APPA’s goal in setting forth this vision statement is to work with probation professionals, youth, and community stakeholders to establish a set of core principles that we believe should be incorporated into every juvenile justice agency. We know there are many agencies already on this path, and others that are just starting. Ultimately, our aim is to create a system-wide approach to probation that incorporates helping youth desist from delinquent behavior and achieve long-term success.
The 10 Core Principles of Juvenile Probation
For those youth who do require supervision, probation’s purpose should be to provide guidance, support, assistance, and opportunities that promote young people’s success and, in turn, protect public safety.
In pursuing this purpose, probation departments should be guided by 10 core principles:
1. Center youth and families to individualize probation.
The probation experience must begin with a meaningful discussion between the probation officer, the young person, and their family/support team to establish the expectations for supervision. These conversations should lead to a success plan that reflects not only the findings of a risk-need assessment or a preset list of probation-sponsored programs and services, but also a unique set of goals and activities calibrated to maximize the young person’s growth and success.
2. Promote equity regarding race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status.
Probation has an obligation to promote equity for youth of color — and for girls, LGBTQ youth, youth with disabilities, and youth and families who are not native English speakers — and to ensure that every young person is treated equitably, no matter where they live or the resources available in their community.
3. Align practice with research on adolescent development.
Adolescent development and brain research make clear that this period of life is unique and critically important to youth development. It is a time of exploring identities, pushing boundaries, and testing authority. By nature, adolescents are prone to risk-taking and sensation-seeking and are more influenced by peers than adults. As a result, adolescents are more inclined to rule-breaking than adults, but they are also very likely to grow out of such behaviors on their own. Juvenile probation and the juvenile justice system generally must be guided by this research and, particularly, by the understanding that youth require agency and legitimate pathways forward to be successful.
4. Minimize conditions of probation.
Probation should set goals to help youth improve their behavior over time and reduce the frequency and seriousness of problematic behaviors, rather than setting hard and fast rules and demanding immediate compliance through traditional conditions of supervision. Requiring youth on probation to follow long lists of rules and conditions, or to comply perfectly with any rule, flies in the face of adolescent development research and should be abandoned as a probation practice. Because adolescents have difficulty controlling impulses, resisting peer pressure, weighing consequences, and exercising good judgement, mistakes and lapses must be expected.
5. Minimize confinement.
Probation should seek to minimize the use of confinement and should remove young people from their homes only when they pose an immediate risk to the health and safety of others, and then only for the shortest period possible. Research shows that removing youth from their homes and placing them in facilities causes lasting damage, including heightening dropout rates, reducing college enrollment as well as future employment and income, harming physical and mental health, and greatly increasing future involvement with the justice system.
6. Look to encourage success, not punish failure.
Juvenile probation is most effective when it focuses more on support than punishment, more on assistance than control, and more on motivating positive behavior change through rewards, incentives, and encouragement rather than trying to deter delinquent behavior through threats, punishments, and, ultimately, confinement. Although public safety will always remain a core concern of probation, probation personnel must recognize that the only effective route to public safety is through positive behavior change. Therefore, probation must be guided by the evidence regarding what works to foster personal growth and behavior change and must refrain from taking punitive steps in the name of public safety that research indicates are ineffective in changing adolescent behavior.
7. Be a bridge to opportunity and connection in the community.
Probation should work in close partnership with families and communities and must recognize that a key part of its role is connecting youth with organizations and resources that can benefit the young person now and in the future. Probation officers, who can and often do play a pivotal positive role in young people’s lives, must recognize that they are only involved with youth for a short period and that parents and families remain the most important people in young people’s lives.
8. Be a coach, teacher, mentor, and advocate — not a compliance monitor.
Probation is most effective when officers build warm, empathetic, trusting relationships with youth and employ core correctional practices to help young people learn to set realistic goals, recognize negative behavior patterns, identify individual-level and system-level barriers, build self-awareness, learn problem-solving skills, and access resources in the community. Focusing on compliance with rules undercuts these priorities and undermines probation’s effectiveness.
9. Aim for progress, not perfection.
Probation experiences should last only as long as necessary to stabilize the young person’s behavior and set them on a course for future success. Achieving a limited number of top goals to address factors that led to delinquent conduct and connecting young people with relevant services and positive youth development activities should be the primary focus. Probation cannot solve all the challenges young people face before releasing them from supervision.
10. Hold probation accountable for meaningful results.
APPA members have a part to play in a youth’s success while on supervision. We create the context in which youth can change and provide the opportunities for them to take the first steps to success. It is our responsibility to ensure that our probation departments, as well as our communities, are providing the most effective opportunities for young people to be successful. If a youth fails to succeed, we fail to succeed. The return to court of a young person on probation, either for a rules violation or a new offense, represents a failure not only for the youth but also for the entire juvenile justice system. The young person, however, is often the only one who is held accountable. That needs to change. Alongside other public agencies responsible for serving youth — education, child welfare, and mental and behavioral health systems — probation must be held accountable for results. More specifically, probation must be held accountable for helping young people succeed. Probation agencies must set goals, monitor progress, report young people’s achievement of critical milestones, and find ways to measure their impact on the lives of youth. To do this, probation must solicit and incorporate feedback from the youth and families the department serves to ensure that probation is meeting their needs and supporting their success.
Conclusion
The vision presented on this page is merely a first step. For some, it will represent an aspirational statement; for others, an affirmation of what they are already working toward. We are calling for all juvenile probation departments across the nation to bring their practices in line with these 10 principles. APPA is looking forward to working directly with juvenile probation departments; youth, their families, and support teams; and community stakeholders to develop practical models to help agencies continue to support young people’s success.
Every day, juvenile probation professionals do their very best to help steer young people away from delinquency and toward success. APPA is calling for probation departments to adopt these core principles to position probation professionals to achieve more, to succeed more often, and to help young people realize their full potential.