A National Survey of Probation Staff of the Needs, Services and Barriers of Female Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings

Abstract

Despite a growing awareness and documentation of the growing proportion of justice-involved girls and their unique needs over the last three decades, federal efforts to disseminate gender-responsive priorities have largely been unsuccessful. The purpose of this national, cross-sectional survey of juvenile justice staff was to describe the current implementation of gender-responsive programming, the degree to which it is empirically supported, the needs of justice involved girls, and the training needs of juvenile justice staff for working with this population. Two-hundred juvenile justice staff from the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) responded to this 24-item online survey across 28 U.S. states. The large majority (97%) agreed girls have unique needs, while 94% thought they needed gender-responsive programming. Seventy-percent of respondents endorsed local gender-responsive programming, although most services were offered post-adjudication, and few were empirically supported. Probation staff identified multiple training and programmatic needs to support their work with justice-involved girls.

Keywords:

• Gender-specific program
• girls
• juvenile justice system
• staff perspectives
• staff training

AUTHOR NOTE

We would like to express our gratitude to the American Probation and Parole Association for their willingness to administer this online survey to their membership. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Danielle E. Parrish, Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, Baylor University, Houston Campus, 4100 Main St., Houston, TX 77002, Email: [email protected].