By Ofsted and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons

 This report summarises our chief concerns about regimes at England’s YOIs. This type of secure accommodation holds convicted children aged 15 to 18. The report draws on Ofsted and HMIP’s 32 full inspection reports, and 5 reports following independent reviews of progress, across 10 years from June 2014 to March 2024. It also draws on comments from surveys of young offenders in custody, comments from leaders at education providers, YOI leaders and managers, and inspectors’ comments and findings. The review sets out a bleak picture of steadily declining educational opportunities and quality, reduced work experience and work opportunities, and sharply reduced time out of cell for children. In the worst case, in one setting some children had only half an hour out of their locked cells per day. We report on poor relationships between education providers and YOI leaders, poor-quality resources and infrastructure, severe staff shortages, and low levels of qualifications and training among staff. These factors result in children receiving a poor education that fails to meet their needs. Children have far fewer hours of lessons per day than their counterparts outside the secure estate. They have lower levels of attendance at classes, usually for reasons beyond their control. Because staff lack proper training, they cannot meet the needs of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Work experience opportunities and links to employers have become more limited during the past 10 years. This means that children are poorly prepared for their release and generally lack the skills and training that might help them secure employment. Chief among the reasons for the poor quality of education is the fact that YOIs are struggling with severe staff shortages. This makes it difficult for staff to build relationships with children and maintain order. They rely on very complicated regimes that keep large numbers of children separate from each other. Restrictive regimes mean that staff do not release children from cells to attend work or training. A vicious cycle develops whereby children are isolated, disheartened, and frustrated, then develop poor behaviors that lead to further restrictions being imposed. Poor leadership and poor cooperation between education providers and YOI leaders mean that, across the past 10 years, leaders and managers have put in place very few effective and sustainable measures to deal with the rapidly declining standards at YOIs.

Manchester, UK: Ofsted and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, 2024. 33p.

By Noor Huda Ismail

 Next month marks the first anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel – a significant event that reverberated globally and triggered an uptick in youth radicalization, particularly online. The Singapore Terrorism Threat Assessment Report 2024 reveals that this conflict directly contributed to the radicalization of two Singaporean youths – a 14-year-old and a 33-year-old. These incidents can be explained by a psychological phenomenon called “identity fusion”, where individuals feel an intense sense of oneness with a group to the point where their personal and social identities merge. This feeling of unity makes them willing to make extreme sacrifices for their group as their identity becomes inseparable from the group’s fate. While identity fusion is not limited to Islamist extremism – it manifests in football fans reacting violently after a crucial loss or animal rights activists responding to trophy hunting – it has found fertile ground among youths who feel connected to the Palestinian cause. It is essential to recognize that the Hamas-Israel war is a long-standing issue, with roots tracing back to the establishment of Israel in 1948. This deep historical context adds layers to the narrative, making it particularly compelling for youths who perceive a sense of injustice and shared suffering. Southeast Asian policymakers must proactively address this challenge to prevent further radicalization among young people. This involves understanding the mechanism of identity fusion in online radicalization and embracing technology as a tool for effective intervention. By doing so, policymakers can create strategies that resonate with young people and counter extremist narratives.

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU Singapore, 2024. 4p

 By The Southern Poverty Law Center

Florida routinely pushes Black children out of schools and into a legal system with well-documented harms. In recent years, the state has made significant investments in school law enforcement and self-proclaimed “tough love” youth legal system policies, purportedly in the name of public safety. However, these investments have yielded a system that disparately disciplines, arrests, prosecutes and incarcerates Black youth more harshly than their counterparts. Florida’s well-developed school-to-prison pipeline has thus created an easy entryway for children into its legal system – even for those as young as 7 years old and children dealing with mental health issues. This report explores the scope and impact of this system and ways Florida can disrupt it.

 Montgomer, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024. 

By Kelly Stewart, David DuBois

This brief scoping review provides an overview of current research findings relating to law enforcement mentoring of youth. While not a systematic review of all available research, the findings present the current landscape of the types of programs that have been studied, the goals of such programs, and the evidence of their effectiveness in achieving intended outcomes. The review begins with a brief history and theoretical justification for engaging law enforcement (e.g., police) as mentors. Next, an overview of the review scope and literature search strategy is provided, along with a summary of the findings of identified studies and consideration of their limitations. The final sections provide conclusions as well as recommendations for practice and research.

Boston: National Mentoring Resource Center, 2021. 14p.

By Manasi Deshpande & Michael G. Mueller-Smith

We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18 created by the 1996 welfare reform law. We evaluate this natural experiment with Social Security Administration data linked to records from the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System. We find that SSI removal increases the number of criminal charges by a statistically significant 20% over the next two decades. The increase in charges is concentrated in offenses for which income generation is a primary motivation (60% increase), especially theft, burglary, fraud/forgery, and prostitution. The effect of SSI removal on criminal justice involvement persists more than two decades later, even as the effect of removal on contemporaneous SSI receipt diminishes. In response to SSI removal, youth are twice as likely to be charged with an illicit income-generating offense than they are to maintain steady employment at $15,000/year in the labor market. As a result of these charges, the annual likelihood of incarceration increases by a statistically significant 60% in the two decades following SSI removal. The costs to taxpayers of enforcement and incarceration from SSI removal are so high that they nearly eliminate the savings to taxpayers from reduced SSI benefits

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022. 38p.

By Lauren Weisner and Lynne Mock

Bullying is a form of violence that can leave lasting negative effects on school-aged youth. This literature review examines research on bullying frequency, predictors and impacts, and prevention and intervention programs. Research finds that between 20% and 40% of youth in the United States have experienced bullying (with variances in data sources and groups examined) and that there are a host of negative outcomes for those exposed to it. Programs that address bullying vary, but there are several promising interventions to address the issue.   

Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority,  2022.14p.

By Gretta L Goodwin,, et al.

Why GAO Did This Study AMBER Alerts quickly communicate information to the public in certain child abduction cases. DOJ oversees the AMBER Alert network, which is made up of law enforcement and other involved stakeholders. DOJ created the AMBER Alert program to help carry out its AMBER Alert responsibilities. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (2021 NDAA) required DOJ to take additional actions related to the AMBER Alert network. It also includes a provision for GAO to assess the extent to which DOJ implemented these requirements and identify any challenges or needs in the U.S. territories. This report addresses (1) U.S. territories’ processes for and challenges in responding to missing and exploited children’s cases, including issuing AMBER Alerts; (2) DOJ actions to integrate U.S. territories into the AMBER Alert network; and (3) DOJ efforts to address certain 2021 NDAA requirements related to the AMBER Alert network, including assisting Tribes and U.S. territories. Among other methods, GAO analyzed DOJ documents, such as its AMBER Alert Best Practices document. GAO interviewed DOJ and Fox Valley officials and relevant U.S. territory officials. GAO also interviewed officials from a nongeneralizable selection of six federally recognized Tribes.  

Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office, 2024. 45p.

By Paul Pazen and Steven L. Byers

People in Colorado have not directly experienced crime. From property offenses to violent crimes, every crime leaves a traumatized victim. Whether the wounds are physical, psychological, or financial, it is important to acknowledge the profound effects that a crime can have on its victims. At Common Sense Institute, our goal is to address the economic impact of crime while remaining conscious of the suffering that it causes. This report analyzes the cost of juvenile crime in Colorado and its economic impact. This study encompasses the period of 2010 to 2023 and the data comes from Colorado Crime Statistics (2023). Colorado’s juvenile crime trends tell a mixed story. On the one hand, youth crime rates have fallen in the last 15 years as property crime rates fall, follow. On the other hand, violent youth crime has risen. Meanwhile, the number of juveniles arrested and detained has fallen from a combination of alternative sentencing, diversion programs, and increased parole. It is violent crime that costs more. Juvenile crime results in direct or tangible costs including unrecovered stolen property, damaged property, victims’ out-of-pocket medical expenses, the cost of police, courts and correctional institutions, and lost earnings by both victims and juvenile perpetrators who are arrested and convicted. Juvenile crime also inflicts indirect or intangible costs like the pain and suffering of victims, reduced quality of life for everyone, and lower levels of investment and lower property values.i Intangible costs are difficult to measure with precision but, among those who have estimated them, there is a consensus that the intangible cost of juvenile crime far exceeds the tangible cost. Reducing current rates of murder, rape, assault, theft, and robbery by juveniles would produce a wide range of savings and other benefits to families, individuals, property owners and taxpayers. All estimates of the cost of crime in this report are adjusted for inflation and are reported in 2020 dollars so that costs can be compared across years. In 2021, after an extraordinary rise in crime, CSI estimated a total cost of crime of $3.3 billion. 

Greenwood Village, CO: Common Sense Institute, 2024. 30p.

By ALICE McINTYRE

Urban teens of color are often portrayed as welfare mothers, drop outs, drug addicts, and both victims and perpetrators of the many kinds of violence which can characterize life in urban areas. Although urban youth often live in contexts which include poverty, unemployment, and discrimination, they also live with the everydayness of school, friends, sex, television, music, and other elements of teenage lives. Inner City Kids explores how a group of African American, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and Haitian adolescents make meaning of and respond to living in an inner-city community.

The book focuses on areas of particular concern to the youth, such as violence, educational opportunities, and a decaying and demoralizing urban environment characterized by trash, pollution, and abandoned houses. McIntyre's work with these teens draws upon participatory action research, which seeks to co-develop programs with study participants rather than for them.

New York: London: NYU Press, 2000. 255p.

By Kirsten Russell

Research aims and overview

Youth violence, which occurs between individuals aged 10 to 29, can take many forms and has health, social, and economic consequences for individuals, families and communities (World Health Organisation, 2015). When considering figures relating to young people’s involvement in violence in Scotland alongside concerns that the indirect social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to an increase in youth violence (Irwin-Rogers, Muthoo, & Billingham, 2020), it is clear that there is a pressing need to better understand which strategies can be implemented to address violence in youth. This report was undertaken to draw together high-quality international evidence about what works to prevent youth violence and is intended to inform policymakers and practitioners about the extant evidence base and effectiveness associated with different approaches and interventions.

Key Findings

• There is evidence to suggest that school and education-based approaches are effective in reducing youth violence. These include both bullying prevention programmes (e.g. Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, KiVa) and social and emotional learning programmes (e.g. PATHS).

• Interventions that have been identified as promising include: school-based programmes which seek to prevent violence in dating and intimate partner relationships, parenting and family-focused approaches, mentoring programmes, and community-based coalitions.

• There is mixed evidence about the effectiveness of out-of-school activities and early childhood home visitation programmes.

• Deterrence and fear-based approaches have been identified as having no effect on youth violence outcomes and, at worse, are potentially harmful to young people.

• Due to a limited body of evidence, it is not yet possible to draw reliable conclusions on the effectiveness of programmes that specifically aim to prevent gang involvement and subsequent gang violence. As a result, the evidence is inconclusive.

Moderating factors: Key Findings

Across this report, the importance of accounting for the moderating factors, potential facilitators, and potential barriers for prevention interventions for youth violence have been highlighted where evidence is available. Accounting for these factors can encourage effective implementation of these evidence-based interventions.

According to the Early Intervention Foundation the “key principles of effective programmes” for preventing youth violence include:

• Strategies that seek to create positive changes in the lives of youth and/or their families, as well as reduce risk factors and prevent negative outcomes

• The involvement of trained facilitators who are experienced in working with children and families

• Working with young people in their natural setting (e.g. school or home)

• Ensuring that programmes are delivered as originally designed, specified and intended (i.e. high implementation fidelity)

• Regular and/or frequent contacts (e.g. regular weekly contact delivered over the school term or year)

• Encouraging positive interactions between young people, families and teachers/schools (i.e. addressing violence at individual and relationship levels)

• Regular and/or frequent contacts (e.g. regular weekly contact delivered over a school term, the school year or longer)

• Delivery though interactive sessions that provide the opportunity for skills-based demonstrations and practice

In addition, it has been emphasised within the literature that programmes should be theory-driven (Nation et al., 2003; Kovalenko et al., 2020). That is to say that interventions should be based on an explicit theoretical model that describes and justifies how and why an intervention may lead to a change in violence-related outcomes.

Conclusions

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis has the potential to contribute to a rise in youth violence. Moreover, the direct and indirect consequences of violence are broad, extending beyond victims and perpetrators to families and communities. As such, the evidence presented within this report can contribute to decision-making in work to prevent youth violence. School and education-based approaches have been shown to be effective, and the factors that influence their effectiveness have been highlighted. It has been noted, however, that there is limited evidence regarding who is more likely to change (e.g. in relation to age, gender, and sociodemographic status) and when programmes should be implemented. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether interventions of this nature influence youth violence outcomes when delivered out-with education settings or within non-school-aged samples (e.g. those aged 19-29).

Overall, much of the available high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to prevent youth violence has come from high income countries (such as the USA). As such, it is important to account for cultural context when considering the application of interventions within a Scottish context (Annex B of the report outlines implementation fidelity and associated issues).

Some interventions have been identified as out of scope for this report (see Annex E for a full out of scope list). While these interventions have not been included within this report, this does not necessarily indicate that they do not work. Rather, they have been excluded due to limited available evidence (e.g. high-quality evaluations) or they are beyond the primary prevention focus of this report (e.g. topic out of scope).

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, 2021. 70p.

By Western Australia Corruption and Crime Commission

In the early hours of 12 October 2023, a 16-year-old First Nation's boy, Cleveland Keith Dodd - died in custody. He was found hanging from a damaged vent in the ceiling of his cell at Unit 18 in Casuarina Prison. Cleveland's death comes some 32 years after the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The painful truth is that he is by no means the first Indigenous Australian to have died in custody in Western Australia since that time. The profound tragedy is that he is the first child. While the cause and manner of Cleveland's death have not yet been determined by the Coroner, the Commission is satisfied within its jurisdiction that Cleveland fixed a torn piece of t-shirt material to a damaged ceiling vent, the ligature point from which he was later found hanging. At 01:35 on 12 October 2023, Cleveland used his cell call to contact a Youth Custodial Officer to tell him of his intention to hang himself -shortly before doing so. Cleveland's final threat of self-harm was one of at least 17 threats of self-harm or self-harm attempts made by the young people detainees at Unit 18 in the 24 hours leading up to it. Why Cleveland was driven to self-harm is not an inquiry within the jurisdiction of the Commission. The question of how he was able to attempt to take his own life in a tightly controlled space - is. There are several bodies vested with statutory power to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a child in custody. That is for good reason. The death of a child in such circumstances deeply affects not only their family but the Western Australian community as a whole. Broader systemic and cultural issues within the Department of Justice (DOJ) may have contributed to this outcome. In his May 2023 Inspection of Banksia Hill Detention Centre and Unit 18, the Inspector of Custodial Services Mr Eamon Ryan found young people, staff, and a physical environment in acute crisis. In the almost 18 months leading up to his inspection, the rates of self-harm and attempted suicide among young people in custody were unprecedently high. Staffing was in terminal decline. These wider considerations may form part of the Coronial inquest into Cleveland's death or the inquiries of the other authorities. The Commission has a narrow but important jurisdiction. Until 2014 the Commission also had jurisdiction in respect of public officers who engage in conduct that constitutes or involves a breach of the trust placed in the public officer by reason of his or her office of employment as a public officer and could constitute a disciplinary offence providing reasonable grounds for termination of employment. In 2014 Parliament removed that jurisdiction from the Commission and vested it in the Public Sector Commission. Therefore, acts of neglect or misfeasance which do not disclose a possible offence of 2 or more years' imprisonment are outside the Commission's jurisdiction. The Commission is empowered to investigate serious misconduct. Serious misconduct is defined in the Corruption, Crime and Misconduct Act 2003 (CCM Act) s 4. To constitute serious misconduct under s 4(a) or (b), a public officer must have acted or failed to act corruptly. Corruption has been held to include conduct that involves moral impropriety in public administration, or some perversion of the proper performance of the duties of office.1 There was no evidence giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that any public officer had engaged in conduct of that kind. As a result, the Commission concentrated on investigating whether any public officer may have engaged in serious misconduct under s 4(c), by committing an offence punishable by 2 or more years' imprisonment while acting or purporting to act in his or her official capacity. The scope of the Commission's investigation was limited to forming opinions asto whether any public officer committed an offence punishable by 2 or more years' imprisonment. The purpose of the investigation was to determine whether any public officers engaged in conduct of that kind in the execution of their duties at Unit 18 at Casuarina Prison from 10 to 12 October 2023. On 12 October 2023, the DOJ notified the Commission of Cleveland's critical incident.2 After assessing the matter, on 20 October 2023 the Commission formed Operation Lowestoft to investigate. The same day, the Commission took the unusual step of making a public announcement in relation to the investigation, given the extensive reporting, public interest and the seriousness of the incident. On 2 November 2023, a member of Cleveland's family made a report directly to the Commission.3 The Commission's inquiry focused on the actions of the five DOJ Youth Custodial Officers (YCOs) and one nurse contracted to the DOJ who worked the night shift during which Cleveland self-harmed. A significant amount of CCTV footage and a large volume of records were obtained. Interviews with witnesses were conducted. The DOJ fully cooperated with the Commission's investigation. All five YCOs and the Nurse were examined under oath or affirmation between 29 January and 2 February 2023. Between 5 and 8 February 2023, the Unit Manager of the day shift at Unit 18 on 11 October 2023, the Superintendent of Unit 18, Mr Douglas Coyne, and the Deputy Commissioner for Women, Ms Christine Ginbey, who was at the time the Deputy Commissioner for Women and Young People, were examined under oath or affirmation. Having carefully weighed the benefits of public exposure and public awareness against the potential for prejudice or privacy infringements, the Commissioner did not determine that it was in the public interest to open those examinations to the public. Nonetheless, the Commission considered that there was a strong public interest in the Commission investigating the persons present at Unit 18 on 11 and 12 October 2023, and those who supervised them. Under their watch - a boy died. The Commission's mandate was to investigate and expose any possible serious misconduct by those who may have played a part in it. The criminal offences that the Commission's investigation centred around were those of the falsification of a record by a public officer contrary to the Criminal Code s 85, an act or omission causing bodily harm or danger under the Criminal Code s 304 (arising by way of a breach of the duty to provide the necessaries of life under the Criminal Code s 262) and failing to protect a child from harm pursuant to the Children and Community Services Act 2004 (CCS Act) s 101. The Commission analysed the information gathered by the investigation. The Commission assessed the evidence of all the witnesses who gave evidence. In the Commission's opinion each of the witnesses was genuinely affected by Cleveland's death. There were undoubtedly breaches of DOJ procedures and policies that occurred on the night of Cleveland's self-harm. There may have been conduct engaged in that constitutes misfeasance or misconduct of another kind described in the CCM Act s 4(d). That is a matter about which the Commission has no jurisdiction to form an opinion. While Cleveland's death is plainly a devastating outcome of the events that occurred between 10 and 12 October 2023, in the Commission's assessment, there is no evidence to suggest that the public officers involved committed an offence punishable by 2 or more years' imprisonment in the execution of their duties at Unit 18 during that time. Consequently, the Commission has formed no opinions of serious misconduct.   

Northbridge, WA: The Commission, 2024. 70p.

Edited by: Joseph Giordmaina and Michela Scalpello

In 2019, a group or representatives from various countries interested in education and rehabilitation in prisons, through the Erasmus+ programme, sub-programme for Support for Policy Reform, submitted an application according the call for proposal EACEA-34-2019 in the Action: Social Inclusion through Education, Training and Youth. The focus of this sub action is the Social Inclusion and Common Values: The Contribution in the Field of Education. The partners meet informally to discuss the application, and decided to focus on an inclusive approach to persons in prison, social rehabilitation and education. Following the application stage, the partners were awarded funding for a three-year project entitled: Inclusive Approach to Inmate Social Rehabilitation and Education, the acronym of which is REEDU. The partnership is made up of the applicant organisation, Centre for Education and Culture Trebnje (CIK), The Slovenia Association for Social Work (ACSW), the Prison Education and Re-Entry Platform, University of Malta (UM), the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology Europe (IACFP Europe), the Bremen Ministry of Justice and Constitution and Baia Mare Prison, Romania. The partnership was rewarded close to half a million euros to complete the project. The Project This project promotes the idea that resilience and desistence to crime need the support of the family and the community, and that it is necessary for successful rehabilitative programmes in prisons, particularly those focused on work with juveniles, to include significant others in their programmes. The family is considered to be the first model of a community in which we socialise, in which we share values, such as those of truth, respect, love and solidarity (Brighouse & Swift, 2014). It is the place where we are nurtured and initiated in the norms of the society we live in. These values are then shared with the extended family, and eventually with the outside world, such as schools, the place of work and one’s greater social circle. 

By Melissa M. Labriola, Samuel Peterson, Dulani Woods, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Brian A. Jackson

Based on a one-day count, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities declined 77 percent between 2000 and 2020. As a result, the number of residential placement facilities has also decreased, by 50 percent. This decrease is starkest among large facilities, which have decreased 74 percent from 1997 to 2019. Facility closure has gained attention and support for several reasons, such as investments in alternative rehabilitation and community-based programs, cost savings, and recognition of the need to treat youth involved in the juvenile justice system with a focus on rehabilitation rather than punitive measures. The decisions to close these facilities are complex.

This report presents findings and recommendations from an expert panel that explored challenges and opportunities associated with closing juvenile residential facilities and implementing community-based alternatives. The highest-priority needs centered on equity and disparity and the need for family engagement throughout the punitive process. These results are pertinent to a wide audience, including justice-system stakeholders, community corrections practitioners, the research community, and funders or grant-making organizations

Rand. 2024. 24p.

By Carey Marr, Sara Singh, Claire Gaskin, John Kasinathan, Trisha Lloyd & Kimberlie Dean

Past research suggests that diverting young people away from the criminal justice system and into mental health services can reduce subsequent reoffending, but the impact of such programs on the rates of timely mental health service contact are largely unknown. In this study, we examined a sample of 523 young people who were deemed eligible for mental health diversion between 2008 and 2015. Around half (47%) of these young people were granted diversion by a Magistrate. Overall, the levels of timely mental health service contact after court finalization, even for those who were granted diversion, appeared low given that the purpose of diversion is to facilitate such contact for all those diverted. Specifically, only 22% of those who were granted community-based diversion and 62% of individuals granted inpatient-based diversion had mental health service contact within 7 days of court finalization. Rates of health contact were much lower for those who were not granted either type of diversion (8% and 23%, respectively). Diversion was associated with a significant reduction in reoffending rates, but the impact of early mental health service contact was less clear. There is a need to understand the reasons why many young people are not accessing appropriate mental health services following diversion in order to improve outcomes and fully realize the intended benefits of mental health court diversion.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FORENSIC MENTAL HEALTH, 2024, VOL. 23, NO. 3, 204–216https://doi.org/10.1080/14999013.2023.2276961

By Eleanor Staples and Jo Staines

This research sought to provide evidence about care-experienced children’s involvement with YJSs from the perspectives of both professionals and children. It looks at how YJS professionals understand care-experienced children’s needs and challenges and what barriers exist to working with them. It also explores perceived success factors, roles and relationships with multi-agency partners, and the impact of policy instruments designed to reduce the numbers of care-experienced children entering the youth justice system.

Research & Analysis Bulletin 2024/03 Manchester, UK: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2024. 52p.

By Elizabeth Cauffman

With support from NIJ and others, the University of California (UC), Irvine and the Superior Court of California, Orange County engaged in a collaborative effort to evaluate a Young Adult Court (YAC) that specifically handles justice-system-involved 18- to 25-year-old young men in Orange County, California. The study is a randomized controlled trial that follows young men in the YAC treatment group as well as similar young men who are processed in traditional court (“control”) for 30 months after their enrollment into the court (YAC treatment) or study (control). For this project, the research study team has interviewed the young men every 3 to 6 months for 30 months (baseline; 3-month follow-up, 6-month follow-up, 12-month follow-up, 18-month follow up, 24-month follow-up, and 30-month follow-up). Questions in the research interviews cover various domains, including criminal and antisocial behavior, perceptions of the legal system, psychological development, psychosocial maturity, social context (e.g., peer groups, family support), and environmental factors (e.g., neighborhood disorder). We also collect data from two additional sources for YAC treatment participants actively engaged in the court (i.e., pre-graduation). First, we conduct 10-minute interviews with YAC participants before or after their court hearings to assess their perceptions and experiences of the court as it unfolds. Second, case managers and the YAC probation officer submit reviews of each participant’s progress in the program. The primary goal of the study is to understand whether the YAC improves life outcomes for the young men by reducing recidivism, reducing antisocial behavior,  improving health, improving developmental and psychological outcomes, and/or promoting positive socio-economic and educational outcomes. When data collection is complete, another goal is to examine whether the YAC reduces racial, ethnic, and socio-economic disparities across the life-course– particularly after YAC graduation. In addition to designing and launching the brand new Orange County YAC, this NIJ-sponsored project also aimed to describe the perceived successes and challenges associated with involvement in another, pre-existing YAC: The San Francisco Young Adult Court (which was established in 2015; https://sf.courts.ca.gov/divisions/collaborative-courts/young-adult-court). For this component of the project, our goal was to use data from the San Francisco YAC to inform and improve the Orange County YAC. 

Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Program, 2024. 23p.

By Jack Cattell, Sarah Webb, Ammeline Wang, Kasra Aghajani, Sophia Hasapopoulos, and Lorraine Khan

This evaluation has found that the Youth Justice Reform Programme (YJRP) foundations have been laid, and better outcomes were reported, particularly for the workforce. The Youth Custody Service (YCS) can build on these to sustain and improve the changes so it can implement the individualised approach fully. 2.1 Background Charlie Taylor’s (2016) review of the youth justice system found several shortcomings in the youth custody system, including poor safety, missed education opportunities, insufficient staff skills, and disjointed resettlement pathways. The government’s response was to launch a series of initiatives jointly known as the YJRP. The YJRP covered custody and community management of children who offend. This evaluation focused on custody changes. The YJRP aimed to (i) deliver an individualised approach through an integrated framework of care (ii) create a larger, more resilient, and more stable workforce with specialist skills and (iii) provide strong leadership and governance to support a rehabilitation culture. This report responds to the first two aims. The programme was composed of four work strands: (i) Education and Sports (ii) Behaviour Management (iii) Workforce and (iv) Leadership and Culture. Under each of those four work strands, sets of work packages were implemented to achieve the programme’s aims: education and sports provision in the secure estate; behaviour management packages to make child custody safer; workforce packages for improved recruitment and training; and leadership and culture packages to increase the capacity of the YCS.

2.2 Evaluation approach The evaluation of the YJRP ran from spring 2020 to spring 2022. It aimed to i) provide evidence of the implementation and delivery of the YJRP and ii) assess the programme’s impact on key outcomes of interest (such as assaults on the estate and increase in the workforce) robustly. The evaluation consisted of three strands: a scoping study, a process evaluation, and an impact evaluation. The Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) within the evaluation’s scope were Feltham A, Cookham Wood, Parc, Werrington, and Wetherby.1 The secure schools remain part of the overall YJRP, though the first secure school (Oasis Restore) will be evaluated separately. The scoping study identified the baseline position of each YOI, such as current population size, composition, staffing level, and when the YJRP work packages were or were to be implemented. The process evaluation implemented a theory of change2 approach to understand how operational and contextual factors contributed to child and workforce outcomes. Data were collected from staff and children in the YOIs through semi-structured interviews and an online survey. The impact evaluation estimated the YJRP’s impact on the number of staff and their time in post and the number of assaults in the YOIs using an interrupted time series analysis where longitudinal data from before the intervention was used to construct a counterfactual. Given the limited availability of a strong counterfactual, the conclusions are suggestive rather than definitive. A children’s survey was designed to measure their attitudes to relevant elements of the YJRP. 2.3 Evaluation key findings Building a professional, specialist workforce The aim of the YJRP’s Workforce work strand was to (i) create a bigger, more resilient, and more stable workforce (ii) employ more staff with specialist skills and (iii) create a culture change for staff who want to work with children with a focus on rehabilitation. Creating a bigger, more resilient, and more stable workforce Staffing levels increased at every YOI that participated in the study. Further, the proportion of staff who remained in their post for at least 12 months increased after implementing the reforms. However, changes are still required to recruitment strategies and the workforce and management culture to allow for a more resilient and more stable workforce. 

Employing staff with specialist skills More staff were trained and completed training on the delivery of CuSP3 and the Framework for Integrated Care (SECURE STAIRS)4 under the Unitas training and foundation degree. The findings also suggested a need for more specific training on the core elements of the YJRP and professional development, as well as time for staff, such as study days, to complete relevant training. Culture change towards a rehabilitative environment The YJRP was found to have changed the culture of YOIs and STCs to a more rehabilitative environment. Staff members reported taking a more rehabilitative approach to working with children, which contributed to a better relationship between staff and children. The shift to a rehabilitative approach was also reflected in the responses gathered from children, who reported feeling safe, being treated fairly by staff members, and having their needs better understood by staff. Delivering an individualised approach Central to the YJRP was an intention to offer support that is closely aligned with the needs of individual children.5 The individualised approach has education and wellbeing at its heart and is delivered principally through the Behaviour Management and the Education and Sports work strands. Behaviour Management Results were inconclusive about the impact of the YJRP on child-on-child and child-on staff assault rates within the YOIs, due to COVID masking any impact of the programme. Progress to make sites safer, however, was attained through other means, such as staff support for children, making them feel safer and as though they were being treated fairly. This approach helped children learn from their mistakes and de-escalate challenging situations. Staff and children also reported that the development of consistent relationships facilitated good discipline. The Framework for Integrated Care (SECURE STAIRS) and CuSP generally supported positive outcomes for some children, such as improved and supportive relationships with staff, feelings of safety, and confidence when leaving the establishment. However, children’s feedback in the survey suggested case workers and CuSP did not benefit all children, particularly those with ethnic minority backgrounds. Education and Sports The provision of education was hindered by the COVID pandemic, with a lack of face-to face education. Nevertheless, most children regularly attended the face-to-face classes available and reported a good choice of courses. Many children also reported being involved in various sports and physical activities. Further improvements could be made in (i) skill-building for careers (ii) educational level of courses and (iii) staff training to deliver all courses sufficiently.       

London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2024. 76p.

By Philip Baiden , Yangjin Park , Catherine A LaBrenz , Saltanat Childress 

Although studies have investigated and found an association between victimization and weapon carrying, few studies have examined the association between exposure to neighborhood violence (NV) and gun carrying among adolescents. The objective of this study was to examine the cross-sectional association between exposure to NV and gun carrying among adolescents. Data for this study came from the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. An analytic sample of 17,033 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years old (51.7% male) was analyzed using logistic regression with complementary log-log link function. The outcome variable investigated in this study is gun carrying and was measured as a binary variable, whereas the main explanatory variable examined in this study was exposure to NV, which was also measured as a binary variable. Of the 17,033 adolescents, 4.2% carried a weapon during the past year, and 18.7% were exposed to NV. Controlling for the effects of other factors, adolescents who were exposed to NV had more than double the odds of carrying a gun when compared to their counterparts not exposed to NV (adjusted odds ratio = 2.33, 95% Confidence Intervals [1.69, 3.23]). Other significant factors associated with gun carrying include being a male, non-Hispanic Black, being threatened or injured with a weapon, use of alcohol, cigarette smoking, and misuse of prescription opioids. High parental monitoring was protective against gun carrying. The findings of this study underscore the importance of developing age-appropriate intervention strategies to reduce gun carrying among adolescents. School counselors and other professionals working with adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods should actively engage parents in assessments and interventions.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume 39, Issue 15-16, August 2024, Pages 3396-3423

By Richard Mendel

Well designed alternative-to-incarceration programs, such as those highlighted in Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration: What Works With Youth Who Pose Serious Risks to Public Safety,1 are critically important for reducing overreliance on incarceration. But support for good programs is not the only or even the most important ingredient for minimizing youth incarceration. To reduce overreliance on youth incarceration, alternative-to-incarceration programs must be supported by youth justice systems that heed adolescent development research, make timely and evidence-informed decisions about how delinquency cases are handled, and institutionalize youth only as a last resort when they pose an immediate threat to public safety. In addition, systems must make concerted, determined efforts to re duce the long standing biases which have perpetuated the American youth justice system’s glaring racial and ethnic disparities in confinement. This report will highlight state and local laws, policies and practices that have maximized the effective use of alternative-to-incarceration programs and minimized the unnecessary incarceration of youth who can be safely supervised and supported at home.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 25p.

By Ciera Phung-Marion | 99 Wash. L. Rev. 277 (2024)March 1, 2024

Abstract: In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court released the historic decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that the U.S. Constitution does not protect an individual’s right to an abortion. Dobbs overturned many cases, including J.D. v. Azar, which previously protected abortion rights for unaccompanied migrant youth in federal detention facilities. Post-Dobbs, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)—the agency responsible for caring for detained immigrant children—still protects abortion rights as part of its own internal policy. Without judicial precedent, however, this policy lacks the stability to truly protect the rights of the children in its care. This Comment discusses the impact of Dobbs on the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children (UCs) detained in immigration custody by ORR. Now that detained UCs’ right to abortion is only protected by agency policy, it can be changed by ORR without going through notice and comment rulemaking. This Comment explains the historical context of the rights of migrant children and the right to an abortion. It advances the argument that states that want to protect abortion for detained immigrant youth must incorporate those rights in child welfare laws.

99 Wash. L. Rev. 277 (2024)March 1, 2024