Transforming Juvenile Probation: Restructuring Probation Terms to Promote Success

From the Urban Institute:

Jurisdictions across the country are changing how they administer juvenile probation and better aligning policy and practice with developmental science and positive youth development to improve outcomes for youth, families, and communities. These changes often advance two goals: divert most youth from system involvement altogether and shrink probation caseloads, and change probation structure to focus less on surveillance and compliance and more on research-informed strategies that promote effective behavior change for the few youth on probation supervision. This guide builds on that work and goes a step farther, articulating a new, time-limited approach in which probation officers function as resource bridges focused primarily on connecting or reconnecting youth with community based resources to support them in the long term. This approach is especially critical for jurisdictions working to address the systemic racism that exists in the juvenile justice system and is reflected in the lack of investment in communities impacted most acutely by overpolicing, surveillance, and incarceration. Taken together, these structural factors have led to youth of color being overrepresented and disproportionately harmed at every point in the justice process, including probation.