An Abolitionist Perspective of Trauma-Informed Care in Juvenile Detention

• In Event: Abolitionism and Carcerality: Reflections, Perspectives, and Approaches

Abstract

Reform is often the catch-all solution to issues within carceral settings (e.g., gender responsivity and body-worn cameras). Situating reforms within an abolitionist context, Critical Resistance (2020) describes two approaches to reform: abolitionist reforms, which seek to reduce the reach of the carceral system and decrease the number of people affected by the carceral system, and reformist reforms, which expand the carceral system “under the guise of ‘addressing needs’ or as ‘updated’ replacements.” Indeed, gender-responsiveness, DEI, and trauma-informed care have been long-supported by reformers as solutions to a corrupt carceral system (Carlton, 2023; Russell & Carlton, 2013; Shaylor, 2008). However, abolitionists have decried these so-called solutions as reformist reforms that do not further the goals of abolition. Drawing on interviews with juvenile detention staff and administrators (n = 13), this study examines the following three questions: 1) What is the role of trauma-informed care in juvenile detention facilities?; 2) Can carceral spaces, in this case juvenile detention, ever be truly trauma-informed?; and 3) How does trauma-informed care align with abolitionist steps versus reformist reforms? Does it promote or hinder abolition? Perspectives from participants fall into two thematic categories: Trauma-Informed as Care as Integral to Detention, and Trauma-Informed Care as Contradictory to Detention. Some participants advocated that trauma-informed care is necessary to implement within juvenile detention facilities, largely due to the high rates of trauma youth come into the system with. Others espoused the belief that detention facilities could not be considered trauma-informed, as detention facilities themselves create and perpetuate trauma. These conflicting perspectives connect to the larger conversation in abolition regarding abolitionist reforms and reformist reforms (see Critical Resistance, 2020). Implications from these findings center on the necessity but not sufficiency of trauma-informed care in carceral settings toward the goal of abolition.

Authors

• Nicole McKenna, John Jay College

• Valerie Anderson, University of Missouri-St.Louis