Robert J. Sternberg

Ann S. Masten

Laura S. Abrams

Willem E. Frankenhuis

Bruce J. Ellis

Nim Tottenham

Children growing up in harsh environments may develop intact, or even enhanced, skills for solving problems in high‐adversity contexts (i.e., 'hidden talents'). Summarizing theory and research on hidden talents, this Element proposes that stress-adapted skills represent a form of adaptive intelligence enabling individuals to function within the constraints of harsh environments. It discusses the alignment of the hidden talents model with current knowledge about brain development following early adversity; examine potential applications of this perspective to multiple sectors concerned with youth from harsh environments, including education, social services, and juvenile justice; and compare the hidden talents model with contemporary developmental resilience models. It concludes that the hidden talents approach offers exciting new directions for research on developmental adaptations to adversity, with translational implications for leveraging stress-adapted skills to more effectively tailor education, jobs, and interventions to fit the needs and potentials of individuals from a diverse range of life circumstances.

Implications for Science, Policy, and Practice

The Hidden Talents Framework

Alexandra Cox

This handbook brings together the knowledge on juvenile imprisonment to develop a global, synthesized view of the impact of imprisonment on children and young people. There are a growing number of scholars around the world who have conducted in-depth, qualitative research inside of youth prisons, and about young people incarcerated in adult prisons, and yet this research has never been synthesized or compiled. This book is organized around several core themes including: conditions of confinement, relationships in confinement, gender/sexuality and identity, perspectives on juvenile facility staff, reentry from youth prisons, young people’s experiences in adult prisons, and new models and perspectives on juvenile imprisonment. This handbook seeks to educate students, scholars, and policymakers about the role of incarceration in young people’s lives, from an empirically-informed, critical, and global perspective.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment

Diane Terry

In Everyday Desistance, Laura Abrams and Diane J. Terry examine the lives of young people who spent considerable time in and out of correctional institutions as adolescents. These formerly incarcerated youth often struggle with the onset of adult responsibilities at a much earlier age than their more privileged counterparts. In the context of urban Los Angeles, with a large-scale gang culture and diminished employment prospects, further involvement in crime appears almost inevitable. Yet, as Abrams and Terry point out, these formerly imprisoned youth are often quite resilient and can be successful at creating lives for themselves after months or even years of living in institutions run by the juvenile justice system. This book narrates the day-to-day experiences of these young men and women, focusing on their attempts to surmount the challenges of adulthood, resisting a return to criminal activity, and formulating long-term goals for a secure adult future.

The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth

Everyday Desistance

Ben Anderson-Nathe

To date, knowledge of the everyday world of the juvenile correction institution has been extremely sparse. Compassionate Confinement brings to light the challenges and complexities inherent in the U.S. system of juvenile corrections. Building on over a year of field work at a boys’ residential facility, Laura S. Abrams and Ben Anderson-Nathe provide a context for contemporary institutions and highlight some of the system’s most troubling tensions. This ethnographic text utilizes narratives, observations, and case examples to illustrate the strain between treatment and correctional paradigms and the mixed messages regarding gender identity and masculinity that the youths are expected to navigate. Within this context, the authors use the boys’ stories to show various and unexpected pathways toward behavior change. While some residents clearly seized opportunities for self-transformation, others manipulated their way toward release, and faced substantial challenges when they returned home. Compassionate Confinement concludes with recommendations for rehabilitating this notoriously troubled system in light of the experiences of its most vulnerable stakeholders.

A Year in the Life of

Compassionate Confinement

Laura S. Abrams

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