Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Proposed Comprehensive Plan for Fiscal Year 1998
Overview
After a decade of steady increases in juvenile crime and violence, the trend is being reversed. The United States has experienced a downturn in juvenile violent crime arrests for two straight years (three years for murder arrests). Figures released in 1997 show that juvenile arrests for murder declined 14 percent two years in a row--and 3 percent the year before that. From 1995 to 1996, juvenile arrests for robbery declined 8 percent; for the previous year, they decreased 1 percent. The overall Violent Crime Index arrests of juveniles declined 6 percent in 1996, following a 3 percent drop in 1995.
The decreases in juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests must be kept in perspective, however. Even with the two-year decline, the 1996 number was 60 percent above the 1987 level. In comparison, adult Violent Crime Index offense arrests rose 24 percent over the same period.
In the area of drug use violations, juveniles were involved in 14 percent of all drug arrests in 1996 (compared with 13 percent in 1995). However, arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations increased 6 percent from 1995 to 1996, a smaller increase than the previous year's 18 percent. In addition, between 1992 and 1996, juvenile arrests for drug abuse violations increased 120 percent, compared with a 138 percent increase between 1991 and 1995.
Thus, in the second half of the 1990s, juvenile violent crime and drug use are still significantly higher than in the late 1980s, but beginning to show signs of trending downward. The juvenile justice system needs to build on the positive momentum of these recent decreases by continuing to focus on programs and strategies that work. This requires a concerted effort on the part of federal, state, and local government, in partnership with private organizations and community agencies, to ensure that available resources are used in a way that maximizes their impact, decreases juvenile crime, violence, and victimization, and increases community safety.
Federal leadership in responding to the problems confronting the nation's juvenile justice system is vested in OJJDP. Established in 1974 by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act, OJJDP is the federal agency responsible for providing a comprehensive, coordinated approach to preventing and controlling juvenile crime and improving the juvenile justice system. OJJDP administers State Formula Grants, State Challenge Grants, and the Title V Community Prevention Grants programs in states and territories; funds gang and mentoring programs under Parts D and G of the JJDP Act; funds numerous projects through its Special Emphasis Discretionary Grant Program and its National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and coordinates federal activities related to juvenile justice and delinquency prevention.
OJJDP also serves as the staff agency for the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, coordinates the Concentration of Federal Efforts Program, and administers both the Title IV Missing and Exploited Children's Program and programs under the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990, as amended [42 U.S.C. § 13001 et seq].
In the FY 1998 Department of Justice Appropriations Act, Congress provided funding for two new OJJDP programs. These are not funded under Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP Act, which are the focus of this Proposed Program Plan. However, mention of these new programs here, along with an additional program that OJJDP will administer, may help to alert those who work in the juvenile justice field to the existence of these new programs.
Recognizing that, "while crime is on the decline in certain parts of America, a dangerous precursor to crime, teenage drug use, is on the rise and may soon reach a 20-year high," Congress provided $5 million in funds for the development, demonstration, and testing of programs designed "to reduce drug use among juveniles" and "to increase the perception among children and youth that drug use is risky, harmful, and unattractive." Funding for the drug prevention program is discretionary, and the Appropriations Act directs OJJDP to submit a plan for the drug prevention program to Congress by February 1, 1998.
Another $25 million dollars in funds were provided for an underage drinking program. Much of the funding for the underage drinking program will be made available to the states and the District of Columbia through formula grants of $360,000 each (total $18.36 million), with $5 million in discretionary funding, and $1.64 million for training and technical assistance to support the program.
OJJDP will also administer the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants program authorized in the FY 1998 Appropriations Act. Of the $250 million available under this new block grant program, 3 percent is available for research, evaluation, and demonstration activities related to the program, and 2 percent is available for related training and technical assistance activities. Further information on these programs will be provided to the field in the near future.
Cognizant of the trends in juvenile crime and violence and of its responsibilities and mission, OJJDP has developed a Proposed Program Plan for FY 1998 for activities authorized under Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP Act, as described below.
Fiscal Year 1998 Program Planning Activities
Section 204(b)(5)(A) of the JJDP Act requires the OJJDP Administrator to publish for public comment a Proposed Comprehensive Plan describing the program activities that OJJDP proposes to carry out during FY 1998. The Proposed Comprehensive Plan includes activities authorized by Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP Act. Taking into consideration comments received on the Proposed Comprehensive Plan, the Administrator will develop and publish a Final Comprehensive Plan describing the program activities that OJJDP intends to fund during FY 1998.
The OJJDP program planning process for FY 1998 is being coordinated with the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and the four other OJP program bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). The program planning process involves the following steps:
Internal review of existing programs by OJJDP staff.
Internal review of proposed programs by OJP bureaus and Department of Justice components.
Review of information and data from OJJDP grantees and contractors.
Review of information contained in state comprehensive plans.
Review of comments made by youth service providers, juvenile justice practitioners, and researchers to provide OJJDP with input in proposed new program areas.
Consideration of suggestions made by juvenile justice policy makers concerning state and local needs.
Publication of Proposed Comprehensive Plan in the Federal Register.
Consideration of all comments received during the period of public comment on the Proposed Comprehensive Plan.
Publication of the Final Comprehensive Plan in the Federal Register.
Discretionary Program Activities
Discretionary Grant Continuation Policy
OJJDP has listed on the following pages continuation projects currently funded in whole or in part with Part C and Part D funds and eligible for continuation funding in FY 1998, either within an existing project period or through an extension for an additional project period. A grantee's eligibility for continued funding for an additional budget period within an existing project period depends on the grantee's compliance with funding eligibility requirements and achievement of the prior year's objectives. The amount of award is based on prior projections, demonstrated need, and fund availability.
The only projects described in this Proposed Program Plan are those that are receiving Part C or Part D FY 1998 continuation funding and programs that OJJDP is considering for new awards in FY 1998.
Consideration for continuation funding for an additional project period for previously funded discretionary grant programs will be based upon several factors, including the following:
The extent to which the project responds to the applicable requirements of the JJDP Act.
Responsiveness to OJJDP and Department of Justice FY 1998 program priorities.
Compliance with performance requirements of prior grant years.
Compliance with fiscal and regulatory requirements.
Compliance with any special conditions of the award.
Availability of funds (based on appropriations and program priority determinations).
In accordance with Section 262 (d)(1)(B) of the JJDP Act, as amended [42 U.S.C. § 5665a], the competitive process for the award of Part C funds shall not be required if the Administrator makes a written determination waiving the competitive process:
1. With respect to programs to be carried out in areas in which the President declares under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act [codified at 42 U.S.C. § 5121 et seq.] that a major disaster or emergency exists, or
2. With respect to a particular program described in Part C that is uniquely qualified.
Program Goals
OJJDP seeks to focus its assistance on the development and implementation of programs with the greatest potential for reducing juvenile delinquency and improving the juvenile justice system by establishing partnerships with state and local governments, Native American and Native Alaskan jurisdictions, and public and private agencies and organizations. To that end, OJJDP has set three goals that constitute the major elements of a sound policy that assures public safety and security, while establishing effective juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs:
To promote delinquency prevention and early intervention efforts that reduce the numbers of juvenile offenders entering the juvenile justice system, the numbers of serious and violent offenders, and the development of chronic delinquent careers. While removing serious and violent juvenile offenders from the street serves to protect the public, long-term solutions lie primarily in taking aggressive steps to stop delinquency before it starts or becomes a pattern of behavior.
To improve the juvenile justice system and the response of the system to juvenile delinquents, status offenders, and dependent, neglected, and abused children.
To preserve the public safety in a manner that serves the appropriate development and best use of secure detention and corrections options, while at the same time fostering the use of community-based programs for juvenile offenders.
Underlying each of the three goals is the overarching premise that their achievement is vital to protecting the long-term safety of the public from juvenile delinquency and violence. The following discussion addresses these three broad goals.
Delinquency Prevention and Early Intervention
A primary goal of OJJDP is to identify and promote programs that prevent or reduce the occurrence of juvenile offenses, both criminal and noncriminal, and to intervene immediately and effectively when delinquent or status offense conduct first occurs. A sound policy for juvenile delinquency prevention seeks to strengthen the most powerful contributing factor to socially acceptable behavior--a productive place for young people in a law-abiding society. Delinquency prevention programs can operate on a broad scale, providing for positive youth development, or can target juveniles identified as being at high risk for delinquency with programs designed to reduce future juvenile offending. OJJDP prevention programs take a risk and protective factor-based delinquency prevention approach based on public health and social development models.
Early interventions are designed to provide services to juveniles whose noncriminal misbehavior indicates that they are on a delinquent pathway or to first-time, nonviolent delinquent offenders or nonserious repeat offenders who do not respond to initial system intervention. These interventions are generally nonpunitive, but serve to hold a juvenile accountable while providing services tailored to the individual needs of the juvenile and the juvenile's family. They are designed to both deter future misconduct and reduce the negative or enhance the positive factors present in a child's life.
Improvement of the Juvenile Justice System
A second goal of OJJDP is to promote improvements in the juvenile justice system and facilitate the most effective allocation of system resources. This goal is necessary for holding juveniles who commit crimes accountable for their conduct, particularly serious and violent offenders who sometimes slip through the cracks of the system or are inappropriately diverted. Activities to support this goal include assisting law enforcement officers in their efforts to prevent and control delinquency and the victimization of children through community policing programs and coordination and collaboration with other system components and with child caring systems. Meeting this goal involves helping juvenile and family courts, and the prosecutors and public defenders who practice in those courts, to provide a system of justice that maintains due process protections. It requires trying innovative programs and carefully evaluating those programs to determine what works and what does not work. It includes a commitment to involving crime victims in the juvenile justice system and ensuring that their rights are considered. In this regard, OJJDP will continue to work closely with OVC to further cooperative programming, including the provision of services to juveniles who are crime victims or the provision of victims services that improve the operation of the juvenile justice system.
Improving the juvenile justice system also calls for strengthening its juvenile detention and corrections capacity and intensifying efforts to use juvenile detention and correctional facilities in appropriate circumstances and under conditions that maximize public safety, while at the same time providing effective rehabilitation services. It requires encouraging states to carefully consider the use of expanded transfer authority that sends the most serious, violent, and intractable juvenile offenders to the criminal justice system, while preserving individualized justice. It necessitates conducting research and gathering statistical information in order to understand how the juvenile justice system works in serving children and families. Finally, the system can only be improved if information and knowledge are communicated, understood, and applied for the purpose of juvenile justice system improvement.
Corrections, Detention, and Community-Based Alternatives
A third OJJDP goal is to maintain the public safety through a balanced use of secure detention and corrections and community-based alternatives. This involves identifying and promoting effective community-based programs and services for juveniles who have formal contact with the juvenile justice system and emphasizing options that maintain the safety of the public, are appropriately restrictive, and promote and preserve positive ties with the child's family, school, and community. Communities cannot afford to place responsibility for juvenile delinquency entirely on publicly operated juvenile justice system programs. A sound policy for combating juvenile delinquency and reducing the threat of youth violence makes maximum use of a full range of public and private programs and services, most of which operate in the juvenile's home community, including those provided by the health and mental health, child welfare, social service, and educational systems.
Coordination of the development of community-based programs and services with the development and use of a secure detention and correctional system capability for those juveniles who require a secure option is cost effective and will protect the public, reduce facility crowding, and result in better services for both institutionalized juveniles and those who can be served while remaining in their community environment.
In pursuing these three goals, OJJDP divides its programs into four broad categories: public safety and law enforcement; strengthening the juvenile justice system; delinquency prevention and intervention; and child abuse, neglect, and dependency courts. A fifth category, overarching programs, contains programs that have significant elements common to more than one category. Following the introductory section below, the programs that OJJDP proposes to fund in FY 1998 are listed and summarized within these five categories.
Introduction
An effective juvenile justice system must implement a sound comprehensive strategy and must identify and support programs that work to further the objectives of the strategy. These objectives include holding the juvenile offender accountable; enabling the juvenile to become a capable, productive, and responsible citizen; and ensuring the safety of the community.
For juveniles who come to the attention of police, juvenile courts, or social service agencies, a strong juvenile justice system must assess the danger they pose, determine what can help put them back on the right track, deliver appropriate treatment, and stay with them when they return to the community. When necessary, a strong juvenile justice system also must appropriately identify those serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders who are beyond its reach and ensure their criminal prosecution and incapacitation.
Research has shown that what works to reduce juvenile crime and violence includes prevention programs that start with the earliest stages of life: good prenatal care, home visitation for newborns at risk of abuse and neglect, steps to strengthen parenting skills, and initiatives to prepare children for school. These programs can build the foundation for law-abiding lives for children and interrupt the cycle of violence that can turn abused or neglected children into delinquents.
Prevention programs work for older children, too: opportunities for youth after school and on weekends, such as Boys and Girls Clubs and mentoring programs, reduce juvenile alcohol and drug use, improve school performance, and prevent youth from getting involved in crime and violent behavior.
Another focal point for juvenile justice efforts is the community. Without healthy communities, young people cannot thrive. The key leaders in the community, including representatives from the juvenile justice, health and mental health, schools, law enforcement, social services, and other systems, as well as leaders from the private sector, must be jointly engaged in the planning, development, and operation of the juvenile justice system. Attempts to improve the juvenile justice system must be part of a broad, comprehensive, communitywide effort--both at the leadership and grassroots level--to eliminate factors that place juveniles at risk of delinquency and victimization, enhance factors that protect them from engaging in delinquent behavior, and use the full range of resources and programs within the community to meet the varying needs of juveniles. It is also important to provide increased public access to the system to ensure an appropriate role for victims, a greater understanding of how the system operates, and a higher level of system accountability to the public.
The recent decreases in all measures of juvenile violence known to law enforcement (number of arrests, arrest rates, and the percentage of violent crimes cleared by juvenile arrests) should encourage legislators, juvenile justice policy makers and practitioners, and all concerned citizens to support ongoing efforts to address juvenile crime and violence through a comprehensive approach.
Three documents published during the past five years provide the framework for a comprehensive approach to an improved, more effective juvenile justice system. OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (1993) and Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (1995) were followed in 1996 by the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Combating Violence and Delinquency: The National Juvenile Justice Action Plan. The first of these publications defined the elements of the comprehensive strategy. The second provided states and communities with a more detailed explanation of what would constitute the elements of a comprehensive strategy, including strategic and programmatic information on risk and protective factor-based prevention and a system of graduated sanctions. The third prioritized federal, state, and local activities and resources under eight critical objectives that are central to reducing and preventing juvenile violence, delinquency, and victimization.
The OJJDP FY 1998 Proposed Program Plan is rooted in the principles of the Comprehensive Strategy and the objectives of the Action Plan. Like the OJJDP Program Plans for FY's 1996 and 1997, the FY 1998 Proposed Program Plan supports a balanced approach to aggressively addressing juvenile delinquency and violence through establishing graduated sanctions, improving the juvenile justice system's ability to respond to juvenile offending, and preventing the onset of delinquency. The Proposed Program Plan, therefore, recognizes the need to ensure public safety and support children's development into healthy, productive citizens through a range of prevention, early intervention, and graduated sanctions programs.
Proposed new program areas were identified for FY 1998 through a process of engaging OJJDP staff, other federal agencies, and juvenile justice practitioners in an examination of existing programs, research findings, and the needs of the field. In a departure from past practice, OJJDP is presenting for public comment more proposed programs than it expects to be able to fund with the resources available. It is OJJDP's intent to stimulate discussion of the best use of its FY 1998 discretionary funding and to seek guidance from the field as to which programs, among the many described here, would most effectively advance the goals of promoting delinquency prevention and early intervention, improving the juvenile justice system, and preserving the public safety.
OJJDP is considering providing funding for a wide variety of new programs, including technical assistance to promote teen court programs, training and technical assistance coordination for the SafeFutures initiative, and training and technical assistance for the Blueprints for Violence Prevention project and for a school safety program. New proposals also involve OJJDP collaboration with other agencies to address problems such as truancy, develop arts programs directed toward at-risk youth and youth held in juvenile detention centers, support the planning and development of systems of care for Native American and Alaskan Native youth with mental health and substance abuse needs, develop and implement a teambuilding project designed to facilitate coordination and foster innovative solutions to problems facing juvenile courts, and support demonstration projects designed to intervene early with students with learning disabilities to prevent delinquency and also to prevent recidivism by those students in correctional settings.
In addition, OJJDP is considering providing funding for initial planning and implementation of a Juvenile Defender Center, coordination of youth-related volunteer services, support for programs designed to build infrastructure for programming for female juvenile offenders and teen mothers, and support for additional work in the area of disproportionate minority confinement in secure juvenile facilities and other institutions. Some of the proposed new program areas for FY 1998 are specific while others are more general, as can be seen in the program descriptions that appear later in the Proposed Program Plan.
In addition, OJJDP has identified for FY 1998 funding a range of research and evaluation projects designed to expand knowledge about juvenile offenders; the effectiveness of prevention, intervention, and treatment programs; and the operation of the juvenile justice system. New evaluation initiatives that may be undertaken include the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders; the Boys and Girls Clubs of America's TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative; analysis and interpretation of juvenile justice-related data from nontraditional sources; evaluation capacity building in states; and field-initiated research and evaluation. Combined with new OJJDP programs and programs being continued in FY 1998, these new demonstration and evaluation programs would form a continuum of programming that supports the objectives of the Action Plan and mirrors the foundation and framework of the Comprehensive Strategy.
OJJDP's continuation activities and the new FY 1998 programs are at the heart of OJJDP's categorical funding efforts. For example, while focusing on new areas of programming such as the Juvenile Defender Center and the role of the arts for juveniles in detention centers and for at-risk youth, continuing to offer training seminars in the Comprehensive Strategy, and looking to the SafeFutures program to implement a continuum of care system, OJJDP will be supporting programs that reduce the likelihood of juvenile involvement in hate crimes, reduce juvenile gun violence, promote positive approaches to conflict resolution, and explore the mental health needs of juveniles. Together, these and other activities provide a comprehensive approach to prevention and early intervention programs, while enhancing the juvenile justice system's capacity to provide immediate and appropriate accountability and treatment for juvenile offenders, including those with special treatment needs.
OJJDP's Part D Gang Program is considering development of a rural gang prevention and intervention program, and will continue to support a range of comprehensive prevention, intervention, and suppression activities at the local level, evaluate those activities, and inform communities about the nature and extent of gang activities and effective and innovative programs through OJJDP's National Youth Gang Center. Similarly, activities related to the identification of school-based gang programs and the evaluation of the Boys and Girls Clubs gang outreach effort, along with an evaluation of selected youth gun violence reduction programs, will complement existing law enforcement and prosecutorial training programs by supporting and informing grassroots community organizations' efforts to address juvenile gangs and juvenile access to, carriage of, and use of guns. This programming builds on OJJDP's youth-focused community policing, mentoring, and conflict resolution initiatives and programming, including the work of the Congress of National Black Churches in supporting local churches to address the prevention of drug abuse, youth violence, and hate crime.
In support of the need to break the cycle of violence, OJJDP's SafeKids/Safe Streets demonstration program, currently being implemented in partnership with other OJP offices and bureaus, will improve linkages between the dependency and criminal court systems, child welfare and social service providers, and family strengthening programs and will complement ongoing support of Court Appointed Special Advocates, Child Advocacy Centers, and prosecutor and judicial training in the dependency field, funded under the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990, as amended.
The Plan's research and evaluation programming will support many of the above activities by filling in critical gaps in knowledge about the level and seriousness of juvenile crime and victimization, its causes and correlates, and effective programs in preventing delinquency and violence. At the same time, OJJDP's research efforts will also be geared toward efforts that monitor and evaluate the ways juveniles are treated by the juvenile and criminal justice systems, particularly in relation to juvenile violence and its impact.
As described below, OJJDP is also utilizing its national perspective to disseminate information to those at the grassroots level: practitioners, policy makers, community leaders, and service providers who are directly responsible for planning and implementing policies and programs that impact juvenile crime and violence. An additional OJJDP goal is to help practitioners and policy makers translate this information into action through its training and technical assistance providers as part of its mission to provide meaningful assistance for the replication of successful and promising strategies and programs.
OJJDP will continue to fund longitudinal research on the causes and correlates of delinquency. Even more important, however, OJJDP will regularly share the findings from this research with the field through OJJDP's publications, home page on the World Wide Web, and JuvJust (an electronic newsletter); utilize state-of-the-art technology to provide the field with an interactive CD-ROM on promising and effective programs designed to prevent delinquency and reduce recidivism; air national satellite teleconferences on key topics of relevance to practitioners; and publish new reports and documents on timely topics. Some examples of these publication topics include youth action to prevent delinquency; family strengthening; juvenile substance abuse (prevention, intervention, and testing); balanced and restorative justice; developmental pathways in delinquent behavior, gang migration, capacity building for substance abuse treatment, youth gangs, restitution programs, school safety, and conditions of confinement.
The various contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, and interagency fund transfers described in the Proposed Program Plan form a continuum of activity designed to address youth violence, delinquency, and victimization. In isolation, this programming can do little. However, the emphasis of OJJDP's programming is on collaboration. It is through collaboration that federal, state, and local agencies; Native American tribes; national organizations; private philanthropies; the corporate and business sector; health, mental health, and social service agencies; schools; youth; families; and clergy can come together to form partnerships and leverage additional resources, identify needs and priorities, and implement innovative strategies. In the past few years, the combined efforts of these varied groups have brought about the beginnings of change in the prevalence of juvenile crime, violence, and victimization. Now is the time to strengthen old partnerships and forge new ones to develop support for a long-term, comprehensive approach to a more effective juvenile justice system.
Fiscal Year 1998 Programs
The following are brief summaries of each of the new and continuation programs scheduled to receive funding in FY 1998. As indicated above, the program categories are public safety and law enforcement; strengthening the juvenile justice system; delinquency prevention and intervention; and child abuse and neglect and dependency courts. However, because many programs have significant elements of more than one of these program categories--or generally support all of OJJDP's programs--they are listed in an initial program category, called overarching programs. The specific program priorities within each category are subject to change with regard to their priority status, sites for implementation, and other descriptive data and information based on grantee performance, application quality, fund availability, and other factors.
A number of OJJDP programs have been identified for funding consideration by Congress with regard to the grantee(s), the amount of funds, or both. These programs, which are listed below, are not included in the program descriptions that follow.
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Teens, Crime, and the Community
Parents Anonymous, Inc.
Juvenile Offender Transition Program
Suffolk University Center for Juvenile Justice
Center for Crimes and Violence Against Children
Crow Creek Alcohol and Drug Program
Metro Denver Gang Coalition
In addition, OJJDP has been directed to examine each of the following proposals, provide grants if warranted, and report to the Committees on Appropriations of both the House and the Senate on its intention for each proposal:
Coalition for Juvenile Justice
The Hamilton Fish National Institute on School/CommunityViolence
Low Country Children's Center
Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services
Grassroots Drug Prevention Program
Dona Ana Camp
Center for Prevention of Juvenile Crime and Delinquency at Prairie View University
Project O.A.S.I.S.
KidsPeace--The National Centers for Kids in Crisis, North America
Consortium on Children, Families, and Law
New Mexico Prevention Project
No Hope in Dope Program
Study of the Link Between Child Abuse and Criminal Behavior in Alaska
Gainesville Juvenile Assessment Center
Lincoln Council on Alcohol and Drugs
Hill Renaissance Partnership
National Training and Information Center
Culinary Arts Training Program for At-Risk Youth
Women of Vision Program for Youthful Female Offenders
Violence Institute of New Jersey
Delancy Street Foundation
Law-Related Education
Overarching Programs
SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency
Evaluation of SafeFutures
Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency
OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract
Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement
National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and Technical Assistance Center
Technical Assistance for State Legislatures
Telecommunications Assistance
OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice Resource Center
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
Insular Area Support
Community Assessment Centers (CAC's)
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures Initiative
Public Safety and Law Enforcement
Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
Targeted Outreach With A Gang Prevention and Intervention Component (Boys and Girls Clubs)
National Youth Gang Center
Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program
The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention
Safe Start--Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)
Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program
Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence
Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Technical Assistance and Training
Rural Youth Gang Problems--Adapting OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach
Delinquency Prevention and Intervention
Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution
Communities in Schools--Federal Interagency Partnership
The Congress of National Black Churches: National Anti-Drug Abuse/Violence Campaign (NADVC)
Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development
Training and Technical Assistance for Family Strengthening Programs
Hate Crime
Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and Families
Diffusion of State Risk- and Protective-Factor Focused Prevention
Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD
Evaluation of the Juvenile Mentoring Program
Truancy Reduction
Arts and At-Risk Youth
Community Volunteer Coordinator Program
Learning Disabilities Among Juveniles At Risk of Delinquency or in the Juvenile Justice System
Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future
Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System
Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile
Offenders
Balanced and Restorative Justice Project (BARJ)
Training and Technical Assistance Program To Promote Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders
Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies
Replication and Extension of Fagan Transfer Study
The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit
Due Process Advocacy Program Development
Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) Evaluation
Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical Assistance Program
Evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program
Training and Technical Assistance for National Innovations To Reduce Disproportionate
Minority Confinement (The Deborah Ann Wysinger Memorial Program)
Juvenile Probation Survey Research
Training for Juvenile Corrections and Detention Management Staff
Training for Line Staff in Juvenile Detention and Corrections
Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams To Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding
National Program Directory
Juvenile Sex Offender Typology
Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice
Juvenile Residential Facility Census
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97
National Academy of Sciences Study of Juvenile Justice
TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative
Technical Assistance to Native Americans
Training and Technical Assistance To Promote Teen Court Programs
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures Initiative
School Safety
Disproportionate Minority Confinement
Arts Programs in Juvenile Detention Centers
"Circles of Care"--A Program To Develop Strategies To Serve Native American Youth With Mental Health and Substance Abuse Needs
Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center
Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders
Evaluation Capacity Building
Field-Initiated Research
Field-Initiated Evaluation
Analysis of Juvenile Justice Data
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders
Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Training and Technical Assistance
Teambuilding Project for Courts
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts
Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and Neglect and Preventing Delinquency
National Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program
Secondary Analysis of Childhood Victimization
Evaluation of Nurse Home Visitation in Weed and Seed Sites
Overarching Programs
SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency
OJJDP is awarding grants of up to $1.4 million annually to each of six communities for a 5-year project period that began in FY 1995, to assist in implementing comprehensive community programs designed to reduce youth violence and delinquency. Boston, Massachusetts; Contra Costa County, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Imperial County, California (rural site); and Fort Belknap, Montana (tribal site) were competitively selected to receive awards under the SafeFutures program on the basis of their substantial planning and progress in community assessment and strategic planning to address delinquency.
SafeFutures seeks to prevent and control youth crime and victimization through the creation of a continuum of care in communities. This continuum enables communities to be responsive to the needs of youth at critical stages of their development through providing an appropriate range of prevention, intervention, treatment, and sanctions programs.
The goals of SafeFutures are:
To prevent and control juvenile violence and delinquency in targeted communities by reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors for delinquency, providing a continuum of services for juveniles at risk of delinquency, including appropriate immediate interventions for juvenile offenders, and developing a full range of graduated sanctions designed to hold delinquent youth accountable to the victim and the community, ensure community safety, and provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services;
To develop a more efficient, effective, and timely service delivery system for at-risk and delinquent juveniles and their families that is capable of responding to their needs at any point of entry into the juvenile justice system;
To build the community's capacity to institutionalize and sustain the continuum by expanding and diversifying sources of funding; and
To determine the success of program implementation and the outcomes achieved, including whether a comprehensive program involving community-based efforts and program resources concentrated on providing a continuum of care has succeeded in preventing or reducing juvenile violence and delinquency.
Each of the six sites will continue to provide a set of services that builds on community strengths and existing services and fills in gaps within their existing continuum. These services include family strengthening; after school activities; mentoring; treatment alternatives for juvenile female offenders; mental health services; day treatment; graduated sanctions for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders; and gang prevention, intervention, and suppression.
A national evaluation is being conducted by the Urban Institute to determine the success of the initiative and track lessons learned at each of the six sites. OJJDP has also committed training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to SafeFutures through a full-time TTA coordinator for SafeFutures and a host of partner organizations committed to assisting SafeFutures sites. The TTA coordinator also assists the communities in brokering and leveraging additional TTA resources. In addition, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided interagency support of $100,000 for training and technical assistance targeted to violence and delinquency prevention in public housing areas of SafeFutures sites. Thus, operations, evaluation, and TTA have been organized together to form a joint team at the national level to support local site efforts.
SafeFutures activities will be carried out by the six current grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of SafeFutures
The Urban Institute received a competitive 3-year cooperative agreement award with FY 1995 funds to conduct Phase I of the national evaluation of the SafeFutures program. OJJDP would consider two years of additional funding for Phase II. The evaluation addresses the program implementation process and measures performance outcomes across the six sites. The process evaluation focuses primarily on the development and implementation of a strategic plan designed to establish a continuum of care and integrated services for young people in high-risk communities. The evaluation will identify obstacles and key factors contributing to the successful implementation of the SafeFutures program. The evaluator is responsible for developing a cross-site report documenting the process of program implementation for use by other funding agencies or communities that want to develop and implement a comprehensive community-based strategy to address serious, violent, and chronic delinquency.
In FY 1996, the Urban Institute developed a logic model that links program activities and outputs to desired intermediate and long-term outcomes. Their evaluator also held a cross-site cluster meeting and conducted site visits at each of the six SafeFutures sites.
In FY 1997, in addition to continuing its onsite monitoring, the Urban Institute, in collaboration with the OJJDP SafeFutures program management team, developed the national evaluation plan and introduced it to the sites at the cluster meeting on information technology held in Oakland, CA, in September 1997.
In FY 1998, the Urban Institute will continue the process evaluation and will conduct interviews with key stakeholders, service providers, and youth in order to assess the extent to which a community and its policy board have mobilized to implement a continuum of care and develop an integrated system of services over the course of SafeFutures program implementation. The research team will also complete the development of performance measures to be used by all sites to monitor the outcomes for targeted populations within and across sites. They will compile and process the results of the performance outcomes from the sites and provide feedback to both the sites and to OJJDP. Beginning in FY 1998, the national evaluator will design and conduct sample surveys of youth in the community to assist in monitoring community-level changes in the prevalence and incidence of certain risk factors, as well as developmental and community assets on levels of delinquency and violence in the targeted community. In addition, longitudinal samples of youth and their families will be followed over time to observe the extent to which multiple needs are identified and responded to over the course of the SafeFutures program interventions.
The evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, the Urban Institute. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency
Three project sites participate in the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency (Causes and Correlates): The University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University at Albany, State University of New York. Results from this longitudinal study have been used extensively in the field of juvenile justice and have contributed significantly to the development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders and other OJJDP program initiatives.
OJJDP began funding this program in 1986 and has invested approximately $10.3 million to date. Currently, OJJDP is supporting site data analyses under 3-year project period grants awarded to each site in FY 1996. The Causes and Correlates program has addressed a variety of issues related to juvenile violence and delinquency. These include developing and testing causal models for chronic violent offending and examining interrelationships among gang involvement, drug selling, and gun ownership/use. To date, the program has produced a massive amount of information on the causes and correlates of delinquent behavior.
Although there is great commonality across the Causes and Correlates project sites, each has unique design features. Additionally, each project has disseminated the results of its research through a broad range of publications, reports, and presentations.
With FY 1996 funding, each site of the Causes and Correlates program was provided funds to further analyze the longitudinal data. Among the numerous analyses conducted were risk factors for teenage fatherhood, patterns of illegal gun carrying among young urban males, and factors associated with early sexual activity among urban adolescents. Two publications were developed as part of the newly launched Youth Development Series of OJJDP Bulletins.
In FY 1997, the sites continued both their collaborative research efforts and site-specific research. The cross site analysis was on the early onset and co-occurrence of persistent serious offending. Site specific analyses were produced on victimization, over time changes in delinquency and drug use, impact of family changes on adolescent development, and neighborhood, individual, and social risk factors for serious juvenile offending.
In FY 1998, at least one major cross site analysis will be undertaken, as well as three site specific analyses per study site.
This program will be implemented by the current grantees: Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder; Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh; and Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center, University at Albany, State University of New York. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract
OJJDP's Management Evaluation Contract was competitively awarded in 1995 for a period of three years. Its purpose is to provide OJJDP with an expert resource capable of performing independent program evaluations and assisting the office in implementing evaluation activities. The management evaluation contract currently provides the following types of assistance to OJJDP:
Assists OJJDP staff in the determination of evaluation needs of programs, program areas, or projects to assist the agency in determining when to invest its evaluation resources;
Develops evaluation designs that OJJDP can use in defining requirements for a grant or contract to implement the evaluation;
Provides technical assistance with regard to evaluation techniques to other jurisdictions involved in the evaluation of programs to prevent and treat juvenile delinquency;
Responds to the needs of OJJDP by providing evaluations based on available data or data that can be readily developed to support OJJDP decisionmaking under whatever schedule is required by the decisionmaking process. Evaluations under this contract are program evaluations, that is, evaluations of either individual grants or contracts or groups of grants or contracts that are designed to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the program;
Conduct a full-scale evaluation research project; and
Provide training to OJJDP program managers and other staff on evaluation-related topics such as the different kinds of evaluation data and their uses, planning for program or project information collection and evaluation, and the role of evaluation in the agency planning process.
Under this contract, evaluations may be conducted on OJJDP-funded action programs, including demonstrations, tests, training, and technical assistance and other programs, not funded by OJJDP, designed to prevent and treat juvenile delinquency. Evaluations are carried out in accordance with work plans prepared by the contractor and approved by OJJDP. Because the evaluations vary in terms of program complexity, availability of data, and purpose of the evaluation, the time and cost of each varies. Each evaluation is defined by OJJDP and costs, method, and time are determined through negotiations between OJJDP and the contractor. Because the purpose of many evaluations is to inform management decisions, the completion of an evaluation and submission of a report may be required in a specific and, often, short time period.
This contract will be implemented by the current contractor, Caliber Associates. A new competitive contract solicitation will be issued during FY 1998, and a new contract awarded in FY 1999.
Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development
The Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD) program was competitively awarded in FY 1990 to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) to improve national, state, and local statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders. Over the last seven years, through continuation funding, the project has focused on three major tasks: (1) assessing how current information needs are being met with existing data collection efforts and recommending options for improving national level statistics; (2) analyzing data and disseminating information gathered from existing federal statistical series and national studies; and (3) providing training and technical assistance for local agencies in developing or enhancing management information systems.
Under the second task, OJJDP released the seminal analysis Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report in September 1995, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1996 Update on Violence in March 1996, and Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1997 Update on Violence in October 1997. A training curriculum, Improving Information for Rational Decisionmaking in Juvenile Justice, was drafted for pilot testing, and future documents will be produced based on this effort.
In FY 1998, NCJJ will: (1) complete a long-term plan for improving national statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders, including constructing core data elements for a national reporting program for juveniles waived or transferred to criminal court; (2) update the Compendium of Federal Statistical Programs on juvenile victims and offenders and work with the OJP Crime Statistics Working Group and other federal interagency statistics working groups; (3) provide technical support to OJJDP in enhancing the availability and accessibility of statistics on the OJJDP Web site; (4) make recommendations to fill information gaps in the areas of juvenile probation, juvenile court, and law enforcement responses to juvenile delinquency, violent delinquency, and child abuse and neglect; and (5) produce a second edition of Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCJJ. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement
The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) is replacing the biennial Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities, known as the Children in Custody census. This newly designed census will collect detailed information on the population of juveniles who are in juvenile residential placement facilities as a result of contact with the juvenile justice system. Over the past three years, OJJDP and the Bureau of the Census, with the assistance of a Technical Advisory Board, have developed the CJRP to more accurately represent the numbers of juveniles in residential placement and to describe the reasons for their placement. A new method of data collection, tested in FY 1996, involves gathering data in a roster-type format, often by electronic means. The new methods are expected to result in more accurate, timely, and useful data on the juvenile population, with less reporting burden for facility respondents.
In FY 1997, OJJDP funded initial implementation of the CJRP, including form preparation, mailout, and processing of census forms. In October 1997, the first census using the revised methodology was conducted.
OJJDP proposes to continue funding this project in FY 1998 to clean the data files, allowing the production of new data products based on the 1997 census.
This program would be implemented through an existing interagency agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and Technical Assistance Center
The National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) was established in FY 1995 under a competitive 3-year project period award to Community Research Associates. NTTAC serves as a national training and technical assistance clearinghouse, inventorying and coordinating the integrated delivery of juvenile justice training/technical assistance resources and establishing a data base of these resources.
In FY 1995, work involved organization and staffing of the Center, orientation for OJJDP training/technical assistance providers regarding their role in the Center's activities, and initial data base development.
NTTAC's funding in FY 1996 provided services in the form of coordinated technical assistance support for OJJDP's SafeFutures and gang program initiatives, continued promotion of collaboration between OJJDP training/technical assistance providers, developed training/technical assistance materials, and completed and disseminated the first OJJDP Training and Technical Assistance Resource Catalog. In addition, NTTAC assisted state and local jurisdictions and other OJJDP grantees with specialized training, including the development of training-of-trainers programs. NTTAC continued to evolve as a central source for information pertaining to the availability of OJJDP-supported training/technical assistance programs and resources.
In FY 1997, NTTAC completed the first draft of the jurisdictional team training/technical assistance packages for gender-specific services and juvenile correctional services; provided training/technical assistance in support of OJJDP's SafeFutures and Gangs programs; updated and disseminated the second Training and Technical Assistance Resource Catalog; created a Web site for the Center and a listserve for the Children, Youth and Affinity Group; held three focus groups on needs assessments; and coordinated and provided 38 instances of technical assistance in conjunction with OJJDP's training/technical assistance grantees and contractors.
In FY 1998, NTTAC plans to finalize, field test, and coordinate delivery of the jurisdictional team training/technical assistance packages on critical needs in the juvenile justice system, update the resource catalog, facilitate the annual OJJDP training/TA grantee and contractor meeting, continue to update the repository of training/TA materials and the electronic data base of training/TA materials, and continue to respond to training/TA requests from the field.
The current grantee, Community Research Associates, will complete its work in FY 1998. A new competitive solicitation would be issued in FY 1998 for a new project period.
Technical Assistance for State Legislatures
Since FY 1995, OJJDP has awarded annual grants to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to provide relevant and timely information on comprehensive approaches in juvenile justice that are geared to the legislative environment. The purpose of this project is to aid state legislators in improving state juvenile justice systems when crafting legislative responses to youth violence. State legislatures have a unique role and responsibility in establishing state policy and approaches and appropriating funds for juvenile justice. Nearly every state has enacted, or is considering, statutory changes affecting the juvenile justice system. Historically, state legislatures have lacked the information needed to comprehensively address juvenile justice issues. Experience with this project indicates that policy makers find it has helped them understand the ramifications and nuances of juvenile justice reform.
Since OJJDP began funding this project, NCSL has conducted three invitational Legislator's Leadership Forums; sponsored sessions on juvenile justice reform at the NCSL annual meetings; expanded clearinghouse and juvenile justice enactment reporting; and produced and distributed a publication, Legislator's Guide to Comprehensive Juvenile Justice. The invitational meetings were attended by more than 100 legislators and additional legislative staff from 34 states selected as key decisionmakers on juvenile justice reform. Meeting sessions and information services reached at least 500 legislators or legislative staff in all states. In addition, project publications were distributed to more than 2,000 legislative members, staff, and agencies to provide for further broad distribution of information central to comprehensive strategies in juvenile justice to a state legislative audience throughout the states.
The grant has improved capacity for the delivery of information services to legislatures, with the number of information requests handled for legislators and staff having increased to about 500 per year. It is expected that the Children and Families and Criminal Justice programs will respond to another 500 information requests in FY 1998.
In FY 1998, NCSL would further identify, analyze, and disseminate information to assist state legislatures to make more informed decisions about legislation affecting the juvenile justice system. A complementary task involves supporting increased communication between state legislators and state and local leaders who influence decisionmaking regarding juvenile justice issues. NCSL would provide intensive technical assistance to four states, continue outreach activities, and maintain its clearinghouse function. Additionally, NCSL would assist in the production of a live satellite videoconference directed primarily to state legislators.
The project would be implemented by the current grantee, NCSL. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Telecommunications Assistance
Developments in information technology and distance training have expanded and enhanced OJJDP's capacity to disseminate information and provide training and technical assistance. The advantages of these technologies include increased access to information and training for professionals in the juvenile justice system, reduced travel costs to conferences, and reduced time attending meetings away from one's home or office. OJJDP uses this cost-effective medium to share with the field the salient elements of the most effective or promising approaches to various juvenile justice issues. The field has responded positively to these live satellite teleconferences and has come to expect them at regular intervals.
OJJDP selected Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) through a competitive program announcement in FY 1992 to conduct a feasibility study on using this technology in its programming. In FY 1995, EKU was awarded a competitive grant to undertake production of live satellite videoconferences. Since the inception of this grant in FY 1995, EKU has produced 13 live satellite teleconferences, with an average of 360 downlink sites participating in each. The project produced four teleconferences in FY 1995 (Juvenile Boot Camps, Reducing Youth Gun Violence, Youth Out of the Education Mainstream, and Conflict Resolution for Youth), four in FY 1996 (Community Collaboration, Effective Programs for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, Youth-Oriented Community Policing, Leadership Challenges for Juvenile Detentions and Corrections), and five in FY 1997 (Has the Juvenile Court Outlived Its Usefulness?, Youth Gangs in America, Preventing Drug Abuse Among Youth, Mentoring for Youth, and Treating Drug-Involved Youth).
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue the cooperative agreement with EKU in order to provide program support and technical assistance for a variety of information technologies, including audioconferences, fiber optics, and satellite teleconferences, producing four to five additional live national satellite teleconferences. The grantee would also continue to provide technical assistance to other grantees interested in using this technology and explore linkages with key constituent groups to advance mutual information goals and objectives.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, EKU. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice Resource Center
This contract provides technical assistance and support to OJJDP, its grantees, and the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the areas of program development, evaluation, training, and research. OJJDP proposes to extend the current contract in FY 1998 until a new contract can be competitively awarded. Applications have been solicited, and the new contract is expected to be awarded shortly.
This contract would be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen Systems Corporation, until a new contract is awarded.
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
A component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC) is OJJDP's central source for the collection, synthesis, and dissemination of information on all aspects of juvenile justice, including research and evaluation findings; state and local juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs and plans; availability of resources; training and educational programs; and statistics. JJC serves the entire juvenile justice community, including researchers, law enforcement officials, judges, prosecutors, probation and corrections staff, youth-service personnel, legislators, the media, and the public.
Among its many support services, JJC offers toll-free telephone access (1-800/638-8736) to information; prepares specialized responses to information requests; produces, warehouses, and distributes OJJDP publications; exhibits at national conferences; maintains a comprehensive juvenile justice library and data base; and administers several electronic information resources. Recognizing the critical need to inform juvenile justice practitioners and policy makers on promising program approaches, JJC continually develops and recommends new products and strategies to communicate more effectively the research findings and program activities of OJJDP and the field. The entire NCJRS, of which the OJJDP-funded JJC is a part, is administered by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under a competitively awarded contract to Aspen Systems Corporation.
This program would continue to be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen Systems Corporation, until the new contract is awarded. NIJ will issue a new competitive solicitation in the near future, and a new contract will be awarded during FY 1998.
Insular Area Support
The purpose of this program is to provide support to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Palau), and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Funds are available to address the special needs and problems of juvenile delinquency in these insular areas, as specified by Section 261(e) of the JJDP Act of 1974, as amended [42 U.S.C. § 5665(e)].
Community Assessment Centers (CACs)
The Community Assessment Center (CAC) program is a multicomponent, demonstration initiative to test the efficacy of the Community Assessment Center concept. CACs provide a 24-hour centralized point of intake and assessment for juveniles who have or are likely to come into contact with the juvenile justice system. The main purpose of a CAC is to facilitate earlier and more efficient prevention and intervention service delivery at the "front end" of the juvenile justice system. In FY 1997, OJJDP funded two planning grants and two enhancement grants to existing assessment centers for a 1-year project period, a CAC evaluation project, and a technical assistance component.
The planning grants were awarded to the Denver Juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado, and to the Lee County Sheriff's Office in Fort Myers, Florida, to support a 1-year intensive planning process for the development and implementation of a CAC in each community. In Denver, community leaders are assessing the feasibility of a CAC and building on existing infrastructure developed with support from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment's Juvenile Justice Integrated Treatment Network program. In Fort Myers, community leaders are completing an initial planning process and are planning to open their CAC in 1998. Planning in this site will continue after implementation and will focus on enhancing the CAC in Fort Myers to become more consistent with the CAC concept and on developing linkages with the community's Comprehensive Strategy initiative.
The enhancement component of the CAC program is designed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of existing assessment centers by supporting various and specific program enhancements and to provide support to existing assessment centers in an effort to create consistency with OJJDP's CAC concept.
Also in FY 1997, two communities received 1-year awards to help existing assessment centers provide enhanced services and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CAC concept overall. Jefferson Center for Mental Health in Jefferson County, Colorado, and Human Service Associates, Inc., in Orlando, Florida, were competitively selected to receive awards under the CAC program on the basis of their demonstrated commitment to specifically implement an enhancement that makes the existing CAC more consistent with the CAC concept. The Jefferson Center for Mental Health is developing an improved "single point of entry" and an improved management information system and other enhancements consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept. Human Services Associates, Inc. is creating an intensive integrated case management system for high-risk youth referred to the CAC, an enhancement also consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide an additional year's funding to support the full and continued implementation of selected CAC enhancements and additional support to the sites awarded planning grants in FY 1997. This funding would enable these sites to begin implementing the CAC's planned for with OJJDP funding support or to enhance existing operations.
The CAC initiative evaluation component, being conducted by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the technical assistance component, being delivered by the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association, were funded in FY 1997 for a 2-year project period and will not require additional funds in FY 1998.
These programs would be implemented by the current grantees, Jefferson Center for Mental Health, Human Service Associates, Inc., Denver Juvenile Court, and Lee County Sheriff's Office. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures Initiative
OJJDP proposes to provide funding for long-term training and technical assistance (TTA) for the remaining three years of the SafeFutures initiative. The purpose of this TTA effort would be to build local capacity for implementing and sustaining effective continuum of care and systems change approaches to preventing and controlling juvenile violence and delinquency in the six SafeFutures communities. Project activities would include assessment, identification, and coordination of the implementation of TTA needs at each SafeFutures site and administration of cross-site training.
Public Safety and Law Enforcement
Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
This program supports the implementation of a comprehensive gang program model in five jurisdictions. The program was competitively awarded with FY 1994 funds under a 3-year project period. The demonstration sites implementing the model, which was developed by the University of Chicago with OJJDP funding support, are Bloomington, Illinois; Mesa, Arizona; Riverside, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Tucson, Arizona. Implementation of the comprehensive gang program model requires the mobilization of the community to address gang-related violence by making available and coordinating social interventions, providing social/academic/vocational and other opportunities, and supporting gang suppression through law enforcement, probation, and other community control mechanisms.
During the past year, the demonstration sites began full-scale implementation of the program model and began serving gang-involved youth in the targeted areas. In each site, a multidisciplinary team has been established to coordinate the services that project youth receive. Teams are made up of various community institution representatives, including police, probation, outreach or street workers, court representatives, service providers, and others. The services provided through this team--or recommended by them--include social interventions such as outreach, case management, counseling, substance abuse treatment, anger management, life skills, cultural awareness, controlled recreation activities, access to educational, social, and economic opportunities such as GED attainment, school reintegration, vocational training, and job development and placement. Also included in the service mix is accountability or social control. This is provided through traditional suppression from law enforcement and probation, and also accountability through the schools, community-based agencies, parents, families, and community members.
The team meets regularly to review progress with each youth, so that each team member is aware of prevailing risks and positive developments and can use this information to be supportive of the youth when contacted in the field by providing additional services, modifying "treatment plans," or invoking accountability measures ranging from values clarification and general motivational support to arrest and prosecution. In addition to core team members, other agencies also support the program, such as the faith community, local Boys and Girls Clubs, and alternative and mainstream schools.
In some sites, prevention components have been established to work hand-in-hand with the intervention and suppression program. For example, in one site a mentoring program has been established for youth who are younger siblings of gang members targeted in the intervention components.
The demonstration sites also participated in training and technical assistance activities, including cluster conferences sponsored by OJJDP and site-specific consultations on issues such as information sharing and outreach activities.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide a fourth year of funding to the demonstration sites to target up to 200 youth prone to gang violence in each site through continuing implementation of the program model and work with the independent evaluator of this demonstration program.
This project would be implemented by the current demonstration sites. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
The University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, received a competitive cooperative agreement award in FY 1995. This 4-year project period award supports the evaluation of OJJDP's Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program. The evaluation grantee assisted the five program sites (Bloomington, Illinois; Mesa, Arizona; Riverside, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Tucson, Arizona) in establishing realistic and measurable objectives, documenting program implementation, and measuring the impact of a variety of gang program strategies. It has also provided interim feedback to the program implementors.
In FY 1997, following two years of program development and evaluation design, the grantee trained the local site interviewers; gathered and tracked data from police, prosecutor, probation, school, and social service agencies; collected individual gang member interviews from both the program and comparison areas; provided onsite technical assistance to the local sites; consulted with local evaluators on development and implementation of local site parent/community resident surveys; and coordinated ongoing efforts with local researchers.
In FY 1998, the grantee will continue to gather and analyze data required to evaluate the program; monitor and oversee the quality control of data; provide assistance for completion of interviews; and provide ongoing feedback to project sites.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Targeted Outreach With A Gang Prevention and Intervention Component (Boys and Girls Clubs)
This program is designed to enable local Boys and Girls Clubs to prevent youth from entering gangs, intervene with gang members in the early stages of gang involvement, and divert youth from gang activities into more constructive programs. In FY 1997, Boys and Girls Clubs of America provided training and technical assistance to 30 existing gang prevention and four intervention sites and expanded the gang prevention and intervention program to 23 additional Boys and Girls Clubs, including to some of those in the OJJDP SafeFutures sites. A national evaluation of this program, through Public/Private Ventures, was also started in FY 1997 under this award.
In FY 1998, Boys and Girls Clubs of America would provide training and technical assistance to 20 new gang prevention sites, three new intervention sites, and six SafeFutures sites.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
National Youth Gang Center
The proliferation of gang problems in large inner cities, smaller cities, suburbs, and even rural areas over the past two decades led to the development by OJJDP of a comprehensive, coordinated response to America's gang problem. This response involved five program components, one of which was the implementation and operation of the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC). The NYGC was competitively awarded in FY 1995 for a 3-year project period. The NYGC was created to expand and maintain the body of critical knowledge about youth gangs and effective responses to them.
In FY 1997, NYGC continued to assist state and local jurisdictions to collect, analyze, and exchange information on gang-related demographics, legislation, literature, research, and promising program strategies. It also supported the work of the National Gang Consortium, a group of federal agencies, gang program representatives, and researchers. A major activity was a survey of all federal agencies and the presentation of data on their programs, planning cycles, and other resources. It continued to promote the collection and analysis of gang-related data and published the results of its first National Youth Gang Survey of 2,000 law enforcement agencies.
OJJDP proposes to extend the project an additional year and provide FY 1998 funds to NYGC to conduct more indepth analyses of the first and second National Youth Gang Survey results that track changes in the nature and scope of the youth gang problem. NYGC, through its Focus Group on Data Collection and Analysis, will also continue its efforts to foster integration of gang-related items into other relevant surveys and national data collection efforts.
Fiscal Year 1998 funds would support an additional year of funding to the current grantee, the Institute for Intergovernmental Research. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program
COSMOS Corporation received a competitive award in FY 1997. This 3-year project period award supports OJJDP's Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program. The program will document and evaluate the process of community mobilization, planning, and collaboration needed to develop a comprehensive, collaborative approach to reducing gun violence involving juveniles in four sites. The sites are Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oakland, California: Shreveport, Louisiana; and Syracuse, New York.
In FY 1997, the grantee conducted onsite technical assistance workshops with partner organizations and assisted the sites in planning and developing local Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence.
In FY 1998, the grantee will develop data collection protocols, conduct a process evaluation, and continue to provide onsite technical assistance to the sites. In addition to the four sites listed above, the grantee will also identify additional promising/effective programs under way in communities across the country and evaluate a select number of these programs. With an expanded base of youth gun violence programs, there is greater opportunity to identify sites that are employing similar strategies with different targeted populations.
This evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, COSMOS Corporation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention
The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention's primary goal is the development of a citywide, accelerated, long-term effort to reduce violence in Chicago. In addition, the Chicago Project serves to demonstrate a comprehensive, citywide violence prevention model. Overall project objectives include reductions in homicide, physical injury, disability and emotional harm from assault, domestic abuse, sexual abuse and rape, and child abuse and neglect.
The Chicago Project is a partnership among the Chicago Department of Public Health, the Illinois Council for the Prevention of Violence, the University of Illinois, and Chicago communities. The project began in January 1995 with joint funding from OJJDP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The project currently provides technical assistance to a variety of community-based and citywide organizations involved in violence prevention planning. The majority of the technical assistance supports community level efforts and agencies working to directly support the community plan.
In FY 1996, technical assistance was provided to the central planning group for the Austin community-based coalition, leadership and staff of the Westside Health Authority in the Austin community, and to other selected groups involved in the Austin plan for the development of their components (e.g., to the Northwest Austin Council for the development of the afterschool and drug treatment components of the Austin plan). These groups are members of the violence consortium in Austin.
In FY 1997, the Chicago Project further refined the violence prevention strategy developed in the Austin community, began implementation of the strategy, and continued to provide technical assistance to the Logan Square and Grand Boulevard communities as they developed their violence prevention strategies.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue funding the project, which would complete the strategic planning process with Logan Square and Grand Boulevard and continue to work with Austin in implementing its strategy.
The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention would be implemented by the current grantee, the University of Illinois, School of Public Health. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Safe Start--Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)
The Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP) program, an innovative partnership between the New Haven Department of Police Services and the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine, addresses the psychological burdens on children, families, and the broader community of increasing levels of community violence. In FY 1993, OJJDP provided support to document Yale-New Haven's child-centered, community-oriented policing model. The program model consists of interrelated training and consultation, including a child development fellowship for police supervisors; police fellowship for clinicians; seminars on child development, human functioning, and policing strategies; a 15-hour training course in child development for all new police officers; weekly collaborative meetings and case conferences that support institutional changes in police practices; and establishment of protocols for referral and consultation to ensure that children receive the services they need.
In FY 1994, BJA, using community policing funds, joined with OJJDP to support the first year of a 3-year training and technical assistance grant to replicate the CD-CP program nationwide. In each of FY's 1995, 1996, and 1997, OJJDP provided grants of $300,000 to the Yale Child Study Center to replicate the model through training of law enforcement and mental health providers in Buffalo, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon.
The CD-CP program has provided a wide range of coordinated police and clinical responses in the four replication sites, including round-the-clock availability of consultation with a clinical professional and a police supervisor to patrol officers who assist children exposed to violence; weekly case conferences with police officers, educators, and child study center staff; open police stations located in neighborhoods and accessible to residents for police and related services; community liaison and coordination of community response; crisis response; clinical referral; interagency collaboration; home-based followup; and officer support and neighborhood foot patrols. In the CD-CP program's last four years of operation in the New Haven site, more than 450 children have been referred to the consultation service by officers in the field. It is anticipated that these results can be obtained in the replication sites as well.
In FY 1997, through a partnership between OJJDP, the Violence Against Women Grants Office (VAWGO), and Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), $700,000 ($300,000 from OJJDP, $300,000 from VAWGO, and $100,000 from OVC) was allocated to CD-CP to expand the program under a new Safe Start Initiative designed to support the following activities:
Development of a training and technical assistance center in New Haven consisting of a team of expert practitioners who provide training for law enforcement, prosecutors, mental health professionals, school personnel, and probation and parole officers to better respond to the needs of children exposed to community violence, including but not limited to family violence, gang violence, and abuse or neglect.
Plan for expansion of program sites from the original four. Future sites, the total number of which are yet to be determined, will be selected competitively based upon each site's capacity to establish a core police/mental health provider team concerned with child victimization.
Further research, data collection, analysis, and evaluation of CD-CP in the program sites.
The development of a casebook for practitioners, which will detail intervention strategies and various aspects of the CD-CP collaborative process.
In order to continue this work in FY 1998, this project will be continued by the current grantee, the Yale University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the New Haven Department of Police Services. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program
Juvenile crime and victimization present major challenges to law enforcement and other practitioners who are responsible for prevention, intervention, and enforcement efforts. Violent crime committed by juveniles, juvenile involvement in gangs and drugs, and decreasing fiscal resources are a few of the challenges facing juvenile justice practitioners today.
OJJDP is committed to helping federal, state, local, and tribal agencies, organizations, and individuals face these challenges through a comprehensive program of training and technical assistance that is designed to enhance the juvenile justice system's ability to respond to juvenile crime and delinquency. This assistance targets many audiences, including law enforcement representatives, social service workers, school staff and administrators, prosecutors, judges, corrections and probation personnel, and key community and agency leaders.
In FY 1997, a 3-year contract period was awarded to John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) for the Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance program. Since the program's inception in March 1997, John Jay has trained approximately 700 state, local, and tribal workshop participants and provided requested onsite technical assistance to 16 communities.
Fiscal Year 1998 funds will support the continuation of seven regional training workshops: the Chief Executive Officer Youth Violence Forum; Managing Juvenile Operations (MJO); Gang, Gun, and Drug Policy; School Administrators for Effective Operations Leading to Improved Children and Youth Services (SAFE Policy); Youth Oriented-Community Policing; Tribal Justice Training and Technical Assistance; and the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). A minimum of 10 of these regional trainings are planned in FY 1998, with onsite technical assistance provided upon request. Participants in the workshops will have access to followup technical assistance that will enable them to devise, implement, modify, and evaluate community partnerships and programs in their localities. Online, computer-assisted training will also be available on OJJDP's Web page, along with workshop information.
This project will be implemented by the current contractor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence
OJJDP will award continuation grants of up to $200,000 to each of four competitively selected communities that initially received funds in FY 1997 to help them increase the effectiveness of existing youth gun violence reduction strategies by enhancing and coordinating prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies and strengthening linkages between community residents, law enforcement, and the juvenile justice system. Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oakland, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Syracuse, New York were competitively selected to receive 3-year awards.
The goals of this initiative are to reduce juveniles' illegal access to guns and address the reasons they carry and use guns in violent exchanges. Each of the sites is required to address five objectives: (1) reduce illegal gun availability to juveniles; (2) reduce the incidence of juveniles' illegally carrying guns; (3) reduce juvenile gun-related crimes; (4) increase youth awareness of the personal and legal consequences of gun violence; and (5) increase participation of community residents and organizations in public safety efforts.
To accomplish the goals and objectives, each site will complete the development of a comprehensive plan and incorporate the following seven strategies in the target area:
(1) Positive opportunity strategies for young people, such as mentoring, job readiness, and afterschool programs.
(2) An educational strategy in which students learn how to resolve conflicts without violence, resist peer pressure to possess or carry guns, and distinguish between real violence and television violence.
(3) A public information strategy that uses radio, local television, and print outlets to broadly communicate to young people the dangers and consequences of gun violence and present information on positive youth activities taking place in the community.
(4) A law enforcement/community communication strategy that expands neighborhood communication; community policing, such as a program that notifies neighborhood residents when particular incidents or concerns have been addressed; and community supervision to educate at-risk and court-involved juveniles on the legal consequences of their involvement in gun violence.
(5) A grassroots community involvement and mobilization strategy that engages neighborhood residents, including youth, in improving the community.
(6) A suppression strategy that reduces juvenile access to illegal guns and illegal gun trafficking in communities by developing special gun units, using community allies to report illegal gun trade, targeting gang members and illegal gun possession cases for prosecution, and increasing sanctions.
(7) A juvenile justice system strategy that applies appropriate treatment interventions to respond to the needs of juvenile offenders who enter the system on gun-related charges. Interventions may include specialized gun courts, family counseling, victim impact awareness classes, drug treatment, probation, or intensive community supervision, including aftercare. The approach should focus on addressing the reasons juveniles had access to, carried, and used guns illegally.
A national evaluation is being conducted by COSMOS Corporation to document and understand the process of community mobilization, planning, and collaboration needed to develop a comprehensive, collaborative approach to reducing juvenile gun violence.
The Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence program will be carried out by the four current grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Technical Assistance and Training
Since 1995, OJJDP has provided funding to five communities to implement and test a comprehensive program model for gang prevention, intervention, and suppression, known as the Spergel model. In 1997, the sites were awarded continuation funding for the third year of a 3-year project period grant to continue program implementation. OJJDP is proposing to provide a fourth year of funding for this program.
To support the ongoing implementation and a potential fourth year of operations (being proposed elsewhere in this Program Plan), OJJDP proposes to provide funding to the University of Chicago for enhanced technical assistance and training services. This award would be made to the University's Gang Research, Evaluation, and Technical Assistance (GRETA) program, through the School of Social Service Administration. Technical assistance and training to be provided through this award may include technical assistance and training to law enforcement, probation, and parole on their role in the model; technical assistance to community and grassroots organizations on their role in the model; and technical assistance on team development, information sharing, information systems, and data collection and on issues of sustainability and organizational and systems change to better deal with the community's youth gang problem.
Other training and technical assistance services to be provided may include the development of relevant materials for onsite use, such as a manual on the model being implemented (in response to the national evaluation advisory board's recommendations), a manual on youth outreach, and a "lessons learned" publication or other materials, including audiovisual and electronic media. Training and technical assistance services provided under this project would be limited to OJJDP's comprehensive gang demonstration sites in Mesa and Tucson, Arizona, Riverside, California, Bloomington, Illinois, and San Antonio, Texas.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the University of Chicago. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Rural Youth Gang Problems--Adapting OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach
In 1996, OJJDP's National Youth Gang Center completed its first annual nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies regarding gang problems experienced in their jurisdictions. This survey represents the largest number of small law enforcement agencies in rural counties ever surveyed. Among the findings of this survey is that half of the 2,007 gang survey respondents reporting youth gang problems in 1995 serve populations under 25,000, confirming that youth gangs are not just a problem for large cities and metropolitan counties. Youth gangs are emerging in new localities, especially smaller and rural communities. Many of the agencies in smaller and rural communities had no personnel assigned to deal with youth gangs or gang units.
OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression (Spergel Model) is currently being implemented and tested in multiple jurisdictions. The communities implementing the model are mainly suburban and urban in nature, with areas of dense population within the community.
In light of the rural gang problems exposed by the nationwide gang survey, OJJDP is considering funding a new initiative to assist rural communities in implementing the fully adaptable Comprehensive Approach in a way that is appropriate to rural community needs, through a comprehensive and systematic problem assessment and program design process. Upon completion of the problem assessment using law enforcement-based gang incident, census, and other data, communities would engage in a process of adapting and applying the Comprehensive Approach in a way that responds to the gang problems identified.
OJJDP is considering awarding funds to rural communities to implement a rural youth gang program and also awarding funds for related evaluation and technical assistance services.
Delinquency Prevention and Intervention
Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution
In FY 1995, OJJDP funded the Illinois Institute for Dispute Resolution (IIDR) to implement the Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution (YCCR) program under a competitively awarded 3-year cooperative agreement. The purpose of this program, which began in October 1995, is to integrate conflict resolution education (CRE) programming into all levels of education in the nation's schools, juvenile facilities, and youth-serving organizations.
During the first two years, IIDR provided training and technical assistance through a number of mechanisms. In year one, activities included participation in the development of a satellite teleconference on CRE, a presentation on the YCCR program at the National Institute for Dispute Resolution annual conference, and three regional training conferences for teams from schools, communities, and juvenile facilities. IIDR also completed the project's first major resource document, Conflict Resolution Education: A Guide to Implementing Programs in Schools, Youth-Serving Organizations, and Community and Juvenile Justice Settings. Second-year activities included followup training and intensive technical assistance including onsite work with the Washington, D.C. school system. In the second project year, with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, IIDR developed a pilot curriculum and conducted a series of 10 training sessions to assist arts program staff and administrators in infusing conflict resolution skills and principles into art programs for at-risk youth.
Activities planned for FY 1998 include three national training conferences, onsite technical assistance to SafeFutures, Weed and Seed, and other sites, increased followup support, and a survey of gang intervention programs to identify those that use conflict resolution techniques as part of their efforts.
Also, IIDR will expand the level of support that project staff provide to schools, communities, and youth-serving organizations, including training provided in partnership with national organizations such as Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the National Juvenile Detention Association. Efforts will also be undertaken to facilitate peer-to-peer mentoring among youth education and youth-serving organizations. Special emphasis will be placed on disseminating information about effective conflict resolution programs and implementation issues through print and electronic media. Project staff will also work with staff in state departments of education and offices of state attorneys general to promote replication of local conflict resolution programs and to partner with state agencies to establish training-of-trainers institutes or programs to build local capacity to implement successful CRE programs for youth.
OJJDP is exploring the possibility of a partnership with the U.S. Department of Education to expand this project. The project will be implemented by the current grantee, IIDR. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Communities In Schools--Federal Interagency Partnership
This program is a continuation of a national school dropout prevention model developed and implemented by Communities In Schools, Inc. (CIS). CIS, Inc. provides training and technical assistance to CIS programs in states and local communities, enabling them to adapt and implement the CIS model. The model brings social, employment, mental health, drug prevention, entrepreneurship, and other resources to high-risk youth and their families in the school setting. Where CIS state organizations are established, they assume primary responsibility for local program replication during the Federal Interagency Partnership.
The Federal Interagency Partnership program is based on the following strategies: (1) to enhance CIS, Inc. training and technical assistance capabilities; (2) to enhance the organization's capability to introduce selected initiatives to CIS youth at the local level; (3) to enhance the CIS, Inc. information dissemination network capability; and (4) to enhance the CIS, Inc. capability to network with federal agencies on behalf of state and local CIS programs.
In FY 1997, the CIS/Federal Interagency Partnership: (1) performed extensive research and compilation of conference materials and other resources outlining trends and activities related to family strengthening and parent participation initiatives; (2) produced a quarterly issue of Facts You Can Use; (3) formed a committee responsible for developing a description of the Family Service Center site strategy; (4) formulated a plan for providing training and technical assistance to SafeFutures sites; (5) advanced activities under the Youth Entrepreneurship Program by implementing the second phase of the minigrant process and by providing technical assistance; (6) developed a violence prevention resource directory and offered training on violence prevention; (7) provided program-level liaison and coordination to facilitate access by state and local CIS organizations to federal agency products; and (8) added new features to the CIS Web site to increase local and state program access to federal resources.
OJJDP proposes to continue funding this project in FY 1998 for activities including: (1) provide continuing training and technical assistance on family strengthening and parent participation initiatives for the primary benefit of CIS state and local programs; (2) develop a report on known family strengthening activities occurring within the CIS network of local programs, highlighting best practices; (3) make available to the CIS network resources and materials developed by other organizations that deal with family-focused issues; (4) offer multitrack trainings to SafeFutures sites and, as appropriate, provide technical assistance on the CIS process; and (5) produce and distribute the CIS Facts You Can Use technical bulletin quarterly.
The program would be implemented by the current grantee, Communities In Schools, Inc. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
The Congress of National Black Churches: National Anti-Drug Abuse/Violence Campaign
OJJDP proposes to award continuation funding to the Congress of National Black Churches (CNBC) for its national public awareness and mobilization strategy to address the problems of juvenile drug abuse, violence, and hate crime in targeted communities. The goal of the CNBC national strategy is to summon, focus, and coordinate the leadership of the black religious community, in cooperation with the Department of Justice and other federal agencies and organizations, to mobilize groups of community residents to combat juvenile drug abuse and drug-related violence.
The CNBC National Anti-Drug Abuse/Violence Campaign (NADVC) is a partner in the Education Development Center's (EDC) Juvenile Hate Crime Initiative. NADVC has used EDC's hate crime curriculum to focus on prevention through the networks and resources in the faith community to address the impact and roles of juveniles and youth in engaging in and preventing hate crimes. Two regional conferences were held during the past year in Columbia, South Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee. Approximately 80 participants, representing more than 20 burned churches from black and white congregations, attended.
In FY 1997, the program expanded through NADVC's Regional Hate Crime Prevention Initiative, the campaign's model for anti-drug/violence strategies, and NADVC's faith community network. NADVC has assisted in the development of programs in 87 sites, whose activities vary depending on their stage of development. The smallest of these alliances consists of six congregations and the largest has 134. The NADVC program involves approximately 2,220 clergy and affects 1.5 million youth and the adults who influence their lives. NADVC also provides technical support to four statewide religious coalitions.
NADVC's technical assistance, consultations, and training have helped sites to leverage more than $15 million in funds from corporations, foundations, and federal, state, and local government. CNBC receives frequent requests for its NADVC model for the development of prevention programs in the faith community. The model is easily tailored to the local community's assessment of its drug, delinquency, violence, and hate crime problems.
NADVC has contributed to many agency conferences, workshops, and advisory committees on the issues of violence, substance abuse prevention, policing, and high-risk youth services. The campaign has also produced a National Training and Site Development Guide and a video to assist sites in implementing the NADVC model.
NADVC would continue to expand to new sites in FY 1998, seek new partnerships, and enhance efforts to address hate crime and family violence intervention issues.
The program would be implemented by the current grantee, the Congress of National Black Churches. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development
The Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development program, also known as Early Alliance, is a large-scale prevention study involving hundreds of children and several elementary schools located in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods of Columbia, South Carolina. This program is funded through an interagency agreement with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). NIMH's grantee is the University of South Carolina. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute on Drug Abuse have also provided funding for the program.
This large-scale project is designed to promote coping-competence and reduce risk for conduct problems, aggression, substance use, delinquency and violence, and school failure beginning in early elementary school. The project also seeks to alter home and school climates to reduce risk for adverse outcomes and to promote positive youth development. Interventions include a classroom program, a schoolwide conflict management program, peer social skills training, and home-based family programming. The sample includes African American and Caucasian children attending schools located in lower income neighborhoods. There is a sample of high-risk children (showing early aggressive behavior at school entry), and a second sample consisting of lower risk children (residing in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods). The interventions begin in first grade, and children are being followed longitudinally throughout the five years of the project.
Funded initially in FY 1997 through a fund transfer to NIMH under an interagency agreement, this program will continue to receive support for an additional four years. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Assistance for Family Strengthening Programs
Prevention, early intervention, and effective crisis intervention are critical elements in a community's family support system. In many communities, one or more of these elements may be missing, or programs may not be coordinated. In addition, technical assistance and training are often not available to community organizations and agencies providing family strengthening services. In response to these needs, OJJDP awarded a 3-year competitive cooperative agreement in FY 1995 to the University of Utah's Department of Health Education (DHE) to provide training and technical assistance to communities interested in establishing or enhancing a continuum of family strengthening efforts.
In the first program year, the grantee completed initial drafts of a literature review and summaries of exemplary programs; conducted a national search for, rated, and selected family strengthening models; planned two regional training conferences to showcase the selected exemplary and promising family strengthening programs; convened the first conference for 250 attendees in Salt Lake City, Utah; and developed an application process for sites to receive followup training on specific program models.
In the second program year, DHE completed a second draft of the literature review and model program summaries; convened a second regional conference in Washington, D.C.; conducted program-specific workshops; produced user and training-of-trainers guides; and distributed videos of several family strengthening workshops.
In the third program year, DHE will coordinate technical assistance and training of agencies that are in the process of implementing the identified model programs. In addition, the grantee will establish a minigrant supplement program to provide stipends to a minimum of 10 sites to ensure program implementation. DHE will also update and publish its literature review and develop program-specific bulletins to be distributed by OJJDP and also made available on the OJJDP Web site. The grantee's technical assistance delivery system and the overall impact of the project will also be assessed.
This program will be implemented in FY 1998 by the current grantee, the University of Utah's DHE. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Hate Crime
In FY 1998, OJJDP would provide continuation funding to the Education Development Center (EDC) to expand their hate crime prevention efforts. EDC has produced and published a multipurpose curriculum, entitled Healing the Hate, for hate crime prevention in middle schools and other classroom settings. The curriculum has been disseminated to 20,000 law enforcement officials, juvenile justice professionals, and educators throughout the country.
Because of increased racial, ethnic, and religious tensions and hate crimes in various regions of the country, OJJDP expanded this grant to allow EDC to provide training and technical assistance to youth, educators, juvenile justice and law enforcement professionals, and representatives of local public/private community agencies and organizations and the faith community. The recipients of this training/technical assistance obtained the knowledge and skills necessary to establish prejudice reduction and violence prevention programs to decrease bias crimes by youth in their communities. During the past year, EDC conducted training/technical assistance at three sites in different regions of the country (Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and Miami, Florida). Dissemination of products was achieved through national educational, advocacy, and justice networks and at 15 other national conferences. In FY 1997, additional Hate Crimes project activities were funded through an interagency agreement with the U. S. Department of Education.
In FY 1998, EDC would provide expanded training/technical assistance to new sites and further disseminate the products through the education and juvenile justice networks. In addition, EDC would develop a plan for providing onsite, short-term technical assistance to practitioners who are experiencing specific hate crime problems, are interested in assessing the extent of these problems in their locales, or are developing, implementing, or modifying hate crime prevention strategies. EDC would also develop a plan to assist state juvenile justice agencies to formulate hate crime prevention components for their juvenile delinquency prevention plans.
Guides to the development of hate crime prevention strategies for selected audiences (juvenile justice agencies, schools, communities) and hate crime prevention articles and bulletins would be produced and disseminated. The grantee would research, analyze, and synthesize information on emerging issues such as the juvenile justice system's handling of hate crime offenders, alternative dispositions for youth who commit hate crimes, and approaches to prevention of gender-related hate crimes and those that target other specific populations, such as immigrants.
The project would be implemented, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, by the current grantee, Education Development Center. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and Families
The abuse of alcohol and other drugs (AOD)is inextricably linked with both personal and economic adversity and crime in society. Alcohol and drug abuse exact a devastating toll, especially on the most vulnerable--young children and adolescents. Recognizing that the U. S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are both servicing the same pool of children affected by parental substance use/abuse, the two Departments have initiated a joint program.
OJJDP will administer this training and technical assistance program, with FY 1997 funds transferred to OJJDP by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) through a cooperative agreement with the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). To achieve maximum effectiveness in aiding chemically involved families, child welfare professionals must be able to address entrenched family problems caused by alcohol and other drug abuse, while simultaneously delivering services that protect and promote the health and well-being of children. These professionals need information, resource materials, and training to increase their knowledge of the link between chemical dependency and a host of related conditions that negatively affect child and family well-being.
CWLA, a nonprofit organization, will carry out the required activities of this interagency agreement by assisting child welfare personnel to provide appropriate intervention services for AOD-impacted children and their caregivers. Through collaboration between the CWLA program, policy specialists in chemical dependency, child protective services, family support services, foster care, kinship care, and a cadre of other agencies, CWLA will produce a state-of-the-art comprehensive assessment tool and decisionmaking guidelines that frontline child welfare workers and supervisors can use in determining: (1) how alcohol and drugs are impacting child safety and family functioning, and (2) the most appropriate intervention options for each child victim.
CWLA will also conduct training for trainers to facilitate effective use of this guide by child welfare workers.
CWLA's assessment instrument and decisionmaking guidelines for chemically-involved children and families will direct the vital first steps for child welfare professionals toward achieving increased safety to AOD-involved children and families. This instrument will not only outline a strengths-based substance abuse assessment tool, but also suggest new approaches to engaging families and addressing their needs. The casework, placement, and permanency planning options outlined in the guidelines will advance participatory decisionmaking models that result in family strengthening. Case plans that emphasize flexible options, encourage parents as partners in decisionmaking, and involve extended family in caregiving, can promote the best interest of children and families.
Training and technical assistance to child welfare professionals supported by this agreement will help to develop innovative and effective approaches to meeting the needs of children in the child welfare system whose parents are AOD abusers. The activities funded by this agreement will focus on developing, expanding, or enhancing initiatives that raise public awareness and educate child welfare workers and policy makers on the most appropriate services for children of substance abusing parents to prevent these children and youth from becoming AOD abusers.
OJJDP funds would enable CWLA to produce a guidebook for senior officials that describes current practices, models of innovation, and the policy choices faced in linking child welfare service agencies and their substance abuse counterparts. Also under consideration is increasing the number of sites in which CWLA would conduct training-of-trainer sessions from the four sites and 100 workers approved under the cooperative agreement, to eight sites and 200 workers.
This jointly funded project would be implemented by CWLA. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Diffusion of State Risk- and Protective-Factor Focused Prevention
OJJDP is providing funds to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), through an interagency agreement, to support this 5-year evaluation program. Fiscal Year 1997 funds were used to begin this diffusion study of the natural history of the adoption, implementation, and effects of the public health approach to prevention, focusing on risk and protective factors for substance abuse at the state and community levels. The study seeks to identify phases and factors that influence the adoption of the public health approach and assess the association between the use of this approach for community prevention planning and the levels of risk and protective factors and substance abuse among adolescents.
The study will also examine state substance abuse data gathered from 1988 through 2001 and use key informant interviews conducted in 1997, 1999, and 2001 to identify and describe the process of implementing the epidemiological risk- and protective-factor approach in seven collaborating states--Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Maine, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington, School of Social Work. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD
OJJDP would provide funds under an interagency agreement with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to fund this study. OJJDP's participation in this NIMH-sponsored research is designed to enhance and expand the project to include analysis of justice system contact on the part of the subjects. The study began in 1992, studying the long-term efficacy of stimulant medication and intensive behavioral and educational treatment for children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Originally funded for five years, this new round of funding would continue the six study sites for another five years, to 2003. Given this continuation, many of the children involved in the study will reach the age at which children normally begin antisocial behavior. To date, no extensive study has examined the relationship between delinquency and ADHD.
This expanded study, principally funded by NIMH, will follow the original study families and include a comparison group. With OJJDP support, the project sites are beginning to look at the subjects' delinquent behavior and legal system contact. This second funding cycle will include studies of substance use and antisocial behavior.
OJJDP would support this study through an interagency agreement with the National Institute of Mental Health. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of the Juvenile Mentoring Program
The overall goals of the Part G Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) are the reduction of delinquency, gang participation, violence, and substance abuse and related behavior and the enhancement of educational opportunity, academic achievement, investments in school, and contribution to one's community. Translating these impact goals to outcome goals, the evaluation grantee will assess and measure the relative probability that JUMP mentees will reflect reductions in delinquency, gang participation, and associated negative behaviors and show improvements in school attendance, school completion, and academic performance.
The evaluation objectives include assessing and measuring the extent to which the quality of the mentor-mentee relationship generates attitudes, values, and intermediary behavior that increase the probability of the positive outcomes cited as goals. A second objective includes assessing and measuring the attributes of mentor characteristics and behaviors that contribute most to the attainment of mentee results. Other objectives include ensuring that the evaluation instrument is optimally designed, worded, and configured; providing ongoing assistance to JUMP program grantees; implementing quality assurance for raw data received from JUMP grantees and assuring proper entry into the management information data base; preparing appropriate data analysis for each JUMP grantee; generating analyses of site-specific findings; and preparing an aggregate analysis of implementation results and outcome data from all sites, with special focus on attributable program effects and implications for replication.
This evaluation is being conducted by Information Technology International under a 2-year grant that was competitively awarded in FY 1997. The primary focus of the initial award is the original 41 JUMP program sites. OJJDP anticipates extending the project period in FY 1998 for an additional two years in order to expand the ongoing evaluation to the 52 JUMP grants awarded to new sites in FY 1997. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Truancy Reduction
Truancy often leads to dropping out of school, delinquency, and drug abuse. For many youth, truancy may be a first step to a lifetime of unemployment, crime, and incarceration.
OJJDP is considering engaging in a joint funding effort with the U.S. Department of Education to award competitive discretionary funds for jurisdictions to address the problem of truancy. OJJDP would be looking for school districts, under the leadership of their superintendents, to apply jointly with law enforcement or other juvenile justice system agencies to develop and implement a collaborative program designed to reduce truancy in their jurisdictions.
Arts and At-Risk Youth
The need for afterschool programs for youth at risk of delinquency is well known. The opportunity to join an afterschool arts program that helps students develop their talents and abilities has been shown to help youth stay in school, receive higher grades, develop self-esteem, and resist peer pressure to engage in negative behaviors, such as substance and alcohol use, and other delinquent acts. Unfortunately, juveniles who are at greatest risk of delinquency are the ones who often have the least opportunity to join such programs because they are not available in their schools, neighborhoods, or communities. These youth have limited experiences both in the world of work and in job training skills. In addition, lack of conflict resolution skills makes it difficult for youth to retain jobs once they are employed because they are not well-equipped to handle conflicts that may arise.
OJJDP is considering funding an afterschool and summer arts program that combines the arts with job training and conflict resolution skills. This project would include summer jobs or paid internships for youth, so that they would be able to put into practice the job and conflict resolution skills they are learning. By combining the arts with practical life experiences, at-risk youth are able to gain valuable insights into their own abilities and the possibilities that await them in the world of work if they continue to attend school, study, and graduate.
OJJDP intends to explore the possibility of collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Labor for this 2-year pilot project. OJJDP would award a competitive grant to develop a strategy based on research, provide technical assistance, implement an impact evaluation, and create reports on the strengths and weaknesses of the pilot program.
Community Volunteer Coordinator Program
OJJDP is considering funding the establishment of "volunteer coordinators" in a limited number of ongoing community-based initiative sites for the purpose of expanding the quality, sustainability, and number of safe and positive activities for young people during nonschool hours. Building on the work of the "Presidents' Summit for America's Future," OJJDP would seek partnerships with other federal agencies to provide grants to identified collaboratives that can demonstrate a clearly articulated plan for increasing volunteerism and representation from schools, law enforcement, city or county government, youth groups, and community-based organizations. The grants would support the hiring of an individual in the community who would be responsible for inventorying programs, planning, and recruiting, connecting, and training volunteers to participate in a range of programs that provide youth services (mentoring, tutoring, neighborhood restoration, counseling, recreational activities, mediation services, media outreach, and other forms of community service for youth).
Learning Disabilities Among Juveniles At-Risk of Delinquency or in the Juvenile Justice System
Some researchers have concluded that children who have difficulties in school often become frustrated because of constant failure. Studies have shown that youth who have a learning disability (LD) are very likely to become truant or drop out of school. However, the relationship between a LD and juvenile delinquency is complex.
A learning disability is a neurological condition that impedes the ability to store, process, or produce information. Learning disabilities can affect the ability to read, write, speak, or compute math and can impair socialization skills. Individuals with LDs are generally of average or above average intelligence, but the disability creates a gap between ability and performance.
School failure associated with learning disabilities is an important risk factor for juvenile delinquency. Whatever the presenting problem (e.g., abuse or neglect, truancy, or delinquency), a large percentage of children who come before the court have some specific learning disability that may have contributed, either directly or indirectly, to the behavior that led to their presence in court. A child with an LD is much more likely to come into contact with the juvenile justice system than one without an LD. The prevalence of LD in a population of juvenile delinquents is extremely high--approximately 35 percent of all children in the juvenile justice system have an identified LD.
To better address the needs of these youth, greater attention needs to be paid at a much younger age to the nature of learning disabilities, their impact on learning and the processing of information in and out of the classroom setting, and their relationship to dropping out and delinquency. Parents, schools, and the juvenile courts need to be more aware of this hidden handicap. These children could be helped if their disabilities were properly diagnosed and treated. Professionals who directly interact with the learning disabled need to share knowledge on how to identify and treat learning disabilities with juvenile justice system practitioners in order to reduce the number of system-involved juveniles who are learning disabled and to retain them in the education mainstream.
To address these critical issues, OJJDP is considering a joint initiative with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. This initiative would include a planning component to develop a systemwide protocol to link appropriate agencies and professionals in the fields of education, juvenile and family courts, law enforcement, social services, juvenile justice system, and other systems that interact with LD youth.
The goals of this initiative would be: (1) to prevent the development of delinquency through early intervention, appropriate education, and other community-based services for students with an LD; and (2) to prevent recidivism by assuring that students with an LD in the juvenile justice system receive appropriate, specially designed instructional and social development skills and services that address their individual needs, and that practitioners receive training on working with this population of offender.
Competitive grants would be awarded to support a planning and demonstration project that provides a systemwide protocol to address the issues surrounding learning disabilities and the link to delinquency both in schools and in the juvenile justice system that includes schools, education, juvenile and family courts, law enforcement, social services, juvenile justice system, and other directly or indirectly related fields. If this initiative is funded, OJJDP would also consider funding an evaluation of the demonstration project.
Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future
OJJDP proposes to continue its support of the National Crime Prevention Council's (NCPC's) ad campaign, "Investing in Youth for A Safer Future," through the transfer of funds to BJA under an intra-agency agreement. OJJDP and BJA are working with the NCPC Media Unit to produce, disseminate, and support effective public service advertising and related media that are designed to inform the public of effective solutions to juvenile crime and to motivate young people and adults to get involved and support these solutions. The featured solutions include effective prevention programs and intervention strategies.
The program would be administered by BJA through its existing grant to NCPC. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System
Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders
In FY 1995, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) and Developmental Research and Programs, Inc. (DRP) completed Phases I and II of a collaborative effort to support the development and implementation of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. This effort involved assessing existing and previously researched programs in order to identify effective and promising programs that can be used in implementing the Comprehensive Strategy. A series of reports were combined into the Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The effort also included convening the forum "Guaranteeing Safe Passage: A National Forum on Youth Violence," holding two regional training seminars for key leaders on implementing the Comprehensive Strategy, and disseminating the guide at national conferences.
In FY 1996, Phase II work included two regional training seminars; the delivery of intensive training and technical assistance to three pilot sites--Lee County, Florida; Duval County, Florida; and San Diego County, California; and the delivery of technical assistance to five states and selected local jurisdictions implementing the Comprehensive Strategy.
In FY 1997, the project continued its targeted dissemination of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders at several national conferences and additional regional training seminars and continued providing the five states with intensive training for implementing the Comprehensive Strategy, providing individualized technical assistance to individual jurisdictions interested in implementing the Comprehensive Strategy, and continuing developmental work on Comprehensive Strategy training materials.
In FY 1998, this project will continue the implementation efforts and expand to up to two additional states. In each of the new states, up to six jurisdictions will be identified to receive Comprehensive Strategy implementation training and technical assistance.
This project will be implemented by the current grantees, NCCD and DRP. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Balanced and Restorative Justice Project (BARJ)
Based on research showing that properly structured restitution programs can reduce recidivism, OJJDP has supported development and improvement of juvenile restitution programs since 1977. The BARJ project sprang from OJJDP's RESTTA (Restitution, Education, Specialized Training, and Technical Assistance) Project. In FY 1992, Florida Atlantic University (FAU) was awarded a competitive grant to enhance the development of restitution programs as part of systemwide juvenile justice improvement using balanced approach concepts and restorative justice principles. In subsequent years, the project developed a BARJ program model. The model was initially described in a 1994 OJJDP Program Summary entitled Balanced and Restorative Justice, which became a reference source for BARJ training.
The BARJ project currently provides intensive training, technical assistance, and guideline materials to three selected sites that over recent years have been implementing major systemic change in accordance with the BARJ model. The three sites are Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; Dakota County, Minnesota; and West Palm Beach County, Florida. In addition, the BARJ project has continuously offered technical assistance and training to other jurisdictions nationwide. Project staff have also provided training at regional roundtables and at professional conferences dealing with juvenile justice system improvement. In 1997, the project published another reference document entitled Balanced and Restorative Justice for Juveniles: A Framework for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century. The project also compiled a BARJ Implementation Guide.
In FY 1998, the BARJ project will produce additional reference and training materials and will offer further training and technical assistance.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, FAU. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Assistance Program To Promote Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders
The 1992 Amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act addressed, for the first time, the issue of gender-specific services. The Amendments require states participating in the JJDP Act's Part B State Formula Grants program to conduct an analysis of gender-specific services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency, including the types of services available, the need for such services, and a plan for providing needed gender-specific services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency.
In FY 1995, OJJDP's Gender-Specific Services program focused on providing training and technical assistance directly to states and promoting the establishment of gender-specific programs at the state level. Training and technical assistance were provided to a broad spectrum of policy makers and service providers regarding services available for juvenile female offenders under direct grants, sponsorship of national conferences, and inclusion of a gender-specific service component in the OJJDP-funded comprehensive SafeFutures program.
In FY 1996, building upon these past efforts, OJJDP awarded a 3-year competitive grant to Greene, Peters and Associates (GPA) to provide a comprehensive framework for assisting policy makers, service providers, educators, parents, and the general public in addressing the complex needs of female adolescents who are at risk for delinquent behavior. The project's objectives are to develop and test a training curriculum for policy makers, advocacy organizations, and community-based youth-serving organizations that conveys the need for effective gender-specific programming for juvenile females and the elements of such programs; to develop, test, and deliver a technical assistance package on the development of gender-specific programs; to inventory female-specific programs, identifying those program models designed to build upon the gender-specific needs of girls and preparing a monograph suitable for national dissemination; to design and test a curriculum for line staff delivering services to juvenile females; to design and implement a public education initiative on the need for gender-specific programming for girls; and to design and conduct training for trainers. In FY 1997, the training curriculum for policy makers, advocacy organizations, and community leaders was developed and pilot-tested at three sites, and a final draft of the monograph was completed.
In FY 1998, GPA will develop a needs assessment for State Advisory Groups, develop a technical assistance package, and develop and test a curriculum for practitioners based on the monograph findings.
This program will be implemented by the current grantee, GPA. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies
In FY 1995, OJJDP competitively awarded two extensive studies of the increasing juvenile transfer phenomenon. Most states have passed new legislation either permitting or requiring the transfer of alleged juvenile offenders to criminal court under certain circumstances. Solid research on the intended and unintended consequences of transfer of juveniles to criminal court will enable policy makers and legislatures to develop statutory provisions and policies and improve judicial and prosecutorial waiver and transfer decisions.
Preliminary findings from these two studies (along with other efforts started over the past two years) have provided a wealth of information. The study undertaken in Florida has extensively examined the records of juveniles transferred to adult court, along with similar juveniles who were not transferred, including case attribute information. Through this data collection, the research is bringing to light the differences in case handling and how these differences affect the outcome of the specific case. The differences in dispositions is a concern for many interested in the subject.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to increase the understanding of the transfer issue by expanding the Florida study to include a greater number of cases and to include some basic recidivism measures. The Florida study has relied mainly on paper records for the case information. Such records require considerable time and effort to review. As such, the number of cases included in the first phase of this study was relatively small. Expansion of this study would allow the researchers to examine a greater number of cases in a wider range of jurisdictions in Florida, resulting in a greater understanding of the issue based on how the dynamics of jurisdictions may differ. Also, by expanding the tracking of the case subjects to include arrests and court cases following transfer to adult court, the researchers would provide insight on the recidivism that follows transfer of jurisdiction.
This project would be carried out by the current grantee, the Juvenile Justice Advisory Board of the State of Florida. No new applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Replication and Extension of Fagan Transfer Study
The Comparative Impact of Juvenile Versus Criminal Court Sanctions on Recidivism Among Adolescent Felony Offenders: A Replication and Extension project will continue in FY 1998, building on the past work of Dr. Jeffrey Fagan. In FY 1997, OJJDP awarded a 2-year project period grant to Columbia University to build on Dr. Fagan's seminal study of 1986 transfers in New York and New Jersey. The earlier study was the first of its kind to compare four contiguous counties with similar social, economic, and criminogenic factors and offender cohorts with essentially identical offense profiles. It was also the first such study to go beyond comparing sentences to studying the deterrent effects of the sanction and court jurisdiction on recidivism rates in juvenile versus criminal court.
The replication and extension research project will be able to answer questions about how case processing decisions have changed in the last decade. The new study will compare case attribute information and case dispositional outcomes in 1981-82 with those cases processed in 1993-94, a time period following sustained growth in the rates of youth violence. In addition, a study component under the direction of Dr. Barry Feld will explore whether there are factors being considered by prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys that explain the variation in sentences/dispositions and recidivism between groups of offenders handled in different systems. This component will provide an analysis of the organizational, contextual, or systemic factors involved in the decision processes affecting both jurisdiction and punishment. The study will also conduct interviews with selected offenders processed in different systems to gain a perspective on the impact of criminal versus juvenile system handling of such cases on further experiences with the justice system. The project will also collaborate with the other research conducted under OJJDP's Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies program in sharing data collection instruments and in planning appropriate joint analyses.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Columbia University. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit
OJJDP has historically supported prosecutor training through the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA). This training has increased the involvement and leadership of elected and appointed prosecutors in juvenile justice systems issues, programs, and services. To continue that progress, OJJDP funded a 3-year project period grant in FY 1996 to the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), the research and technical assistance affiliate of NDAA, to promote prosecutor training. Under this award, APRI established a Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit (JJPU). The JJPU holds workshops on juvenile-related policy, leadership, and management for chief prosecutors and juvenile unit chiefs and also provides prosecutors with background information on juvenile justice issues, programs, training, and technical assistance.
The project solicits planning and other advisory input from prosecutors familiar with juvenile justice system and prosecutor needs. It draws on the expertise of working groups of elected or appointed prosecutors and juvenile unit chiefs to support project staff in providing technical assistance, juvenile justice-related research, program information, and training to practitioners nationwide. In FY 1997, for example, APRI held two executive seminars for prosecutors and sponsored a National Invitational Symposium on Juvenile Justice. The symposium provided a forum for prosecutors to exchange ideas on programs, issues, legislation, and practices in juvenile justice. APRI has also produced materials focused on juvenile prosecution-related issues for the benefit of prosecutors nationally.
In FY 1998, APRI will present additional workshops and seminars and will develop new reference materials for prosecutors. Documents expected to be developed include a compendium of juvenile justice programs conducted by prosecutors' offices, technical assistance packages related to significant juvenile justice programs and issues of interest to prosecutors, and newsletters updating developments in the juvenile prosecution field.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, APRI. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Due Process Advocacy Program Development
In FY 1993, OJJDP competitively funded the American Bar Association (ABA) to determine the status of juvenile defense services in the United States, develop a report, and then develop training and technical assistance. The ABA--along with its partners, the Youth Law Center of San Francisco, California, and the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--conducted an extensive survey of public defender offices, court-appointed systems, law school clinics, and the literature. These data were then analyzed and a report, entitled A Call for Justice, was developed and published in December 1995.
The ABA has also developed and delivered specialized training to juvenile defenders in several jurisdictions, such as the State of Maryland, the State of Tennessee, Baltimore County, Maryland, and several other states and localities, to assist in increasing the capacity of juvenile defenders to provide more effective defense services. In October 1997, the ABA and its partners organized and implemented the first Juvenile Defender Summit at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit brought together public defenders, court-appointed lawyers, law school clinic directors, juvenile offender services representatives, and others for a 2-1/2-day meeting to examine the issues related to juvenile defense services and recommend strategies for improving these services. A report is forthcoming on the Summit and the recommendations that emerged from the seven working groups.
OJJDP is proposing to fund a Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center in FY 1998 (discussed under New Programs). However, the Center will not be funded until later in FY 1998 and probably will not be operational until early FY 1999. To ensure that training and technical assistance continue in the interim and into 1999, and to provide for the transition to the new Juvenile Defender Center, OJJDP proposes to continue the Due Process Advocacy grant for an additional year.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the American Bar Association. No new applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) Evaluation
In FY 1997, OJJDP funded an impact evaluation of the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) through an interagency fund transfer to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). QOP was designed by the Ford Foundation and Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America as a career enrichment program using a model providing basic education, personal and cultural development, community service, and mentoring. The purpose of the OJJDP funding for the evaluation is to determine whether QOP reduces the likelihood that inner-city youth at educational risk will enter the criminal justice system, including the juvenile justice system. The QOP impact evaluation is designed to measure the impact of QOP participation on such outcomes as high school graduation and enrollment in postsecondary education and training. Other student outcomes to be examined include academic achievement in high school, misbehavior in school, self-esteem and sense of control over one's life, educational and career goals, and personal decisions such as teenage parenthood, substance abuse, and criminal activity. Data on criminal activity is being collected from individual student interviews.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue this evaluation enhancement to the DOL-funded evaluation to provide for the collection of analogous data from the juvenile justice system, thus allowing estimates of the impact of the QOP program on the likelihood of program youth becoming involved in the criminal justice system. Attention would be focused on identifying the appropriate governmental agencies responsible for the data, dealing with confidentiality requirements, determining the feasibility of collecting such information, preparing data collection protocols for each site, and preparing a report outlining the data collection design for implementation.
This program would be implemented through an interagency agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical Assistance Program
This initiative is designed to support implementation, training and technical assistance, and an independent evaluation of an intensive community-based aftercare model in four jurisdictions that were competitively selected to participate in this demonstration program. The overall goal of the intensive aftercare model is to identify and assist high-risk juvenile offenders to make a gradual transition from secure confinement back into the community. The Intensive Aftercare Program (IAP) model can be viewed as having three distinct, yet overlapping segments: (1) prerelease and preparatory planning activities during incarceration; (2) structured transitioning involving the participation of institutional and aftercare staffs both prior to and following community reentry; and (3) long-term reintegrative activities to ensure adequate service delivery and the required level of social control.
In FY 1995, the Johns Hopkins University received a competitively awarded 3-year grant to test its intensive community-based aftercare model in four demonstration sites: Denver (Metro area), Colorado; Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada; Camden and Newark, New Jersey; and Norfolk, Virginia.
The Johns Hopkins University has contracted with California State University at Sacramento to assist in the implementation process by providing training and technical assistance and by making OJJDP funds available through contracts to each of the four demonstration sites.
Each of the sites developed risk assessment instruments for use in selecting high-risk youth who need this type of intensive aftercare, hired and trained staff in the intensive aftercare model, identified existing and needed community support (intervention) services, and identified and collected data necessary for the independent evaluation of the intensive community-based aftercare program. In accordance with a strong experimental research design, each of the sites uses a system of random assignment of clients to the program.
The Johns Hopkins University and California State University at Sacramento have provided continuing training and technical assistance to administrators, managers, and line staff at the intensive community-based aftercare sites. Staff have been fully trained in the theoretical underpinnings of the IAP model and in its practical applications, such as techniques for identifying juveniles appropriate for the program. Training and technical assistance in this model have also been made available to other states and OJJDP grantees on a limited basis.
This effort is the first attempt to implement an intensive, integrated approach to aftercare with the necessary transition and reentry components. One more year of program operation and data collection would provide the information and data needed for analysis of the effectiveness of the IAP model. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency is performing an evaluation under a separate grant.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide a fourth year of funding to the Johns Hopkins University to provide ongoing training and technical assistance to the four selected sites and also provide aftercare technical assistance services to jurisdictions participating in the OJJDP/Department of the Interior Youth Environmental Service (YES) initiative, OJJDP's six SafeFutures program sites, and other programs, including the New York State Division for Youth's Youth Leadership Academy in Albany, New York. In addition, the grantee would work with three other states (Arkansas, New York, and Washington) that plan to implement the IAP model with state funds.
The IAP project would be implemented by the current grantee, the Johns Hopkins University. No
additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program
In FY 1995, OJJDP competitively awarded a 3-year grant to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) to perform a process evaluation and design an outcome evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical Assistance program. In FY 1997, the project was extended an additional year to begin the outcome evaluation.
The purpose of the outcome evaluation is to answer the following key research questions: (1) To what extent is the nature of supervision and services provided Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program (IAP) youth different from that given to "regular" parolees? (2) To what extent does IAP have an impact on the subsequent delinquent or criminal involvement of program participants? (3) To what extent does the IAP have an impact on the specific areas of youth functioning that it targets for intervention? These intermediate outcomes include, for example, reduction of substance abuse, improved family functioning, improved peer relationships, improved self-concept, and reduced delinquent or criminal behavior. (4) To what extent is IAP cost-effective?
To obtain the answers to these questions, NCCD is: (1) using a research design that will involve random assignment of IAP-eligible youth to either experimental or control conditions; (2) using a series of measures to compare differences between the two groups in terms of services delivered, pre/post changes in selected areas of youth functioning, and the extent and nature of recidivism; and (3) estimating the per-participant costs for the IAP and control groups.
Data collection is being accomplished using several methods, including use of a series of forms developed to capture data on youth and program characteristics and a battery of standardized testing instruments administered before and after institutional commitment and IAP to measure the changes in youth functioning. The grantee is also conducting searches of state agency and state police records to measure recidivism and analyzing state agency and juvenile court data to estimate costs.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCCD. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Assistance for National Innovations To Reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement (The Deborah Ann Wysinger Memorial Program)
National data and studies have shown that minority children are overrepresented in secure juvenile and criminal justice facilities across the country. Since the 1988 reauthorization of the JJDP Act, State Formula Grants program plans have addressed the disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles. This is accomplished by gathering and analyzing data to determine whether minority juveniles are disproportionately confined and, if so, designing strategies to address this issue. A competitive Special Emphasis discretionary grant program was developed in FY 1991 to demonstrate model approaches to addressing disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) in five state pilot sites (Arizona, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Oregon). Funds were also awarded to a national contractor to provide technical assistance to assist both the pilot sites and other states, evaluate their efforts, and share relevant information.
In FY 1994 and 1995, OJJDP made additional Special Emphasis discretionary funds available to nonpilot states that had completed data gathering and assessment in order to provide initial funding for innovative projects designed to address DMC.
These efforts to address DMC have yielded an important lesson: that systemic, broad-based interventions are necessary to address the issue. In recognition of the continued need to improve the ability of states and local jurisdictions to address DMC, OJJDP issued a competitive solicitation in FY 1997 for innovative proposals to implement a 3-year national training, technical assistance, and information dissemination initiative focused on the disproportionate confinement of minority youth.
In FY 1997, through a competitive selection process, OJJDP awarded a 3-year contract to implement the DMC training program to Cygnus Corporation, Inc. Project objectives for the first year were: (1) to disseminate to states, localities, OJJDP staff, and key OJJDP grantees a review and synthesis of the existing knowledge base and research on DMC that includes state and local practices designed to address DMC; (2) to develop a training curriculum for policy makers, decisionmakers, and practitioners in the juvenile justice system; (3) to develop and deliver technical assistance to OJJDP grantees and to incorporate DMC issues, practices, and policies; (4) to develop and begin the process of assisting DMC grantees to implement and institutionalize their DMC programs; (5) to collaborate with OJJDP's Formula Grants program technical assistance contractor, Community Research Associates, and OJJDP staff to help states improve their DMC compliance plans and their strategic planning as it addresses DMC; (6) to plan, develop, and implement a national dissemination and education effort to facilitate development of effective DMC efforts at the state and local levels; and (7) to convene an advisory group to support the project team on current DMC policy, practice and progress.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Cygnus Corporation, Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Juvenile Probation Survey Research
OJJDP will continue its effort to track nonresidential probation. This project complements OJJDP's program to statistically track juveniles in residential custody. Experience has shown that in order to understand fully the dynamics and characteristics of residential placement, it is necessary also to understand the dynamics of nonresidential sanctions. To that end, the office began a program to monitor the most important, most salient attributes of juvenile probation. Work to date has involved enhancing our understanding of the structure of juvenile probation and the most important response level. The project has tracked the types of juvenile probation offices in operation and cataloged these offices. From this catalog, OJJDP will develop an effective and complete frame for conducting either surveys or censuses.
In 1996, OJJDP convened a meeting of probation practitioners and researchers in the area of probation to fully discuss the issues of probation and the most important statistics a national reporting program should provide. The information and ideas from this meeting yielded a broad and important set of statistical needs to inform the future of juvenile probation. Among the issues identified are the effectiveness of probation, the costs of probation, and the most appropriate population for probation. Each issue will be explored in this project to determine how best to capture the information. The combination of statistical and research projects will be determined in conjunction with the development of this survey.
In FY 1997, the project focused on development of a complete list of juvenile probation offices, including suboffices and head offices. This information will prove vital when determining the specific response level that will give the desired level of information. For example, should OJJDP determine to gather information on each probation officer, a survey of head offices may suffice. However, if OJJDP proposes to collect information on each juvenile probationer, a survey all suboffices may be necessary. Also in FY 1997, OJJDP and the Bureau of the Census continued background work to develop the questionnaire to be used for this survey. The specifics of the questionnaire will depend upon the resolution of several important methodological aspects.
The project will be implemented in FY 1998 through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training for Juvenile Corrections and Detention Management Staff
This training program for juvenile corrections and detention management staff began in FY 1991 under a 3-year interagency agreement with the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). The program offers a core curriculum for juvenile corrections and detention administrators and midlevel management personnel in such areas as leadership development, management, training of trainers, legal issues, cultural diversity, the role of the victim in juvenile corrections, juvenile programming for specialized-need offenders, and managing the violent or disruptive offender. Because of the continuing need for the executive level training NIC provides, the agreement was renewed for an additional 3-year term in FY 1994 and renewed again in FY 1997 for a 2-year term. In FY 1997, NIC conducted eight training seminars, two workshops, a satellite video conference, and made 14 technical assistance awards, reaching more than 6,000 participants.
In FY 1998, OJJDP will continue to support the development and implementation of a comprehensive training program for juvenile corrections and detention management staff through the interagency agreement with NIC. It is anticipated that in FY 1998 the project will provide six seminars to more than 150 executives and management staff and technical assistance related to training to a number of juvenile corrections and detention agencies. The training is conducted at the NIC Academy and regionally.
The program will be implemented by the current grantee, NIC. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training for Line Staff in Juvenile Detention and Corrections
Training is a cost-effective tool for helping to improve conditions of confinement and services for youth detained or confined in residential facilities. In FY 1994, the National Juvenile Detention Association (NJDA) was awarded a competitive 3-year project period grant to establish a training program to meet the needs of the more than 38,000 line staff serving juvenile detention and corrections facilities. In FY 1995 and FY 1996, NJDA developed eight training curriculums, including a corrections careworker curriculum and a train-the-trainer curriculum. In addition, NJDA conducted 42 separate trainings, developed lesson plans, and provided technical assistance to juvenile justice agencies.
In FY 1997, NJDA was funded to provide training and technical assistance services to state agencies and organizations in 16 states, assist regional groups and local organizations, directly train nearly 700 line staff, and respond to telephone requests for technical assistance services. NJDA also established Web site connections with OJJDP, the American Correctional Association, and other organizations. A community college in Michigan is adapting two of the NJDA curriculums, Juvenile Detention Careworker Curriculum and Juvenile Corrections Careworker Curriculum, for academic credit.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to award continuation funding to NJDA. In formal partnership with the National Association of Juvenile Correctional Agencies, Juvenile Justice Trainers Association, and the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, NJDA proposes that FY 1998 goals include the continuing delivery of line staff training and technical assistance, conducting training evaluation in conjunction with the newly developed National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) protocols, providing pilot training for trainers, developing action plans for two new curriculums, drafting line staff professional development models, and disseminating training materials and services through NTTAC and the Internet.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, NJDA. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams to Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding
The Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facilities Research Report (1994), completed by Abt Associates under an OJJDP grant, identified overcrowding as the most urgent problem facing juvenile corrections and detention facilities. Overcrowding in juvenile facilities is a function of decisions and policies made at the state and local levels. The trend toward increased use of detention and commitment to state facilities, which has been seen in many jurisdictions, has been reversed when key decisionmakers, such as the chief judge, chief of police, director of the local detention facility, head of the state juvenile correctional agency, and others who affect the flow of juveniles through the system, agree to make decisions collaboratively and modify existing practices and policies. In some instances, modification has occurred in response to court orders. Compliance with court orders can be improved with the support of enhanced interagency communication and planning among those agencies impacting the flow of juveniles through the system.
In addressing the problem of overcrowded facilities, OJJDP considered the recommendations of the Conditions of Confinement study regarding overcrowding, the data on overrepresentation of minority youth in confinement, and other information that suggests crowding in juvenile facilities is a national problem. Policy makers can address this issue by increasing capacity, where necessary, or by taking other steps to control crowding.
This project, competitively awarded to the National Juvenile Detention Association (NJDA) (in partnership with the San Francisco Youth Law Center) in FY 1994 for a 3-year project period, provides training and technical assistance materials for use by state and local jurisdictional teams. After information collection and preparation of training and technical assistance materials in FY 1994 and 1995, NJDA selected three jurisdictions in FY 1996 for onsite development, implementation, and testing of procedures to reduce crowding. The sites are Camden, New Jersey; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Rhode Island Juvenile Corrections System. In FY 1997, project accomplishments included the following: (1) development of a resource guide, Juvenile Detention and Training School Crowding: Court Case Summaries, and a training tool, Crowding in Juvenile Detention Centers: A Problem-Solving Manual (in draft); (2) delivery of comprehensive technical assistance to two detention centers and limited technical assistance to two state juvenile corrections systems; and (3) training presentations to the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and other groups.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to award continuation funding to NJDA to continue efforts to reduce overcrowding in facilities where juveniles are held, through systemic change within local juvenile detention systems or statewide juvenile corrections systems. Among the specific activities proposed for FY 1998 are: (1) publication of a special edition of the NJDA Journal for Juvenile Justice and Detention focused exclusively on jurisdictional teamwork to reduce overcrowding in juvenile detention and corrections (jurisdictional teams consist of designated NJDA/Youth Law Center project staff working with key juvenile justice officials in the sites selected for technical assistance); (2) completion of a strategy to deliver comprehensive technical assistance to the Nebraska Health and Human Services Agency; (3) identification of additional sites for comprehensive training and technical assistance; (4) development of a desktop guide on juvenile facility overcrowding; (5) further refinement of the jurisdictional team training and technical assistance package; (6) development of a national videoconference on crowding issues; (7) education and information dissemination to the juvenile justice community; and (8) exploration of public/private partnerships.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, NJDA. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
National Program Directory
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to support the maintenance of this directory that identifies and categorizes juvenile justice agencies, facilities, and programs in the United States to allow for routine statistical data collections covering these agencies and programs. The directory project has developed lists of juvenile detention, correctional, and shelter facilities. This list, which includes all public and private facilities that can hold juveniles who are in the juvenile justice system in a residential setting (i.e., with sleeping, eating, and other necessary facilities), has served as the frame for OJJDP's Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and would serve as the frame for OJJDP's Juvenile Residential Facility Census. The directory project has also begun development of a list of juvenile probation offices to serve as the frame for OJJDP's Survey of Juvenile Probation.
Beyond developing the computer structure, this project developed the actual sampling frame or address list. The development of complete frames for any segment of the juvenile justice system required many different approaches. The Census Bureau used contacts with professional organizations to compile a preliminary list of juvenile facilities, courts, probation offices, and programs. The Census Bureau will seek contacts in each state for further clarification of the lists, following up until a complete list of all programs of interest has been compiled.
This program would be continued in FY 1998 through an interagency agreement with the Census Bureau. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Juvenile Sex Offender Typology
The juvenile justice system has struggled to address issues related to juvenile sex offenders' dangerousness, the most appropriate level of placement restrictiveness, the potential for rehabilitation, assessment requirements, and intervention needs. Efforts to effectively address these issues have been hampered by the lack of an empirically based system for classifying this heterogeneous population into meaningful subgroups. To respond to this need, OJJDP competitively awarded FY 1997 funding to two feasibility studies, one being conducted by the University of Illinois-Springfield, the other by Health Related Research. Each study is designed to determine the specific methodologies best suited to generate an empirically validated typology of the juvenile sex offender. The work on these grants will begin early in FY 1998. Based on the results of these initial studies, OJJDP will determine how best to support the development of the typology.
These studies will be implemented by the current grantees, University of Illinois-Springfield and Health Related Research. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice
In October 1996, OJJDP convened a Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Working Group to discuss the mental health needs of juveniles and to suggest funding priorities for OJJDP. In the 1997 program planning process, OJJDP determined that, with the minimal resources available, it would be cost-effective to support several ongoing programs funded by other federal agencies that were consistent with the recommended areas of activity. OJJDP therefore transferred funds to three federal agencies to support the enhancement of juvenile justice components or research on at-risk youth in the mental health area.
First, OJJDP transferred funds to the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to support a 3-year effort to provide technical assistance to the 31 existing CMHS Child Mental Health sites. The project period began on October 1, 1997, and will end on September 30, 2000. These funds will be used to strengthen the capacity of the existing sites by providing technical assistance on mental health services for juveniles in the juvenile justice system and by including them in the continuum of care that is being created in the sites.
OJJDP also transferred funds to the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), which, along with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, supports a program to provide technical assistance with regard to programming and services for juvenile offenders with co-occurring disorders. This is also a 3-year project period that began on October 1, 1997, and will end on September 30, 2000. NIC will supplement the existing technical assistance provider, the GAINS Center, to enable it to devote technical assistance resources to support improved treatment and services programs for juvenile offenders with co-occurring disorders in the juvenile justice system. Previously, the focus of the grant had been on the provision of technical assistance to the adult system.
Finally, OJJDP transferred funds to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to partially support additional costs associated with the conduct of an expanded and extended followup study of various treatment modalities for attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in children. The expanded followup will assess substance abuse and use and related factors necessary for evaluating changes in ADHD children's risk for subsequent substance use and abuse attributable to their randomly assigned treatment conditions. In addition, the multimodal treatment study of children with ADHD affords the opportunity to assess the experience of study participants with the legal system, e.g., contacts with the juvenile justice system, acts of delinquency, court referrals, and other criminal and/or precriminal activities.
In FY 1998, OJJDP will transfer additional funds to support continuation of the NIC and CMHS technical assistance and the training and research of NIMH. No new applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Juvenile Residential Facility Census
In 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue to fund the development and testing of a new census of juvenile residential facilities. This census would focus on those facilities that are authorized to hold juveniles based on contact with the juvenile justice system. During FY 1997, the project conducted an extensive series of interviews with facility administrators and facility staff onsite at 20 locations. The subjects covered in these interviews included education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, health services, conditions of custody, staffing, and facility capacity. From these interviews, the project staff have produced an extensive and detailed report for OJJDP discussing how best to capture information on these topics and has produced a draft questionnaire based on these results.
In FY 1998, the project staff would refine the draft instrument and test it through a series of cognitive interviews onsite at approximately 25 facilities. After another round of revision and comment, the questionnaire would be tested for feasibility by conducting a sample survey of 500 facilities. Again, the questionnaire would go through a round of revision based on the test results before being finalized.
This project would be conducted through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of the Census, Governments Division and Statistical Research Division. No new applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97
OJJDP proposes to support the second round of data collection under the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY97) through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In 1994, BLS began its design and development work for a new National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, similar to the ongoing National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Under the NLSY97, a nationally representative sample of 10,000 youth ages 12 to 17 years old was selected in order to study the school-to-work transition. However, BLS has acknowledged the importance of collecting additional data on the involvement of these youth in antisocial and other behavior that may affect their successful transition to productive work careers.
The breadth of topics covered by this survey provides a rich and complementary source of information about risk and protective factors that are also related to the initiation, persistence and desistance of delinquent and criminal behavior. This interagency agreement supplements the data collection by asking questions about delinquency, guns, drug sales, and violent behavior. In addition to generating the first national, cross sectional, estimates of self-reported delinquency since the late National Youth Survey of the early 1980s, this new longitudinal survey would also provide an opportunity to determine the generalizability of the findings from OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency and other city-specific longitudinal studies across a nationally representative population of youth.
The program would be implemented by the BLS under an interagency agreement. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
National Academy of Sciences Study of Juvenile Justice
The growth of violent juvenile crime from the latter half of the 1980s to the mid-1990s created public anxiety and fueled debate about the viability and effectiveness of this nation's juvenile justice system. This growing concern has led many states in recent years to move away from rehabilitation and move toward deterrence and punishment as primary objectives of their juvenile justice systems.
In FY 1997, OJJDP initiated support for a 2-year study by the National Academy of Sciences to examine research on the functioning of the juvenile justice system over the past 10 years in the areas of delinquency prevention and control. The purpose of this extensive review is to provide a scientifically sound basis for planning a multidisciplinary, multiagency agenda for research that not only informs policy makers and practitioners about the nature and extent of juvenile delinquency and violence but also identifies the most effective strategies for preventing and reducing youth crime and violence.
Issues of interest to the study include: (1) an assessment of the status of research into youth violence, methodological approaches to evaluate the effectiveness of youth violence prevention efforts, and the efficacy of federal, state, and local efforts to control youth violence; (2) a review of research literature and data on juvenile court practices during this period, including the experience with federal requirements regarding status offenders, detention practices, and the impact of diversion strategies and waivers to criminal court for certain offenders and offenses; (3) a review of research literature and data on clients in the juvenile justice system including concerns regarding disproportionate minority confinement and gender equity; (4) an assessment of available evaluation literature on system programs and prevention strategies and programs including identification of gaps in the research and recommendations to strengthen it; and (5) the relationship between the research on the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency and normal adolescent growth and development.
A project report, synthesizing materials gathered from discussions and papers presented at workshops and expert panel meetings, will provide an overview of the critical issues confronting the juvenile justice field, gaps in current knowledge base, and future directions for research and program development.
This program will be implemented by the current grantee, the National Academy of Sciences. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative
In FY 1998, OJJDP, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL's) Employment and Training Administration, will provide funding support to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America for demonstration and evaluation of the TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative. DOL will provide $2.5 million to support the program, and OJJDP would provide $250,000 to support the initial costs of the evaluation. This initiative will provide employment training and other related services to at-risk youth through local Boys and Girls Clubs with TeenSupreme Centers. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America currently has 41 TeenSupreme Centers in local clubs around the country and may consider expanding the number of centers in 1998. DOL funds will support program staffing in the existing 41 TeenSupreme Centers and provide intensive training and technical assistance to each site. These funds will also be used by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to provide administrative and staffing support to this program from the national office. OJJDP funds would be used to support the evaluation component of the program. Boys and Girls Clubs of America would contract with an independent evaluator to evaluate the program.
This jointly funded Department of Labor and OJJDP initiative would be implemented by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Technical Assistance to Native Americans
Native American programs for juveniles are facing increasing pressures because of the growing number of youth who are involved in drug abuse, gang activity, and delinquency. Many reservations are experiencing the problems that plague communities nationwide: gang activity, violent crime, use of weapons, and increasing drug and alcohol abuse.
From FY 1992 to FY 1995, OJJDP funded four Native American sites to support the development of community-based programs to deal with these problems. These sites were the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona; the Navajo Nation Chinle District in Arizona; the Red Lake Ojibwe in Minnesota; and the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico. Each of these communities implemented programs specifically designed to meet the needs of the tribe. For example, in Gila River, an alternative school was developed and implemented. The Navajo Nation expanded the Peace Maker program to accommodate additional delinquent offenders, an approach that was adopted by the Red Lake and Pueblo Jemez communities. Additional programming, such as job skills development, was also initiated in some of these communities to meet the needs of tribal youth. Although these programs were well received, the sites also needed to expand programming options such as gang and drug prevention and intervention programs.
In FY 1997, American Indian Development Associates (AIDA) was selected to implement OJJDP's national technical assistance program for tribes and urban tribal programs across the country. This 3-year program will support the development of additional program options for the four tribes previously funded and extend technical assistance to tribal communities and urban tribal programs nationwide. AIDA initially developed a needs assessment instrument and provided other technical assistance to Juvenile Detention Facilities in Indian Country under an agreement to support the OJP Corrections Program Office's project with the Gila River and Yankton Tribes. AIDA also facilitated team learning activities during the Arizona Indian Youth Gang Prevention Conference, coordinated the First Native American Juvenile Justice Summit, and provided technical assistance to Indian tribes on behalf of OJJDP, the DOJ Office of Tribal Justice, and the OJP Indian Desk.
In FY 1998, AIDA will continue to provide technical assistance to Native American and Alaskan Native communities. Technical assistance will enable the tribes to further develop alternatives to detention, specifically targeting juveniles who are first or nonviolent offenders; design guidebooks for the tribal peacemaking process to be used in addressing juvenile delinquency issues that are reported to Family District Court systems; design and implement juvenile justice needs assessments to assist tribes in responding to juvenile detention and alternatives to detention needs; develop protocols to implement State Children's Code provisions that affect Native American children; establish sustainable, comprehensive community-based planning processes that focus on the needs of tribal youth; plan and conduct juvenile justice training seminars; and assist John Jay College of Criminal Justice to design and develop a Tribal Justice Training and Technical Assistance Workshop under OJJDP's Law Enforcement Training Contract. The workshop will emphasize juvenile probation, serious habitual offenders, and tribal youth gangs.
This program will be implemented by the current grantee, American Indian Development Associates. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Training and Technical Assistance To Promote Teen Court Programs
OJJDP considers teen courts, also called peer or youth courts, to be a promising mechanism for holding juvenile offenders accountable for their actions while promoting avenues for positive youth development. Teen courts are included as a promising early intervention program in OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders.
To encourage the use of teen court programs to address problems associated with delinquency, substance abuse, and traffic safety, OJJDP provided funding in FY 1996 to supplement the existing Teen Court Program of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The NHTSA grant was awarded in FY 1994 for a 3-year project period to the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) to develop a teen court guide and provide training and technical assistance to develop or enhance teen court programs. This NHTSA grant was supplemented with OJJDP FY 1996 and FY 1997 funds to support the development of the joint publication Peer Justice and Youth Empowerment: An Implementation Guide for Teen Court Programs and to provide an expanded technical assistance capacity.
The national response to APPA's training and technical assistance and to the guide has been very enthusiastic. A second printing of the guide will be available by April 1998. NHTSA and OJJDP have received numerous requests to provide additional training seminars and technical assistance based on the guide.
In FY 1998, OJJDP is considering further collaboration with NHTSA, HHS, and other interested agencies, to enhance the training seminars with information on the possibility of teen courts being used as an integral part of balanced and restorative justice initiatives, and to help address the growing problem of children who are being suspended and expelled from school because of misbehavior, including misbehavior related to learning problems. These activities would complement current training on the use of teen courts to address youth possession and use of alcohol and marijuana, issues of particular interest to these agencies. Technical assistance would be provided to selected jurisdictions with site-specific strategic planning for the program organizers on developing, implementing, or enhancing teen court programs, particularly in school-related areas. To be eligible for technical assistance, recipients would need to have completed a teen court training seminar. OJJDP would award a competitive grant to implement a 3-year program.
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures Initiative
OJJDP is considering providing funding for long-term training and technical assistance (TTA) for the remaining three years of the SafeFutures initiative. The purpose of this TTA effort would be to build local capacity for implementing and sustaining effective continuum of care and systems change approaches to preventing and controlling juvenile violence and delinquency in the six SafeFutures communities.
Project activities would include assessment, identification, and coordination of the implementation of training and TA needs at each SafeFutures site and administration of cross-site training.
School Safety
Since 1984, OJJDP and the U.S. Department of Education have provided joint funding to a national organization to promote safe schools--free of crime and violence--through training and technical assistance and the dissemination of information. This initiative has focused national attention on cooperative solutions to problems that disrupt the educational process. Because an estimated 3 million incidents of crime occur in America's schools each year, it is clear that this problem continues to plague many schools, threatening students' safety and undermining the learning environment. OJJDP is considering continuing this partnership with the Department of Education by issuing a competitive solicitation for a cooperative agreement with a private nonprofit organization to provide training and technical assistance to communities and school districts across the country. It is expected that these activities would be closely coordinated with the ongoing review of literature, research, and evaluation of school-based demonstration efforts being undertaken by the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence with OJJDP FY 1998 funding support.
Disproportionate Minority Confinement
OJJDP is interested in exploring additional work in the area of disproportionate minority confinement in secure detention or correctional facilities, adult jails and lockups, and other secure institutional facilities. The proposed work would include a variety of activities, including --but not limited to--demonstration programs, national education efforts, and local program evaluations.
Disproportionate minority representation in secure juvenile facilities and other institutions is a major problem facing the juvenile justice system. While minorities represent 32 percent of the juvenile population ages 12 to 17, they represent 68 percent of the confined juvenile population.
OJJDP has previously funded programs designed to assist and enable states to identify strategies to address the overrepresentation of minority juveniles, including an evaluation of a county juvenile court's efforts to reduce minority overrepresentation. Similar efforts, particularly those that offer conceptual, indepth, capacity-building approaches, would help to ensure that minority juvenile offenders receive appropriate treatment at all stages of the juvenile justice system process. OJJDP would seek public/private partnerships and would coordinate any new program efforts with the current training/technical assistance provider, Cygnus Corporation (see the program descriptor for the Training and Technical Assistance for National Innovations To Reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement).
Arts Programs in Juvenile Detention Centers
OJJDP is considering providing support for mentoring and skill development for youth in juvenile detention centers through the establishment of artist-in-residence programs. This initiative would increase awareness of opportunities to establish visual, performing, media, and literacy artist-in-residence programs in juvenile detention centers.
OJJDP would encourage the development of these programs by convening interested arts organizations and juvenile justice agencies for the purpose of providing training in program development and exposure to "best practices" among existing programs.
OJJDP is also interested in the development and dissemination of technical assistance materials to support the establishment of artist-in-residence programs in juvenile detention facilities.
If OJJDP funds this initiative, it would explore the possibility of partnerships with other federal agencies and would issue a competitive solicitation in FY 1998.
"Circles of Care"--A Program To Develop Strategies To Serve Native American Youth With Mental Health and Substance Abuse Needs
The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is developing a Guidance for Federal Applicants that will result in the funding of a 3-year program to six to eight sites to plan and develop systems of care for Native American youth who are seriously emotionally disturbed and/or substance abusers. The grantees will engage in a structured process to plan, develop, and test a system of care that achieves the outcomes developed by American Indian, Alaskan Native, or urban nonprofit organizations serving populations of American Indian or Alaskan Native youth.
OJJDP is considering providing resources, including grant funds and technical assistance, where appropriate, to assure that American Indian/Alaskan Native youth who are in the juvenile justice system and who are seriously emotionally disturbed or substance abusers are planned for and made part of the service system. OJJDP would transfer funds to CMHS/SAMHSA to assist with the development and implementation of this program.
Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center
In FY 1993, OJJDP competitively funded the American Bar Association (ABA) to determine the status of juvenile defense services in the United States, develop a report, and provide training and technical assistance. The ABA--along with its partners, the Youth Law Center of San Francisco, California, and the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--conducted an extensive survey of public defender offices, court-appointed systems, law school clinics, and the literature. These data were then analyzed and a report, entitled A Call for Justice, was developed and published in December 1995.
The ABA has also developed and delivered specialized training to juvenile defenders in several jurisdictions, such as the State of Maryland, the State of Tennessee, Baltimore County, Maryland, and several other States and localities, to assist in increasing the capacity of juvenile defenders to provide more effective defense services. In October 1997, the ABA and its partners organized and implemented the first Juvenile Defender Summit at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit brought together public defenders, court-appointed lawyers, law school clinic directors, juvenile offender services representatives, and others for a 2½-day meeting to examine the issues related to juvenile defense services and recommend strategies for improving these services.
This work has served as a backdrop for an ABA recommendation to develop a more permanent structure to support training and technical assistance and to serve as a clearinghouse and resource center for juvenile defenders in this country. Recognizing that a lack of training, technical assistance, and resources for juvenile defenders weakens the juvenile justice system and results in a lack of due process for juvenile offenders, OJJDP is considering providing seed money in FY 1998 to fund the initial planning and implementation of a Juvenile Defender Center. In addition, OJJDP would, either directly or through a competitively selected grantee, seek partners in the public and private sector to help fund and sustain this effort. The Center would be designed to provide both general and specialized training and technical assistance to juvenile defenders in the United States. The design would also incorporate a resource center for purposes such as serving as a repository for the most recent litigation on key issues, a brief bank, and information on expert witnesses. OJJDP anticipates that, if funded, this program would be a 5-year effort.
Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders
In 1996, one in four juvenile arrests was of a female, and increases in arrests between 1992 and 1996 were greater for juvenile females than juvenile males in most offense categories. Yet programs to address the unique needs of female delinquents have been and remain inadequate in many jurisdictions. The risk factors that females face are not identical with those facing males. Major risk factors for girls include abuse and exploitation, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and parenting, low or damaged self-esteem, and truancy or dropping out of school. Communities and their juvenile justice systems need to develop programs designed to help female offenders overcome these risk factors.
OJJDP is considering funding programming in the area of gender-specific services for female offenders to continue supporting efforts modeled on the OJJDP-funded program in Cook County, Illinois, and gender-specific components of the SafeFutures program sites.
Cook County, for example, used an FY 1995 competitive grant to build a network of support for juvenile female offenders in the county. The county's work in this area involved developing a gender-specific needs and strengths assessment instrument and a risk assessment instrument for juvenile female offenders, providing training in implementing gender-appropriate programming, and designing a pilot program that includes a community-based continuum of care with a unique case management system.
OJJDP is considering supporting programs designed to build infrastructure for programming for female juvenile offenders and to move from development of basic tools through the provision of training and technical assistance to the support of a program demonstration including a focus on teen pregnancy issues. If funded, an evaluation of this demonstration program would also be undertaken through a competitive process in FY 1998. >
Evaluation Capacity Building
The question of "what works" pervades discussions of juvenile justice. To find answers, program administrators and agency personnel need to conduct rigorous evaluations of programs of interest. OJJDP has determined that a strong, cooperative arrangement between OJJDP and state agencies responsible for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programming can most effectively provide answers to this question. To that end, OJJDP is considering initiating a grant program to build the capacity of State Formula Grants program agencies to conduct rigorous evaluations of juvenile justice programs and projects funded in their states with JJDP Act funds. OJJDP would then take the lead in disseminating evaluation results and information to the field.
The intent of these awards would be to build capacity for developing and sustaining such evaluations and to supplement state funding to support the evaluation of programs and projects. OJJDP would award funds to qualifying states that agreed to enhance their existing evaluation capacity and that were able to demonstrate an evaluation program that effectively combines State Formula Grants program funds and OJJDP discretionary funds and that would produce solid evaluation results over a 2-year period.
Field-Initiated Research
OJJDP's efforts to address the problems of juvenile offending are enriched most through the thoughtful and dedicated efforts of researchers in the field. Through the work of agencies, individuals, and organizations, OJJDP has benefited from innovative thinking and new directions. To encourage such innovative research in juvenile offending and juvenile justice, OJJDP is considering offering grants in FY 1998 for research initiated by researchers in the field. Through this series of grants, OJJDP would expect to learn new alternatives and options for various problems facing the juvenile justice system.
OJJDP is particularly interested in research that addresses: (1) the mental health needs of youth in custody; (2) the mental health needs of youth at-risk for entering the juvenile justice system; (3) the development of risk and needs assessments for use in the juvenile justice system; (4) the reduction of substance abuse by juveniles; and (5) the circumstances and needs of youth on probation.
Field-Initiated Evaluation
OJJDP's evaluation efforts have traditionally focused on the evaluation of OJJDP-funded programs. However, to expand the base of knowledge of effective programs, OJJDP is considering funding evaluations of programs, including those not funded by OJJDP. With scarce dollars going generally for program delivery and administration, knowledge of what works best, and for whom, generally rests on anecdotal evidence. Rigorous scientific evaluations can provide more information about specific programs and alternatives that hold promise.
OJJDP is particularly interested in evaluations that examine Child Advocacy Centers, youth recreation programs, and gender-specific programming.
Analysis of Juvenile Justice Data
Funding for this new program is being considered as a means of providing for the analysis and interpretation of diverse sources of data and information on juvenile offending and the juvenile justice system, beyond that currently funded for the analysis of OJJDP data sets. This project would provide a source for identifying and reporting important information from nontraditional sources. The project would develop OJJDP's capacity to use and analyze data collections covering such related areas as health, education, and employment. It would provide a means for routinely publishing specialized reports that assimilate such data sources. It would also support the management and direction of OJJDP efforts through the contribution of analyses directed towards the Office's priorities and initiatives.
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders
In FY 1998, OJJDP is considering beginning a multiyear, multisite evaluation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The evaluation would first look at the lessons learned from the Comprehensive Strategy training and technical assistance process that was provided in three pilot communities--Fort Myers and Jacksonville, Florida, and San Diego, California. The evaluation would then look at the effect of the 2-year training and technical assistance process that is currently being provided in five states and 26 local jurisdictions and is about to commence in up to two additional states. The training and technical assistance process is designed to transfer the knowledge, skills, tools, and practices necessary to develop a comprehensive strategic plan in each community. The evaluation would document the effectiveness of the training and technical assistance process in a sample of communities. The evaluation would also look at the crime and delinquency outcomes and the level of services being provided in each of the jurisdictions that have successfully completed the training and technical assistance process and are implementing their comprehensive strategic plan. In the first year, the evaluation would also document baseline data in the states and local communities.
Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Training and Technical Assistance
In a 1994 survey, more than half of the respondents identified crime and violence as the most important problem facing this country, and violence was unanimously identified as the "biggest problem" facing the nation's public schools. Many communities are ready to take meaningful action to combat these problems, but are struggling in determining both "what works" and how to implement those effective strategies and programs. As a result, many jurisdictions are moving forward with insufficient knowledge on how to be successful in both of these areas of focus.
To address this issue, OJJDP proposes to award a cooperative agreement to the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) at the University of Colorado. CSPV has completed a study, begun in 1996, of 10 violence prevention programs that met a rigorous scientific standard of program effectiveness and replicability--programs that could be documented in "blueprints" that could be utilized for further replication. Under this grant, CSPV would provide technical assistance to community organizations and program providers to ensure quality implementation of blueprint model programs that have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing adolescent violence, crime, and substance abuse.
The specific goal of this project will be to assist in the replication of these blueprint programs by determining the feasibility of program development for each community or agency request for technical assistance in terms of a needs assessment and the capacity for the community/agency to implement the program with integrity, and providing training and technical assistance to communities/agencies that are ready to begin the implementation process. CSPV would both monitor and assist the program during its first year of operation.
This project would be implemented by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence because of its unique status as the developer of the Blueprints for Violence Prevention project and previous research in this specific area. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Teambuilding Project for Courts
OJJDP, in conjunction with the State Justice Institute (SJI), is interested in supporting projects to explore emerging issues that will affect juvenile courts as they enter the 21st century, and develop and test innovative approaches for managing juvenile courts, securing resources required to fully meet the responsibilities of the judicial branch, and institutionalizing long-range planning processes across the multiple disciplines in the juvenile justice system. This joint effort would test innovative programs and procedures for providing clear and open communications between the judiciary, other branches of government, and juvenile justice practitioners.
The primary goal would be to develop and implement a teambuilding project designed to facilitate better coordination and information sharing and foster innovative, efficient solutions to problems facing juvenile courts. Activities may include: (1) preparing and presenting educational programs to foster development of effective multidisciplinary teams; (2) delivering onsite technical assistance to develop a team or enhance an existing partnership; (3) providing information on teambuilding through a national resource center; and (4) preparing manuals, guides, and other written and visual products to assist in the development and operation of effective teams.
Competitive grants would be awarded to support demonstration projects. Funds would be transferred to SJI to administer the program through a cooperative agreement.
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts
Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and Neglect and Preventing Delinquency
Reports of child victimization, abuse, and neglect in the United States continue to be alarming. For example, in 1996 alone, an estimated 3.1 million children were reported to public welfare agencies for abuse or neglect. Nearly 1 million of those children were substantiated as victims. Usually, abuse is inflicted by someone the child knows, frequently a family member.
Numerous studies cite the connection between abuse or neglect of a child and later development of violent and delinquent behavior. Acknowledging this correlation and the need to both improve system response and foster strong, nurturing families, several OJP offices and bureaus joined in FY 1996 to develop a coordinated program response. The resulting initiative, a 5-½ year demonstration program designed to foster coordinated community responses to child abuse and neglect, was titled Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and Neglect and Preventing Delinquency. (An accompanying evaluation program, Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program, was also developed.)
The purpose of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program is to break the cycle of early childhood victimization and later juvenile or adult criminality and to reduce child and adolescent abuse and neglect and resulting child fatalities. It strives to do this by providing fiscal and technical support for efforts to restructure and strengthen state and local criminal and juvenile justice systems to be more comprehensive and proactive in helping children and adolescents and their families. The program also has as a goal to implement or strengthen coordinated management of abuse and neglect cases by improving the policy and practice of the criminal and juvenile justice systems and the child welfare, family services, and related systems. These goals require communities to develop, implement, and/or expand cross-agency strategies.
OJJDP, the administering agency for the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program, awarded competitive cooperative agreements in FY 1997 to five demonstration sites and to a national evaluator. Funds are provided by OJJDP, OVC, and VAWGO. Recipients of the awards are the National Children's Advocacy Center, Huntsville, Alabama; the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Heart of America United Way of Kansas City, Missouri; Toledo Hospital Children's Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio; and the Community Network for Children, Youth and Family Services of Chittenden County, Vermont. The national evaluator is Westat, Inc. of Rockville, Maryland.
Four of the five funded demonstration sites are in the process of developing implementation plans. The fifth is in the initial stages of implementing its plans to improve the coordination of prevention, intervention, and treatment services and to improve cross-agency coordination. The national evaluator has begun the process of assessing site needs and developing measurement variables. Each award has been made under a 5-½ year project period.
In FY 1998, Safe Kids/Safe Streets grantees will continue to implement their plans. Continuation awards will be made to each of the current demonstration sites. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
National Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program
To evaluate the Safe Kids/Safe Streets grant program, OJJDP competitively awarded a grant to Westat, Inc. in FY 1997. The purpose of the evaluation is to document and explain the process of community mobilization, planning, and collaboration that has taken place before and during the Safe Kids/Safe Streets awards; to inform program staff of performance levels on an ongoing basis; and to determine the effectiveness of the implemented programs in achieving the goals of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program. The initial 18-month grant will begin a process evaluation and determine the feasibility of an impact evaluation. If it is determined that an impact evaluation is feasible, additional funds may be awarded to implement such an evaluation in FY 1998.
The goals for Phase I of the Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program are: (1) to understand the process of implementation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program in order to strengthen and refine the program for future replication; (2) to identify factors that contribute to or impede the successful implementation of the program; (3) to help develop or improve the capability and utility of local data systems that track at-risk youth, including victims of child neglect or abuse; (4) to build an understanding of the general effectiveness of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program approach and its program components; and (5) to help develop the capacity of Safe Kids/Safe Streets sites to evaluate what works in their communities.
The objectives of this initial phase of the evaluation are to develop a detailed design, including data collection instruments, for a process evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program for implementation in collaboration with all sites; develop templates for capturing the data necessary for the national process evaluation and to make those templates available for implementation at the sites; and provide evaluation training and technical assistance for, and to collaborate with, grantees at each of the sites in implementing a process evaluation of the development and implementation of each Safe Kids/Safe Streets program site.
This evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, Westat, Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Secondary Analysis of Childhood Victimization
In FY 1997, OJJDP awarded a 2-year grant to the University at Albany, State University of New York, to support secondary analysis of data that were collected on 1,200 individuals as part of a National Institute of Justice research project that began in 1986. The data set includes extensive information on psychiatric, cognitive, intellectual, social, and behavioral functioning. It also contains information on documented and self-reported criminal and runaway behavior in a large sample of unsubstantiated cases of early childhood physical and sexual abuse and neglect and matched controls. The data base includes information from archival juvenile court and probation department records and law enforcement records and interview information on a range of topics, including psychiatric assessment, intelligence, and reading ability.
The initial set of secondary analyses, during the first year of the OJJDP award, focused on childhood victimization as a precursor to running away and subsequent delinquency. Initial research questions focused on whether running away puts a child at increased risk for becoming a violent offender and repeat violent offender as a juvenile, and whether abused and neglected children who run away are at greater risk than children who have not been abused.
In FY 1998, the research will look at several other outcomes such as out-of-home placements and drug use by children who run away. Gender differences will also be explored. This research will also explore the differential impact of childhood victimization by race/ethnicity.
This project is being conducted by Cathy Spatz Widom, principal researcher, under a grant to the University at Albany, State University of New York. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Evaluation of Nurse Home Visitation in Weed and Seed Sites
OJJDP will administer the evaluation program of Nurse Home Visitation programs in six Weed and Seed sites across the nation with FY 1997 funds transferred to OJJDP from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Six Weed and Seed sites, one of which is also a SafeFutures site, are providing nurse home visitation services. These sites have been designated for evaluation in order to determine the impact of the specific program model of nurse home visitation implemented within normal operating environments in communities. Nurse home visitation has been found to be effective in reducing welfare dependency, increasing employment, decreasing or delaying repeat childbearing, reducing the incidence of child maltreatment, and reducing crime and delinquency within the context of randomized clinical trials. OJJDP is considering supplementing this evaluation in FY 1998 to enhance data collection and analysis.
The project would be implemented by the University of Colorado Prevention Research Center. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.
Missing and Exploited Children's Program
OJJDP also administers the Missing and Exploited Children's (MEC) Program. Section 406 (a)(2) of the JJDP Act requires the OJJDP Administrator to publish for public comment a Proposed Program Plan for activities authorized by Title IV of the Act, the Missing Children's Assistance Act [42 U.S.C. 5771 et seq.]. Taking into consideration comments received on this Proposed Program Plan, the Administrator will develop and publish a Final Program Plan that describes the program activities OJJDP plans to fund during FY 1998 using Title IV funds.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue its concentration on programs that are national in scope, promote awareness, and enhance the nation's response to missing and exploited children and their families.
New Programs
New Title IV programs to be funded in FY 1998 are summarized below. The grant to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to implement the Title IV national resource and clearinghouse function is listed as a new program because the existing grant expires in FY 1998. A new award will be made to support these functions during FY 1998. The Training and Technical Assistance program also will be recompeted in FY 1998 and a new grant awarded. The Internet Crimes Against Children Regional Task Force Development program is a new program that will be competitively funded in FY 1998. Although funds for other new programs in FY 1998 are limited, OJJDP is interested in obtaining input from the field on program and service needs that will assist in planning both FY 1998 and future programming.
National Resource Center and Clearinghouse
For FY 1998, Congress provided $5 million to continue and expand the programs, services, and activities of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC is a national resource center and clearinghouse dedicated to missing and exploited children and their families. As provided in Title IV, the functions of the Center include, but are not limited to, the following:
Provide a toll-free hotline where citizens can report investigative leads and parents and other interested individuals can receive information concerning missing children.
Provide technical assistance to parents, law enforcement, and other agencies working on missing and exploited children issues.
Promote information sharing and provide technical assistance by networking with regional nonprofit organizations, state missing children clearinghouses, and law enforcement agencies.
Develop publications that contain practical, timely information.
Provide information regarding programs offering free or low-cost transportation services that assist in reuniting children with their families.
In FY 1998, in addition to performing the ongoing functions of the national resource center and clearinghouse, NCMEC will complete the development of a Web site that will enable state missing children clearinghouses and law enforcement agencies to post missing children posters on the Internet. In response to research documenting that adolescent females are at greater risk of sexual victimization, NCMEC will revise its Internet safety publication, Child Safety on the Information Highway, and will implement a new safety awareness program focusing on teens.
Congress has appropriated $1.9 million in FY 1998 to enable NCMEC to develop a national training and technical assistance program designed to enhance the national investigative response to Internet crimes against children. In partnership with OJJDP, NCMEC will initiate a broad program of activities in FY 1998 to combat crimes against children by criminals using computer technology or the Internet. Activities will include the installation of a NCMEC CYBER tipline to collect information regarding child pornography and other computer crimes against children. Once the tipline is implemented, citizens will be able to use the Internet to provide information about criminal Internet activity targeting children.
Additional project activities include an Internet crimes against children teleconference for law enforcement and a national law enforcement training program that will include regional investigative seminars in the field and policy development seminars at the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center (JRLETC). NCMEC and OJJDP are assembling a national technical advisory group composed of representatives from federal, state, and local law enforcement, prosecutors, and private industry to guide implementation of this initiative.
A 1-year cooperative agreement will be awarded to NCMEC in FY 1998 to continue national resource center and clearinghouse functions. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Missing and Exploited Children Training and Technical Assistance
OJJDP proposes to issue a solicitation to provide Title IV national training and technical assistance on missing and exploited children to law enforcement, prosecutors, health, and family services professionals. The purpose of this program is to ensure up-to-date, practical training and technical assistance for professionals working on missing and exploited children issues.
This program was competitively funded in FY 1995 for a 3-year period under a cooperative agreement awarded to Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) of Appleton, Wisconsin. In FY 1997, FVTC provided training to more than 4,100 law enforcement, prosecution, child welfare services, and medical professionals. FVTC also facilitated the development of several OJJDP publications including, When Your Child is Missing: A Family Survival Guide, scheduled for publication in spring 1998. Written by parents for parents, this publication will provide guidance for searching parents from parents whose children were abducted.
One cooperative agreement with a 3-year project period would be awarded in FY 1998 under a competitive program announcement.
Internet Crimes Against Children Regional Task Force Development
Congress appropriated $2.4 million in FY 1998 to develop and support regional law enforcement task forces to address the problem of Internet crimes against children. OJJDP proposes to issue a solicitation for awards to states or local units of government, or combinations thereof, to support implementation of regional task forces to investigate Internet crimes against children. The program would assist communities in developing comprehensive, multiagency responses that emphasize collaboration, information sharing, and victim assistance. Under this solicitation, 8 to 12 grants would be awarded to develop or expand regional multidisciplinary task forces.
Continuation Programs
Title IV continuation programs for FY 1998 are summarized below. Available funds, implementation sites, and other descriptive information are subject to change based on the plan review process, grantee performance, application quality, fund availability, and other factors. No additional applications will be solicited for these programs in FY 1998.
Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association's Safe Return Program
OJJDP is responsible for providing oversight of this program, for which Congress provided $900,000 in FY 1998 to facilitate the identification and safe return of memory-impaired individuals who are at risk of wandering from their homes.
In FY 1997, the Safe Return Program increased its registration data base to 30,000 individuals, assisted in the return of more than 1,700 missing persons, and continued the development of an image database of more than 25,500 photographs.
In FY 1998, the program will continue to expand the national registry of memory-impaired persons, maintain the toll-free telephone service, provide a Fax Alert System, conduct a train-the-trainers program for law enforcement and emergency personnel, develop information and educational materials, launch a national public awareness campaign, and network with other programs.
National Crime Information Center
OJJDP proposes to continue to transfer funds to DOJ's Justice Management Division through a reimbursable agreement to continue NCMEC's online access to the FBI National Crime Information Center's (NCIC) wanted and missing persons files. The ability to verify NCIC entries, communicate with law enforcement through the Interstate Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, and be notified of life-threatening cases through the NCIC flagging system is crucial to NCMEC's mission of providing advice and technical assistance to law enforcement.
NISMART II
The Temple University Institute for Survey Research received a 3-year grant in FY 1995 to conduct the second National Incidence Study of Missing, Exploited, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART II). This project builds on the strengths and addresses some of the weaknesses of NISMART I. Temple University has assembled a team of experts in the field of child victimization and survey research capabilities, particularly surveys involving children and families concerning sensitive topics. Temple also has contracted with the University of New Hampshire Survey Research Laboratory and Westat, Inc., to carry out specific components of the study and provide extensive background knowledge about the particulars of NISMART I. The NISMART II study will: (1) revise NISMART I definitions, (2) conduct a household survey that interviews both caretaker and child, (3) conduct a police records study, (4) conduct a juvenile facilities study, (5) analyze results from the National Incidence Study-3 Community Professionals Study, (6) develop a single estimate of missing children, and (7) conduct analyses and prepare reports. The project is scheduled for completion in FY 2000.
FY 1998 project activities will include completion of the Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview program, a pretest of the survey questionnaires, and collection of data. A Fact Sheet documenting the scope of the research, definition revisions, and methodology changes also will be published.
Effective Community-Based Approaches for Dealing With Missing and Exploited Children
In FY 1995, the American Bar Association (ABA) received an 18-month grant to study effective community-based approaches for dealing with missing and exploited children. The objectives of Phase I of this study were to: (1) conduct a national search for communities that have implemented a multiagency response to missing and exploited children and their families, (2) select five communities with working multiagency responses that hold promise for replication, (3) evaluate these five communities, and (4) prepare a final report. Phase I was completed in July 1997. In Phase II, which started in August 1997, the ABA is preparing a final report that synthesizes the research findings from Phase I into a modular training curriculum to help communities plan, implement, and evaluate a multiagency response to missing and exploited children and their families. The project will be completed in FY 1998. No further funding is anticipated.
Parent Resource Support Network
In FY 1997, OJJDP entered into a competitively awarded 3-year cooperative agreement with Public Administration Services (PAS) to develop and maintain a parent support network. The goal of this project is to develop a network of screened and trained parent volunteers who provide assistance and advice to other victim parents.
In FY 1998, PAS will install a case management system to document referrals and assistance activity, recruit parent mentors, develop and deliver a training curriculum for the volunteer parents, and begin direct service delivery to requesting parents. No additional funds will be required in FY 1998.
Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center Program
In FY 1997, OJJDP--in partnership with NCMEC, the FBI and FVTC--developed and implemented the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center. JRLETC offers two law enforcement training tracks that are designed to improve the national investigative response to missing children cases.
JRLETC's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) seminars approach missing children cases from a management perspective and offer information on coordination and communication issues, resource assessment, legal concerns, and policy development for police chiefs and sheriffs. The Responding to Missing and Exploited Children (REMAC) course offers modules on investigative techniques for all aspects of missing children cases.
Congress appropriated $1,185,000 in FY 1998 to continue operation of JRLETC. OJJDP, NCMEC, the FBI, and FVTC will continue to provide training and technical assistance through the JRLETC and will augment the training with a new onsite technical assistance program to respond to the numerous requests for assistance from JRLETC graduates. Teams composed of FBI, NCMEC, and law enforcement management experts will combined investigative approaches developed by the FBI Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit (CASKU) with proven law enforcement management practices to assist police chiefs and sheriffs in designing unique missing children investigative and response protocols for their communities.
Under the JRLETC appropriation, OJJDP plans to award $500,000 to FVTC to support regional REMAC courses, with the remaining $685,000 to be awarded to NCMEC to continue the CEO seminars.
FY 1998 funds also will supplement the cooperative agreements with NCMEC and FVTC to continue operation of the JRLETC. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.
Criminal Parental Kidnaping Training and Technical Assistance
In FY 1997, OJJDP supplemented an FY 1994 competitive award by awarding continuation funding to the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI) to provide parental abduction training and technical assistance for prosecutors and to develop of a training course pertaining to the prosecution of child exploitation cases.
In FY 1998, while continuing, updating, or expanding its technical assistance activities, APRI will offer an advanced dual track training course for prosecutors in the areas of child exploitation and parental kidnaping. The parental abduction track will concentrate on difficult case strategies, resource availability, preventive measures, and recovery techniques. The child exploitation track will discuss legal issues pertaining to computer search and seizures, juvenile prostitution, child pornography, and the emerging threat posed by criminals using Internet technology to victimize children. No additional funds are necessary in FY 1998.
National Center on Child Fatality Review
In FY 1997, OJJDP awarded a noncompetitive award to the National Center on Child Fatality Review (NCCFR) in Los Angeles, California to develop state and local uniform reporting definitions and generic child fatality review team protocols for consideration by communities working on enhancing their child death investigations.
NCCFR developed a model for integrating data among the Criminal Justice, Vital Statistics, and Social Services Child Abuse Indices. NCCFR also selected a National Advisory Board, which is composed of representatives from across the country from relevant disciplines.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue support to NCCFR to: (1) disseminate model protocols for integrating data to state and local child fatality review teams and other relevant agencies; (2) develop and maintain a Web site providing information resources; (3) maintain paper and electronic directories of state and local child fatality review teams, national associations, and federal agency contacts; (4) maintain a listing of contacts for professional specialists, such as head trauma, burns, neglect, and related organizations; (5) provide information and training materials on basic team management and special problems, such as confidentiality, risk assessment, and special case circumstances; (6) coordinate teleconferences and Internet meetings of the advisory board; (7) maintain and share published reports of state and local teams; (8) develop, coordinate, and implement multidisciplinary training; and (9) plan for a national conference.
Investigative Case Management for Missing Children Homicides
In FY 1993, OJJDP made a competitive award to the Washington State Attorney General's Office (WAGO) to analyze the solvability factors of missing children homicide investigations. During the course of that research, WAGO collected and analyzed the specific characteristics of more than 550 missing child homicide cases. These characteristics were recorded in WAGO's child homicide data base.
In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue to provide funding to WAGO to ensure the vitality and investigative relevance of its child homicide database. This funding would support both the gathering of new case information and the development of specific case studies that will be used to illustrate the research findings in training presentations. In addition, the database would be used by federal, state, and local law enforcement to identify cases with similar characteristics. Law enforcement data base inquiries can be made by calling WAGO at 1-800/345-2793.
FBI Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit
In FY 1997, OJJDP entered into a 3-year interagency agreement with CASKU to expand research to broaden law enforcement's understanding of homicidal pedophiles' selection and luring of victims, their planning activities, and their efforts to escape prosecution. This information will be used by the FBI and OJJDP in training and technical assistance programs. FY 1997 activities included the drafting of the research manager position description and preliminary survey development.
In FY 1998, OJJDP will continue funding to enable CASKU to complete the research manager employment process to include background screening, complete development of the survey protocol, identify specific individuals to include in the case studies, and begin data collection.