A Review of the Status of DMC Efforts in Iowa and Virginia - April 2010

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of prior adjudications of guilt, number and nature of pending petitions, supervision status, and history of failure to appear or runaway/escape. These seven weighted items generate the total DAI score that is classified into one of three categories: release; placement in a detention alternative; or placement in secure detention. DJJ conducted a study of the DAI’s implementation in 2004 that examined data from 2003. During that time, the DAI was completed for just over a third of detention-eligible intakes. Of those completions, over half of the decisions were overridden, mostly to place youth in secure detention (Department of Juvenile Justice, 2004). A validation study of the DAI published in 2007 concluded that there were acceptable rates of: 1) reoffending within 30 days of the initial offense (6.5%); and 2) failure to appear (1.3%), when the decisions recommended by the instrument were followed (Reiner, Miller & Gangal, 2007). A recent study of the juvenile justice system by the Virginia State Crime Commission included a survey of juvenile court judges and Court Service Unit (CSU) directors (CSUs staff juvenile courts in Virginia). The survey found that 74% judges and 63% of CSU Directors rated the Detention Assessment Instrument as either “very” or “somewhat” effective in reducing DMC (Virginia State Crime Commission, 2008). 13 DJJ is currently working with Orbis Partners, Inc. to implement their Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI), which generates risk and assessment scores in 10 domains of functioning. The YASI will replace the Risk Assessment Form, an instrument used at intake to classify juveniles according to their relative risk of reoffending. To summarize, both Iowa and Virginia are actively pursuing the development and improvement of structured decision-making tools, both for detention decisions and service delivery. Neither state has produced an assessment of how their use of such instruments has affected DMC. 18
Training In June 2007, a two-day cultural competency training was held at The University of Iowa for teachers and other school personnel and staff of community-based agencies who work with youth in the area. The training was organized by the DMC Resource Center in collaboration with several other local agencies, including the local DMC Committee. Iowa’s three-year plan does not mention any other training in the area of cultural competency. Since 2002, the DMC Resource Center has sponsored a statewide DMC conference that has involved workshops, nationally-recognized experts, and breakout sessions on various topics. The Center’s Web site includes conference programs and some of the Powerpoint presentations for all eight DMC conferences. Virginia’s plan also does not mention statewide training in cultural competency. Since 2007, Virginia has held an annual one-day statewide DMC conference that has featured nationally-recognized experts in keynote and breakout sessions. The conference is cosponsored by DCJS and Virginia State University and coordinated and hosted by Virginia State University (VSU) in Petersburg, VA. No conference content, such as copies of agendas or presentations, is available on either the VSU or DCJS Web sites. Local-level Activities The Sixth Judicial District in Iowa, which includes Johnson and Linn counties, has carried out a number of DMC efforts in the past few years. Some of these efforts have been funded by the state and other efforts have included policy or practice changes developed and carried out by Juvenile Court Services (JCS) without any additional funding for development or implementation. These interventions, which include centralized intake, diversion of low risk offenders, and cultural competency training, are discussed in detail in our interim report. 19
Page 1 and 2: A Review of the Status of Dispropor
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Executive Summary
Page 5 and 6: provided a tremendous resource to t
Page 7 and 8: Detention Assessment Instrument (DA
Page 9 and 10: Evaluation Neither Iowa nor Virgini
Page 11 and 12: 5. OJJDP should undertake a compreh
Page 13 and 14: 3. States should document all local
Page 15 and 16: Background In 2007, the Justice Res
Page 17 and 18: applicability to the rest of the co
Page 19 and 20: The Virginia 2009 DMC update report
Page 21 and 22: The latter set of numbers, while on
Page 23 and 24: data, the DCJS site also contains l
Page 25 and 26: egression, for example) designed to
Page 27 and 28: We would point out that the Virgini
Page 29 and 30: example assumes a high RRI for Afri
Page 31: • Implementing a statewide risk a
Page 35 and 36: of color; diversifying the composit
Page 37 and 38: the data; establishing an instituti
Page 39 and 40: Evaluation The Manual provides two
Page 41 and 42: color in detention (Annie E. Casey
Page 43 and 44: Both JDAI and the Burns Institute s
Page 45 and 46: easonable standard of scientific va
Page 47 and 48: Before offering our conclusions and
Page 49 and 50: majority of minority youth, while i
Page 51 and 52: localities with more severe DMC pro
Page 53 and 54: 2. OJJDP should develop and pilot t
Page 55 and 56: In addition to posting the type of
Page 57 and 58: 3. OJJDP and the states should prov
Page 59 and 60: 19 The Bureau of Justice Assistance
Page 61 and 62: W. Haywood Burns Institute. 2009 An
Page 63 and 64: Linn County: Community Liaison Dive
Page 65 and 66: 1 0.8 RRI 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 2005 2006 2
Page 67 and 68: community liaison. The time series
Page 69 and 70: theft charge. We were only able to
Page 71 and 72: 50 n=61 Percent of Complaints 45 40
Page 73 and 74: there was a decrease in program-eli
Page 75 and 76: a JCO to complete the long version
Page 77 and 78: 1.4 1.2 1 RRI 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 200
Page 79 and 80: complaints from January 1 to June 3
Page 81 and 82: was little change in the percentage
Page 83:
actually receive it; 2) issues or i
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A Review of the Status of DMC Efforts in Iowa and Virginia - April 2010

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