 10 people who were sentenced as emerging adults and have served 10 or more years in a Maryland prison are black. This is the highest rate of any state in the country. To be Effective, Solutions Must Focus on the Emerging Adult Population To reverse these racially disparate outcomes—the result of decades of failed policies—Maryland needs to rethink its approach to 18- to 24-year-olds and join a growing number of jurisdictions exploring reforms related to emerging adults. This policy brief will provide perspective on why this population is unique and reforms are critical to improving outcomes in the justice system. Going forward, Maryland’s leadership can look toward examples of successful, evidence-based, and promising alternatives in other jurisdictions that can reduce the impact on emerging adults, racial disparities, and criminal justice involvement.  

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2019. 18p.

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.