The Return to Family Intervention in Youth Services: A Juvenile Justice Case Study

After more than a decade of relative neglect, youth services policymakers in the late 1980s began targeting the family as a primary focus of intervention in the response to a range of deviant behavior. One recent example of this return to family intervention has been a renewed emphasis on family services in juvenile courts and juvenile justice agencies. This case study describes one attempt to implement a new family-focused intervention approach as part of a larger return to treatment-oriented probation services in an urban juvenile justice system. Based on interviews and participant observation data gathered during a nine month field study in a Florida county, this paper describes ideological resistance, role conflict, and the informal adaptations of delinquency case managers in response to the new demands of this agenda. Implications for implementation of such policies in juvenile justice and other social service organizations, as well as conceptual questions about the logic and efficacy of the family focus policy itself, are discussed

The Return to Family Intervention in Youth Services: A Juvenile Justice Case Study

After more than a decade of relative neglect, youth services policymakers in the late 1980s began targeting the family as a primary focus of intervention in the response to a range of deviant behavior. One recent example of this return to family intervention has been a renewed emphasis on family services in juvenile courts and juvenile justice agencies. This case study describes one attempt to implement a new family-focused intervention approach as part of a larger return to treatment-oriented probation services in an urban juvenile justice system. Based on interviews and participant observation data gathered during a nine month field study in a Florida county, this paper describes ideological resistance, role conflict, and the informal adaptations of delinquency case managers in response to the new demands of this agenda. Implications for implementation of such policies in juvenile justice and other social service organizations, as well as conceptual questions about the logic and efficacy of the family focus policy itself, are discussed

Reluctant Participants in Restorative Justice? Youthful Offenders and their Parents

This paper examines offender and parental involvement in the Vermont Juvenile Restorative Panels Program. In this program, juvenile offenders on probation appear before citizen-run boards to negotiate the terms of their probation, which may include apologies, community service, restitution, and competency development tasks. Victims and parents of the offender also participate. This study reports findings from a qualitative analysis of 22 cases, including observations of panel meetings and interviews with program coordinators, offenders, parents, and victims. We find that offenders vary in the level of participation as well as in their willingness to take responsibility. Parents do not understand the program well, worry about their child’s likelihood of compliance, but generally support the goals of the program. Implications of these findings for restorative practices with juveniles is explored in the concluding section

Neighborhood Accountability Boards: The Strength of Weak Practices and Prospects for a “Community Building” Restorative Model

The Article focuses on neighborhood accountability boards (NABs) as restorative justice programs. Examples of NABs in communities include victim-offender mediation (VOM), peacemaking circles, and social support groups for offenders and victims. The authors discuss how NABs lessen the conditions that foster crime and provide community support for at-risk people

Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development

Positive youth development could be an effective framework for designing general interventions for young offenders. Such a framework would encourage youth justice systems to focus on protective factors and risk factors, strengths, problems, and broader efforts to facilitate successful transitions to adulthood for justice-involved youth. The positive youth development approach supports youth in successfully transitioning from adolescence to early adulthood by encouraging young people to develop useful skills and competencies and build stronger connections with pro-social peers, families, and communities (Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, & Ruth, 2005). Young people engaged with trustworthy adults and peers to pursue meaningful activities and acquire new skills are more likely to build the developmental assets needed for a positive adulthood. These assets include physical and psychological safety; age-appropriate and meaningful relationships; opportunities to belong; positive social norms; self-efficacy; opportunities for skill-building and collective recognition; and the integration of family, school, and community resources (Gardner, Roth, & Brooks-Gunn, 2008)

Implementing detention intake reform: The judicial response

This study examines several influences on judges\u27 attitudes toward implementation of new detention intake policies in Florida. Based on a statewide survey of all circuit judges on the juvenile bench, the analysis focuses specifically on the relative impact of judges\u27 agreement with the statutory purpose of detention, working relationships with other juvenile justice professionals, and a variety of demographic and occupational variables on support for these reforms. The findings, which indicate that agreement with the statutory purpose of detention exerts the dominant influence, have implications for policy-makers interested in improving the implementation process in juvenile justice. © 1996 Sage Publications, Inc