Rethinking Juvenile Recidivism: Towards a More Holistic View of Success

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Background

The use of recidivism data as the primary measure of effectiveness and outcome of interventions for juvenile offenders has come under recent scrutiny. Recidivism data has always been fraught with issues of reliability, from how it is assessed, collected, and reported. More recently, broader concerns of its use as an exclusive measure of effectiveness for juvenile justice programs and interventions has come to light, notably as it may mislead policymakers. This use of recidivism data as the primary metric of success may also have inadvertently reinforced the racial and class bias within the justice system. There is a need to reconceptualize success for youth in the juvenile justice system beyond recidivism. Juvenile justice systems have historically overemphasized the unitary measure of recidivism at the expense of a more holistic approach to measuring program effectiveness, successful outcomes, and overall youth well-being. While the use of recidivism data still serves an important role, incorporating new methodologies and approaches to measuring outcomes among justice-involved youth is key moving forward. This has strong policy implications when making programmatic funding decisions in a world of growing budgetary restraints.

The operationalization and conceptualization of "success" as it pertains to youth in the juvenile justice system goes beyond the unitary measure of recidivism. Juvenile justice research has, at times, focused so heavily on recidivism that it has lost sight of a more holistic view of outcome. There is a need for a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of outcomes associated with the use of various treatment and skill-based modalities in residential facilities, detention centers and the community. What are the current innovative approaches toward behavior management of aggressive youth in residential facilities and detention centers and what are novel ways to evaluate the effectiveness of said programs? What transition and after-care efforts have proven to help further decrease or at least maintain low recidivism for justice-involved youth? How do we take a more systemic approach to the measurement of success? Equally as important are the race and diversity issues related to the inherent biases when using recidivism data as the primary measure of outcome. Additionally, there is a need for studies examining the impact of the COVID on juvenile recidivism and outcome. Exploring the public policy considerations and innovative partnerships that have effectively reduced recidivism for justice-involved youth is critical, as is rethinking the data/research methods to provide novel approaches to studying/measuring success.

The aim of this Research Topic is to explore a more holistic way of measuring, evaluating, and improving the programs and interventions for child and adolescent offenders. The scope encompasses two parallel strands, one to explore how recidivism data is used to guide our understanding of effectiveness and another to expand our idea of success with a more holistic approach to outcome. We accept case reports and review papers (including meta-analyses), empirical studies as well as scholarly contributions on professional, training and policy issues. Multidisciplinary contributions are encouraged. Areas of focus include the (a) comparison between recidivism rates and other important considerations for justice involved youth, pre- and post-pandemic; (b) exploration of increases in juvenile crime rates and how it may impact future policy or interventions; (c) comparison of boys and girls in the justice system, and a specific focus on girls as a demographic that has become increasingly justice involved and may have unique considerations that need to be addressed regarding recidivism; (d) consideration of public policy considerations and innovative partnerships that have effectively reduced recidivism for justice-involved youth; (e) examination of data/research methods-focus that provides novel approaches to studying/measuring recidivism in youth going beyond recidivism rates and reporting on other variables/considerations that may guide states and stakeholders; and (f) investigation of race and diversity issues related to juvenile recidivism.

Keywords: Juvenile recidivism, juvenile crime, child and adolescent offenders, juvenile justice, juvenile offender outcome

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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