About the Juvenile Justice Community

The Juvenile Justice system, as it relates to juvenile firesetting, involves several partner agencies. We work closely with Police Departments, Fire Departments and County District Attorney's Offices to take a multi-disciplinary approach to prevention and prosecution. Juvenile Justice systems vary by location. For example, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there is a community based Juvenile Diversion Program, which plays a significant role in working with at-risk-youth in the community by providing multiple services to youths and their families. This program works in conjunction with the Police Department, Fire Department and County Attorney's Office to determine a proper response to the individual youth who set a fire by offering psychological evaluations and treatments, family counseling, and other services geared towards prevention and rehabilitation. Like many other Police Departments, Cambridge also supports an Arson Investigator who collaborates with the local Fire Department to investigate suspicious fires.

While the make-up of Juvenile Justice systems are different all over the world, the objective of our system in the United States remains very similar across the board. We aim to deliver the fairest method of persecutory response while incorporating treatment and rehabilitation programs for youths and their families.

Issues Facing the Juvenile Justice Community

Juvenile firesetting accounts for a large amount of the cases we deal with, yet the courts and justice system have yet to create a process specific to the behavior of youth-set fires. Because the response to such cases is so unknown to the offender and involved parties, there is an incredible amount of apprehension in communicating the behavior of juvenile firesetting to the juvenile justice discipline. In turn, we have little experience in working with other involved professional disciplines such as Mental Health, Schools, Fire Services and Burn Care in dealing with this challenge. As a result, we are under-equipped to properly deal with youth who set fires. The issue is that remains is developing a process for juvenile firesetters that involves input from other disciplines.

Goals for the Juvenile Justice Community

• Increase awareness of juvenile firesetting as a behavior between Juvenile Justice professionals
• Promote juvenile firesetting treatment programs within the court system
• Communicate between state Juvenile Justice Departments and across disciplines to find best practices for dealing with juvenile firesetters