There have been numerous studies on understanding what causes juvenile and adolescent delinquency; however, very little attention had been paid to serious adolescent offenders. While the juvenile justice system implements sanctions and interventions, there is a lack of knowledge of which institutional pathways will increase the likelihood that serious adolescent offenders will have a positive transition to adulthood.
JoAnn Lee, assistant professor in the Department of Social Work, has received a $40,000, one-year grant from the National Institute of Justice FY 2015 Data Resources Program for her study, “Institutional Pathways: Dynamics and Characteristics of System Service Use by Serious Adolescent Offenders.”
Lee’s study is working to identify institutional pathways through the juvenile justice system and related institutions and to determine the correlations between these pathways and the adult outcomes of serious adolescent offenders. As a standard definition for institutional pathways does not exist, Lee is also working to define this concept in another manuscript.
“We assume that the services we provide will improve outcomes for serious adolescent offenders,” Lee said. “This study is examining how the timing and sequencing of services is important when working with serious adolescent offenders.”
One of the goals of Lee’s research is to provide better guidance on how and when interventions should be delivered to facilitate desistance (stopping the offending behavior) and to help serious adolescent offenders achieve the best possible outcomes.
“I anticipate that, in this study, we will see institutional pathways that are characterized by more disruptions will be associated with more negative outcomes,” Lee said. “If that is the case, the study could impact the development and implementation of interventions for serious adolescent offenders to work toward connecting them to society in a positive way.”