Advocacy for Incarcerated Youth: A Conversation With Peter Leone

Abstract

Dr. Peter Leone is an internationally renowned researcher and advocate for incarcerated youth. Throughout his almost four decades at the University of Maryland, his expertise and research have influenced lawsuits related to the provision of education and special education services in juvenile corrections and paved the way for changes in policy and practice. Dr. Leone shared his reflections on his career, progress that has been made in juvenile justice education, urgent matters, future directions, and recommendations for future juvenile justice educators and researchers.

For over 39 years, Dr. Peter E. Leone is a name that has immediately come to mind when discussions turn toward the education of incarcerated youth with and without disabilities. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Washington in 1981, Dr. Leone has carved out a unique approach to advocacy wherein he leverages his expertise in special education law to serve in various roles, such as special master, expert, and court-appointed monitor. Over the years, he has worked on high-impact lawsuits, including Handberry v. Thompson, Andre H. v. Sobol, Johnson v. Upchurch, Donnell C. v. Illinois State Board of Education, and Alexander v. Boyd. His work has given rise to observable changes in juvenile correctional facility policies and practices throughout the United States.

Dr. Leone’s teaching, research, and service are also targeted at improving understanding, promoting action, and affecting positive change in the services provided to these troubled youth. His research and publications have tackled issues such as the school-to-prison pipeline and school violence, as well as ensuring youth safety and the provision of education/special education services within juvenile correctional settings. Dr. Leone is widely known for his leadership of the National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice (EDJJ).

Over the years, Dr. Leone has further impacted the field via service activities. Of particular note is his work on the Board of Directors for the See Forever Foundation and Maya Angelou Public Charter Schools.

Intervention: Tell us how you got into the field of educating children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD)?

Leone: After I finished my master’s degree in special education at the University of Iowa, I started teaching. I had an appointment in a joint program between the Iowa City Iowa School District and Child Psychiatry Service of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. All the kids that I taught at Central Junior High School were outpatients. There were 12 of them and half of them had probation officers. For me, that was like, “What? What’s this about? These are kids with mental health issues.” That’s what really, I think, began my interest in the nexus between mental health and disability and the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Intervention: Was that some of the impetus for you going back to get your PhD or how did that develop?

Leone: When I was a master’s student at Iowa, some of the people I hung around with were in the doctoral program at Iowa, including my good friend, Tom Skrtic. I just hung out with a lot of those people, and they said, “You ought to go back to school.” I thought, “Man, I don’t know about that.”

After 3 or 4 years, I decided that I needed to move because I’d been in Iowa for 12 years.

I read this great article in the Atlantic about the Pacific Northwest and what a cool place it was. It was about Washington, Oregon, and, I think, Idaho. I said, “Yes, I’m going to move to the Northwest.” I applied to one graduate school, and I applied to the Seattle Public Schools simultaneously. They both came through. I said, “No, I think I’ll do graduate school,” because there was federal money for tuition and internships and things like that, so I moved to Seattle.

Intervention: Was your focus at that time on juvenile justice issues?

Leone: Yes, it really was. I was teaching during the time new federal legislation popularly referred to as PL 94-142—the precursor to IDEA—was passed. There was just a lot of interest in the law and what the law could do. As a doc student at the University of Washington I completed an independent study with faculty in the law school. I became interested in the due process decisions that these hearing officers were handing down in special education disputes. Then, you literally could count on the fingers of two hands how many there were.

I can’t remember how I learned about the process, but I think I contacted public interest law firms, the Center for Law and Education in Boston, and groups like that, and I just asked about it. When I learned about a hearing, I would write to someone, and they would mail me the results of the hearing. I did an independent study paper on due process hearings in special education. I do not think any of them had to do with juvenile justice as much as what are the limits of the law, and what do parents have to do versus what do school districts have to do. It really whetted my appetite and my interest in the law.

Intervention: Who had had the most influence on your professional career?

Leone: Tom Skrtic (at the University of Kansas) was a big influence in my life and in my way of thinking. Ironically, at the University of Washington, I really got steeped in applied behaviorism and really learned a lot about observing and measuring behavior and breaking things down. I began realizing the limits of looking at and measuring behavior, in that there are a whole lot of decisions and assumptions people make about how kids behave and ways that they frame those behaviors and what they choose to count. Apart from disability, for example, if you think about issues of race and ethnicity and you look at the disproportionate impact of school disciplinary policies, of juvenile probation and arrest practices, it has a real impact on those kids, those communities, those families.

There was [also] a faculty member named Tom Lovitt, who was a single-subject researcher at the University of Washington. He was not my advisor and he was not even on my [dissertation] committee. I did some early research with him on kids who had been seen at the Experimental Education Unit at The University of Washington. Tom was an amazing writer and a very methodical researcher. I just learned so much from him. It was just phenomenal. I’ve tried, at least early in my career, to emulate the care that he put into what he wrote, how he considered evidence, and how he presented himself. He was, I would say, like Mr. Rogers. He was soft-spoken. He opened his mouth and everyone listened because they had such respect for him. Tom was a major influence in my professional career.

There were others as well. There’s another faculty member, Gene Edgar, at The University of Washington, who became a friend and colleague. What was cool about him was he was an early childhood special educator who decided he was interested in older kids and just flipped the switch and started studying older kids. At the time he retired, that was what he was known for. It made me think about how we organize information. How we decide who studies what? What gives you the authority to study anything? Gene’s approach to life and to just careful inquiry was influential, as well.

Intervention: What events, policies, and innovations have had the most influence on your professional career?

Leone: EDJJ (the National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice) was pretty unique. There was a series of discussions that occurred in the years leading up to it. I remember participating in meetings with people from justice [Department of Justice], as well as people from the Department of Education about the need for something like this, something like EDJJ. I was, of course, delighted that it actually happened. I think, certainly, Renee Bradley was instrumental in the education side of the house in terms of making it happen. She was able to convince the folks at OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs) that they should support this because of the disproportionate number of kids with disabilities in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

On the justice side, you had Shay Bilchik, who was the head of OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the Justice Department). He embraced the importance of this, as well. You really had a number of things like that coming together. Mike Nelson, Rob Rutherford, Bruce Wolford, and I early on anticipated that there was going to be an RFP (request for proposal). We didn’t know the dates and all the timing and the like, but we really thought about what it would look like. We decided that it needed to involve an element of service, some kind of teaching or staff development components, and then, of course, some research activities. We also believed that we needed to support the development of the next generation of scholars and advocates who would come along.

There have been other initiatives. After Shay Bilchik left OJJDP, he spent time at the Child Welfare League before coming to Georgetown University to set up the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform. It was much broader than education issues—disproportionate minority confinement, education, conditions of confinement. Then, they would bring teams together from different jurisdictions for 5 days of training. They published several monographs. I think they’ve been very successful at what they do, particularly in raising awareness of the issues.

Intervention: What has had the biggest negative impact?

Leone: I was reviewing some material in the last week or so, [and] I came across two things that I would say, “If you want kids to really hate education, do stuff like this.” One of them involved assigning kids essays as a punishment following a behavioral incident. It wasn’t, “Let’s problem solve and have a discussion about how things could’ve played out.” It’s write an essay about this. Particularly for kids who struggle with literacy and with writing or expressing themselves in writing, that’s a challenge. I think it sets the stage for more troublesome behavior, so that’s one thing.

The other thing I came across was kids being pushed to graduate early using a credit recovery program. No one is going to argue, I think, with the importance of helping kids earn academic credentials. Some of the credit recovery programs and some of the ways in which they operate are not much more than—just keep on guessing until you come up with what’s the right answer, and if you fail the quiz three times, just ask your teacher, she’ll reset it for you. Credit recovery online can also be compromised when students can talk to someone sitting next to them, “You took this quiz, help me out here”; that happens.

The more pernicious side is that kids get their diploma or their certificate of completion, and in many systems if they’re still incarcerated, they have no educational services. In some states by law, if you have a high school diploma, the educators in juvenile corrections are not allowed to continue to serve you. So, you have 85%, 90% of kids in a facility going to school each day. The kids who are graduates? They’re in the day room watching TV, playing cards, or they’re locked in their cells.

Intervention: What comes to mind as you sit and reflect on the last 40 years?

Leone: Initially, I was more focused on suspension and expulsion—something I’m still interested in. I have often thought that if kids have a right to education and if their behavior may be a manifestation of a disabling condition, how can you kick these kids out of school? That was some of my early work. Most of my research has been descriptive, helping people understand what kids experience. I think many educators and the general public don’t know what happens to kids when they’re locked up.

My most memorable experiences have been working with students in higher education who get excited about serving kids with EBD and understanding the systems in which those kids get entangled. I’ve never thought that everybody needs to do what I do and not everyone needs to go on to get a PhD and do research. However, I believe that what people all need to do, if they’re interested in these kids, is to figure out where their niche is. Working in the system, making sure that they serve kids well, and making sure that they’re not afraid to raise their voice and say, “Look at our agency or school’s mission. Here’s what it says, here’s what we’re telling everyone we’re doing, but here’s what we give kids. Here’s what they experience.”

I would hope that students that I’ve come into contact with would appreciate the value and the importance of keeping data on some phenomenon so that they are able to move beyond, “This is bad and here’s why,” but rather, “We’ve kept track over the last 3 months of how much actual education time kids have. We’ve kept track of how long kids sit in intake after being detained before they get into classrooms.” You have some data that you build on. Or academically, “Here’s the profile of the kids who come in here, and here’s what they need for graduation. Here’s a group of kids that need some intensive literacy support,” and we’re not doing anything, or what we’re doing is not adequate for their needs. Let’s figure out how to do that.

I’m not aware of where all of my former students are, former graduate students, but I’m aware of where most of them are and what they’re doing. It’s really gratifying to see what folks are doing, what they’re interested in.

Intervention: Juvenile justice has rarely been at the top of the national discussion. Are there ways that you think we could bring this to the forefront in a better way?

Leone: Sure. A couple of things. One is, I think a big story that needs to be told is the fact that rates of incarceration of juveniles are at their lowest level in probably 40 years; per capita basis, they’re incredibly low. Juvenile crime is not through the roof. The wheels haven’t come off the bus. We’re spending a whole lot more money on community support works and interventions, and we’re spending less on brick and mortar facilities.

Also, there’s some good evidence that suggests that the younger that people first go to juvenile corrections, the more likely they are to experience a whole host of negative outcomes, involving health, employment, education, poverty, and possible reincarceration. I think we need to think about all kids as the future, and the potential that all kids have. Clearly, we want everyone to be productive, self-fulfilled individuals that have agency and choice.

One of the underlying frameworks that I have and that finds its way into my language when I’m being deposed, when I’m testifying, when I’m working with folks around these issues is the idea that education is crime prevention. More highly educated kids who are more literate, who have earned certificates, and who feel good about their abilities have hope for escaping a destructive cyclical path that too many are on. Providing a high-quality education makes facilities safer, it decreases the likelihood that kids will be living in poverty as adults, it decreases the likelihood of them graduating from juvenile to adult corrections, it decreases the likelihood of them reoffending and coming back into the penal system. What we need to do is make self-interest arguments and help people understand that a strong educational program is in their best interest and it’s in the best interest of their communities.

Intervention: As you look to the future for this field, what do you see?

Leone: Something I have seen in the last few years that I think is very exciting is a focus on project-based learning or problem-based learning. This is instruction based on real-world situations and challenges. I’ve seen that in detention centers. I’ve seen that in long-term facilities. What’s exciting, at least for me as an outsider, is I see kids getting excited about what they are learning. I also see kids interested in sharing what they’re learning. They believe, quite rightly, that they’re generating, at least for them, new knowledge about a subject matter. “Oh, here’s why we go to school, to solve problems, to understand our world.”

I think kids who’ve been disconnected, kids who’ve experienced school failure, and kids with a history of special services, often they’re caught in this remedial loop. Certainly, they need to develop new skills and become more proficient, but they also need to experience the joy of learning and discovering. Those kids, the kids that are marginalized and incarcerated, they need to have that experience, too.

Intervention: What recommendations do you have for new juvenile justice educators coming into the field?

Leone: Well, for starters, they need to be passionate about the potential of all students to learn and benefit from education. They need to believe that and in the abilities of their students. That would be number one. The second thing you need to know about is how the juvenile or criminal justice system operates. I guess the last thing, being well prepared in your subject matter, whether it is math or science or special education, which often includes a specialization in some other content area. I think you need to be well prepared in your subject areas, and I think you need to be plugged into student culture or young people’s culture to some extent. You need to know a little bit about what moves them, what they get excited about—whether it’s music, whether it’s about cars, whether it’s about the kinds of stuff that’s going on TikTok or social media. You demonstrate your interest in them and you attempt to understand their world by learning about that stuff. Lots of kids that are locked up love to draw, and lots of them like to write verse. You can capitalize on those interests. You can have someone draw and then you say, “Let’s pretend we’re going to sell this drawing. How would you describe it to someone who might be interested? What kind of adjectives would you use?” You use that as a vehicle to teach some core skills that are important in language arts, for example.

Intervention: Along those same lines, what suggestions do you have for new PhD students and assistant professors who are interested in juvenile justice education?

Leone: Get to know the educators and the administrators at a lockup. If you’re interested in studying this stuff and doing some good work, get to know people working in the juvenile lockups in your area. Spend some time. It’s like an investment, long-term. As you know, it’s hard to do work in those settings, but what you do is you give some of yourself. You spend time, maybe volunteer a little bit, and sooner or later opportunities present themselves. Maybe you get a small grant, a small internal grant, that allows you to hire someone to help you manage some data or to conduct a study, or something like that. Things will come your way in terms of opportunities to write about and to study and to publish good work related to juvenile justice education.