Trends in Delinquency
Prevention
Building on developmental research
JJDPC Presentation Slides –
Prepared by Stephanie Bradley, Ph.D. and Brian Bumbarger, M. Ed.
August 2014
Emerging Issues
1. Lifecourse, developmental approach to
juvenile justice
2. Trauma and adverse childhood experiences
3. Universality of risk and protective factors
4. Refining “evidence-based”
5. Shifting focus to capacity development
6. Economic models to guide policy
LIFECOURSE APPROACH IN
JUVENILE JUSTICE
Life Course Approach in JJ
• Recent research by the National Research
Council acknowledges adolescence as a
unique period of development, with specific
implications for juvenile justice practices
and services
Life Course Approach in JJ
Most important components for healthy
psychological development for
adolescents
1. Involvement of a supportive adult
authority figure.
2. Association with prosocial peers.
3. Activities that encourage
autonomous decision-making.
Listenbee (2014).
Life Course Approach in JJ
Most important components for healthy
psychological development for
adolescents
1. Involvement of a supportive adult
authority figure.
2. Association with prosocial peers.
3. Activities that encourage
autonomous decision-making.
Listenbee (2014).
These three
components are
often missing in
facilities that
confine youth!
Life Course Approach in JJ
• Adolescent development – key tasks
– Developing ability to be self-directed
•
Increasing autonomy in:
– Free-time use
– Course selection in education, emerging career
ideas
– Peer affiliations
– Romantic relationships
– Access to media and technology
Life Course Approach in JJ
• Adolescent development – key tasks
– Developing an identity
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Through peers, work, education, interpersonal
relationships, hobbies, ideological pursuits
“Trying on” different roles, projecting possible self
into the future
Laying foundation of future beliefs and goals
Youth vary in degree to which they experiment with
different identities and commitment to them
Risk of developing an identity around delinquency
Possibility of reshaping identity toward prosocial
Life Course Approach in JJ
Most important components for healthy
psychological development for
adolescents
1. Involvement of a supportive adult
authority figure.
2. Association with prosocial peers.
3. Activities that encourage
autonomous decision-making.
Listenbee (2014).
These three
components
essential to
identity and
autonomy
development!
Life Course Approach in JJ
• Adolescent development - neurological
– Brain continues to develop until mid-20’s
– Regions of brain responsible for planning,
evaluating risk, and inhibiting behaviors are
the last to fully mature
– Region of brain responsible for interpreting
social cues “hyper-responds” to social stimulus
– Other brain regions are aggressively “pruning”
synapses (use it or lose it!), increases in
efficiency and critical thinking
Life Course Approach in JJ
• Adolescent development - social
– Some risk-taking can produce positive
developmental benefits, “healthful risk taking”
(Baumrind, 1991)
– Healthful risk-taking allows for experiences
and mastery, and leads to secondary benefits,
like development of self-confidence
– Not all risk-taking is “bad”.
Life Course Approach in JJ
Policy Implications
• Adoption of a developmental perspective focuses
on
– the developmental differences of youth, they’re not
children and they’re not adults
– youth development as being flexible, adaptable, and
– the importance of providing programming upstream
before problem behaviors occur
– all youth have the ability to be positive, productive,
contributing members of society
Life Course Approach in JJ
Programmatic Implications
•
Ensuring services:
– encourage positive identity development,
– support autonomy development, and
– connection with supportive adults and prosocial
peers
– direct “risk-taking” into healthful risk-taking, channel
sensation-seeking into leadership development skills
•
Attend to skill development, do not overly rely on
cognitive processing – not all brains are ready to
process at that level
–
(CBT okay, cognitive-behavioral)
TRAUMA & ADVERSE CHILDHOOD
EXPERIENCES (ACES)
Trauma & ACEs
Landmark studies from Dept. of Justice, and FL
Dept. of JJ, among others demonstrate:
– High prevalence of trauma and ACEs in
juvenile populations
– Out-of-home placement as trauma
– Implications for preventing trauma or
providing early and appropriate response to
trauma
Trauma: Defending Childhood
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Defending Childhood Initiative (DoJ); Taskforce on
Children Exposed to Violence; Listenbee et al., 2012.
Focus: to reduce and prevent childhoood exposure to
violence
Exposure to violence as trauma
Violence, broadly defined:
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Sexual abuse
Physical abuse
Intimate partner violence
Community violence
Polyvictims (est. 1 in 10 children)
Trauma: Defending Childhood
•
Defending Childhood Initiative (DoJ); Taskforce
on Children Exposed to Violence; Listenbee et al.,
2012.
“The financial costs of children’s exposure to
violence are astronomical. The financial burden
on other public systems, including child welfare,
social services, law enforcement, juvenile
justice, and, in particular, education, is
staggering when combined with the loss of
productivity over children’s lifetimes.”
Trauma: Defending Childhood
Noteworthy recommendations:
• 1.3 Engage youth as leaders and peer experts in all initiatives
defending children against violence and its harmful effects.
• 4.5 Create multidisciplinary councils or coalitions to assure
system-wide collaboration and coordinated community
responses to children exposed to family violence.
• 4.8 Provide support and counseling […] for children exposed
to lethal violence…
• 5.3 Involve men and boys as critical partners in preventing
violence.
• 5.5 Develop and implement policies to improve the reporting
of suspected child sexual abuse in every institution entrusted
with the care and nurturing of children.
Trauma: Defending Childhood
Noteworthy recommendations:
• 4.5 Create multidisciplinary councils or coalitions to assure
system-wide collaboration and coordinated community
responses to children exposed to family violence.
• National Youth Forum on Youth Violence Prevention
– Philadelphia Strategic Plan to Prevent Youth Violence
ACEs
10 childhood experiences identified in research to be
associated with chronic disease in adulthood:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Emotional abuse
Physical abuse
Sexual abuse
Emotional neglect
Physical neglect
Violent treatment toward mother
Household substance abuse
Household mental illness
Parental separation/divorce
Incarcerated household member
ACEs in JJ: FL Study
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Study from FL Dept. of Juv. Justice (JJSIP peers)
analyzed presence of adverse childhood
experiences in FL population of 64,000 juvenile
justice youth.
The top three most prevalent ACE indicators
were the same for both males and females:
1. family violence,
2. parental separation or divorce, and
3. household member incarceration.
2/3 or more of juveniles reported these three ACEs
Baglivio, M. T., Epps, N., Swartz, N., Huq, M. S., Sheer, A., & Hardt, N. S. (2014). The prevalence of
adverse childhood events in lives of juvenile offenders. Journal of Juvenile Justice, 3 (2), p.1-23.
ACEs in JJ: FL Study
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Most youth reported experiencing 3-4 ACEs in their
lifetime.
Low-risk youth are 35.6 times more likely than highrisk youth to report no ACE indicators, whereas
High risk youth make up almost 50% of youth
reporting 4 or more ACEs.
Females reported more ACEs than males across all 10
indicators.
Females reported sexual abuse 4.4 times more often
than males.
ACEs not only increase the chances of involvement in
the juvenile justice system, but increase the risk of reoffense.
Baglivio, M. T., Epps, N., Swartz, N., Huq, M. S., Sheer, A., & Hardt, N. S. (2014). The prevalence of
adverse childhood events in lives of juvenile offenders. Journal of Juvenile Justice, 3 (2), p.1-23.
MODELS OF TRAUMA IMPACT
ON FUNCTIONING
Complex trauma, Emotion
dysregulation, and Aggression
Survival Brain
Complex Trauma
Aggression
Hyper-vigilance
Emotional
Dysregulation
Ford J.D., J. Chapman, D.F. Connor, and K.R. Cruise. (2012). Complex trauma and aggression in secure
juvenile justice settings. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39(6), 694-724.
Maltreatment:
Neurocognitive mechanisms for Alcohol and
Substance Abuse
Outcomes:
Alcohol, tobacco
substance use
Maltreatment
HPA axis
dysregulation
Brain
maldevelopment
Noll, J. (2014).
High-risk Social/
Emotional
functioning
Neurocognitive
impairment
Trauma: Psychological Mechanisms for
Alcohol and Substance Use
PTSD
Reexperiencing
symptoms
Avoidant
symptoms
Alcohol and
Substance Abuse
Trauma
Numbing
symptoms
Arousal
symptoms
Noll, J. (2014).
Trauma & ACEs
Implications
• Reframes offenders as victims
• Broadens scope of understanding causes for youth
problem behaviors
• Preventing, identifying, responding to trauma is essential
across all systems with youth contact
• Cross-system coordination (e.g. welfare & juv. justice).
• Trauma prevention through
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violence prevention,
early parenting programs,
sexual abuse prevention, and
family conflict/domestic violence prevention
And adequate response to the above (intervention)
UNIVERSALITY OF RISK AND
PROTECTIVE FACTORS
Universality of Risk & Protective Factors
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Trauma as a precursor to some risk factors, and as a risk factor
Implications of problem behaviors for other agencies: welfare, law enforcement,
education, social services
Highlights need for interagency coordination, collaboration, and role of intermediary
organizations
Universality of Risk & Protective Factors
Promoting protective factors for in-risk families and youth: A brief for researchers. Children’s Bureau,
Administration of Children, Youth, and Families. 2014.
Universality of Risk & Protective Factors
Promoting protective factors for in-risk families and youth: A brief for researchers. Children’s Bureau,
Administration of Children, Youth, and Families. 2014.
Universality of Risk & Protective Factors
• Including risk for heroin and opioid prescription drug
use
• Risk and protective factors for using these substances:
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Nicotine use, cigarettes, smokeless tobacco
Sensation-seeking
Perceived harm of use
Externalizing
Antisocial behavior
Peer use (access/affiliation)
Use of multiple hard drugs
Parent alcohol use (yes/no)
PA’s Violence Prevention Programs target many of these
risk factors, and have demonstrated outcomes on illicit
substance use
Violence Prevention Programs and
Drug Use Outcomes
Program Name
Setting/Model
Target Pop.
Substance use outcomes
Big Brothers Big
Sisters (BBBS)
Community-based;
Mentoring
Youth aged 6-18
Less likely to initiate drug use
Project Toward No
Drug Abuse (TND)
School-based;
High school
youth
Lower prevalence of past 30-day hard drug
use; effects maintained at 5 yr. follow-up.
LifeSkills Training
(LST)
School-based;
General self-mgmt
skills, social skills
development, ATOD
knowledge and refusal
skills.
Middle school
youth
Lower use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana;
lower rates of poly-substance use; effects
maintained at 6.5 yr. follow-up.
Strengthening
Families Program
10-14
(SFP 10-14)
Community-based;
Family program to
promote balance of
love & limits in parentchild relationship; peer
pressure refusal skills
for youth
Parents and
their youth aged
10-14.
Lower use rate of methamphetamines (12th
gr), slower rate of polydrug use (6-12th)
narcotic and barbituate misuse (young
adult), Rx opiod misuse (25), lifetime Rx
drug misuse (25);
LST + SFP 10-14
Combination of above
two programs.
Middle school/
middle
adolescence
Less Rx drug use (11th, 12th); lower lifetime
Rx opioid misuse and Rx drug misuse
(21,22); esp. strong effects for youth at high
risk at program start (25).
Violence Prevention Program Outcomes:
PA FY2012-2013
• FY12-13 PA prevention outcomes data:
– 54% of parents increase substance use rules and expectations
– 28% of youth improve skills for resisting peers
– 61% of youth have improved knowledge of negative consequences
of substance use
– 16% have reduced intent to use (middle school & high school, typically have
low intent to use to begin with)
Violence Prevention as Health Equity
• CDC and Prevention Institute have described violence as
a health equity issue
• Youth of color and impoverished communities
experience a disproportionate amount of violence
• Threat of violence impacts health behaviors such as
walking, bicycling, use of recreational spaces, access to
healthy foods
• “Persons who described their community as ‘not at all
safe’ were nearly three times more likely to be physically
inactive”
• Addressing violence in these communities provides the
possibility for improved healthy behavior and lifestyle
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Division of Community Health. A Practitioner’s Guide for Advancing Health Equity:
Community Strategies for Preventing Chronic Disease. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services; 2013.
Fact Sheet: Violence and Health Equity. Prevention Institute. 2011.
Universal Risk & Protective Factors
Implications
• Highlights need for and value of inter-agency collaboration
on prevention efforts and for the role of intermediary
organizations
• Addressing violence prevention in at-risk communities to
decrease DMC and improve health outcomes
• Increased use and development of PAYS for surveillance
and prevention planning, use and education across
agencies
• Include community members in violence prevention
efforts
• Integrate violence prevention across local systems and
organizations
Refining “Evidence-Based”
• Federal standardized metrics and definitions
for considering a program effective*
– Experimental Design/RCT
– Effect sustained for at least 1 year postintervention
– At least 1 independent replication with RCT
– RCT’s adequately address threats to internal
validity
– No known health-compromising side effects
*Adapted from Hierarchical Classification Framework for Program Effectiveness,
Working Group for the Federal Collaboration on What Works, 2004.
** Slide drawn from Dr. Del Elliott Blueprints 2014 conference presentation: “The
Future of Blueprints and Prevention Science”.
Refining “Evidence-Based”
• Beyond the “either-or” framework
– Not all issues have an evidence-based program to
address them
– Some EBPs may not be a good fit culturally,
programmatically, fiscally
– Value of “local” programs
– Validity of using meta-analytic research (SPEP;
Lipsey, 2009)
– Emphasis on strong evaluations of programs that
do not have research evidence (Elliott, 2014)
– Acceptance of “evidence-based principles of
change” (vs. name-brand, copyrighted program).
(Dodge & Mandel, 2012)
Refining “Evidence-Based”
Implications
• Increased ability to standardize expectations related to
implementation of “evidence-based” programs and
practices
• Reduced “pedaling” ineffective, harmful, or unevaluated
programs as “evidence-based” to communities and
providers attempting to implement proven-effective
programs
• Improves possibility of alignment across agencies in
accepting a common definition, and associated funding and
program monitoring practices
• Insight into effectiveness of locally-developed programs
SHIFTING FOCUS TO
DEVELOPING CAPACITY
Shifting Focus to Develop Capacity
• Conventional wisdom of funding service delivery
• Emerging knowledge base suggests strategic
development of service provider capacity
• Existing systems developed prior to current
research on adolescent development, epidemiology
of behavioral health, delinquent behavior,
prevention science
• Funding service delivery unlikely to result in
generalized knowledge and competency for public
health model or sustained focus on refining such
skills
Shifting Focus to Develop Capacity
• BARJ and Motivational Interviewing as examples
from juvenile justice
• Sea change in thinking about role of probation
officer and juvenile court in evoking change,
competency development in juveniles
• Has required extensive training efforts to train
juvenile probation offices in use of evidence-base,
standardized assessments, motivational
interviewing techniques
• Similar efforts are now due in delinquency
prevention – with an emphasis on organization and
workforce development
Shifting Focus to Develop Capacity
Implications
• Emphasis on developing capacity for prevention at
local level
• Organizational development – internal resources
for using the public health approach; staff, data,
analysis, collaboration
• Workforce development – individual competencies
for employing public health model, identification
of relevant resources, access to “subject matter
expert” peers and communities of practice
• Teach a man to fish
ECONOMIC MODELS TO GUIDE
POLICY
Economic Models to Guide Policy
• Cost-benefit analyses, return-on-investment
– Are we getting our money’s worth?
– How much are we saving, where, and when?
• Pay-for-success, and social-impact bonds
– Where will funds come from to support
effective programming?
• Justice reinvestment
– How will savings be reinvested?
Economic Models to Guide Policy
The COST of Not Investing in Prevention Annual cost of CJ & JJ for State and County Gov’t . Slide developed by Robert Orth,
PA Commission on Crime & Delinquency, 2013.
Cost-Benefit, Return-on-Investment
• Continual refinement of cost-benefit models to
estimate savings from effective programs and policies
• Increasing reliance on cost-benefit data to inform
policy and funding
• Results First Initiative, Pew-MacArthur Foundation
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Cost-benefit analyses of programs in state
Estimated cost of “doing nothing”
Analyses formulated to guide policy making
Projected cost-benefits of proposed changes
Social Impact Bonds,
aka “Pay for Success” Bonds
• Private capital to fund social programs
• If program is successful then the government pays
• Bond parameters are structured by financial
intermediaries
• Program selection, implementation, and pricing
are overseen by knowledge intermediaries
• Project success determined by independent,
external evaluation
Justice Reinvestment
• Allocation of savings that have been accrued
through effective policy, program, practice back
into the system
• Reinvestment in strategies that can reduce crime
and recidivism
• Increasing number of states
adopting justice reinvestment
Economic Models to Guide Policy
Implications
• Continued support for programs and policies
demonstrating return on investment
• Identification of methods for determining where
and how savings will be reinvested
• Exploring the sharing of costs or savings across
state agencies that may disproportionately
represented on the cost or savings side of the
equation (Greenwood & Welsh, 2012)
Conclusions
• Increasing convergence of evidence of basic human need,
risk, protection – are relevant across systems and agencies
• Less able to “silo” problems in one system or agency –
problems in one may be “paid for” by one or more other
agencies
• Concept of centers of excellence, resource centers,
intermediary organizations is still progressive and is
beginning to gain momentum nationally
Recommendations
• Commitment to collaboration and coordination in
addressing delinquency prevention and use of evidencebased practice is essential to achieving cost-effectiveness
and dissemination goals (Greenwood & Welsh, 2012).
• Ongoing need to identify and engage missing and nontraditional partners in community, public, private, state,
and national sectors.
• For any identified programmatic need, first fund an
evidence-based program (consider the medical model). If
none available, commit to rigorously evaluating the
program implemented (Dodge & Mandel, 2012).
SLIDES FOR PRINTING SEPARATELY
Trauma: Defending Childhood
Recommendations span:
• Federal policy, legislation, funding
• National centers of excellence
• Professional development, workforce development
• Data collection and surveillance
• Public awareness and advocacy
• Evidence-based, trauma-informed care/services
• Research-funding to continue development of
evidence-based treatments
• Multi-disciplinary, multi-agency collaboration and
coordination in response, treatment, services
Trauma: Defending Childhood
Recommendations span:
• Parenting programs for healthy relationships; especially
fathers who use violence
• Early childhood, home visiting
• Support for children exposed to lethal violence
– See JCJC recidivism data – youth with two deceased parents
recidivate at highest rate of all types of family background
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Culturally appropriate services
Military-specific services
Community coalitions
Improved reporting of suspected child sexual abuse
Assessment, screening, identification
Trauma: Defending Childhood
Recommendations span:
• Address bullying, suicide
• Support trauma-informed school services
• Mentoring as prevention and intervention
• Research translation of effective programs into
practice
• Juvenile justice improvements – trauma informed
screening, detention and suspension alternatives,
culturally appropriate services, girls, LGBTQ, avoid
punishments for sex-trafficking.