PS501 Unit 8 Annotated Bibliography Example

Why Some Detained Youth Talk to Staff: A PS501 Unit 8 Annotated Bibliography on Staff and Youth Relationships in Juvenile Facilities

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS501: Foundations of Professional Psychology

Unit 8 Annotated Bibliography

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer and the detention center are composite; the four studies annotated are real.

Research Question

Which staff behaviors and facility conditions make detained young people willing to talk with staff, and does that willingness matter for how they do after release? The question grew from a pattern on my own night shift. I searched the Purdue Global Library and Google Scholar using combinations of "juvenile detention," "staff," "relationship," "fairness" and "recidivism," kept peer-reviewed empirical studies and chose four that approach the question from different directions: what youth say about their relationships, what youth perceptions predict after release, what staff believe their role is and which conditions foster comfort in talking.

Helping Relationships in Four States

Marsh, S. C., & Evans, W. P. (2009). Youth perspectives on their relationships with staff in juvenile correction settings and perceived likelihood of success on release. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 7(1), 46-67.

Summary. Marsh and Evans surveyed 543 young people committed to facilities in Alaska, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. Each young person named the staff member they turned to most for help and advice and then described the qualities of that relationship. The authors found that these helping relationships fell into distinct types and that young people's expectations of how they would do after release differed by the type of relationship they described (Marsh & Evans, 2009).

Evaluation. The study's strength is that it asks youth directly and lets them choose the staff member, which fits my question about why residents go to some officers and not others. Its sample is large and spread across four states. Its limits are that it measures expected success, not actual outcomes after release, and that the facilities held committed youth serving longer stays than the two to five weeks typical in our detention center. The relationships it describes may take longer to form than a detention stay allows.

Use. The idea of relationship types gives me a way to describe what my two officers do differently. A thesis survey could adapt the nomination question for short stays.

Perceptions and Outcomes After Release

Schubert, C. A., Mulvey, E. P., Loughran, T. A., & Losoya, S. H. (2012). Perceptions of institutional experience and community outcomes for serious adolescent offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39(1), 71-93.

Summary. Drawing on 519 young people with serious offenses from two sites, the authors measured perceptions of the institution along eight dimensions and followed outcomes after release, including self-reported antisocial activity, rearrest and return to a facility. More positive perceptions predicted less involvement in those outcomes, even after accounting for individual characteristics and type of facility (Schubert et al., 2012).

Evaluation. This study answers the second half of my question: perceptions of the institution are linked to what happens afterward, using actual outcomes rather than expectations. Controlling for individual characteristics and facility type strengthens the finding, although perceptions and outcomes could both reflect something unmeasured, such as a young person's general outlook. The sample was largely male and drawn from youth with serious offenses, which differs from our mixed detention population.

Use. If perceptions matter for outcomes, staff relationships are not only a matter of order on the unit. This is the study I would cite to argue that my question is worth a thesis.

The Staff Side

Magidson, M., & Feinstein, R. (2022). Developing and defining staff-youth relationships within a juvenile correctional facility. Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services, 218-232.

Summary. Through in-depth interviews at a private juvenile correctional facility in the Midwest, Magidson and Feinstein explored how staff and youth form relationships. Trust emerged as the basis for relationships that support rehabilitation. Most staff shared rehabilitation as a goal, but they disagreed about how to reach it and about their own role, and these views differed with staff gender and age (Magidson & Feinstein, 2022).

Evaluation. The study adds the staff side that the survey studies lack, and its setting in the Midwest is close to mine. As an interview study at one facility, it cannot show how common these views are, and its findings depend on who agreed to be interviewed. It is published in a smaller applied journal, so I would want to read its method section closely before relying on it heavily.

Use. Its finding that staff define their role differently fits my crew. My two officers may simply see their job differently from the other seven, and a thesis could ask staff directly.

Comfort in Talking With Detention Staff

Cross, A. R., Richardson, J. T., Tom, K. E., & Fine, A. D. (2026). Youths' comfort communicating with staff in juvenile detention: The roles of fairness, safety, and feeling cared for. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 24(2), 130-146.

Summary. Surveying 429 young people released from two juvenile detention facilities in the southwestern United States, Cross et al. (2026) examined whether perceptions of fair rules and of safety were linked to comfort in talking with staff. Both were. Feeling cared for by staff carried part of those associations, acting as a mediator between conditions and comfort.

Evaluation. Of the four studies, this one matches my question most closely. It is set in detention rather than long-term placement, measures comfort in communicating, and identifies conditions a facility can change. It is cross-sectional, so the direction of the links is uncertain: youth who already trust staff may also judge rules as fairer. Surveying youth after release may also shape how they remember their stay.

Use. Fairness, safety and feeling cared for give me three measurable explanations for the pattern on my shift. They are also things my crew could change.

Read together, the four studies suggest that what residents notice is less a staff member's personality than whether rules feel fair and whether someone seems to care.

Synthesis

Taken together, the four studies converge even though each starts somewhere else. Young people form distinct kinds of helping relationships with staff (Marsh & Evans, 2009); their perceptions of the institution predict how they do after release (Schubert et al., 2012); staff hold different views of their own role (Magidson & Feinstein, 2022); and fairness, safety and feeling cared for are tied to comfort in talking with staff in detention specifically (Cross et al., 2026). Two gaps remain for my thesis. None of the studies looks at night shifts, when staff and residents interact differently, and none tests whether training staff in fair rule enforcement changes youth comfort.

Next Steps

I will search for intervention studies on staff training in juvenile facilities and for work on procedural justice with youth, then narrow the question for PS601.

References

Cross, A. R., Richardson, J. T., Tom, K. E., & Fine, A. D. (2026). Youths' comfort communicating with staff in juvenile detention: The roles of fairness, safety, and feeling cared for. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 24(2), 130-146. https://doi.org/10.1177/15412040261438661

Magidson, M., & Feinstein, R. (2022). Developing and defining staff-youth relationships within a juvenile correctional facility. Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services, 218-232. https://doi.org/10.52935/22.1317.11

Marsh, S. C., & Evans, W. P. (2009). Youth perspectives on their relationships with staff in juvenile correction settings and perceived likelihood of success on release. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 7(1), 46-67. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204008324484

Schubert, C. A., Mulvey, E. P., Loughran, T. A., & Losoya, S. H. (2012). Perceptions of institutional experience and community outcomes for serious adolescent offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39(1), 71-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854811426710