Involvement in the juvenile justice system has tremendous costs for the individuals within it, as well as for society. Such involvement may damage a child’s relationships with friends and family, negatively affect mental health, and interrupt the academic progress and work experience that should accumulate during adolescence. On the societal level, the United States spends up to $88,000 per year on each individual placed in a juvenile corrections facility. Therefore, prevention or early intervention programs that help young people avoid involvement in the juvenile system in the first place offer a significant return on investment, and professionals in the field have focused on identifying and evaluating such promising approaches.

Increasingly, girls are making up a larger proportion of those involved with the juvenile justice system. Although the juvenile confinement rate is declining, and juvenile arrest rates are slowing overall, girls are seeing less of an improvement than boys. Yet the current juvenile justice system is not well positioned to meet the particular needs of girls, as most services are rooted in research based on the needs of boys.

Girls at risk of juvenile delinquency have a specific profile that differs from that of their male counterparts: They are more often detained for nonserious offenses, such as truancy or violating probation, and more often enter the juvenile justice system with a history of physical or sexual abuse.

Both state and federal agencies have shown a commitment to gender-responsive approaches; however, research on their implementation and effectiveness is needed to help practitioners learn what works and use this knowledge to improve and expand such services. The evaluation of PACE Center for Girls will deliver reliable evidence about whether and how this gender-responsive program affects important outcomes such as school success, delinquency, relationships, and mental health.

Read the source article at mdrc.org