< Previous30 PERSPECTIVES VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 Steinberg, L. (2009). Adolescent development and juvenile justice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology , 5, 459-485. Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., Woolard, J., Graham, S., & Banich, M. (2009). Are adolescents less mature than adults? Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip- flop.” American Psychologist , 64 (7), Van Hasselt, V. B., & Hersen, M. (1998). Handbook of psychological treatment protocols for children and adolescents . Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Walker, S. C., Valencia, E., Miller, S., Pearson, K., Jewell, C., Tran, J., & Thompson, A. (2019). Developmentally-Grounded Approaches to Juvenile Probation Practice: A Case Study. Fed. Probation, 83 , 33. Zettler, H. R., Morris, R. G., Piquero, A. R., & Cardwell, S. M. (2015). Assessing the celerity of arrest on 3-year recidivism patterns in a sample of criminal defendants. Journal of Criminal 32 PERSPECTIVES VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation INCENTIVES INSPIRE POSITIVE BEHAVIOR CHANGE IN YOUTH ON PROBATION BY THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION. THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE BLOG, INCENTIVES INSPIRE POSITIVE BEHAVIOR CHANGE IN YOUTH ON PROBATION, ON AECF.ORG.33 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation Offering incentives beats traditional supervision in encouraging positive behavior change among youth on probation, according to a 2019 study funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF). That study, which was conducted by the Center for the Study and Advancement of Justice Effectiveness (SAJE Center) and the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, focused on Opportunity-Based Probation, a program of the Pierce County, Washington, Juvenile Court (AECF, 2018; SAJE Center, 2009). How Opportunity-Based Probation Works Opportunity-based probation aims to help youth build skills, develop responsibility, and avoid being arrested again. Young people, their parents and/or other caregivers, and probation staff work together to develop a case plan and define weekly goals. A response grid lays out how youth can earn points for positive behaviors and meeting milestones, and these points can then be redeemed for rewards (such as movie theater tickets) or enrichment activities in the community (i.e., a job shadowing opportunity) (AECF, January 2020). When youth reach certain benchmarks, they are allowed to have fewer supervision meetings and ultimately can earn early release from probation. If a young person fails to meet goals or violates probation agreement terms, the responses are not oriented toward sanctions or detention. Rather, the young person may temporarily lose the ability to earn and redeem points or other privileges, and participation in a problem-solving conversation may be required. Only youth with negative conduct that endangers public safety end up returning to court. Staff who are involved in implementation have reported that participants have been well disposed and responsive to this new approach. “Probation counselors and parents feel really good about this model,” says Pierce County Juvenile Court Probation Manager Kevin Williams. “It’s the right spirit…and young people really like that they can earn their way off probation” (AECF, March 2020). Results by the Numbers The evaluation’s first phase, which spanned an 18-month period from 2017 to 2018 , compared outcomes for youth involved in Opportunity-Based Probation versus traditional supervision. Measuring by two important outcome variables, it was found that participants in the incentive-based approach logged 60% fewer new referrals to court and 67% fewer probation violations compared to their traditionally supported peers. Various qualitative outcomes were assessed as well. Additional information on the study design and findings may be found in SAJE Center’s report (2019). Why Opportunity-Based Probation Works Pierce County’s Opportunity-Based Probation program is rooted in research that indicates young people respond better to rewards than they do to threats of punishment. The program’s collaborative case-planning approach values youth voices and family connections, and its use of short-term, manageable goals recognizes that youth are still developing a capacity for longer-term forward thinking. The evaluation’s next phase includes a review of feedback from youths and families that will help the researchers determine whether the program has indeed helped strengthen these important connections.34 PERSPECTIVES VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation The data shows a reduced likelihood of court referrals and probation violations, and the initial outcomes have been quite promising. Moreover, the statistics reflect outcomes for real people, so these results mean there was a positive impact on the actual lives of many individuals in Pierce County. It is also worth noting that 53% of all Opportunity-Based Probation participants during the study were young people of color, so incentive-based approaches may be a promising option for helping youth of color succeed on probation and for eliminating disparities related to probation. 35 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation References Annie E. Casey Foundation (2018, May 28). Pierce County: Trailblazer for probation transformation [Web log post]. Retrieved Annie E. Casey Foundation (2020, January 8). Supporting youth in trouble with the law in their communities [Web log post]. Annie E. Casey Foundation (2020, March 30). Incentives inspire positive behavior change in youth on probation [Web log Center for the Study and Advancement of Justice Effectiveness (SAJE Center). (2019). Opportunity-Based Probation (OBP): A Brief Report. Seattle, WA. 36 PERSPECTIVES VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation DO FAMILIAR REFORM EFFORTS TACKLE THE FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES FACING JUVENILE PROBATION? BY: THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION. THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM TRANSFORMING JUVENILE PROBATION: A VISION FOR GETTING IT RIGHT ON AECF.ORG.37 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation The Annie E. Casey Foundation recognizes that many of those in the juvenile justice field have been working hard to improve juvenile probation outcomes. Nonetheless, there’s a key difference between most current efforts to boost juvenile probation’s effectiveness and the Foundation’s vision of a fundamental transformation of juvenile probation. A core component of that vision is the belief that the juvenile probation field needs a much clearer consensus about whom probation is meant to serve and what it is meant to accomplish in order to make substantial progress at a systemic level. Transformational change, according to the Foundation, means embracing a new understanding of the purpose of juvenile probation, recognizing that it should be promoting young people’s personal growth and long-term success. It means reinventing the role of probation officers so that they serve as coaches who collaborate and share responsibility with families and community partners and who engage with young people themselves to achieve success. It means operationalizing essential values around racial and ethnic equity and using a strengths-based approach toward youth that is age appropriate and responsive to trauma. Features of Ongoing Initiatives An overview of some of the most prominent reform initiatives will help clarify the distinction between the above transformational approach and efforts made to date. Several initiatives that have emerged in recent years to boost probation’s effectiveness are certainly noteworthy. The University of Cincinnati’s Effective Practices in Community Supervision (EPICS) has provided training and coaching sessions for officers in more than 80 probation agencies nationwide serving juvenile and/or adult populations (Wogan, 2015). This training aims to boost such skills as building effective relationships with young people, teaching important cognitive and behavioral skills, and individualizing young people’s case plans based on objective risk and needs assessments. The Carey Guides are a set of 33 user- friendly handbooks designed to help probation officers and other corrections professionals apply research-informed practices with youth or adults on their caseloads. • The Robert F. Kennedy National Re- source Center for Juvenile Justice has developed an intensive “probation system review” process to help juvenile probation agencies optimize their performance. In addition to these probation-specific approaches, three more broadly focused juvenile justice reform strategies have emerged in recent years with significant implications for probation practice: Several initiatives provide support for effective utilization of risk and needs assessment instruments through staff training on how to conduct the assessment and help in developing policies and practices to ensure that assessment findings are used properly (see Vincent, Guy, Gershenson & McCabe, 2012) Some jurisdictions have begun to assess the effectiveness of their intervention programs— and to address identified shortcomings—using the Correctional Program Checklist or the Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEP), both of which measure programs’ adherence to an extensive array of research- informed quality measures. The federal Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention’s Juvenile Justice Reform and Reinvestment Initiative has funded 38 PERSPECTIVES VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3 Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation a handful of jurisdictions nationwide to enable them to adopt best practice reforms such as utilizing empirically based risk and needs assessments, developing dispositional matrices, and using the SPEP rating system to assess and improve intervention programs for juvenile justice youth. These reform models target critical needs and show promise for addressing some of the challenges facing juvenile probation agencies. Most of them can help probation officers in making more accurate assessments, strengthening their skills in interacting with youth, and doing a better job of matching the type and intensity of interventions to the identified risk and needs factors of individual youth. Moreover, all the reform strategies described here are informed by research and employ thoughtful, innovative methods to provide needed assistance in these areas. In spite of their strengths, none of the prominent probation reform efforts mentioned above, alone or in combination, are sufficient to tackle the fundamental challenges facing juvenile probation. Why not? Too Narrow a Focus By and large, prominent juvenile probation reform efforts target only some of the high-priority challenges facing probation. Other key areas of need are either neglected by the existing reform strategies or receive only secondary emphasis. What’s missing? • Insufficient attention to the need for reducing probation popula- tions and expanding court di- version . While reducing caseloads is consistent with prominent reform efforts and/or can be a by-product of apply- ing such models, none have identified reducing probation caseloads as an explicit outcome goal. Likewise, none have devoted significant attention to the challenges associated with substantially expanding and improving available diversion alternatives, as would be re- quired to enable juvenile courts and probation agencies to heed the evidence and limit probation to youth at higher risk of reoffending. • Muted focus on racial and ethnic equity. Despite the system’s vast dis- parities, probation reform models have not prioritized racial and ethnic equity, and they have not promoted rigorous or promising new approaches for elim- inating disparities. In fact, more than a decade after the adoption of the risk, need, and responsivity principles in ju- venile probation, national data show that the disparities in confinement for African-American, Latino, and American Indian youth are greater than they were 15 years ago. • Inadequate attention to empow- ering families . Most probation reform models concentrate primarily on improving the practices of individual probation officers or the quality of intervention programs. None of them promote an ambitious change strategy for improving probation’s relation- ships with parents and family members—or providing families with assistance they may need to support their system-involved chil- dren. • Too few alliances with community partners. Reform efforts are not explicit enough about partnering with communi- ty-based organizations and community members to expand effective, culturally grounded community responses that reso- nate with youth, build on their innate resil-39 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION Transforming Juvenile ProbationTransforming Juvenile Probation ience and connect them to positive youth opportunities. Probation departments could implement mentoring, credible messenger, or advocate-type programs that use staff from the communities being served. De- partments could fund local organizations to conduct programs that build skills, improve decision making, or offer enrichment activ- ities. • Limited focus on positive youth development . None of the existing probation reform strategies highlight positive youth development as a primary goal or prioritize the importance of typ- ical adolescent development needs such as recreation, connection to mentors and other positive adults, and opportu- nities for leadership development and meaningful community service. • Inattention to probation’s prob- lematic role as a gateway to con- finement. Models do not emphasize the importance of curtailing placements stemming from probation rule viola- tions. Indeed, none make reducing these placements an explicit goal. Yet one in five of the youths in residential custody was placed there for violations of pro- bation or status offense court orders, and youth of color make up the majority (64%) of this group. • Failure to address the need for clarity about mission, goals and outcomes. Perhaps the most funda- mental shortcoming of most juvenile probation reform efforts is the failure to directly address the core mission of probation. While reform strategies to improve the professional practices of probation officers and upgrade assess- ment and case processing procedures can boost probation’s effectiveness at the margins, the juvenile probation field will never make substantial progress as a whole until a much clearer consen- sus emerges about whom probation is meant to serve and what it is meant to accomplish. Other than the Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice’s framework , the exist- ing reform strategies do not push sys- tem stakeholders to clarify probation’s purpose, to align policies and practices with the agreed-upon mission and to measure success against concrete goals. Conclusion The professionals working in juvenile probation have taken many steps in the right direction. However, as can be seen, numerous challenges remain. The overall failure to sufficiently address the issues discussed above provides an answer to the core question raised in this paper. Do familiar reform efforts tackle the fundamental challenges facing juvenile probation? The answer is no. The solution is to get probation right by going farther— by truly transforming in order to achieve meaningful outcomes. That is the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s vision. References Vincent, G. M., Guy, L. S., Gershenson, B. G., & McCabe, P. (2012). Does risk assessment make a difference? Results of implementing the SAVRY in juvenile probation. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 30(4), 384–405. Wogan, J. B. (2015). The changing relationship between ex-criminals and their parole officers. Governing. Retrieved from Next >