Collaborative Research: Adolescent Development, Legal Comprehension, and Decision-Making Among Justice-Involved Youth

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Reforming the juvenile justice system along developmental principles is an urgent priority for many states and local jurisdictions. Over 700,000 adolescents have contact with the juvenile justice system every year, with a majority referred to community supervision via juvenile probation. Adolescents on probation encounter systems of rules, obligations, and conditions that place them in daily jeopardy of non-compliance and failure. Youth who are non-compliant are more likely to have continued involvement in the juvenile justice system, institutional placement, and chronic involvement with the criminal justice system as adults. There is emerging evidence to suggest that non-compliance rates are higher when adolescents have an incomplete understanding of the rules and conditions imposed on them. The current study has two aims. The first is to explore, more fully, the relationship between comprehension and compliance and whether it differs based on individual perceptions and experiences. The second is to test whether comprehension can be enhanced and whether improved comprehension improves outcomes with regards to court orders and probation conditions. This study examines the developmental conditions under which adolescent understanding of the rules and conditions of their probation orders is associated with short-term and long-term positive and negative probation outcomes. It does this through an experimental test of the “condition comprehension interview” in a sample of adolescents on probation (N = 200). The interview was adapted from teach-back interventions in medicine and nursing to strengthen treatment adherence. It aims to strengthen three aspects of adolescent understanding that are expected to influence adolescent behavioral outcomes: the specificity of their knowledge about probation rules and conditions, reasoning about rewards and consequences for compliance and non-compliance, and appreciation for the relevance of their rules and conditions for their long-term goals and ambitions. The research will test the hypothesis that adolescent comprehension of their probation rules and conditions in these three dimensions will make legal decisions in their day-to-day lives that are aligned with their rules and conditions. Along with the direct effects of condition comprehension, the study will explore the roles of three dimensions of adolescent development that are hypothesized to influence the salience of their understanding on probation outcomes: legal socialization and legal cynicism, socio-emotional development, and identity development. Outcomes of the study include 3-month and 12-month legal outcomes reported in probation case files, parental report of adolescent behavioral outcomes during the first three months of their probation term, and adolescent daily self-report of their compliance and rule following conducted within the first 3 months of their probation term. Overall, this study will provide practical guidance and strategies to juvenile justice agencies to strengthen adolescent behavioral outcomes, will help these agencies tune their approaches according to the developmental needs of adolescents they serve, and extend theories of legal comprehension and legal decision making to the field of juvenile justice with a particular emphasis on the post-adjudication phase of justice processing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.