The SPEP™ within the Ecology of Juvenile Justice

• In Event: Connecting Research to Practice Using the Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEP™): The Road to Reform

Abstract

If the juvenile justice system can be considered an ecological system, how does the Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEP™) fit into it? Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is made up of five different levels encompassing a child, in this case a juvenile offender, at its center. The systems radiating from the child range from the microsystem (the immediate environment) outward to the chronosystem (sociohistorical changes overtime). All of these systems represent entities, values and events that directly or indirectly impact the child and his or her development. The mesosystem, however, represents the connections between and within these systems. It is my argument that the SPEP™ fits into the mesosystem and is most effectively implemented from that level. I will discuss the different levels of the juvenile justice system as an ecological system and how the SPEP™ fits into this model.

Author

• Jill Robinson, Vanderbilt University