NCJ Number
187857
Journal
NCJJ in Focus Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Dated: November 2000 Pages: 1-8
Date Published
November 2000
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This document considers what constitutes good juvenile probation practice.
Abstract
In June 2000 a group of juvenile probation officers, supervisors, administrators, victim advocates, and researchers met to reshape the Desktop Guide to Good Juvenile Probation Practice. This report summarizes the group's consensus regarding good practice and future developments in the profession. The report emphasizes that juvenile probation is a catalyst. It doesn't act by itself, but stimulates others to act, in this case to develop safe communities and healthy youth and families. Juvenile probation can fulfill this role by: (1) holding offenders accountable; (2) building and maintaining community-based partnerships; (3) implementing results-based and outcome-driven services and practices; (4) advocating for and addressing the needs of victims, offenders, families, and communities; (5) obtaining and sustaining sufficient resources; and (6) promoting growth and development of all juvenile probation professionals. The group suggests that juvenile probation efforts focus on strengths, work with and through offenders' families, teach respect for victims, and devote more resources to prevention and early intervention. The group's clearest belief was in the profession as a profession and regarded the revised Desktop Guide as a way to draw scattered and isolated workers into a single professional body working up to the same aspirations and agitating for the same broad changes. Notes