This chapter discusses juvenile probation and community corrections. It notes that over 600,000 juveniles were processed through probation in 2007. Probation investigations examine legal details of an offense as well as a youth's social history. Conditions of probation typically include regular check-ins, obeying the law, and attending school. Recent approaches to probation emphasize balanced accountability and rehabilitation, though some favor tougher punitive models. Effective interventions include cognitive behavioral therapy and social learning programs, while ineffectual approaches often focus solely on deterrence without treatment.

1. Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 7th ed.
Chapter 11
Juvenile Probation and
Community Corrections

2. Chapter 11
What You Need to Know
• In 2007, probation handled more than 600,000 youths who
were processed in some way for delinquency or a status
offense by the juvenile court.
• In juvenile court, the probation presentence investigation
may be called a social history investigation or predisposition
report.
• “Aftercare” is the juvenile court term for parole.
• One current approach in the juvenile community corrections
is the balanced approach, which attempts to balance offender
accountability, competency development, and community
safety.
• Police-probation partnerships, including searches of the
offender’s residence, are an example of a tough approach to
juvenile probation.

3. Chapter 11
What You Need to Know (cont.)
• Other recent approaches in juvenile probation
include restorative justice, peacemaking, and
community justice.
• A number of treatment interventions are effective,
including cognitive-behavioral and social learning.
• Some current concerns about juvenile probation
include the problems of goal confusion and some
aspects of both restitution and community service.
• Probation managers must attempt to implement
programs that are effective in a variety of ways,
including reducing recidivism, meeting offender
needs, and satisfying the public.

4. Chapter 11
Probation
• In 2007, an estimated 327,400 youths who were
adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court were placed
on probation, which is roughly 56 percent of all
adjudicated delinquents.
• Probation is the most common disposition for
adjudicated status offenders and continues to be a
work horse for the juvenile justice system.

5. Chapter 11
Social History (Predisposition)
Investigations
• Typically conducted by a probation officer when a juvenile
has been adjudicated as either a delinquent or a status
offender.
• Legal information includes descriptive material about the
delinquency or status offense, including the child’s, the
victim’s, and the police officer’s version of the offense, and
verified data on the child’s prior contacts with the juvenile
court and with the police department’s juvenile bureau.
• Social information is also collected, which includes; the
child’s age, information on the child’s development, family,
education, and possible problems such as alcohol or other
drug abuse.

6. Chapter 11
Probation Supervision
• Youths placed in formal probation supervision must follow
various conditions, such as reporting regularly to a probation
officer, obeying the law, attending school, and remaining
within the geographical jurisdiction of the court.
• However, the judge may also order specific conditions, such
as restitution to the victim(s) of the delinquent, community
service, attending counseling sessions with a social worker,
psychologist, psychiatrist, or requiring the parents to attend
counseling sessions.
• A judge may also order a short stay (about 1 month) in
detention as a condition of probation.

7. Chapter 11
Aftercare
• Very similar to probation supervision in that youths
must follow specific conditions and report on a
regular basis to a parole officer.
• If they do not follow the conditions set forth by their
parole officer, their parole will be revoked and can
be sent back to an institutional placement.
• Suggestions for success include:
– Mental health services can reduce recidivism.
– Mentoring is related to reduced recidivism, reductions in
testing positive for drug usage, and more connections to
educational and employment services and mental health
treatment.

8. Chapter 11
Supervision and Counseling
• Probation and aftercare (parole) officers working
with juveniles use various combinations of assistance
and control to help youthful offenders avoid further
trouble.
• Probation officers typically assume one of two roles:
– They may assume the role of a social worker or counselor
to help understand the youth and assist the youth in
gaining self-esteem and greater self-insight.
– The may also assume a much tougher role by threatening
to punish the youth and monitoring the youth’s
compliance to court conditions. This type of officer
typically believes that deterrence and incapacitation are
more important goals than rehabilitation.

9. Chapter 11
Current Trends in Community Supervision
• Several developments are taking place in community
corrections.
• The first development could be described as the balanced
approach which requires the system to provide balanced
attention to the need for competency development,
accountability, and community safety and requires efforts to
restore, to the greatest extent possible, the victim and
community to their pre-crime status. So there is emphasis on
restorative justice.
• One concern about the balanced approach is whether it in
fact “balances” the concerns for competency development,
accountability, and community safety, or simply places
emphasis on accountability.

10. Chapter 11
The Punitive Model
• This philosophy is quite direct; the offender, even if
a juvenile, deserves to be punished. This philosophy
is also known as attack (tough) probation.
• Some argue that the toughening of probation has
gone too far, and that parole officers see their role
as one in which to search out any means possible to
send the probationer to prison.

11. Chapter 11
Renewed Emphasis on Status Offenses
• A status offense is an action that is prohibited only to a
certain class of people, and most often applied to offenses
only committed by minors.
• In 2007, more than 150,000 status offense cases were
petitioned to juvenile court and about 45,500 juveniles were
placed on probation for status offenses.
• About 40 percent of the children were placed on probation
for truancy, 20 percent for a liquor law violation, and about
25 percent for either runaway or governability.
• There is a fear that if these troublesome behaviors are not
dealt with, then there is a definite possibility of much worse
behavior in the future.

12. Chapter 11
Restorative Justice
• In contrast to retributive justice, which focuses on
vengeance, deterrence, and punishment, restorative
justice is concerned with repairing the damage or
harm done to victims and the community through a
process of negotiation, mediation, victim
empowerment, and reparation.
• In addition to a focus on such repair, restorative
justice also emphasizes involving victims, offenders,
and community members in the process and
rethinking the roles of government and community
in trying to achieve justice.

13. Chapter 11
Peacemaking
• Much like restorative justice, peacemaking is a positive
philosophy that seeks to go beyond simply criticizing the
status quo and beyond a simple focus on recidivism
reduction.
• The primary goal is personal change or to: “help build a
happier, peaceful person right there in prison (if working with
prisoners), a person whose newfound self-honesty and
courage can steer him or her to adjust to the biases and
shortcomings of a society which does not feel comfortable
with ex-offenders.”
• In a peacemaking perspective, both personal transformation
and institutional change are critical, but personal change is
seen as a basis of social change.

14. Chapter 11
Community Justice
• Used to help community residents “manage their
own affairs, solve their own problems, and live
together effectively and safely. This goal is best
achieved by giving everyone a stake in the quality of
community life.”
• To achieve this mission, community justice involves
risk assessment and control of offenders, victim
restoration, community contracting, and cost
sharing.
• Therefore much like community policing, community
justice is based on the principle that the community
has a responsibility to deal with offenders.

15. Chapter 11
Effectiveness of Juvenile Probation and
Related Sanctions
• One implication of the research is that simply making
probation tougher does not work, Scared Straight programs,
boot camps, and intensive supervision (without treatment)
have demonstrated that harsher measures without more
treatment elements, do not reduce recidivism.
• Community supervision may be no worse than incarceration -
that is, at least as effective as incarceration while intensive
supervision can lead to easier detection of technical violations
such as breaking curfew, leaving the jurisdiction without
permission, failing to report to a probation officer, testing
positive on a urine drug test, and skipping school.

16. Chapter 11
Interventions With Offenders
• Although many politicians and citizens favor “get tough”
approaches to crime and delinquency, there is considerable
consensus that correctional interventions are effective and
cost-effective.
• Through meta-analysis research, professionals report that
counseling, skill building, and restorative interventions
reduce recidivism by at least 10 percent.
• Some reduce recidivism by more than 20 percent.
• An additional principle is attention to risk; intensive
programs should target high to medium risk youths rather
than low-risk youths and should not mix high- and low-risk
offenders.

17. Chapter 11
Continuing Concerns in Community
Corrections
• Goal confusion — or mission distortion — means that judges,
probation and aftercare officers, probation directors, state
legislators, and juvenile justice experts disagree about the
purpose and objectives of juvenile court and community
supervision.
• A trend to reduce goal confusion is increasing emphasis on
the use of evidence based practices to achieve measureable
outcomes, this may also be referred to as Evidence-Based
Policies (EBP), which demands empirical evidence,
experimental/quasi experimental research designs, requires
replication, and must be subject to meta-analysis.
• Restitution - Occurs when juvenile offenders pay for all or
part of the damage inflicted on crime victims or property.

18. Chapter 11
Continuing Concerns in Community
Corrections (cont.)
• Community Service - Similar to restitution, in that
offenders perform unpaid work for government or
private agencies as payment for crimes without
personal victims. Community service could include
cutting grass at local parks, doing volunteer work in
hospitals, or painting the clubhouse of a Boys/Girls
Club.