How Can Perceptions About At-Risk Youth Be Changed?
By Jenna Blyler
Shelley Grant’s first encounter with the juvenile justice system was jarring.
As she entered a residential facility for 13- to- 15- year-old boys, she was immediately met by an administrator who urged her to turn around, choose a different career path and not look back. He insisted that she could not work successfully with a population of delinquent boys. Perhaps this person felt ineffective, exhausted by the tangles of inequitable, messy systems and hoped to spare her; perhaps he thought Grant could not handle the work; perhaps he thought these children were hopeless.
It was a decisive moment. If Grant felt unwanted by the system she set out to support, she imagined how the children felt. The bright-eyed volunteer stayed and would go on to spend two decades of her life advocating for youth and another decade applying what she learned and experienced to instructing the next generation of policy-makers, sociologists and psychologists as an associate professor of sociology at Jacksonville University.
“The original intent when creating a separate justice system for juveniles was to work in the best interests of the child, to rehabilitate,” says Grant. “Out of fear, society has strayed from this intent and demonized our youth, calling them superpredators and creating moral panics surrounding public safety. Consequently, thousands of juveniles are transferred into the adult criminal justice system, many sentenced to life without parole and even to death. Progress has been made in recent years based on advances in adolescent brain science, but we must not lose sight of the needs of children and the purpose of the system created to support them.”
One of the ways to amend the public’s perception of juvenile crime, she says, is to understand the role of the media and mitigate it. Often crime stories are episodic, leaving out the traumas the children experience in their neighborhoods, schools, and, very frequently, their homes. Often the media perpetuates fear rather than understanding, which influences how we vote, the laws and policies surrounding delinquent behavior, and the treatment of youth in the criminal justice system. Grant teaches this in her service-learning Media and Crime course, allowing her students the opportunity to develop their own perceptions about Jacksonville youth.
Through a partnership with Communities In Schools — a nonprofit organization designed to help students overcome personal and structural barriers — Grant’s students are assigned a student at either Terry Parker High or Arlington Middle School to mentor once a week for the semester. Students learn about the influence of media on community perceptions and how to challenge prevailing myths and stereotypes about youth and delinquency. The program often makes the news, and Grant takes that opportunity to educate the public about factors contributing to juvenile crime and the positive impact a caring adult can make in young peoples’ lives.
“A common measure of any justice system is how it treats the most vulnerable. Children who offend are frequently victims first, enduring traumatic and repeated abuse and neglect,” says Grant. “To survive, they rely on familiar strategies, some of which may involve delinquency.”
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Score, or ACES, was originally a medical assessment used to examine the relationship between childhood abuse and trauma and the leading cause of death in adults. Now the assessment is used broadly as a predictive tool to identify trends for health issues, crime and addictions. Florida data, for example, demonstrate a concerning correlation: each adverse childhood experience increases the likelihood of juveniles becoming serious, violent and chronic offenders by 35%. The situation worsens when juveniles are incarcerated with adults, exposing them to significant risks such as sexual and physical violence, drug dealing, gang involvement, homicide and suicide. These risks are particularly pronounced for vulnerable populations including females, children of color, individuals with developmental disabilities and LGBTQIA+ members. Strikingly, the justice system’s reliance on harsher punishments to reduce recidivism, actually increases it.
Grant witnessed this when she first began her career at the Duval County State Attorney’s Office as a diversion specialist for early-offending juveniles. In a year’s time, she was selected to direct the Truancy Arbitration Program. Five years later, she became Director of Youth Offender Programs which facilitated a network of diversion programming for early offending juveniles. These programs offered intervention services such as case management, mental health counseling, academic assistance, and vocational support. Those who entered the program and successfully completed it had their charges dismissed. During most of her 20-year career in the criminal justice system, Grant imparted what she learned to students at Jacksonville University.
Now serving full-time at Jacksonville University as a professor and the department chair of sociology, Grant still maintains relationships and work with the city. She recently served on a Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee initiated by State Attorney Melissa Nelson and aided the transition of juvenile diversion programs from the SAO to the Kids Hope Alliance. She continued to work closely with the SAO through a collaborative study with Professor of Geography Dr. Ray Oldakowski. They and several of their students conducted survey research to gauge community attitudes about rehabilitative responses to juvenile offending. The findings demonstrated a clear preference within the Jacksonville community for rehabilitative measures rather than punitive ones. Diversion programming diminishes contact between juvenile offenders and the justice system and reduces exposure to delinquent peers. As part of ongoing research, Grant hopes to assist in the assessment of the effectiveness of the transition, both in terms of its impact on the diverted youth and as a matter of public policy.
“The hope of my work is to change perceptions about at-risk youth. We know their brains work so differently from adults and that the trauma they experience often leads to delinquency. But we also know they are resilient and less likely to recidivate if we put the right protective measures in place and stop negatively labeling them,” says Grant. “There is an urgent need for comprehensive justice that addresses the root causes of juvenile crime, removes barriers to rehabilitation, and safeguards the well-being of detained youth. Unmet needs among children fuel the prison pipeline.”
Grant holds on to a thank-you letter she received from a boy she mentored at the detention facility years ago as a reminder. “Although I didn’t walk their paths, I empathized with their stories and wanted to help them overcome the obstacles they faced. Despite what I was told many years ago in that commitment facility for young boys, I discovered that sincerity leads to trust, and earning that trust became my goal with each young person I worked with. I hope I can inspire my students to do the same.”