Reforming Juvenile Justice A Developmental Approach (2013) / Chapter Skim
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4 Adolescent Development
4 Adolescent Development
Pages 89-118
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From page 89... ...
The purpose of this chapter is to summarize relevant aspects of the rapidly developing knowledge of adolescent development most pertinent to the purposes, design, and operation of the juvenile justice system and thereby lay the scientific foundation for the proposals for reform set forth in the rest of the report. The first section reviews key cognitive and behavioral features of the normal process of adolescent development, including poor self-control, sensitivity to peer influence, and a tendency to be especially responsive to immediate rewards while failing to take account of long-term consequences.
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From page 90... ...
THE SCIENCE OF NORMAL ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT By definition, adolescence is a transitional period of normal development, distinct from both childhood -- when regulation of behavior is the responsibility of the parents -- and adulthood -- when regulation of behavior is viewed as the responsibility of the individual (Casey et al., 2010)
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From page 91... ...
Cognitive and Behavioral Adolescent Development Current empirical evidence from the behavioral sciences suggests that adolescents differ from adults and children in three important ways that lead to differences in behavior. First, adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulation in emotionally charged contexts, relative to adults and children (Somerville, Fani, and McClure-Tone, 2011a)
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From page 92... ...
Self-control, mainly in boys, has been linked to positive adjustment in several domains (although with varying magnitude of effects) , including less aggressive and delinquent behavior (Krueger et al., 1996; de Ridder et al., 2012)
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From page 93... ...
Recent studies of adolescent development show a change in sensitivity to reward-based cues, suggesting that they have a unique influence on cognition during the adolescent years. Empirical evidence for how adolescent behavior is differentially biased in external motivational contexts comes from several experiments.
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From page 94... ...
examined risk taking in adolescents and adults during a simulated driving task. Half the subjects performed the task alone, and the other half performed the task in the presence of two friends.
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From page 95... ...
As youth often make decisions about experimentation with drugs and alcohol, risk taking, and criminal activity in situations involving peer pressure, emotions, and little time to consider a decision thoroughly (Zimring, 1998) , it is important to understand how decision making differs across the period of development from childhood to adulthood.
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From page 96... ...
techniques that provide the opportunity to safely track the development of brain structure, brain function, and brain connectivity in humans. Consistent with the previously described behavioral findings that adolescents have poor self-control, are easily influenced by their peers, and do not think through the consequences of some of their actions, the brain imaging findings strongly suggest that adolescents lack these abilities because of biological immaturity of the brain.
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From page 97... ...
In the last decade, there has been an explosion of fMRI studies examining adolescent brain development (Casey et al., 2008)
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From page 98... ...
Adolescents, but not adults, showed heightened activity in reward-related circuitry, including the ventral striatum, in the presence of peers. This activity was inversely correlated with subjective ratings on resistance to peer influences.
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From page 99... ...
. Brain changes specifically associated with puberty are consistent with broader brain and behavior patterns that occur during a dolescence -- that is, poor self-control, heightened sensitivity to peer influence, and heightened responsivity to immediate rewards.
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From page 100... ...
. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT From a developmental perspective, adolescent risk taking and delinquent behavior can be understood as resulting from the interaction between the normal developmental attributes of adolescents described above and the environmental influences to which they are exposed during this key stage of development.
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From page 101... ...
Instead, we focus on factors that bear most directly on adolescent involvement in criminal activity and on the optimal design and operation of the juvenile justice system. With this limited purpose in mind, we focus on the social context of adolescent development, including the influence of families, peers, schools, and organized community activities.
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From page 102... ...
If the adolescent's social context lacks these opportunity structures, of course, it can undermine healthy development. Parental Influences1 There is a vast literature on parental and other family influences on child and adolescent development.
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From page 103... ...
The developmental model of antisocial behavior of Patterson posits that behavioral undercontrol and high negative affectivity of a vulnerable child underlie oppositional behavior. This behavior, in turn, incites negative affective responses and restrictions from parents, producing increasingly aversive parent-child exchanges ( atterson, 1982; Patterson, Reid, and Dishion, 1992)
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From page 104... ...
However, they still exert control by monitoring the whereabouts of an adolescent and ensuring that the adolescent does not spend time in unsupervised settings in which exposure to deviant peers and opportunities for delinquent behavior abound. One of the controversies in the field is whether troublesome adolescents make it difficult for their parents to monitor them -- in which case parental monitoring has little causal impact on an adolescent who is destined to engage in delinquent behavior (Kerr and Stattin, 2000)
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From page 105... ...
. Positive and Deviant Peer Influences Although peers are typically cast as solely negative agents in adolescent development, the fact is that the peer group as a context and specific peers as relationship partners exert mostly positive influence on adolescent development (Brown et al., 2008)
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From page 106... ...
Peer influences operate not only in naturally occurring peer groups but also in groups that are assembled by adults for purposes of intervention. Aggregation of deviant adolescents with other deviant adolescents is the single most common public policy response to deviant behavior in education, juvenile justice, and mental health (Dodge, Lansford, and Dishion, 2006)
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From page 107... ...
. Because a disproportionate number of children who enroll in these programs come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have histories of deviant behavior, these programs offer a test of the hypothesis of deviant peer influences.
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From page 108... ...
We focus on three specific topics that are important for understanding adolescent development and schooling in relation to juvenile justice: school transitions (to middle school and high school) , the academic achievement gap, and school discipline.
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From page 109... ...
What about the 25 percent who fail to achieve on-time high school graduation? Many of these students encountered school failure early in their academic careers, and these difficulties were magnified by the middle school and high school transitions and by attendance at low-performing schools.
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From page 110... ...
Among the educational practices widely used by secondary schools to address the achievement gap are academic tracking and high-stakes testing. Although motivated by good intentions, neither of these practices has been successful in reducing the achievement gap, and neither seems to be well informed by the science of adolescent development.
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From page 111... ...
Failure to pass the high school exit exam -- a particular challenge for African American and Latino youth -- greatly increases the odds of school dropout (Jacob, 2001) , a major risk factor for involvement in the juvenile justice system.
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From page 112... ...
Zero tolerance as a philosophy of school discipline creates a discipline gap that closely mirrors the racial achievement gap. Suspensions and expulsions increase the disconnection between youth and their schools, causing them to be less invested in school rules and coursework and less motivated to achieve academic success.
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From page 113... ...
. Among the most prevalent kinds of unfair treatment reported by ethnic minority youth are receiving a lower grade than deserved from t eachers, being the recipient of unusually harsh discipline from authority figures, such as school administrators and police officers, and being accused of behaving suspiciously in public places (Fisher, Wallace, and Fenton, 2000)
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From page 114... ...
For some adolescents of color, repeated experiences with perceived discrimination are correlated with attitudes and behaviors that suggest a weakened commitment to conventional rules and values. For example, in cross-sectional studies, personal experiences with unfair treatment due to race were significantly correlated with teacher reports of externalizing behavior for Latino youth (Vega et al., 1995)
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From page 115... ...
Racial Identity and Racial Socialization as Buffers Not all ethnic minority youth who perceive or experience discrimination suffer the negative consequences described above. A strong racial identity and parental socialization about race appear to buffer some of those negative developmental outcomes Regarding racial identity, a number of studies document that feeling connected to one's racial group (centrality)
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From page 116... ...
. Studies of racial identity and racial socialization processes underscore the resilience of ethnic minority youth and the ways in which their unique experiences contribute to healthy development.
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From page 117... ...
The research summarized here has identified the developmental forces and settings through which peers influence adolescent risk taking, suggesting that some risk taking is normative, biologically driven, and, to a certain degree, an inevitable outcome of increased salience and time spent with peers during adolescence. Evidence also shows that two peer conditions, in particular, can serve as a catalyst for risk taking and other forms of deviant behavior -- unsupervised peer groups and peer groups constituted by a greater number of deviant peers -- the latter often occurring as a result of well-intentioned policies and practices for managing youth.
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From page 118... ...
Teachers, juvenile justice personnel, and other authority figures should be part of long-term strategies aimed at reducing interactions with minority youth that are perceived as discriminatory or unfair. Given the pivotal influences during adolescent development, and particularly those that increase the risk of juvenile offending, it is clear that preventive interventions, including those undertaken by the juvenile justice system, must take into account interactions with peers and adults and attempt to shape them in positive rather than negative ways.
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