Executive Summary
FULL JOURNAL ISSUE: Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Justice
Executive Summary

American juvenile justice policy is in a period of transition. After a decade of declining juvenile crime rates, the moral panic that fueled the "get-tough" reforms of the 1990s has waned, and with it the enthusiasm for the reforms that eroded the boundaries between juvenile and criminal court and exposed juvenile offenders to harsher punishments. More moderate policies are gaining favor as politicians and the public consider the high economic costs and ineffectiveness of the more punitive policies toward juvenile offenders.

Why Should We Care About Juvenile Justice Reforms?
In the same way that the upward trend in juvenile violence during the 1980s set the stage for the spate of punitive legislation during the 1990s, the downward trend since the mid-1990s has led to discussions about returning to more moderate policies. Emerging social science evidence has showed that adolescents lack the emotional and mental maturity of adults, that most juvenile offenders should be given a chance to benefit from rehabilitation, and, perhaps most important, that trying juveniles as adults is simply not cost-effective. Evidence of the high economic cost of incarcerating juveniles in adult facilities together with studies finding that adolescents released from adult correctional facilities are more likely to re-offend than those sentenced to juvenile facilities have influenced the public debate.

Although juvenile crime rates are falling, they may rise again in the future, and a few well-publicized cases of youth violence can trigger reactions that shape policy in counterproductive ways. It is important to ground the discussion about the future of juvenile justice in a solid evidence base rather than have it shaped by panic and outrage over a "crime of the month."

Focus of the Volume
This volume examines juvenile justice policies and practices with the goal of promoting reforms to the justice system that are based on solid evidence that acknowledge that adolescents differ from adults in ways that policy ought to take into account, and that the antisocial acts that bring young people into contact with the justice system are often accompanied by other problems, most of which the justice system alone is ill-equipped to address.

Contributors to the volume address questions about policy and practice in the juvenile justice system including:

• What does current research on adolescent development suggest for policies towards young offenders?
• What tools do professionals in the justice system have to reliably assess a youth's future behavior and reactions to sanctions and treatments?
• What are the roots of and concerns over disproportionate minority contact with the law and differences in outcomes of that contact?
• What are the reasons for and results of the increased movement of juveniles into the adult system? Has this movement been effective in reducing juvenile crime and recidivism?
• What are the special challenges posed by female offenders? Do they differ from male offenders in reasons for contact with the system or in services needed?
• What is known about the intersection of mental illness and juvenile crime? What services should be provided to this heterogeneous group?
• Are the substance-abuse services currently offered to juvenile offenders consistent with what is known about best practices? How can services be improved to continue serving youth once they leave the system?

What Reforms are Critical for Creating an Effective and Fair Juvenile Justice Policy?

 

Adolescents are Different from Adults in Ways that Need to be Reflected in Policy and Practice.
The juvenile justice system is not without its problems, but it is better equipped to respond to adolescents' antisocial behavior than the adult system is. Trying juveniles as adults should be an infrequent practice reserved for adolescent offenders who have clearly demonstrated that they are unlikely to benefit from the services available within the juvenile system. Raising the minimum age of criminal court jurisdiction to eighteen in states that now set it lower will keep hundreds of thousands of adolescents out of the adult system annually, likely reducing repeat offending and increasing young people's chances of making a successful transition into productive adulthood.

Maintaining a Separate Juvenile Justice System is not Enough; It Must also be Revamped.
Many practices in the current juvenile justice system are costly, wasteful, and ineffective. Solid empirical evidence confirms the best practices in sanctioning and treating adolescent offenders, but those practices are seldom used. It is unclear whether policymakers are simply not aware of these practices or are reluctant to implement them. One prime example is the excessive use of incarceration, especially with nonviolent offenders who can be effectively treated in the community.

Policymakers Must Better Coordinate the Juvenile Justice System with Other Institutions.
Coordination must improve between the juvenile justice system and other youth-serving institutions such as mental health, child protection, and education. Many juveniles who enter the justice system bring with them a host of other problems, some of which likely contributed to their antisocial activity, and virtually all of which will influence the effectiveness of any sanctions and interventions provided by the justice system. One reason the juvenile justice system has such a mixed track record in preventing recidivism is that many of the young people it is charged with rehabilitating have problems that are well beyond its own expertise and resources. Reforming juvenile justice policy will require changes not only within the justice system but in the relation between the justice system and other government agencies.

The "get-tough" reforms implemented during the past two decades-reforms that criminalized delinquency and ignored the developmental realities of adolescence-have been both unnecessarily costly and of questionable effectiveness. The good news is that the policies advocated in this volume are not just proven to be effective-they are proven to save taxpayer dollars as well. More carefully matching offenders with the programs that meet their specific needs, diverting offenders who are not dangerous into community-based programs to treat family problems, mental illness, and substance abuse, and minimizing the numbers of juveniles sent into the adult correctional system will save dollars, reduce rates of recidivism, and lead to more productive lives.

Mapping Their Futures: Kids Foster School-Community Connections

Students at the Y-PLAN project create bonds through grassroots city planning.

by Sara Bernard

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On a sunny Saturday morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, two groups of high school juniors from nearby Emeryville and Richmond step from a school bus to check out an underused public space along the Berkeley waterfront -- a running path laid out on a landfill. The morning reconnaissance is part of Y-PLAN (Youth -- Plan, Learn, Act, Now), a city planning program run by the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Cities & Schools. As traffic barrels along the nearby freeway, students glance around curiously. They are new to this patch of land, even though it's relatively close to where many of them live.

AUDIO SLIDE SHOW: Putting Schools on the Map

Students in the Youth-Learn Plan Act Now (Y-PLAN) program learn about city planning -- and feel empowered to improve their cities

Produced by Sara Bernard.

To help the two groups of students get to know one another, Y-PLAN coordinators ask them to give their names as well as something they appreciate about their own neighborhoods. A few mention the freshness of living by the water; others refer to the ability to walk to a grocery store or local basketball court. One young woman, toeing the ground, shrugs her shoulders and mumbles that she can't think of anything she likes about the gritty section of Richmond where she lives. "I don't feel safe there," she says. Others nod knowingly.

For inner-city kids who've grown up with poverty and crime, this sentiment is understandable -- and not unusual. Because the idea of neighborhood has as many negatives as positives, many Y-PLAN students admit to approaching their local project assignments with initial skepticism. But after twelve weeks of working in teams with UC Berkeley mentors to gather a big-picture view of urban planning, including conducting surveys and site research, crafting proposals for two community centers in their respective neighborhoods, and presenting their ideas to a panel of urban-planning professionals, Y-PLAN participants had a new sense of possibilities.

"Y-PLAN changed my perspective," says Julio Arauz, a student at Richmond's John F. Kennedy High School. "It's not just the negative aspect you have to look at. You have to look at the potential -- the bright side of things."

Through the knowledge that they, too, can affect their communities, Y-PLAN students came to some of the same conclusions as the program's founders: Young people have valuable ideas to bring to the city planning table, and educational revitalization can be a catalyst for community revitalization -- and vice versa.

Project: Transformation

Now entering its tenth year, Y-PLAN is "the heart and heartbeat of the Center for Cities & Schools," says Deborah McKoy, creator of Y-PLAN and the center's founder and executive director. Winner of numerous awards from such groups as the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco and the California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, Y-PLAN is held every spring for twelve weeks, usually in conjunction with ninth-, tenth-, or eleventh-grade social studies or history classes in hard-pressed East Bay communities. Graduate and undergraduate students in urban planning at UC Berkeley lead a rigorous project-learning curriculum; through initial brainstorming sessions to design sessions to formal presentations for city officials, high school students become stakeholders in the city planning process.

"After they critically analyze the places they are in," says Center for Cities & Schools program manager Ariel Bierbaum, "they learn the process by which those places get transformed -- and their role in that change process."

Past Y-PLAN projects include the redesign of the historic West Oakland train station and a neglected Oakland minipark. This spring, students at Emeryville's Emery Secondary School and in John F. Kennedy High School's Architecture, Construction, and Engineering Technology (ACET) Academy developed recommendations for two projects: a wellness center located in an unused part of the Emeryville school building (designed to serve as a youth and family destination for health and recreational services) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and Park, a cornerstone of an ongoing revitalization of Richmond's Nystrom neighborhood.

For city planners and administrators who'd been given the task of developing youth programming for the centers, Y-PLAN offered an opportunity to hear from the kind of young people who would be served by centers like these.

Many of the projects Y-PLAN students work on are so large in scale that any effect of the students' input may not be immediately obvious -- no train station or community center can be redesigned in a matter of months. Although student feedback has sometimes influenced city planning decisions, it doesn't necessarily sway them. Still, the overall impact the program has on both the student and professional perspective appears to be significant.

"Y-PLAN makes folks who deal with cities and urban centers aware of the incredible importance and value of public schools," says Deborah McKoy. "Urban public schools are often seen as 'the problem,' when in fact what I think we learn from Y-PLAN is how much a part of the solution they are."

The Finals

At the two schools' final presentations for city administrators, council members, engineers, and architects, students showcased scale drawings and three-dimensional models of each building, backed up by explanatory posters and Microsoft PowerPoint slides with detailed proposals for how the buildings might best be used. Richmond students emphasized the necessity for a tight security staff, a public gun drop-off, and social services such as driver's education, job training, a walking path, and a child-care center. They also proposed replacing a dilapidated playground with a garden or even a café to draw in more "customers."

Emery students presented their wellness center as a place to do homework, make art, use computers, and see counselors. To transform what they described as "a very empty and very dark" space, they incorporated in their design plants, murals, and large windows. They also had a variety of propositions for unused public spaces nearby that could be converted into parks.

Some site aspects students referred to, such as a lack of trash cans or a prevalence of broken gates, "frankly had me squirming," says Richmond city manager Bill Lindsay. "Why aren't we doing this? These ideas are simple and practical and can happen right away." Because budgets are chronically tight, many of the larger, more hopeful suggestions had little chance of coming to fruition in the near term, but the presentations nevertheless had a revelatory and empowering effect.

"Seeing what they want for themselves has been an honor," says Emery participating teacher Madenh Hassan.

"Y-PLAN is a good opportunity for us, because we can actually speak our minds," says self-assured Emery student Chantell Brown. She hopes the Emeryville center will be, among other things, a safe place where young people can go after school -- something teens in low-income, high-crime communities desperately need. She was eager to tell developers, educators, and city administrators "what the 'real' is, what we see every day, what we have to go through."

"Sometimes adults don't take us seriously," adds her classmate, Yesenia Cuatlatl. "Y-PLAN is a good idea because sometimes we say, 'Oh, they really need to change this,' but we don't do anything; we just talk about it."

Judging from the enthusiasm of their audience, the students' work -- and the determination that went with it -- helped adults take them very seriously indeed. As Bill Lindsay told students, "If you ever want to talk about city management as a long-term goal, please give me a call."

Y-PLAN is transformative, says Ariel Bierbaum, for both the audience (civic leaders and urban planners) and for the young presenters, who "gain facility with a new vocabulary and advocate for themselves in a civic space. Even though it's just a semester, from what I've seen, I think the kids hold on to that."

Ripple Effects

Many students do hold onto the experience -- and not just symbolically. As Y-PLAN introduces them to a spectrum of employment opportunities in urban development, planning, politics, and administration, some pursue related careers, many at UC Berkeley. "Without doing Y-PLAN, I don't think many students would have been exposed to those professions, or would even have known they exist," says Jeff Vincent, deputy director of the Center for Cities & Schools. Although the university is a local resource for these students, some do not see prestigious UC Berkeley -- or any college -- as a real possibility. Y-PLAN, which includes a tour of the Berkeley campus and tips on the admissions process, helps make college a more accessible option.

Y-PLAN has also had ripple effects nationwide: From 2000 to 2005, the Center for Cities & Schools worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to adapt the Y-PLAN model to HOPE VI, a public-housing-redevelopment initiative. In partnership with thirty-seven cities and more than 500 students, Y-PLAN coordinators led multiple-day "urban-planning boot camps," creating, says Deborah McKoy, "a national network of youth who live in public housing, and who then were a part of the redevelopment of their communities."

And in 2007, Alissa Kronovet, a former Y-PLAN mentor and a graduate of the city planning master's program at UC Berkeley, gathered students from both coasts to form the Young Planners Network (YPN) -- what McKoy refers to as "advanced Y-PLAN" -- an opportunity for students to attend planning conferences and network with students from other cities across North America. The YPN was created after Kronovet and an initial group of fifteen students from the Bay Area and Brooklyn met and worked with students from New Orleans at last year's Planners Network Conference. Participants were eager to continue learning, meeting one another, and, as YPN participant and Emery student Deszeray Williams puts it, "make a career out of helping make my community a better place." In April 2008, 100 people attended the first YPN conference, held in New York City, and a conference is scheduled in Berkeley for next spring.

Now that the program has been running for almost a decade, Center for Cities & Schools staffers have put together a "Y-PLAN Handbook," a step-by-step guide available to the center's school and community partners. Although Y-PLAN is a labor- and resource-intensive undertaking, its founders have high hopes for its scalability -- and, ultimately, for sustained, systemic change in communities and schools.

It's a daunting task, of course, but the Y-PLAN approach embraces one key idea: Start with the kids. "Even though we may not say it, we care about our community as much as adults do," says student Chantell Brown. "We did Y-PLAN so that we could have a voice."

This article was also published in the October 2008 issue of Edutopia magazine.