EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY LEARNED DECEMBER 2020 Elizabeth HELPLESSNESS, Trejos-Castillo, Texas Tech University Evangeline Lopoo, CRIMINALIZATION, Justice Lab, Columbia University AND VICTIMIZATION Anamika Dwivedi, Justice Lab, Columbia University IN VULNERABLE YOUTH The Square One Project aims to incubate new thinking on our response to crime, promote more effective strategies, and contribute to a new narrative of justice in America. Learn more about the Square One Project at squareonejustice.org The Executive Session was created with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. 04 08 12 INTRODUCTION VICTIMIZATION AND CURRENT JUSTICE CRIMINALIZATION OF POLICY AND PRACTICE VULNERABLE YOUTH LARGELY IGNORE YOUTH PERPETUATES LEARNED DEVELOPMENTAL HELPLESSNESS OUTCOMES 15 18 25 INSTITUTIONALIZATION TO COMBAT LEARNED CONCLUSION IN ALL ITS FORMS HELPLESSNESS, WE HAS THE POTENTIAL MUST PRACTICE TO INFLICT “HUMANIZING JUSTICE” PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM 26 27 31 ENDNOTES REFERENCES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 31 32 AUTHOR NOTE MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 04 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH “I have been in the foster system for 8 months and I have been locked up for 8 months…”1 Tina, a 17-year-old, lost her mother unexpectedly to a late diagnosed terminal disease in 2017. She and her younger siblings, including two adopted younger cousins, were in separate placements and were denied contact with each other. A few days after losing her mother and her siblings, while in custody of Child Protective Services, Tina harmed herself. She was immediately sent to a youth detention facility and held in solitary confinement for months for her “own protection.” EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 05 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH Tina is one of many youth navigating complex as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and oftentimes irrational youth confinement (ICE) has detained some 40,000 immigrants systems in the United States, including adult and asylum seekers in 200 detention centers prisons, long-term secure facilities, group in the United States (Amnesty International homes, shelters, residential treatment, foster 2020b:5).2 Many parents detained by ICE are care, and many other institutional settings. being forced to make the heart wrenching The reach of these systems into the lives decision to either stay together with their of young people is massive. The number of children in detention indefinitely—a choice young people in youth and adult incarceration made further dangerous by the infectious systems alone is unwieldy: in 2018, nature of the COVID-19 pandemic—or send 37,529 youth were incarcerated in youth their children to live with a sponsor and risk facilities in the United States; 3,400 were held their own deportation (Amnesty International in adult jails (72 percent of said youth facing 2020a). While the parameters of detainment charges as adults); and 699 were held in adult in youth prison facilities and family detention state prisons—totaling 41,628 system-involved centers differ, the consequential trauma and youth (Office of Juvenile Justice and liberty restrictions being inflicted upon these Delinquency Prevention 2020). A year young people are the same. earlier—the most recent year with data available for demographic breakdowns The United States is a carceral outlier, of youth confinement populations— incarcerating at a rate of 60 out more than two-thirds of youth in carceral of 100,000 youth (the highest rate of custody were over 16 years old, but 92 reporting countries in the United Nations approximately 500 were 12 years old (UN)). Yet, youth throughout the world or younger, demonstrating that while the are consistently deprived of the various youth justice system largely cages older freedoms delineated as fundamental adolescents, it does not hesitate to lock up rights by the UN Convention on the Rights physically and developmentally young children of the Child (Saxon 2019; Nowak 2019; as well (Sawyer 2019). Undocumented youth United Nations Human Rights Office of the are especially vulnerable to confinement, Commissioner N.d.). This Convention has EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 06 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH been ratified by all UN member countries large in the first place, and why has it been except the United States.3 Despite the public so challenging to undo and reduce the reach commitment to protecting children, however, of youth detainment? Why is the United States a recent UN Human Rights Committee study an outlier within a global context that already (2019) found that there are 5.4 million children over-confines youth? living in institutions worldwide. Adding in the estimated 1 million children who are detained In the United States and worldwide, youth in police custody each year, approximately detainment has become an immediate, 7 million children experience some kind of catch-all response to challenges perceived detainment and severe liberty constraint as affecting public order and safety, including by institutional forces each year (Nowak but not limited to mental health, increased 2019:60). Clearly, member countries of the poverty rates, immigration, and others United Nations are not remaining steadfast (e.g., Mauer 2017; World Prison Brief 2019). in protecting childhood as a basic right It is often the go-to mechanism for any for all young people. behaviors that make society uncomfortable: youth wandering on the streets, youth acting There is certainly nuance to this story, out as a sequela of abuse and neglect, as the scope of youth incarceration in the youth resorting to illegal means for survival, United States has declined since the turn youth practicing truancy, or youth raising of the century. From 2000 to 2018, youth their voices to fight for change. As the incarceration in the United States declined socio-political roots of criminalization by 66 percent, and several jurisdictions are of youth remain unchallenged, so too does working to “zero out” the number of youth our social tolerance for abuse, neglect, held in traditional youth facilities in the and human rights violations. We are United States (Schiraldi 2020). Yet, how numb to approaches that are punitive did the US youth carceral state grow so and dehumanizing, such as youth solitary EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 07 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH confinement, limited treatments and community-based solutions to help services, placement in adult facilities, vulnerable youth overcome these challenges and life sentences. and lead healthy, productive, and safe lives. By doing so, we aim to create public Informed by a human development consciousness about societal contexts perspective, this paper will discuss the and the psycho-social processes affecting individual and contextual factors that lead vulnerable youth that can dismantle to the criminalization and victimization tolerance for their criminalization and of vulnerable youth, defined as youth victimization. We propose that justice exposed to risks and challenges that for youth must take on a new meaning: may be traumatic and detrimental to a humane approach to providing youth who their overall development and may have face traumatizing experiences with social, lifetime consequences. It will then offer emotional, and behavioral support. IN THE UNITED STATES AND WORLDWIDE, YOUTH DETAINMENT HAS BECOME AN IMMEDIATE, CATCH-ALL RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES PERCEIVED AS AFFECTING PUBLIC ORDER AND SAFETY ... EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 08 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH VICTIMIZATION AND CRIMINALIZATION OF VULNERABLE YOUTH PERPETUATES LEARNED HELPLESSNESS EXECUTIVE SESSION ON THE FUTURE OF JUSTICE POLICY 09 LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND VICTIMIZATION IN VULNERABLE YOUTH Two core elements are central to understanding human development: process and context. Process reflects the internalization “dysfunction,” makes a person ill-equipped of factors that influence a person’s to cope and exercise control over wellbeing, motivation, engagement, circumstances, causing them to experience self-esteem, and belongingness. greater difficulty in adapting and managing Essentially, process defines how appropriate behaviors to deal with their we respond internally to external factors. context. Both competence and dysfunction Context, from a human developmental are—not surprisingly—greatly affected by the perspective, means exactly what it would contexts to which a person is exposed. to a layperson: contexts are the external proximal factors, beyond a person’s Sometimes youth are exposed to uniquely control, that directly or indirectly drive harmful and traumatic contexts that could a person’s decision-making and affect lead to their confinement, such as abuse their overall mental and behavioral (e.g., emotional, physical, sexual), neglect, wellbeing. Process and context forced labor, sexual exploitation, human work in tandem to create a person’s trafficking, forced displacement due to response mechanisms. armed conflict or political instability, extreme poverty, parental death, natural Positive or negative social