Juvenile Justice Education For At-risk High School Youth: A Pilot Program

Abstract

Research has shown that current legal policies of transfer of juveniles to adult court, harsh sentences, and intimidating educational programs do not deter youthful crime. This study reports on a nonconfrontational pilot education program in the US juvenile justice system. In three urban high schools, an eight-week researcher-designed curriculum was delivered to three intervention classes totaling 125 at-risk students and three control classes totaling 100 at-risk students. Teachers in both groups administered pretest and posttest surveys. Descriptive statistics showed substantial knowledge gains for the intervention group, from 14.2 to 35.7% in all subdomains, and −7.2 to 21.4% gains for the control group. Chi-square analysis showed that the intervention group significantly increased knowledge and understanding of the US juvenile justice system in two of the six curriculum subdomains. The intervention group also significantly increased perceptions of fairness of the juvenile justice system. This program can serve as a model curriculum for at-risk high school youth.

And justice for all: Determinants and effects of probation officers’ processing decisions regarding first-time juvenile offenders.

“…Our findings illustrate that the information that parents provide during probationary interviews is used to make processing decisions. Considering evidence that many parents whose children come in contact with the system lack knowledge of the basic workings of the system (Cavanagh & Cauffman, 2016), not to mention that adults and youth in general know little about the legal system (Flin, Stevenson, & Davies, 1989;Goodwin-De Faria & Marinos, 2012;Miner-Romanoff, 2015; This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…Our findings illustrate that the information that parents provide during probationary interviews is used to make processing decisions. Considering evidence that many parents whose children come in contact with the system lack knowledge of the basic workings of the system (Cavanagh & Cauffman, 2016), not to mention that adults and youth in general know little about the legal system (Flin, Stevenson, & Davies, 1989; Goodwin-De Faria & Marinos, 2012; Miner-Romanoff, 2015; Redding & Fuller, 2004; Redlich, Silverman, & Steiner, 2003), these findings suggest that parents should be made aware that the information that they provide during interactions with juvenile justice arbiters could be used when decisions are made about their child’s case. For parents, this means that the information they share regarding their child’s peers may significantly impact how justice system officials perceive their child, and in turn, how they process their child.…”