Presentation Type
Presentation
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Lauren Collins
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Davidson Honors College
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Youth incarceration is an urgent issue in the United States. Involvement with the juvenile justice system increases the risk of incarceration as an adult and results in profound and often lifelong social and economic consequences for young people. Even after release from prison, formerly incarcerated people face formal and informal barriers to educational attainment, job opportunities, and participation in civic life.
According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, it is estimated that over 90% of justice-involved youth have experienced at least some trauma. There is a tremendous body of evidence demonstrating a relationship between trauma and juvenile offending. While juvenile justice policy varies widely from state to state, there has been a movement in recent decades to center trauma as a way to inform work with these youth. Montana is a frontrunner in trauma responsiveness, and as part of these efforts in 2016 the Montana Youth Court Services Division incorporated the ACE screening tool into the assessments Juvenile Probation Officers use to evaluate risk factors among the youth they serve. ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, are events experienced in childhood that are shown to increase the risk of health and social problems later in life. The ACE tool can indicate risk, but it was not designed to be used with youth and is not an ideal tool for Probation Officers to evaluate trauma with.
Through interviews with Montana Juvenile Probation Officers, review of research from the Montana Youth Court and the University of Montana Criminology Research Group, and analysis of available data on trauma among Montana’s justice-involved youth, I investigate how the Montana juvenile justice system assesses trauma among the youth they serve and how assessments are used to inform intervention strategies. I then discuss the challenges of collecting data on trauma and implementing trauma-informed care in Montana, and why centering trauma responsiveness when working with juvenile offenders matters despite these challenges.
Category
Social Sciences
Presentation recording
Centering Trauma-Informed Care in Montana’s Juvenile Justice System: Why It’s Challenging, and Why It’s Important
Youth incarceration is an urgent issue in the United States. Involvement with the juvenile justice system increases the risk of incarceration as an adult and results in profound and often lifelong social and economic consequences for young people. Even after release from prison, formerly incarcerated people face formal and informal barriers to educational attainment, job opportunities, and participation in civic life.
According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, it is estimated that over 90% of justice-involved youth have experienced at least some trauma. There is a tremendous body of evidence demonstrating a relationship between trauma and juvenile offending. While juvenile justice policy varies widely from state to state, there has been a movement in recent decades to center trauma as a way to inform work with these youth. Montana is a frontrunner in trauma responsiveness, and as part of these efforts in 2016 the Montana Youth Court Services Division incorporated the ACE screening tool into the assessments Juvenile Probation Officers use to evaluate risk factors among the youth they serve. ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, are events experienced in childhood that are shown to increase the risk of health and social problems later in life. The ACE tool can indicate risk, but it was not designed to be used with youth and is not an ideal tool for Probation Officers to evaluate trauma with.
Through interviews with Montana Juvenile Probation Officers, review of research from the Montana Youth Court and the University of Montana Criminology Research Group, and analysis of available data on trauma among Montana’s justice-involved youth, I investigate how the Montana juvenile justice system assesses trauma among the youth they serve and how assessments are used to inform intervention strategies. I then discuss the challenges of collecting data on trauma and implementing trauma-informed care in Montana, and why centering trauma responsiveness when working with juvenile offenders matters despite these challenges.