The Balanced Approach [Revisited]

• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12124
• Author: Melissa Sickmund

The Balanced Approach [Revisited]

By Melissa Sickmund, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

The authors of the original Balanced Approach, Dennis Maloney, Dennis

Romig, and Troy Armstrong, outlined a philosophy of balanced attention to the

principles of community protection/public safety, youth accountability, and compe-

tency development through individualized assessment and treatment and holding

the system accountable to the community and the youth served. A majority of states’

juvenile code purpose clauses reflect this approach, later known as Balanced and

Restorative Justice (BARJ). Presented here are excerpts from the 1988 Juvenile &

Family Court Journal issue 39 (3) that first presented the Balanced Approach and a

brief overview of key features of juvenile justice at the time to lay a foundation for

the other articles in this special issue.

Key words: Balanced Approach, Balanced and Restorative Justice, juvenile probation, juvenile

justice, system reform, accountability, community protection, public safety, rehabilitation,

competency development, assessment, individualized treatment.

INTRODUCTION

What follows are excerpts from “The Balanced Approach”—the introduction of the

juvenile justice philosophy that was later to become known as Balanced and Restorative

Justice—which was published as a special issue of Juvenile & Family Court Journal in

1988 (Maloney, Romig, and Armstrong, 1988). The philosophy was to balance attention

to the interdependent principles of community protection and public safety, youth

accountability, and competency development through individualized assessment and

treatment. In the foreword to that issue, Judge Salvadore Mule commented, “This

approach is not punitive, nor is it just rehabilitative, it is constructive. This approach

Dr. Melissa Sickmund joined the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ research

arm, the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) in 1986 and has been at its helm since 2012. Dr. Sick-

mund’s work at NCJJ has had the goal of improving juvenile justice statistical information and facilitating

the use of data to support decision-making at the national and local levels. Dr. Sickmund is best known for

the Juvenile Offenders and Victims publication series and products stemming from the Census of Juveniles in

Residential Placement.

Juvenile and Family Court Journal 70, No. 1

©2019 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

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offers positive results for all parties involved—the offender, the community, the victim,

and our juvenile justice system,” (Mule, 1988).

Readers will see in this text some precursors of principles commonly discussed in

juvenile justice circles today, some 31 years later, such as: Risk/Needs/Responsivity, the

Developmental Approach, Continuous Quality Improvement and performance measure-

ment. Readers are reminded that in 1988, the rise in juvenile violence was just begin-

ning to gather full steam (Snyder, 1990; Snyder and Sickmund, 1995) and the “get

tough” movement was already underway (Maloney, Romig, and Armstrong, 1988h; Sny-

der and Sickmund, 1995; Weiss, 2013; Bonnie et al., 2013). However, neither juvenile

violence nor the harsh responses to it had yet reached their peak (Figure 1). The notion

of juvenile “super-predators” had not yet been offered to the public (Dilulio, 1995).

The authors of “The Balanced Approach” proposed a philosophy that was some-

where in the middle of the pendulum swings of juvenile justice policy and practice.

“Hopefully, a more Balanced Approach will assure a more satisfactory outcome from the

disparate perspectives of the victim, offender, community-at-large, and the justice sys-

tem,” (Maloney, Romig, and Armstrong, 1988h, p50). As the authors stated at the end

of chapter 1, “The Balanced Approach is about reconciling seemingly incompatible val-

ues and translating these values into action. For too long we have been impotent due to

Figure 1. Juvenilearrests per 100,000 population ages 10–17

Note: Violent Crime Index offenses include murder and nonneglegent manslaughter, forcible rape,

robbery, and aggravated assault.

Source: Snyder, H. (1992). Arrests of Youth, 1990. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention.

Data source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Age-specific Arrest Rates and race-specific

arrest rates for selected offenses 1965–1988. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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