Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

oth juvenile justice and child welfare emanated from
legislation in Washington State that limits funding to
evidence-based practices. The institute’s groundbreaking
series of cost-benefit studies identified evidence-based
public policy options for juvenile justice and demonstrated
how investments in these options could decrease
incarceration, save taxpayer dollars, and lower recidivism
rates. These studies changed the policy conversation in
Washington State from one focused on base funding levels
to one focused on funding cost-effective evidence-based
practice (Greenwood, 2010).
The proposed Federal Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction
through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support,
and Education) Act (H.R. 1064/S.435) is targeted to
communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime
challenges, enabling them to develop a comprehensive
response to youth violence through coordinated prevention
and intervention services. The act would mandate
OJJDP to develop standards for evaluation of juvenile
delinquency and criminal street gang prevention and
intervention approaches carried out under the PROMISE
Act. It would also create incentives for communities to
establish intervention plans that include a broad array of
evidence-based prevention and intervention programs.
In addition, the bill would establish a National Center for
Proven Practices Research. This center will collect and
disseminate information to professionals and the public on
current research and other evidence-based and promising
practices related to prevention and intervention for juvenile
delinquency and criminal street gang activity.
It is within the context of the renewed attention
to rehabilitation and the associated recent policy
developments that this paper is presented. In the following
sections, the effectiveness of the rehabilitative approach
will be further explored, as will the challenges of taking
effective programs to scale. Different approaches to
evidence-based practice will be discussed, including a
particular focus on the use of meta-analysis as a way to
identify best practices from the analysis of many individual
studies. The findings of the most comprehensive metaanalysis
done on juvenile justice services will be presented
and a method for using that knowledge to improve current
juvenile justice programs will be explored. This approach
to establishing evidence-based practice will then be placed
within the framework of OJJDP’s Comprehensive Strategy
for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, which
focuses on the use of structured decision-making tools,
such as risk and needs assessments, and a continuum
of graduated levels of supervision and control integrated
with effective behavior change programs. Coupling a
method to improve juvenile justice programs and services
with the Comprehensive Strategy approach provides a
holistic framework to ensure that a juvenile justice system
is operating in an effective and efficient way to improve
outcomes for the youth in its care.
10 Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice