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

按照发展原则改革少年司法制度是许多州和地方司法机关的当务之急。每年有70多万青少年接触少年司法系统，其中大多数通过少年缓刑提交社区监督。缓刑青少年面临着规则、义务和条件的制度，这些制度使他们每天都处于不遵守和失败的危险之中。不合规的青年更有可能继续参与少年司法系统、机构安置和成年后长期参与刑事司法系统。有新的证据表明，当青少年对强加给他们的规则和条件了解不完全时，违规率会更高。目前的研究有两个目的。第一个是更全面地探索理解和遵从之间的关系，以及这种关系是否基于个人的感知和经验而不同。第二个是测试是否可以提高理解力，以及提高理解力是否会改善法院命令和缓刑条件的结果。这项研究考察了青少年对缓刑规则和条件的理解与短期和长期的积极和消极的缓刑结果相关的发展条件。它通过对缓刑青少年(N=200)的样本进行“条件理解访谈”的实验测试来做到这一点。访谈改编自医学和护理中的回授干预措施，以加强治疗依从性。它旨在加强青少年对预计会影响青少年行为结果的三个方面的理解：他们对缓刑规则和条件的了解的特殊性，对遵守和不遵守的奖励和后果的推理，以及对他们的规则和条件与他们的长期目标和抱负的相关性的认识。这项研究将检验一种假设，即青少年对这三个维度的缓刑规则和条件的理解将在他们的日常生活中做出符合他们的规则和条件的合法决定。除了条件理解的直接影响外，这项研究还将探索青少年发展的三个维度的作用，这三个维度被假设为影响他们对缓刑结果的理解的显着性：法律社会化和法律犬儒主义，社会情绪发展，以及身份发展。这项研究的结果包括缓刑案例文件中报告的3个月和12个月的法律结果，父母对青少年在试用期前三个月的行为结果的报告，以及青少年在试用期前3个月内进行的遵守和遵守规则的每日自我报告。总体而言，这项研究将为青少年司法机构提供实用的指导和战略，以加强青少年的行为结果，帮助这些机构根据他们所服务的青少年的发展需求调整他们的方法，并将法律理解和法律决策的理论扩展到青少年司法领域，特别是司法程序的裁决后阶段。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.