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Social Justice and Juvenile Offenders: Examples of Fairness, Respect, and Access in Education Settings a

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Janay B. Sander , Jill D. Sharkey , Amber N. Groomes , Lauren a

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Krumholz , Kimberly Walker & Julie Y. Hsu a

The University of Texas at Austin

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To cite this article: Janay B. Sander, Jill D. Sharkey, Amber N. Groomes, Lauren Krumholz, Kimberly Walker & Julie Y. Hsu (2011): Social Justice and Juvenile Offenders: Examples of Fairness, Respect, and Access in Education Settings, Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 21:4, 309-337 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2011.620816

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CONSULTATION IN SOCIETAL CONTEXT

Social Justice and Juvenile Offenders: Examples of Fairness, Respect, and Access in Education Settings JANAY B. SANDER The University of Texas at Austin

JILL D. SHARKEY University of California Santa Barbara

AMBER N. GROOMES, LAUREN KRUMHOLZ, KIMBERLY WALKER, and JULIE Y. HSU The University of Texas at Austin

Youths involved in juvenile justice face unique barriers to educational and mental health services. This qualitative study illustrates social justice violations that are particularly salient for this population. Youths on probation, their mothers, and juvenile probation staff participated in interviews as part of a multisite study conducted in Texas and California. Interviews were coded using the Consensual Qualitative Research method. This study provides detailed examples of social justice components of fairness, respect, and access within school and juvenile justice settings. Implications for how schools could address these types of situations to promote fairness and decrease discrimination and stigma for youths with a criminal record who are trying to succeed in school are also discussed.

Correspondence should be sent to Janay B. Sander, The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Educational Psychology, 1 University Station, Mail Stop D5800, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail: [email protected] 309


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Educational achievement is a striking predictor of delinquency and recidivism (Cottle, Lee, & Heilbrun, 2001). Over 80% of all juveniles and adults in the criminal justice system have experienced school failure or dropout (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 2001). The population of juvenile offenders also has a high incidence of mental health concerns (Cocozza & Skowyra, 2000) and family disruptions that warrant intervention (Caldwell, Silver, & Strada, 2010). There is not a clear causal pathway to criminality with any of the risk factors, but understanding how risks could be altered may assist in the efforts to prevent delinquency and improve outcomes for many youths (Murray & Farrington, 2010). Disparity in terms of referral rates for discretionary discipline, overrepresentation of minority youth in juvenile justice, and the overlap in low educational attainment for specific groups of youths are all important social justice concerns—all related to risk factors for delinquency. Each of these trends warrants attention in disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, a term used to describe the gradual disconnection with school that contributes to joblessness and chronic criminal activity, eventually leading to prison (Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson, 2005). Identification of inequality and disparities is the first step in a social justice approach (Rogers & O’Bryon, 2008). Clearly, certain groups are more susceptible to injustice than others in all societal domains, and youths involved in crime warrant consideration from this social justice perspective. This study is designed to examine the specific ways that social justice in education settings applies to youths involved in juvenile justice. Within education, social justice refers to an environment in which all students are treated with fairness and respect and within which everyone has equal access to the resources the school has to offer (North, 2006). McCabe and Rubinson (2008) adopted a definition that emphasized equal access and the protection of each student’s educational and psychological well-being. In what has been the most systematic attempt to operationalize a definition, Shriberg et al. (2008) questioned professionals in school psychology about what social justice means to them. Respondents highlighted themes of fairness, equal access, advocacy, and the adoption of an ecological perspective. Based on findings from Shriberg and colleagues (2008), along with other scholars, Nastasi (2008) suggested that social justice may mean addressing ‘‘a range of child and adolescent needs, including education and mental and physical well-being, and as encompassing the multiple ecological contexts, including school, peer group, family, community, and society’’ (p. 490). As Kenny and Hage (2009) noted, this definition of social justice fits well within the parameters of ethical guidelines for psychologists as defined by both the American Psychological Association and the National Association of School Psychologists. Integrating the work across these contemporary scholars and professional organizations in the area of social justice, we offer an operational definition applied to education settings:

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Social justice is an advocacy-related construct that includes three specific, but not always distinct, ecological system qualities that promote educational success and psychological well-being: access to necessary and appropriate resources, experiences of being treated with respect, and the presence of fairness.

Although discrimination experiences and other disparities within education and juvenile justice systems are well documented, as we discuss later, these injustices are not typically highlighted as areas of concern for educational consultants, school psychologists, and other psychologists working with schools. To promote social justice, it is critical to make these disparities common knowledge. Our study goes directly to the source—children and parents involved with juvenile justice as well as probation staff who serve this population—to describe experiences of discrimination and inequality in education settings.

DISPROPORTIONALITY AND DISCIPLINE PROCEDURES To begin explaining the background for this study, the first topic is the disproportionate impact that school suspensions and other zero tolerance policies have on minority students and students with disabilities. In regard to race and ethnicity, this impact seems to be especially significant for African American students, who are significantly more likely to be referred for disciplinary action and more likely to be suspended compared with their peers from any other racial group. This trend first appears in elementary school (Raffaele Mendez & Knoff, 2003). In addition, students with disabilities, regardless of race, are more likely to be suspended compared to their peers without a disability. Students labeled with emotional disturbance (ED) are most likely to be suspended. Next, students with learning disabilities or other health impairment are also more likely to be suspended compared with students not receiving special education (Krezmien, Leone, & Achilles, 2006). African American and Native North American students with disabilities were subject to higher rates of suspension compared to other racial and ethnic group students with disabilities. It is important to note that the disciplinary action that removes students with disabilities from the classroom is contradictory to these students’ need for more intense instruction and consistent intervention (Krezmien et al., 2006). The reasons for these disparities are unclear, but Krezmien and colleagues (2006) suggested that schools are not accounting for whether or not behaviors are associated with disabilities when disciplinary action is being decided. Moreover, there is not evidence to suggest that African American students are more likely to engage in disruptive behavior than other students. Racial disparities in discipline exist even after controlling for socioeconomic status (Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002).

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DISPROPORTIONALITY IN JUVENILE JUSTICE Next, the disproportionate representation of minority youth within the juvenile justice system has been a long-standing concern. Various state and federal organizations have repeatedly acknowledged an unequal race-based application of juvenile law; as early as 1986, Congress expressed concern about the trend (Johnson, 2007). By current estimates, minority youth are still overrepresented within the juvenile justice system. According to the 2006 United States Census statistics, Black youth ages 5–17 years make up roughly 15.5% of the population (United States Census Bureau, 2008). In 2003, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs (OJJDP) estimated that Black juveniles accounted for roughly 38% of all youths detained for nonstatus delinquency offenses (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). Even when controlling for severity of offense and the youth’s prior record, Black youths receive longer, more severe punishments than do their White counterparts (Johnson, 2007). Hispanic youth appear to be experiencing juvenile justice involvement at elevated and disproportionate levels as well, but this is a more recent trend relative to the literature on African American youth (Vazsonyi & Chen, 2010). Parallel difficulties appear to be happening to Hispanic and Latino youth, similar to Black youth, in terms of more frequent contact with law officials and harsher punishments relative to White non-Hispanic peers (Barela-Bloom & Unnithan, 2009).

MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS Finally, youth mental health services are inadequate to meet tremendous need across the United States, and many of these youths end up involved in juvenile justice. Although rates of serious childhood mental, emotional, or behavioral symptoms are estimated at 20% (Costello, Mustillo, Erkanli, Keeler, & Angold, 2003), only a sparse 15–30% receive any type of mental health service (Ringel & Sturm, 2001). The juvenile justice system is replete with mental health and emotional distress among youth, and access to services is the most salient concern in terms of social justice. There are many barriers to children getting services. Unfortunately, juvenile justice is at times a last resort. A 2003 study by the Government Accountability Office found that at least 12,700 families relinquished custody of their children to the juvenile justice system in hopes of obtaining needed mental health services (Koppelman, 2005). Unable to access resources through public school special education or Medicaid, families turn to the juvenile justice system for assistance (Walker & Friedman, 2001). Arresting officers or intake probation staff may misinterpret mental health concerns as intentionally rude and disrespectful (Burrell & Warboys, 2000).



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Many inappropriate behaviors are not purposefully confrontational. Instead, they are a manifestation of emotional distress or impaired ability to inhibit certain behaviors. These impulsive or reactive responses to authority are often due to disabilities like Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and emotional disturbance rather than to a conscious resistance to the adults (Burrell & Warboys, 2000). In this way unmet mental health needs of youth promote a pathway toward prison. There are considerable efforts to address the concerns (e.g., Goldstrom, Jaiquan, Henderson, Male, & Manderscheid, 2000; Grisso & Underwood, 2004; Wasserman et al., 2009), but it remains an area of unmet needs and a point of inequality in terms of access that has a dramatic relationship to juvenile offending. This is especially concerning given that the mental health needs of youths in juvenile justice systems are on par with those of youths in psychiatric facilities (Rosenblatt, Rosenblatt, & Biggs, 2000).

Social Justice To advocate for social justice and facilitate change for the vulnerable populations, such as minority youth, those with mental health concerns, and juvenile offender populations, it is critical to make examples of injustice and disparities overt (McCabe & Rubinson, 2008). In order to facilitate this shared knowledge in the literature, we elaborate the components of social justice, namely, fairness, respect, and access to resources. Fairness. Fairness can be defined as the belief that persons should be treated according to their individual situation (Wiebe Berry, 2008). One example of fairness would be students receiving special education services, including individualized education plans, to ensure an appropriate education for each student according to his or her needs. It is also important to discuss instances where fairness is absent, or unfairness. An example of unfairness is racial profiling of minorities, which is police action that relies on the race, ethnicity, or national origin of an individual as determinant of the likelihood that individual has engaged in criminal activity, rather than on the individual’s behavior (Ramírez, McDevitt, & Farrell, 2000). Respect. There is no universal definition of respect, as it is often culturespecific. For the purposes of our work here with juvenile offenders in the United States, it is useful to examine respect in two ways. Wilson (1993) defines respect as a relational dimension characterized by acceptance and nonjudgmental acknowledgment of another’s self-identity, experience, environment, and actions. By this definition, respect in relationships allows for each member to feel equally valued and powerful. In contrast, respect can also refer to deference to authority (Jones, 2002). When two people differ in their opinions of what it means to be respectful (i.e., reciprocal acceptance and acknowledgment vs. deference to authority), difficulties in the relationship can arise (Deutsch & Jones, 2008; Jones, 2002).


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Respect in youth-adult relationships is complicated by the notion of authority and the differing needs of the individuals. It is developmentally appropriate for adolescents to be seeking autonomy and relatedness, meaning that, teens typically balance the desire to define themselves and their independence with the desire for close, supportive relationships (Phinney, Kim-Jo, Osorio, & Vilhjalmsdottir, 2005). Adults working with adolescents often have very different needs: the need for behavioral control, environmental order, and compliance (Deutsch & Jones, 2008). Studies of relationships between youth at risk for educational challenges and delinquency and adults have shown that respect may be important in specific ways. How each party defines and acts upon the notion of respect can serve as a catalyst for determining how adults will demand authority and how youth will respond. Deutsch and Jones (2008) highlighted the bidirectional nature of respect and argued that the ways in which an adolescent responds to adult authority may be mediated by how respected they feel in the relationship. In addition, the authors maintained that the relationship between adolescents and adults is strongly influenced by the social context in which the relationship is embedded. Respect is also expressed via the manner of interaction and the beliefs conveyed through discourse. It is conveyed through attending, listening, withholding judgment, and collaborative dialogue (Wilson, 1993). The quality of the relationship with an adult was an important factor for adolescents when deciding whether or not that adult deserved respect and authority (Deutsch & Jones, 2008). Access. Although access is a commonly used term and a critical factor related to the utilization of services, this word lacks a clear operational definition despite attempts to further delineate the meaning. A definition that seems to capture the complexity of this concept was proposed by Penchansky and Thomas (1981), who defined access as a general term encompassing the degree of fit between the clients and a system. They specified the particular areas of fit to include availability, accessibility, accommodation, affordability, and acceptability of services. It is important to note that barriers to access must be evaluated within the cultural context in that society (Gulliford et al., 2002). Accommodation as an aspect of access refers to the way in which supply resources are organized to receive clients (e.g., hours of operation, appointment systems, and telephone services) and clients’ ability to adjust to these factors. It is particularly important to highlight the relation between the resource organization and the clients served. It is a system; the manner in which supply resources are offered to clients is as important as whether clients are able to receive and adapt to the provision of these resources. Social justice and the school-to-prison pipeline are inherently connected but not explicitly addressed as primary research projects. We offer a way to consider the connections in terms of pathways, risks, and a cumulative effect over time (see Figure 1). This general conceptual model represents



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FIGURE 1 School-to-Prison Pipeline Represented With Events and Experiences in Terms of Tipping the Scales.

main ideas that are not entirely clear yet in research, and it also portrays areas that warrant further investigation.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE FIELD OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Given that a considerable amount is known about risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency, there are some unique methodology considerations in conducting research about the topic. These considerations revolve around the philosophy driving the research method: postpositivism versus constructivism. From a postpositivist view there is only one worldview, and it includes rigorous standardization and objectivity, very similar to traditional quantitative method. In more constructivist qualitative research methods, the phenomenon itself is studied using the subjective experience of the individuals most affected and marginalized by it (Carter & Morrow, 2007). Constructivism, including a pure grounded theory method, includes heavy researcher involvement, a coconstruction of meaning with researcher and participants both involved in the process together (Ponterotto, 2010). There are excellent reviews of the differences between these philosophies in qualitative research (see Ponterotto, 2010; Williams & Morrow, 2009, for further


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reading on these approaches). In this case, we had several considerations that influenced the method selection. First, there is a large body of research, so a postpositivist view seemed relevant. Yet, we were concerned about how to simultaneously remain open to different ways of seeing the phenomenon, which is more of a constructivist approach to research. We also had several logistical considerations: a large (defined as 10C persons) team of researchers, a dual-site study, and a desire to use specific procedures to standardize the process and replicate the study in the future. Youths on probation and their families are often disempowered and have little social privilege, and their unique perspectives may not have been addressed in large-scale study designs that adopt researcher-designed questions. The size of the research team across two locations would not be suitable for a constructivist type of approach. Furthermore, as predominantly quantitative researchers accustomed to the standardization and objectivity in positivism, an approach that would allow for more objective checking and standard process in general was a good fit for the members of the team. Given the considerations, Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR; Hill et al., 2005) was an ideal approach. CQR allows for structure, standardization, and objectivity checks but also addresses the complexity of relations among the variables, allows for a multisite research team, and incorporates the participants’ views in the process of constructing interview questions and informing how researchers understand the phenomenon from participants’ worldview. It is a blend of some aspects of constructivist and postpositivist approaches (Williams & Morrow, 2009). The CQR approach is also consistent with empowering typically disempowered individuals and being sensitive to cultural, linguistic, and other minority groups (Bursztyn, 2007), an important consideration for the population typical in most juvenile justice research.

RESEARCH PURPOSE This study is part of a larger investigation (Sander, Sharkey, Olivarri, Tanigawa, & Mauseth, 2010) about school, community, and family experiences from the perspective of youths with history of juvenile delinquency, their parents, and juvenile probation officers. The initial study addressed the main child, family, and school areas of risk associated with juvenile offending (i.e., relationships and experiences at school, learning challenges, discipline procedures, and parent-school relationships) in order to inform future directions in juvenile delinquency research. The intent was to include perspectives of persons with firsthand knowledge of delinquency, representing members from the systems closest to the phenomenon: families and juvenile justice. Drawing on existing literature summarizing risks for delinquency, we asked a series of semistructured questions designed to focus on the following guiding questions: (a) What were the challenges, such as emotional, learning,


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or behavioral problems, experienced by adolescents on probation over the course of their lives? (b) How did school systems, other adults including probation officers, and parents respond to or address those challenges? (c) Which approaches in schools or juvenile justice settings were particularly helpful from the participants’ perspectives? Questions for parents and the adolescent participants are listed in Sander et al. (2010), and the probation staff interview prompts are in the Appendix.

METHOD Participants Participants were recruited at two locations through juvenile justice centers in Texas and California. The participants included adolescents on probation and their mothers, teachers in juvenile detention facilities, and juvenile probation officers. The study included analysis of 40 individually administered semistructured interviews, each lasting about one hour. Each participant met with researchers only once. Adolescents. Adolescent participants included a total of 12 males and 4 females between the ages of 13 and 17 years (M D 15.25, SD D 1.18) who were currently serving probation. Seven participants resided in California and 9 resided in Texas. Adolescents identified themselves according to ethnicity as 8 White (non-Hispanic), 5 White/Hispanic (Mexican American), and 2 mixed ethnicity or race: 1 White and White/Hispanic (Mexican American) and 1 Black/Hispanic (African American and Mexican American). All participants have been given pseudonyms to protect their identities. Additional participant descriptive information is in Sander et al. (2010). Mothers. Sixteen mothers volunteered to be in the study. The age range of mothers was 33–55 years (M D 43.73, SD D 5.80). Nine women identified as White/Non-Hispanic, and 7 women identified as White/Hispanic (Mexican American). Maternal education levels included the following: less than high school (n D 1), high school diploma (n D 3), vocational training post high school (n D 7), or college degree or beyond (n D 4). Probation staff. A total of 8 probation staff members participated in the study: 2 male teachers in Texas, 1 male teacher in California, 1 female probation officer in Texas and another in California, and 1 male probation officer in Texas and another in California. One probation administrative official also participated in Texas. Seven of these participants were White (non-Hispanic) and 1 was Black. Probation staff had been working in the field for a range of time, from 3 years to nearly 20 years; 6 had more than 5 years of experience. Research team. A total of 13 research members participated in the coding process. The ages of team members ranged from 21 to 35 years (M D


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26.6). Several ethnic groups were represented: White (non-Hispanic; n D 10), White/Hispanic (Mexican American; n D 2), Asian (n D 2), and Iranian (n D 1). One graduate student was male, and the rest of the team was female. As is typical in the CQR method (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997), a description of the research team potential areas of bias is warranted. In general, the potential bias of the team was that juvenile justice systems and schools have the potential to influence development in positive and negative ways; juvenile offenders are a highly vulnerable group subject to considerable bias in our society, and with the right tools and tailored empirically supported interventions, juvenile offenders could attain positive emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. A more comprehensive description of research team bias is described by Sander et al. (2010).

Procedures Youth and parent participants. Fliers inviting juveniles on probation, ages 13 to 17 years old, with a parent or guardian, were mailed from probation departments to the adolescents’ home addresses and posted in the juvenile justice center lobby. Participants contacted one of the lead investigators directly to schedule the interview. Additional information on participant recruitment is in Sander et al. (2010). A research team pair interviewed the mother and the adolescent participant simultaneously during the same visit, but the conversations were held in separate rooms for privacy. Parent and probation officer questions included topics similar to the adolescent interview (see Sander et al., 2010, for a complete description of procedures). For most themes, with the exception of possible gender-specific experiences and African American participant perspectives, saturation had been reached. Researchers attempted to recruit additional female and African American participants but were unable to recruit targeted participants before the conclusion of the study. Probation staff participants. At each juvenile justice facility, the chief officer sent an e-mail to all staff to invite them to voluntarily participate in the study. The e-mail contained the contact information for the university researcher at the site. The e-mail conveyed that the justice facility was in support of the research but that participation was voluntary. All participants e-mailed the researcher directly to volunteer. Interviews were conducted in private offices at the juvenile facility at the convenience of the participant. The lead investigators at each site conducted all probation staff interviews. Participants were assured that their identities would be disguised, and no direct feedback from any participant would be shared with the chief officer or administration, including whether or not they had participated. A donation equivalent to $25 per participant was made to each facility at the conclusion of the study on behalf of the researchers, but the staff participants did not receive any direct compensation. Approximately 12 staff made themselves


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available to participate. After eight interviews, saturation had been reached. A list of interview prompts for probation staff is in the Appendix.


Training The team members at both sites read several articles on CQR prior to data collection (Hill et al., 2005; Hill et al., 1997). All interviewers had prior experience conducting general psychological interviews, so the use of semistructured questions, summarizing and clarifying techniques, and probes was part of their course of study. In terms of coding training, members did all steps of the coding process with the first three interviews as training to clarify procedures, referencing the Hill et al. (1997; 2005) articles frequently, and the entire process was done by whole-group consensus via phone conference meetings across sites. The lead investigator also discussed the process and concerns with Clara Hill by phone to ensure the integrity of the procedures as applied to a large, multisite team. The lead investigator also discussed the process with a colleague, Aaron Rochlen, who is one of Hill’s former students and coauthor of several CQR studies. The first interviews were added to the end of the coding list and were recoded later in the process.

Coding and Analysis Process Using CQR procedures (Hill et al., 2005; Hill et al., 1997), data were coded using a rotating team approach, a system of assigning the transcripts to code to pairs, and switching the coder pairs systematically. Switching coders is intended to reduce coding fatigue and reduce the possibility of specific patterns developing within dyads. This coding approach is recommended for larger teams (Hill et al., 1997). Weekly whole-group meetings occurred for the duration of the coding and auditing process. The main themes that emerged from parents and children were about school-specific experiences, which were reported separately (see Sander et al., 2010), including parents acting as child advocates to attain school services, the value of flexibility in discipline policies, specific positive and negative classroom experiences that left strong impressions on the participants, and how much participants valued nonjudgmental social support. The remaining themes that emerged from the coding process included striking examples of social justice concepts and permeated the more narrow coding categories. These themes were present in child, parent, and probation staff interviews. All social justice concepts emerged during the whole-team process but did not fit neatly into any other single category at first; they did seem to be part of one concept. At that point, researchers looked into the specific definitions of social justice more closely to understand the data that emerged, including the three threads of access, fairness, respect. The themes did fit the literature, and at that point all interviews were reexamined with


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the new information and categories with which to understand and group the social justice themes that had emerged. All statements coded within the social justice framework had already been extracted and audited within the initial CQR coding process but had not been grouped into a single category because they pervaded several strands on the larger coding map content areas. Social justice emerged as a thread underlying categories of ‘‘relationships with adults,’’ ‘‘educational systems experiences,’’ ‘‘mental health,’’ and ‘‘community experiences’’ in the coding map (Sander et al., 2010). Participants mentioned social justice themes more often than any other single type of coding content or theme but not as a single code standing alone; social justice was always coded as a secondary theme, such as ‘‘respect’’ in social justice would also relate to the primary code of how that interpersonal relationship quality was coded in the coding system adopted for the study.

Trustworthiness Member checking is one typical approach for ensuring the data and themes are trustworthy and accurate according to the participants’ experiences. Member checking involves sharing the findings with the study participants directly, such as sending the transcripts or the final article to the participants prior to publication. This step is essential in most pure forms of constructivist methods, such as grounded theory (Ponterotto, 2010). In CQR, this particular form of member checking is not typical or is seldom reported (Williams & Morrow, 2009). In our opinion, this form of checking the trustworthiness of our data seemed awkward. Instead, our team presented the main findings to the staff at both juvenile justice centers to check and see if the officers and staff there could envision that these themes accurately capture the experiences of these families and staff alike—not if there was only one truth or worldview possible but that the conclusions were plausible. The staff agreed these seemed like a good representation of the experiences of many families they had worked with as well as a reasonable summary of their own experiences in terms of probation staff themes.

RESULTS Although none of the participants used the term, social justice, they did discuss aspects of fairness, respect, and access. The frequencies with which adolescents, parents, and probation staff mentioned specific topics are presented in Table 1. All participants’ names are pseudonyms. Although we present themes as ‘‘fairness,’’ ‘‘access,’’ and ‘‘respect,’’ we do not consider these mutually exclusive aspects of a social justice framework.

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TABLE 1 Number of Participants Who Mentioned Aspects of Social Justice During Interviews Participants Youths (n D 16) Mothers (n D 16) Probation staff (n D 8)

Access

Fairness

Respect

Anya

2 5 6

8 7 1

7 6 8

13 12 8

the participant gave examples that fit multiple categories, the statement was listed in both categories but not double counted as a separate statement in the total ‘‘any’’ column.


a If

Fairness In this study, we considered the concept of fairness to represent the idea that people were treated according to their individual needs and abilities. Discrimination and prejudice are examples of the antithesis of fairness. All adolescents who identified themselves as White/Hispanic (Mexican American specifically) or mixed ethnicity and/or race in this study experienced racism, teasing, or prejudice, and one White/non-Hispanic participant, who moved to the United States from a European country, also discussed this theme. Parents of the adolescents who mentioned discrimination experiences independently expressed that they would prefer their children to be seen as individuals, not stereotyped due to their ethnicity, appearance, or past behavior. The theme of fairness/equality was described by about half the youth and mother participants. In summary, all Hispanic, Black, mixed ethnicity participants, and the only foreign-born White participant brought up this theme. Overall, youths felt they were judged by how they looked, specifically, that they were unfairly perceived as suspicious, dangerous, or as a gang member. For example, when asked why he was stopped by the police, Jason stated, ‘‘I don’t know. They said I was acting suspicious. They always say I’m acting suspicious.’’ Enrique also described some police encounters: There’s some, there’s cops out there that just like stop you to just judge you, just how you look : : : they like to think every, every, we’re doing bad all the time.

Prejudice, and the inequality it seemed to foster, extended beyond racial appearance and instead applied to reputation according to participants; once they were labeled as delinquent youth not only had difficulty making healthy friends but also struggled to overcome their reputation with police, teachers, coaches, and other community members. Often the youth felt targeted by school administration following their offenses, which led to overreactive or harsh discipline or inaccurate attributions of behavior and character. Wolfgang explains:

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I went [to a new school] and then, that was great for like a month, and then one of the principals from my old school came to [my new school] and then screwed me over again. The first day she got there, she accused me of drawing like a swastika in the bathroom and I had like no previous anything on the record there. They all loved me [at the new school] and thought I was a good kid. Like I didn’t know anyone so I wasn’t causing this trouble. But [the old principal] just like wanted trouble for me.


Several participants felt that their academic opportunities were limited following an offense, as Joey described: I just had so much stuff on my record, like so many bad reputation things going, like all the teachers and everything, like I could never get into like a normal good class without them already thinking that I’m gonna just do something.

Transferring schools seemed like a desirable option but in these data appeared helpful for only about half of the youths who did it. For many, reputation seemed to spoil the fresh start once the information reached the new school. According to her mother, Roxanne was threatened with being sent back to alternative school once her new school learned about her probation status despite the fact that she had attended the new school for 4 months without incident. In brief, participants communicated that the stigma of being a juvenile offender is powerful. Joey described a lack of hope: ‘‘I feel like they’ve [teachers] lost the objective to make me do better in life.’’ In some cases adults did not show blatant discrimination, but participants experienced a ‘‘failure to respond’’ in terms of teachers who did not seem to intervene in peer discrimination situations. For example, participants’ experienced that school-system adults failed to address the problem of bullying, which led to escalation to the point of aggression from the participants’ perspective. Jason, for example, was teased over a period of years for his large size and that he is mixed-Latino/Black in a primarily Latino/a neighborhood. He was expelled from school after fighting with another student in response to that student’s racial slurs, as he explained, ‘‘Yeah they called me names in that class too. I hit them then I got in trouble. Then they called me names right in front of the teacher and she didn’t do nothing.’’ Javier’s mother felt that she had to explain to her son why he may be stigmatized: We had to sit down and talk to him, you know, your past, you know, can you blame them, that they don’t want somebody like you? I mean we know that you’ve come a long ways in trying to prove yourself and show yourself, but, the fact that you have a past, and they know about it, so now he wants to go to : : : a different school and start fresh he says.


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Individualized concern appeared to be the opposite of discrimination in terms of fairness in these transcripts as Sally, a female probation officer, explained: Well I, just based on what I’ve seen work here, I’d like to see them um, approach their instruction on a more individual basis. Um, recognizing their strengths and, I don’t really know, being more of a team concept with the counselor, the parent, the student. I think that would really seem to help, if they could have a conference or have some sort of a little discussion about what they are seeing in the classroom, mom can talk about what she sees at home, and kind of get them, you know, to see we’re very similar, let’s approach this from you know, a similar angle.

Access Access includes the components of accessibility, availability, and accommodation and whether each component is (a) present; (b) an option for the individual; and if (c) the individual has the resources, including financial or transportation, to gain access or receive those services. Participants noted access as a specific concern in 20% of the interviews, with the mothers most concerned about this issue. As parents described it, numerous school transitions led to a systems failure in addressing educational needs, even legally mandated programs such as special education. Teachers at the probation centers conveyed the belief that if youths’ families did not know to advocate for them or were not regularly involved in their education, the youths had a lower quality educational experience. Adolescents also mentioned that having alternative programs to graduating high school or getting a GED (General Education Development certification, which is an alternative to high school completion) helped them succeed and also that these options only seemed available once they had contact with the juvenile justice system. For many youths in this study, participants from each subgroup conveyed that there were consistent barriers in terms of receiving services for educational or mental health concerns. For example, John’s mother described a problematic transition to a new school: ‘‘There’s no mentoring, there’s no individual education plan. None of the things that he had [before].’’ Joey’s mother also described difficulties getting school services for ADHD: ‘‘: : : he was diagnosed and then I went to the principal and said ‘I want a 504 for him’ and the principal said ‘well we don’t do 504s.’ ’’ A teacher in the juvenile justice setting described his opinion of how the education system itself, though public, is not always accessible due to the outside school resources that are required for success. If you come from a home or mom and dad aren’t doing well : : : that leaves you in a situation where you don’t have the emphasis on education so you don’t emphasize education nobody says ‘‘sit down and do your

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homework’’ : : : and [parent figures] are not in a position to check a homework or to make sure that the paper was drafted or the math problems were done.


School issues were mentioned often, as one probation officer summarized succinctly: Learning difficulties that don’t get um addressed or don’t get assessed the schools are only getting really much better on top of identifying kids with learning disabilities but that’s process and sometimes the schools, well maybe they don’t have the staff but everyone is overloaded, and um maybe kids slip through the cracks in that way you know or again I do know that a child may be able to cope with difficulty or learning difficulties or whatever until they reach a certain point high school or whatever when things get really really difficult for them.

Mr. Bonner, a teacher in a detention facility, bemoaned the lack of services also but across the systems of school, mental health services, probation, and detention: I think a lot of the other part of what is happening in schools, is you’re getting kids that just have chronic behavior problems, and instead of putting them in programs that are on the preventative side that are addressing that, you’re putting them in an alternative campus that’s not really set up to handle that, and then they’re failing there, and then they come to us, and we don’t have any programs for them here, but we’re the last stop (the last stop before they end up in jail). I mean, we have some counselors but we have nowhere near the counseling or you know, behavioral management type personnel to deal with stuff like that either. So you’re putting kids that are, I’ll call them mental health kids, in the justice system.

Another juvenile detention teacher, Mr. Chapa, explained how the facility itself is limited in terms of available resources, even if adolescents are residents of the facility: They do have mental health services here. But it’s usually crisis mental health. So if someone says I want to kill myself or whatever, a lot of suicidal kids that come in here, they say something, I don’t have nothing to live for, well right there that’s the kind of triggers, suicidal tendencies or whatever, but they don’t, they don’t, they have volunteers that come into the building, but there’s nothing that therapeutic that will maybe point towards a specific person, or work on specific problems on why are the kids here.

Mr. Biggs, a juvenile justice administrator, elaborated about his own frustration about the limitations in resources provided within his agency:


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A lot of the kids that haven’t been successful in our program had mental health needs that we couldn’t address : : : we’ve had a lot of cutters, and things like that that we can’t, our staff aren’t trained for that. Um, we’ve had a girl with auditory hallucinations and she couldn’t stay focused enough in the program. Um, kids with extensive abuse history is that they can’t handle the yelling and : : : most of the kids that have been removed, it’s because the program wasn’t right for them in the first place. It’s not that they weren’t capable of doing it, but they had some sort of a need or something that we either were aggravating or we weren’t addressing.

Providing supportive services within the school and juvenile justice environment is one approach that improves accessibility of services. For example, Jack commented on services he received in school: ‘‘When I was in tenth, in high school I, I had to go after school : : : to uh, do my work. And right here in [school] I had a tutor : : : to improve my math.’’ Jack highlighted that there were accessible, supportive academic services provided at his high school. Tony proudly mentioned the availability of alternative approaches to high school graduation stating, ‘‘Yea I’m getting a GED while I’m in the [juvenile probation day treatment program].’’ Sally, a probation officer, described her perspective about the benefits of individualized attention and education. She believed that youth benefit from the increased individual attention they receive in the juvenile justice facility because there are resources for that purpose in her particular facility: Clearly they struggle in the school environment. Um, a lot of what we do has to do with them being kicked out of school and that’s ultimately how they get here. Um, disruptive in the classroom, failing classes, whether if they have some sort of learning disability or special education need, um there is an underlying cause for why they are acting out in class and I don’t feel like it’s being addressed. Um, when they get here and we have a smaller ratio, um there’s more one on one, they can have tutoring at any time. I think they are really given attention and focus on what their individual needs are, rather than what are the needs of the school, or the classroom.

An administrator at a juvenile justice facility described how staff can still garner resources via collaborative efforts to seek those options: [At this facility] it is really easy to just push them through and I think that there needs to be an understanding of what our program can and can’t do, what we are and aren’t trained to do, and knowing the kid and what their needs are. Um, we had a kid that was terribly unsuccessful in our [county] program, um, he was removed and went back to [state] detention and the whole time he was here, he kept talking about I want to be a car mechanic. I know I can’t graduate school, I really want to be a car mechanic. And : : : because we had spent that amount of time

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with him, we were able to tell the judge, this is what he wants to do. They sent him to a trade school. It’s probably the best thing they could have done. You know, getting to know what the kid wants, what the kid feels will help them, they’re gonna be more invested, this is something I want to do, this is something I recognize as being good for me. I think we need to identify that and then find an appropriate placement based on that.


Respect Examples of respect fell into categories of communication, the mutual nature of respect, and beliefs and how those are conveyed. For the participants in this study, most of the examples of respect were positive and reflected resources and benefits to the youth and/or parents. Communication. Mr. Hennessey, a probation officer at a juvenile justice facility, discussed his view about the importance of respectful communication and elaborated what it looks like: I’m being more sympathetic or umm working with them instead of just being stern and casual and as I see, the punisher. And I feel right now that I’m someone that has to hold them accountable but I also wanna be able to try to help them create something new for themselves. While holding them accountable.

Mr. Rob, a detention facility teacher, also emphasized the need for respectful communication: ‘‘One of our goals is simply to interact with the students, and how do you do that? Well, one you have to be honest.’’ Mr. Chapa, a teacher in an alternative education facility, talked about respectful communication: I, I try to be pretty low key, I try not to raise my voice, and try to respect, respect a kid, and convey that you’re trying to help them. I think they react much better. And uh, like they don’t like to be disrespected, and that goes a long ways. And you can disrespect a kid in a lot of different ways, especially by talking to ’em, or just not being honest, or being fair. So I try to be fair, and I try to be honest with them, and when I say something, I, I pretty much mean what I say: : : :

In our sample, youth who were able to form a positive relationship with a school staff member, religious official, probation officer, or other positive adult role model often described these relationships as marked by respectful communication. Many youth in the sample wanted to be ‘‘talked’’ to and listened to. Joey stated that his psychiatrist, who was ‘‘just his doctor,’’ was also a friend, ‘‘because that’s how I talk to him like my friend.’’ This doctor was an influential figure in his life because


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he pushes the positive things, calls me on my shit. Like ‘‘that’s not that smart.’’ So I’ll just like discuss my plans with him : : : I always need a second opinion and he’s a good one. He’s like, cuz he won’t shoot down my idea. But he’ll tell me the faults that I need to fix.


Javier described helpful teachers as those that ‘‘just talk to you, help you, instead of just trying to be in control.’’ When asked what the justice system could do to help youth on probation, Roxanne replied, Really try to talk to them and like, um, have a counselor see what’s going on and just don’t look at them as being bad, you know, because they’re really not involved much, you know, the probation officer talks to you for like 10 minutes and like okay. Um, I think it would help a lot to just like really listen to that kid.

Mutuality of respect. Jason’s mother noted ‘‘respect goes both ways.’’ She described a scenario in which the probation officer did not show up to a meeting that her son arrived to on time. In this situation, the youth felt that his time was not respected because the probation officer did not call to reschedule the appointment. Instances like this were hard for her son because he ‘‘thinks that he deserves respect before he gives respect.’’ Another mother, Shelly, described how respect influences her son’s relationships: He respects him because he feels as though his teacher sees him as an individual. So he has a lot of respect for the teacher and then there’s an assistant principal that he has respect for. That feels as though she respects him in return. It’s a mutual thing, I mean I don’t ever enter his room without knocking on the door. He never enters my room without knocking on the door. (Interviewer: respect—) Yea, I treat him one way, I expect him to treat me the same way. When teachers treat him with respect he does it right back.

Acceptance and belief in the ability to change. Joey described a positive school environment: ‘‘They’re really all about like showing respect to like different people : : : that have different ways of learning or whatever.’’ When asked why she got along so well with a probation officer, Roxanne replied, ‘‘He believed me, he didn’t think I was a bad kid. I really liked him.’’ Mr. Heronomous, a teacher in a detention facility, tries to encourage the students to take control of their choices and not be held captive by their past choices: I always find myself kicking around destiny and free will. I think a lot of these kids think that, I think they believe too much in destiny and they think that this is what I am meant to be, and nothing they do can change it and I think that getting the kids to understand that they can, that they have these points in life where they can make choices and they

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don’t have to make the choices that everybody expects them to make, they can make choices that they know will be better ones for them : : : where you can make your own choices, and some of them will be bad, but you can correct and you can change them, and you don’t have to be the person that your friends expect you to be. That’s something that I work on a lot, and I know everybody else does, too.


Mr. Biggs, a juvenile facility administrator, describes how the youth in the facility need to see their potential to succeed despite their past offenses: I think most of all, they need to be told or shown that they’re worth something. You know, that they made a lot of mistakes, but who cares, we’ve all been there and done it, and that their mistakes are no different than half the people in this world, and that we don’t really care about the mistakes they made prior to getting here, but what can we do while you’re here, and once you’re here to make you more productive and a better citizen. So we can care less why they are here, we don’t even inquire about that except to do a case plan, outside of that, you know it’s not really relevant.

DISCUSSION In this study, we examined experiences at home, school, and in the community that were helpful or hindered juveniles with a history of criminal behavior. Youths, their mothers, and juvenile justice professionals discussed experiences and themes related to a pervasive thread of social justice: fairness, access, and respect. Participants shared their challenges in attaining social justice and their ideas for improving quality of educational and mental health service delivery for youths involved in crime. Participants provided some concrete ways in which mental health and education professionals, as well as juvenile justice staff, can potentially address the inequality and disproportionality in school failure and in justice settings with the particularly vulnerable group of juvenile offenders. They also conveyed the importance of respect as a foundation for providing assistance and interventions to juvenile offenders.

Biases and Reflections In CQR, a discussion about how initial team biases influenced data analysis is warranted. Reflecting on our general team bias, several themes challenged our initial assumptions. Namely, our team as a whole had an opinion that empirically supported inventions are helpful. Not a single participant mentioned a specific intervention as helpful to reducing delinquency or improving school success; the human resource was the ‘‘helpful’’ piece, along with



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other interpersonal and social justice aspects that are challenging to quantify. Our biases were also challenged by the remarkable strength and advocacy that parents, children, and probation staff conveyed to us. Our team was also surprised by the consistency in representing the themes across youth, parents, and probation officers. Initially we had included the multiple roles of youth, parents, and probation staff because it seemed plausible that there would be vastly different themes, but this turned out not to be the case. We were also pleasantly surprised by the compassion and positive regard the probation department staff conveyed, and we did not realize initially that we held this bias until it was challenged during debriefing exercises. The process of discovery and allowing participants to convey their experiences seems intact for the biases we were aware of. The findings here provide insight into the conundrum of discipline and problem escalation that fits with other positive approaches in meaningful ways. First, fairness was a salient theme that has strong implications for discipline procedures in particular. The stigma of probation status seemed connected to participants’ experiences of punitive discipline due to bias possibly related to a ‘‘juvenile offender’’ reputation. Such negative stigma occurred even in settings where youths had made a fresh start and were excelling in their schools without any incident. Respect for youth involved in juvenile justice means being held in the same regard as students who are not involved with the system. Respect between adolescents and adults involved being recognized and acknowledged as an individual, not defined by stereotypes (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2000), which includes the label of ‘‘troublemaker’’ or ‘‘juvenile offender’’ based on these results. Next, participants indicated issues of access significantly impacted their developmental trajectories. Parents detailed difficulties being considered for accommodations or special education services for their children who had externalizing difficulties. This culture of denying services to youth who act out is reflected in the clause within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997, 20 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.) that excludes students who are thought to be socially maladjusted from special education services. Such exclusion prevents social justice by denying services to youth because of their type of behavior problem rather than recognizing that these children need and can benefit from intensive services. Social justice would be achieved by providing graduated services to all youth in need based on their response to intervention. Respect was a unique common theme among participants, youths, and probation staff in particular. It has two components: a belief or attitude component and an action or behavioral component. First, for youths involved in juvenile justice, conveying positive beliefs would be a particularly meaningful way to communicate respect. Jones (2002) highlighted that one way to show respect is to believe that others have the ability to change despite their previous actions or environment.


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Next, as McCabe and Rubinson (2008) noted, increased awareness of attitudes and administrative support for advocacy efforts is necessary to improve conditions for marginalized youths. Taking action to ameliorate unjust policies, and the act of listening fairly to the youth’s concerns, would support this aspect of social justice. Youths involved in juvenile justice face discrimination from peers and administrators as a group defined by the characteristic of involvement with criminal behavior or criminal affiliation. Students involved in crime are at extreme risk for adverse educational outcomes and thus should be afforded targeted and specific efforts to address their needs, including increased advocacy and protections at the schoolwide level in order to foster a school environment that is safe, welcoming, and accessible to all students. Increasing awareness of the unique challenges that specific groups of students face is one step to improve advocacy in terms of social justice for those students (McCabe & Rubinson, 2008).

Limitations and Future Directions This study is limited to two regions of the United States and to a small number of participants. The themes were similar across locations, with the exception of greater gang involvement as a peer concern in the California location but not in the Texas site (see Sander et al., 2010). In the probation systems where we collected data, our sample percentages are consistent with the rates of juvenile justice involvement of White/Hispanic and White/nonHispanic White youths and also the rates of males to females on probation. Although the themes within the sample did appear to reach saturation, ideally we would have included additional girls and more participants who identified as African American. Moreover, this sample is likely to be somewhat different from the general population of families involved with juvenile probation due to recruitment procedures. Mothers in our sample seemed likely more proactive, organized, and high functioning than may be typical, even though they represented a wide range of educational and economic levels. Future research needs to continue to address and examine the social justice concerns that promote delinquent pathways in order to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline (Christle et al., 2005; Sander et al., 2010). Additional qualitative research may be needed to confirm themes and experiences for youth and their families, particularly ethnic and cultural minority youth, in various regions and settings. Comprehensive longitudinal studies might focus on the ecological context and issues of fairness, access, and respect that promote or disrupt delinquency pathways. Smaller studies might zero in on specific problems in educational and justice systems that violate social justice. For example, research is needed to understand the impact of alternatives to suspension to improve behavior trajectories.


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Implications for Consultation Practice Results from this study would be relevant to school consultants in myriad roles that address learning challenges, overall mental health, behavior plans, and discipline. School consultants could integrate these social justice findings at the individual level or within the context of overall school climate or working with administrators to design effective disciplinary policies. In brief, to be consistent with effective practices and attending to social justice, disciplinary action should address the needs of the offender and the victim. Consequences should not be rooted in the basis of offense history but on current behaviors and actions and circumstances (Morrison et al., 2001). The youths and their advocates in this study highlight the importance of taking action to alter policies and unfair assumptions—and doing so is exactly the direction experts in social justice are encouraging school psychology (along with other related professions) to take (Nastasi, 2008). These actions include but are not limited to (a) examining values from a social justice framework to combat discrimination and (b) designing policies to reflect these values—namely, that all children’s well-being is important, not just select children’s well-being, and then (c) drawing on interventions that are consistent with the system’s values but also address behaviors using a relevant, data-driven approach to improving student behavior and school climate. The fairness idea is consistent with the emphasis of positive behavior support (e.g., Crone & Horner, 2003) as one example but also with principles of functional behavior analysis. It is important to avoid relying on exclusionary punitive actions and incorporate the opportunity for restorative justice (Bilchik, 1998); consequences should be tied to the function of the behavior. More specifically, according to participants’ statements here, juvenile delinquency could decrease by (a) offering individualized attention to students’ needs that contributed to the misbehavior and (b) suspending judgment rather than students for misbehavior in ways that are fair to all parties involved—including the offender and victim. Maintaining a culture within schools of mutual respect for all members of the school community is essential in creating a safe and welcoming school (Merrell & Walker, 2004). This goal of creating a safe climate may be especially important for individual students who have a history of juvenile delinquency as well as for schools located within communities with high crime and delinquency rates. Consistent with this idea of fairness, Merrell and Walker (2004) recommend implementing a continuum of services including assessment and intervention for students and each level of need (universal, selected, and targeted). Moreover, they recommend considering internalizing, externalizing, or mixed disorder as a more objective, research-based classification than emotional disturbance that would reduce stigmatization with the label and better tailor intervention efforts.

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CONCLUSION For youths at risk of experiencing stigma, exclusion, and school disengagement in relation to a history or reputation of juvenile offending, communication and respect are especially important to youths’ success. For the individual, there is considerable negative impact from exclusionary practices and punitive discipline strategies within this vulnerable group of students. Improving awareness of barriers and prejudice that youth labeled as ‘‘juvenile offenders’’ face is an important step in facilitating and promoting social justice. This is a group of students who experience stigma and discrimination. Improving access to mental health services and educational interventions is necessary to improve outcomes and requires (a) policy shifts in the educational infrastructure and (b) attitude shifts in terms of how to address youths who have a criminal history or disciplinary proceedings. Such changes would serve the goals of promoting fairness and justice but are also consistent with principles that enhance school climates for all students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study was funded with a grant from the Society for the Study of School Psychology, Early Career Scholars program, to Janay B. Sander and Jill D. Sharkey. We deeply appreciate the anonymous reviewers who made constructive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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APPENDIX INTERVIEW PROMPTS


Teacher and Probation Officer Interview Questions 1. A large part of your job includes working with youth who get into trouble, such as ending up in alternative education placements or on probation. Tell me a little about why you are in this job. 2. What are some of the things you see that seem to be related to kids who eventually ‘‘make it’’ and stay out of trouble and continue to have school or life successes? Examples? 3. What are some of the things that you see that seem related to kids who ‘‘don’t make it’’ and end up getting in more serious trouble or having a more bleak future? Examples? 4. If you can think of one or two kids you have worked with in this job, without mentioning their names, tell me about how you felt about that kid/teen and tell me about your relationship with that kid (describe it). 5. If you could create your own perfect system or world, what would you include in it so that kids who come through your office/classroom can stay out of trouble and find a successful way to live in society and be a good citizen? 6. Why do you think the majority of kids you see end up on probation or have such difficulties in school with their behavior? What are some examples that make you think that? 7. In what ways do you think the juvenile justice system helps or hurts these kids? Examples? 8. In what ways do you think our education system helps or hurts these kids? Examples? 9. In what ways do you think parents (no names) help or hurt these kids? Examples? 10. What are some solutions to the ways that any system named above could help these kids more? 11. Is there a kid who has a particularly clear success story? Without mentioning names, tell me what it was that happened or what it was about that kid that helped him/her be so successful? 12. Someone gave you unlimited budget and unlimited resources and you could do anything you wanted for your population of kids, what would you do? 13. Do you view the needs or difficulties that boys have as different than those of girls? How? In what ways? (added after initial three interviews due to themes emerging)


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Janay B. Sander, PhD, is a licensed psychologist (Texas) and an assistant professor in the School Psychology Doctoral Training Program in the Department of Educational Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, where her degree was awarded. Current research interests include juvenile delinquency, challenging externalizing behaviors in adolescents, and ecological intervention research with these youths, their families, and schools. Jill D. Sharkey, PhD, NCSP, is a faculty member in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara where her research focuses on juvenile delinquency, student engagement, risk and resilience, and school safety and violence. She earned her Ph.D. in Special Education, Disability, and Risk Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she subsequently joined the Center for SchoolBased Youth Development as a Postdoctoral Scholar, then as an Assistant Researcher, and now as the School Psychology Program Coordinator. Amber N. Groomes is a doctoral student in the School Psychology Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She has special interests in social justice and gender in the area of juvenile delinquency. Lauren Krumholz, PhD, recently completed the doctoral program in School Psychology. She received extensive training in providing interventions for childhood depression as a therapist for the ACTION program under supervision of Dr. Kevin Stark. Kimberly Walker is a doctoral student in the School Psychology Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She also works as an intern with the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Child Support Division, Office of Family Initiatives. Julie Y. Hsu is a doctoral student in the School Psychology Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a research assistant in a neuropsychology-focused Autism Research Lab under Dr. Greg Allen’s supervision. Note: The authors report to the best of their knowledge neither they nor their affiliated institutions have financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could influence or bias the opinions, decisions, or work presented in this manuscript. Associate Editor David Shriberg served as action editor for this manuscript.