Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

I. Introduction
Juvenile justice systems in the United States have long
struggled with the inherent tension between their role in
meting out punishment for violations of law and their role
as an authoritative force for bringing about constructive
behavior change in the wayward youth who commit
those violations. Our view is that the overarching and
intertwined goals of juvenile justice should be ensuring
public safety—protecting the public from any additional
harm caused by juvenile offenders—and altering the life
trajectories of those juveniles to not only reduce further
criminal behavior but to improve their chances to prosper
as productive citizens. Attaining those goals requires the
capability to control behavior in the short term and the
means to induce self-sustaining behavior change that will
persist after youth are no longer under court supervision.
Juvenile justice systems have longstanding methods
for controlling behavior, such as community supervision
and custodial care, though these are not always used
as efficiently and effectively as possible. Effective
programming to reduce recidivism and produce other
positive outcomes, however, has been more problematic.
Juvenile justice systems make use of many treatment
programs, but, in most cases, the effectiveness of those
programs is difficult to determine and largely unknown.
An increasing body of research evidence addresses
this problem, but the findings of that research have not
been well integrated into most juvenile justice systems.
Translation of research into practice is always a challenge,
but it has been exacerbated in this instance by overly
narrow conceptions of how research should be used to
inform juvenile justice practice.
This paper introduces a framework for major juvenile
justice system reform—the integration of a forwardlooking
administrative model with evidence-based
programming. The administrative model is organized
around risk management and risk reduction aimed at
protecting the public by minimizing recidivism. Evidencebased
programming is organized around services that
moderate criminogenic risk factors and enhance adaptive
functioning for the treated offenders. Placements are
guided by a disposition matrix that supports individualized
disposition plans and is organized around the risk
levels and treatment needs of offenders as assessed by
empirically validated instruments. An array of effective
programs is supported that provides sufficient diversity
to allow matching with offenders’ needs. This array of
programs is integrated with a continuum of graduated
levels of supervision and control so that offenders can
be stepped up the ladder and placed in more highly
structured program environments if behavior worsens
and stepped down when there is improvement. Such a
system is consistently forward-looking in basing program
placements and supervision levels upon objective risk and
needs assessments and in constructing case management
plans focused on improving future behavior rather than
punishing past behavior.
Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice
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