Set Up to Fail: Youth Probation Conditions as a Driver of Incarceration

Youth probation is the most common form of punishment for youth in the United States criminal legal system, with nearly a quarter of a million youth currently under supervision. Yet the role youth probation conditions play in the incarceration of youth has not been the focus of legal scholarship. Youth probation is a court-imposed intervention where young people remain at home under the supervision of a youth probation officer and are required to adhere to probation conditions, rules, and court-ordered conditions. The orders rely on standardized terms on youth probation condition forms. This is the first scholarly Article to excavate original youth probation condition forms. It relies on data from 17 different urban and rural jurisdictions across the United States, including the five largest, and provides both a descriptive and perspective analysis of the problems with the design and execution of probation conditions.