Mapping Juvenile Justice

Identifying Existing Structural Barriers to Accessing Probation Services

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Fountain, Erika and Dillon Mahmoudi. 2021. “Mapping Juvenile Justice: Identifying Existing Structural Barriers to Accessing Probation Services.” American Journal of Community Psychology 67 (1-2): 116-129. doi:10.1002/ajcp.12474

Abstract

The majority of justice-involved youth are placed on probation; however, many of those same youth struggle to comply with probation requirements and are subsequently confined. In Baltimore, 20% of newly committed youth were detained for violations of probation. While there are various reasons youth fail to comply with probation requirements, there have been recent calls to consider the impact of structural and spatial barriers to accessing probation programs and services. Centering the goals of community psychology, we aim to identify how existing structural barriers in Baltimore City may be contributing to social injustice through inequitable access to probation services for youth and their families. In this study, we take a novel, interdisciplinary approach to identify structural or spatial barriers facing justice-involved youth in Baltimore, MD. Specifically, we explore transportation barriers (i.e., vehicle access) and spatial disparities between youth residences and probation office locations. Our findings suggest that there are several barriers facing Baltimore’s justice-involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with juvenile probation. Specifically, we found that 1 in 3 youths reside in areas with extremely low levels of vehicle access and where the median household income is 25% below the city median. We also find that the majority of youth live beyond walking distances; many would require lengthy transit commutes. These findings highlight the structural and spatial barriers facing justice-involved youth that may impact access to and engagement with probation services.

Summary

Probation demands accountability from young people while letting the institutions imposing it off the hook. In this article, we map Baltimore’s probation geography against the racialized landscape of disinvestment, asking what “compliance” means when reaching an appointment requires navigating poverty, long commutes, and unreliable transit.

Probation departments must first ensure that youth can reasonably access court-mandated programs before expecting that youth can actively engage with and potentially benefit from services.

The burden falls on young people and their families; the consequences of missing requirements can include confinement. Rather than treating access as an individual responsibility, we turn the scrutiny toward a system that demands attendance without ensuring the means to get there. Accountability should run both ways.

While probation officers were aware of and chronicling existing structural barriers, parents—not probation departments—bore the responsibility of finding solutions and eliminating barriers.