Overview
This week, we begin our examination of contemporary responses to youths’ illegal behaviors. The goal for this week is to assess pre-adjudication responses to youths’ illegal behavior. Primarily, our focus will be on nonformal responses or diversion. As a prelude to this discussion, we will consider the “school to prison pipeline” as it provides a good way to understand the need for diversion in juvenile justice.
Objectives
Upon completion of this week’s lesson, you should be able to:
Define what is meant by the “school to prison pipeline.”
Explain how the political economy contributes to the school to prison pipeline.
Explain how trends in education, policing, and juvenile justice contribute to the school to prison pipeline
Describe juvenile arrest trends and trends in the willingness of police to refer youths to juvenile court.
Define radical nonintervention or true diversion and assess the role in can play in juvenile justice.
Explain the rationale for diversion and its value in juvenile justice.
Describe diversion programs that appear to be effective and programs that are not effective
Assess arguments that are made in support of diversion.
Assess the potential problems that should be addressed when developing or operating diversion programs
Tasks
View Video Lecture (Part 1 and Part 2 below) on the School to Prison Pipeline. While viewing the videos, use the pause feature to stop the slides when needed so that you can examine the content.
Part 1
Part 2
Watch the video: Rethinking Challenging Kids-Where There’s a Skill There’s a Way | J. Stuart Ablon | TEDxBeaconStreet
Read the material below, Juvenile Diversion.
View Video Lecture 3
