Focusing Juvenile Justice on Positive Youth Development

By Jeffrey Butts, Susan Mayer, and Gretchen Ruth

Butts, J., Mayer, S., & Ruth, G. (2005). Focusing juvenile justice on positive youth development: Issue Brief #105. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children.

Full report available here (PDF).

Summary by Sarah Tetteyfio, NDTAC | stetteyfio@air.org
 

According to this October 2005 Chapin Hall Center for Children Issue Brief, Focusing Juvenile Justice on Positive Youth Development, current juvenile justice programming does not adequately address the needs of most offenders. The average or typical offender commits crimes involving property, status offenses, or other nonviolent crimes. Although the majority of cases involving juveniles fit into this category, the juvenile justice system has not developed effective intervention plans or programs to accommodate this large group of offenders. The authors argue that valuable and successful programs that help youth build relationships with adults and the community and change delinquent behavior patterns are more suitable for this group than traditional programs currently used. One promising framework, positive youth development (PYD), is “a comprehensive way of thinking about the development of children and youth and the factors that facilitate or impede their individual growth and their achievement of key developmental stages” (p. 4). The underlying concepts of PYD frameworks include:

1. A focus on strengths and assets rather than deficits and problems
2. The acquisition of strengths and assets through positive relationships, especially with prosocial and caring adults
3. The development of youth assets in multiple contexts and environments (e.g., schools, workplaces, community organizations, social programs, and neighborhoods) (p. 5)

Included in the brief is a side-by-side comparison of the missions, key strategies, targets, purposes, intervention methods, and roles of youth in traditional juvenile justice and PYD.

The brief also notes that there are many challenges to applying PYD to juvenile justice systems, which makes research in this area important. Questions to be answered by future research and evaluation include:

• Do PYD resources cause youth to reverse their course and avoid future problems?
• Does the juvenile justice system know how to attach youth to the social resources identified by PYD?
• How much does a genuine PYD strategy cost?
• Is the evidence base behind PYD strong enough to justify a fundamental shift in juvenile justice policy?
• How many communities have enough youth development opportunities and adult volunteers to implement an effective PYD strategy for young offenders?
• What is the motivation for communities and policymakers to invest time, energy, and resources in a PYD approach for typical or average offenders?
• What practical benefit comes with improving juvenile justice interventions for youth charged with less serious and nonviolent offenses?
• Who pays for such an effort?

The shift to PYD will be a long and gradual process. The next step, according to the authors, is to experiment with PYD programming. Pilot programs can provide an opportunity to train staff, monitor progress, adjust program designs, and compare outcomes with those of traditional juvenile justice services.

Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago is a policy research center dedicated to bringing sound information, rigorous analysis, innovative ideas, and an independent multidisciplinary perspective to bear on policies and programs affecting children. For more information on the Center, please visit their Web site at http://www.chapinhall.org.

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