UB study shows how juvenile legal system can support — or fail — our youth

A mother and son meet with a psychologist.

By Matthew Biddle

Published March 10, 2026

D. Michael Applegarth, Assistant Professor

Related Links

BUFFALO, N.Y. — New research from the University at Buffalo School of Social Work reveals how different services can benefit or harm youth on probation, potentially leading to rehabilitation or creating a cycle that results in future arrest.

D. Michael Applegarth, PhD, and JoAnn S. Lee, PhD — assistant professor and associate professor, respectively, in the School of Social Work — conducted the study, which is available via open access from the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology.

“Many criminologists try to predict recidivism but pay less attention to how we can actually help people,” says Lee. “We may be able to figure out who is most likely to recidivate, but do we know how to address that risk? That’s a fundamental question of this study.”

The researchers compiled five years of administrative data from nearly 7,000 youth on probation in a mid-Atlantic U.S. state to examine changes in their risk scores and protective factors, or attributes that guard against those risks. The youth had been screened with the commonly used Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument, which covers 10 domains, including legal history, family, school, alcohol and drugs, mental health, employment and free time.

Rather than analyzing the subjects’ overall scores, the UB researchers examined how each domain changed over time as the youth received different services.

“We tend to add up this score and classify young people as high risk, medium risk or low risk – and once they’re assigned a ‘high risk’ label, they’re the ones we pay attention to, who receive all the services,” Lee says.

Applegarth adds: “Too often, we just look at the overall score and not the individual pieces of it. We wanted to gain a better understanding of how we can use all this information to best serve youth.”

They found that assessment and treatment services — a more rehabilitative approach — were associated with positive outcomes, like an increase in school-based protective factors and lower recidivism. By contrast, a compliance-focused monitoring approach was associated with negative outcomes, including an increase in legal history and the risk of recidivism.

Overall, Black and Latinx youth were more likely than their white counterparts to be rearrested and reconvicted, as were male youth of all races and ethnicities.

“The juvenile legal system is more and more reliant on supervising youth in the community, which can be a good thing, but it can also create a pattern that maintains youth in the system and sends them on to the adult system,” Applegarth says.

“High-risk kids were most likely to improve on protective factors and decrease their risk factors — but on average, this group was also most likely to be rearrested,” he continues. “That’s what we’re trying to draw attention to: We may think certain services are helping, but are we actually making it worse for some kids?”

Part of the issue, Lee says, is that the juvenile system often treats youth like adults and views their development as the young person’s responsibility rather than a societal concern.

“A lot of risk assessments are taken from the adult system and may take a punitive approach or make assumptions that aren’t useful for young people,” she says. “Youth come to the attention of the system because something’s missing in their socialization process. So instead of surveilling them as ‘youth at risk,’ perhaps we can think about them as young people who are still being developed and address their needs.”

Applegarth says practitioners should critically examine the risk assessments they use and how the information may guide decision-making to ensure they’re helping the individuals they serve — and to avoid making assumptions that perpetuate harm.

“When we label kids as ‘high risk’ that can shape how we view them. What if we approach this from a strengths-based perspective that says, ‘Let’s give this treatment time to work,’ rather than, ‘There they go again messing up and proving us right?’” Applegarth says.

“Kids are kids, and the process of changing is not linear; it’s up and down, and there will be forward and backward steps. We know these youth have needs that we can meet, and if we meet them, then we generally see a positive pattern. But if we assume the worst, we’re potentially reinforcing that cycle.”