Anyone who has raised or comes into regular contact with teens know they can be defiant, impulsive, argumentative, and exasperating. That’s just how their brains are wired during this developmental phase. While developmentally normal, these adolescent characteristics often clash with the training police officers receive to expect obedience and respect. Given their keen sense of fairness, teens may believe they are standing up for their rights in these encounters, while police officers interpret their behavior as willful defiance. This miscommunication is part of the reason so many adolescents have difficult and even violent interactions with police officers. Furthermore, youth encounters with police officers—both positive and negative—have profound and long-term effects on views of policing, the law, and authority in general.

Strategies for Youth (SFY) was founded in 2010 to improve relations between police and young people and to help law enforcement and youth learn strategies to keep the peace and ensure everyone’s safety. To further this mission, SFY recently released 12 Model Law Enforcement Policies for Youth Interaction, the first of its kind, that clearly spell out developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed, and equitable practices for police when dealing with youth in a variety of situations—many of them high stress, tense, and with the potential to be explosive.

As part of this initiative, SFY commissioned a poll to find out what Americans think about the need for policies to govern law enforcement interactions with youth. We found that more than half of Americans sampled believe that most or some police agencies already have specialized policies for youth; 64 percent think there should be policies guiding police interactions with youth who are experiencing mental health crises and who have special needs; and 78 percent believe that youth should have a lawyer present during interrogations. Almost 90 percent believe that police should receive specialized training before being deployed in schools.

These findings reveal a major gap between public perception and reality. In fact, 80 percent of law enforcement agencies with fewer than 50 officers have no policies specifically to guide police interactions with children and adolescents. This remains true even though the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has long encouraged law enforcement agencies to develop policies, protocols, training, and systems of accountability to ensure effective and appropriate responses to young people:

• In “Police and Youth Engagement: Supporting the Role of Law Enforcement in Juvenile Justice System,” IACP describes a “multi-year initiative focused on increasing the capacity of law enforcement and justice professionals to address juvenile victimization, delinquency, and crime” through a police-youth roundtable, institutes for “police youth engagement,” and training and technical assistance tools and resources for law enforcement.
• School-Police Partnerships (2020), a publication of the Law Enforcement Policy Center, “is intended to provide agencies with items for consideration when developing policies, procedures, and interagency agreements pertaining to law enforcement engagement with students and school staff.”
• The IACP’s Youth Focused Policing Agency Self-Assessment Tool (2018) “seeks to assist law enforcement agencies assessing their current state of policy and practice in prevention and response strategies to reduce juvenile offending, reoffending and victimization.”
• Law Enforcement’s Leadership Role in Juvenile Justice Reform: Actionable Recommendations for Practice and Policy (2014) describes an IACP-convened national summit where participants were charged with developing “recommendations for practices and policies that advance a more constructive role for law enforcement when engaging with young people.”
• Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents (2014) describes a model policy designed to “assist law enforcement agencies in developing measures to safeguard children when a parent is arrested.”
• Reducing Risks: An Executive’s Guide to Effective Juvenile Interview and Interrogation (2012) “provides an overview of the issues, latest research, and legal developments related to questioning juveniles. It then offers juvenile interrogation best practice tips that reflect these developments” and advises officers to “use different and more appropriate interrogation tactics that reflect the differences between adults and teenagers.”

In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) recommends the adoption of policies for interactions with youth in its consent decrees for and settlement agreements with law enforcement agencies:

• In its investigation of the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Police Department, the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) observes that without “adequate guidance about child and adolescent development and how to approach encounters with young people, officers may be more likely to misinterpret behaviors of youth and potentially escalate the encounter. . . . Youth-specific policies are needed to ensure that officers not only correctly interpret adolescent behavior they encounter, but also that officers know how to react appropriately using the tools and discretion at their disposal” and that the police department “recognize the unique characteristics of youth” and develop responsive policies as a “remedial measure” for identified violations.”
• In its consent decree in U.S. v. Police Department of Baltimore City, as part of resolving USDOJ findings of civil rights violations, the Baltimore City (Maryland) Police Department agrees to “revise its policies and training as necessary” to provide officers with guidance on “developmentally appropriate responses to, and interactions with, youth,” including during voluntary interactions, stops, searches, arrests, uses of force, and custodial detentions and interrogations and with “sufficient initial and ongoing training” on youth interactions.
• In its consent decree in U.S. v. City of Ferguson, as part of resolving USDOJ findings of civil rights violations, the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department agrees to develop a “program and operations manual” for school resource officers and to provide officers with “sufficient training.”
• In the settlement agreement between the USDOJ and the City of Meridian, Mississippi, as part of resolving USDOJ findings of civil rights violations, the Meridian Police Department agrees to provide officers with pre-service and annual in-service training on interactions with youth while on public school premises.

To fill this gap, SFY’s model law enforcement policies have been carefully drafted based on agency policies, research, Supreme Court and other court decisions, statutes, and USDOJ consent decrees. The policies have also been reviewed by a diverse group of local, regional, and national experts and stakeholders, including psychologists, law enforcement, prosecutors, youth defenders, and civil rights and police misconduct attorneys. The policies can be adopted in part or in whole by law enforcement agencies across the country.

These policies have been carefully designed to help agencies and officers avoid unnecessary youth arrests and formal involvement in the legal system. They can also protect officers as well as young people. During our trainings, we often hear from law enforcement officers who are eager to learn how youth think and what impels their behavior, to develop more effective strategies for interacting with youth, and to support youth who are experiencing trauma and mental health issues.

What’s in this for law enforcement agencies?

The policies, when combined with training, offer supportive parameters for officers’ responses in specific situations to minimize trauma and emotional damage to youth. They help law enforcement leaders establish mandates that can be used to hold officers accountable for their actions. They will almost certainly reduce agency and officer exposure to liability and prevent the types of tragic incidents that have become far too common.

Recent examples of such incidents include a New York Times story about a Mississippi officer arresting, handcuffing, and taking into custody a 10-year-old child for public urination; an Associated Press article about a Massachusetts officer handcuffing a Black nine-year-old special needs student and bringing him to an adult psychiatric unit; a Fox 5 Atlanta report about a Georgia judge ruling police were wrong to aggressively detain and then charge an innocent teenager in a car tampering case; a U.S. District Court case regarding a judge refusing to dismiss a case in which a Pennsylvania 15-year-old running from a fight in his high school cafeteria was tased in the back of his head; and a New York Times story about an 11-year-old girl tased in Cincinnati, Ohio, for stealing bread and diapers. See the sidebar “Harmful Incidents Involving Youth and Law Enforcement” for additional examples.

SFY also believes that publicly available policies serve as a kind of contract with the community. As a result, they serve to increase law enforcement legitimacy within communities. SFY has observed that once a community loses trust in law enforcement, it is difficult for agencies to re-establish their credibility. Adopting policies aimed at preventing tragic incidents and reducing the likelihood of violence is a sound strategy that protects youth, the community, and police officers and increases transparency in communication and outreach.

SFY is ready to help law enforcement agencies customize, adopt, and implement these policies. Law enforcement leaders who are interested should contact us at 617-714-3789 or info@strategiesforyouth.org or learn more about our work by visiting our website. We partner with agencies to create healthy communities where, at the end of the day, everyone goes home safely.

Lisa H. Thurau
Strategies For Youth

Shelley R. Jackson
Strategies For Youth

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