Office Of Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Research Articles

Programmatic Mentoring for LGBTQ+ Youth as Early Prevention for Juvenile Detention

While juvenile arrests have markedly declined over the last decade, LGBTQ+ youth (and particularly those of color) continue to be overrepresented in the juvenile justice system due to a cascade of environmental stressors and systemic factors, including trauma exposure, familial rejection, increased surveillance, disproportionate school suspension, and housing instability. The deleterious effects and economic costs of juvenile detention are well documented. Once detained, sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth face heightened risk of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Decades of research have demonstrated that community mentoring programs help prevent juvenile delinquency and incarceration. Although the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provides funding to mentoring programs, LGBTQ+ youth continue to report a dearth of mentors. This policy brief provides recommendations for mentoring programs to better recruit, include, retain, and serve LGBTQ+ youth.

Spotlight on Juvenile Justice: Girls in the System

In 1980, girls were 4 times less likely to be arrested than boys. During the 1990s, a surge of juvenile arrests gained national attention, with the arrest rate for girls increasing faster than the arrest rate for boys.1 In response to this increase, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) convened the Girls Study Group in 2004 to better understand girls involvement in delinquency. Prior to 2004, much of the research and programming had focused on boys, as boys have always accounted for the majority of youth arrests. Amongst their findings, the study group attributed the arrest rate gender disparity to mandatory and pro-arrest policies which more strongly affected the likelihood of arrest for girls than boys.2

Perceived and Actual Knowledge Gain among Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Team Members: A Pre‐Post Analysis of On‐Site Training and Technical Assistance

Juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTCs), in large part, are a product of the therapeutic jurisprudence movement. When they were established in 1993 in the U.S., JDTCs were initially modeled after adult drug treatment courts but insufficiently addressed unique characteristics of adolescence. In 2003, recommended practices, known as the 16 Strategies, for JDTCs working with adolescent offenders with substance use disorders were introduced to the field by the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ). Recently, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the American Institute of Research (AIR), proposed a set of evidence‐based, recommended practices outlined in the Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Guidelines (JDTC Guideline). However, little research examines the effectiveness of training and technical assistance on recommended, evidence‐based practices for JDTC teams. The current study uses a pre/post‐training survey design to examine perceived and actual knowledge gain of JDTC practitioners who receive targeted training and technical assistance on recommended practices for JDTCs. The data demonstrate significantly higher perceived knowledge gain, post‐training, on the topics of recommended practice (as outlined in the 16 Strategies and JDTC Guidelines). Implications are discussed.

Meeting the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate: Lessons from State Assessments of Minority Overrepresentation and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice Systems

ABSTRACT Effective as of October 2019, the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate requires states to address racial/ethnic disparities in their juvenile justice systems without reference to any numerical standards or a definition of disparity in empirical terms. Standards for assessing disproportionate minority contact have also gotten looser, as the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) announced that states should evaluate DMC problems and interventions based on their own metrics of success. Understanding how states have examined minority overrepresentation and disparities in their systems in the past helps to structure what states might do in terms of DMC assessment in the near future. This study analyzes 39 state assessments on behalf of the DMC mandate from 1992 to 2019. A content analysis locates patterns in methods, racial/ethnic categories, decision-making stages, geographic coverage, and recommendations for future reform efforts. Frequent use of multivariate methods and qualitative techniques, such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews, suggests that assessments are empirically rich. Most assessments likewise contain directions for reform initiatives and analysis in subsequent DMC reports. Lessons are drawn for designing robust DMC assessments for states and illuminating racial/ethnic disparities in juvenile processing ahead.

Dual system youth and their pathways in Los Angeles County: A replication of the OJJDP Dual System Youth Study

BackgroundThe estimated number of youth who come into contact with both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, or “dual system” youth, varies widely because studies use different methodologies. Recent work using linked administrative data shows promise for identifying a stable range of dual system rates, generalizable to other jurisdictions and useful for understanding the nature and timing of system involvement. ObjectiveThis study replicates the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Dual System Youth Design Study methodology to explore dual system overlap and six distinct dual system pathways defined by the type (i.e., nonconcurrent or concurrent) and timing (i.e., first contact with child welfare or juvenile justice) of dual system contact in Los Angeles County. Participants and settingUsing data from the Los Angeles Probation Department, a cohort of youth born in/after 1998 with a first juvenile justice petition between 2014 and 2016 was identified (N = 6877) and matched to statewide child welfare records between 1998 and 2017. MethodDescriptive statistics were produced for dual system youth and pathways, and differences across groups were tested using chi-square and t-tests. ResultsTwo-thirds of youth with a first juvenile justice petition interacted with the child welfare system. The majority of dual system youth did not have contact with both systems at the same time and nearly all dual system youth were involved with the child welfare system before the juvenile justice system. Female and Black youth were more likely to be dual system youth and to have more extensive involvement with the child welfare system. Probation experiences and outcomes were associated with the nature and chronicity of child welfare involvement. ConclusionImplementing a delinquency prevention continuum that starts with community-based supports and continues throughout all levels of child welfare and juvenile justice involvement is essential to disrupting dual system involvement.

Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy And Practice Scan

AbstractAs part of a research team on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Initiative to Develop and Test Guidelines for Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts, WestEd conducted a policy and practice scan (also called an "environmental scan") to provide data on a small sample of local Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts (JDTCs) in the United States. This article is a synthesis of the information collected from 25 JDTCs on their current operations. The article first reviews key literature on JDTCs, followed by a description of the methodology used in this policy and practice scan. Then, the article presents findings about history, funding sources, partnerships, structures and operations, treatment options, challenges, and successes. We found little systematic performance evaluation or long‐term sustainability planning among the participating JDTCs. Finally, the article discusses the limitations of this study, implications for the new version of the JDTC guidelines, and practical recommendations for stakeholders in this field.

Individual-Level Risk Factors of Incarcerated Youth

This systematic review sought to understand the individual characteristics of incarcerated youth within the major risk factor domains identified by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). A comprehensive search of the literature from 1979 to 2013 identified 85 articles of individual-level risk characteristics that relate to mental health, personality, psychological factors, social/emotional-behavioral issues, cognitive-intellectual development, academic achievement, victimization history, and substance use. Understanding the characteristics that place youth at risk of incarceration is important in the development and implementation of effective educational interventions to prevent incarceration and rehabilitate incarcerated youth. Considerations regarding how educators can use a multi-tiered prevention system to deliver a continuum of academic and behavioral supports to target students’ risk characteristics are discussed. In addition, future research is highlighted in response to the characteristics that place youth at risk of incarceration.

Examining the influence of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) program on alcohol-related outcomes in five communities surrounding Air Force bases

In 2006, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded discretionary grants to five communities as part of the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) initiative to implement an environmental strategy approach to reduce drinking and associated misconducts among Air Force members. The evaluation design was a within-site, pre-test/post-test intervention comparison of baseline data to out-year data. Four of the five communities had significant decreases in one or more of the outcomes of interest from pre-test to post-test. Two communities (Great Falls, MT and Tucson, AZ) had a significant decline in the compliance check failure rate of local establishments that sell alcohol. One community (Great Falls, MT) had a significant decline in arrests for possession of alcohol by a minor. Four communities (Great Falls, MT; Tucson, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Honolulu, HI) had a significant decline in DUI/DWI arrests. These findings build on results reported in an earlier article which provided evidence to suggest that the EUDL program had an influence on self-reported drinking behaviors in three of the five communities. These two articles, in combination, provide evidence to suggest for the first time that community-level programs using an environmental strategy approach can be successful in targeting military members.

Outlet Density as a Predictor of Alcohol Use in Early Adolescence

Introduction: Recent national youth surveys suggest that alcohol availability plays a role in determining use. One measure of availability receiving recent attention is outlet density; however, few studies have examined the effects of outlet density in younger populations. Methods: Data were collected from a national sample of the United States (N = 5,903) followed between 6th and 8th grades, as part of a study funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Measures of outlet density were also acquired. Results: Students in high off-site density communities increased their alcohol use; however, students attending schools in low outlet density communities had higher initial levels of alcohol use that remained relatively stable. Discussion: The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Characteristics of Young Children Exposed to Violence: The Safe Start Demonstration Project

The Safe Start demonstration projects, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) under the first phase of the Safe Start initiative, are primarily designed to influence change at the systems or macrolevels to reduce the incidence of and impact of exposure to violence for children aged birth to 6 years; direct services are also provided to young children and their families who were exposed to violence. The data presented in this article come from 10 communities that submitted data regarding the characteristics of young children exposed to violence to OJJDP. These data represent families who are typically not represented in the databases of state child protective services programs but instead have been identified by domestic violence advocates, early care and education providers, family members, court personnel, police, and other social service personnel as families with young children in need of intervention due to violence exposure.The purpose of this article is to describe the characteristics of young children and their parents who seek help for psychosocial problems related to exposure to family and community violence. Results indicate that one quarter of the children and nearly half of their parents evidenced clinical levels of stress, suggesting the need to intervene at the family level as well as at the individual level when working with young children exposed to violence. The information presented, including the extent of exposure to violence, the multiple types of violence to which children are exposed, the impact of this exposure on young children and their families, and the multiple ways in which families exposed to violence come to the attention of service providers is useful for policy makers and service providers who are interested in breaking the cycle of violence by meeting the needs of the children exposed to violence and their families.

Is Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Evidence-Based?

This article describes the process of having solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) be evaluated by various federal registries as an evidence-based practice (EBP) intervention. The authors submitted SFBT for evaluation for inclusion on three national EBP registry lists in the United States: the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Results of our submission found SFBT was not reviewed by SAMHSA and WWC because it was not prioritized highly enough for review, but it was rated as “promising” by OJJDP. Implications for practitioners and recommendations regarding the status of SFBT as an EBP model are discussed.

Before You Open the Doors

In 2003, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provided Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) with a $3.5 million grant to design and implement a faith- and community-based program for incarcerated juveniles. Florida's experience developing a completely new program has provided valuable lessons regarding important issues to consider and address before clients are referred to the program. This article enumerates 10 key lessons from Florida's experience that can provide important guidance to other sites across the country hoping to develop faith-related services for youths in institutions.

Understanding and Facilitating the Youth Mentoring Movement

Understanding and Facilitating the Youth Mentoring Movement

Strategies for enhancing the adoption of school‐based prevention programs: Lessons learned from the Blueprints for Violence Prevention replications of the Life Skills Training program

AbstractWidespread implementation of effective programs is unlikely to affect the incidence of violent crime unless there is careful attention given to the quality of implementation, including identification of the problems associated with the process of implementation and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. Here we describe the results of a process evaluation focused on discovering common implementation obstacles faced by schools implementing the Life Skills Training (LST) drug prevention program. The evaluation was conducted by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) under the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative in conjunction with the designer of the LST program, Dr. Gilbert Botvin and his dissemination agency, National Health Promotion Associates (NHPA), and was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).This evaluation revealed that the 70 sites involved in the project faced many obstacles when implementing this science‐based program in the “real” classroom setting, outside the rigorous controls of a research trial. Nonetheless, the schools were very successful in delivering the program in its entirety and with a high level of fidelity to the program model, and we attribute much of this success to the high level of independent monitoring provided by CSPV, as well as our ongoing efforts to work with schools to identify and overcome problems associated with implementation. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 31: 235–253, 2003.

The Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Formula Grant Program: Federal-State Relationships In A Quasi-Regulatory Context*

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), created by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, has among its responsibilities the administration of a formula grant program that distributes "conditioned" federal financial assistance to states and local governments. Day-to-day administration of the formula grant program falls to OJJDP's State Relations and Assistance Division, which employs "state representatives" who in turn work with juvenile justice specialists in the states, appointed State Advisory Groups, and designated State supervisory agencies. A recently completed study undertaken by the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency within the executive branch, examined in detail the approach used by OJJDP to administer the formula grant program. This paper, prepared by two members of the study's research team, explores 1) the extent to which and in what ways the program operates in a quasi-regulatory mode and 2) whether or not the federal grant requirements have overly restricted state flexibility in achieving the statutory mandates. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-415) was reauthorized and amended (through Public Law 102-586) since the preparation of this article. Several changes in substantive features of the formula grant program were made. Aditionally, some of the same mechanisms previously employed by Congress to assist states in obtaining compliance were continued, while others were enlarged. In effect, however, the authors believe that the changes further demonstrate Congressional willingness to give states maximum flexibility in meeting the Act's quite specific goals.

Thinking about Cohorts

The three groups of scholars who present their findings in this issue of the Journal have undertaken an important and herculean task. For this undertaking, every student of crime must be deeply grateful. Prospective cohort studies are essential if we are to advance, in any fundamental way, our understanding of the causes of crime and provide important new leads for crime-prevention strategies. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) should be congratulated for having had the foresight to finance research projects that, although important, will not bear fruit for many years. I earnestly hope that OJJDP will nourish to maturity the infant studies that it has conceived.

Justice by Geography: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Variations in Juvenile Justice Administration

Despite statutes and rules of statewide applicability, juvenile administration varies consistently with urban, suburban, and rural social structure and context. In urban counties, which are more heterogenous and diverse, juvenile intervention is more formal, bureaucratized, and due process-oriented. Formality is associated with greater severity in pre-trial detention and sentencing practices. By contrast, in more homogeneous and stable rural counties, juvenile courts are procedurally less formal and sentence youths more leni* Centennial Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School. Ph.D. (Sociology), Harvard University, 1973; J.D., University of Minnesota Law School, 1969; B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1966. The data used in this study are housed in and made available by the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is maintained by the National Center forJuvenile Justice (NCJJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), United States Department ofJustice. The Minnesota Supreme Court's Judicial Information System collected the original data. The author's research was conducted under the auspices of the National Juvenile Court Data Archive's Visiting Scholar Program, which was supported by OJJDP. The author received exceptional support and assistance in assembling, organizing, and interpreting the data from Dr. Howard Snyder, NCJJ Director of Systems Research, Ms. Ellen Nimick, NCJJ Senior Research Assistant, and Mr. Terry Finnegan, NCIJ Computer Programmer. A number of colleagues generously provided constructive critiques of an earlier draft of this article: Gary Crippen, Dan Farber, Candace Kruttschnitt, Anne Rankin Mahoney, Michael Tonry, and two anonymous reviewers. Although the author attempted to address many of their concerns, he absolves them of any responsibility for his failure to follow their advice. Neither the Minnesota Supreme Court, the National Center for Juvenile Justice, nor the Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention bear any responsibility for the analyses, interpretations, or conclusions presented herein. A version of this Article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Reno, Nevada, November, 1989. JUSTICE BY GEOGRAPHY ently. The Article explores the implications of justice by geography for juvenile policy.

The Impact of Restitution on Recidivism of Juvenile Offenders: An Experiment in Clayton County, Georgia

Juvenile courts have increasingly been interested in using restitution as a sanction for juvenile offenders, but until recently very little information has been available on the effects of restitution. To assess the impact of restitution on recidivism rates of juveniles, a series of experiments was undertaken as part of a national evaluation of the Juvenile Restitution Initiative, which was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This study reports on the results from one of those experiments. The findings from the Clayton County, Georgia, experiment indicate that youths required to make restitution to their victims either through community service or monetary payments generally had lower recidivism rates than those given more traditional juvenile court dispositions. Furthermore, the results clearly suggest that restitution works quite well on its own and does not need to be combined with mental health counseling. In contrast with many other types of delinquency programs, the restitution intervention not only had a positive impact when contrasted with traditional dispositions, but actually slowed the delinquency rate of the group. The overall offense rate of the restitution-only group, for example, dropped from approximately one offense per youth, per year, to .74 offenses, per youth for a one-year time period.

Treatment of Juvenile Delinquents

The Juvenile Court is now 80 years old. During the past 15 years, the Court has undergone many significant changes in its of juvenile delinquents. There are several definitions oftreatment, and I won't attempt to cover the subject of of juvenile delinquents generally. Rather, I will discuss the role of psychiatrists in the process within the juvenile justice system. In Juvenile Court, the first question to be determined by law is not how a juvenile before the Court shall be treated, but whether he should be treated at all. There are two phases to every juvenile court proceeding: (I) the adjudicatory phase to determine if the allegations of the petition are sustained, and (2) the dispositional phase, to determine what disposition or treatment is indicated. After a determination has been made that ajuvenile is delinquent, within the meaning of the law, and that is necessary, a decision must then be made as to what form of would be most therapeutic for the individual without undue risk to the community. A vast majority of juvenile delinquents can best be corrected, reeducated or rehabilitated in the communities in which they live and of which they are a part, rather than in distant, overcrowded reformatories, which are now usually designated as centers. In years gone by, there has been a noticeable reluctance on the part of private child and family serving agencies to become involved with the delinquent child. In 1976, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), under provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, funded a variety of special emphasis youth diversion programs to test various methods of diverting young people away from the juvenile justice system. In cooperation with Juvenile Court, the Memphis-Metro Youth Diversion Program was founded in 1977, one of 13 such programs in the nation. In the first year of that program's operation, over 1,500 juveniles were diverted to 30 different community agencies by the Juvenile Court Intake Department working in cooperation with Diversion Project staff members. The Memphis Diversion Project has been very successful and helpful to the Court in avoiding official adjudication and/or more drastic for thousands of youthful offenders during the some four years that the project has been in