Making Court the Last Resort - Center for Children's Advocacy

Making Court the Last Resort:A New Focus for SupportingFamilies in CrisisMany parents struggle with youth who skip school, abuse drugs or alcohol, or exhibitrebellious behavior. Those who cannot pay for private care to address these problemssometimes turn to the government for support. In the 1960s government officials createdstatus offender systems to respond to such youth, who may be chronically disobedient butnot committing crime. Until recently, youth in status offender systems were frequentlyreferred to juvenile court and subject to the same punitive interventions as youth chargedwith criminal activity — even though court involvement and responses like detention tendto exacerbate the problems that first ledfamilies to seek help. Current research andbest practices now suggest that youth andfamilies in crisis require a faster responsethan courts can offer and that juvenilejustice systems are often ill-equippedto provide the services these youth andfamilies need.To better help youth and their families,many status offender systems areimplementing immediate, family-focusedalternatives to court intervention. Asmomentum builds from these efforts, anew paradigm for status offender servicesis emerging: refer at-risk young people andtheir families to social service programsin their communities and use the juvenilejustice system as a last resort. The newparadigm is guided by the belief thatfamilies have the potential to resolveissues without the courts; they simply needguidance and support to do so.2 Making Court the Last Resort: A New Focus for Supporting Families in Crisis