Caught in the Act: States Doing Some Things Right in Juvenile Justice

AuthorJames C. Howell,Megan Q. Howell,Nancy J. Hodges,Melissa H. Sickmund,John J. Wilson
Published date01 December 2017
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12101
Date01 December 2017
Caught in the Act: States Doing Some Things
Right in Juvenile Justice
By James C. Howell, John J. Wilson, Melissa H. Sickmund, Nancy J. Hodges, and
Megan Q. Howell
ABSTRACT
Bashing of juvenile justice systems in the United States is commonplace. We
wondered if this is justified. As a product of our everyday practice and academic
assessment, this article draws attention to salutary developments on several fronts,
including reduced confinement, systematic assessment of child risks and needs,
James C. (Buddy) Howell worked at the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven-
tion in the U.S. Department of Justice for 21 years (1974-1995), mostly as Director of Research and Pro-
gram Development. He also served as Deputy Administrator of OJJDP (1977-1984). He currently is Senior
Research Associate with the National Gang Center in Tallahassee, Florida, where he has researched youth
and street gangs for the past 20 years. He has published more than 100 works on juvenile justice, youth vio-
lence, and gangs, including eight books.
John J. Wilson held a variety of positions in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven-
tion from 1991 to 2001, including Acting Administrator, Deputy Administrator, and Counsel to the
Administrator. While at OJJDP, Mr. Wilson coauthored and led national testing and implementation of
OJJDP’s Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders 1993). He also served as a
member of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and on the Board of Directors of the
National Juvenile Defender Association.
Melissa H. Sickmund, Ph.D., directs NCJJ with the goal of improving juvenile justice statisti-
cal information and facilitating the use of data to support decision-making at the national and local levels.
Dr. Sickmund oversees several national data efforts including: the National Juvenile Court Data Archive; the
Juvenile Justice Model Data Project; the National Juvenile Justice Data Analysis Program and its online Sta-
tistical Briefing Book; the Juvenile Justice GPS (Geography, Policy, Practice and Statistics) website; the
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement; the Juvenile Residential Facility Census; and the Survey of
Juveniles Charged as Adults in Criminal Court.
Nancy J. Hodges is a seasoned juvenile justice professional with a career focus in child development, child
and family assessment, service planning, evidence-based program development and utilization, policy and compliance-
monitoring, and community mobilization. In addition, for nine years Nancy was Executive Director of a non-secure,
12-bed, short-term residential home for juveniles. She currently is Eastern Area Consultant, Community Programs,
North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice.
Megan Q. Howell, MCJ, is the lead juvenile justice analyst with the North Carolina Department of
Public Safety. Megan has carried out several statewide policy studies on topics including: youth violence pre-
vention, youth gang involvement, school crime and violence, juvenile justice policies and practices, juvenile
diversion, and disproportionate minority contact. Her publications include statewide studies on Juvenile
Diversion in North Carolina (2013) and Prevalence of Gang Involved Youth in North Carolina (2011).
Juvenile and Family Court Journal 68, No. 4
©2017 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
25
including use of structured decision-making tools, evidence based services, and con-
struction of comprehensive service plans. Our goal is to draw attention to best prac-
tices such as these that can lead to further advancements in juvenile justice systems.
Key words: juvenile justice, recidivism, evidence-based, assessment, decision-making, juvenile,
treatment, reform, data.
INTRODUCTION
This article takes stock of modern-day statewide juvenile justice (JJ) systems in the
United States. Having been established as a benevolent, humane alternative to the harsh,
punitive U.S. criminal justice system, the Chicago Women’s Club that designed the first
juvenile court in 1899 envisioned a system of justice and support for children separate
from the adult criminal justice system (Tanenhaus, 2004). Instead of a punishment-
oriented system, a treatment oriented and developmentally-based system was conceived,
one that should be concerned with supporting children and families in overcoming fam-
ily, school, and community obstacles to healthy social development and safety. Thus, the
reformers saw the juvenile court as the cornerstone of a comprehensive child care system.
The first juvenile court was founded on the recognition that children are not little adults
and, in all justice and fairness, should not be treated as such. The Chicago Women’s Club
believed that a separate juvenile court could succeed in establishing a comprehensive
child care system without the adult correctional system’s failed reliance on prisons.
Following almost a century of steady progress, in the 1980s and 1990s, a frighten-
ing image of juvenile offenders was conjured up by reputed “experts” from outside the
field of juvenile delinquency that disrupted most JJ system operations. Notably, John J.
DiIulio Jr. (1995) and James Q. Wilson (1995) predicted a new “wave” of juvenile vio-
lence to occur between 1995 and 2010. They based this prediction on a projected tsunami
of so-called juvenile “super predators” who were presumed to be younger killers in the
future, perpetrators of more and more violent crimes. None of these assumptions proved
to be valid (Howell, 1998; Snyder and Sickmund, 2000). However, many states proceeded
to abandon rehabilitative programs in favor of harmful boot camps, “Scared Straight” pro-
grams, and increased confinement of juveniles in detention centers and juvenile reforma-
tories. Juvenile probation caseloads soon were bloated with less serious offenders (Snyder
and Sickmund, 2006). “Although the incidence of juvenile involvement in violent crimes
peaked in the mid-1990s and subsequently declined, some of the get-tough policies have
continued” (Benekos, Merlo, and Puzzanchera, 2013, p. 130), but several states’ legisla-
tures began reconsidering these policies by 2005, which we summarize below.
It likely will come as a surprise to many JJ system critics that most evaluated
juvenile justice system programs (57%) reduce recidivism (Lipsey, 2002), generally in
the 20% to 40% range (Lipsey and Cullen, 2007). This paper draws attention to further
advances in best practices in JJ systems in recent years. As a whole, JJ systems in the
U.S. clearly are not iatrogenic; that is, inadvertently increasing delinquency as a result
of treatmentas some observers have mistakenly suggested (Birckhead, 2015; Gatti,
26 | JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL

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