Sara Goodkind

The Impact of Sexual Abuse in the Lives of Young Women Involved or At Risk of Involvement With the Juvenile Justice System

Girls in the juvenile justice system have high rates of past sexual abuse. To better understand the relationship between sexual abuse and justice system involvement, we analyzed survey interviews with 169 young women involved or at risk of involvement with juvenile justice, comparing girls who experienced sexual abuse with those who did not. Girls experiencing sexual abuse had more negative mental health, school, substance use, risky sexual behavior, and delinquency outcomes. These findings highlight a need for interventions to assist girls who have experienced abuse and efforts to prevent abuse and improve child welfare and social service systems.

Gender-Specific Services in the Juvenile Justice System: A Critical Examination

This article reviews the literature on gender-specific services for girls in the juvenile justice system. Drawing on feminist theorizing, it offers four critiques: (a) that the increasing involvement of girls in the system is taken as a real indicator of greater crime and delinquency; (b) that an essentialized notion of gender is used; (c) that the problem is located in the individual, to the exclusion of solutions that focus on system/structural changes; and (d) that a focus on girls’ victimization obscures girls’ agency and perpetuates girls’ continued punishment for behaviors that are more acceptable among boys. The article concludes by proposing a framework for rethinking gender in the design and delivery of services within and outside the juvenile justice system.

Gender Differences and Offender Reentry: A Review of the Literature

Historically, men have been incarcerated at rates far greater than women. As a result, reentry and reintegration programs have focused mainly on mens needs. The Second Chance Act of 2007 authorized funding for offender reentry programs and research on special populations—including about women and parents acknowledging the importance of identifying gender differences to improve offender rehabilitation efforts for successful reintegration. This article reviews literature about offender demographics, incarceration statistics, barriers to reintegration—both individual and social/structural, and gender-responsive strategies, and posits policy and program recommendations. We suggest that recognizing needs and trends for both men and women will result in more effective interventions, during incarceration as well as during the reentry and reintegration process.

“You can be anything you want, but you have to believe it”: Commercialized Feminism in Gender‐Specific Programs for Girls

Y ou can be anything you want, but you have to believe it.” These are words of advice from a staff member at a residential program for girls in a Midwestern U.S. city. In saying this, she suggests that the girls’ biggest obstacle is their low self-esteem and that if they just believe in themselves and work hard, the sky is the limit. This quotation embodies the underlying principle on which the program’s intervention efforts are based and represents a gendered version of the American dream. I argue that this programmatic goal has been enabled and promoted by a commercialized version of feminism that has resulted from the intersection of neoliberalism with feminist ideals. Commercialized feminism is characterized by its focus on the individual, self-reliance, and personal responsibility for change. It is particularly evident in the self-help industry, which includes books, magazines, and television shows that draw “explicitly or implicitly on feminism for insight, theory, method and purpose” (Kelly, Burton, and Regan 1996, 80) and which are aimed at “empowering” girls and women to make the most of their lives. Feminism, in its myriad forms, has always promoted both individual and societal change, often struggling to resolve tension between the two and make them complementary rather than conflicting. Commercialized feminism, however, represents an ascendance of the focus on the individual and thus a neoliberal abduction of a long-standing feminist tradition of

From child welfare to juvenile justice race, gender, and system experiences

At least one third of youth involved with juvenile justice experienced child maltreatment. Child welfare samples thus provide a means to examine how child welfare services moderate the relationship between maltreatment and delinquency, producing information essential for tailoring services to disrupt this link. This article contributes to understandings of which youth are likely to become involved with juvenile justice by examining its relationships with child welfare experiences and mental health and substance abuse service receipt, with particular attention to racial and gender differences. In multivariate analyses of a birth cohort of child welfare-involved youth, mental health services are associated with juvenile justice, and substance abuse services are predictive for White boys and out-of-home placement for girls. For youth experiencing out-of-home placement, mental health services are associated with increased likelihood of juvenile justice and substance abuse services with decreased likelihood, while congregate care predicts juvenile justice for girls and White youth.

Patterns of Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Justice System Involvement Among Youth Aging Out of Child Welfare

Although research on youth aging out of the child welfare system has increased, there has been limited focus on how their experiences vary. In particular, there is a need to examine patterns in the involvement of these youth in other systems, which indicate constellations of challenges facing these young people as they transition out of care and into adulthood. Using administrative data from a large birth cohort of individuals born between 1985 and 1994 whose families have been involved in the child welfare system, this article presents an analysis of the mental health, substance abuse, juvenile justice, and criminal justice system involvement of youth who have aged out of child welfare. Using a 2-step cluster analysis, we identify 5 subgroups of youth. Two of these groups, accounting for almost half of the youth, have little other system involvement and have child welfare care careers of relative stability. The other 3 groups, consisting of just over half of the youth, have much more extensive other system involvement, as well as care careers marked by instability and a greater proportion of time spent in congregate care.

A Widening of the Net of Social Control

Abstract Young womens involvement with the U.S. juvenile justice system has grown rapidly over the last two decades. With this growth has come a proliferation of interventions intended to meet a 1992 federal initiative for correctional facilities and programs for adolescents to provide “gender-specific” services. In this article, we present the results of an inductive, qualitative evaluation of an art therapy program for institutionalized girls developed in response to this initiative. Using data from focus groups with young women and interviews with staff and administration, we demonstrate how the program, as it attempts to help them, also attempts to control the young women by reinforcing gendered notions of appropriateness. Examining assumptions about gender on which the program is based, as well as the notable absence of attention to issues of race, ethnicity, and class, we draw on the work of Foucault to consider how gender-specific treatment can serve to broaden social control over young women. We examine the young womens resistance to such regulation and consider implications for therapeutic intervention in an involuntary context.

Developmental Trajectories and Predictors of Juvenile Detention, Placement, and Jail Among Youth with Out-of-Home Child Welfare Placement

Youth who experience out-of-home placement in the child welfare system are more likely to have justice system involvement. However, research has yet to fully address the underlying heterogeneity of trajectories and trajectory groups regarding substantial justice system involvement within this population. Using administrative data from a child welfare placement sample of 794 children and youth in a large, urban county in Pennsylvania, this longitudinal study seeks to identify trajectory groups and their predictors as related to juvenile detention, placement, and county jail involvement. Five groups were identified and labeled as follows: (a) No/Low-Involved (70.7%), (b) Early Age Involvement (5.9%), (c) Late Adolescent/Adult Involvement (7.9%), (d) Short-Term/Highly Involved (7.8%), and (e) Chronically Involved (7.7%). We present descriptive profiles of these groups to highlight their differences. We then use multinomial logistic regression to examine predictors reflecting demographics, child welfare experiences, and experiences in other systems that further differentiate the 5 groups. Results demonstrate that placement factors affect the groups differently; for example, ever being in congregate care was significant only for the Chronically Involved justice system group. The No/Low justice system group had the highest percentage of total time in care in foster homes and had the highest percentage of young people with only 1 placement type. This study further demonstrates the need to better understand the heterogeneity of child-level characteristics within the child welfare population as a necessary step to disentangling the complex relationships between child welfare placements and justice system involvement. Further implications for research, policy, and practice are presented.

How Different are Their Experiences and Outcomes? Comparing Aged Out and Other Child Welfare Involved Youth

This paper adds to the growing body of research examining the experiences of youth aging out of the child welfare system. Through a comparison of youth aging out with two other groups of child welfare-involved youth-those whose families received child welfare services but were never placed out of home and those who were in out-of-home placement but did not age out-it presents a profile of their care careers and other system involvement (e.g., mental health, justice system). Analyses indicate that young people aging out of care have experienced significant amounts of time in out-of-home placement, a great deal of placement instability, and high levels of other system involvement. In general, their involvement is more extensive than that of the two comparison groups. However, the justice system involvement of youth who experienced out-of-home placement but did not age out is just as high as that of youth who have aged out. This finding highlights the importance of devoting resources not only to youth aging out of care but also to similarly-aged young people with prior child welfare involvement.

Using Photovoice to Identify Service Needs of Older African American Methadone Clients

ABSTRACT This article presents findings from a photovoice project designed to identify service needs of older-adult African American methadone clients, as well as their current barriers to and supports for abstinence. The project involved 10 participants (aged 53 to 63 years old) recruited from a methadone maintenance program in a large Northeastern U.S. city. Thematic analysis techniques were used to analyze participants’ narratives of their pictures. Transportation emerged as a significant challenge to accessing services, and caregiving was a motivation for remaining abstinent. Future research should use similar participatory methods and engage a broader group of aging people struggling with substance abuse.