Toward Developmentally Appropriate Juvenile Court Practice :

1. Toward Developmentally Appropriate Juvenile Court Practice: A Juvenile Court Training Curriculum by the National Juvenile Defender Center in partnership with Juvenile Law Center

2. Module 1: Adolescent Development

3. A Developmental Perspective on Juvenile Justice • Adolescents Adults • Describe and document differences • Inform policy and practice

4. First, as any parent knows, and as the scientific and sociological studies… tend to confirm, a “lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and opinions.”…The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure….The third broad difference is that the character of a juvenile is not as well-formed as that of an adult. The personality traits of juveniles are more transitory, less fixed. Source: Majority opinion, U.S. Supreme Court, Roper v. Simmons

5. Adolescent Development Overview • Cognitive Development • Psychosocial Development • Brain Development • Moral Development • Identity • Disabilities • Understanding Adolescent Development in Context

6. Major Cognitive Changes in Adolescence • Possibilities • Abstraction • Thinking about thinking (metacognition) • Thinking in multiple dimensions

7. Psychosocial Influences on Cognition • Risk Perception • Value consequences differently from adults • Sensation Seeking • Need for novel and complex experiences

8. Psychosocial Influences on Cognition Present Oriented Thinking Difficulty thinking about the future and delaying gratification Peer Influences More vulnerable to peer pressure particularly in risky situations

9. Psychosocial (Im)maturity and Decision-Making • Ability to appraise risks and consequences • Ability to act with prudence and after consideration • Ability to resist peer pressure

10. The maturity gap

11. Psychosocial Development and Decision-Making • How do psychosocial factors influence youth’s decision-making in this incident? • Risk Perception • Sensation Seeking • Peer Influence • Future orientation

13. How brain “maturation” is measured • Density of Grey Matter • Neurons and neuronal connections (synapses) • Density and Patterning of White Matter • Myelin (fatty “insulation” around circuits) • Two Important Processes • Synaptic Pruning • Myelination

14. What Does Research Say About Adolescent Brain Development • Helpful to think of two distinct sets of brain systems relevant to adolescent behavior. • Systems involve different regions of the brain and develop along different time tables. • Socio-emotional system • Cognitive control system

15. Socioemotional System Cognitive Control System

16. The Socio-Emotional System • Responsible for processing emotions, social information, reward and punishment • Undergoes major changes in early adolescence that are related to hormonal changes. • Changes in early adolescence result in: • Increased sensation-seeking • Increased/easier emotional arousal • Increased attentiveness to social information

17. The Cognitive Control System • Responsible for deliberative thinking – weighing costs and benefits, thinking ahead, regulating impulses • Develops gradually from preadolescence on, well into the mid-20s • Changes result in • More impulse control • Better emotion regulation • More foresight • More planning ahead • Better reasoning

18. What Does It All Mean? • Adolescence is a time characterized by a socio-emotional system that is easily aroused and highly sensitive to social feedback • Adolescence is a time characterized by a still-immature cognitive control system As a result, adolescents are • less able to control impulses • Less able to resist pressure from peers • Less likely to think ahead • More driven by the thrill of rewards

19. What Does It Not Mean That adolescents do not know right from wrong That adolescents are the same as young children That adolescents should not be held responsible for their actions That all juvenile offenders are the same

20. Limitations of Brain Research • It can notsubstitute for an assessment of an individual’s actual behavior • It can nottell us when individuals are still able to change, or are still amenable to treatment • It does not change anything we already knew about differences between the behavior of adolescents and adults • The idea that biological evidence is more “real” than psychological evidence is naïve

21. Implications of Adolescent Development to Policy and Practice • Developmental Concepts • Cognitive maturation • Psychosocial maturation • Legal Concepts • Competence • Culpability • Mitigation • Amenability

22. Implications of Adolescent Development to Policy and Practice “12-year-old who could become America's youngest ever 'lifer' for killing two-year-old brother.”

23. Implications of Adolescent Development for Policy and Practice • Legal Questions regarding: • Competence to Stand Trial • Validity of Waiver of Miranda • Interrogation and False Confessions

24. Implications of Adolescent Development to Policy and Practice • Transfer and Sentencing in Adult Court • Culpability “12-year-old who could become America's youngest ever 'lifer' for killing two-year-old brother.”

25. Implications of Adolescent Development for Policy and Practice • Amenability to treatment • Youth still developing—who they are is not necessarily who they will become • Desistance • Sanctions should hold youth responsible, but not “arrest development”.

26. For more information or to request training based on the Curriculum please contact: National Juvenile Defender Center 1350 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 304 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202-452-0010 Fax: 202-452-1205 www.njdc.info mscali@njdc.info Toward Developmentally Appropriate Juvenile Court Practice: A Juvenile Court Training Curriculum