Why Youth Probation Should Engage People With Justice System Experience

High rates of recidi­vism and involve­ment with the legal sys­tem have prompt­ed jus­tice agen­cies nation­wide to pur­sue strate­gies to improve the tra­jec­to­ries of peo­ple with sys­tem involve­ment. One approach gain­ing trac­tion is engag­ing indi­vid­u­als with jus­tice sys­tem expe­ri­ence — known as those with ​“lived expe­ri­ence” — to serve as cred­i­ble mes­sen­gers, nav­i­ga­tors and men­tors to young peo­ple on pro­ba­tion. A new report, Incor­po­rat­ing Those with Lived Expe­ri­ence to Improve Com­mu­ni­ty Super­vi­sion Out­comes, high­lights the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of adopt­ing this approach.

Rod Mar­tinez, a senior research asso­ciate at the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, con­tributed to the report. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in an expert work­shop with lead­ers across the coun­try rep­re­sent­ing sys­tems, research and com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions and advo­ca­cy groups to deter­mine how to pro­mote broad­er adop­tion of lived expe­ri­ence ini­tia­tives. [At the work­shop, par­tic­i­pants used ​“lived expe­ri­ence” to mean hav­ing any direct, first­hand expe­ri­ence with the jus­tice sys­tem, from being arrest­ed or con­vict­ed of a crime to serv­ing a peri­od of incar­cer­a­tion, pro­ba­tion or parole.] The Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver and RAND — the report pub­lish­er — con­vened the group on behalf of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Jus­tice.

In this Q&A, Mar­tinez dis­cuss­es take­aways from the work­shop and report. He also draws on his expe­ri­ences as a researcher who has ded­i­cat­ed his career to bring­ing peo­ple with direct expe­ri­ence in the legal sys­tem and oth­er mar­gin­al­ized groups into the research process.

Why does it mat­ter if youth pro­ba­tion agen­cies use cred­i­ble messengers?

Mar­tinez: First, sev­er­al evi­dence-based mod­els, such as the work in New York City-based agen­cies, have demon­strat­ed suc­cess. To me, it’s always been about equi­ty. A lot of peo­ple who have served time in cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties or been in the legal sys­tem at all have been his­tor­i­cal­ly exclud­ed from many sec­tors and kinds of work or, often­times, preda­to­ri­ly includ­ed. In research, for exam­ple, peo­ple with direct expe­ri­ence have been research sub­jects where we extract infor­ma­tion from them when we should be part­ner­ing with them, recruit­ing, hir­ing and train­ing them as part of the research process. The oth­er impor­tant rea­son why it mat­ters is if you include peo­ple who have direct expe­ri­ence in the sys­tem, it enhances the valid­i­ty of your data and the effec­tive­ness of your pro­grams, prac­tices and policies.

Are cred­i­ble mes­sen­gers get­ting enough atten­tion in youth justice?

Mar­tinez: There is greater atten­tion, but many issues and ques­tions still need to be addressed. One of those issues con­cerns the capac­i­ty-build­ing needs of the anti-vio­lence work­force and how to sus­tain this line of work fair­ly and equi­tably. As the report rais­es, we also need more best prac­tices on what it looks like to cre­ate and imple­ment any cred­i­ble mes­sen­ger ini­tia­tive. Last­ly, we need more research and eval­u­a­tion on what works, how it works and why these pro­grams work for young peo­ple in var­i­ous places and con­texts across the country.

What will read­ers get out of the report?

Mar­tinez: The report offers broad lessons and reflec­tions from var­ied per­spec­tives on how to mean­ing­ful­ly incor­po­rate peo­ple with first­hand jus­tice sys­tem expe­ri­ence. The con­trib­u­tors were from dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try and dif­fer­ent con­texts, and the report is a win­dow into some of the issues this very diverse group talked about. There’s some­thing use­ful to almost anyone’s work. There are sec­tions on research, poli­cies, prac­tice and more, and a read­er could take a small piece and begin to explore it.

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Read more on the impor­tance of first­hand expe­ri­ence in youth probation