Girls in Juvenile Justice Settings: Unmet Needs and Service Barriers

Background and Purpose: The proportion of girls in the juvenile justice system has steadily increased over the last 15 years, primarily for non-violent offenses. These young women typically enter the system with prior experiences of trauma, poverty, mental health issues, early sexual risk behavior, and racial, ethnic and gender bias, and consequently a unique set of needs compared to males (OJJDP, 2015). To address these needs, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention called for gender-responsive reforms in 1992 and 2015. Despite these calls, empirically supported programming to address these needs remains scarce, and little is known regarding its broad implementation in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to conduct a national survey of frontline juvenile justice staff to describe current implementation of gender-specific programming, perspectives of girls in the juvenile justice system, and perceived needs for training and services to meet the needs of these youth.

Methods:A cross-sectional survey design was used, with a sampling frame of 3,700 members from the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA). The APPA includes members working with both adults and youth, with approximately 154 indicating their primary focus is juveniles. Despite the distribution to all APPA members, the invitation to participate was only for individuals working directly with female youth in the juvenile justice system. The APPA emailed the anonymous survey questionnaire link three times at 2-week intervals, which collected information on respondents’ background information, local gender-responsive services, as well as views of, perceived needs and barriers, and staff training needs with female youth. An incentive lottery for five $25 Amazon gift certificates was offered. Descriptive, bivariate (chi-square, ANOVA), and content analyses were used to analyze responses to quantitative and open-ended questions.

Results:Two-hundred front line juvenile probation providers representing twenty-eight U.S. states responded. The sample consisted of mostly probation/parole officers (67%) and juvenile justice administrators (25%) who were primarily female (63%) and 46.22 (SD=9.90) years old. Male respondents were more likely (37%) to prefer working with boys than female respondents (22%), X²(2, n=199) = 7.099, p= .029. Both male and female respondents viewed working with girls as more challenging than boys and agreed there were not enough programs to meet their needs. There were not any differences in views of working with girls in the juvenile justice system or their needs by respondent age or prior training. Twenty-percent of respondents reported a locally empirically supported intervention for girls, but only one was gender-specific. Seventy-one percent of respondents reported limited gender-specific programs – mostly untested – typically addressing one issue of concern for mostly post-adjudicated girls. Qualitative themes emerged supporting earlier intervention, increased staff training needs and gender equity in funding and services.

Conclusions and Implications:Findings suggest low uptake of empirically supported programming, widespread needs and challenges for female youth in juvenile justice settings, and a pronounced need for additional empirically supported interventions and training for staff working with this population. This is especially compelling in the face of an increasing population of girls in juvenile justice settings.