As many of you are aware, Texas Administrative Code Chapter 341 pertaining to General Standards for Juvenile Probation Departments has recently been amended as recommended by the TJJD Advisory Council’s "Standards Committee" to become effective January 1, 2017. While each subsection of Chapter 341 was scrutinized and amended as deemed appropriate, for this article, I would like to focus specifically on the philosophical tenets behind the changes to case management and how those changes should help improve youth outcomes across the state.
The goal of the Standards Committee was to revise case management in such a manner as to adhere to current research and best practices, while at the same time making it an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand, and invaluable tool in helping to foster improved youth outcomes across the state.
The Committee believed that case plans should be built, in large part, from the criminogenic findings indicated on a validated risk/need instrument thereby ensuring what is addressed are the dynamic risk factors most strongly related to recidivism and other important youth outcomes. Criminogenic Needs may be defined as those issues, risk factors, characteristics, and/or problems that relate to a person’s risk of reoffending.
It was important for the committee to have a working knowledge of what is meant by a "validated instrument" since we were making the assumption that a case plan be built from a validated risk/need instrument. In general, validity speaks to the truth of a given proposition, inference, or conclusion. When referring to assessment tools, validity generally refers to how well an assessment measures what it intends to measure. While there are several types of validity, an instruments degree of "predictive" validity is perhaps most important when discussing risk/need assessment.
Predictive validity is a specific type of validity that helps to address the question, "Does this assessment measure what it is intended to measure and can the results be used to predict things about the participants?" As the name implies, "predictive validity" addresses how well a specific tool predicts future behavior.
For example, to be a validated risk/need instrument, it should, with some accuracy, be a predictor of future involvement in delinquent behavior. If the instrument has an acceptable degree of predictive validity, then Juvenile Probation Officers should be confident that building a case plan from such findings will prove profitable to the success of the probationer.
It was believed by the standards committee that this approach to case management would enable Juvenile Probation Officers to better distinguish between high, medium, and low risk juveniles, thereby helping officers better direct services to target those specific criminogenic factors most closely associated with delinquency and to do so in such a manner as to make it likely that the child will profit from the intervention.
TAC 341 revisions were driven by the belief that sound case management is based on the following literature-supported concepts:
- Risk Principle of Case Management - Higher level of services are reserved for probationers with the highest level or risk; and lower level of services are reserved for juveniles identified as low risk to recidivate.
- Needs Principle of Case Management - Interventions should target those criminogenic needs that are more likely to lead to recidivism and delinquency.
- Responsivity Principle of Case Management - Interventions should be presented in the most effective manner for each individual child.
- Professional Override Principle of Case Management – Considering the risks, needs, and responsivity, decisions are made as appropriate under the prevailing conditions.
While there is some debate within the literature regarding what risk factors most closely constitute criminogenic need, the following domains are widely considered valid as such.
- Prior & Current Offense.
- Family Circumstances/Parenting - inadequate supervision, inconsistent parenting, etc.
- Education/Employment - low achievement, truancy, problems with teachers, class disruptions, etc.
- Delinquent Peer Relations
- Substance Abuse
- Leisure/Recreation - limited organized activities, no personal interests, etc.
- Personality/Behavior - aggressive, poor frustration tolerance, inflated self-esteem, impulsivity.
- Antisocial Attitude - not seeking help, defies authority, actively rejects help, etc.
Responsivity Factors are learning styles, abilities, interests, and other unique considerations including characteristics of the person delivering the service. Styles and modes of service, as much as practical, should be matched to the learning styles and abilities of juveniles so that the juvenile is more likely to profit from the particular type of service provided. Responsivity factors are not necessarily related to criminal activity but are relevant to the way in which a youth reacts to different types of interventions.
In summary, taking all of this information into consideration, the Standards Committee recognized the importance of building a case plan that address criminogenic risk factors and as such made recommended changes to TAC 341 that would require a single case plan, built from the criminogenic findings indicated on a validated risk/need instrument, updated monthly, become the guiding light for the child throughout his/her tenure on juvenile probation resulting in maximum opportunity for positive change to occur.