Core Principles

Prevention is the most constructive way to build competent, engaged youth and safe communities. Effective prevention efforts – in the form of mentoring initiatives, after-school programs, family strengthening services, youth leadership development, etc. – reduce victimization, keep children involved in productive activities, and provide for the cost-effective use of public resources. The balance of federal juvenile justice funding should go towards community-connected prevention and rehabilitation, rather than interdiction and incarceration.Involved adults are necessary to keep young people active in their own rehabilitation. Efforts should be made to maintain and develop healthy connections between youths and their communities. Systems and communities should recognize that strong community ties frequently help foster a sense of belonging. Communities should also be mindful of the benefits that youth receive from positive role models and strong support networks.

An overwhelming body of research shows that parents and families are crucial to successful youth development.^[1]  Juvenile justice systems should strive to include family members as partners.  Systems should also include formalized opportunities for youth and family input on programs and policies.

Involved adults are necessary to keep young people active in their own rehabilitation. Efforts should be made to maintain and develop healthy connections between youths and their communities. Systems and communities should recognize that strong community ties frequently help foster a sense of belonging. Communities should also be mindful of the benefits that youth receive from positive role models and strong support networks.

¹ See The National Academies Press. Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. p. 1. 2002; J.D. Hawkins and R.F. Catalano, Jr. Communities That Care: Risk-Focused Approach Using the Social Development Strategy: An Approach to Reducing Adolescent Problem Behaviors. 1993.

Youth are often better served if involvement in the justice system can be avoided. Most youth age out of delinquent behavior without any formal justice-system intervention. Unnecessarily exposing young people to the juvenile justice system can actually encourage future criminal activity rather than deter it. For many youth entering the justice system, the consequences of a single lapse in judgment can haunt them for a lifetime.

Institutionalizing young people must become the choice of last resort, reserved only for those who pose such a serious threat that no other solution would protect public safety. Incarceration should especially be avoided where the child has engaged in a behavior that violates the law only because they are younger than age 18. Incarcerating youth disrupts their positive social development and exposes them to negative behaviors. Youth should never be placed in a facility solely because of their family situation or social service needs. Though existing resources vary among systems, we should strive to reduce the number of our youth who are incarcerated.

The overwhelming majority of justice-involved youth can be served, and the public kept safe, by community-based services that align with the best practices in the field. Jurisdictions can distinguish between youth who pose risks to public safety and those who can be placed in less-restrictive settings by using validated risk and needs assessments that measure risk to public safety and guide placement decisions; expedited case processing; and sentencing guidelines..

In nearly every state, at all decision points, in every juvenile offense category—person, property, drug, and public order—youth of color often receive harsher sentences and fewer services than white youth who have committed the same category of offenses. ^[1]  Confidential youth surveys show that during adolescence, youth of all races and ethnicities become involved in delinquent behaviors with only modest differences in the frequency and severity of their lawbreaking. Yet African-American youth are arrested at dramatically higher rates than white youth for all types of crime. Once arrested, they are more likely to be detained, formally charged in juvenile court, placed in a locked correctional facility, waived to adult court, and incarcerated in an adult facility.^[2]

Jurisdictions can significantly reduce racial and ethnic disparities in their juvenile justice systems. They can use data to detect disparate treatment. They can eliminate subjectivity from decision-making with objective screening instruments. Risk assessments and alternatives to detention can help reduce the disproportionate share of children of color in the justice system. When risk assessment tools help ensure that only high-risk youth are incarcerated, and judges have alternatives to detention, children of color are treated more fairly, the public is safer, and the community has lower incarceration rates. Jurisdictions can develop culturally competent programming, create a system of non-secure graduated sanctions for youth, and employ mechanisms to divert youth of color from secure confinement.

¹ “In most jurisdictions, disproportionate juvenile minority representation is not limited only to secure confinement; it is evident at nearly all contact points on the juvenile justice system continuum.” Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. OJJDP In Focus: Disproportionate Minority Contact. See also, Puzzanchera, Charles. Juvenile Court Statistics 2011. (showing that youth of color are more likely to be referred to the courts, detained, and sent to out-of-home placements).   

² Annie E. Casey Foundation. A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform. p. 16.

Effective assistance of counsel is essential to reducing unnecessary detention, transfer to adult court, and incarceration of young people. Youth in delinquency cases have a constitutional right to counsel, as the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in the 1967 landmark case, In re Gault. Yet across the country, youth too often face court hearings without the effective assistance of counsel, sometimes appointed as little as five minutes before the case is called, and many waive their right to counsel altogether. Like all people, youth need access to qualified, well-resourced defense counsel throughout the entire juvenile or criminal court process.

Beneficial reforms include early assignment of counsel; policies that ensure that all youth are represented; specialized training for attorneys on topics such as adolescent development, mental health, and special education; and cross-system representation when adolescents are involved in multiple systems such as special education and child welfare. An informed defense attorney can also ensure that youth are not subject to unwarranted collateral consequences of juvenile justice-involvement that can affect education, employment, and residence.Involved adults are necessary to keep young people active in their own rehabilitation. Efforts should be made to maintain and develop healthy connections between youths and their communities. Systems and communities should recognize that strong community ties frequently help foster a sense of belonging. Communities should also be mindful of the benefits that youth receive from positive role models and strong support networks.

Community-based programs positively change the trajectories of young people’s lives. Jurisdictions are building continuums of alternative-to-placement programs with graduated levels of supervision and services to ensure youth are placed in programs that help them progress personally. Having a variety of community programming available for youth provides options for decision-makers and therefore options for youth.

Community-based alternative-to-placement programs range from probation to wraparound services with intensive supervision. They can include home confinement, alternative education, family preservation, mentoring, victim-offender meditation, restitution, community services, respite care, and day and evening reporting centers with educational, recreational, and counseling opportunities. Programs can stand alone or be housed in existing organizations serving a broad range of youth.

Jurisdictions should be encouraged to adopt evidence-based and evidence-informed programming as well as broaden the evidence-based field by supporting evaluations of new, innovative programs. Beneficial reforms include early assignment of counsel; policies that ensure that all youth are represented; specialized training for attorneys on topics such as adolescent development, mental health, and special education; and cross-system representation when adolescents are involved in multiple systems such as special education and child welfare. An informed defense attorney can also ensure that youth are not subject to unwarranted collateral consequences of juvenile justice-involvement that can affect education, employment, and residence.Involved adults are necessary to keep young people active in their own rehabilitation. Efforts should be made to maintain and develop healthy connections between youths and their communities. Systems and communities should recognize that strong community ties frequently help foster a sense of belonging. Communities should also be mindful of the benefits that youth receive from positive role models and strong support networks.

Youth with mental health needs are often inappropriately placed in the juvenile justice system. Research shows that 70 percent of youth involved with the juvenile justice system meet the criteria for at least one mental health or substance abuse disorder.^[1]  Juvenile justice systems should not be used as way stations where youth are confined solely due to lack of community mental health treatment. Many juvenile justice facilities are often overcrowded and understaffed and youth are exposed to stress, trauma, and serious harms. Youth who have behavioral and mental health needs are particularly vulnerable to these harms, which may result in serious injuries, self-mutilation, suicides, and death.

Juvenile justice involvement is only appropriate when a youth’s behavior—not his or her needs or disabilities—is the primary reason for confinement. Vulnerable youth can be identified through comprehensive screening and assessments in order to provide appropriate treatment, supports, and services. Mechanisms to divert youth such as mental health courts, wraparounds, and referrals to community-based programs are all gaining recognition as strategies for getting justice-involved youth into mental health services, which are less expensive and more effective settings for meeting their needs. 

¹ Jennie Shufelt and Joseph Cocozza. Youth and Mental Health Disorders in the Juvenile Justice System: Results from a Multi-State Prevalence Study. National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. June 2006.

Traditional juvenile correctional institutions are not effective at rehabilitating youth. Placing youth in large, group confinement facilities is not justified from the perspective of treatment effectiveness or the prevention of future recidivism.  Jurisdictions should phase out large, prison-like institutions and instead use home- and community-based programs that provide youth the services they need. This is particularly true when dealing with youth who have engaged in status offense behaviors and other similar groups of young people.  When a more secure placement is required, states should use small, home-like secure facilities because small facilities^[1] are better able to give young people the care they need.

The best facilities are run by youth specialists who are highly motivated and well trained, most with a college degree. The culture and the physical environment are conducive to positive youth development and rehabilitation. These facilities are located close to the communities where young people live, allowing families to repair and renew relationships and practice skills for addressing challenges youth face upon release. Staff members provide developmentally appropriate individual and group programming with the goal of enabling youth to reintegrate into their communities. Lengths of stay are determined by achievement of treatment goals, and youth are released when treatment goals are met.

¹ The use of small rehabilitative facilities was first developed in Missouri. These facilities house no more than 40 young people at a time, and are staffed by an ethnically diverse group of people who are trained in youth development. The facilities have proven successful, and young people who leave the facilities are less likely to be rearrested when compared to youth who are incarcerated in traditional detention facilities, where more than 100 youth are frequently housed in tight quarters. See The Missouri Model: Reinventing the Practice of Rehabilitating Youthful Offenders.

The best reentry programs begin while a youth is still confined. Nearly 100,000 youth are released from juvenile justice institutions each year.^[1] Many are returned to families struggling with poverty in blighted neighborhoods with high crime rates, few programs, and poorly performing schools. Key to success is connecting youth to people, programs, and services that reinforce their rehabilitation and help them become successful and productive adults.

Successful aftercare and reentry programs require coordination between multiple government agencies, private and nonprofit providers, not only to develop new services, but to help youth better access existing services. Workforce development—helping youth attain job skills and earn money—is a key motivator for adolescents increasing their commitment to and enthusiasm for learning. Youth must have quick access to mental health and substance abuse services as needed, and they must receive strong support from family and other caring adults.

¹ H. Synder. An Empirical Portrait of The Youth Reentry Population. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 2, 1, 39‐55.

Currently an estimated 200,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the United States.^[1] During the 1990s—the era when many of our most punitive criminal justice policies were developed—49 states altered their laws to increase the number of minors being tried as adults. On any given day, 10,000 youth are detained or incarcerated in adult jails and prisons. Studies show that youth held in adult facilities are 36 times more likely to commit suicide and are at the greatest risk of sexual victimization.^[2] Youth of color are over-represented in the ranks of juveniles being referred to adult court. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that transferring youth to the adult criminal justice system does not protect the community and substantially increases the likelihood that youth will re-offend.^[3]

Systems should recognize the growing body of research related to adolescent brain development and work to address young people’s needs. This research has shown that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed during adolescence and that as a result youth are more likely to take risks and engage in impulsive behaviors.^[4]

¹ C. Angel. Crime Victims Meet Their Offenders: Testing the Impact of Restorative Justice Conferences on Victims’ Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, A Dissertation in Nursing and Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. 2005.

² Campaign for Youth Justice. Key Facts: Youth in the Justice System. June 2010.

³ Campaign for Youth Justice. Key Facts: Youth in the Justice System. June 2010.

⁴ Daniel Romer. Adolescent Risk Taking, Impulsivity, and Brain Development: Implications for Prevention. Vol. 52. Issue 3. p. 263.