Overview
2) Interview an “expert” about a specific theme such as gangs, crime, drugs, and violence and connect their responses to assigned readings. The expert can be a police officer, probation, social worker, teacher, youth worker etc. Provide a page with references (Chicago Style).
Interviewee:
1. Can you describe your role when you worked in the Public Defender's Office and juvenile dependency court and the types of youth or families you worked with?
I want to be transparent about where I was in my career at the time. I was still in law school when I took on both of these roles. In the Public Defender's Office, I was asked to conduct intake evaluations for recently incarcerated defendants. That meant going in, sitting down with someone who had just been arrested or booked, and conducting an interview to understand what they were charged with and, critically, to hear their version of events. The purpose was to help build the foundation of their defense.
What I wasn't fully prepared for was how emotionally difficult that work would be for me personally. As a very young, almost-attorney, I found it genuinely hard to separate the alleged conduct from the constitutional obligation to ensure that person's rights were protected. There was one category of cases in particular; cases involving accused harm to children where I found I could not be impartial. My instinct was to assume guilt, and when you're doing intake work for the defense, that instinct is a serious problem. The entire foundation of criminal defense is that every person, regardless of what they are accused of, is entitled to due process and vigorous representation. I believed that intellectually, but I could not always live it emotionally in that room. That experience was actually formative for me and it helped me recognize early that criminal defense was not the path I was meant to take as an attorney.
The dependency court experience was different in character but similarly challenging. There, my role was to review client files and assess whether reunification with a parent or family member was a viable option for children who had been removed from the home due to severe abuse or neglect. Reading those files and the documented atrocities committed against minors left me deeply skeptical that returning a child to their biological parent could ever truly be in that child's best interest. My instinct was almost always protective: keep the child away from the source of harm.
But over time, and with the benefit of hindsight, my thinking on that evolved. The research, and my own observations, suggest that reunification , when it is paired with genuine, substantive rehabilitation for the parent tends to produce better long-term outcomes than the alternative. The foster care system, while it serves a critical function, also carries its own serious risks. Rates of criminal justice involvement, instability, and trauma among youth who age out of foster care are sobering. So where I ultimately landed was this: I support reunification, but only where proper therapeutic and rehabilitative measures are firmly in place to ensure the home is genuinely safe. It's not an automatic answer in either direction. It requires careful, case-by-case judgment. That tension between protecting a child immediately and giving a family the chance to heal is something I carried with me throughout my legal career.
2. From your experience, what are the most common reasons young people become involved in the juvenile justice or dependency system?
Poverty is probably the single most consistent thread. It creates instability in housing, in family structure, in access to quality education, and that instability creates conditions where a young person's likelihood of system involvement goes way up. Beyond that, I'd say unaddressed trauma is huge. Kids who've experienced abuse, neglect, or domestic violence in the home are dramatically overrepresented. Substance abuse in the home is another major factor. And then there's the community environment. When a child grows up in a neighborhood where gang activity is normalized and economic opportunity is essentially absent, the pipeline into the justice system almost runs on its own.
3. How do factors like family environment, poverty, or community conditions influence youth involvement in crime or delinquency?
They influence it enormously, and I think that's something the general public doesn't fully appreciate. When a child grows up in a household where a parent is incarcerated, or where there's addiction, or where there's chronic instability because the family is moving every few months due to eviction, that child is under a level of chronic stress that rewires how they respond to the world. Their decision-making processes are affected. Their ability to trust adults and institutions is compromised. And when their school is underfunded and their neighborhood lacks safe spaces, recreational opportunities, or mentors, there's simply nothing to catch them. Poverty doesn't cause crime in a simple direct way, but it removes virtually every protective factor that keeps young people safe.
4. Did you notice connections between youth who committed crimes and those who had experienced trauma, abuse, or violence themselves?
Absolutely, and this was one of the most striking things I observed in practice. It was rare to represent a young person in a delinquency matter who didn't have a trauma history. You'd pull a client's dependency file and find years of documented abuse, multiple foster placements, maybe sexual abuse that was never properly addressed therapeutically. These kids weren't bad kids. They were deeply hurt kids who had never received adequate support. The research on adverse childhood experiences, the ACE studies, bears this out completely. There's a near-direct correlation between trauma exposure and justice involvement. In my view, when we prosecute a traumatized child without addressing the underlying trauma, we are setting that child up to fail.
5. How often did drugs or substance abuse play a role in the cases you worked with, and why do you think some youth turn to substances?
Very often. Either the young person themselves was using, or there was substance abuse in the home that had destabilized the family. I think youth turn to substances for a lot of reasons and self-medication is a big one. When you're carrying trauma and there's no therapeutic outlet, substances numb that pain. There's also the social dimension; if everyone in your peer group or household uses, it becomes normalized. And frankly, in some communities, drug distribution is one of the few visible economic opportunities available. When a teenager has no realistic path to a stable income through legitimate means, the risk calculation around selling drugs looks very different to them than it might to someone with other options.
6. In your experience, what role does peer pressure or gang involvement play in youth crime?
It's enormous, and I think gangs in particular are something we as a society have fundamentally failed to address in any meaningful way. Young people join gangs because gangs offer what every young person needs: belonging, identity, protection, and in many cases economic support. When those things aren't available through family, school, or community institutions, a gang fills the vacuum. Once a young person is affiliated, the pressure to participate in criminal activity and the retaliation cycles that come with gang membership become almost inescapable without significant outside intervention. We have to eliminate gang culture, but the only way to do that is to replace what gangs offer with something better. You can't just prosecute your way out of it.
7. What are some common misconceptions people have about young people involved in the justice system?
The biggest one is that they're fundamentally different from other kids, meaning that they're dangerous or irredeemable. In my experience, that could not be further from the truth. Most of my clients were funny, creative, intelligent young people who had been let down by every system that was supposed to protect them. Another misconception is that involvement in the justice system means a young person chose to be there. By the time I met most of my clients, a series of circumstances largely outside their control had channeled them into that courtroom. People also assume that stricter punishment deters youth crime. The research simply does not support that. Young people don't calculate consequences the way adults do, neurologically speaking, and harsh sentences don't produce the deterrent effect people imagine they do.
8. Do you think the juvenile justice system focuses more on punishment or rehabilitation? Why?
In my honest opinion, yes, despite the rhetoric. The system tilts toward punishment far more than it should, especially as cases become more serious. The juvenile system was theoretically designed around rehabilitation, and for lower-level offenses there are diversion programs and services that reflect that philosophy. But as the charges get more serious, the punitive instincts of the system take over. You see young people tried as adults, you see lengthy commitments to facilities that look and function like prisons, and you see very little genuine investment in addressing the root causes of why a young person offended in the first place. The community, understandably, wants accountability, but we've confused accountability with punishment, and they're not the same thing. True accountability means addressing behavior and building the capacity to make better choices, not simply warehousing a young person.
9. What kinds of programs or interventions do you think are most effective in preventing youth crime and violence?
Community-based interventions are the most effective by far, in my view, and they're often the most underfunded. Programs that provide mentorship, particularly from people who have lived experience in the community, are extremely powerful. Young people need to see accessible role models who look like them and have navigated the same environment successfully. Access to higher education,and real, concrete pathways to get there is transformative. Sports, arts, vocational programs that give young people a sense of purpose and identity outside of the street. Violence interruption programs that employ credible messengers to de-escalate conflict before it turns criminal. And therapeutic services such as trauma-informed therapy needs to be available, free, and stigma-free in every community where system involvement is high. The more we arm young people with knowledge, skills, and genuine opportunity, the less appeal the alternative holds.
10. Based on your experience, what changes could help prevent more young people from becoming involved in crime or the justice system?
The list is long, but I'll focus on what I believe would move the needle the most. First, we need to invest heavily in the communities that are feeding these systems. Not just in policing, but in schools, mental health resources, economic opportunity, and safe public spaces. Second, we need to radically expand diversion so that young people are redirected away from the formal system before a record follows them into adulthood. Third, we have to take gang intervention seriously as a public health issue. That means funding community organizations, paying credible messengers, and creating economic alternatives. Fourth, higher education access needs to be a priority; kids who can see a clear path to college or a trade career make different choices. And fifth, we need to ensure that every young person involved in the system has access to quality legal representation and that the system they interact with is trauma-informed. The data is clear on what works. What we too often lack is the political will to fund and sustain it.