Key Findings:
- Youth who receive support- and rehabilitation-focused treatment after breaking the law (as opposed to sentencing before a judge) show more positive educational trajectories, healthier social outcomes, and lower rates of recidivism.
- When youth are involved in the juvenile justice system, positive interactions with staff can help protect their trust in the legal system and reduce the risk that they reoffend.
- Opinions of police legitimacy and faith in the legal system are largely formed before and during adolescence. Strategies like police accountability and positive police interactions can help young people believe that the legal system is just and fair, making them more likely to follow laws in the future.
- Over 400,000 youth are arrested in the United States each year, and many will move through the juvenile justice systems in their states and counties. Whether they are assigned to detention, probation, or community rehabilitation programs, most of these youth have one thing in common: They are adolescents, undergoing a period of rapid social, emotional, and neurological change.
In many ways, America’s juvenile justice processes are designed with adolescents’ needs in mind. Compared to adult justice systems, for example, juvenile justice systems often place a greater emphasis on promoting change in the people they serve, especially through individualized supports and relationships with safe adults. And yet, juvenile justice systems still leave young people vulnerable. In some jurisdictions, youth can waive their right to an attorney. Many districts allow minors to be interrogated without a guardian present.
Dr. Adam Fine and his Youth Justice Lab (YJL) team partner with juvenile justice systems to better meet the needs of youth and families — that is, to prevent future offending through connecting them to the resources that support healthy development. “We think it’s time for the field to have a new vision for what juvenile justice can look like, guided by developmental science.” FABBS is delighted to present Dr. Fine with the Early Career Impact Award to honor his work promoting resilient development in youth involved with the juvenile justice system, in their families, and in their broader communities.
What does it mean for a juvenile justice system to be developmentally informed? For Dr. Fine and his team at Arizona State University, there are a few core components. First, such a system should support young people’s social and emotional health, since focusing on punishment alone is unlikely to meet young people’s underlying developmental needs or to change behavior in the long run. Dr. Fine was a part of one impactful study, led by Dr. Beth Cauffman at University of California – Irvine, that compared the developmental trajectories of youth who go through “formal processing” (that is, trial, sentencing, and punishment) with those who go through “informal processing,” assigned to rehabilitative programs and community supports. Unsurprisingly, this latter approach can offer more positive experiences to youth and families involved. However, it also has public health and safety benefits, like better educational and social outcomes for youth and lower likelihood that they will commit crimes in the future. Research from Dr. Fine and his colleagues finds again and again that “the way to reduce recidivism and to promote public safety is through positive youth development.”
Second, taking a developmental lens to community safety means starting early, with an eye to prevention. Using detailed longitudinal data, Dr. Fine and his team have found that when law enforcement agencies prove themselves to be accountable, just, and committed to the wellbeing of their communities, young people and adults alike report less cynicism about the legal system and take more responsibility in upholding laws.
Third, a developmentally informed juvenile justice system commits to listening to voices across young people’s social ecologies. Early in his career, Dr. Fine began collaborating with justice-involved youth and the people who serve them — not only their caregivers, but also staff, who often entered these jobs because they cared profoundly about young people’s development. “Creating a better working environment for juvenile justice system staff directly creates better, more vibrant, healthier, and safer communities.”
To Dr. Fine, the success of a project is measured by who gets included. To this end, his team has recently launched the Family Engagement 360 Initiative (FE-360), which assesses the experiences of youth on probation, their families, and the staff who serve them. FE-360 aims to improve outcomes for youth on probation, to deliver new supports for staff, and to foster positive connections between these parties. Thanks to funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Dr. Fine and his team were able to bring both staff and justice-impacted families to a workshop in Arizona, where they co-designed assessment tools that measure, among other things, youth’s life satisfaction and opportunities for positive development.
Dr. Fine has produced an impressive quantity of publications (over 80 and climbing, with an h-index of 37 and an i-10 index of 67), but his catalog is also notable for its breadth, with writing appearing in journals of developmental psychology, criminology, law, policing, prevention science, and methodology. This interdisciplinary orientation has informed both his methods and also his theoretical approaches. With the support of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, Dr. Fine and his team have developed, tested, and refined the Fostering Opportunities for Resilience, Growth, and Empowerment (FORGE) model. FORGE synthesizes established theories from developmental psychology, interpersonal psychology, and learning science into best-practices guidance and interventions for juvenile justice contexts. (True to Dr. Fine’s usual methods, it was built collaboratively with community members across the country.)
Outside of research, Dr. Fine has worked with his students and community collaborators to launch a tutoring program serving youth in detention centers. The team has even been able to deliver ASU classes to youth in detention, allowing them to finish their sentences with college credits. To date, youth in the “ASU Classroom” at Durango, the Maricopa County juvenile detention facility, have earned over 200 ASU college credits, with an overall GPA of 3.7. Meanwhile, in their recently launched effort called Voices for Justice, the YJL works with juvenile probation departments to empower young people to earn community service hours for participating in action research that improves other youth’s experiences.
It is an ambitious goal: A juvenile justice system informed by adolescents’ developmental needs — and, even more, by their remarkable potential. But to Dr. Adam Fine, system involvement presents a critical opportunity for youth to access the resources that are most needed during adolescence: educational opportunities, devoted mentors, identifying one’s purpose in life, and chances to contribute to one’s community. “How do we find out who this kid wants to be, and help them get experiences to start becoming that person? How do we customize this experience to you — recognizing this is one of the worst times in your life, but it’s also potentially a huge inflection point?”
Potential Implications and Applications:
- Involvement with the juvenile justice system is a highly stressful time for youth and families, but also presents a period of opportunity when new supports can be introduced in service of positive developmental trajectories.
- When legal systems and law enforcement organizations show evidence of accountability, fairness, and commitment to communities, young people are more likely to follow laws and contribute to community safety.
- Youth who are involved with juvenile justice systems show more positive developmental trajectories when the staff serving them treat them with fairness, act protectively towards them, and follow through on commitments.
- Policymakers and interventionists who want to make communities safer and see better outcomes for youth who have broken the law can benefit from participatory action research with youth themselves, with their families, and with juvenile justice system staff.
