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http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01g158bm04t| Title: | If not now, when? A survey of juvenile justice training in America’s police academies |
| Keywords: | Police services for juveniles—United States Police training—United States |
| Issue Date: | Feb-2013 |
| Publisher: | Strategies for Youth |
| Place of Publication: | Cambridge, Mass. |
| Description: | Police confronting youths in a variety of deeply challenging situations and settings receive surprisingly little training about adolescent psychology and behavior. Strategies for Youth (SFY), an organization founded in 2010 with the express aim of improving interactions between youths and police, conducted a national, comprehensive survey on the state of training about juveniles available in police academies. The results indicate that the curriculum for juvenile justice in police academies is limited both in scope of subject matter and in the time spent reviewing it. SFY’s findings confirm that most police officers who interact frequently with juveniles are not benefiting from the wealth of new scientific research available about adolescent brain development. Nor are police provided information on promising and best practices for interacting with teens that stem from our growing understanding of how teenagers’ brains differ from those of adults. This training gap for police officers has serious long and short-term consequences. Police officers’ lack of understanding about adolescent behavior and development and ignorance of a host of promising practices and interventions limits the tools and strategies available to them when dealing with youths. This fact is confirmed by the number of juvenile arrests each year — 2.1 million — of which only 12% are for serious or violent felonies. Arrests have profound and long-term harmful consequences for youths, their families and communities, risk the safety of officers, and put a strain on our communities’ already overstretched public resources and institutions. Strategies for Youth urges police academies to increase the scope, depth and focus of training to equip police with a variety of tools and strategies for encounters with youths. Specifically, we believe that all police recruits should be taught: 1. To understand how developmental capacities of children and teenagers differ from those of adults and therefore require a set of approaches and strategies appropriate to their development; 2. Communication and behavioral skills that are most effective for working with youth to reduce, rather than increase, the likelihood of conflict or violent response; 3. To recognize triggers and key indicators of trauma, exposure to violence, and other mental health issues among children and youth, particularly those who live in areas of concentrated disadvantage, and how to use alternatives to arrest for these children. |
| URI: | http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01g158bm04t |
| Related resource: | http://strategiesforyouth.org/sfysite/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SFYReport_02-2013_rev.pdf |
| Appears in Collections: | Monographic reports and papers (Publicly Accessible) |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFYReport_02-2013_rev.pdf | 3.09 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Download |
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