By Curtis Smith IV, Laura Whitaker, Stephanie Brooks Holliday

The overrepresentation of queer youth in the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles County underscores the need for tailored service strategies to meet this population's needs. However, given the lack of concrete guidance within the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act's (JJCPA's) Comprehensive Multi-Agency Juvenile Justice Plan, JJCPA-funded programs may require additional guidance on how to best achieve this goal. Staff members of these programs often have competing priorities and may find it challenging to find practical information to guide their services.

In this report, the authors summarize the peer-reviewed literature related to queer at-promise and juvenile justice-involved youth to present a high-level summary of the pathways through which these youth enter the juvenile justice system, the common issues that they experience while in the system, the needs that practitioners should be aware of when serving these youth, and potential strategies to better support queer youth when providing services.

The authors go on to describe the existing challenges and practices that JJCPA-funded programs experience when aiming to serve queer youth. The authors then draw on the expertise of local organizations that serve queer youth who intersect with the juvenile justice system and identify practical solutions to enhancing care for these youth.

Key Findings

• Queer youth who are at-promise (i.e., experiencing factors that place them at risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system) and those involved in the juvenile justice system often experience various forms of adversity, such as parental rejection, houselessness, dual-system involvement, school discrimination, mental health challenges, and criminal justice system discrimination.

• Staff of programs funded by the JJCPA in Los Angeles County are interested in meeting the needs of queer youth; however, they may feel unprepared to do so.

• Key informants from queer-serving organizations suggest that JJCPA-funded programs serving queer youth should foster a safe and affirming environment, integrate school and family systems, consider youths' intersectionality, and implement collaborative care models.

Recommendations

• JJCPA-funded programs should develop partnerships with queer organizations to support at-promise and justice-involved youth with clear goals and transparency about such needs as training or consultation.

• JJCPA-funded programs should build lasting relationships through coaching partnerships for sustained impact, facilitating collaborative workshops, and integrating partnerships into staff onboarding and training.

• JJCPA-funded programs should integrate queer identity into services while considering other identity aspects and broader needs.

• JJCPA-funded programs should adjust approaches based on diverse identities, ensuring that resources and services are available.

• JJCPA-funded programs should offer queer-specific services when needed, using various modalities, such as virtual options.

• JJCPA-funded programs should evaluate and integrate inclusive policies, ensuring that such policies are communicated and reinforced with staff.

• JJCPA-funded programs should document policies for accessibility, detailing application, evaluation, and consequences to emphasize their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

• JJCPA-funded programs should ensure that staff reflect and support the needs of queer youth through diverse representation and expertise.

• JJCPA-funded programs should increase queer representation among staff to create safe spaces and connect with relevant resources.

• JJCPA-funded programs should use staff to coordinate services across systems, considering the diverse needs of queer youth.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025, 33p.

By Laura Whitaker, Alexandra Mendoza-Graf, Tara Laila Blagg, Curtis Smith IV, Nastassia Reed, Sierra Smucker, Aarya Suryavanshi, Susan Turner, Stephanie Brooks Holliday

At-promise youth, who are youth at risk of becoming involved with the juvenile justice system, are often most at risk of engaging in dangerous or delinquent behavior after school hours, in the evenings, and on weekends. Living in an unsafe community, particularly a community with gang and drug activity, exacerbates these risks. How, then, can local governments help at-promise youth minimize these risks while giving youth opportunities to thrive?

The Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) provides counties with funding to support programs that have proven their effectiveness in curbing crime among at-promise youth and youth currently involved in the juvenile justice system. In Los Angeles County, JJCPA funding supports several programs that work with at-promise youth and focus on mitigating the aforementioned risks.

In this report, the authors present their evaluation of JJCPA-funded programs operated by five departments or agencies in Los Angeles County or the City of Los Angeles. The authors interviewed staff members from each of the programs and reviewed program data from 2019 through 2023 to identify facilitators and barriers to program implementation. Part of a series of evaluation reports for JJCPA-funded programs in the Los Angeles area, this report presents findings and recommendations for the programs of interest.

Key Findings

The evaluated programs make programming available after school, in the evenings, and on weekends, and programming primarily occurs in public parks or public housing complexes.

The programs provide mentorship, skill building, and access to resources and activities that youth might not otherwise have.

The programs largely serve Black and Hispanic youth ages ten to 18 who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods or neighborhoods with high levels of gang or other illegal activity.

Many factors have facilitated the programs' implementation, such as structured programming frameworks, program staff's ability to tailor services to youth's needs and interests, and many staff members' personal connection to the local communities that they serve.

Program staff also face several implementation challenges: limited funding and staffing shortages; difficulties engaging with youth, safely transporting youth to the programs, and building trust with youth; and a lack of services that better address the needs of the marginalized youth that programs serve.

Recommendations

Provide additional and flexible funding to support new activities or allow programs to address logistical barriers to youth participation, such as a lack of transportation to program sites.

Additional funding could allow programs to add more staff capacity by increasing the number of staff in existing positions or creating new roles (e.g., a case manager).

Hiring staff from the local communities the programs serve would improve client and community engagement. Programs should also ensure that staff have sufficient access to professional-development opportunities and training.

Programs should tailor or augment the programming to meet the diverse local population's needs, such as by translating program materials in languages besides English and hiring staff members who speak those other languages.

Programs looking to improve on their existing data collection can consult the JJCPA data collection toolkit, which RAND developed specifically to support programs in collecting data relevant to an evaluation.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025, 75p.