Family-driven justice.

Source: (2014) Arizona Law Review. 56(3):623-706.

This Article reports the results of a qualitative research study identifying best
practices for family engagement in the juvenile justice system. The typical system
operates from the faulty premise that families cause their children’s problems. As
a result, decisions about treatments or sanctions for youth routinely fail to
incorporate family members’ views about how best to address a youth’s needs.
Instead, system professionals make decisions that expose youth to treatments and
environments that increase recidivism and place youth at a high risk of being
abused. Victims, youth, families, and system professionals all lose under the
current model. The goal of this study was to develop a shared understanding of
how to reform justice systems to meet the needs of youth and families without
sacrificing the public safety concerns ofjustice system professionals and victims.
Synthesizing efforts from jurisdictions across the country, this Article proposes a
radical transformation of the justice system and introduces a concept called
Family-Driven Justice. The foundational values of this transformation are: all
families care about their children and can be trusted to make good decisions on
their behalf all families have strengths to build upon; all families want their
children to grow up safe and free from justice-system involvement; and allfamilies
have dreams for their children and want them to succeed in adult lfe. (author’s abstract)