JPRC

Youth Voice in Juvenile Justice Research

Justice Systems

Youth Voice in Juvenile Justice Research

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Young people are experts on the juvenile justice system, but their experiences, feelings, and perspectives are not often heard or respected.

This research captures interviews about the juvenile justice system from young people aged 18 to 24 years old who have lived experience with the system and provides valuable insights on how research can help improve the system for young people. Interviewees answered questions about what they thought of the juvenile justice system, what could be changed, what could be done better to help young people be successful, and what the greatest challenges are for young people who interact with the system.

The summary includes the following sections:

  • A description of the participants
  • An overview of participant perspectives on the juvenile justice system
  • Areas of the juvenile justice system that participants suggested as topics for future research
  • Participants’ recommendations for how researchers can create positive, meaningful opportunities for young people to participate and partner in such research

Reflections on Applying Principles of Equitable Evaluation

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Equitable evaluation is an approach that addresses the dynamics and practices that have historically undervalued the voices, knowledge, expertise, capacity, and experiences of all evaluation participants and stakeholders, particularly people of color and other marginalized groups.

The principles of equitable evaluation promise to add value to the research process and its outcomes. Significantly, the implementation of these principles comes with important decisions related to time, funding, and definitions for rigor in research.

This report, produced by the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center, is based on the authors’ experiences, as well as on many thoughtful conversations with the Annie E. Casey Foundation over the course of several years of collaborative work. The brief explores the following questions:

Alternatives to Juvenile Incarceration

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Data on incarceration indicate that despite decreases in enrollment in juvenile institutions, the United States incarcerates more youth per capita than any other developed nation. Research continues to show racial and ethnic disparities between who gets incarcerated and who does not, reinforcing the discrimination and harm of incarceration. Our team contributed a chapter, “Alternatives to Juvenile Incarceration,” to the Handbook of Issues in Criminal Justice Reform in the United States. The chapter summarizes incarceration alternatives, such as Day Reporting Centers (DRCs) at residential facilities that allow youth to avoid incarceration. Our chapter concludes with recommendations for juvenile justice reform.

Partnering on Local Youth Reentry Data and Performance Measurement Technical Assistance

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We will be working in partnership with Performance Base Standards (PbS) to provide technical assistance for the Second Chance Act Youth Reentry: Building Local Youth Reentry Data and Performance Measurement Program. This project is being funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The JPRC will support PbS by providing technical assistance to selected sites for reentry data capacity improvement. This includes lending its expertise to the identification of local content for the mobile reentry application being built for young people and the consideration of additional data to be collected as part of the reentry application to advance juvenile justice research.

Serving as a Partner on the Neglected and Delinquent Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center

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Our team will be working in partnership with Longevity Inc. as they lead the Neglected and Delinquent Technical Assistance Center (NDTAC). The NDTAC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). The JPRC will provide technical assistance to NDTAC state coordinators to identify challenges facing the NDTAC community, best practices in support of coordinators on a myriad of issues and/or access to resources to support their success, and facilitate webinars, communities of practice, and annual conferences sessions.

New Evaluation of Boston University ICAC Training

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Through a recently awarded grant to Boston University from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, we will evaluate investigative training that will be developed to support Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces. Trainings developed by Boston University will focus on Internet of Things (IoT) and cryptocurrency tracking and we will collect information to improve the trainings as they are developed and piloted with ICAC investigators.