Juvenile Offenders in Context: How Their Worldviews Impact their Actions

Criminal Justice

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Criminal Justice

Community Psychologists study the interactions between law enforcement, the legal system, and communities defined by geographic, socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Community Psychologists facilitate research, discussion, collaboration, and action to promote better understanding of laws and law enforcement within these community contexts.

Physical Space Impacts the Founding of Sexual Assault Cases

Posted in: Criminal Justice, Marginalized Groups | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Physical space can affect police decisions in sexual assault cases. Communities with a greater number of Black, Latinx, and Asian residents, as well as wealthier communities, had higher rates of founding, but the effect was geographically uneven. Interventions addressing gender-based violence and systemic biases are needed so lower-resourced individuals or individuals part of minoritized groups […]

Reforming the Criminal Legal System through the Lens of Procedural Justice

Posted in: Anti-Racism, Criminal Justice
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Study participants described a succession of mistreatment as they came into contact with police, courts, and corrections. Participants described antagonistic, abusing, and dehumanizing treatment by police and detention—often depicted as racially motivated.

Fixes that Fail: Reducing Food Deserts, Poverty, Crime, and Intergenerational Incarceration

Posted in: Criminal Justice, Marginalized Groups, Poverty and Socioeconomic Status | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
A systems approach is needed to address the context roots underlying urban access to healthy food. The root problem stems back to systemic racism. Creating sustainable community wealth can address food deserts and upstream issues criminal justice.

Using Policy to Advance Social Justice for Justice-Involved Youth

Posted in: Criminal Justice, Public Policy
We can scale up prevention science through policy frameworks to improve lives. Policies can be used to improve social justice through more effective and preventative solutions for justice-involved youth.

Nuancing Community Violence Exposure

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Criminal Justice, Marginalized Groups, Poverty and Socioeconomic Status
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Many African American adolescents living in low-resourced urban neighborhoods experience high exposure to community violence. Exposure may vary over time and be influenced by individual- and contextual-level factors. Identifying specific risk factors associated with more chronic and severe exposure may guide preventive intervention efforts.

Creating the Most Effective Collaborative Infrastructure

Posted in: Coalition Building, Criminal Justice, Violence Prevention
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
While infrastructures can improve teams’ relationships and work, some are difficult to implement. SARTs could first focus on infrastructures that build trust and buy-in before adopting other accountability-focused infrastructures. Improving SART infrastructures can help promote SART collaboration and thereby improve survivors’ experiences.

Retiring Juvenile Detention Centers for Wrap-Around Community-Based Services

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Criminal Justice
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Youth are not best served in JDC environments and should be diverted to community-based and therapeutic environments whenever possible. Girls’ feedback through a confidential youth advisory process prompted systemic change better suited to meet their needs.

Gender-Informed Programming for Incarcerated Girls

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Criminal Justice
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Treatments and programs in the juvenile justice system may not work as well for girls as they do for boys. Rehabilitation programs must be understood in context including different program format types (individual, group, family) and program emphases (cognitive, behavioral, family systems).

Lessons Learned from a Family-Based Intervention for Court-Involved Girls

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Criminal Justice
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Family-based interventions have the potential to reduce recidivism in girls. Contextual factors such as poverty, an unstructured home life, domestic violence, and neglect must be addressed in successful interventions.

Juvenile Offenders in Context: How Their Worldviews Impact their Actions

Posted in: Criminal Justice, Marginalized Groups
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Juvenile offending is not simply the outgrowth of “poor choices”. Rather, antisocial behavior may reflect adolescents’ views of unfairness and injustice within the legal system and the world at large.