Prosecutors typically present youth accused of crimes with two options: probation or incarceration.
Probation has long been viewed as the less punishing outcome, “a measure of leniency,” one probation leader wrote in a professional journal in 1986. Even the American Civil Liberties Union has highlighted the importance of probation, and in a 2011 report titled “Smart Reform is Possible” called it a necessary “non-prison alternative.”
But over the past decade, some juvenile justice advocates, legal experts and probation leaders themselves have argued the system’s reliance on surveillance, damaging fees and the threat of incarceration can cause more harm than good. Probation violations, for example, can land youth in lockup, or under house arrest for minor missteps, including missing school or drinking alcohol.
Now, a new report being released Wednesday highlights the experiences of young people, who say time on probation harmed their mental health and impeded their development. “Revolutionizing Probation: From Punishment to Community-Led Safety,” is the first in a series of reports the authors say will be part of a nationwide campaign to dismantle punishment-based probation practices, divert funding to mental health and youth enrichment programs and develop litigation strategies against harmful practices.
“It put me in a constant state of fear and like I was always being watched,” one unidentified young person is quoted as saying in the report. The Gault Center, a Washington, D.C., legal advocacy nonprofit, produced the publication with the Philadelphia-based community group Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout, or YEAH Philly.
HyeJi Kim, senior youth defense counsel at the Gault Center, said her organization has been working on probation reforms in select counties for the past decade.
“There’s always been a sustained interest, a steady drumbeat against mass incarceration, but not a lot of information about the harms of juvenile probation,” Kim said. “Our intention here is to bring light to what’s really happening in the shadows — first and foremost by amplifying the voices of young people who have directly experienced juvenile probation.”
The anonymously quoted young people in the report released today cite a significant toll on their mental health. One young person said probation “100% gives you PTSD,” due to that fear of having to “go to jail” for a technical violation. The authors note that probation was created before the abolition of slavery and Jim Crow laws, and argue that it perpetuates disparate treatment and overrepresentation “across race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, and poverty.”
YEAH Philly leaders Kendra Van de Water and Mona Baishy announced they will soon launch, with the Gault Center, the nationwide Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition, in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer published in January: “The coalition will expose the harms of juvenile probation through youth-led research, hold systems accountable for the trauma they create, elevate community-based accountability models, and push for policies and models that move us beyond probation,” they wrote. “Our goal is a national blueprint for real public safety rooted in dignity and care.”
The terms of probation vary widely from state to state — and even across county lines. Typically, a young person lives at home and must meet regularly with a probation officer to ensure compliance. Limitations on their freedoms can include drug testing, house arrest, ankle monitors or suspended driver’s licenses. Youth or their parents can also be responsible for $10 to over $2,000 in probation fees, according to a Gault Center survey. In fewer counties, departments refer youth to promising, creative alternatives, such as family-based therapy, or programs that teach them to build wooden boats.
Not everyone describes the current probation system as so broken.
The American Probation and Parole Association’s website emphasizes that its professionals’ role is providing “guidance, support, assistance, and opportunities that promote young people’s success and, in turn, protect public safety.”
A recent U.S. Department of Justice research review says probation plans can be helpful when they “implement holistic and individualized case planning, enhance racial equity and inclusion, and engage youths, families, and communities.”
And the number of youth judges place on probation has declined significantly in recent decades, from 334,600 in 2005 to 106,300 in 2023, according to federal Department of Justice data. Some studies show lower recidivism rates for youth on probation, compared to those who were detained.
But, critics note, tens of thousands more youth are likely placed on probation informally, before a judge’s delinquency decision. And in 2023, as many as 13,000 young people were placed on probation for misdeeds as minor as truancy or running away, despite never having committed a crime. Federal data show more than 3,200 youth under age 20 were detained for non-criminal violations of probation rules; Black and American Indian youth were incarcerated for this reason at more than double the rate of their white and Latino peers.
For Lucianna Jones, 25, of Wichita, Kansas, probation was an unhelpful detour as she entered adulthood. Jones is about to start a new job as an art teacher at a Boys & Girls Club, and plays a key role leading her peers for Progeny, a program of the local youth enrichment nonprofit Destination Innovation. But in the past, she spent a year on probation as a teenager, after turning herself in for a non-violent, driving-related crime. She described it as a demoralizing experience.
The court system “doesn’t explain anything clearly,” said Jones, adding that “that can end up really hurting you later” if you misunderstand something.
“It challenges your mindset, basically for being defeated,” she said. “It takes a lot from being a person — they take the human away from you.”
Kim said her organization has heard from dozens of advocates around the country who are interested in participating in the new Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition in order to help prevent such outcomes for youth, and to help challenge “this idea that probation is an act of benevolence.”
