Summary: We're back for our third season! Kicking off the 2022 season, we explore the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania.We spoke to Megan Kurlychek, (https://publicpolicy.psu.edu/people/megan-kurlychek) Professor of Sociology, Criminology and Public Policy and Associate Director of the Criminal Justice Research Center (https://justicecenter.la.psu.edu/) at Penn State, and Rick Steele (https://www.jcjc.pa.gov/Pages/Our-Leaders.aspx#:~:text=Richard%20Steele%2C%20Executive%20Director,probation%20officer%20in%20that%20jurisdiction.), Executive Director of the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission (https://www.jcjc.pa.gov/Pages/default.aspx) at the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, about their work in the juvenile justice field, the history of the juvenile justice system, prevention programs, the issue of recidivism, and more.Episode Resources and Notes* Megan mentions that she began her career working at the National Center for Juvenile Justice (https://www.ncjj.org/), located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.* Both Rick and Megan discuss the concept of parens patriae. According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/parens_patriae), parens patriae is Latin for "parent of the people." Under parens patriae, a state or court has a paternal and protective role over its citizens (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/citizen) or others subject to its jurisdiction.* Megan discusses the court case, In re Gault (https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-re-gault), as one of the landmark Supreme Court cases that changed how juvenile justice was approached back in the 1960s.* Rick refers to the MAYSI-2 (http://www.nysap.us/maysi2/index.html), the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument – Second Version, when mentioning how behavioral health and substance use issues are assessed among justice-involved youth.* Additionally, Rick discusses how the Pennsylvania Commonwealth has incorporated the University of Cincinnati's EPICS (https://cech.uc.edu/about/centers/ucci/products/interventions/individual-interventions.html), Effective Practices in Community Supervision, into their probation model.* Rick mentions using a standardized program evaluation protocol based on the work by Mark Lipsey, Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University (https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/mark-lipsey).* Megan mentions a prevention program that partners nurses with young mothers called the Nurse-Family Partnership (https://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/).* The School-to-Prison Pipeline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline) is something that both Megan and Rick discuss as it relates to prevention research and programming.* Megan talks about risk need assessments (https://youth.gov/youth-topics/juvenile-justice/risk-and-protective-factors) for assessing justice-involved youth. More information is available here (https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/model-programs-guide/literature-reviews/risk_needs_assessments_for_youths.pdf).* Rick discusses the Models for Change (https://www.modelsforchange.net/) program, which helped to advance reforms to make juvenile justice systems more fair, effective, rational, and developmentally appropriate. He also mentions the Big Brothers, Big Sisters (https://www.bbbs.org/) program, which is nationally renowned.* JCJC's reports (https://www.jcjc.pa.gov/Publications/Pages/default.aspx) are available online for anyone interested in reading more about their work.* Rick talks about working with other researchers in the field such as
