Youth justice system engagement with young people, their families and communities has varied from none at all, to fairly superficial or token, to (in rare cases) deep and consequential. Whole youth justice systems, departments within systems and units within departments may be at any of the following points on a spectrum of developing community partnerships:

DISENGAGED AND DISMISSIVE
At one end of the spectrum, the youth justice system may view communities as lacking any meaningful contribution to its goals. In fact, it may view communities as drivers of youth crime. Rarely does it see the community as a resource for support or engage community to help design approaches that promote the successful trajectory of youth. In sum, in this stage communities are acted upon, not engaged with.

TOKEN ENGAGEMENT
As a step up, community members may occasionally be invited by the system to offer their perspectives on policies or practices, or on changes being considered. The requests may be more or less formal and more or less systematic. System leaders will commonly refer to these ad hoc attempts as evidence that communities support their plans, despite providing few options for meaningful and substantive input. Here communities are sporadically engaged with a limited invitation to react to proposals, not treated as full partners in change.

ONGOING AND STRUCTURED
Community members may be asked to participate in more structured and systematic efforts, such as joining standing advisory groups or task forces. The groups they’re asked to join may be comprised of a range of stakeholders, with their role to “represent communities” in the same way that others in the group are asked to “represent prosecutors” or “represent probation officers”. Here, input is more systematic but still limited in depth and representation. The role of community members remains external to the system and advisory, rather than integrated and authoritative.
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SUBSTANTIVE AND DEEP
Some jurisdictions have begun to shift some decision-making and other responsibilities to community groups. For example, community groups have been asked to take the lead in determining the types of services and supports to be provided to young people in their neighborhood. Community groups that are governed and run by people impacted by the criminal legal system have been awarded contracts to deliver services and supports to young people. Community groups have taken the lead in providing oversight and ensuring accountability for the quality and effectiveness of services and supports. This is the level at which true partnership begins, as roles and authority for delivering youth justice begin to be shared with communities. Some jurisdictions have begun to develop these types of shared authority structures with communities, which can serve as models for other youth justice leaders seeking to share greater responsibility with communities.

TRANSFORMATIVE
Advocates, community groups and other innovators are pushing for more fundamental change. Their vision includes dismantling much of the current youth justice system and replacing it with community-driven and -based interventions. In some proposals, the system’s roles would be limited to ensuring due process of law, supporting the development of community continuums of care, providing funding, and ensuring accountability for results. In this case, communities would hold much if not most of the responsibility for shaping and delivering youth justice services. As discussed in the Introduction, while not yet completely demonstrated by a specific jurisdiction, to our knowledge, this vision may serve as a North Star as jurisdictions continue to build partnerships with communities and experiment with models of shared authority that invest more roles, responsibilities and resources in communities.