2020 Theses Master's

Doubly Deviant? An Examination of Reentry Services for Crossover Youth Exiting the Justice System in New York City

Padmanabhan, Kavya

This thesis provides insight on how reentry organizations understand crossover youth, young people with a history of child welfare involvement and juvenile justice involvement, and how they resultantly cater services for these youth. Research has established that these youth are likely to have a tougher experience during reentry, due to their past histories of trauma. As such, this work engages with six semi-structured interviews conducted with employees of two reentry organizations in New York City —Getting Out and Staying Out and Friends of Island Academy— to evaluate and consider the different approaches that these organizations employ in supporting these individuals, as these youth often fall between the cracks of service provision. This thesis found, however, that both reentry organizations approached crossover youth similarly, by primarily focusing on their offense histories, and thus not according due attention to their histories of trauma. Situating these reentry organizations in the carceral state explains this phenomenon. Thus, crossover youth are exceedingly vulnerable when they exit the justice system. Both the state and reentry organizations are unable to effectively provide services that can grant them basic human dignities; instead, these youth are exposed to the harshness of life after punishment.