ReEngineering Juvenile Justice

The e-Advocate
Quarterly Magazine
ReEngineering
Juvenile Justice
Proverbs 22:6 | Proverbs 13:20
Psalm 1
“Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities
Achieve Their Full Potential”
Vol. XIII, Issue LVII – Q-1 January| February| March 2027

The Advocacy Foundation, Inc.
Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities
Achieve Their Full Potential
Since its founding in 2003, The Advocacy Foundation has become recognized as an effective
provider of support to those who receive our services, having real impact within the communities
we serve. We are currently engaged in many community and faith-based collaborative
initiatives, having the overall objective of eradicating all forms of youth violence and correcting
injustices everywhere. In carrying-out these initiatives, we have adopted the evidence-based
strategic framework developed and implemented by the Office of Juvenile Justice &
Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
The stated objectives are:
1. Community Mobilization;
2. Social Intervention;
3. Provision of Opportunities;
4. Organizational Change and Development;
5. Suppression [of illegal activities].
Moreover, it is our most fundamental belief that in order to be effective, prevention and
intervention strategies must generally be Community Specific, Culturally Relevant, Evidence-
Based, and Collaborative. The Violence Prevention and Intervention programming we employ
in implementing this community-enhancing framework include the programs further described
throughout our publications, programs and special projects both domestically and internationally.
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Dedication
______
Every publication in our many series‘ is dedicated to everyone, absolutely everyone, who by
virtue of their calling, by Divine inspiration, direction and guidance, is on the battlefield dayafter-day
striving to follow God‘s will and purpose for their lives. And this is with particular
affinity for those Spiritual warriors who are being transformed into excellence through daily
academic, professional, familial, and other challenges.
We pray that you will bear in mind:
Matthew 19:26 (NIV)
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible,
but with God all things are possible." (Emphasis added)
To all of us who daily look past our circumstances, and naysayers, to what the Lord says we will
accomplish:
Blessings!
- The Advocacy Foundation, Inc.
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The Advocacy Foundation, Inc.
Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities
Achieve Their Full Potential
The e-Advocate Quarterly
ReEngineering Juvenile Justice
“Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities
Achieve Their Full Potential
1735 Market Street, Suite 3750 | 100 Edgewood Avenue, Suite 1690
Philadelphia, PA 19102 Atlanta, GA 30303
John C Johnson III
Founder & CEO
(878) 222-0100
Voice | Data | SMS
www.TheAdvocacyFoundation.org
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Biblical Authority
______
Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)
6
Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
______
Proverbs 13:20 (NIV)
20
Walk with the wise and become wise,
for a companion of fools suffers harm.
______
Psalm 1 (NIV)
1
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
4
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
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Table of Contents
The e-Advocate Quarterly
ReEngineering Juvenile Justice
I. Introduction
Biblical Authority
II.
III.
IV.
The Juvenile Justice Problem in America
The Cost to Taxpayers for Juvenile Confinement
The Return on Investment for Youth Programming
V. Risk Factors That Lead To Delinquency
VI.
Protective Factors That Guard Against Delinquency
VII. The Multidisciplinary Approach to Juvenile Justice
VIII. Restorative Justice
IX.
Youth Court
X. References
Attachments
A. The History of Juvenile Justice In America
B. A Juvenile Justice System for the 21st Century
C. The Cost of Juvenile Confinement
D. Cost-Benefit Analysis for Juvenile Justice Programming
Copyright © 2015 The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Introduction
Juvenile Delinquency refers to criminal acts
committed by children or teenagers,
specifically anyone below the age of
eighteen. Common sentiment on this issue is
that the crimes they commit hurt society and
hurt the children themselves. Much research
and debate revolves around the problem of
juvenile delinquency in the US. The research
is mainly focused on the causes of juvenile
delinquency and which strategies have
successfully diminished crime rates among
the youth population. Though the causes are
debated and controversial as well, much of
the debate revolves around the punishment
and rehabilitation of juveniles in a youth
detention center or elsewhere.
______
The American Juvenile Justice System is the primary system used to address and deal with
youth who are caught and convicted of crimes. The juvenile justice system intervenes in
delinquent behavior through police, court and correctional involvement, and is largely punitive.
Youth and their parents or guardians can face a variety of consequences including Probation,
Community Service, Youth Court, Youth Incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile
justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in
delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults,
however critics often point to research indicating that it is the certainty of a punishment that
results in deterrence, not the severity of it.
Pre-1900
History and Background
Juvenile delinquency punishments trace back to the Middle Ages when crimes were severely
punished by the Church. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, few legal differences existed
between children and adults. Children as young as six and seven years were considered
productive members of the family and their labor contributed to family income. In court, children
as young as seven were treated as adults and could receive the death penalty. Early debates
questioned whether there should be a separate legal system for punishing juveniles, or if
juveniles should be sentenced in the same manner as adults
With the changing demographic, social and economic context of the 19th century resulting
largely from industrialization, ―the social construction of childhood...as a period of dependency
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and exclusion from the adult world‖ was institutionalized. This century saw the opening of the
first programs targeting juvenile delinquency. Barry Krisberg and James F. Austin note that the
first ever institution dedicated to juvenile delinquency was the New York House of Refuge in
1825. Other programs, described by Finley, included: ―houses of refuge‖, which emphasized
moral rehabilitation; ―reform schools‖, which had widespread reputations for mistreatment of the
children living there; and ―child saving organizations‖, social charity agencies dedicated to
reforming poor and delinquent children. These ‗child-saving efforts‘ were early attempts at
differentiating between delinquents and abandoned youth.
Prior to this ideological shift, the application of parens patrea was restricted to protecting the
interests of children, deciding guardianship and commitment of the mentally ill. In the 1839
landmark case Ex parte Crouse, the court allowed use of parens patrea to detain young people for
non-criminal acts in the name of rehabilitation. Since these decisions were carried out ―in the
best interest of the child,‖ the due process protections afforded adult criminals were not extended
to juveniles.
Early 1900s
The nation's first juvenile court formed in Illinois in 1899 and provided a legal distinction
between juvenile abandonment and crime. Establishing a juvenile court helped reframe cultural
and legal interpretations of ―the best interests of the child.‖ ―The underlying assumption of the
original juvenile system, and one that continues to prevail, was that juveniles were generally
more amenable to rehabilitation than adult criminals. This new application of Parens Patrea
and the development of a separate juvenile court formed the foundation for the modern juvenile
justice system.
1960s-1980s
Debate about morality and effectiveness surrounded juvenile courts until the 1950s. The 1960s
through the 1980s saw a rise in attention to and speculation about juvenile delinquency, as well
as concern about the court system as a social issue. This era was characterized by distinctly harsh
punishments for youths. There was also a new focus on providing minors with due process and
legal counsel in court. Criticism in this era focused on racial discrimination, gender disparities,
and discrimination towards children with mental health problems or learning disabilities. While
still recommending harsher punishments for serious crimes, ―community-based programs,
diversion, and deinstitutionalization became the banners of juvenile justice policy in the 1970‘s‖.
However, these alternative approaches were short lived. The rising crime rates of the 1960s and
media misrepresentation of this crime throughout the 1970s and 80s, paved the way for Reagan‘s
War on Drugs and subsequent ―tough-on-crime‖ policies. Heightened fears of a ‗youth problem‘
―revealed white, middle- and upper-class anxieties about growing social unrest and the potential
volatility stemming from social and economic inequality‖. Public perception of juvenile deviance
was such that at the 1999 Juvenile Justice Hearings, Bill McCollum claimed ―simply and sadly
put: Today in America no population poses a larger threat to public safety than juvenile
offenders‖. In the late 1980s, the United States experienced a large increase in crime, and
juvenile crime was brought into public view (Juvenile delinquency in the United States).
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Americans feared a "juvenile super-predator", and this fear was met by the government with
harsher policies for juvenile crime.
1990s-Present-Day
In the 1990s, juvenile crime – especially violent crime – decreased, although policies remained
the same. Schools and politicians adopted zero tolerance policies with regard to crime, and
argued that rehabilitative approaches were less effective than strict punishment. The increased
ease in trying juveniles as adults became a defining feature of ―tough-on-crime‖ policies in the
1990s.
As Loyola law professor Sacha Coupet argues,
―[o]ne way in which "get tough" advocates have
supported a merger between the adult criminal and
juvenile systems is by expanding the scope of
transfer provisions or waivers that bring children
under the jurisdiction of the adult criminal system‖.
Some states moved specific classes of crimes from
the juvenile court to adult criminal court while
others gave this power to judges or prosecutors on a
case-by-case basis. Still others require the courts to
treat offending youth like adults, but within the
juvenile system. In some states, adjudicated
offenders face mandatory sentences. By 1997, all
but three states had passed a combination of laws
that eased use of transfer provisions, provided
courts with expanded sentencing options and
removed the confidentiality tradition of the juvenile
court. Juvenile courts were transformed to more
easily allow for prosecution of juveniles adults at
the same time the adult system was re-defining
which acts constituted a ―serious crime.‖ The ―three strikes laws‖ that began in 1993
fundamentally altered the criminal offenses that resulted in detention, imprisonment and even a
life sentence, for both youth and adults. ―Three strikes laws‖ were not specific to juvenile
offenders, but they were enacted during a period when the lines between juvenile and adult court
were becoming increasingly blurred. The War on Drugs and ―tough-on-crime‖ policies like
Three Strikes resulted in an explosion in the number of incarcerated individuals.
Implementation of the Gun Free School Act (GFSA) in 1994 is one example of a "tough on
crime" policy that has contributed to increased numbers of young people being arrested and
detained. It was intended to prosecute young offenders for serious crimes like gun possession on
school property, but many states interpreted this law to include less dangerous weapons and drug
possession. Many schools even interpreted GFSA to include ―infractions that pose no safety
concern, such as ‗disobeying [school] rules, ‗insubordination,‘ and ‗disruption‖. These offenses
can now warrant suspension, expulsion and involvement with juvenile justice courts. Schools
have become the primary stage for juvenile arrest and the charges brought against them and
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punishments they face are increasing in severity. Today this is frequently referred to as the
School to prison pipeline.
Demographics
Demographic information for youth involved in the Juvenile Justice system is somewhat difficult
to collect, as most data is collected at state, county, and city levels. Although the office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention publishes national numbers that breakdown the
racial make-up of youth involved in the juvenile justice system, this data provides an incomplete
picture, as it excludes Hispanic youth in its demographic calculations.
A demographic breakdown of youth in the United States.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, in 2011 there were a total of 1,236,200 cases
handled by the juvenile courts. 891,100 cases dealt with
males, compared with 345,100 for females. The most
prominent age group represented in the courts is 13 to 15
years, which make up 552,000 of the total cases. 410,900 of
the cases involved Black adolescents, which represents about one-third of the total court cases.
The number of cases handled by the juvenile courts in the United States was 1,159,000 in 1985,
and increased steadily until 1998, reaching a high point of 1,872,700. After this point, the
number of cases steadily declined until 2011.
A demographic breakdown of youth involved
in juvenile court in the United States.
In the 1,236,200 cases settled in 2011, 60% of the juveniles
had a previous background of criminal history in their
families and 96% of the juveniles had substance abuse
problems, often related to parental/guardian substance
abuse. In 1999, juveniles accounted for 16% of all violent crime arrests, and 32% of all property
crime. They also accounted for 54% of all arson arrests, 42% of vandalism arrests, 31% of
larceny-theft arrests, and 33% of burglary arrests.
Racial Discrepancies
Since 1995, the rate of confinement has dropped by 41%, and the rate has decreased among all
major racial groups in the US. However, disparities by race remain apparent: in 2010, 225 youths
per 100,000 were in confinement. When separated by race, there were 605 African-Americans,
127 Non-Hispanic Whites, 229 Hispanics, 367 Native Americans, and 47 Asian/Pacific Islanders
in confinement per 100,000. African-Americans are close to five times more likely to be
confined than white youths, while Latino and Native Americans are two to three times more
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likely to be confined than white youths. Racial disparities in confinement are relatively constant
across states.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, females constitute 14%
of juveniles in residential placement in 2011. Of these females, 61% belong to racial minority
groups.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation provides additional information about the demographics of the
juvenile justice system.
Juveniles in Residential Placement
Residential placement refers to any facility in which an adolescent remains on-site 24 hours a
day. These facilities include detention centers, group homes, shelters, correctional facilities, or
reform schools. According to census data of Juveniles in residential placement and the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, the number of youths in juvenile detention centers in the United States has
declined in the past two decades. The number of adolescents incarcerated peaked in 1995, with
107,637 in confinement in a single day. In contrast, there were fewer than 62,000 adolescents in
residential placement in October 2011. Juvenile offenders are placed either in public facilities
operated by the State or local government, or private, for-profit facilities operated by separate
corporations and organizations. Private facilities are smaller than public facilities. Half of all
juvenile placement facilities in the US are privately operated, and these facilities hold nearly
one-third of juvenile offenders.
Since 1997, 44 states and the District of Columbia have experienced a decrease in incarceration
of adolescents. As of 2010, only 1 in 4 juveniles in confinement were incarcerated as a result of a
violent crime (homicide, robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault). Additionally, 40% of
juvenile delinquency cases and detentions are a result of offenses that are not considered threats
to public safety. These include underage possession of alcohol, truancy, drug possession, lowlevel
property offenses, and probation violations. The most common age of offenders was 17
years old, with 17,500 in placement in 2011. Juveniles aged 12 and under accounted for 1% of
all youth in placement.
Criticisms
The current debate on juvenile justice reform in the United States focuses on the root of racial
and economic discrepancies in the incarcerated youth population. The school to prison pipeline
has been described as one mechanism that targets young people in schools and funnels them into
the juvenile justice system. Zero tolerance policies in schools have increased the numbers of
young people facing detention. Low-income youth, youth of color and youth with learning and
cognitive disabilities are over-represented in the justice system and disproportionately targeted
by zero tolerance policies.
Much of the criticism about the American juvenile justice system revolves around its
effectiveness in rehabilitating juvenile delinquents. Research on juvenile incarceration and
prosecution indicates that criminal activity is influenced by positive and negative life transitions
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egarding the completion of education, entering the workforce, and marrying and beginning
families. According to certain developmental theories, adolescents who are involved in the court
system are more likely to experience disruption in their life transitions, leading them to engage in
delinquent behavior as adults.
Lois M. Davis et al. argue that adolescents are affected by a juvenile system that does not have
effective public policies. Currently the juvenile system has failed to ensure that all youth in the
system with learning disabilities or mental health issues, and from lower-class individuals and
racial minorities are provided with the benefits for a productive life once out of the system. In
2013 30% of youth in system have a learning disability and nearly 50% test below grade level.
They argue that the juvenile justice system should be restructured to more effectively lower the
chances of future crime among youth, and advocate for increased educational programs for
incarcerated youth as the most important method to reduce recidivism.
Proposed Reforms
Many scholars stress the importance of reforming the juvenile justice system to increase its
effectiveness and avoid discrimination. Finley argues for early intervention in juvenile
delinquency, and advocates for the development of programs that are more centered on
rehabilitation rather than punishment. James C. Howell et al. argue that zero tolerance policies
overwhelm the juvenile justice system with low risk offenders and should be eliminated. They
also argue that the most effective ways to reform the juvenile justice system would be to reduce
the overrepresentation of minorites and eliminate the transfer of juveniles to the criminal justice
system. Zimring and Tannenhaus also discuss the future of the juvenile justice system in the
United States. They argue that educational reentry programs should be developed and given high
importance alongside policies of dropout prevention. Reentry programs focus on providing care
and support to juveniles after being released from detention facilities, and encouraging family
support to help adolescents during this adjustment period. They also argue for the elimination of
juvenile sex offender registration requirements, and the reform of criminal record information for
juvenile offenders.
Some popular suggested reforms to juvenile detention programs include changing policies
regarding incarceration and funding. One recommendation from the Annie E. Casey Foundation
is restricting the offenses that are punishable by incarceration, so that only youth who present a
threat to public safety are confined. Other suggestions include investing in alternatives to
incarceration, changing economic incentives that favor incarceration, and establishing smaller,
more humane and treatment-oriented detention centers for the small number who are confined.
Positive Youth Development and the Juvenile Justice System
Positive Youth Development (PYD) encompasses the intentional efforts of other youth, adults,
communities, government agencies and schools to provide opportunities for youth to enhance
their interests, skills, and abilities.
The justice system offers specific services to youth facing significant mental health and
substance use challenges, but the majority of youth do not qualify for these targeted programs
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and interventions. Butts, et. al suggest that the integration of positive youth development into the
juvenile justice system would benefit youth charged with nonviolent, less serious offenses.
Widespread implementation of PYD approaches in the juvenile justice system faces many
challenges. Philosophically however, the PYD framework resembles the progressive era ideals
that informed the creation of the first juvenile court. As Butts, Mayer and Ruther describe, "The
concepts underlying PYD resemble those that led to the founding of the american juvenile justice
system more than a century ago. [...] Organizers of the first juvenile courts saw the solution to
delinquency in better schools, community organizations, public health measures, and family
supports. They believed an improved social environmental would encourage youth to embrace
pro-social norms."
Integration of PYD into the juvenile justice system is informed by Social learning theory and
Social control theory. Taken together, these theories suggest that ―youth are less attracted to
criminal behavior when they are involved with others, learning useful skills, being rewarded for
using those skills, enjoying strong relationships and forming attachments, and earning the respect
of their communities‖. This is in stark contrast to the theories of Deterrence and Retributive
justice espoused by the current justice system.
Youth Court
Youth Courts are programs in which youth sentence their peers for minor delinquent and status
offenses and other problem behaviors. The program philosophy is to hold youth responsible for
problem behavior, educate youth about the legal and judicial systems, and empower youth to be
active in solving problems in their community. Youth courts function to determine fair and
restorative sentences or dispositions for the youth respondent. Youth court programs can be
administered by juvenile courts, juvenile probation departments, law enforcement, private
nonprofit organizations, and schools. Youth court programs operate under four primary models:
Adult Judge, Youth Judge, Peer Jury, and Youth Tribunal Models. Under the adult judge
model, an adult volunteer serves as the judge while youth volunteers serve as prosecuting and
defense attorneys, jurors, clerks, and bailiffs. Under the youth judge model, youth volunteers fill
all roles, including judge. Under a peer jury model, youth jurors question the respondents and
make sentencing determinations. Under a youth tribunal model, youth serve as prosecuting and
defense attorneys, and present their cases to a panel of youth judges, who then make a sentencing
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determination. To date, there are no comprehensive national guidelines for youth courts, but
rather, courts operate under and are tailored to their local jurisdictions. To date, there are more
than 675 youth courts in the United States.
East Palo Alto, CA and Boston, MA have implemented youth courts. The East Palo Alto, CA
youth court is based on restorative justice principles. Eligible youth must must admit the facts of
the case, after which youth attorneys explain the facts of the case to a youth jury. In Boston, MA,
youth court is available to first time, low level offenders. It is based on a restorative justice
framework.
Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the
offenders, and the involved community, rather than punishing the offender. Victims and
offenders both take an active role in the process, with the latter being encouraged to take
responsibility for their actions. Doing so is an attempt by offenders to repair the harm they've
done and also provides help for the offender in order to prevent future offenses. Restorative
justice is based on a theory of justice that views crime to be an offense against an individual
and/or a community, versus the state. Programs that promote dialogue between victim and
offender demonstrate the highest rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability.
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The Juvenile Justice Problem
in America
There are many factors that cause juvenile
delinquency. Sometimes children want to test
their parents' limits, or society's limits. Some
people believe that imposing strict laws such as
curfews will cause a drop in juvenile
delinquency rates, but sometimes imposing
strict rules merely give the children more of an
incentive to break them. However, sometimes
juvenile crimes do in fact occur due to the exact
opposite reason, that is, a lack of rules and
supervision. One example of this is that children
many times commit crimes after school and
while their parents are at work or preoccupied.
Statistics that are mentioned below explain the peak hours of juvenile crime rates and
conceptualize this very cause. Additionally, mental illness and substance abuse are large
contributing factors. 15-20% of juveniles convicted of crimes have serious mental illnesses, and
the percentages increase to 30-90% of convicted juveniles when the scope of mental illnesses
considered widens. Also, many people believe that a child's environment and family are greatly
related to their juvenile delinquency record. For example, the dynamics of a family can affect a
child‘s well being and delinquency rate.
Crime rates vary due to the living situations of children; examples of this could be a child whose
parents are together, divorced, or a child with only one parents, particularly a teen mom. This is
largely due to the fact that living arrangements are directly related to increases and decreases of
poverty levels. Poverty level is another factor that is related to the chances a child has of
becoming a juvenile delinquent. Statistics on living arrangements, poverty level and other
influential factors can be found in a later section. Others believe that the environment and
external factors are not at play when it comes to crime; they suggest that criminals are faced with
rational choice decisions in which they chose to follow the irrational path. Finally, another cause
could be the relationships a child develops in school or outside of school. A positive or negative
friendship can have a great influence on the chances of children becoming delinquents. Peer
pressure is also at play. Relationships and friendships can lead to gangs, which are major
contributors of violent crimes among teens. These are just some of the causes of juvenile
delinquency.
Demographics
Recent Statistics
There are roughly 75 million juveniles in The United States as of 2013. That is, one in four
Americans have the potential of being labeled as juvenile delinquents (because they are
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considered juveniles). More specifically, in 2009 there were 74.5 million juveniles in the US,
which was 2 million more than in the year 2007 which was 72.5 million due to sexual child
abuse. The population of juveniles in the US is projected to increase until 2015, at least. In fact,
the Federal Interagency on Child and Family Statistics reported that the number of juveniles
might reach 101.6 million by 2050. If the juveniles delinquency rates were to increase with the
population, or even plateau, this would translate into thousands of more juvenile delinquents.
Also in 2009, the three different classifications of age groups among children, being 0-5, 6-11
and 12-17, were roughly equal. As reported in 2009 by the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, 57% percent of all juveniles are White, 10% Black, 1% American
Indian, 5% Asian, and 22% Hispanic. Poverty, which is also directly connected to a child's
chances of becoming a juvenile delinquent, varies by numerous factors. The poverty level of a
child can vary by race and living arrangement (and other factors which are not mentioned here).
For instance, in 2009, Black and Hispanic children were about three times more likely than
White children of being poor. Additionally, in 2010, 21% of all children were living in poverty.
13% of these poverty stricken children lived in a two parent household, 40% lived with one
single parent, 43% lived with just a mother figure, 22% lived with just a father figure, and 43%
of the poverty-stricken children lived with no parents at all. These statistics show that poverty
levels increase as the child lives with fewer parental figures. The demographic statistics
mentioned above pertain specifically to juveniles, which in turn, is closely related to juvenile
delinquency. Many of the demographics mentioned above change on state level; to look up statespecific
juvenile delinquency rates in general, or by race/poverty level/living arrangement, visit
the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention website.
Juvenile Delinquency Statistnd Delinquency Prevention, the juvenile violent crime rate index
dropped for the second consecutive year in 2010, and is now 5% lower that it was in 2006.
Additionally, the Children's Defense Fund communicates that boys are five times more likely
than girls to become juvenile delinquents (this statistic is further explained below). Also on the
Children Defense Fund website are statistics pertaining to Black and Latino boys and their
juvenile delinquency rates.
1 of Every 3 Black Boys Is At Risk Of Incarceration,
As Well As 1 of Every 6 Latino Boys.
Traveling back to the statistics provided by the OJJDP, their website also says that in 2008,
juveniles were the offenders in 908 cases of murder, which constitutes 9% of all murders
committed that year. Also related to homicides, in the 1980s 25% of the murders that involved
juvenile delinquents as the offenders also involved an adult offender. This percentage rose to
31% in the 90's, and averaged at 37% between 2000 and 2008. The time of day juvenile
delinquents commit their crimes is the times they are not in school. On average, juvenile crimes
begin occurring most frequently after the school is let out, peaking from 7 pm to 9pm (usually
night time), after dark. Violent juvenile crimes involving a firearm follow the same peak a little
later, from 8pm to 10pm. According to the OJJDP, the time of day that a crime occurs does not
differ greatly on a non-school day (for example, if the children have a day off school, the crimes
will not occur any earlier). This could be related to the fact that many of the days that children
are out of school are national holidays, so their parents or parent might be home from work and
supervising them. This is assuming that their parents are employed and that all children are in
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school and never skip school, which is in fact not true. For more statistics, please visit the OJJDP
website.
The Male Phenomenon
The male phenomenon refers to the fact that a large majority of juvenile delinquents are men, or
boys. In the United States, boys are five times more likely than girls to become juvenile
delinquents.
Moreover, there are many suggested explanations as to why it is that boys commit more crimes
than girls. One comes from theorists who believe men and boys are naturally more aggressive
than women and girls. Another theory communicates the idea that men and boys commit more
crimes because of societal pressures to be masculine and aggressive. A third theory suggests that
the manner in which boys are treated by their families calls for more criminal action. The crime
rates vary across boys of different races. They are mentioned in the 'juvenile delinquency
statistics' section above, as well as in the 'cradle to prison pipeline' section below, but to
review,African-American boys are more likely to become juvenile delinquents than White and
Latino boys. Latino boys are more likely to become juvenile delinquents than White boys are.
One clear way to explain this difference in crime rates among different races of boys is by
looking at their poverty rates.
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Changes in Statistics
Changes in these statistics can be attributed to many fluctuations. Negative changes in the
economy greatly affect all crime rates because people are more likely to find themselves in
pressing situation like unemployment. Changes in population affect juvenile delinquency rates as
well because changes in population translate into more or less juveniles. Shifts in population
could also mean more general societal shift, like a wave of immigration. An influx of new people
who are unfamiliar with the legal system could negative affect the juvenile crime rates. Other
social changes, such as educational or health reforms, could have a large impact on juvenile
crime rates if they create a larger population of at-risk children.
Cradle to Prison Pipeline
This term refers to the population of boys and girls who live in conditions that cause them to be
channeled into prison from birth. The pipeline suggests that there are factors such as a lack of
parental supervision, poverty, and a lack of education that makes these people helpless and
unable to change their situations. Though this idea might not be appealing to the those that
believe crime is solely the failure of a rational choice decision, this phenomenon has caught the
attention of many Americans. This pipeline, so to speak, disproportionately affects minority
children living in under-served community, such as Blacks and Latinos.
According to the Children's Defense Fund, 1 out of every 3 Black boys and 1 out of every 3
Hispanic boys are at risk of becoming delinquents in their lifetime, and therefore at risk of being
sucked into this pipeline in which prison is the only option at the end of the tunnel. Of course
some people that are affected by the pipeline commit crimes and are imprisoned when they are
older, say 20. However, if the delinquency cause by the pipeline were to occur before the age of
eighteen, the boy/girls would then become juvenile delinquents.
Keeping in mind the existence of the male phenomenon, one can safely say that the pipeline
affects more boys than girls. The Children's Defense Fund has created a campaign to try to halt
the spread of this phenomenon that is ruining the lives of so many poverty-stricken families and
minorities. The campaign is called the 'Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign' and was launched in
2008 in Washington DC, at Howard University. Howard University is a historically black
university.
The campaign argues that the US government spends more money on incarcerated people than
on each child in the public school system. Their vision is that if this budgeting were reversed, the
number of juvenile delinquents would greatly decrease. The ultimate goal of this campaign is to
increase support for preventive measures and resources that children need to stay on the right
path. Some of the programs this campaign includes increasing early childhood education and
guidance, as well as increasing health and mental health coverage and counseling. To date, many
states have responded to this campaign by forming coalitions and holding conventions in which
they formulate ideas and tactics to dismantle the pipeline.
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Juvenile Delinquency and the Law
Below is very valuable information on legal changes that have been made in regards to juvenile
delinquents and juvenile delinquency. For a more thorough and detailed outline of juvenile
delinquency law in the United States, please see this link.
The United States federal
government enacted legislation to
unify the handling of juvenile
delinquents, the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Act of 1974. The act
created the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention
(OJJDP) within the Justice
Department to administer grants for
juvenile crime-combating programs
(currently only about 900,000
dollars a year), gather national
statistics on juvenile crime, fund
research on youth crime and
administer four anticonfinement
mandates regarding juvenile
custody. Specifically, the act orders:
Deinstitutionalization:
Youths charged with "status"
offenses that would not be
crimes if committed by
adults, such as truancy,
running away and being
caught with alcohol or
tobacco, must be
"deinstitutionalized," which
in this case really means that, with certain exceptions (e.g., minor in possession of a
handgun), status offenders may not be detained by police or confined. Alleged problems
with this mandate are that it overrides state and local law, limits the discretion of law
enforcement officers and prevents the authorities' ability to reunify an offender with his
family.
Segregation: Arrested youths must be strictly segregated from adults in custody. Under
this "out of sight and sound" mandate, juveniles cannot be served food by anyone who
serves jailed adults nor can a juvenile walk down a corridor past a room where an adult is
being interrogated. This requirement forces local authorities to either free juveniles or
maintain expensive duplicate facilities and personnel. Small cities, towns and rural areas
are especially hard hit, drastically raising those taxpayers' criminal justice costs.
Supporters of the system point to lower sexual assault rates when adults and children are
separated.
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Jail and Lockup Removal: As a general rule, youths subject to the original jurisdiction of
juvenile courts cannot be held in jails and lockups in which adults may be detained. The
act provides for a six-hour exception for identification, processing, interrogation and
transfer to juvenile facilities, court or detention pending release to parents. The act also
provides an exception of 24 hours for rural areas only.
Over representation of minority youths: States must systematically try to reduce
confinement of minority youths to the proportion of those groups in the population.
One of the most notable causes of juvenile delinquency is fiat, i.e. the declaration that a juvenile
is delinquent by the juvenile court system without any trial, and upon finding only probable
cause. Many states have laws that presuppose the less harsh treatment of juvenile delinquents
than adult counterparts‘ treatment. In return, the juvenile surrenders certain constitutional rights,
such as a right to trial by jury, the right to cross-examine, and even the right to a speedy trial.
Notable writings by reformers such as Jerome G. Miller show that very few juvenile delinquents
actually broke any law. Most were simply rounded up by the police after some event that
possibly involved criminal action. They were brought before juvenile court judges who made
findings of delinquency, simply because the police action established probable cause.
In 1967, the United States Supreme Court decided the case In re Gault, that established the
protection of many, but not all, procedural rights of juveniles in court proceedings, such as the
right to counsel and right to refuse self-incrimination.
Preventing Juvenile Delinquency
An effective way of preventing juvenile delinquency and keeping at-risk children away from
crime is to tackle the problem before it happens. This entails looking at the causes of crime
among teens and making an effort to reduce or eliminate said causes. Some causes, though hard
to eliminate, seem plausible. An example of this is improving the environment at home, through
employment opportunities for the parents, educational opportunities for the children, and
counseling and rehabilitation services if need be. These changes would not only promote a more
positive environment at home, but would also work towards pulling at-risk families out of
poverty. A cause that is more difficult to eliminate is mental illness, because sometimes these
illnesses are present at birth. Still, counseling and rehabilitation might aid in reducing the
negative affects of these illness, such as irrational and violent behavior. One cause that seems
almost impossible to eliminate is the rational and irrational choice idea. As mentioned above,
some people believe that all crime comes down to a single situation in which an individual must
make a rational or irrational decision, to commit the crime, or to not. Those that believe that this
rational choice option is tied to the very immutable nature of the person would have a hard time
believing that there is any way to control the choices children make and eliminate the causes of
juvenile delinquency.
There are many foundations and organizations around the United States that have dedicated
themselves to the reduction and elimination of juvenile delinquency. Many of these
organizations spend their time and money controlling for the causes of juvenile delinquency
mentioned above. Below are a few agencies that work on preventing juvenile delinquency,
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though this list is not all encompassing by any means. Links for these foundations and
organizations can be found in the #External links section below.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: Forming part of the US
Department of Justice, this prevention agency is a governmental organization focuses on
all types of research, prevention programs, and rehabilitation programs for juveniles as
offenders and victims. Through collaboration, this organizations aims to improve juvenile
justice policies and practices and create safer communities and neighborhoods. The
OJJDP helps victims of kidnapping, as well as victims of sexual exploitation. Currently,
the OJJDP is working to prevent gang involvement/crime, girl's delinquency, and the
under-aged consumption of alcohol. This foundation is important because it guides reallife
policy changes that pertain to juvenile justice and juvenile delinquency.
The Innocence Project: The main goal of this organization is not to reduce juvenile
delinquency, but rather, to liberate juveniles that were falsely convicted of crimes.
Though this foundation is not primarily focused on reducing juvenile delinquency, it has
done a good job of freeing falsely convicted teens in the past.
Annie E Casie Foundation: The goal of this foundation is to provide a brighter and safer
future for children from under-served communities around the US. Its major initiatives
include: child welfare strategy group, civic sites, family economic success, juvenile
detention alternatives initiative (JDAI), KIDS COUNT, leadership development, and
making connections. The KIDS COUNT initiative collects annual data on the well being
of children all round the US and publishes state-specific reports as well as state
comparisons. The JDAI focuses on providing a bright and healthy future as adults for
children involved in the juvenile justice system.
National Gang Center: This a website that provides anyone on the web with information
about the gang problem in the US. It includes research done by the NGC and FAQ's.
There is also a list of resources on how to identify if your city has a gang problem and
how to combat this problem. This foundation helps the people within the struggling
communities be the ones to solve their own gang problems.
Best Friends Organization: This organization focuses on the overall well-being of
children in the US. It focuses on physical and emotional well-being and helps children
develop healthy relationships and useful skills. This organization is an example of an
organization that works towards preventing problems before they occur. Instead of
focusing on the elimination of current juvenile delinquency, this organization works on
creating healthy and happy children that will not resort to crime.
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The Cost to Taxpayers
for Juvenile Confinement
What Youth Incarceration Costs Taxpayers
US News & World Report
Circa December 9, 2014
A New Report Finds Jailing Young People Costs State And Local
Governments As Much As $21 Billion Annually.
When youths pay for crime by being incarcerated, taxpayers, too, bear some of the burden.
Locking up a juvenile costs states an average of $407.58 per person per day and $148,767 per
person per year when the most expensive option is used, according to a new report by the Justice
Policy Institute. As the country debates the cost-effectiveness of mass incarceration, the report
notes that jailing youths carries its own exorbitant price tag.
The Justice Policy Institute surveyed 46 states, looking at what governments spent on confining
young people.
Many states have implemented measures to decrease their youth incarceration rates, and overall,
the number of young people that were committed to confinement shrunk by 45 percent between
2001 and 2011. Hawaii recently enacted a justice reform bill it expects will cut the
state's confined youth population by half, while Georgia and Kentucky also retooled the way
their justice systems treat youths, with approaches expected to save taxpayers millions of dollars.
(Some states, like New York, saw per-youth incarceration costs rise as their populations declined
but resources were used less efficiently.)
Sending fewer young people to prison has not had the effect of raising youth crime; rather, the
youth crime rate also has dropped.
Aside from the direct costs of incarcerating juveniles – such as the funds required for operating
detention facilities – taxpayers pay in the long term as well in the form of lost future earnings,
lost tax revenue and other ripple effects that the Justice Policy Institute estimates costs state and
local governments nationwide somewhere between $8 billion and $21 billion annually.
Research varies as to whether incarcerating young people makes them more likely to commit
crimes in the future, but one study found that juvenile incarceration increases a person‘s chances
of going to jail again by 22 to 26 percent.
Furthermore, young people who go to prison are less likely to graduate high school, according to
a 2008 analysis, by as much as 26 percent.
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The difference in the median salary of a high school graduate versus a non-high school graduate
amounts to $630,000 over a person‘s lifetime, according to the U.S. Labor Department Statistics.
.
On Monday, the U.S. Justice and Education departments sent letters to state correctional
education officials reminding them of their responsibilities to educate all young people in
correctional facilities regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, religion or disability. A 2013
Rand Corp. study showed when prisoners participated in educational or vocational programs,
their probability of returning to prison decreased by 43 percent.
In addition to improving educational opportunities within juvenile prisons, the Justice Policy
Institute recommends states looks into policy reforms that would limit the number of youths in
correctional facilities in the first place.
Those efforts could include reconsidering mandatory sentencing policies and shifting funding
toward options that involve home or community-based supervision of convicted youths,
particularly as 62 percent of the young people in confinement in 2011 had committed nonviolent
offenses.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/09/what-youth-incarceration-costs-taxpayers
______
Youth Incarceration
Through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, the United States incarcerates
more of its youth than any other country in the world, a reflection of the larger trends in
incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were
incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone. Approximately 500,000 youth are brought to
detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. Around 40%
are incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act
The system that is currently operational in the United States was created under the 1974 Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act called for a "deinstitutionalization" of
juvenile delinquents. It required that states holding youth within adult prisons for status offenses
remove them within a span of two years (this timeframe was adjusted over time). The act also
provided program grants to states, based on their youth populations, and created the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Through reauthorization amendments, additional programs have been added to the original
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The following list highlights a few of these
additions:
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1977 - Programs were developed to assist children with learning disabilities who entered the
juvenile justice system.
1984 - A new missing and exploited children program was added.
1984 - Strong support was given to programs that strengthened families.
1988 - Studies on prison conditions within the Indian justice system.
1990 - The OJJDP began funding child abuse training programs to instruct judicial personnel and
prosecutors.
1992 - A juvenile boot camp program was designed to introduce delinquent youth to a lifestyle
of structure and discipline.
1992 - A community prevention grants program gave start-up money to communities for local
juvenile crime prevention plans.
Types of incarceration
Some inmates of juvenile system are or were "status offenders," children who committed acts
that are not crimes for adults, but can get juveniles in trouble with the law. Status offenses
include consensual sexual acts, truancy from school, smoking cigarettes, curfew violations,
drinking alcohol, running away from one's residence, chronic disobedience of parents and/or
guardians and/or other authority figures, waywardness, and ungovernability.
Trends as of 2000
Recently, forty seven states have made it easier to be tried as an adult, calling attention to the
growing trend away from the original model for treatment of juveniles in the justice system. A
recent study of pretrial services for youth tried as adults in 18 of the country‘s largest
jurisdictions found that the decision to try young offenders as adults was made much more often
by legislators and prosecutors (at a rate of 85%) than by judges, the people originally endowed
with the responsibility for such discretion.
The decreasing distinction between how youth and adults are tried in the criminal justice system
has caused many within the legal system, as well as other activists and organizers, to be critical
of the juvenile justice system.
The ―tough on crime‖ attitudes of these recent legislative events reflect the popularity of such a
stance in public opinion. This is true of the majority of criminal justice reform policies of the
past couple decades, including California‘s infamous Three Strikes Law.
Reforms in criminal justice reforms, and juvenile justice in particular, are often fought in the
court of public opinion. The popular news media have played a crucial role in promoting the
myth of a new generation of young ―super-predators‖ threatening the public. Despite
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documented decreases in youth
crime, particularly in violent
crime, indicating a 68% decline
in youth homicide in the 1990s,
overall media coverage of
youth crime is increasing.
Despite evidence to the
contrary, 62% of respondents
to a 1999 survey on youth
delinquency believed that
youth crime was up. Advocates
for juvenile justice reform
focus considerable attention on
amending public opinion and
adjusting the gap between what
threats people perceive and the
reality of youth offending.
Profiles of Youth in
Custody
A report by the federal Office
of Juvenile Justice and
Deliquency Prevention and
U.S. Department of Justice,
―Survey of Youth in
Residential Placement: Youth‘s
Needs and Services," used data from more than 7,000 youth in custody gathered during
interviews. The report's findings include: 70% of youth in custody reported that they had ―had
something very bad or terrifying‖ happen to them in their lives. 67% reported having seen
someone severely injured or killed; 26% of those surveyed said felt as if ―life was not worth
living," and 22% reported having tried to commit suicide at some point in their lives; 84% of the
youth surveyed said they had used marijuana, compared to a rate of 30% among their peers in the
general population; 30% reported having used crack or cocaine, compared with only 6% in the
general population. The report noted a significant gap between the profiles of boys and girls,
with girls often reporting more pronounced difficulties: 63% of girls reported having problems
with anger, whereas 47% of boys did; 49% of girls reported having hallucinatory experiences,
whereas only 16% of boys did; 37% of girls reported having suicidal thoughts and feelings,
whereas only 18% of boys did. Facilities that treat such youth also were shown to be inadequate
in some core areas, according to the Justice Department. Among youth who reported four or
more recent substance-related problems, only about 60% said they had been provided with
substance abuse counseling in their current facility. Many youth in custody reported having
attention problems and difficulties in school. Once in custody, only 45% report spending 6 hours
a day or more in school, meaning that their learning time is below that of the general population.
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Quantel Lotts
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization advocating for incarcerated youth,
Quantel Lotts is an inmate whose circumstances are emblematic of problems regarding youth
incarceration in the United States. Lotts is an inmate at the maximum security prison in
Charleston, Missouri, serving a life sentence for murder, committed during a fight with his
brother when Lotts was 14 years old. Lotts' sentence forbids parole; the 2010 United States
supreme court case Graham v. Florida prohibits life sentences to minors, except in cases
involving homicides.
Lotts was born October 24, 1985, in a poor suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. According to
testimony before the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Lotts' mother used
and sold crack cocaine from their house during his childhood. Lotts was taken from his home
when he was eight, smelling of urine, with rotting teeth, and with scars all over his body from
beatings. Lotts was also molested as a child. After living in a series of homes Lotts moved in
with his father in St. Francois County, which is rural and predominantly white.
Lotts witnessed his uncle shot to death in drug-related violence when he was 11 years old. While
Lotts states that his childhood was violent, retrospectively from prison he states it was often a
happy one.
In November 1999 Lotts killed his stepbrother Michael Barton during a fight involving first a
blowgun, then a bow, and finally a hunting knife, in St. Francois County, Missouri. Lotts states
that he has little memory of the event and did not intend to kill his brother. Lotts was convicted
of first degree murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, by
Missouri's St. Francois County Circuit Court in 2002. His mother states that race was a factor in
her son's trial, since he is black, and her stepson was white.
As of 2009, Lotts was one of 2,000 people serving life sentences without parole for crimes
committed while they were minors, and according to the Equal Justice Initiative, one of 73
serving such sentences for crimes committed while only 13 or 14 year old. Laws in the United
States began sentencing juveniles with far greater severity following an increase in juvenile
crime during the 1970s and 1980s.
Criticism of Juvenile Justice
Critics of the juvenile justice system, like those in the wider prison abolition movement, identify
three main markers of the system for critique and reform. They hold that the juvenile justice
system is unjust, ineffective, and counter-productive in terms of fulfilling the promise of the
prison system, namely the protection of the public from violent offenders.
Criticisms of Racism
Critics of the juvenile justice system believe that the system is unfairly stacked against minority
youth. Minority youth are disproportionately represented in incarcerated populations relative to
their representation in the general population. A recent report from the National Council on
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Crime and delinquency found that minority youth are treated more severely than white youth at
every point of contact with the system—from arrest, to detention, to adjudication, to
incarceration—even when charged with the same crime. In 1995, African American youths made
up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double those for Caucasian youths. The
trend towards adult adjudication has had implications for the racial make-up of the juvenile
prison population as well. Minority youth tried in adult courts are much more likely to be
sentenced to serve prison time than white youth offenders arrested for similar crimes.
Criticisms Based on Adverse Effects
Juvenile detention facilities are often overcrowded and understaffed. The most infamous
example of this trend is Cheltenham center in Maryland, which at one point crowded 100 boys
into cottages sanctioned for maximum capacity of 24, with only 3-4 adults supervising. Young
people in these environments are subject to brutal violence from their peers as well as staff, who
are often overworked, underpaid and under stress. The violence that incarcerated youth
experience—fights, stabbings, rapes—is well known to those who work in the criminal justice
system, and those who oppose it.
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Congregating delinquent youth has a negative impact on behavior—it actually serves to make
them more deviant and more of a threat to themselves and others. Social scientists call the
phenomenon ―peer delinquency training‖, and have found significantly higher levels of
substance abuse, school difficulties, delinquency, violence, and adjustment difficulties in
adulthood for offenders detained in congregated settings versus those that were offered treatment
in another setting.
Incarceration can aggravate mental illness. According to detention center administrators who
testified to United States Congress in a 2004 Special Investigation by the House of
Representatives, many incarcerated youths could have avoided incarceration had they received
mental health treatment. Detention centers do not promote normal cognitive and emotional
development. A recent report indicated that for up to one-third of incarcerated youth suffering
from depression, the onset of depression occurred after their transfer to a detention center. These
youth face a greater risk of self-injury and suicide. Researchers have found that incarcerated
youth engage in self-injurious behaviors at a rate two to four times higher than the general youth
population. Furthermore, prison administrative policy often intensifies the risk by responding to
suicidal threats in ways that endanger the detainees, such as putting them in solitary confinement.
Detained youth with special needs often fail to return to school upon release. Among those
young students receiving remedial education during their detention, roughly 43% do not return to
school. Among those that do re-enroll, between two-thirds to three-quarters drop out within a
year. Not only does this pose a serious threat to the ex-offender‘s well-being—high school dropouts
face high unemployment, poor health, shorter life spans, and low income—it also poses a
threat to public safety. According to the United States Department of Education, high school
drop-outs are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than High School Graduates.
Formally incarcerated youth face less success in the labor market. On average youth that have
spent any amount of time in a youth detention facility work 3–5 weeks less than the average
employee over the course of a year. Their interrupted education makes them less competitive,
and their experience of incarceration may change them into less stable employees. This lack of
success in the workplace is a threat to personal well-being as well as to communities whose
youth are incarcerated in large numbers, such as African Americans.
Criticisms Based on Effectiveness
Studies indicate that incarcerating young offenders is not the most effective way of curbing
delinquency and reducing crime. The relationship between detention of young offenders and the
rate of overall youth criminality is not evident. A study of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
arrest data for the 1990s reveals that the rise in detention was unrelated to crime rates. That is,
detention as a tactic of controlling young offenders has little to nothing to do with the rate of
crime or the ―threat‖ that youth pose to the public.
While there may be an individual need to incarcerate violent or high-risk youth, most of the
young people in prisons, jails and detention centers today—up to 70%—are serving time for
nonviolent offenses.
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Not all delinquent youth are incarcerated—in fact, as many as one-third of all Americans might
engage in delinquent behavior at some point in their youth. But those that are detained or
imprisoned are less likely to grow out of their delinquency than those that are not. Criminologists
recognize a natural process of desistance called ―aging out‖ of delinquency, through which a
person desists their delinquent behavior through maturation and experience. Detaining or
incarcerating youth can interrupt or slow down the aging out process, resulting in a longer period
of delinquency.
The harm done to the emotional, mental and social development of incarcerated youth, combined
with the separation from family and community and the congregation of offenders makes
previous incarceration the leading indicator for a repeat offence among young offenders. It is a
greater predictor even than weapon possession, gang membership and bad relationships with
parents. What these studies tell us is that, far from increasing the public safety and curbing youth
crime, detaining and incarcerating young offenders is actually leading to more criminality among
youth, and more serious crimes.
As the country grapples with the impact of a growing recession, a cost-benefit analysis of our
criminal justice system is especially germane. The cost effectiveness of detention and
incarceration scores very low compared with alternative approaches to youth delinquency in a
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cost-benefit analysis. A 2002 government commissioned study in Washington State revealed that
for every one dollar spent on juvenile detention systems, a benefit return of $1.98 in terms of
reduced crime and cost of crime to taxpayers was achieved. They found benefit returns ranging
from $3.36- $13 for a series of detention alternatives. This study indicates that alternative models
are more effective in reducing youth offending in practical and economic terms.
The Movement to End Youth Incarceration
The movement to reduce and end youth incarceration is a widespread collection of thousands of
activists, lawyers, community organizers, educators, artists, and youth working on specific
legislative and localized initiatives.
Movement goals include shutting down particularly bad prisons and detention centers,
demanding better treatment for youth in the system, providing and demanding better
representation for young people in court, affecting legislation to curb youth incarceration,
working to abolish arrest warrants for young people, and promoting alternatives to incarceration.
There are national organizations and local ones, opposition from inside the criminal justice
system and from outside of it. The movement is diverse in many ways, and is difficult to
encapsulate in a single entry. Listed below are some examples of movement struggles:
The Maryland Campaign to Close Cheltenham
The Cheltenham Juvenile Detention Center in Maryland was one of the nation's most infamous
prisons for boys. Started in 1872 as the House of Reformation for Colored Boys, Cheltenham
was home to a wildly overrepresented population of minority youth. But the racial injustice
inside the notorious prison was not what ultimately led to its demise.
The conditions at Cheltenham were deplorable. Overcrowded and understaffed, Cheltenham was
also flagged by fire safety inspectors as one of the least safe buildings in the state. The antiquated
prison structure—each cell had to be individually unlocked, and at times prison staff could not
present keys to some cells—was also the site of an enormous amount of brutality and violence.
Local citizens in the Maryland Juvenile Justice Coalition developed the Maryland Campaign to
Close Cheltenham in 2001. The campaign involved parents of incarcerated youth, youth
activists, and faith leaders from across the state. Through a targeted media campaign to shift
public opinion, the Campaign succeed in passing legislation through the annual budget to phase
out and close Cheltenham, and to increase state spending on community-based alternative
programs for youth offenders.
Taking on Tallulah
The Tallulah Correction Center for Youth in Louisiana had been open for only three years when
it was first sued by the United States Department of Justice (in collaboration with local activists
in the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana) for violating the civil rights of youth held in its
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confines—marking the first time in U.S. history that the federal government has actively sued a
state over the conditions of its juvenile detention facilities.
That same year the filthy conditions, brutal violence and chronic understaffing earned the center
a citation as "the worst in the nation." In 1999, even after the federal government had taken over
partial responsibility for improving conditions, things were so unsafe for the youth that the staff
of the center walked out, leaving 400 boys completely unsupervised.
Youth and adult activists appealed to the state legislature to shut down the prison once and for
all. But their aspirations didn't stop with the abolition of one prison—they sought to redefine the
juvenile justice system in the state, to change it from one based almost entirely on incarceration
and punishment to a new system focusing on community-based alternatives to incarceration. [39]
In 2003 the state of Louisiana became nationally recognized for its leadership in reforming a
broken juvenile justice system. With the passage of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 (Act
1225), then Governor Kathleen Blanco and the Louisiana State Legislature ushered in a period of
reform in which the notoriously brutal Tallulah prison for youth was shut down, conditions were
improved in other abusive youth prisons throughout the state, and a commitment was made to
both the increased use of alternatives to incarceration for youth and to revamping secure care
prisons to be small, therapeutic facilities that were regionalized to keep children closer to their
families.
Before the passage of Act 1225, over two thousand children were held in prison in Louisiana.
Today the system holds just over 500 children state-wide. In 1998 the rate of recidivism, or
children returning to prison after release, was 56% as compared to 11% today. This decrease in
the number of children incarcerated has contributed to an increase in public safety.
Proposition 21 in California
In 2001 California residents passed Proposition 21, a multi-faceted proposition designed to be
tough on youth crime, incorporating many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice
jurisdiction.
Opponents to this law included activists from Californians for Justice, Critical Resistance, the
Youth Force Coalition, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and the American Civil
Liberties Union. Advocates in the ACLU challenged many portions of the law, including a
provision automatically sentencing youth 14–17 years old in adult court. This portion of the law
was struck down by the California Courts of Appeal in 2001.
Opposing Zero-Tolerance Policies
The term "zero tolerance" is not defined in law or regulation; nor is there a single widely
accepted practice definition. The United States Department of Education, National Center for
Education Statistics, defined zero tolerance as "a policy that mandates predetermined
consequences or punishments for specified offenses". The purpose of zero-tolerance policies,
according to their proponents, is to send a message that certain kinds of behaviors are not
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tolerable on school grounds. About 94% of public schools in the United States have zerotolerance
policies for guns; 91% for other weapons; 88% for drugs; 87% for alcohol and 79% for
tobacco.
Opposition to zero-tolerance policies, especially at the local level, focus on critiques including
charges that the program is discriminatory, unconstitutional, harmful to schools and students,
ineptly implemented, and provides harsh punishment (suspension of education) for minor
offenses (possession of tobacco).
A few infamous cases have been used by opposition groups, such as Amnesty International, to
further their case against the policy. The Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice released a story
in 2003 about a 13 year old girl in Tuscaloosa, Alabama arrested and detained for 5 weeks for
possession of what was thought to be marijuana, but turned out to be oregano. The zero-tolerance
practice in Illinois of sending any youth charged with drug crimes within 1,000 feet of any
school or public housing project directly to adult court has resulted in the largest racial disparity
in the country—over 99% of youth affected by this policy were minority youth.
Opposition to zero-tolerance policies nationwide and locally is broad and growing.
Organizational leadership has been provided nationally by Amnesty International and the
American Bar Association, who has officially opposed such policies since 2001.
Promoting Alternatives: The JDAI
Most activists in the movement to end youth incarceration believe that the best way to mitigate
the impact of detention and incarceration on our youth is to reduce the number of youth that pass
through the system. By providing credible alternatives to incarceration, this portion of the
movement provides opportunities for communities to treat, rather than punish, young
offenders—much the way that the juvenile justice system was founded to do.
The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) is a private-public partnership being
implemented nationwide, with pilot programs in California, Oregon, New Mexico and Illinois.
Their goal is to make sure that locked detention is used only when absolutely necessary. The
JDAI has produced some promising results from their programs. Detention center populations
fell by between 14% and 88% in JDAI counties over the course of 7 years (1996-2003). These
same counties saw declines in juvenile arrests (an indicator of overall juvenile crime rates)
during the same time period ranging from 37-54%.
The School to Prison Pipeline
The term "school-to-prison pipeline" is a phrase that is used by scholars and education reform
activists and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Justice
Policy Center, Advancement Project, and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) to
describe what they view as a widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students,
especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school and into the American criminal
justice system. They argue that this "pipeline" is the result of public institutions being neglectful
or derelict in properly addressing students as individuals who might need extra educational or
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social assistance, or being unable to do so
because of staffing shortages or statutory
mandates. The resulting miseducation and
mass incarceration are said to create a vicious
circle for individuals and communities.
Advocates claim that the school-to-prison
pipeline operates at all levels of US
government (federal, state, county, city and
school district) both directly as a result of zero
tolerance policies, and indirectly due to
exclusion from the school system.
Components
Educational researcher Christine Christle and
her colleagues have determined that schoollevel
practices correlate to delinquency and
incarceration. These practices include
searches of students, strict rules outlined in the
school handbook and code of student conduct,
excessive policing at schools, and high-stakes
testing that slates students for failure, grade retention, and dropping out of school.
Zero-Tolerance Policies
Zero-tolerance disciplinary policies are often the first step in a child‘s journey through the
pipeline. Such policies impose severe discipline on students. The American Bar Association has
been critical of these policies, calling them a "one-size-fits-all solution" that "has redefined
students as criminals."
In 2011, a study by the National Education Policy Center found that zero-tolerance policies
across the nation were increasing suspension rates, with students being accused of offenses such
as attendance violations, dress code violations, cell phone use, and other minor offenses. They
found that zero-tolerance policies put children, particularly black and Latino children, on a path
of truancy and likely incarceration. Black students are 3.5 times more likely to be suspended than
White students and are held responsible for 70% of arrests while attending school.
Simultaneously Latino students are 1.5 times more likely to be suspended than their White
classmates.
Michelle Fine believes zero-tolerance school policies are part of a banal public schoolprivatization
agenda which, in seeking to redirect and profit from public-school dollars,
transforms low-income youth into a disenfranchised class of prisoners.
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Excessive Policing
According to the ACLU, many schools rely on poorly trained police, rather than teachers and
administrators, to handle minor school misconduct. The reality is that public schools have in the
last 15 years undergone mass changes in school security policies. Video surveillance, drugsniffing
dogs, and sworn-in security officers are now commonplace fixtures in most public
schools in the United States. Scholars argue that this increase in security measures is a result of
rising fears about violence in schools. One highly publicized example is the 1999 Columbine
High School Shooting. The irony of the increase in security after the Columbine Shooting is that
armed police officers were stationed at the Columbine High School at the time of the massacre,
yet they were still unable to stop it. Now that police are more present in public schools, the line
between disciplining under a schools' general policy standards versus disciplining by law
enforcement standards is getting blurred.
A 2012 school "lockdown" in Casa Grande, Arizona, included employees of the private
Corrections Corporation of America company—unusual participants in a government policing
action. Caroline Isaacs of the Tucson American Friends Service Committee said of the event:
"To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is
perhaps the most direct expression of the 'schools-to-prison pipeline' I've ever seen."
High-Stakes Testing
More and more schools are being sanctioned for poor performance under the No Child Left
Behind Act; as a result, teachers in these schools must bend to the standardized tests that are used
for evaluations. Opponents of these tests argue that they undermine teachers and students, that
they take up too much time, and that they promote rote memorization rather than critical
thinking.
Minority students are disproportionately subject to exit examinations that determine whether
they can graduate from high school. These same students are likely to be in schools that have less
funding and larger class sizes. Furthermore, their schools are often suffering—due to being
punished for low test scores.
Institutional Similarity
Another facet of the school-to-prison pipeline involves overlapping patterns of institutional
structure. These include disciplinary and bureaucratic practices for storing human beings in
buildings, as well as institutional culture that degrades the people affected. A simple but
widespread example of this culture is the division of students into "good kids" and "bad kids,"
which paves the way for the promotion of some and the abandonment of others (often resulting
in identification with "badness").
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Systemic Problems
Critiques of the school-to-prison pipeline attempt to show how it falls into larger systems of
domination such as racism, ableism, and capitalism. An unfair distribution of educational
resources make students less likely to learn, less likely to find good jobs, and more likely to end
up in prison. The more
people in disadvantaged
communities that go to
prison, the more alienated
and economically
disadvantaged these
communities become.
The pipeline can also be
critiqued in terms of
neoliberalism, the idea that
market forces can organize
every facet of society.
Because prisons can be
privatized and run for
profit, and traditional public
schools cannot, the market
favors sending people to
prisons rather than
schools—particularly if
they are not destined to
become part of the high-skilled workforce. (As prisoners, people can be compelled to perform
labor anyway.) In keeping with this system, school budgets have shrunk while prison budgets
have expanded massively, while even within schools more funding goes to police and less to
teachers and children. The feedback loop between standardized testing and school funding is
seen by some as another facet of neoliberalism, creating competition between students and
teachers who need good test scores to keep their jobs.
According to an article from www.blackagendareport.com, the criminal justice system dedicated
to controlling and arresting members of poorer populations is a necessary counterpart to the "free
market" policies that constitute neoliberalism's public face.
Criticism of The "School-To-Prison Pipeline" Theory
An article published in the New Jersey Law Journal, reacting to the ABA's opposition of zerotolerance
policies, argued that even with these rules in effect, schools had enough flexibility to
determine whether a student ought to stay in school.
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Activism
Resistance to the school-to-prison pipeline takes many forms because of the scope of the systems
involved. Some groups, such as Rethinking Prisons, see the school-to-prison pipeline as one
direct target around which the general struggle for social justice can coalesce.
Advancement Project is another group active in the area of resisting the school-to-prison
pipeline. The racial justice nonprofit has authored several reports on the issue including:
―Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School
Discipline‖ and ―Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track.‖ These reports deal with the
criminalization of students of color by their districts. Advancement Project co-director Judith
Browne Dianis also addressed a Congressional hearing organized by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
in 2012 on the devastating effects of the school-to-prison pipeline.
Dianis said:
“In recent years, we have seen increased rates of suspension, expulsion, and arrest because adult
– and not student – behavior has changed. Adults are treating young people like criminals, and
are responding to typical student behavior that has no bearing on safety with discipline that defies
common sense. Schools have redefined developmentally appropriate behaviors as crimes. Pushing
and shoving in the schoolyard is now a battery, and talking back is now disorderly conduct.”
Some success stories in the effort to curb the school-to-prison pipeline include:
New York
To address skyrocketing suspensions of youth of color in Buffalo, New York, Citizen Action
New York and the Alliance for Quality Education led a successful campaign for a new school
discipline code of conduct.
Colorado
The Denver, Colorado youth and parent group Padres y Jovenes Unidos helped facilitate a
historic agreement between Denver Public Schools and the Denver Police Department to clarify
and significantly limit the role of police in schools. Advancement Project attorneys served as a
resource partner with Padres. The Intergovernmental Agreement also supports practices known
as ―restorative justice‖ that helps students learn from mistakes and make amends for misconduct,
rather than a narrow focus on punitive discipline.
Florida
Florida‘s Fort Lauderdale/Broward Branch of the NAACP worked with Broward Public Schools
Superintendent Robert Runcie, along with other groups, to pass a Collaborative Agreement with
the local police department and a new Code of Conduct & Alternative Programs. The new policy
impedes the over-criminalization of youth by instead offering students counseling and other
assistance aimed at addressing the root of behavioral problems.
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Litigation
In January 2010, the NYCLU, ACLU and the law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP filed a federal
class action lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department‘s practice of wrongfully
arresting and using excessive force against children in New York City schools.
In August 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice released a letter of findings determining that the
Lauderdale County Youth Court, the Meridian Police Department (MPD), and the Mississippi
Division of Youth Services (DYS) are violating the constitutional rights of juveniles in Meridian,
Mississippi. The department‘s investigation showed that the agencies have helped to operate a
school-to-prison pipeline whereby children arrested in local schools become entangled in a cycle
of incarceration without substantive and procedural protections required by the U.S. Constitution
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Page 45 of 113

The Return on Investment
for Youth Programming
Return-on-Investment analysis (ROI) is the formal method economists use to compare the dollar
value of the benefits of programs to the programs‘ costs. The formula is simply: Return-on-
Investment = $ value of Benefits/ $ Cost of program. This analysis results in a number that
indicates how many dollars of benefit are returned for every dollar used to pay for a program.
How is Return on Investment Estimated?
First, economists measure the COST of all
the resources used to operate an
afterschool program—from public costs to
private costs to donated costs (including
volunteer time and resources). Recent
estimates of costs in Minnesota and
elsewhere suggest the cost per youth is
between $1000 to $5000 per year range
with $3000 a reasonable estimate of the
costs for an average program.
Currently public funding is often leveraged
with private and donated resources as well
as fees paid by families. This leveraging
further enhances the return on investment
for public dollars.
Second, potential OUTCOMES from
afterschool programs are estimated.
The outcomes based on research fall into
several categories:
• reduced juvenile and adult crime
• reduced need of social services and
• improved health outcomes
• improved school performance
• increased workforce preparedness
Third, economists convert specific outcomes into BENEFITS measured in dollars and cents. For
example,
• The present value of graduating from high school instead of dropping out is estimated to be
$263,000 in income and $98,000 in taxes paid.
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• The saved social cost of avoiding a year of residential treatment in a juvenile correctional
facility is $75,300.
To calculate total benefits, economists need outcomes data from program evaluations that show
how many more children graduated from high school or how much juvenile crime was avoided.
New research indicates that afterschool programs can have significant impact on these types of
outcomes.
Longitudinal research on longer-term and economically valued outcomes is underway and will
yield improved
estimates of the full range of benefits from these types of programs.
Fourth, these estimates of the benefits and costs are used to calculate the SOCIAL
RETURN ON INVESTMENT.
For example, if a program for 100 youth costing $3,000 per youth is able to help just one youth
graduate who would not otherwise [if] that program [had not existed] returns a $1.20 for every
dollar invested. If half the investment comes from private or donated sources, the return on
investment for public dollars is $2.40. If one assumes the program also helped raise grade point
averages or keeps even one youth out of residential treatment, the return goes up even higher.
[The] Bottom Line
Recent studies of high quality programs show positive return-on-investment, though they often
use only a partial list of benefits and/or sometimes conservative estimates of the benefits of
different outcomes. For example,
• A UCLA analysis of an afterschool program in Los Angeles estimated benefits of $2.50 for
every dollar spent, but counted only reduced crime benefits.
• A statewide study estimated $2.72 of benefits per dollar of spending on quality youth
mentoring programs.
• Another statewide study estimated $4.89 of benefits per dollar of spending on quality early
intervention programs with high-risk youth.
As more careful program evaluations are conducted, more complete and accurate return-oninvestment
studies will be completed.
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Page 48 of 113

Risk Factors
That Lead To Delinquency 9
Several juvenile justice researchers have linked risk factors to delinquency (Hawkins et al., 1998;
Lipsey and Derzon, 1998), and many have also noted a multiplicative effect if several risk
factors are present. Herrenkohl and colleagues (2000) report that a 10-year-old exposed to six or
more risk factors is 10 times as likely to commit a violent act by age 18 as a 10-year-old exposed
to only one risk factor.
Similarly, the age range or developmental period during which a youth is exposed to a specific
risk factor is important to individuals working to tailor prevention programs to specific factors.
Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General (2001 (chapter 4)) elaborates:
Violence prevention and intervention efforts hinge on identifying risk and protective
factors and determining when in the course of development they emerge. To be effective,
such efforts must be appropriate to a youth's stage of development. A program that is
effective in childhood may be ineffective in adolescence and vice versa. Moreover, the risk
and protective factors targeted by violence prevention may be different from those targeted by
intervention programs which are designed to prevent the recurrence of violence.
The study of risk factors, therefore, is critical to the enhancement of prevention programs that
frequently have limited staffing and funding. Identifying which risk factors may cause
delinquency for particular sets of youth at specific stages of their development may help
programs target their efforts in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. The table, which
was adapted from a report by the Office of the Surgeon General, categorizes risk factors by age
of onset of delinquency and identifies corresponding protective factors.
Risk and Protective Factors, by Domain
Risk Factor
Domain Early Onset (ages 6-11) Late Onset (ages 12-14) Protective Factor*
Individual
General offenses Substance use
Being male
Aggression**
Hyperactivity
Problem (antisocial) behavior
Exposure to television
violence
Medical, physical problems
Low IQ
Antisocial attitudes, beliefs
Dishonesty**
General offenses
Restlessness
Difficulty concentrating**
Risk taking
Aggression**
Being male
Physical violence
Antisocial attitudes, beliefs
Crimes against persons
Problem (antisocial)
behavior
Low IQ
Substance use
Intolerant attitude toward
deviance
High IQ
Being female
Positive social orientation
Perceived sanctions for
transgressions
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Family
Low socioeconomic
status/poverty
Antisocial parents
Poor parent-child relationship
Harsh, lax, or inconsistent
discipline
Broken home
Separation from parents
Other conditions
Abusive parents
Neglect
Poor parent-child
relationship
Harsh or lax discipline
Poor monitoring,
supervision
Low parental involvement
Antisocial parents
Broken home
Low socioeconomic
status/poverty
Abusive parents
Family conflict**
Warm, supportive
relationships with
parents or other adults
Parents' positive
evaluation of peers
Parental monitoring
School Poor attitude, performance Poor attitude, performance
Academic failure
Commitment to school
Recognition for
involvement in
conventional activities
Peer group
Weak social ties
Antisocial peers
Weak social ties
Antisocial, delinquent peers
Gang membership
Friends who engage in
conventional behavior
Community
Neighborhood crime, drugs
Neighborhood
disorganization
* Age of onset not known.
** Males only.
Source: Adapted from Office of the Surgeon General, 2001.
Various researchers categorize risk factors in different ways. For the purposes of this article, risk
factors fall under three broad categories: individual, social, and community. Each of these
categories includes several subcategories (e.g., family- and peer-related risk factors are grouped
under the social category). Because an exhaustive review of all known risk factors linked to
delinquency is beyond the scope of this article, the following summarizes the major risk factors
associated with juvenile delinquency and violence.
Individual-Level Factors
Prenatal and Perinatal Factors. Several studies have linked prenatal and perinatal
complications with later delinquent or criminal behavior (Kandel et al., 1989; Kandel and
Mednick, 1991; Raine, Brennan, and Mednick, 1994). Prenatal and perinatal complications can
lead to a range of health problems that negatively influence development (McCord, Widom, and
Crowell, 2001). In a prospective study of youth at high risk for delinquency, Kandel and
Mednick (1991) found that 80 percent of violent offenders rated high in delivery complications
compared with 47 percent of nonoffenders.
However, some of the evidence regarding the association between pregnancy and delivery
complications and delinquency has been conflicting (Hawkins et al., 1998). For example, neither
Denno's (1990) study of Philadelphia youth nor Farrington's (1997) Cambridge study found a
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connection between pregnancy and delivery complications and violence. Mednick and Kandel
(1988) linked pregnancy and delivery complications to violent behavior, but not to nonviolent
criminal behavior. In addition, some studies have shown that children whose mothers smoked
cigarettes frequently during pregnancy were more likely to display conduct disorders and other
problem behaviors (Fergusson, Horwood, and Lynskey, 1993; Wakschlag et al., 1997). Although
the results are inconsistent, the available data illustrate the need to study further the relationship
between prenatal care, delivery complications, and the resulting health problems and juvenile
delinquency (Hawkins et al., 1998).
Psychological, Behavioral, and Mental Characteristics. Several individual-specific
characteristics are linked to delinquency. Tremblay and LeMarquand (2001:141) remarked that
"the best social behavior characteristic to predict delinquent behavior before age 13 appears to be
aggression." In addition, Hawkins and colleagues (1998:113) reviewed several studies and
reported "a positive relationship between hyperactivity, concentration or attention problems,
impulsivity and risk taking and later violent behavior." Low verbal IQ and delayed language
development have both been linked to delinquency; these links remain even after controlling for
race and class (Moffitt, Lynam, and Silva, 1994; Seguin et al., 1995). Similarly, problems at
school can lead to delinquency. Herrenkohl and colleagues (2001:223) noted that "children with
low academic performance, low commitment to school, and low educational aspirations during
the elementary and middle school grades are at higher risk for child delinquency than are other
children."
Social Factors
Family Structure. Family characteristics such as poor parenting skills, family size, home
discord, child maltreatment, and antisocial parents are risk factors linked to juvenile delinquency
(Derzon and Lipsey, 2000; Wasserman and Seracini, 2001). McCord's (1979) study of 250 boys
found that among boys at age 10, the strongest predictors of later convictions for violent offenses
(up to age 45) were poor parental supervision, parental conflict, and parental aggression,
including harsh, punitive discipline. Some research has linked being raised in a single-parent
family with increased delinquency (McCord, Widom, and Crowell, 2001); however, when
researchers control for socioeconomic conditions, these differences are minimized (Austin, 1978;
Crockett, Eggebeen, and Hawkins, 1993). Some research has shown that children from families
with four or more children have an increased chance of offending (Wasserman and Seracini,
2001; West and Farrington, 1973).
Peer Influences. Several studies have found a consistent relationship between involvement in a
delinquent peer group and delinquent behavior. Lipsey and Derzon (1998) noted that for youth
ages 12–14, a key predictor variable for delinquency is the presence of antisocial peers.
According to McCord and colleagues (2001:80), "Factors such as peer delinquent behavior, peer
approval of delinquent behavior, attachment or allegiance to peers, time spent with peers, and
peer pressure for deviance have all been associated with adolescent antisocial behavior."
Conversely, Elliot (1994) reported that spending time with peers who disapprove of delinquent
behavior may curb later violence. The influence of peers and their acceptance of delinquent
behavior is significant, and this relationship is magnified when youth have little interaction with
their parents (Steinberg, 1987).
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Community Factors
Farrington (2000:5) noted that "only in the 1990's have the longitudinal researchers begun to pay
sufficient attention to neighborhood and community factors, and there is still a great need for
them to investigate immediate situational influences on offending." As described below, the
environment in which youth are reared can influence the likelihood of delinquency.
School Policies. The National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine reviewed the
impact of school policies concerning grade retention, 4 suspension and expulsion, and school
tracking of juvenile delinquency. These organizations reported that such policies, which
disproportionately affect minorities, have negative consequences for at-risk youth (McCord,
Widom, and Crowell, 2001). For example, suspension and expulsion do not appear to reduce
undesirable behavior, and both are linked to increased delinquent behavior. In addition, Heal's
(1978) cross-sectional study of primary and secondary schools in England found that large
schools with formal and severe punishment structures in place had more incidents of students
misbehaving.
Neighborhood. Existing research points to a powerful connection between residing in an
adverse environment and participating in criminal acts (McCord, Widom, and Crowell, 2001).
Sociological theories of deviance hypothesize that "disorganized neighborhoods have weak
social control networks; that weak social control, resulting from isolation among residents and
high residential turnover, allows criminal activity to go unmonitored" (Herrenkohl et al.,
2001:221). Although researchers debate the interaction between environmental and personal
factors, most agree that "living in a neighborhood where there are high levels of poverty and
crime increases the risk of involvement in serious crime for all children growing up there"
(McCord, Widom, and Crowell, 2001:89).
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Conclusion
The risk factor paradigm is a promising approach to understanding the problem of juvenile
delinquency. The Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, partially
funded by OJJDP, is one example of a longitudinal study of youth that is helping to detect the
importance of various risk factors for delinquency. Future research should continue to study the
interrelationships between risk factors and delinquency and attempt to clarify how risk factors
interact to create a cumulative effect. Similarly, researchers should continue studying the
interaction between risk and protective factors and exploring why some youth exposed to
multiple risk factors do not commit delinquent acts.
The development of the risk factor model, however, has its problems. Farrington (2000:16)
remarks that "the main problems lie in the definition and identification of risk and protective
factors, in establishing what are causes, in choosing interventions based on identified risk and
protective factors, in evaluating multiple component and area-based interventions, and in
assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of components of interventions."
One question confronting those who would develop delinquency prevention programs based on
risk factor research is whether a given risk factor can easily be changed. For example, research
has shown that low socioeconomic status is associated with increased levels of delinquency.
Although socioeconomic conditions may be hard to change, programs may seek to increase
certain protective factors to offset the risk. Other risk factors are more amenable to change. Poor
parenting, for example, can be addressed by programs that teach parenting skills and provide
family support services.
The prevention of delinquency is a complex problem with no simple solutions. Risk factor
analysis offers a way to determine which youth are most likely to become delinquent. The
approach also allows practitioners to tailor prevention programs to the unique needs of individual
youth and communities.
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Page 54 of 113

Protective Factors
That Guard Against Delinquency
Protective Factors for the Perpetration of Youth Violence 10
Protective factors buffer young people from the risks of becoming violent. These factors exist at
various levels. To date, protective factors have not been studied as extensively or rigorously as
risk factors. However, identifying and understanding protective factors are equally as important
as researching risk factors.
Most research is preliminary. Studies propose the following protective factors:
Individual Protective Factors
Intolerant attitude toward deviance
High IQ
High grade point average (as an indicator of high academic achievement)
Positive social orientation
Highly developed social skills/competencies
Highly developed skills for realistic planning
Religiosity
Family Protective Factors
Connectedness to family or adults outside the family
Ability to discuss problems with parents
Perceived parental expectations about school performance are high
Frequent shared activities with parents
Consistent presence of parent during at least one of the following: when awakening,
when arriving home from school, at evening mealtime or going to bed
Involvement in social activities
Parental / family use of constructive strategies for coping with problems (provision of
models of constructive coping)
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Peer and Social Protective Factors
Possession of affective relationships with those at school that are strong, close, and
prosocially oriented
Commitment to school (an investment in school and in doing well at school)
Close relationships with non-deviant peers
Membership in peer groups that do not condone antisocial behavior
Involvement in prosocial activities
Exposure to school climates that characterized by:
o Intensive supervision
o Clear behavior rules
o Consistent negative reinforcement of aggression
o Engagement of parents and teachers
______
Protective factors help us to better understand the characteristics and situations that protect and
distance youth from delinquent behavior. Protective factors are characteristics or conditions that
act as risk moderators, i.e., they help reduce the negative effects associated with risk factors and
help youth better handle their situation.
Protective factors are cumulative and interactive. However, they are not necessarily always the
opposite of risk factors; for example, growing up in a poor area can be attenuated by parental
involvement, participation and support.
Table 2 illustrates the protective factors associated with family; some examples are listed below.
Adequate parental practices are a significant protective factor against deviant behavior
such as delinquency and drug/alcohol abuse.
The quality of family ties is a protective factor against delinquency for girls and boys of
all age groups.
The integration of families into the life of their community, the involvement of families
in extracurricular and scholastic activities, and the availability of resources and services
are also considered to be protective factors.
Protective Factors Associated with Family
Family Dynamic and
Functioning
Relationship based on
family bond
Positive support within the
family
Adequate parental
supervision
At Every Age
Family Characteristics
Parental level of
education
Financial stability
Stability of the
family unit
Area of Residence
Integration of families into
the life of the community
Relationships established
with neighbours
School activities involving
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Family Dynamic and
Functioning
Respect for friends by
parents
Closeness between parents
and children (affection)
Consistent disciplinary
methods
Adequate parental
behaviour and practices
At Every Age
Family Characteristics
Area of Residence
the family
Conclusion
Families that present risk factors for juvenile delinquency must be considered as a complex
reality, influenced by various risk factors. The concept of the "at-risk" family must be understood
as a whole. Furthermore, we must not forget that family is at the crossroads of many other areas
of influence: circle of friends, school and the community.
Families play a key role in the development of children and adolescents. It is therefore important
to address those who are at risk by focusing on protective factors and offering training to parents
and youth, family therapy, integrated treatment plans or other effective strategies to prevent and
reduce juvenile delinquency.
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Page 58 of 113

The Multidisciplinary Approach
to Juvenile Justice
Comprehensive Reform 8
One way to address the issue of the large numbers of youth with mental substance use disorders
in the juvenile justice system is to reform the entire system using a variety of approaches.
Administrative Strategy
This model identifies four cornerstones to enhanced delivery of mental health services to youth
in contact with the juvenile justice system and identifies areas for reform. The four cornerstones
are:
o
o
o
o
collaboration between the juvenile justice and mental health systems;
identification of youth mental health needs;
diversion of youth into community-based mental health treatment when
appropriate; and
treatment.
California Healthy Returns Initiative
This 2005-2009 initiative was designed to strengthen county juvenile justice systems‘ ability to
provide health and mental health services for youth and continuity of care when they returned to
the community. The following practices were recognized as critical to any systems reform effort
to serve this population:
o
o
o
o
o
screening using validated mental health screening tools;
multidisciplinary teams;
connecting youth and families to benefits and resources, including health care,
housing assistance, and food stamps;
collaboration and integration across services; and
funding and resources to sustain multi-disciplinary, collaborative, holistic
approaches.
Comprehensive Systems Change Initiative (CSCI)
The initiative is a collaborative strategic planning model that brings together juvenile justice and
mental health systems to identify youth with mental health needs at their earliest point of contact
with the juvenile justice system to develop an effective service delivery system to meet their
needs. The framework includes:
o
collaboration among all relevant youth-serving agencies and families;
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o
o
o
identification of youth with mental health needs through use of standardized
screening and assessment tools;
diversion of youth from the justice system to community programs where
possible; and
treatment for youth who remain in the system using a continuum of evidencebased
mental health services.
Three Pennsylvania counties – Allegheny, Chester, and Erie – began implementing the CSCI
model in 2004.
Reclaiming Futures
The Reclaiming Futures model unites juvenile courts, probation, adolescent substance abuse
treatment, and the community to work together to improve drug and alcohol treatment and
connect teens to positive activities and caring adults. The model has six steps (with process and
outcome measures attached). They are:
o
o
o
o
o
o
screening youth for substance abuse problems as soon as possible after they are
referred to the juvenile justice system;
assessment of youth with possible substance abuse problems, using a reputable
tool;
service coordination, using intervention plans designed and coordinated by
community teams, including families and agencies;
―initiation,‖ defined as at least one service contract within 14 days of a full
assessment;
―engagement,‖ defined as at least three successful service contacts within 30 days
of a youth‘s full assessment;
―transition,‖ when a youth completes the service plan and agency-based services
are gradually withdrawn and youth and families are connected with long-term
supports.
Integrated Co-Occurring Treatment Model (ICT)
Originating in Akron, Ohio, this is a program for youth with mental health and substance use
disorders in the juvenile justice system. Youth are diverted to the program by the court. They are
Page 60 of 113

assessed and provided with individual and family therapy, based on a ―system of care
philosophy‖ that engages the youth and the family in an intensive home-based treatment
program.
ICT has been implemented in the following sites: Akron, Ohio; Cuyahoga County, Ohio;
Kalamazoo, Michigan; McHenry County, Illinois; and in Salinas, California (past site).
Wraparound Milwaukee
This program is recognized as a model for collaboration. It is a multi-service approach to
meeting youth‘s needs through the collaboration of the mental health, juvenile justice, child
welfare, and education systems and pooled funding. It focuses on the strengths of the family,
neighborhood, and community.
Legislation
Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and their Families
Initiative (“Systems of Care Model”)
In 1992, Congress passed legislation creating this program with the goal of creating a
comprehensive array of community-based mental health services and supports that are more
effectively delivered to children and their families.
The program is implemented by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA) and encourages multi-agency partnerships between the mental
health, juvenile justice, child welfare, and education systems.
Some communities have used this funding to improve the delivery of services to justice-involved
youth, such as Wrap-Around Milwaukee.
o
o
In 2007, Washington State passed legislation to implement a wraparound model
(HB 1088).
California passed legislation requiring the Department of Youth Authority and the
Department of Mental Health to collaborate on training, treatment and medication
guidelines for youth with mental illness under the jurisdiction of the Youth
Authority.
Mental Health Screenings
Numerous states have passed legislation that require mental health screenings and assessments.
Go here for examples.
Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDT)
Legislation promoting multi-disciplinary teams in juvenile justice was passed in California in
2005 (SB 570). It established an optional procedure within county juvenile courts to handle
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youth with serious mental, emotional, or developmental disabilities, and included case review by
an MDT.
West Virginia law requires the Division of Juvenile Services to convene multi-disciplinary
treatment teams for youth that have been adjudicated delinquent and are in their custody for a
period of examination in the juvenile diagnostic center. The team includes a juvenile probation
officer, social worker, parents or guardians, attorneys, school officials, and can include child
advocates.
Litigation
Litigation has been used as an effective tool for change in many states where conditions in the
juvenile facilities were egregious. Some of the resulting consent decrees and settlement
agreements have focused on or included youth with mental health needs. Below is an example of
one case in which the court ordered comprehensive remedial plans to be implemented to correct
many problems in the system, including mental health treatment.
California
o
In the case of Farrell v. Allen, the California Youth Authority (CYA) (now the California
Department of Juvenile Justice) was sued due to serious on-going problems with conditions
in CYA‘s facilities, and entered into a consent decree in 2004. Subsequently, the Department
of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) developed several remediation plans, one of which concerned
mental health, and the court ordered that it be implemented. This plan contained many
elements including:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Mental health screenings required at intake and follow-up assessments where
significant mental health problems indicated;
Staff training in evidence-based psycho-social treatment with selected
individuals trained in evidence-based treatment interventions.
Mental health leaders in DJJ required to stay current with developments in the
field of evidence-based treatments.
DJJ required to take measures to support the involvement of families. One
evidence-based model recommended was the Family Engagement Model
developed by McKay et al. (McKay & Bannon, 2005)
Support should be provided to youth with mental health needs who are
returning to the community. One model recommended was the Family
Integrated Transitions program.
DJJ is to develop a training program for mental and behavioral health staff.
Illinois
o
In the Illinois case of RJ, BW, DF, DG, and MD v. Bishop, youth who were confined in
secure Illinois youth centers filed a class action lawsuit against the state Department of
Juvenile Justice alleging that the poor conditions and treatment violated their constitutional
Page 62 of 113

ights. The complaint specifically addressed mental health treatment problems. The court
ordered a remedial plan, which included the following regarding mental health services [18] :
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
screening and assessment upon intake
appropriate treatment planning
provision of mental health services as determined by the youth‘s mental health
treatment plan
prompt access to mental health professionals
appropriate suicide prevention
prompt hospitalization of youth when required
appropriate substance abuse diagnosis and treatment
appropriate aftercare and discharge planning
Ohio
o
In the case of S.H. v. Stickrath, a class action was brought against the Ohio Department
of Youth Services (DYS) alleging a system-wide failure regarding conditions of confinement
within DYS facilities that led to numerous problems, including depriving youth of adequate
mental health care. In a stipulated judgment resolving the claims, DYS was required to [19] :
o
o
o
o
o
develop and implement a continuum-of-care mental health system that
incorporates evidence-based or research-supported promising practices for the
assessment and treatment of each youth;
ensure that youth have access to necessary inpatient psychiatric treatment at
an appropriate facility;
redesign and restructure mental health screening, assessment, and referral
processes to ensure youth are identified and referred for appropriate, prompt,
and effective care;
provide youth who are not on the mental health caseload with access to staff
trained in identifying mental health needs and providing mental health
services to these youth as needed; and
expand and strengthen contact with families and clinical staff.
______
Diversion from Confinement
Diverting Youth from the Juvenile Justice System or from Secure Confinement
Many recent reform efforts have focused on ways to treat youth with mental health needs and/or
substance use disorders in the community instead of the juvenile justice system.
Page 63 of 113

School-Based Diversion
Schools frequently use the police to handle even minor discipline problems, sending many youth
into the justice system. Often a student‘s unruly behavior is at least in part due to a mental health
disorder.
Training school staff and police officers to identify and appropriately respond to youth with
mental health needs can decrease referrals to juvenile court, especially when coupled with
alternative community-based mental health resources to which youth can be referred instead.
Mobile Urgent Treatment Team Project (MUTT)
This project, pioneered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as part of its wraparound program, uses a
―mobile urgent response‖ to school-based incidents involving youth with mental health
issues. The program‘s key elements are:
• Training school officials on how to deal with youth with mental health issues;
and
• Ensuring that the mental health system instead of law enforcement responds to
incidents by linking schools with mobile mental health crisis teams and
community providers.
• The Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Action Network of the Models for Change
initiative has worked with states in the network to develop school-based
diversion initiatives based on the MUTT model.
• Connecticut developed a school-based diversion initiative to provide mental
health crisis teams in three middle schools. They developed a standardized
Page 64 of 113

Written Protocols
curriculum to train school officials based on the MUTT program that included
crisis de-escalation and community referral sources.
• Ohio implemented their diversion initiative in several schools in two counties.
• Washington implemented a diversion program in three middle schools for the
2009-2010 school year but did not receive funding to continue it.
• Program manuals to guide replication of these models have been developed in
Connecticut and Ohio.
In this approach, schools develop a written protocol on handling student offenses that
includes referrals to resources other than law enforcement. The protocol should specify
procedures to follow when a student has a special need such as a mental health problem,
substance abuse disorder, or developmental disability.
Law Enforcement Diversion
It is possible to decrease the unnecessary arrest and processing of youth with mental health
disorders when law enforcement officers are trained to recognize the signs and symptoms of
mental illness, substance abuse, and developmental disabilities in youth and to de-escalate their
interactions with them; and by providing access to mental health services and supports for these
youth.
Crisis Intervention Teams
Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) are composed of officers specially trained to respond to
crisis calls involving individuals that may have mental health disorders. Studies have
found that CIT programs decrease the need for more aggressive law enforcement
responses, reduce officer injuries, and increase referrals to emergency health care.
Although the teams were developed for adults, the model has been expanded to youth.
Colorado, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania worked with national experts to create a Crisis
Intervention Team for Youth (CIT-Y) training program.
All of the school resource officers in Jefferson Parish, LA, received CIT training in 2010
and referrals on minor charges declined by 58 percent.
Intake Diversion
• An ideal time to screen, identify, and divert youth with mental and/or substance use
disorders, is when they go through intake with a juvenile probation officer -- one of their
earliest points of contact with the juvenile justice system. However, it is important not to
―widen the net,‖ or to keep youth in the justice system just to receive treatment.
• In this model, intake probation officers should receive training to recognize the signs and
symptoms of mental illness, substance use disorders, and developmental disabilities.
Page 65 of 113

Front-End Diversion Initiative (FEDI)
Texas has created a specialized probation diversion program for youth with mental health needs
known as the ―Front-End Diversion Initiative.‖ It has been implemented in five demonstration
sites in the state and aims to divert youth with identified mental health needs from being
adjudicated delinquent.
The initiative uses specialized juvenile probation officers to work with the youth. They have
limited caseloads, undergo substantial mental health training and certification, and provide
intense supervision, crisis planning, community service Links, and aftercare planning.
The program is for youth who have committed their first offense. If they complete the sixmonth
program successfully, they are not adjudicated delinquent.
A study of the initiative‘s preliminary outcomes found promising results, and researchers
recommended further study.
Diversion from Secure Detention Prior to Trial
Youth remain in the system, but are provided with community alternatives so they do not
have to be confined prior to trial in a secure detention facility. These alternatives may not
be specifically geared to youth with mental health and substance use disorders, but can be
utilized to keep them in the community.
Alternatives include outright release or supervised release, with programs such as home
detention, electronic monitoring, intensive supervision, day and evening reporting
centers, and local residential and treatment programs.
The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)
The JDAI initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been quite successful at
reducing the number of youth in secure detention in communities all over the country.
Diversion from Incarceration Following Trial
Many effective evidence-based programs have been developed to provide treatment to
youth with mental health and substance use disorders in the juvenile justice system.
These programs can often be provided in the community in place of securely confining
youth in juvenile institutions.
Specialty Courts
Specialty courts are designed to handle a special docket, such as youth with substance
abuse or mental health disorders, or both. Youth may be diverted prior to adjudication or
after.
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Juvenile Mental Health Courts
These courts focus on treatment rather than punishment with the goal of diverting mentally ill
youth from detention to community-based mental health services by providing intensive case
management and the collaboration of many system stakeholders, including representatives
from the juvenile court, probation, prosecution and defense, mental health service providers,
and the youth and their families.
o A study funded by the National Institute of Justice on the benefits and costs of
juvenile mental health courts, and their efficacy in preventing further involvement in
the juvenile justice system, is currently underway.
o York County, PA, established the first mental health court for minors in Pennsylvania
in 1998. There are now 41 juvenile mental health courts in fifteen states.
o King County, Washington (Seattle) created a mental health treatment court in 2003 to
focus on youth with co-occuring mental health and substance use disorders in order to
provide a continuum of assessment, treatment, and support for these youth.
o The National Center for Youth Law has a Juvenile Mental Health Court Initiative in
Alameda County, CA that focuses on treatment of these youth and diverting them
from jails to community-based alternatives.
Juvenile Drug Courts
The number of juvenile drug courts has mushroomed in the last twenty years and there
are now 476 juvenile drug courts in operation.
Effectiveness
Studies of juvenile drug courts have been mixed. Some have been encouraging, showing
lower recidivism rates and less substance abuse. However, a recent meta-analysis found
that while adult drug courts significantly lowered recidivism rates, juvenile drug courts
had relatively small effects on recidivism.
Concerns
o
o
o
Drug court programs may expose first- or second-time juvenile offenders to peers who
have more serious substance abuse addictions and therefore might have a negative
influence on recovery.
Few studies have examined the long-term effects of drug courts on participants, so it‘s
unclear if positive results last.
Drug courts may widen the net of the justice system.
Litigation
Litigation over extremely poor conditions in juvenile facilities has led to requirements to use
more alternatives to incarceration in some cases.
Page 67 of 113

Lauderdale County, Mississippi
Disability Rights Mississippi filed a lawsuit to gain access to the Lauderdale County
Juvenile Detention Center (LCJDC) in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. After
documenting concerns regarding the policies and practices at the detention center, a
settlement agreement was reached that included the following:
• When youth violate a court order, court staff must consider alternative
sanctions to secure detention.
• Lauderdale County was directed to apply to join Annie E. Casey‘s
Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) to reduce the use of
secure detention.
Improving Access to Health Care Coverage
______
Funding
Youth who enter, leave, or move within the juvenile justice system may not have health
coverage or risk losing it because of these transitions. Reforms are detailed below that
can help to improve access to mental health and substance abuse coverage for these
youth.
Page 68 of 113

The recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 could
lead to significant changes in health care delivery that could impact the delivery of
mental health care to justice-involved youth.
Enroll Youth In Medicaid and CHIP
When they enter the justice system, many youth who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP are not
currently enrolled. Screening them at intake for eligibility, assisting families to enroll, and
expediting the process can help these youth to get coverage as early as possible.
The Texas Juvenile Probation Commission screens youth for Medicaid eligibility at two
points – arrest and during the trial process.
Avoid Gaps in Medicaid and CHIP Coverage
During transitions in custody, youth often lose Medicaid and CHIP coverage because of the
paperwork and documentation requirements and confusion over whether coverage can be
maintained.
States can help youth avoid gaps in coverage in a variety of ways:
o
o
o
o
o
Suspend, rather than terminate, coverage of youth in the juvenile justice system so that
their coverage can be reinstated more easily at discharge.
Continue Medicaid and/or CHIP coverage for youth in detention who are awaiting trial.
Provide a grace period before enrollment lapses so that families have time to collect the
necessary information and documentation to maintain coverage.
Implement the continuous eligibility option that Medicaid allows to keep youth enrolled
for 12 months during transitional periods.
Washington State provides 12-month continuous coverage to youth so that youth who
enter and leave a detention facility within a 12-month period remain Medicaid-eligible
after release.
Better Coordination of Coverage with Partner Agencies
At a minimum, state juvenile justice agencies can use the federal matching funds allowed to non-
Medicaid agencies to work with Medicaid departments to identify and enroll youth in Medicaid.
Medicaid agencies can train juvenile justice staff on the Medicaid eligibility process so they can
assist youth with enrollment and integrate applications for health care coverage into youth
discharge planning.
King County, WA
o
The King County, Washington Juvenile Court Services Division has used the administrative
funds option to reach out to youth and enroll them in Medicaid with the support of the state‘s
Medicaid department since 1997.
Page 69 of 113

New Mexico
o
o
o
Staff at the state Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) who work with justiceinvolved
youth receive training to determine if they are temporarily eligible for Medicaid.
In 2007, the department created a network of regional transition coordinators to work with
justice-involved youth from intake through release. They can help youth and their families
determine if they are eligible for Medicaid on a temporary basis and complete full
applications for coverage.
New Mexico has also streamlined the application process for youth exiting juvenile facilities.
An ideal approach is to educate agency staff about how the Medicaid, juvenile, and mental health
systems work at the state and local levels, including what juvenile justice services Medicaid
covers, and coverage eligibility for youth at different points of the juvenile justice system.
In addition, at least one state has sought to augment coordination through restructuring.
Illinois
o
The state established the Bureau of Interagency Coordination (BIC) in 1999, which created a
central point of contact within the Medicaid department for state agencies and counties that
provide services to individuals covered by Medicaid.
Legislation
Improve Medicaid Coverage for Youth in the Justice System
States can also legislate changes to their Medicaid system that help youth in the justice system
get coverage for treatment.
California
In 2006, California passed SB 1469 to help youth in the juvenile justice system obtain
Medicaid coverage before they are released from secure lockup.
For all youth committed to a county juvenile detention facility for more than 30 days, the
facility must inform the state Medicaid agency of the child‘s name and scheduled date of
release, and the agency then must process their application.
Washington State
In 2007, Washington State passed legislation that directed the Department of Social and
Health Services to explore the feasibility of Medicaid payment for youth temporarily placed
in a juvenile detention facility.
The law also provided a number of additional mechanisms to assist with enrolling youth or
reinstating their medical assistance coverage after their release from a facility.
______
Page 70 of 113

Legal Representation of Juveniles
When youth are screened or assessed – either for mental health and/or substance abuse issues, or
for competency to stand trial – it raises serious issues about how to protect their legal rights.
Screening and assessment can affect their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination in court,
their control over who sees sensitive information about them and when, and their right to
comprehend the significance of court proceedings.
Fortunately, procedures and protocols can be put in place that protect their legal rights while
ensuring that their mental health and other needs are met.
A. Confidentiality/Information-Sharing
In the course of mental health screening, assessment, evaluation, or treatment, youth disclose
sensitive information that may be self-incriminating, such as information on drug use, violent
behavior, sexual deviancy, victimization, abuse, and weapons offenses.
Youth have a constitutional right to protection from self-incrimination. But unless policies are
implemented to protect their legal interests, the information gleaned through mental health
screenings and assessments could be used against them in court to find them guilty of an offense
or to increase their punishment.
Most states currently don‘t have these protective policies or legislation in place.
Procedural Guidelines
Formal Agreements and Court Orders
o
o
Where no legal protections are in place to protect youth from self-incrimination, memoranda
of understanding can be developed with the stakeholders—e.g., the court, prosecutor‘s office,
public defenders, juvenile services, public and private mental health agencies—to safeguard
youth‘s legal interests.
In Santa Clara County, CA, members of a multi-disciplinary team that meet weekly for
children with behavioral health needs developed a formal process for information-sharing
across the range of providers involved with the youth. Other counties have established
standing court orders to facilitate the sharing of information.
Limiting the Use of Screening/Assessment Tools
Another option is to select screening/assessment tools whose questions will minimize the
harm of self-incrimination to youth as much as possible, or to avoid administering certain
portions of the tool being used.
Competency to Stand Trial
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A young person‘s competency to stand trial may be called into question during a mental
health screening or assessment (though a competency evaluation is necessary to arrive at a
conclusive determination).
All states except Oklahoma recognize that youth that are before a juvenile court must be
competent to stand trial. While some states have tried to use adult competency standards for
youth, this is generally insufficient because there are reasons for incompetence that are
unique to youth, such as their developmental immaturity.
It is also important to be aware that a young person‘s ongoing development may further
hamper their competency when coupled with mental illness and/or intellectual disabilities,
and can make diagnosis challenging.
Defense attorneys have been raising the issue of juvenile competency to stand trial with
increasing frequency in the past decade. During this time period, studies have shown widespread
impairments in certain categories of youth, particularly younger individuals and those with low
IQs, supporting the need for guidance for courts on how to handle juvenile competency.
Model Statutory Language
Most states have not developed statutory guidance for courts on how to determine competency
and handle the disposition of incompetent youth. However, as of 2007, at least ten states had
passed legislation addressing juvenile competency: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas,
Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Page 72 of 113

Enacted Legislation
Below are examples of legislation enacted on some of the many issues concerning juvenile
competency.
Developmental Immaturity
o
o
Not all states accept developmental immaturity as a reason for incompetence, but California
is one of the states that does.
Virginia does not permit a finding of incompetency based solely on age or developmental
factors.
Factors in Determining Competency
Alaska‘s statute on youth competency specifically outlines the youth‘s functional abilities
that the court should consider in making a competency determination.
Maryland‘s statute defines broader ―cognitive concepts‖ the court should consider, rather
than functional abilities.
Counsel for Juveniles
Louisiana law entitles youth to counsel prior to and during competency evaluations.
Self-incriminating Information
Louisiana and Alaska provide protections for youth from the use of self-incriminating
statements they may have made during competency evaluations in court proceedings against
them.
Legislation
The most secure way to protect youth‘s rights against self-incrimination is to enact legislation or
court rules that specifically require that information obtained by youth through screening,
assessment, evaluation, or treatment as part of their juvenile court case cannot be used against
them at any stage of a juvenile or criminal court case.
While a number of states have passed legislation to protect youth‘s rights, most states do not
have comprehensive protections against youth self-incrimination during mental health screening,
assessment, evaluation, and treatment that cover all stages of the juvenile justice process.
Model Statutory Language
The Juvenile Law Center has developed model statutory language to protect youth from selfincrimination
when undergoing screening, assessment, and treatment in the juvenile justice
system.
Page 73 of 113

Enacted Legislation
In their 2007 publication on this topic, the Juvenile Law Center identified four states—Texas,
Maryland, Missouri, and Connecticut—that had comprehensive statutory protections or court
rules that could be used as models for state legislation.
Recent examples of legislation enacted to protect youth from self-incrimination include
Pennsylvania‘s 2008 legislation and legislation enacted in Illinois in 2010.
______
Implement Standardized Screening
and Assessment Tools
To Identify and Treat Youth with Mental and Substance Abuse Issues
States have taken different approaches to ensure youth in the justice system with mental health
and substance use treatment needs are screened, assessed, and treated.
A systematic approach (through administrative changes, judicial mechanisms, or legislative
action) reliably identifies local mental health and substance abuse treatment needs and uses local
prevalence data to inform policy and funding.
Administrative
Many states are now using standardized mental health screenings and assessments.
Two thousand sites in 47 states have registered to use the Massachusetts Youth Screening
Instrument – Second Version (MAYSI-2) and of these states 44 are using the MAYSI-2
statewide in all intake, detention, and/or juvenile corrections programs facilities. [79] It is also
being used in other countries and has been translated into 15 languages. [80]
The Voice Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (Voice DISC) was being used in
juvenile justice settings in 13 states as of 2007.
Legislative
A number of states have passed legislation that requires mental health screenings and
assessments. Some examples:
Minnesota
Minnesota requires statewide mental health screening for all youth in the juvenile justice
system found to be delinquent. Where indicated, a diagnostic assessment must then be
conducted.
Page 74 of 113

Nevada
Nevada requires detained youth to be screened for mental health and substance use disorders
while awaiting a detention hearing. The screening method must be ―based on research‖ and
be ―reliable and valid.‖
Texas
Texas requires juvenile probation departments throughout the state to administer a mental
health screening instrument that they select to all youth who have been formally referred to
the probation department. The Department uses the MAYSI-2 assessment instrument within
48 hours of admission to detention.
Litigation
In a number of states, the conditions inside juvenile facilities were so bad that lawsuits were filed
to force needed changes. In several cases, this resulted in new requirements for mental health
screening and assessment.
California
o
In the case of Farrell v. Allen, the California Youth Authority (CYA) (now the California
Department of Juvenile Justice) was sued due to serious on-going problems with conditions
in CYA‘s facilities, and entered into a consent decree in 2004. Subsequently, the Department
of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) developed several remediation plans, one of which concerned
mental health, and the court ordered that it be implemented. The following actions had to be
taken regarding screening and assessment:
o All youth must receive a mental health screening within 48 hours of intake to
identify mental health issues and other treatment needs.
o Results must be reviewed by a psychologist no later than the next business
day.
o If the mental health screening indicates significant mental health problems,
then a clinical evaluation must be completed by a mental health professional
to assess further treatment needs.
o A number of standardized, validated instruments were recommended, though
not required, including the MAYSI-2, Suicide Ideation Questionnaires, and
VOICE-DISC.
Illinois
o
In the case of RJ, BW, DF, DG, and MD v. Bishop, youth who were confined in secure
Illinois Youth Centers filed a class action lawsuit against the Illinois Department of Juvenile
Justice alleging that alleging that the poor conditions and treatment violated their
constitutional rights. The complaint specifically addressed mental health treatment problems.
The Court ordered a remedial plan created and this plan included a requirement that
screening and assessment be done upon reception of the youth in the facility.
Page 75 of 113

Lauderdale County, Mississippi
o
Disability Rights Mississippi filed a lawsuit to gain access to the Lauderdale County Juvenile
Detention Center (LCJDC) in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. After documenting concerns
regarding the policies and practices at the detention center, a settlement agreement was
reached that included the following requirements:
o All youth must have a MAYSI-2 screening immediately upon admission.
o If youth have urgent mental health issues, they must be immediately evaluated
by a mental health professional or taken to the emergency room.
o Adequate mental health services must be provided to all youth with a mental
health diagnosis or serious mental health need, as indicated by the MAYSI-2.
New Orleans, Louisiana
o
In 2009, a class action suit was brought against the city of New Orleans for federal
constitutional and statutory violations due to extremely unsafe and unsanitary conditions at
the Youth Study Center (YSC) in New Orleans. A consent decree was reached in 2010, and
then further modified in 2011, requiring that YSC take a number of actions, including the
following steps related to screening and assessment:
o
o
o
All admissions staff be trained on administering the MAYSI-2 screening
instrument.
Staff will properly file the results of the MAYSI-2 and flag for follow-up
where appropriate.
A psychiatrist or appropriately credentialed medical practitioner will assess all
youth who score in a problematic range on the MAYSI-2 and assess all youth
who have major psychotic issues.
Page 76 of 113

o
All youth with behavioral health needs will be referred for interventions in a
timely fashion.
New York
o
The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice sued the state of New
York over conditions of confinement at four juvenile facilities in New York. They entered
into a settlement agreement with New York, which required the state to:
o
o
o
have a qualified mental health professional screen each youth admitted to a
facility;
assess each youth for mental health issues, if indicated as necessary by their
screening; and
refer youth at immediate risk of harm to a mental health professional without
delay.
______
Evidence-Based Treatment Programs
Evidence-based treatment programs are primarily designed for use in the community instead of
institutional settings, most have been adapted for use in both settings. Studies have found many
of these programs are more effective at reducing recidivism (and cost significantly less) than
incarceration.
Intensive Family-Based Treatment
Numerous community-based treatment programs have been studied and found to be more
effective than secure confinement in reducing the number of youth who reoffend. Some effective
evidence-based models for youth with mental health needs and/or substance abuse disorders
include:
Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
An intensive family- and community-based treatment program for chronic and violent juvenile
offenders. Therapists work with the family to address all the environmental systems affecting the
youth --their homes and families, schools and teachers, neighborhoods and friends. In its 2012
report, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) found that MST had a net
benefit for Washington taxpayers of $24,751 per youth treated.
Functional Family Therapy (FFT)
A family-based treatment program for delinquent youth at risk for placement in a juvenile
facility. FFT focuses on improving family communication and supportiveness, while decreasing
intense dysfunctional behavior patterns. In its 2012 report, Washington State Institute for Public
Page 77 of 113

Policy (WSIPP) found that FFT had a net benefit for Washington taxpayers of $30,706 per
treated youth.
Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care (MDTFC)
A foster program used as an alternative to institutionalization where community families are
recruited, trained, and closely supervised to provide youth with treatment and intensive
supervision at home, in school, and in the community. MDTFC uses a behavior modification
program and provides youth with structured daily feedback. In its 2012 report, the Washington
State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) found that MDTFC had a net benefit for Washington
taxpayers of $31,276 per treated youth.
Psychosocial Therapies
Various types of psychosocial therapy are also being used to treat youth with mental health
needs. The therapy is generally provided by trained professionals such as psychiatrists,
psychologists, social workers, or counselors. Some examples of effective programs include:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A psychotherapy treatment program that is a problem-focused approach to help youth identify
and change the dysfunctional beliefs, thoughts, and patterns of behavior that contribute to their
behavior. Studies have found CBT to be effective in changing problem behavior and reducing
recidivism.
Aggression Replacement Therapy (ART)
This program is targeted to youth with a history of serious aggression and anti-social behavior. It
teaches youth techniques to control impulsiveness and anger and use more appropriate pro-social
behavior. Studies have found ART to be effective in reducing recidivism and problem behavior
and increasing social skills.
Medication
Medication has been found to be effective in treating certain disorders in youth, such as attention
deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD), depression, and certain anxiety disorders. This treatment
can enable many youth to remain in the community safely.
Trauma Care
A traumatic experience is an event that threatens one‘s life, safety, or well-being, including
emotional and physical assaults, abuse, and neglect. Many youth in the juvenile justice system
have been exposed to community and family violence and/or been threatened with or been the
direct target of violence. This trauma can impact children‘s development and health throughout
their lives and needs to be considered when selecting effective treatment for youth in the juvenile
justice system.
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Identifying Youth with Trauma
Assessments have been developed to identify and track trauma histories, such as the Traumatic
Events Screening Inventory (Davis et al., 2000; Ford et al., 2000), and to identify mental health
and behavior symptoms and disorders related to traumatic experiences, such as the UCLA
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (Steinberg, Brymer, Decker, and Pynoos, 2004).
Treating Trauma
A number of evidence-based practices have been developed specifically to treat youth impacted
by trauma. Cognitive behavioral treatment models are considered to be one of the best by the
Centers for Disease Control. Click to download a comprehensive list of treatment programs.
Improving Care for Traumatized Youth
Congress established the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2000 to raise the standard
of care and improve access to services for child victims of trauma.
Administrative
Many jurisdictions are now using evidence-based practices. Below is a sampling of some using
particular programs or who have adopted specific policies on evidence-based practices:
Washington State‘s Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA) created the ―Integrated
Treatment Model‖ to address the mental health needs of their youth. The model incorporated
evidence-based components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy,
and Functional Family Therapy to treat youth from the time of entry to a secure facility until
release. The JRA also redesigned its aftercare program to focus on families and trained
parole counselors in Functional Family Parole, which is based on Functional Family
Therapy.
Several states, including Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, have created
centers to increase the use of evidence-based practices in treating youth with mental health
disorders. They help communities by providing information, assistance, and training.
Many of the comprehensive reform programs utilized in several states make use of evidencebased
practices.
Legislation
Oregon
o
Oregon requires that certain state agencies, including the Oregon Youth Authority, spend at
least 75% of state money that they receive for programs on ―evidence-based programs.‖
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Pennsylvania
In 2012, Pennsylvania amended the Purpose Clause of its Juvenile Act to emphasize
evidence-based practices, stating that evidence-based practices should be employed
―whenever possible and, in the case of a delinquent child, by using the least restrictive
intervention that is consistent with the protection of the community, the imposition of
accountability for offenses committed and the rehabilitation, supervision and treatment needs
of the child.‖
Tennessee
Tennessee passed a law in 2007 requiring state agencies to ensure that state-funds for
juvenile justice programs are spent only on evidence-based programs.
Washington
Washington State has been in the forefront of states aggressively moving towards the use of
evidence-based treatment programs for youth in the mental health, child welfare, and juvenile
justice systems. Most recently, Washington enacted into law H.B. 2536 in 2012.
• The specific intent of the law was to increase the use of ―evidence-based and
research-based practices‖ for youth in the above-referenced systems.
• It directs that a baseline assessment be done of the evidence and researchbased
programs currently being used, their cost, and recommendations for a
reallocation of resources towards such programs.
• It also provides for monitoring and quality control to ensure fidelity to the
evidence and research-based programs.
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Litigation
In lawsuits arising out of extremely poor conditions in juvenile facilities, some settlement
agreements have mandated particular types of treatment programs.
New York
The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice sued the state of New
York over conditions of confinement at four juvenile facilities in New York. They entered
into a settlement agreement with New York which specified that the state had to provide an
effective behavioral treatment program based on evidence-based principles for youth with
mental health needs. It also required those treating the youth to consider a history of trauma
in treatment planning
______
Improving Services
Mechanisms to Improve Services for Youth with Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Needs in the Juvenile Justice System
Some youth with mental and substance use disorders remain in the juvenile justice system even
in communities that divert a lot of youth. Unfortunately, many agencies working with youth in
the juvenile justice system do not receive education on basic mental health issues or on how to
handle youth with these needs. This can pose significant challenges for staff, and can lead to
more harmful treatment of youth, such as the use of physical force, restraints, and isolation.
Below are some programs designed to improve their treatment so they can live healthy lives and
not return to the justice system.
Administration
Mental Health Training, Education, and Workforce Enhancement Initiative
Cross-State Initiative
The MacArthur Models for Workforce Development Strategic Innovation Group (SIG) is
developing a mental health education and training package for juvenile justice agency staff to
improve their basic understanding of mental illness in youth and their skills in dealing with
youth with mental health issues. Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, and Washington will
implement the program in at least one juvenile justice setting – probation, juvenile court,
detention, or corrections.
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Workforce Collaborative on Evidence-Based Practices
Louisiana
Louisiana, as part of the MacArthur Models for Workforce Development SIG, is creating a
multi-system collaborative to meet the challenges of recruiting, retaining, training, and
educating individuals working with children at risk of or involved in the juvenile justice
system.
______
Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Treatment: Aftercare
Aftercare treatment for youth with mental and substance use disorders can help keep them from
returning to the justice system.
Legislation
Virginia
Virginia legislation requires the state Board of Juvenile Justice to develop regulations to plan
for mental health, substance abuse, and other therapeutic treatment services for youth
returning from a commitment to a juvenile justice facility.
______
Family Engagement
All young people need the support of their families, and this is especially vital for at-risk youth.
There is increasing recognition that family involvement can be integral to youth success.
Administration
National
Many jurisdictions have chosen to implement intensive treatment services for youth with
mental health issues, such as Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST) and Functional Family Therapy
(FFT), which have proven successful with justice-involved youth.
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Pennsylvania
―Peer advocates‖ are being used in the Pennsylvania juvenile justice systems and in other
states. This service uses peers to help family members of justice-involved youth navigate the
system.
In Philadelphia, the Mental Health Association in Southeast Pennsylvania‘s Parent Involved
Network (PIN), provides several services to help families navigate the child-serving systems
and to orient juvenile probation officers on working with families.
Legislation
Colorado
Colorado passed HB 07-1057 in 2007, which established three family advocacy
demonstration programs for youth with mental health or co-occurring disorders who are atrisk
or already involved in the juvenile justice system.
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Restorative Justice 12
Restorative Justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the
offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or
punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are
encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by
apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service". In addition, it provides help for the
offender in order to avoid future offences. It is based on a theory of justice that considers crime
and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the state.
Restorative justice that fosters dialogue between victim and offender shows the highest rates of
victim satisfaction and offender accountability.
According to John Braithwaite (2004), restorative justice is:
...a process where all stakeholders affected by an injustice have an opportunity to discuss how
they have been affected by the injustice and to decide what should be done to repair the harm.
With crime, restorative justice is about the idea that because crime hurts, justice should heal. It
follows that conversations with those who have been hurt and with those who have inflicted the
harm must be central to the process.
The process of restorative justice necessitates a shift in responsibility for addressing crime. In a
restorative justice process, the citizens who have been affected by a crime must take an active
role in addressing that crime. Although law professionals may have secondary roles in
facilitating the restorative justice process, it is the citizens who must take up the majority of the
responsibility in healing the pains caused by crime.
Dr. Carolyn Boyes-Watson (2014) at Suffolk University's Center for Restorative Justice defines
restorative justice as:
...a growing social movement to institutionalize peaceful approaches to harm, problem-solving
and violations of legal and human rights. These range from international peacemaking tribunals
such as the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission to innovations within the
criminal and juvenile justice systems, schools, social services and communities. Rather than
privileging the law, professionals and the state, restorative resolutions engage those who are
harmed, wrongdoers and their affected communities in search of solutions that promote repair,
reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. Restorative justice seeks to build partnerships
to reestablish mutual responsibility for constructive responses to wrongdoing within our
communities. Restorative approaches seek a balanced approach to the needs of the victim,
wrongdoer and community through processes that preserve the safety and dignity of all."
Howard Zehr describes the difference between restorative justice and traditional criminal justice
in terms of the guiding questions each system asks. In Changing Lenses, Zehr asserts that
restorative justice asks:
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1. Who has been hurt?
2. What are their needs?
3. Whose obligations are these?
4. What are the causes?
5. Who has a stake in the situation?
6. What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to address causes and
put things right?
This contrasts with the traditional criminal justice, which seeks answers to three questions:
1. What laws have been broken?
2. Who did it?
3. What do the offender(s) deserve?
Restorative justice is very
different from either the
adversarial legal process or
that of civil litigation. J.
Braithwaite writes, "Courtannexed
ADR (alternative
dispute resolution) and
restorative justice could not
be philosophically further
apart", because the former
seeks to address only legally
relevant issues and to protect
both parties' rights, whereas
restorative justice seeks
"expanding the issues beyond
those that are legally
relevant, especially into
underlying relationships."
Similarly, citing Greif,
Liebmann wrote
number of different tensions:
a way of looking at
restorative justice is to think
of it as a balance among a
a balance between the therapeutic and the retributive models of justice
a balance between the rights of offenders and the needs of victims
a balance between the need to rehabilitate offenders and the duty to protect the
public.
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Restorative Practices
The restorative practices (RP) concept has its roots in RJ. RP is an emerging field of practice and
study devoted to building social capital and achieving social discipline through participatory
learning and decision-making. RP ties together theory, research and practice in fields such as
education, counseling, criminal justice, social work and organizational management. The
unifying hypothesis of restorative practices is that human beings are happier, more cooperative
and productive, and more likely to make positive behavioural changes when others do things
with them (via collaboration), rather than to them (via coercion) or for them (via independent
action).
In criminal justice, RP circles and conferences allow involved parties to resolve offenses
collaboratively. In social work, RP family group decision-making (FGDM) and FGC support
collaboration within families, e.g., to protect children. In education, student circles and groups
collaborate to peacefully resolve disputes.
The criminal justice field uses the phrase "restorative justice"; social workers say
"empowerment"; educators prefer "positive discipline" or "the responsive classroom"; while
leadership consultants choose "horizontal management".
RP is spreading in multiple countries, in education, criminal justice, family and youth andserving
and workplace applications.
RJ has not currently succeeded when applied to drug offences, sexual assault and domestic
violence. South Australia and New Zealand have attempted RJ with juvenile sexual offenders.
Indigenous regions of Canada have tentatively implemented circle sentencing to deal with
domestic violence. Advocates believe that it may be applicable to these indigenous communities
because it relates to traditional cultural values of restoring balance in the community. In addition,
First Nations have low regard for the local (punitive) court system, in which their people are
over-represented in court and in prison.
Since 2000, Kahnawake, a Kanien'kehá:ka reserve, has introduced the use of restorative justice
to intervene before an arrest occurs, and to prevent one. Feeling ill-served by the adversarial
Canadian system, the community is particularly interested in incorporating restorative justice to
work with its younger members and help prevent future offenses. Some Native American nations
have also begun to adopt Restorative Justice practices; the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge
Reservation is planning a tribal justice center to include a courtroom for Restorative Justice.
The Restorative Justice Facilitator
The role of the facilitator is key to a successful restorative justice conference outcome for both
victim and offender. In 2010 John Bacon submitted, in part fulfilment of the requirement of the
University of Cambridge Master of Studies degree in Criminology, his thesis Making Progress
in Restorative Justice: a qualitative study. This study is cited as a key part of the research
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evidence used to inform the Restorative Justice Council's Best Practice Guidance for Restorative
Practice (2011:30).
This study reveals for the first time the key skills, techniques and characteristics necessary to
make progress in restorative justice conferencing practice and from which an ideal candidate
profile can be compiled which would assist in the recruitment, training and supervision of future
facilitators.
The study also revealed a number of practical and logistical obstacles to making progress which
require a strategic and operational response if future restorative justice projects are to fulfill their
remit.
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Youth Court 13
Teen Courts are problem-solving courts authorized by law in many states in America. The terms
Teen Court, Youth Court, and Peer Court are used interchangeably. Their purpose is to
provide an alternative disposition for juveniles who have committed a delinquent act, have
committed a minor offense, or have been charged with a misdemeanor, and are otherwise eligible
for diversion. Depending on their training, community support, and agreements with traditional
court systems, most teen or youth courts are recognized as valid, legal venues for the process of
hearing cases, sentencing and sentence fulfillment.
Court Structure
Teen courts are staffed by youth volunteers who
serve in various capacities within the program,
trained and acting in the roles of jurors, lawyers,
bailiffs, clerks and judges. Teen courts usually
function in cooperation with local juvenile courts
and youth detention centers, middle and high
schools, and/or community organizations such as
the YMCA. Most teen courts are sentencing
courts in which the offender has already admitted guilt or pled no contest.
Many teen courts operate much like a traditional court, holding hearings before a judge and jury
with the jury deliberating to determine an appropriate disposition. Other courts employ different
structures, such as a judge-panel model which includes a panel of 3 to 6 youth judges who
collectively hear, deliberate, and sentence the offender.
Often, sentences will involve the defendant's making restitution to someone harmed or
inconvenienced by their actions, or creating an informational awareness project about health,
safety, respect, or another topic relevant to the offense. One of the more common sentences is
community service. In many jury-based programs it is mandatory that the offender serve on a
teen court jury. In some cases, educational workshops are required as part of the sentence,
usually in cases involving alcohol or drug charges.
Youth volunteers may be eligible for school or community service credits through their schools,
and community awards such as the President's Volunteer Service Award. Adult volunteers serve
as trainers, advisors and coordinators of the teen courts; some courts have a small paid staff.
Principles & Results
Teen or youth courts provide an alternative court system through which juvenile offenders can be
heard and judged by their peers. Most teen courts have strict guidelines for youth volunteers who
participate in the sentencing process, which generally includes training, a modified bar exam,
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peer mentoring and compliance with a code of conduct. Many youth courts establish a youth bar
association or ethics body which helps to set guidelines for ethical and fair procedure.
Because cases heard by teen courts are real cases, participants in teen court programs are
required to sign an oath of confidentiality regarding any information which comes to their
knowledge in the course of the teen court case presentation.
State-approved teen courts implement restorative justice and attempt to reintegrate the youth
offender to the community while sending appropriate messages to the offender regarding
unacceptable behavior. The basic principles of restorative justice are community protection,
competency development, and accountability. This system seeks to address the root causes of
juvenile offenses and to reduce recidivism. The recidivism rates for standard programs in several
states range from 6%-9%, which is less than half of the traditional recidivism rate for juvenile
offenders, which hovers around 20%.
Restorative justice principles require the offender to make amends to the victim and/or the
community and provide opportunities for victims and community members to participate in the
juvenile justice process, providing valued input in decision making. Because of the active role
the victim plays, qualitative assessments can be made into victim impact and victim satisfaction.
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References
______
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_delinquency_in_the_United_States
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_juvenile_justice_system
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_incarceration_in_the_United_States
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline
5. http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/09/what-youthincarceration-costs-taxpayers
6. http://www.extension.umn.edu/youth/research/youthprograms/docs/economic-return-afterschool-programs.pdf
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_parenting
8. http://jjie.org/hub/mental-health-and-substance-abuse/reform-trends/
9. https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/jjjournal_2003_2/page3.html
10. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/riskprotectivefactors.
html
11. http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/wht-knw/index-eng.aspx
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_court
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Page 97 of 113

Attachment A
The History of Juvenile Justice
In America
Page 98 of 113

PART 1
The History of
JUVENILE JUSTICE
If you are a young person under the age of 18 and get into
trouble with the law, you will probably have your case heard
in the juvenile justice system. But this was not always the case.
The idea of a separate justice system for juveniles is just over
one hundred years old.
ORIGINS OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
The law has long defined a line between juvenile and adult offenders,
but that line has been drawn at different places, for different reasons.
Early in United States history, the law was heavily influenced by the common
law of England, which governed the American colonies. One of the
most important English lawyers of the time was William Blackstone.
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in the
late 1760s, were widely read and admired by our nation’s founders.
“Infants” and “Adults” at Common Law
In one section of his Commentaries, Blackstone identified people who
were incapable of committing a crime. Two things were required to hold
someone accountable for a crime. First, the person had to have a
“vicious will” (that is, the intent to commit a crime). Second, the person
had to commit an unlawful act. If either the will or the act was lacking,
no crime was committed. The first group of people Blackstone identified
as incapable of committing a crime were “infants.” These were not
infants in the modern sense of the word, but children too young to fully
understand their actions.
Blackstone and his contemporaries drew the line between “infant”
and “adult” at the point where one could understood one’s actions.
Children under the age of seven were as a rule classified as infants who
could not be guilty of a felony (a felony is a serious crime such as burglary,
kidnapping, or murder). Children over the age of 14 were liable to
suffer as adults if found guilty of a crime.
Between the ages of seven and fourteen was a gray zone. A child in
this age range would be presumed incapable of crime. If, however, it
appeared that the child understood the difference between right and
wrong, the child could be convicted and suffer the full consequences of
the crime. These consequences could include death in a capital crime. (A
capital crime is a crime for which one might be executed. For examples
of children sentenced to death in Blackstone’s time, see the sidebar
“Malice Supplies the Age.”)
4 | ABA Division for Public Education

MALICE SUPPLIES THE AGE
In this excerpt, 18th-century English lawyer William Blackstone describes the
English common law doctrine “malice supplies the age.”
But by the law, as it now stands, . . . the capacity of
doing ill, or contracting guilt, is not so much measured
by years and days, as by the strength of the delinquent’s
understanding and judgment. For one lad of
eleven years old may have as much cunning as another
of fourteen; and in these cases our maxim is, that malitia
supplet aetatem [“malice supplies the age”]. Under
seven years of age indeed an infant cannot be guilty of
felony; for then a felonious discretion is almost an
impossibility in nature: but at eight years old he may be
guilty of felony. Also, under fourteen . . . if it appear to
the court and jury, that he . . . could discern between
good and evil, he may be convicted and suffer death.
Thus a girl of thirteen has been burnt for killing her mistress:
and one boy of ten, and another of nine years old,
William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, Chapter 2
(“Of the Persons Capable of Committing Crimes”)
who had killed their companions, have been sentenced
to death, and he of ten years actually hanged; because
it appeared upon their trials, that the one hid himself,
and the other hid the body he had killed; which hiding
manifested a consciousness of guilt, and a discretion to
discern between good and evil. . . . Thus also, in very
modern times, a boy of ten years old was convicted on
own confession of murdering his bedfellow; there
appearing in his whole behaviour plain tokens of a mischievous
discretion: and, as the sparing this boy merely
on account of his tender years might be of dangerous
consequence to the public, by propagating a notion
that children might commit such atrocious crimes with
impunity, it was unanimously agreed by all the judges
that he was a proper subject of capital punishment.
A New System of Justice for Juveniles
During the nineteenth century, the treatment of juveniles
in the United States started to change. Social reformers
began to create special facilities for troubled juveniles,
especially in large cities. In New York City, the Society for
the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency established the
New York House of Refuge to house juvenile delinquents
in 1825. The Chicago Reform School opened in 1855. The
reformers who supported these institutions sought to protect
juvenile offenders by separating them from adult
offenders. They also focused on rehabilitation—trying to
help young offenders avoid a future life of crime.
In 1899, the first juvenile court in the United States was
established in Cook County, Illinois. The idea quickly
caught on, and within twenty-five years, most states had
set up juvenile court systems. The early juvenile courts
shared with reform schools the same desire to rehabilitate
ORIGINAL GOALS OF THE JUVENILE COURTS
In 1909, Judge Julian Mack, one of the first judges to
preside over the nation’s first juvenile court in Cook
County, Illinois, described the goals of the juvenile court:
rather than of punish juvenile offenders. They were based
on the legal doctrine of parens patriae (a Latin term that
means “parent of the country”). The parens patriae doctrine
gives the state the power to serve as the guardian (or
parent) of those with legal disabilities, including juveniles.
In line with their “parental” role, juvenile courts tried to
focus on the “best interests of the child.” They emphasized
an informal, nonadversarial, and flexible approach to
cases—there were few procedural rules that the courts
were required to follow (see sidebar “Original Goals of the
Juvenile Courts”). Cases were treated as civil (noncriminal)
actions, and the ultimate goal was to guide a juvenile
offender toward life as a responsible, law-abiding adult.
The juvenile courts could, however, order that young
offenders be removed from their homes and placed in
juvenile reform institutions as part of their rehabilitation
program.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1. What is the significance of the English
common law doctrine, “malice supplies the age”?
2. What were the goals of the early juvenile courts?
The child who must be brought into court should, of
course, be made to know that he is face to face with the
power of the state, but he should at the same time, and
more emphatically, be made to feel that he is the object of
its care and solicitude. The ordinary trappings of the courtroom
are out of place in such hearings. The judge on a
bench, looking down upon the boy standing at the bar, can
never evoke a proper sympathetic spirit. Seated at a desk,
with the child at his side, where he can on occasion put his
arm around his shoulder and draw the lad to him, the
judge, while losing none of his judicial dignity, will gain
immensely in the effectiveness of his work.
Julian Mack, “The Juvenile Court,” Harvard Law Review,
vol. 23 (1909), 120.]
Dialogue on Youth and Justice | 5

JUVENILE JUSTICE
AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW
Beginning in the 1960s, the United States Supreme Court
heard a number of cases that would profoundly change
proceedings in the juvenile courts. The first of these cases
was Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966). Morris
Kent first entered the juvenile court system at the age of
14, following several housebreakings and an attempted
purse snatching. Two years later, his fingerprints were
found in the apartment of a woman who had been
robbed and raped. He was detained and interrogated by
police and admitted to the crimes. Kent’s mother hired a
lawyer, who arranged for a psychiatric examination of the
boy. That examination concluded that Kent suffered from
“severe psychopathology” and recommended that he be
placed in a psychiatric hospital for observation.
The juvenile court judge had authority to “waive jurisdiction”
in Kent’s case to a criminal court, where Kent
would be tried as an adult. Kent’s lawyer opposed the
waiver and offered to prove that if Kent were given proper
hospital treatment, he would be a candidate for rehabilitation.
The juvenile court did not respond to the
motions made by Kent’s lawyer and, without a hearing,
waived jurisdiction to the criminal court.
The Worst of Both Worlds?
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Kent’s case and
in a majority opinion authored by Justice Fortas, ruled
that Kent was entitled to a hearing and to a statement of
the reasons for the juvenile court’s decision to waive jurisdiction.
In its opinion, the majority also expressed concerns
that the juvenile courts were not living up to their
promise. In fact, the majority speculated “that there may
be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst
of both worlds [in juvenile courts]: that he gets neither the
protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and
regenerative treatment postulated for children.” A particular
concern was whether juvenile courts had received the
resources, personnel, and facilities they needed to adequately
serve youth charged with violations of the law.
A year after the Kent decision, the case of Gerald
Gault, a 15-year-old Arizona boy, led to a major change in
the way young people’s cases were processed by the
juvenile courts. Gerald was accused of making an indecent
phone call to a neighbor. At the time, he was also
under 6-months’ probation because he had been with
another boy who stole a wallet from a woman’s purse.
When Gerald’s neighbor complained of the call, police
arrived at his home and took him into custody. They left
no notice for Gerald’s parents.
Before Gerald’s hearings, neither Gerald nor his parents
received notice of the specific charges against him.
At the hearings, there were no sworn witnesses and no
record was made of the proceedings. Not even the neighbor
who had made the complaint about the phone call
was present. At the end of the hearings, the judge committed
Gerald to Arizona’s State Industrial School until he
turned 21, unless he was discharged earlier by “due
process of law.” This meant that Gerald might have to
spend up to six years at the school. An adult convicted of
6 | ABA Division for Public Education
using vulgar or obscene language would have received a
maximum penalty of a $50 fine and imprisonment for no
more than two months.
Gerald’s parents petitioned for their son’s release. They
argued that he had been denied due process of the law
(see sidebar “What Is Due Process?”) and that his constitutional
rights to a fair trial had been violated. The case
eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which
ruled in favor of Gerald in In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).
WHAT IS DUE PROCESS?
Due process of law means that every person who is party
to a legal proceeding is entitled to certain safeguards
designed to ensure that the proceeding is fair and impartial.
The Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution defines
many due process rights, including:
■
The Fifth Amendment’s guarantees that
■
No one can be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law.
■
No one can be compelled to be a witness against
herself or himself (self-incrimination) in a criminal
trial.
■
No one can be tried for a serious crime unless
indicted by a grand jury.
■
The Sixth Amendment’s rights to
■
A speedy and public trial.
■
An impartial jury.
■
Notice of the nature and cause of an accusation.
■
Confrontation of adverse witnesses (the right to
cross-examine witnesses)
■Compel witnesses in one’s favor to appear in court.
■
Assistance of legal counsel for one’s defense.
■
The Seventh Amendment’s right to trial by jury in
most civil (noncriminal) cases.
■
The Eighth Amendment’s protections against
■
Excessive bail.
■
Cruel and unusual punishments.
Beginning in 1967, with its decision in In re Gault,
the U.S. Supreme Court extended many, but not all, of
these due process rights to young people involved in
juvenile court proceedings.

Writing for the majority of the Court, Justice Fortas
stated that “neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the
Bill of Rights is for adults alone.” Juveniles subject to
delinquency hearings were entitled to key elements of
due process to ensure the fairness of their hearings,
including:
■ Notice of the charges against them.
■ A right to legal counsel.
■ The right against self-incrimination.
■ The right to confront and cross-examine witnesses.
Blurring the Lines Between Juvenile
and Criminal Justice
The Supreme Court’s decision in In re Gault was not unanimous.
In a dissent, Justice Stewart warned that by requiring
many of the same due process guarantees in juvenile
cases that are required in criminal cases, the Court was
converting juvenile proceedings into criminal proceedings.
In doing so, he argued, the Court was missing an important
distinction. The object of juvenile proceedings was
the “correction of a condition.” The proceedings were not
adversarial; juvenile courts functioned as public social
agencies striving to find the right solution to the problem
of juvenile delinquency. The object of criminal courts, in
contrast, was conviction and punishment of those who
commit wrongful acts.
Justice Stewart noted that in the nineteenth century,
before juvenile courts were established, juveniles tried in
criminal courts were given the same due process as
adults. They were also subject to the harshest punishments
for their crimes, including the death penalty.
Juvenile courts were not perfect, Justice Stewart agreed.
But by blurring the distinctions between juvenile proceedings
and criminal proceedings, the Court was “invit[ing] a
long step backwards into the nineteenth century.”
Three years after the Gault decision, the Court took
another step toward making procedure in the juvenile
courts more like criminal courts. In re Winship, 397 U.S.
358 (1970), involved a 12-year-old boy charged with stealing
a $112 from a woman’s purse. The juvenile court
decided that “a preponderance of the evidence” established
that the boy had committed the theft. To say that
someone is guilty of a crime by a “preponderance of the
evidence” means that the available evidence (for example,
the testimony of witnesses) makes it more likely than
not that the person committed the crime. In a standard
criminal trial, however, the government has to prove
“beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused committed
the crime. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” is a higher
standard than “preponderance of the evidence”—it
means that the available evidence leaves you firmly convinced
of a defendant’s guilt.
One reason that the “beyond a reasonable doubt”
standard of proof is required in criminal cases is that a
person convicted of a crime can be sentenced to serve
time in prison. In the Winship case, the boy charged with
stealing from the purse faced up to six years in a juvenile
training school. In defending use of the “preponderance
of the evidence” standard, supporters of the juvenile
court emphasized that the purpose of the training school
was not to punish but to rehabilitate the boy. They also
argued that it is not necessarily in the best interests of a
troubled juvenile to “win” a case if the juvenile is truly in
need of a court’s intervention. A majority of the Court
rejected these arguments, stating that “good intentions
do not themselves obviate the need for criminal due
process safeguards in juvenile courts.” This was particularly
true in cases where the juvenile’s loss of liberty during
confinement in a juvenile training school would be comparable
to the punishment of imprisonment imposed
when an adult is convicted of a crime.
Dialogue on Youth and Justice | 7

Chief Justice Burger dissented from the majority opinion,
joined by Justice Stewart. By moving the juvenile
courts closer to procedures used in the criminal trials of
adults, the dissenters argued, the Court was also moving
away from the original idea of juvenile courts as benevolent
and less formal institutions equipped to deal flexibly with
the unique needs of juvenile offenders. “I cannot regard it
as a manifestation of progress,” Chief Justice Burger asserted,
“to transform juvenile courts into criminal courts, which
is what we are well on the way to accomplishing.”
Trial by Jury and Juvenile Justice
The trend toward extending the due process rights of
adult criminal trials to juvenile court proceedings slowed
in 1971, with the Supreme Court’s ruling in McKeiver v.
Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528 (1971). In McKeiver, the Court
ruled that juveniles are not entitled to trial by jury in a
juvenile court proceeding.
An important factor in the Court’s decision was its
refusal to fully equate a juvenile proceeding with a criminal
proceeding, even if the juvenile’s case involved
offenses that would be felonies or misdemeanors under
the state’s criminal laws and the juvenile court ordered
the youth confined to a secure rehabilitation facility. The
Court acknowledged that juvenile courts had not lived up
to their promise, in part because of a lack of adequate
resources. But the Court was also “reluctant to disallow
the States to experiment further and to seek in new and
different ways the elusive answers to the problems of the
young.” Trial by jury, the Court feared, would effectively
abolish any significant distinction between juvenile and
criminal proceedings. “If the formalities of the criminal
adjudicative process are to be superimposed upon the
juvenile court system,” the majority opinion concluded,
“there is little need for its separate existence. Perhaps
that ultimate disillusionment will come one day, but for
the moment we are disinclined to give impetus to it.”
Three justices joined a dissenting opinion in McKeiver.
They argued that when a juvenile is tried for offenses
based on violations of a state’s criminal law, and when the
juvenile faces possible commitment to a state institution
for delinquents, a jury trial should be required. “Where a
State uses its juvenile court proceedings to prosecute a
juvenile for a criminal act and to order ‘confinement’ until
the child reaches 21 years of age. . . ,” the dissenters
stated, “then [the juvenile] is entitled to the same procedural
protection as an adult.”
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1. What is meant by the term “due process”?
2. Why did the Supreme Court decide not to give
juveniles the right to trial by jury?
3. Why were dissenting justices concerned about the
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR PART I
TAKE A STAND
Begin your discussion of the issues raised in Part I by
asking participants to “take a stand” on the following
statements. Designate corners of the room for participants
who agree, disagree, or are not sure of their
opinion. For each question, ask the participants to
move to the corner of the room that reflects their
opinion. After your dialogue on the Discussion
Questions, you can repeat the “take a stand” activity
to see if anyone’s opinions have changed.
“Take a stand” indicating whether you agree, disagree,
or are not sure of your opinion on these statements:
■
The juvenile justice system should emphasize
rehabilitation, not punishment, of juvenile offenders.
■
There is a difference between confining someone
for rehabilitation and confining someone for
punishment.
■
A judge should have flexibility in determining how
long a juvenile offender may need to be confined
for rehabilitation.
■
Juveniles should be entitled to a trial by jury.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Early treatment of juvenile offenders who were
deemed capable of understanding their crime
emphasized punishment. The juvenile court system,
in contrast, was founded on the belief that society
should try to rehabilitate, not punish, juvenile offenders.
In the due process cases of the 1960s and ’70s,
the Supreme Court often questioned whether the
juvenile courts had been successful in their efforts to
address the problems of young offenders. Should
rehabilitation of juvenile offenders still be considered
an important goal of the juvenile justice system?
Why or why not?
2. If the goal of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation,
shouldn’t a juvenile court judge have latitude to
try different approaches and apply different standards
to individual juveniles? Do rights to due
process, in other words, put too many constraints on
the ability of juvenile judges to address the unique
problems and needs of individual offenders? Why or
why not?
3. If you, as a juvenile, were accused of committing a
criminal offense, would you rather be tried by a jury
of adults from your community or have your case
heard by a judge? Would your answer differ if you
were tried by a jury of young people? Why or why
not?
4. Is there a significant distinction between confinement
of a juvenile in an institution meant to help rehabilitate
juvenile offenders and confinement of convicted
criminal for punishment in a prison? In other words,
should we be less worried about depriving juveniles
of their liberty if the focus of their confinement is
rehabilitation, not punishment?
8 | ABA Division for Public Education

Attachment B
A Juvenile Justice System
for the 21st Century
Page 99 of 113

If you have issues viewing or accessing this file, please contact us at NCJRS.gov.
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
A Juvenile Justice
System for the
21 st Centu ry
Shay Bilchik
The growth of violent juvenile crime
over the past decade has stirred signifi-
,ate on the viability and effecof
this Nation's juvenile justice
system. Between 1988 and 1994, juvenile
arrests for violent crimes increased more
than 50 percent. These increases have
strained the juvenile justice system beyond
capacity, from intake and detention
to court and correctional services. The
result, in many jurisdictions, is a system
that does not consistently serve the
public safety, hold juveniles accountable,
or meet the treatment and rehabilitation
needs of each juvenile offender. With
generally inadequate funding and fluctuating
public support, the juvenile justice
system has fallen short of meeting the
challenge presented during the past
decade.
Recently, the U.S. Department of
Justice announced new national statistics
showing a decline in arrests for
juvenile violent crime (6 percent), led by
a decline in murder arrests (14 percent),
between 1995 and 1996. While this is a
promising sign, juvenile violence remains
unacceptably high. As the 100th anniversary
of the juvenile court approaches, it
Oarlier uersion of this Bulletin was published in
"~rlme & Delinquency 44(1):89-101, 1998, Sage
Publications, Inc.
is time to examine how the juvenile
justice system can operate more effectively
to reduce juvenile crime, particularly
violent crime, and meet system
goals. The juvenile justice system needs
to be revitalized so that it will ensure
immediate and appropriate sanctions,
provide effective treatment, reverse
trends in juvenile violence, and rebuild
public confidence in and support for
the system.
Since the first juvenile court was established
in Chicago, 1L, in 1899, a variety
of strategies have been pursued to
address the particular issues posed by
juvenile offenders. Results have been
mixed. Young people need to know that
if they break the law, they will be held
accountable. They also need to be put
on a path toward responsible adulthood.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) has developed
a strategy, set forth in the publication
Comprehensive Strategy for Serious,
Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders ~
(Comprehensive Strategy), to help communities
prevent delinquency and establish
a juvenile justice system based on
graduated sanctions that combine accountability
with increasingly intensive
treatment services. The Comprehensive
Strategy calls for immediate interventions
when high-risk or delinquent behavior
first occurs.
From the Administrator
The challenges of the next century
will include significant problems that
face us today and that we will need
to continue to address. Building a
juvenile justice system that protects
our communities and ensures that all
youth become productive, contributing
adults will be high on that list.
Considerable progress has been
made since the birth of the juvenile
justice system at the end of the last
century. The investment of time and
labor by countless juvenile justice
and youth service professionals has
paid promising dividends. Nevertheless,
some individuals question
whether a separate juvenile justice
system best serves the welfare of our
children and our communities, and
others ask whether the resources
provided for juvenile justice have
been adequate to the task at hand.
The fact is that much remains to be
done if we are to construct a juvenile
justice system that will meet both the
challenges remaining from the 20th
century and those that will arise in
the future. To create an effective
juvenile justice system for the 21 st
century, we must take to heart the
lessons learned from this century--
many of which are set forth in this
Bulletin--and redouble our efforts on
behalf of America's children.
Shay Bilchik
Administrator

...... iii
The juvenile justice system called for
in the Comprehensive Strategy is based
on decades of research, statistics, and
evaluations in the fields of criminal and
juvenile justice, public health, and youth
development. To assist communities in
creating a stronger juvenile justice system,
OJJDP, through the National Council
on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) and
Developmental Research and Programs,
Inc. (DRP), identified specific tools that
can be used to improve the operation of
the juvenile justice system--such as risk
and needs assessment instruments--and
a range of programs that have been found
effective in preventing delinquency and
reducing recidivism. 2 This Bulletin describes
the objectives and elements of an
effective juvenile justice system and suggests
legislative and administrative strategies
for its implementation.
Objectives of an
Effective Juvenile
Justice System
An effective juvenile justice system
must meet three objectives: (1) hold the
juvenile offender accountable; (2) enable
the juvenile to become a capable, productive,
and responsible citizen; and (3) ensure
the safety of the community)
These objectives are best met when a
community's key leaders, including representatives
from the juvenile justice
system, health and mental health systems,
schools, law enforcement, social
services, and other systems, are jointly
engaged in the planning, development,
and operation of the juvenile justice
system. Reform of the juvenile justice
system must be part of a broad, compre-
hensive, communitywide effort 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
their varying needs. 4 It is essential that
in engaging the community in this undertaking,
the juvenile justice system
also include greater public access to
both court proceedings and system operations.
Enhancing public involvement
in the juvenile justice system will ensure
an appropriate role for victims, a greater
understanding of court operations, and a
higher level of system accountability to
the public.
Elements of an
Effective Juvenile
Justice System
The most effective juvenile justice
interventions are swift, certain, consistent,
and appropriate. To meet these objectives,
an effective juvenile justice system must:
Include a mechanism for comprehensively
assessing a juvenile when he or
she first enters the system, in order to
determine both the risk to the community
and appropriate interventions and
sanctions.
Have the capacity to provide a range
of treatment services, from family
counseling to outpatient drug treatment
to out-of-home care.
Incorporate increasingly severe
sanctions and enhanced treatment
services when a juvenile fails to
respond to initial interventions or
is involved in a particularly serious
or violent offense as a first-time
offender.
Juveniles must be aware that the juvenile
justice system will hold them accountable
for their delinquent misconduct
and that continued violations of the
law will subject them to increasingly severe
sanctions, including secure confinement.
An effective system of graduated
sanctions should also include the option
of transfer to the criminal justice system
for those serious, violent, or chronic juvenile
offenders who are not amenable to
treatment in the juvenile justice system
or whose misconduct inherently justifies
transfer.
A successful juvenile justice system
requires specialized programs to adequately
address the unique needs of
each juvenile offender and the challenges
posed by some juveniles, including
gang members, sex offenders, drug
offenders, members of racial and cultural
minorities, female offenders, and juveniles
with disabilities. In addition, the
system needs trained staff at all levels
and a monitoring/evaluation system to
track its success.
Effective, fair, and appropriate gradu-i~
ated sanctions that hold juvenile offenddIp
accountable, particularly communitybased
programs and services, help juvenile
offenders avoid continued involvement
in delinquency and crime and are
usually less expensive than incarceration.
The Comprehensive Strategy describes
promising and effective programs at
each of these graduated sanction levels
(immediate, intermediate, and secure
confinement).s
An effective juvenile justice system
does not use detention as a sanction,
instead using detention resources only
for those preadjudicated juveniles who
must be detained, based on their risk of
reoffending, harming themselves or others,
or failing to appear at future proceedings,
factors that can be assessed
through the application of objective criteria.
For adjudicated delinquents, an
effective juvenile justice system includes
a full range of graduated sanctions that
begins with comprehensive risk and
needs assessments and includes aftercare
for juveniles returning to the community
from out-of-home placements.
The entire process needs to be corn
mented by quality case managemen
Each of these critical components is
described below.

Teadjudicated Detention
he use of preadjudication detention of
luveniles is becoming one of the most difficult
problems for the juvenile justice system.
As the number of juveniles taken into
custody has increased, so has the rate of
detention. Detention facilities in many jurisdictions
are filled beyond capacity. To
control the large increase of juveniles admitted
to juvenile detention programs and
facilities, objective risk assessment criteria
must be developed to assist courts in ensuring
that only dangerous youth and
those most likely to flee are placed in intensive
pretrial supervision programs,
monitored by electronic or other forms of
home detention, or detained in facilities.
Innovative alternatives to traditional detention
need to be developed. In addition,
every effort should be made to reduce the
length of detention. State laws and procedures
should provide for adjudicatory
hearings within expedited but appropriate
9 periods for all juveniles, particularly those
who are detained. 6 Adjudicated delinquents,
including those who are going to
be placed, should be moved to placement
options with as little delay as possible.
This means that placement options need
bde expanded as part of a system of
uated sanctions.
Overcrowding and length of time held
are only part of the preadjudication detention
issue. Many detention facilities also
have untrained staff, inadequate educational
programming, and a lack of medical,
mental health, recreation, and social services.
Additional resources should be devoted
to providing diagnostic services in
Immediate Intervention: Mentoring
Immediate Intervention: Restitution and Community
Service
A study of Utah's juvenile court conducted by the National Center for Juvenile Justice
for OJJDP shows that for informally handled and adjudicated cases involving robbery,
assault, burglary, theft, auto theft, and vandalism, recidivism is lower for juveniles
placed on formal probation and ordered to make restitution than for juveniles placed
on probation without a restitution order. This study is consistent with an earlier
OJJDP-funded national evaluation of restitution, which found such programs effective
in reducing delinquency. These programs also respond to some key needs of victims
by holding juvenile offenders accountable and restoring their loss. OJJDP has
expanded the principles underlying restitution and community service into a system
improvement model called Balanced and Restorative Justice. (See J.A. Butts and
H.N. Snyder, Restitution and Juvenile Recidivism: Update on Research, Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, September 1992 (NCJ 137774).)
detention programs and facilities and offering
short-term therapeutic services to
this population. Accomplishing these goals
will require the commitment of all parties
in the system and legislative authorities to
ensure that the necessary resources and
system changes are developed and put in
place. Once this is done, detention populations
can be reduced and shortened periods
of detention can be put to productive
use for those juveniles who require detention
prior to adjudication.
Graduated Sanctions for
Adjudicated Delinquents
Comprehensive risk and needs
assessments. In order to achieve both
accountability and rehabilitation, an
effective juvenile justice system assesses
each adjudicated juvenile offender to
A rigorous experimental design evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters
mentoring program matched 487 treatment youth with 472 control youth in 6
outcome areas: antisocial activities; academic performance, attitudes, and behaviors;
relationships with family; relationships with friends; self-concept; and social
and cultural enrichment. Numerous positive results were documented: participants
were 46 percent less likely to start using illegal drugs, 27 percent less likely to
start drinking alcohol, and 32 percent less likely to hit someone; they were 52
percent less likely to skip a day of school and 37 percent less likely to skip a class;
they improved their academic performance slightly; and they improved their
relationships with their parents and peers. These differences between program
and nonprogram youth were found to exist 18 months after the program youth
began their involvement in the program and indicate that properly designed and
implemented mentoring programs can have a positive impact on youth. (See J.P.
Tierney and J.B. Grossman, Making a Difference: An Impact Study, Philadelphia,
~
PA: Public/Private Ventures, 1995; and J.B. Grossman and E.M. Garry,
Mentoring--A Proven Delinquency Prevention Strategy, Bulletin, Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, April 1997 (NCJ 164834).)
determine a treatment plan based both
on need and on offender risk to the
community. This requires a balancing of
criteria that focus on the seriousness of
the delinquent act, the potential risk for
reoffending, the risk to public safety, and
the offender's rehabilitation needs. The
needs assessment must be thorough
enough to determine the set of issues
that system services can help the juvenile
address within the context of family,
school, peer group, and community settings.
In some situations, the assessment
of a juvenile offender may lead to probation
or placement in a community-based
program. In all cases, assessment should
lead to a clearer understanding of appropriate
system responses that ensure the
public safety.
Immediate intervention. The vast
majority of juvenile court appearances
are for nonviolent offenses. In 1996, 4.7
percent (approximately 135,100) of all
juvenile arrests were for violent crimes
(murder, rape, robbery, or aggravated assault).
For minor offenders (misdemeanors),
some serious offenders (nonviolent
felonies), and many repeat minor offenders,
the juvenile justice system requires a
variety of resources, including mentoring,
restitution and community service, nonresidential
programs and services such
as day treatment, and community-based
facilities that are designed to reduce
the probability of reoffending. These
community-based facilities should be
small and open, located near juveniles'
homes, and involve participants in program
planning, operation, and evaluation.
Intervention programs should foster family
participation in treatment and facilitate
the establishment of law-abiding patterns
of behavior.

Immediate Intervention:
Day Treatment
The Bethesda Day Treatment Center
Program in West Milton, PA, is a
model day treatment program.
Initiated with OJJDP formula grant
funds, the program is currently funded
through county service contracts. The
center's services include intensive
supervision, counseling, and coordination
of a range of services necessary
for youth to develop skills to
function effectively in the community.
The program provides delinquent and
dependent youth, ages 10 to 17, with
up to 55 hours of services a week
without removing them from their
homes. A unique program feature
requires work experience for all
working age clients, with 75 percent of
their paychecks directed toward
payment of fines, court costs, and
restitution. A preliminary study
revealed recidivism rates far lower
than State and national norms.
Intermediate sanctions. Intermediate
sanctions are appropriate for some violent
offenders, juveniles involved in drug
trafficking, or offenders who reoffend
despite immediate interventions. These
sanctions, which may be residential or
nonresidential, include weekend detention,
inpatient alcohol and drug abuse
treatment, community-based residential
treatment, and boot camps. For some
serious and violent offenders, placement
in an intensive supervision or another
intensive service program may be
appropriate.
Secure corrections. The criminal behavior
of some serious, violent, and
chronic juvenile offenders requires the
imposition of secure sanctions to hold
them accountable for their offenses, protect
the public, and provide a structured
treatment environment. Large congregatecare
juvenile facilities, such as training
schools, have been found to be the least
effective secure options. 7 While the continued
use of these facilities will likely remain
a necessary alternative for juveniles who
require enhanced security to protect the
public, small community-based facilities
providing intensive treatment services and
special programming in a secure environment
offer the best environment for successful
treatment of juveniles who require
confinement. These services include indi-
Intermediate Sanctions: Delinquency Treatment Program
Multisystemic Therapy (MST), a nonresidential delinquency treatment program
developed by Dr. Scott Henggeler of the Medical University of South Carolina, views
individuals as being "nested" within a complex of interconnected systems, including
the family, community, school, and peers. The MST treatment team may target
problems in any of these systems for change and use the individual's strengths in
these systems to effect that change. Treatment teams, which usually involve three
counselors, provide services over a 4-month period for about 50 families per year. In
one evaluation, the rearrest rate for the MST group was found to be about half that
of the group receiving traditional services. In another, the recidivism rate 4 years
after treatment was 22 percent for MST youth, 72 percent for youth receiving
individual counseling, and 87 percent for youth who refused either treatment. These
evaluation results are a strong indicator of program effectiveness.
vidual and group counseling, educational
and training programs, medical services,
and intensive staff supervision. Proximity
to the community permits direct, regular
family involvement in the treatment
process, phased reentry into the community)
and independent living, where
necessary.
Targeted transfer of serious, violent,
and chronic juvenile offenders.
Although the vast majority of juvenile
offenders can be effectively treated in
the juvenile justice system, serious, violent,
or chronic offenders may require
transfer to criminal court. Transfer
decisions should be based on factors
such as age, presenting offense, and
offense history. In addition, for some
of these juvenile offenders, the use of
youthful offender facilities and blended
sentencing approaches are recent developments
that merit State consideration.
These facilities and sentencing approaches,
along with more traditional
practices, should be structured to allow
criminal and juvenile courts to use a
sentencing option that is appropriate to
the offender's age, presenting offense,
offense history, and potential danger to
the community. The trend toward increased
transfers of juveniles to cri[
court 9 should strengthen the countr
resolve to prevent delinquency and
intervene at the earliest possible time
to decrease the risk of future delinquent
and criminal behavior.
Intermediate Sanctions: Residential Program
The Thomas O'Farrell Youth Center (TOYC), located in rural Maryland, is a 38-
bed, unlocked, staff-secure residential program for male youth committed to the
Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. The typical TOYC youth has many
prior court referrals, generally for property crimes and drug offenses. On average,
youth stay at the center for 9 months and then receive 6 months of community
aftercare. The TOYC philosophy is to create a community of dignity and respect for
all its members. This positive social environment is at the core of all TOYC activities.
Each youth who completes the TOYC residential program has a specialized
aftercare plan and receives postrelease services from two aftercare workers--
including assistance in reentering school, vocational counseling, crisis intervention,
family counseling, transportation, and mentoring. Aftercare workers contact
the youth at least 12 days per month during the aftercare period.
An NCCD evaluation found that the majority (55 percent) of the first 56 TOYC
graduates had no further court referrals in the postrelease period (an average of
11.6 months). The study also showed a dramatic decline in the number of offenses
committed by youth after their stay at TOYC. In the 12 months prior to placement
in TOYC, the 56 youth were charged with 219 offenses, an average of almost 4
court referrals each. However, in the year after leaving TOYC, these youth were
charged with just 51 offenses, a decline of 77 percent. NCCD also observed that
youth who committed new crimes after leaving TOYC were likely to commit less
serious offenses than before.
4

~Secure Corrections
The Florida Environmental Institute
(FEI), also known as 'q-he Last
Chance Ranch," targets some of the
State's most serious and violent
juvenile offenders. Located in a
remote area of the Florida Everglades,
FEI offers both a residential
phase and a nonresidential aftercare
program. Two-thirds of the youth
referred to FEI are adjudicated
delinquents from the criminal justice
system. Yet, because of FEI's strong
emphasis on education, hard work,
social bonding, and aftercare,
recidivism rates of juveniles who
have gone through the program are
substantially less than those of youth
who have completed traditional
training school programs: 30 percent
as compared with 50--70 percent.
Intensive aftercare. Intensive aftercare,
or "community care," programs,
which provide appropriate levels of social
control and treatment services for juveles
returning to the community from
Lt-of-home placements, are an essential
Lrt of the continuum of services and
sanctions that form an effective juvenile
justice system. Properly implemented,
aftercare can serve to protect public
safety by monitoring the juvenile's reintegration
into the community while developing
his or her capacity to overcome
negative influences (risk factors for delinquency)
by enhancing the skills needed
to become a productive and law-abiding
member of society.
Standard aftercare programs, staffed
by overburdened parole officers or aftercare
personnel who focus solely on social
control, are ineffective in modifying the
behavior of high-risk juvenile "parolees"
over the long term.t~ who successfully
complete institutional programs
should not be abruptly returned to the
environment where the misconduct occurred
without high levels of supervision
and transitional support. Successful
aftercare programs begin developing an
offender's aftercare plan early in the residential
placement, create links to the
youth's family and school throughout
treatment, and provide high levels of both
:ontrol and treatment services.
principles characterize model intensive
aftercare:
9 Prepare youth for progressive responsibility
and freedom in the community.
9 Facilitate youth-community interaction
and involvement.
9 Work both with the offender and with
targeted community support systems,
such as families, peer groups, schools,
and the workplace, to facilitate the
youth's constructive interaction with
these groups and gradual community
adjustment.
9 Coordinate needed resources and
opportunities, and develop community
support.
9 Monitor reintegration into the community
to ensure its success.
Quality Case Management
and Service Integration
Throughout this system of detention,
comprehensive risk and needs assessment,
graduated sanctions, and aftercare,
an effective case management process
should coordinate services for each offender.
Effective rehabilitation requires
maximum use of a broad range of public
and community resources, including
health and mental health care, social
services, recreation, education, and employment
and training services.
A case management team that integrates
services and follows each juvenile
offender from the point of intake and initial
risk and needs assessment through the
court process, probation, incarceration,
and aftercare is able to monitor progress
and adjust the treatment plan appropriately.
Each member of the team must be
knowledgeable about individual differences
that can stem from race, gender, culture,
and ethnicity. Central to this team
approach is the ability to refer each jure-
Aftercare: Community Reintegration
nile, including serious and violent offenders,
to available programs and services
that address identified needs and integrate
the family and community support mechanisms
into the treatment plan while maintaining
public safety. This approach is
designed to prevent a youth's further involvement
in the system by promoting
law-abiding behavior as early as possible
through a combination of appropriate
sanctions and treatment.
Implementation of an
Effective Juvenile
Justice System
An effective juvenile justice system
complements effective prevention u with
early intervention and graduated sanctions
and uses tools available to improve
system operation. The implementation
of such a system can be supported and
strengthened by a State and local statutory
and administrative framework, which
should do the following:
9 Include the overall principles of prevention,
early intervention, and graduated
sanctions in the purpose clause of
the State's juvenile code.
9 Provide for appropriate interagency
oversight and management structures
to support the juvenile justice system,
including assistance in program implementation,
data collection, information
sharing, and evaluation.
9 Provide adequate funding at both the
State and local levels.
Several basic elements characterize sound
juvenile justice system administration:
9 A State-level interagency coordinating/
oversight entity that focuses on juvenile
justice matters.
OJJDP is demonstrating the principles of intensive aftercare in three communities
(Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; and Norfolk, VA). The Virginia Department of Youth and
Family Services applies this model to its Intensive Parole Program. The program
consists of an interdisciplinary screening process and treatment plan; a complete
assessment (physical, psychological, educational); intensive counseling and
treatment team meetings with parents; a reintegration plan that identifies services
and service providers; increased surveillance and judicial reviews; adolescent and
parent groups in the community; and incentives. (Program description provided by
Norfolk Court Service Unit/Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, December
1995.) (See D.M. Altschuler and T.L. Armstrong, Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk
Juveniles: A Community Care Model Program Summary, Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, September 1994 (NCJ 147575).)
5

Case Management and
Service Integration
The Norfolk (Virginia) Interagency
Consortium (NIC) sets policy on
placements for high-risk youth and is
a promising example of using
interagency assessment teams to
make placements. NIC exists under
Norfolk's Police Assisted Community
Enforcement (PACE) program, which
was designed to involve community
resources in solving problems and
working with police. NIC and PACE
are governed by a board of representatives
of health agencies, social
services, police, education, juvenile
services, and other agencies--in
addition to parents and private
citizens. The consortium ensures
coordinated delivery of comprehensive
services, including access to a
pool of State funds.
Although NIC has not been systematically
evaluated, statistics show
that crime has dropped markedly in
neighborhoods targeted by the
umbrella PACE program. According
to one 1993 report, crime decreased
by 29 percent in target areas, police
reported fewer service calls, and onstreet
drug trafficking and gunfire
dropped significantly. Participants
also believed the program had
reduced fear of crime in target
neighborhoods. (See R.C. Cronin,
Innovative Community Partnerships:
Working Together for Change,
Program Summary, Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of
Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
May 1994 (NCJ 147483).)
9 Regional/local advisory boards and
regional offices within the State juvenile
justice agency responsible for developing
and implementing local juvenile
justice plans and managing local
service delivery systems.
9 Uniform funding mechanisms for
county and city juvenile justice system
facilities, programs, and services
that foster the pooling of resources.
This would be done through a fund
distribution formula that is based
on a statewide analysis of juvenile
delinquency by adjudications and
commitments to State programs and
facilities. This formula also factors
in the current per diem cost of a
commitment to a State institution.
Local juvenile justice systems should
be given fiscal incentives to reduce
the number of commitments to costly
State institutions or out-of-State programs
and facilities for juveniles who
could be appropriately placed in
local community-based programs
and services.
Conclusion
OJJDP's intensive review of juvenile
justice programs that work, coupled
with the findings of 30 years of studies
by premier researchers such as Alfred
Blumstein, Gil Botvin, Richard Catalano,
Delbert Elliott, Jeffrey Fagan, David
Farrington, J. David Hawkins, James C.
Howell, David Huizinga, Candace Kane,
Barry Krisberg, Mark Lipsey, Rolf Loeber,
Cheryl Maxson, Walter Miller, David Olds,
Howard Snyder, Cathy Spatz-Widom, Irving
Spergel, Terence Thornberry, and Gail
Wasserman, among many others, points
the way toward understanding the crucial
elements for success in State juvenile justice
systemsJ 2 A carefully conceived,
properly implemented, and adequately
funded juvenile justice system in the 21st
century can be expected to bring about
the following benefits:
9 Increased juvenile justice system responsiveness.
The system will provide
additional referral and dispositional
resources for law enforcement, juvenile
courts, and juvenile corrections.
It will also require system components
to increase their ability to identify,
process, evaluate, refer, and track
juvenile offenders.
9 Increased accountability. Juvenile
offenders will be held accountable
for their behavior, decreasing the
likelihood of their development into
serious, violent, or chronic offenders
and tomorrow's adult criminals. The
juvenile justice system will be held
accountable for controlling serious
and chronic delinquency while also
protecting society. Communities will
be held accountable for providing
community-based prevention and
treatment programs and competency
and life-skills development resources
for juveniles.
9 Increased community involvement.
Involving the community in the juvenile
justice system makes it more visible,
understandable, and effective and enables
the system to deliver justice more
swiftly and more appropriately--critic
factors for decreasing recidivism.
9 Decreased costs of juvenile correclions.
Applying the appropriate assessment
and graduated sanctions and
developing the required communitybased
resources should significantly
reduce the need for more high-cost
beds in training schools and make existing
beds available for the most serious
and violent offenders. Savings
could be used to fund treatment in
community-based services, programs,
and facilities and to support additional
prevention programs.
9 Increased program effectiveness. A
body of knowledge has been gathered
about the characteristics of serious,
violent, and chronic offenders and
about what works in treatment and
rehabilitation) 3 However, successful
intervention in the delinquent and
criminal careers of juvenile offenders
will require more information about
what works best, for whom, and under
what circumstances. Followup research
and rigorous evaluation of programs
implemented as a part of this
strategy should produce valuable data.
The most effective long-term respo[
to the problem of juvenile delinquency
violence lies in improving the juvenile justice
system and working to prevent delinquency
before it occurs. A balanced and
responsible approach to juvenile crime
that coordinates law enforcement, courts,
detention and corrections, treatment, and
prevention resources in a cost-effective
manner can serve to reduce juvenile crime
and make the Nation's communities safer
and better places to live.
Additional Information
For additional information on training
and technical assistance for a range of juvenile
justice improvements and for training
guides, Reports, Bulletins, and Fact
Sheets on effective delinquency prevention
and intervention programs, contact the
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638-
8736 or send your request via e-mail to
askncjrs@ncjrs.org or www.ncjrs.org/
ojjhome.htm.
Endnotes
1. J.J. Wilson and J.C. Howell, Comprehensive
Strategy for Serious, Violent, and
Chronic Juvenile Offenders, Program
mary, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office

of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Pre-
December 1993 (NCJ 143453).
'a December 1993 OJJDP grant,
NCCD, in partnership with DRP, conducted
an exhaustive search of empirically
evaluated prevention and intervention
programs. The program search yielded
information on 209 promising or effective
programs. The most promising programs--based
on both descriptive information
and evaluation data--are identified
in OJJDP's Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive
Strategy for Serious, Violent, and
Chronic Juvenile Offenders, Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of
Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, May 1995
(NCJ 153681).
3. These three goals form the basis of the
balanced and restorative justice framework
being adopted by jurisdictions across
the country to balance the needs of victims,
the community, and the juvenile. (See
G. Bazemore and M. Umbreit, Balanced
and Restorative Justice, Program Summary,
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
1994 (NCJ 149727).)
any juvenile justice systems incorposome
of the Comprehensive Strategy's
programs and policies, but none has
brought this approach to scale by committing
the necessary resources.
5. J.J. Wilson and J.C. Howell, 1993. See
also J.C. Howell, ed., Guide for Implementing
the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious,
Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders,
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
May 1995 (NCJ 153681).
6. J.A. Butts and G.J. Halemba, Waiting for
Justice: Moving Young Offenders Through
the Juvenile Court Process, Pittsburgh, PA:
National Center for Juvenile Justice, 1996.
7. J.J. Wilson and J.C. Howell, 1993.
8. Since closing its traditional training
schools in 1972, Massachusetts has relied
on a sophisticated network of small, secure
programs for violent youth coupled
with a broad range of highly structured,
community-based programs for most
committed youth. Secure facilities are
reserved for the most serious offenders.
A study revealed recidivism rates equal to
er than those of other jurisdictions.
chusetts has also saved an esti-
$11 million yearly by relying on
community-based sanctions.
9. P. Torbet, R. Gable, H. Hurst, I. Montgomery,
L. Szymanskl, and D. Thomas, State
Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile
Crime, Research Report, Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, July 1996
(NCJ 161565).
10. J.J. Wilson and J.C. Howell, 1993.
11. Countless prevention programs have
proven effective in reducing the factors
in a child's life that can lead to delinquency.
The Program of Prenatal and
Early Childhood Home Visitation by
Nurses helps women improve their healthrelated
behaviors and their quality of infant
care-giving and also increase their
personal development. Interim results
from an extensive 15-year longitudinal
study are quite positive. Program participants
posted a 75-percent reduction in
State-verified cases of child abuse and
neglect, a 32-percent reduction in emergency
room visits during the second year
of life, an 80-percent increase in unmarried
women participating in the workforce, and
a 43-percent reduction in subsequent children
borne by unmarried women as compared
with counterparts assigned to
comparable services. Similarly, the High/
Scope Perry Preschool Program fosters
social and intellectual development in children
ages 3 to 4 and strengthens the family
unit through parent training and vocational
assistance. The Research Foundation
reports that by the time the
participating children reached the age
of 19--14 years after they completed this
2-year program of developmental preschool
and weekly home visits--only 31
percent had ever been arrested, as cam-
pared with 51 percent of a control group.
In addition, by the time the Perry participants
turned 27, the number who had
been arrested five times or more was onefifth
that of the control group.
12. OJJDP has recently initiated an intensive
training partnership with five States
(Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Rhode Island, and
Texas) to demonstrate the Comprehensive
Strategy in up to six sites in each State.
13. A report from OJJDP's Study Group on
Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders is
forthcoming.
References
Albanese, J.S. 1993. Dealing With Delinquency:
The Future of Juvenile Justice. Chicago,
IL: Nelson-Hall Publishers.
Armstrong, T.L., ed. 1991. Intensive Interventions
With High-Risk Youths: Promising
Approaches in Juvenile Probation and Parole.
Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press Division
of Willow Tree Press, Inc.
Champion, D.J., and Mays, G.L. 1991.
Transferring Juveniles to Criminal Courts:
Trends and Implications for Criminal Justice.
New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.
Elliott, D.S., Huizinga, D., and Menard, S.
1989. Multiple Problem Youth: Delinquency,
Substance Use, and Mental Health Problems.
New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
Fagan, J. 1988. Social and Legal Policy Dimensions
of Violent Juvenile Crime. Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of
Justice Programs, National Institute for Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Flicker, B. 1994. Taking the ABA Juvenile
Justice Standards to the 21st Century." Juvenile
Justice Reform for the "90s. Washington, DC:
American Bar Association Criminal Justice
Section.
7

Hawkins, J.D., ed. 1996. Delinquency and
Crime: Current Theories. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Hawkins, J.D., and Catalano, R.E, Jr. 1992.
Communities That Care: Action for Drug
Abuse Prevention. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass, Inc.
Howell, J.C. 1997. Juvenile Justice & Youth
Violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,
Inc.
Howell, J.C., Krisberg, B., Hawkins, J.D.,
and Wilson, J.J., eds. 1995. A Sourcebook:
Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile
Offenders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.
Huizinga, D., Loeher, R., and Thornberry,
T.P. 1995. Recent Findings From the Program of
Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Jones, M.A., and Krisberg, B. 1994. Image
and Reality." Juvenile Crime, Youth Violence
and Public Policy. Washington, DC: National
Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Klein, M.W., Maxson, C.L., and Miller, J.
1995. Modern Gang Reader. Los Angeles, CA:
Roxbury Publishing Company.
Krisberg, B. 1992. Juvenile Justice:
Improving the Quality of Care. San Francisco,
CA: National Council on Crime and
Delinquency.
Krisberg, B., and Austin, J.E 1993. Reinventing
Juvenile Justice. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage Publications, Inc.
Leonard, K.K., Pope, C.E., and Feyerherm,
W., eds. 1995. Minorities in Juvenile Justice.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Mathias, R.A., DeMuro, P., and Allinson,
R.S., eds. 1984. Violent Juvenile Offenders--
An Anthology. San Francisco, CA: National
Council on Crime and Delinquency.
National Criminal Justice Association.
1997 (October). Juvenile Justice Reform
Initiatives in the States: 1994-1996. Program
Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention.
Puritz, P., Burrell, S., Schwartz, R., Soler, M.,
and Warboys, L. 1995. A Call for Justice: An
Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of
Representation in Delinquency Proceedings.
Washington, DC: American Bar Association.
Robins, L., and Rutter, M., eds. 1990.
Straight and Devious Pathways From Child-
hood to Adulthood. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Schwartz, I.M., ed. 1992. Juvenile
and Public Policy." Toward a National
Agenda. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Singer, S.I. 1996. Recriminalizing Delinquency."
Violent Juvenile Crimes and Juvenile
Justice Reform. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Spergel, I.A. 1995. Youth Gang Problem: A
Community Approach. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Sarah Ingersoll, Special Assistant to the
Administrator, assisted in the preparation of
this Bulletin.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention is a component of the Office
of Justice Programs, which also includes
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau
of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of
Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
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Attachment C
The Cost of Juvenile Confinement
Page 100 of 113

The Justice Policy Institute
is dedicated to ending
society’s reliance on
incarceration and
promoting effective and just
solutions to social problems.
Board of Directors
Tara Andrews
At-Large
David C. Fathi
Board Chair
Katharine Huffman
At-Large
Peter Leone, Ph.D.
Board Treasurer
Administrative Staff
Tracy Velázquez
Executive Director
Debra Glapion
Administrative Director
Research and Program Staff
Amanda Petteruti
Research & Publications
Associate
Nastassia Walsh
Research Associate
Ellen Tuzzolo
Associate Director
Southern Initiatives
Communications Staff
LaWanda Johnson
Communications Director
Laura Jones
Communications Advisor
Emily Sydnor
Communications Assistant
1003 K Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202-558-7974
Fax: 202-558-7978
www.justicepolicy.org
The Costs of Confinement: Why Good Juvenile Justice Policies
Make Good Fiscal Sense
May 2009
Introduction
Approximately 93,000 young people are held in juvenile justice facilities across
the United States. 1 Seventy percent of these youth are held in state-funded, postadjudication,
residential facilities, at an average cost of $240.99 per day per
youth. 2 With states facing serious budgetary constraints, it is an opportune time
for policymakers to consider ways to reduce juvenile justice spending that won’t
compromise public safety.
This policy brief details how states can see a net reduction in costs by moving
expenditures away from large, congruent care facilities (often called “training
schools”) for youth and investing in community-based alternatives. Such a
resource realignment can reap better results for communities, taxpayers, and
children. Evidence is growing that there are cost-effective policies and programs
for intervening in the lives of delinquent youth which actually improve
community safety and outcomes for children. While there is no silver bullet that
will guarantee reductions in crime, policies that include prevention and
intervention for youth in the community have been shown to have a positive
public safety benefit. Major findings and recommendations for reform include:
• States needlessly spend billions of dollars a year incarcerating
nonviolent youth. States spend about $5.7 billion each year imprisoning
youth, even though the majority are held for nonviolent offenses and could
be managed safely in the community.
• The biggest states are realigning fiscal resources away from ineffective
and expensive state institutions, and towards more effective communitybased
services. California, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and
other large states are redirecting funds once spent on large residential
facilities, and spending those dollars on less expensive, more effective
programs to curb reoffending and reduce youth crime.
• Holding more youth in secure juvenile facilities can lead to costly
litigation for states. Unacceptable conditions not only have serious negative
consequences on the youth who experience them, but can also lead to courtordered
reforms which in some cases have cost millions of dollars.
• Imprisoning youth can have severe detrimental effects on youth, their
long-term economic productivity and economic health of communities.
Youth who are imprisoned have higher recidivism rates than youth who
remain in communities, both due to suspended opportunities for education
and a disruption in the process that normally allows many youth to “age-out”
of crime. See Appendix A for more information on the negative effects of
incarceration on youth.
1

• Policies that lock up more youth do not necessarily improve public safety. Ten years of
data on incarceration and crime trends show that states that increased the number of youth in
juvenile facilities did not necessarily experience a decrease in crime during the same time
period.
• Community-based programs increase public safety. The most effective programs at
reducing recidivism rates and promoting positive life outcomes for youth are administered in
the community, outside of the criminal or juvenile justice systems. Some of these programs
have been shown to reduce recidivism by up to 22 percent.
• Community-based programs for youth are more cost-effective than incarceration. Some
programs like multi-systemic therapy and functional family therapy have been shown to yield
up to $13 in benefits to public safety for every dollar spent. These programs are more cost
effective and produce more public safety benefits than detaining and incarcerating youth. See
Appendix B for more information on cost-effective programs that work with youth.
Juvenile Justice Definitions
Adjudication: The hearing at which the judgment of whether the youth is or is not responsible
for the offense he or she is charged with is made. It is the equivalent of the trial in the criminal
court process where the guilt or innocence of an adult is determined.
Detention: The holding of youth, upon arrest, in a juvenile detention facility for two main
purposes: to ensure the youth appears for all court hearings and to protect the community
from future offending. Youth may also be detained while awaiting disposition of an adjudicated
case.
Disposition: Similar to the sentencing hearing the adult criminal justice system. The judge
decides what action or treatment plan to impose upon the adjudicated youth.
Residential Placement: After a youth is adjudicated delinquent, the court can order placement
in a residential facility. Such facilities can be secure and prison-like or have a more open setting,
like group homes or foster care.
Secure Residential Facilities: Sometimes also referred to as training schools, residential
confinement facilities, or youth prisons, secure residential facilities are for youth who have
been adjudicated delinquent to the custody of correctional facilities. These facilities are statefunded
are often very large and would be comparable to a prison in the adult criminal justice
system.
Status Offense: An offense that would not be considered a crime for adults. Status offenses are
offenses that are only illegal for people 18 years old or younger such as curfew violations,
running away, truancy, and underage drinking.
For details on how to cut costs in the criminal justice system, please see the Justice Policy
Institute’s companion brief, Pruning Prisons: How Cutting Corrections Can Save Money and
Protect Public Safety, available at www.justicepolicy.org.

The Costs of Confinement
Current trend: More youth are being caught up in the juvenile justice system
The types and number of offenses being formally handled by the juvenile court has changed in the
last 10 years. In 2005, 28 percent of all delinquent cases handled by the juvenile court were public
order offenses (e.g. disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, and liquor law violations). 3 This is an
increase of 8 percentage points from 10 years ago. 4 And two out of every three (67 percent) cases
involved non-person offenses. Despite recent improvements in some jurisdictions, the caseload of the
juvenile justice system has increased by over half a million cases in the last 20 years. 5 This increase
is not only a burden on an already over-crowded juvenile justice system, it is also a detriment to
youth who may be better served in the community and without the intervention of the courts.
Several theories have emerged as possible causes of the increase in the number of youth
processed by the juvenile justice system. Among them is the idea that jurisdictions, fueled by
assertions that the nation is besieged by young gang members, have expanded policies aimed at
regulating youth behavior and strengthening penalties for noncompliance. For example, zero
tolerance policies and more police in schools -- policies intended to reduce school violence --
have also increased the likelihood that an incident that previously would have been handled
informally or by the school now results in arrest. 6 This is contributing to the clogging of an
already overburdened juvenile justice system. Between 2000 and 2004, for instance, Denver
experienced a 71 percent increase in school-based referrals to law enforcement. 7
Confinement Statistics
On any given day, there are more than 90,000 youth in juvenile justice facilities across the
country. 8 About 28 percent of youth in these facilities are being detained pre-adjudication or predisposition,
and 70 percent were sentenced to facilities post-disposition. 9 In 2005, 22 percent of
all adjudicated delinquency cases -- over 140,000 youth -- were ordered to a juvenile justice
placement.
70 percent of youth in residential
facilities are committed by the courts
Committed
64,558
70%
Detained
26,344
28%
Diverted
1,865
2%
Note: Diversion includes youth sent to a residential facility in lieu of adjudication as part of
a diversion agreement.
Source: M. Sickmund, T.J. Sladky, W. Kang, and C. Puzzanchera, Easy Access to the
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, 2008) http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezacjrp/asp/display.asp
2

The Costs of Confinement
The majority of youth in residential facilities have been adjudicated for nonviolent offenses,
including drugs (8.6 percent), technical violations (13.3 percent) * and status offenses (6.6
percent), which include offenses that would not be a crime if committed by an adult. Sixty-six
percent of committed youth were adjudicated for non-person offenses such as these. †
Valid Court Orders
Although federal law under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) requires the
deinstitutionalization of youth charged with status offenses, courts are allowed to make exceptions,
called valid court orders, in certain cases. The use of the valid court order mechanism contributes to the
approximately 2,000 youth that are held in residential facilities for status offenses. Taking the lead in
ending the use of valid court orders to hold youth adjudicated of status offenses are states like Alabama
that, in 2008, prohibited the commitment of youth charged with status offenses could further reduce
the numbers of youth held in state-funded secure confinement. If youth are held an average of 30 days
each, at the rate of $240.99 per day, 10 states could be spending approximately $14.5 million locking up
youth for status offenses per month.
The majority of youth are adjudicated and
committed for nonperson offenses.
Technical
violations
13.3%
Status
6.6%
Public
Order
10.8%
Drug
8.6%
Property
27.2%
Person
33.5%
Source: M. Sickmund, T.J. Sladky, W. Kang, and C. Puzzanchera, Easy
Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (Washington,
D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008)
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezacjrp/asp/display.asp
* About 25 percent of youth in detention are in for technical violations, which include breaking the rules of
probation or parole, such as not making appointments, not passing drug tests and other conditions of probation.
† Person offenses include: aggravated assault, criminal homicide, robbery, simple assault, violent sexual assault and
other person offenses such as kidnapping and harassment.
3

The Costs of Confinement
Locking up youth can be costly for states
States spent about $5.7 billion in 2007 to imprison 64,558 youth committed to residential
facilities. 11 The per diem costs of locking up one young person in a juvenile facility ranges from
$24 in Wyoming to $726 in Connecticut, but the American Correctional Association estimates
that, on average, it costs states $240.99 per day -- around $88,000 a year -- for every youth in a
juvenile facility. 12 .
Reporting states spent an average of $7.1 million per day locking up youth in residential
facilities.
State
Youth in
Residential
Placement
Cost per day per
youth
Total cost per day
based on total
population
Alabama 1,251 $137.21 $171,649.71
Alaska 198 $252 $49,896
Arizona 1,083 $314 $340,062
California 8,955 $67.51 $604,552.05
Colorado 1,617 $161 $260,337
Connecticut 312 $726 $226,512
Georgia 1,398 $200.68 $280,550.64
Indiana 1,866 $153.78 $286,953.48
Louisiana 807 $387.12 $312,405.84
Maine 159 $412.05 $65,515.95
Maryland 525 $229 $120,298.50
Michigan 2,115 $391 $827,451.45
Mississippi 219 $426.51 $93,405.69
Missouri 825 $133 $109,791
Nebraska 252 $173 $43,596
New Jersey 870 $174 $151,380
North Carolina 804 $262 $210,648
North Dakota 222 $146.64 $32,554.08
Ohio 2,898 $216 $624,924.72
Oklahoma 624 $158.96 $99,191.04
Pennsylvania 3,318 $362 $1,201,116
Rhode Island 330 $58.95 $19,453.50
South Dakota 474 $219.79 $104,180.46
Utah 606 $195 $118,170
Virginia 1,455 $280 $407,400
West Virginia 417 $227 $94,659
Wisconsin 1,092 $259 $282,828
Wyoming 288 $24.44 $7,038.72
Total for States Reporting 34,980 $7,146,521
Note: Data not available for Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota,
Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.
Source: Melissa Sickmund, T. J. Sladky and Wei Kang. (2008) “Census of Juveniles in Residential
Placement Databook.” http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/cjrp/asp/State_Adj.asp; American Correctional
Association, 2008 Directory: Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies, and
Probation and Parole Authorities (Alexandria, VA: American Correctional Association, 2008).
4

The Costs of Confinement
Shifting the fiscal architecture of state juvenile justice systems can save
money and improve outcomes
In many states, there is no financial incentive for counties to invest in alternatives to secure
residential placement for youth because state governments generally fund residential placement
for youth that are adjudicated delinquent. Counties have to pay for alternatives to incarceration,
like those mentioned in subsequent sections, but they do not have to pay for state-funded secure
residential confinement.
To eliminate or reduce the financial incentive of sending youth to state-funded secure care,
several states have altered the fiscal architecture of the juvenile justice system. Some states
provide financial reimbursement for costs incurred by counties to manage youth locally, while
requiring the county to pay part of the cost of confining a child in a state institution. Other states
have simply increased the costs for counties to send youth to state institutions, and programs
have grown naturally in localities where there had previously been no incentive to develop them
before. These changes have been funded either with dedicated state funding streams, or through
the increased ability to pull down federal dollars to fund more local juvenile justice
programming.
By rethinking how they fund their juvenile justice systems, states and localities can succeed in
keeping more youth at home, reduce the number of youth incarcerated, promote better outcomes
for young people moving through these systems, and potentially show significant savings to
taxpayers. Below are some notable state examples.
Ohio—“RECLAIM Ohio”
• Ohio created a system that allocates money to counties for juvenile justice based on
delinquency levels and population. The county uses the same pool of money whether it
utilizes community-based alternatives or state commitment. Community-based
alternatives are cheaper, thus encouraging the county to invest in those initiatives.
• Between RECLAIM Ohio’s enactment in 1992 and 2009, the number of young people
committed to secure state care in Ohio fell 42 percent. 13
• According to a fiscal analysis by the Ohio Department of Youth Services, for every dollar
spent on the RECLAIM program, the state saves from $11 to $45 in commitment and
processing costs, depending on the risk level of the youth. 14
Illinois—“Redeploy Illinois”
• Under Redeploy Illinois, participating counties agree to cut the number of youth they
send to state secure facilities by at least 25 percent below the average of the previous
three years. The reduction can be seen in the overall population or in any specific
population. In return, the state reimburses the counties for funds they spend managing the
adjudicated youth locally. 15
• Since starting in mid-2004, Redeploy pilot sites included the 2nd Judicial District (containing
12 rural counties) and St. Clair, Peoria, and Macon counties. In its first three years of
implementation, the pilot sites diverted 382 youth from commitment, saved an estimated
$18.7 million in costs, and lowered the number of commitments by 51 percent. 16 In April
2009, Illinois made Redeploy a permanent initiative to be expanded in other counties.
5

The Costs of Confinement
New York – “Re-direct New York”
• In February 2009, New York State closed six youth residential facilities, downsized two,
and closed three evening reporting centers. The projected savings of closing these
facilities is approximately $16.4 million and the funds will be redirected to counties to
strengthen alternatives to incarceration. 17
• Coinciding with state residential facility closures, legislators will introduce Re-direct
New York, which would create a fiscal incentive for counties to utilize alternatives to
incarceration rather than state-run residential facilities for youth or local detention
facilities. The law would reimburse counties for 65 percent of the cost of using
alternatives to incarceration, reinvest half of the savings in alternatives to communitybased
alternatives, and fund only evidence-based alternatives. 18
Pennsylvania—“Act 148”
• Pennsylvania reimburses 80 percent of the county cost of community-based juvenile
justice services. The county pays the state 40 percent of the cost of state youth
confinement.
• Three years after Act 148 was enacted in the late 1970s, there was a 75 percent increase
in state subsidies for county programs; by the early 1980s, secure placements for youth
dropped 24 percent. In 2006, only 14 percent of committed youth were placed in state
facilities. 19
California—SB 81
• In 2007, as part of a budget “trailer bill,” the governor signed legislation that bans
commitments of youth adjudicated of nonviolent offenses to state-run residential
facilities.
• Block grants established under the bill will provide an average of $130,000 per youth
eligible to be placed in community-based alternatives.
• The state projected that the number of youth placed in state residential facilities would
decrease from about 2,500 to about 1,500 within two years. 20
Wisconsin—“Youth Aids”
• Instead of Wisconsin funding the state-run secure residential confinement facilities
directly, it allocates a certain amount of money to each county for each bed used in the
facility. The county uses some of the money for the state-run facility or it can use it for
less expensive, community-based alternatives. 21
• A year after Youth Aids was enacted in 1980, 25 counties shared $26 million in funding
plus state capacity-building money for community alternative programs. Between 1997
and 2006, the number of state commitments fell by 43 percent. 22
6

The Costs of Confinement
Conditions litigation can be a costly result of mass incarceration of youth
“In the worst case scenario, crowded facilities can lead to increased institutional violence,
higher operational costs, and significant vulnerabilities to litigation to improve the conditions
of confinement.” 23 James Austin, Kelly Dedel Johnson, and Ronald Weitzer
While society often refers to youth as its “most important asset,” the high costs of incarcerating
youth can have the result of creating conditions of confinement that are not only nonrehabilitative,
but are dangerous and can lead to costly litigation. Below are some cases that
illustrate why large, congruent care facilities – which are the most likely to be the subject of
conditions lawsuits – can in fact be an even poorer choice from a fiscal standpoint than the “per
diem” costs indicate.
California: In 2003, Margaret Farrell sued the California Youth Authority (CYA) for using tax
payers dollars to fund poor and illegal conditions in its facilities. In 2004, a series of expert
reports were filed on the problems of access for people with disabilities, mental health and
substance abuse treatment, health services, education programs, sex offender treatment and
general conditions in the CYA facilities. In 2005, this led to an agreement on a schedule for
reforming the juvenile justice system and later, led the Department of Juvenile Justice, which
took charge of the CYA, to set forth a set of remedial plans which are reported on quarterly to
track any progress they have made. 24 The Budget Act for FY 06-07 added approximately $90
million to the Department of Juvenile Justice budget so that it might comply with the costs of
remedial plans that resulted from the Farrell case. 25
Ohio: In 2007, a class action lawsuit charged the Ohio Department of Youth Services (ODYS)
with excessive use of force and isolation, inadequate health care, mental health care, and
educational services for youth, poorly trained staff, an unsafe living environment and an
inadequate grievance system. A settlement was reached in April 2008 which requires better
mental health services, more educational opportunities, better medical and dental services,
increased training for employees as well as hiring up to 115 more juvenile correctional officers,
revising the use of force and isolation and supporting evidence-based community programs for
low-risk offenders. The cost of carrying out these changes is not yet known, but the Youth Law
Center estimates that it will increase the DYS budget by $20 to $30 million a year. 26
Louisiana: In 2006, an 8-year lawsuit concerning the conditions of juvenile facilities in
Louisiana was dismissed. This lawsuit was only a part of the litigation that has been going on for
35 years in that state. United States v. Louisiana began in 1998 when the first charge was filed
against the state. The lawsuit focused on the conditions of four facilities and accused Louisiana
of failing to provide safe conditions as well as adequate educational, medical, mental health and
rehabilitative services in these state facilities. 27 The case was first filed in 1998 and the first
settlement was in 2000, followed by two more in 2003 and 2004 before the case was finally
dismissed by consensus of both parties in 2006. 28 The American Correctional Association
estimates that by 2000, Louisiana had spent over a million dollars in plaintiff and defense fees
and expert fees since 1998 and almost $3 million in attorney, expert and medical service fees for
adult and juvenile lawsuits since 1994. In addition, the juvenile settlement agreement in 2000
7

The Costs of Confinement
required the state to spent $20 million in three years to better the educational and medical care
services and to decrease violence in four juvenile facilities. 29
While policymakers might believe that the key to reducing overcrowded conditions is to expand
facilities, history has shown that adding more beds is likely to result in a “build it and they will
come” outcome, only exacerbating the problem. Although estimates are not available for staterun
residential facilities, we do know that over a 20-year period the cost to taxpayers of one local
detention bed can reach up to $1.5 million. 30
Building new facilities and paying to operate them reduces money that might otherwise support
crucial services that provide long-term benefits to youth and the community at-large, like
education and community services. A public safety investment that is focused on the most
expensive, least effective options, such as building new facilities, removes the system’s ability to
fund the kind of less expensive and more effective options that intermediate supervision,
treatment and services can offer. Additionally, locking up youth who do not need to be
incarcerated takes away resources from youth for whom a secure residential facility is the most
appropriate option.
8

The Costs of Confinement
Confinement can have negative consequences for youth and communities
“[C]onfining youth may widen the gulf between the youth and positive influences such as
family and school.” James Austin, Kelly Dedel, and Ronald Weitzer 31
Secure residential facilities for young people were originally intended to be places for
rehabilitation and support for youth to learn from their mistakes while being held accountable for
their actions. However, the rise in the number of youth held in these facilities has contributed to
overcrowding and changed the philosophy of some facilities from one of rehabilitation to one of
punishment.
The most current national data show that 1,069 facilities (36 percent of all juvenile facilities) are
at or over capacity or relying on some sort of makeshift beds to house additional youth. 32 Reports
of increased suicidal behavior, stress-related illness and psychiatric problems 33 accompany the
harsh and stressful conditions of overcrowded facilities. Large facilities that hold more than 100
youth are the most likely to experience problems with overcrowding. 34 Facilities of this size hold
nearly half of all youth in facilities. Texas, California, Maryland and a number of other states
have been cited for poor conditions of confinement due to overcrowding, resulting in lawsuits
and multi-million dollar settlements.
Even in facilities without overcrowding problems, youth in secure confinement often do not
develop social skills, such as self-control and conflict resolution as well as those who remain in
the community. Youth who spend time in facilities have higher recidivism rates; are less likely to
naturally age out of illegal behavior; suffer from more mental illness and are at a higher risk of
suicide; they are less likely to succeed at education and employment at the same level as youth
who were never incarcerated. More information on each of these areas is included in the
appendix to this report.
Missouri’s Department of Youth Services has become a national model for juvenile justice
systems. Their emphasis on small facilities (only three of the state’s 32 residential facilities has
more than 33 beds) 35 and focus on support and rehabilitation have had positive effects on youth
and public safety. Youth in these facilities meet educational benchmarks at similar rates to youth
who are not imprisoned, 36 and recidivism rates are around 8.7 percent. 37 Although communitybased
programs are the most effective way to treat youth in conflict with the law, if a young
person must be confined, the Missouri Model is one of the most effective methods of providing
secure care for youth.
See Appendix A for more information on the negative effects of incarceration on youth.
9

The Costs of Confinement
Locking up more youth does not improve public safety
Over the last decade the majority of states have witnessed falling crime rates, which can be
attributed to a number of different factors, including the economy, changes in spending priorities,
changes to policies that affect public safety, and myriad other reasons. Researchers who have
critically evaluated the adult criminal justice system have found little if any correlation between
increasing prison populations and lower crime rates. Bruce Western at Harvard University
recently found that only 10 percent of the crime decline in the 1990s was due to increased use of
incarceration. 38 Concurrently, data shows that states that increased the number of youth in
facilities did not necessarily see a bigger drop in crime than states that lowered juvenile
correctional populations.
A comparison of youth incarceration rates and violent crime rates does not necessarily support
such policies. A review of the last 10 years of data on incarceration and crime trends shows no
correlation between states that increase the number of youth in juvenile facilities and crime. In
other words, there is no evidence that locking up more youth will definitively improve public
safety. On the other hand, states that significantly lowered the number of youth incarcerated were
more likely to see bigger drops in crime than states that increased their correctional populations.
Top 10 States that lowered the number of youth in juvenile justice facilities from 1997 to
2006. Seven of the 10 states that reduced the number of youth in juvenile justice facilities saw
drops in the total number of violent offenses reported to law enforcement.
State
Percent change in
number of youth in
juvenile facilities
Percent change in
total number of
violent offenses
reported
Percent change in
number of
property offenses
reported
Louisiana -57% -20% -30%
Mississippi -41% -32% -18%
New Mexico -39% -15% -27%
Washington -34% -11% -7%
Maine -34% 2% -11%
Wisconsin -33% 13% -11%
Tennessee -33% 8% -2%
Georgia -27% -3% -6%
Connecticut -27% -23% -25%
Maryland -26% -12% -20%
Average -35% -9% -16%
US Total -12% -13% -14%
10

The Costs of Confinement
Bottom 10 States that increased the number of youth in juvenile justice facilities from 1997
to 2006. Six of the 10 states that increased the number of youth in juvenile justice facilities saw
increases in the total number of violent offenses reported to law enforcement.
State
Percent change in
number of youth in
juvenile facilities
Percent change in
total number of
violent offenses
reported
Percent change in
number of
property offenses
reported
Vermont 13% 21% -10%
South Dakota 13% -8% -44%
Oklahoma 14% -4% -21%
Kentucky 15% -11% -3%
Texas 20% 4% 1%
Florida 22% -14% -21%
Colorado 23% 32% -2%
Arkansas 35% 17% 5%
West Virginia 45% 28% 17%
Idaho 115% 17% -20%
Average 31% 8% -10%
US Total -12% -13% -14%
Note: The number of youth in correctional facilities includes detained, committed and diverted youth.
Sources: Correctional Facilities: M. Sickmund, T.J. Sladky, W. Kang, and C. Puzzanchera, Easy Access
to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, 2008) http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezacjrp/asp/display.asp; Crime: FBI
Uniform Crime Report, Crime in the United States, 1997 and 2006, www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm, Table 5
While this may be counterintuitive, research has shown significant negative impacts of
incarceration on youth that can impact public safety. Research on the impact of incarcerating or
grouping youth together for treatment in facilities has found that it can reduce their educational
and vocational outcomes, 39 disrupt their families, introduce them to delinquent peers they may
not have met otherwise 40 and expose them to traumatic experiences. All of these factors can
increase the likelihood of engagement in later illegal behavior. Research also shows that most
youth “age out” of crime, diminishing even further the public safety impact of incarceration. 41
Finally, while the media and some system stakeholders purport that young people drive violent
crime trends, this contention is not supported by national crime trends. Youth account for 18
percent of all arrests for violent offenses. 42
11

The Costs of Confinement
Community-based programs are proven, cost-effective alternatives to
imprisonment
When intervention is recommended for a young person, the most effective programs in terms of
reducing recidivism rates and promoting positive life outcomes are those administered in the
community, outside of the criminal or juvenile justice systems. Some of these programs have
been shown to reduce recidivism by up to 22 percent, at a cost significantly lower than
imprisonment. 43
Researchers examining the effects of institutional versus community-based interventions have
found positive outcomes for youth treated outside secure facilities. In one study, researchers’
meta-analysis found that while “appropriate treatment” works in both institutional and
community settings, the rate of success was higher in the community-based treatment models.
Comparing community programs with large residential programs, researchers determined that
residential facilities “dampen the positive effects of appropriate service while augmenting the
negative impact of inappropriate service.” 44
The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP), a non-partisan research entity for the
Washington legislature, has done a cost-benefit analysis of juvenile justice programs. It showed
that programs like those endorsed by the University of Colorado’s Center for the Study and
Prevention of Violence in their Blueprints for Violence Prevention 45 are the best ways to improve
public safety and are the most cost-effective ways to work with youth in need of behavioral
intervention. More information on each of these programs is provided in the appendix.
Alternatives to incarceration for youth can reduce recidivism by up to 22
percent
-22%
-15.9%
-8.7%
-10.5%
Source: Elizabeth Drake, Evidence-Based Juvenile Offender Programs: Program Description, Quality Assurance,
and Cost (Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2007) www.wsipp.wa.gov
WSIPP was also commissioned by the Washington state legislature to determine how many adult
beds and how much money could be saved by the year 2030 by investing in alternatives to
incarceration for youth such as those in the graph above. WSIPP used three scenarios of
investments in alternatives to incarceration to show how the prison population could be reduced
from the projected 2030 levels. 46
-7.3%
-3.5%
Juvenile drug courts
Restorative justice for low-risk offenders
Aggression Replacement Training
Multi-systemic Therapy
Functional Family Therapy on probation
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care
-25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0
Percent Change in Recidivism Rate (%)
12

The Costs of Confinement
An aggressive approach to investing in alternatives to incarceration would yield the biggest
savings for taxpayers in Washington.
Definition
Incarceration
Rate
Return on
investment for
taxpayers
Felonies
per 1,000
Current
Moderate
Funded at current level and
provided to the same percent of
eligible participants
Expanded to include 20 percent of
remaining eligible participants
7.3 24 46
6.6 27 47
Aggressive
Expanded to include 40 percent of
remaining participants
5.8 28 48
Source: Steve Aos, Marna Miller, and Elizabeth Drake, Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future
Prison Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates (Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public
Policy, 2006).
As the chart shows, investing in alternatives to incarceration for youth today will reap significant
savings in the potential costs of tomorrow.
California: The costs of locking up youth with mental illness
In 2007, a study prepared for the Chief Probation Officers of California and the California
Mental Health Directors Association surveyed 18 counties regarding youth with mental illness
in their juvenile detention facilities. 47 This study found that a young person with mental illness
can cost at least $18,800 more than other youth, taking into account reported estimates of the
average differences in length of stay. This estimate assumes the average reported facility rate,
and provisions of basic mental health services reported in the survey. In addition, for each stay
the total cost of psychotropic medications averages $4,387 per youth. About 12.5 percent of
youth in detention in these counties were on psychotropic medication. An analysis published in
the Journal of Juvenile Justice and Detention Services suggests that poor mental health and the
conditions of detention conspire together to generate higher rates of depression and suicide
idealization. 48
See Appendix B for more information on cost-effective programs that work with youth.
13

The Costs of Confinement
Recommendations
The best available research suggests that community alternatives to incarceration like the
evidence-based programs mentioned in this report, and investments in front-end services like
education and employment, are the best ways to improve public safety while saving money.
States like Ohio, Illinois, and California show that shifting the financial architecture away from
state-funded secure residential confinement forces counties to invest in evidence-based
programs. Below are some recommendations for policymakers seeking to improve outcomes
and best utilize scarce public resources.
“Investing in programs and practices that reduce future criminal behavior ceases to be a good
idea and becomes a very good idea when reductions in justice system costs exceed the cost of
the program.” 49 California State Commission on Juvenile Justice
Incentivize counties to send fewer youth to secure residential facilities by shifting the fiscal
architecture of the state juvenile justice system. The six states profiled in this brief have
encouraged counties to invest in alternatives to incarcerating youth in secure residential facilities
by making it financially undesirable for counties to rely on the states to confine youth who could
be better served in the community by evidence-based practices.
Invest in intermediate interventions, not buildings. While maintaining conditions of
confinement that meet the needs of young people are important, during lean budget times, the
most expensive parts of the juvenile justice continuum—detention centers, residential facilities
and other forms of secure congregate care—tend to win out in local budget battles. As the federal
government and states plan new ways to invest in cost effective forms of delinquency
prevention, they should focus funding streams on intermediate forms of community-based
supervision. Some of the cost savings from downsizing detention centers and secure residential
facilities can be invested in improving conditions, with the remaining funds invested in
community-based services that are more effective and less expensive than juvenile prisons.
Invest in proven approaches to reduce crime and recidivism among young people.
Evidence-based practices, which have undergone rigorous experimental inquiry, have been
shown to work with violent and seriously delinquent youth. Such practices are more costeffective
and produce more benefits than traditional punitive measures. States should expand
upon existing evidence-based alternatives to incarceration for youth.
Develop, support and evaluate new and different approaches to reduce crime and
recidivism among young people. Localities across the country have developed smaller, tailored
initiatives that have a great deal of community buy-in. Many of these initiatives are based on the
basic principles of the more science-based approaches, but have not been evaluated. A search for
new initiatives would add to the toolbox of available interventions and alternatives.
Re-examine policies and practices that have the consequence of sending more youth to the
juvenile justice system. The increase of school-based referrals over the last two decades has
increased the likelihood that a student is sent to residential placement for infractions that had
14

The Costs of Confinement
been previously handled by the school. The result is an overburdened juvenile justice system and
overcrowded secure residential facilities.
Create and fund research organizations to evaluate effective programs and policies in
juvenile justice. In some states, non-partisan, legislatively-mandated organizations can provide
policymakers with information on what truly works in juvenile justice. States and localities
should support research groups that work to evaluate programs across the country for costeffectiveness
and recommend effective programs as a valuable way to lower costs and ensure
that policymakers are funding the best possible programs and policies. These research groups can
be state-based, or the federal government can increase their capacity to do this research work
nationally.
Policymakers should take care to not rely on the “tough-on-crime” rhetoric of the past, but
instead on the research that shows that locking up more youth does not keep our
communities safe. Incarceration of youth has been linked to a number of negative outcomes,
including increased recidivism and criminal behavior, lack of educational and employment
opportunities, and association with more delinquent peers. Implementing community-based
programs is the smart way to improve public safety while saving money.
Invest in policies that increase employment, educational attainment and treatment for
those who need it.
• The Alliance for Excellent Education reported in 2006 that a 5 percent increase in male
high school graduation rates would produce an annual savings of almost $5 billion in
crime-related expenses. Coupled with annual earnings of those who graduated, the U.S.
would receive $7.7 billion in benefits. 50
• A study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology found that youth
involvement in crime seems to be especially affected by employment. This study has
indicated that employed youth are less likely to be engaged in property crimes. 51
• Making treatment available in communities to address mental illness, substance abuse,
and emotional distress resulting from trauma is the best way to ensure that youth are
getting what they need to live healthy, productive lives. For youth already in the juvenile
justice system, jurisdictions should better implement processes for a continuation of care
for youth transitioning back to the community. This includes making arrangements for
housing and other supports for youth and their families upon release.
Acknowledgements
This policy brief was researched and written by Amanda Petteruti, Nastassia Walsh, and Tracy
Velázquez, with considerable research support from Ashley King. This report would not have
been possible without generous support from the Public Welfare Foundation and the Open
Society Institute.
15

The Costs of Confinement
Appendix A: Negative impacts of confinement
Incarceration can increase recidivism
Youth recidivism rates within states are often reported at 50 percent or higher for individuals
who remain in secure facilities. 52 Further, court records show that youth experience a greater
likelihood of returning to court after each criminal referral they receive. 53 As many as 50 to 70
percent of youth who were previously in residential placement facilities were rearrested within
two years of their release. 54
Several studies have shown that youth who are incarcerated are more likely to recidivate than
youth who are supervised in a community-based setting, or not detained at all.
• A study of youth incarcerated in Arkansas found not only a high recidivism rate, but that
the experience of incarceration is the most significant factor in increasing the odds of
recidivism. 55 Sixty percent of the youth studied were returned to the Department of Youth
Services (DYS) within three years. The odds of returning to DYS increased 13.5 times
for youth with a prior commitment, which was more than carrying a weapon (3.3 times),
gang membership (2 times) or poor parental relationship (0.6 times).
• In Texas, researchers found that young people in community-based placement are 14
percent less likely to participate in illegal behavior than youth that have been
incarcerated. 56
• Researchers found that in 63.4 percent of 443 studies about the juvenile justice system,
young people who received interventions emphasizing community-based treatment and
other alternatives to incarceration were less likely to recidivate than those who did not
receive an intervention. For example, 32 to 37 percent of young people given
employment and behavioral programs were estimated to recidivate, as compared to a 50
percent recidivism rate for the group of youth not given this intervention. 57
Studies of recidivism from large residential correctional facilities, including training schools,
show that the percentage is uniformly high.
• A follow-up study on youth released from Minnesota’s two training schools in 1991
found that 91 percent were re-arrested within five years of release.
• In Maryland, a study of 947 youths released from correctional facilities in 1994 found
that 82 percent were referred to juvenile or criminal courts within two and one-half years
after release. 58
• In Washington, 59 percent of incarcerated youth re-offended within one year and 68
percent within two years. 59
These studies from a number of different states and juvenile justice systems show a recurring
pattern. Alternatives to incarceration for youth can be more effective and have more public
safety benefits that locking up youth.
16

The Costs of Confinement
Residential placement can slow the natural “aging out” process of delinquency
Research and data show that most youth will naturally “age out” of delinquent and illegal
behavior on their own, without the intervention of the juvenile or criminal justice systems.
However, involvement of one or both of these systems can impede development and may reduce
the chance that a youth will successfully transition to adulthood since confinement disrupts
natural engagement with families, school, and work. 60 New research has shown that confinement
is not only more likely to reinforce delinquent behavior in those already at-risk, but may also add
to more delinquent skills than if they are treated individually in the community. Furthermore,
secure confinement can reinforce a young person’s sense that they are not part of mainstream
society, further ostracizing them, and leading them to associate with other delinquent peers who
also feel that they have been socially isolated. 61
According to a study by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the more
contact youth have with juvenile courts, the more likely they are to return. 62 Among youth with
no prior referrals to juvenile court, 41 percent will return to juvenile court after their first referral.
In other words, 59 percent of youth who are referred to juvenile court for the first time will not
return. But this number jumps significantly after their first contact and subsequently with each
additional referral.
The natural developmental process behind completing an education and gaining meaningful
employment can be hindered by incarceration because it cuts a youth off from the conventional
norms and opportunities for growth that youth who remain in the community receive. The
inability to develop these attachments is associated with reduced recidivism. A 1993 study
showed that even after controlling for adolescent crime and delinquency, job stability for youth
from ages 17 to 25 significantly reduced crime during those years. 63 Due to the disruptions in
education, employment opportunities, and natural life processes that allow young people to “ageout”
of crime, researchers argued, “the process of incarceration could actually change an
individual into a less stable employee.” 64
Incarceration does not meet the mental and developmental needs of youth
Often youth are more at risk of contact with the juvenile justice system as a result of unmet
mental health needs. Some behaviors that cause youth to be arrested are manifestations of a
disorder in need of treatment. 65 While researchers estimate that upwards of two-thirds of young
people in detention centers could meet the criteria for having a mental disorder, a little more than
a third need ongoing clinical care—a figure twice the rate of the general adolescent population. 66
Youth with mental health disorders are more likely to serve time in a facility and spend longer
time behind bars than youth without mental health disorders. 67 A combination of factors,
including inadequate “front door” screening, lack of staff training, an over-reliance on isolation
to control youth behavior, inadequacies of specialized mental health services, poor
communication between probation and providers, and gaps in community services and placement
alternatives can affect length of stay for these youth. 68
17

The Costs of Confinement
“Given the disproportionate use of juvenile detention facilities for youth of color one
explanation [for the high incidence of youth with mental health disorders in facilities] may be
that the juvenile justice system has become a de facto mental health system for poor and
minority youth who are unable to access care through the formal mental health system.” 69
Because of the large number of overcrowded facilities, which often breed an environment of
violence and chaos for young people, far from receiving effective treatment, young people with
behavioral health problems may get worse in detention, not better. 70 Most juvenile justice
systems do not have the facilities to properly screen or treat a young person with a mental health
disorder, and if these young people are incarcerated the risks of victimization, self-injury, and
suicide are high. 71 One academic study found that for one-third of incarcerated youth diagnosed
with depression, the onset of the depression occurred after they began their incarceration.” 72 An
article published in the medical journal, Pediatrics, concluded that, “The transition into
incarceration itself may be responsible for some of the observed [increased mental illness in
detention] effect.” 73 When youth do not receive the mental health treatment that they need within
facilities, their conditions only worsen.
While some researchers have found that the rate of suicide in juvenile facilities is about the same
as the community at large, 74 others have found that incarcerated youth experience from double to
four times the suicide rate of youth in community. 75 The Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) reports that 11,000 youth engage in more than 17,000 acts of
suicidal behavior in the juvenile justice system annually. 76 Another monograph published by
OJJDP found that juvenile correctional facilities often incorporate responses to suicidal threats
and behavior in ways that endanger the youth further, such as placing the youth in isolation. 77
The U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation of juvenile and correctional facilities has
acknowledged the failure of residential facilities to respond to the mental health needs of the
youth in custody. 78 Generally, youth suffering with serious mental health problems should
participate in family and community-based treatments, because research has found them to be the
most effective at treating mental illness and reducing recidivism. 79
The most promising mental health programs reduce recidivism anywhere from 25 to 80
percent. 80 These programs place an emphasis on behavior change, decision-making, and the
development of social skills among different groups. 81 The best programs tend to be those that
focus on family-centered interventions that allow families to help develop treatment options and
receive progress reports. Since research shows that a lack of family involvement may be
associated with delinquency, it is essential that families participate in the treatment process. 82
Incarceration may impact education and employment opportunities for youth upon release
Research continually links education and the likelihood of participating in illegal behavior or
ending up in prison. Forty-one percent of adults in prisons and jails do not have a high school
diploma 83 and the U.S. Department of Education reports that dropouts are 3.5 times more likely
than high school graduates to be arrested. 84 Locking up youth can interrupt the learning process,
even when educational opportunities are available behind bars. Rarely is there a contiguous
transition from a juvenile facility to education in the community, and when there is, there is a
high likelihood that youth will not complete their education. 85
18

The Costs of Confinement
• One researcher found that most incarcerated 9th graders return to school after
incarceration, but within a year of re-enrolling two-thirds to three-fourths withdraw or
drop out of school. After four years, less than 15 percent of these incarcerated 9th graders
had completed their secondary education. 86
• A Department of Education study showed that 43 percent of youth receiving remedial
education services in a juvenile detention facility did not return to school after release,
and another 16 percent enrolled in school but dropped out after only five months. 87
Incarceration can also negatively impact future employment.
• A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that jailing youth (age 16-
25) reduced work time over the next decade by 25-30 percent. 88
• Looking at youth age 14 to 24, Princeton University researchers found that youth who
spent some time incarcerated in a youth facility experienced three weeks less work a year
(for African American youth, five weeks less work a year) as compared to youth who had
no history of incarceration. 89
Secure confinement contributes to barriers to education and employment that limit a person’s
ability to positively contribute to society, which may negatively impact public safety in the long
term.
19

The Costs of Confinement
Appendix B: Community-based programs that work
Functional Family Therapy (FFT): This family-based program works as both prevention and
intervention. It is a multi-level eight to 12 week program that seeks to address family
dysfunction, acknowledging that in the long run, removing the youth from his or her family and
community may not fix the root problem behind the behavior. The FFT program can lower
recidivism by up to 38 percent, averaging around 16 percent, and has $10.69 in benefits for each
dollar of cost when administered by trained therapists. 90
Lowered recidivism: 15.9 percent
Cost benefits: $10.69 in benefits for every dollar spent
Aggression Replacement Training (ART): This program is designed for youth who exhibit
aggressive tendencies and anti-social behavior and are therefore considered to be at a high risk of
reoffending. ART is a 10-week, 30-hour intervention administered to groups of eight to 12 youth
who have committed an offense. 91 ART has been found to reduce recidivism after 18 months by
up to 24 percent, averaging around 7 percent, and has $11.66 benefits per $1 costs. 92
Lowered recidivism: 7.3 percent
Cost benefits: $11.66 in benefits for every dollar spent
Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST): MST works with the family to address the underlying causes
of illegal and delinquent behavior and the role that families play in a young person’s behavior.
Families are taught how to build healthy relationships and use appropriate methods of
discipline. 93 MST works to achieve behavioral change at home, rather than in a correctional
facility. MST has shown to reduce long-term rates of re-arrest by 25-70 percent, 94 and has an
average reduction of re-arrest of around 10.5 percent. 95 States that use MST can see $13.36 in
benefits to public safety for every dollar spent on the program. 96
Lowered recidivism: 10.5 percent
Cost benefits: $13.36 in benefits for every dollar spent
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC): MTFC is an alternative to group homes or
detention facilities for youth. Rather than place youth into a group, each foster family has one
youth at a time which allows them to tailor programming to that specific individual’s needs. The
individual treatment also allows the child to be closely monitored. At first, the youth is with the
foster parent at all times but as the youth shows good behavior, the restrictions are loosened and
he or she is given more freedom. Aside from close monitoring by the foster parents, the youth
also receives job and social skills training from a professional therapist and the birth parents and
child receive family therapy where the parents learn how to properly discipline their child. 97
MTFC has been shown to reduce recidivism rates for youth by 22 percent on average, and has a
cost-benefit ratio of $10.88 in benefits for every dollar spent. 98
Lowered recidivism: 22 percent
Cost benefits: $10.88 in benefits for every dollar spent
20

The Costs of Confinement
1 M. Sickmund, T.J. Sladky, W. Kang, and C. Puzzanchera, Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential
Placement (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008)
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezacjrp/asp/display.asp
2 American Correctional Association, 2008 Directory: Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions,
Agencies, and Probation and Parole Authorities (Alexandria, VA: American Correctional Association, 2008).
3 C. Puzzanchera and M. Sickmund, OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book: Juvenile Court Statistics 2005 (Washington,
D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008)
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/court/qa06206.asp?qaDate=2005.
4 C. Puzzanchera and others, 2008.
5 A. Stahl, T. Finnegan and W. Kang, National Juvenile Court Data Archive: Juvenile Court Case Records 1985-
2004 (Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2007). http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezajcs/.
6 Advancement Project, Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero-Tolerance and School
Discipline (Washington, D.C.: Advancement Project, 2000) www.advancementproject.org/reports/opsusp.pdf
7 Advancement Project, Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track (Washington, D.C.:
Advancement Project, 2005) www.advancementproject.org/reports/FINALEOLrep.pdf
8 M. Sickmund and others, 2008
9 M. Sickmund and others, 2008
10 American Correctional Association, 2008.
11 M. Sickmund and others, 2008
12 American Correctional Association, 2008.
13 Ohio Department of Youth Services, “Reclaim Ohio.”
www.dys.ohio.gov/dnn/Community/ReclaimOhio/tabid/131/Default.aspx
14 Christopher Lowenkamp and Edward Latessa, Evaluation of Ohio’s RECLAIM funded programs, community
correctional facilities, and DYS facilities: Cost Benefit Analysis Supplemental Report (Cincinnati, OH: University of
Cincinnati, 2005).
15 Jasmine Tyler, Jason Ziedenberg, and Eric Lotke, Cost Effective Corrections: The Fiscal Architecture of Rational
Juvenile Justice Systems (Washington, D.C.: Justice Policy Institute, 2006).
www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/06-03_REP_CostEffective_JJ.pdf
16 Illinois Department of Human Services, Redeploy Illinois Annual Report: Implementation and Impact November
2008. www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=41157
17 Personal Correspondence from Mishi Faruqee, Correctional Association of New York, April 1, 2009.
18 New York Juvenile Justice Coalition, RE-DIRECT NEWYORK: Reinvesting Detention Resources in Community
Treatment (New York, NY: New York Juvenile Justice Coalition, 2009).
19 M. Sickmund and others, 2008
20 Commonweal Juvenile Justice Project, “SPECIAL REPORT: California Governor Signs Major Juvenile Justice
Reform Bill— Nearly half of the state’s youth corrections population will now be “realigned” to county programs
and facilities,” September 4, 2007. www.preventviolence.org/CALJuvJusticeReformSignedbyGovernorSep4.pdf
21 Wisconsin Department of Corrections, “State Juvenile Justice System Funding: Youth Aids and Community
Intervention Program,” 2008. www.wi-doc.com/DJC_funding.htm
22 M. Sickmund and others, 2008
23 James Austin, Kelly Dedel Johnson, and Ronald Weitzer, Alternatives to the Secure Detention and Confinement of
Juvenile Offenders (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2005)
www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/208804.pdf, page 2.
24 Prison Law Office, “Major Cases & Achievements,” (San Quentin, CA: Prison Law Office, March 2009).
www.prisonlaw.com/cases.php#juvi
25 Commonweal, “Commonweal: The Juvenile Justice Programs: Outcomes for Juvenile Justice Bills in 2006,”
(Bolinas, CA: Commonweal, March 2009). www.commonweal.org/cgi-
bin/hse/HomepageSearchEngine.cgi?url=http://69.94.47.172/programs/jjp-reports/Leg-
Outcomes2006.html;geturl=d+highlightmatches+gotofirstmatch;terms=farrell;enc=farrell;utf8=off#firstmatch
26 Youth Law Center, “S.H. v. Stickrath (formerly S.H. v Taft) (San Francisco, CA: Youth Law Center, March
2009). www.ylc.org/viewDetails.php?id=63
27 Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice, “News Release: Louisiana Juvenile Justice System Dismissed from Federal
Oversight.” Press Release from Louisiana governor’s office on May 1, 2006. www.oyd.louisiana.gov/test/05-01-
2006.asp
28 The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, “Case Profile: United States v. Louisiana” (St. Louis, MO: March
2009). http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php?id=333
21

The Costs of Confinement
29 Jennifer Harry, “Costly Juvenile Prison Litigation for Louisiana,” Corrections Today. 62, no. 7 (2000): 23.
30 Sue Burrell, Paul DeMuro, Earl Dunlap, C. Sanniti and L. Warboys, Crowding in Juvenile Detention Facilities: A
Problem Solving Manual (Richmond, KY: National Juvenile Detention Association and Youth Law Center, 1998).
31 James Austin and others, 2005, page 2
32 Howard N. Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report (Washington,
DC: National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2006). http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/nr2006/downloads/NR2006.pdf
33 Sue Burrell, P. DeMuro, E. Dunlap, C. Sanniti and L. Warboys, Crowding in Juvenile Detention Facilities: A
Problem Solving Manual (Richmond, KY: National Juvenile Detention Association and Youth Law Center, 1998).
34 Howard N. Snyder and others, 2006
35 Missouri Juvenile Justice Association, Celebrating 100 Years of Juvenile Justice in Missouri 1903-2003.
(Jefferson City, MO: 2003). http://mjja.org/images/100Years.pdf
36 Missouri Juvenile Justice Association, 2003
37 Missouri Department of Social Services, Division of Youth Services Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 2006
(Jefferson City, MO: 2006) www.dss.mo.gov/re/pdf/dys/dysfy06.pdf
38 Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006).
39 A. Golub, The Termination Rate of Adult Criminal Careers (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon, 1990)
40 Robert A. Sampson and John H. Laub, Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points through Life
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1993)
41 Robert A. Sampson and others,1993
42 FBI Uniform Crime Report, Crime in the United States, 2007 www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
43 Elizabeth Drake, Evidence-Based Juvenile Offender Programs: Program Description, Quality Assurance and
Cost. (Olympia WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2007) www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/07-06-
1201.pdf
44 Andrews, D.A., Zinger, I., Hoge, R.D., Bonta, J., Gendreau, P. and Cullen, F.R. “Does Correctional treatment
work? A clinically relevant and psychologically informed meta-analysis,” Criminology 28, no. 3 (1990): 369-404.
45 Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder, “Blueprints for
Violence Prevention,” Accessed March 12, 2009, www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/
46 Steve Aos, Marna Miller, and Elizabeth Drake, Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future Prison
Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates (Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy,
2006).
47 Chief Probation Officers of California and California Mental Health Directors Association, Costs of Incarcerating
Youth with Mental Illness (CA: Chief Probation Officers of California and California Mental Health Directors
Association, 2008)
48 D. Mace, P. Rohde, and V. Gnau, “Psychological Patterns of Depression and Suicidal Behavior of Adolescents in
a Juvenile Detention Facility,” Journal of Juvenile Justice and Detention Services 12, No. 1 (1997): 18-23.
49 Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan, Blueprint for an Outcome Oriented Juvenile Justice System; State
Commission on Juvenile Justice, January 2009
50 Alliance for Excellent Education, Saving Futures, Saving Dollars: The Impact of Education on Crime Reduction
and Earnings (Washington, D.C., 2006) www.all4ed.org/publications/SavingFutures.pdf
51 Chester L. Britt, “Reconsidering the Unemployment and Crime Relationship: Variation by Age Group and
Historical Period,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 13, no.4 (1997): 405-428.
52 Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, Juvenile Recidivism in Virginia, DJJ Research Quarterly (Richmond,
VA: VDJJ, 2005) cited in Howard N. Snyder and others, 2006
53 H. Snyder, Court Careers of Juvenile Offenders (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of
Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1988).
www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1f/95/84.pdf.
54 James Austin and others, 2005
55 B.B. Benda and C.L. Tollet, “A Study of Recidivism of Serious and Persistent Offenders among Adolescents.”
Journal of Criminal Justice 27, No. 2 (1999): 111-126.
56 In a 12-year study that compared the outcomes of 266 juvenile defenders in Texas placed in correctional centers
and alternatives to detention centers, Fendrich and Archer found that the recidivism rate of youth in alternatives was
65 percent, whereas the recidivism rate of those placed in correctional facilities was 71 percent. Michael Fendrich
and Melanie Archer, “Long-Term Re-Arrest Rates in a Sample of Adjudicated Delinquents: Evaluating the Impact
of Alternative Programs,” The Prison Journal 78, no. 4 (1998): 360-389.
22

The Costs of Confinement
57 Mark W. Lipsey, “Juvenile Delinquency Treatment: A Meta-Analytic Inquiry into the Variability of Effects,” in
Meta-Analysis for Explanation: A Casebook, ed. T.D. Cook, H. Cooper, D.S. Cordray, H. Hartmann, L.V. Hedges,
R.J. Light, T.A. Louis, and F. Mosteller (New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992).
58 Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice ,Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice Recidivism Analyses: A
Program By Program Review of Recidivism Measures at Major Facilities for Department of Juvenile Justice Youths
(Baltimore, MD: Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice, 1997), p.8.
59 Cited by Feld, B.C., Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), p.280.
60 A. Golub, 1990
61 Dishion, T.J., J. McCord, and F. Poulin. “When Interventions Harm: Peer Groups and Problem Behavior,”
American Psychologist 54, no. 9 (1999): 755-764; Barry Holman and Jason Ziedenberg, The Dangers of Detention:
The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities (Washington, D.C.: Justice Policy
Institute, 2006)
62 Howard N. Snyder and others, 2006, p.235.
63 Robert A. Sampson and others,1993
64 S.D. Bushway, “The Impact of an Arrest on the Job Stability of Young White American Men,” Journal of
Research in Crime and Delinquency 34, no. 4 (1998).
65 Thomas Grisso, “Adolescent Offenders with Mental Disorders,” The Future of Children 18, no. 2 (2008): 143-
164.
66 Thomas Grisso, Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Offenders with Mental Disorders (University of Chicago Press,
2004)
67 U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform. Incarceration of youth who are waiting for
community mental health services in the United States (Washington, D.C.: 2004)
68 Sue Burrell and A. Bussiere, “Difficult to place”: Youth with Mental Health Needs in California Juvenile Justice
(San Francisco, CA: Youth Law Center, 2005)
69 Chief Probation Officers of California and California Mental Health Directors Association, 2008, Page iii.
70 Coalition for Juvenile Justice, Handle with Care: Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Young Offenders, CJJ 2000
Annual Report to the President, Congress and OJJDP (Washington, D.C.: CJJ, 2001)
71 National Mental Health Association, Mental health treatment for youth in the juvenile justice system: A
compendium of promising practices. (Alexandria, VA: National Mental Health Association, 2004)
72 J.H. Kashani, G.W. Manning, D.H. McKnew, L. Cytryn, J.F. Simonds, and P.C. Wooderson, “Depression Among
Incarcerated Delinquents,” Psychiatry Resources 3 (1980): 185-191.
73 C.B. Forrest, E. Tambor, A.W. Riley, M.E. Ensminger, and B. Starfield, “The Health Profile of Incarcerated Male
Youths,” Pediatrics 105, no. 1 (2000): 286-291.
74 Howard Synder, “Is Suicide More Common Inside Or Outside of Juvenile Facilities,” Corrections Today, 2005;
Catherine A. Gallagher and Adam Dobrin, “The Comparative Risk of Suicide in Juvenile Facilities and the General
Population: The Problem of Rate Calculations in High Turnover Institutions.” (forthcoming). Criminal Justice and
Behavior.
75 D.G. Parent, V. Leiter, S. Kennedy, L. Livens, D. Wentworth, and S. Wilcox, Conditions of Confinement:
Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities (Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, 1994).
76 D.G. Parent and others, 1994.
77 L.M. Hayes, Suicide Prevention in Juvenile Correction and Detention Facilities (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999)
78 United States Department of Justice, Department of Justice Activities Under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized
Persons Act: Fiscal Year 2004 (Washington D.C.: United States Department of Justice, 2005)
www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/document/split_cripa04pdf.
79 Kathleen Skowyra and Susan Davidson Powell, Juvenile Diversion: Programs for Justice-Involved Youth with
Mental Health Disorders (Delmar, NY: National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, 2006).
80 Paul Gendreau and Claire Goggin, “The Principles of Effective Intervention with Offenders,” in Choosing
Correctional Options that Work (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996).
81 David Altschuler, “Immediate Sanctions and Community Treatment for Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders,”
in Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998).
82 National Mental Health Association, 2004
83 Caroline W. Harlow, Education and Correctional Populations (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics,
2003) Table 1. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf
23

The Costs of Confinement
84 U.S. Department of Education, Mini-digest of Education Statistics (Washington, D.C.: National Center for
Education Statistics, 1994)
85 VA Legislature requires that kids are entitled to re-enrollment planning and to re-enrollment in school within 2
days of release. JustChildren has found no evidence that this is happening successfully.
www.justice4all.org/files/Reentry%20Presentation11%2007_0.ppt#305,16,Legal Rights to Successful Reentry
86 R. Balfanz, K. Spiridakis, R. Neild, and N. Legters, “Neighborhood Schools and the Juvenile Justice System: How
Neither Helps the Other and How that Could Change.” Presented at the School to Jail Pipeline Conference, Harvard
University, 2003.
87 LeBlanc, Unlocking Learning; Chapter 1 in Correctional Facilities (Washington, D.C.: US Department of
Education, 1991)
88 R.B. Freeman, Crime and the Employment Disadvantage of Youth (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of
Economic Research, 1991)
89 Bruce Western and Katherine Beckett, “How Unregulated Is the U.S. Labor Market?: The Penal System as a
Labor Market Institution,” The American Journal of Sociology 104 (1999): 1030-1060.
90 Robert Barnoski, Outcome evaluation of Washington State’s Research-Based Programs for Juvenile Offenders.
(Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2004). www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/04-01-1201-ES.pdf
91 Elizabeth Drake, 2007
92 Robert Barnoski, 2004
93 Elizabeth Drake, 2007
94 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “OJJDP Model Programs Guide: Multisystemic Therapy”
February 2009.
95 Steve Aos, The Juvenile Justice System in Washington State: Recommendations to Improve Cost-Effectiveness.
(Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2002) www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/WhatWorksJuv.pdf
96 Steve Aos, 2002
97 TFC Consultants: Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, “MTFC Program Overview,” March 2009.
www.mtfc.com/overview.html
98 Elizabeth Drake, 2007
24

Attachment D
Cost-Benefit Analysis
for Juvenile Justice Programming
Page 101 of 113

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Juvenile Justice Programs
Cost-Benefit Analysis of
Juvenile Justice Programs
Juvenile Justice Guide Book for Legislators

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Juvenile Justice Programs
Introduction
To reach the best decisions for their constituents, lawmakers
constantly assess the advantages and disadvantages of various
courses of action. Sometimes these choices are simple, and
rigorous analysis is not necessary. Often, however, the various
costs and outcomes of policy decisions are difficult to project.
In response to these challenges, a growing number of states
are turning to data-driven cost assessment techniques to inform
their policies. One such device, cost-benefit analysis (CBA), is
gaining national attention due to its success providing valuable
information to government leaders.
The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) identifies the five basic steps of cost-benefit analysis as:
1
2
3
4
5
Determine the effects of the initiative,
Determine whose perspectives matter,
(e.g. Who will be affected by each policy alternative?)
Measure costs in dollars and cents,
Measure benefits in dollars and cents, and
Compare the costs and benefits.
2

Juvenile Justice Guide Book for Legislators
Cost-Benefit Analysis Defined
According to Vera, cost-benefit analysis is a
systemic tool for evaluating public policy. It
allows lawmakers to weigh multiple options and
determine which will achieve the greatest results
for the lowest cost.
Because cost-benefit analysis turns all outcomes into
monetary values, it allows evaluators to compare
programs that have different goals—for example,
program A aims to reduce crime, while program B
aims to curb substance abuse—in order to find the
option with the greatest net societal benefit. It must
be noted, however, that CBA determines only a
program’s cost-effectiveness, not its overall success.
To understand the value of each option, CBA data
must be assessed together with separately conducted
program success evaluations. Reliable program
assessments, combined with CBA analysis can help
leaders identify the best policy options.
3

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Juvenile Justice Programs
Development of
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis of public programs is gaining
national attention thanks in large part to the work
of Steve Aos and his colleagues at the Washington
State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP). WSIPP
has advised the Washington Legislature on researchbased
approaches to public policy for the last 15
years on issues ranging from public health and
education to housing and criminal justice. One such
WSIPP cost-benefit analysis addressed Washington’s
problem with crime and overcrowded prisons.
In 2005, Washington was faced with a growing
prison population that would necessitate the
construction of three new prisons by 2030 at a
cost of $750 million. In response, the Legislature
appropriated funds through its capital budget bill
for WSIPP to study evidence-based programs so
investments could be made to reduce crime and
save Washington money over the long-term.
WSIPP’s study reviewed and analyzed 571
comparison group evaluations of adult corrections,
juvenile corrections and prevention programs.
In 2005, Washington was faced
with a growing prison population
that would necessitate the
construction of three new prisons
by 2030 at a cost of $750 million.
Each study included met a strict set of criteria—such
as only using programs currently being used in the
field, not models, and having someone other than
the program’s developer conduct the assessment—to
avoid conflicts of interest. WSIPP established these
standards before their financial assessment began to
ensure that they were relying on the best possible
program data. The report, released in 2006, found
that the state could save $2 billion and reduce crime
by using evidence-based alternatives to incarceration.
A follow-up study from WSIPP, reported on in
2009, found that Washington is having success
implementing the cost saving recommendations.
The state invested $48 million in evidence-based
programs in 2007 and has reduced its forecasted
expenditures in prison construction.
Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied
to Juvenile Justice
In January 2004, WSIPP released a report assessing
the Community Juvenile Accountability Act, a 1997
Washington law that focused on reducing the state’s
juvenile crime by implementing evidence-based
programs in the juvenile court system.
In this study, WSIPP found that programs such as
functional family therapy (FFT is a family-based
intervention program that focuses on improving
protective factors and reducing risk factors for
juvenile delinquent behavior) and aggression
replacement training (ART is an intervention
program that helps youths develop skills to control
anger and use appropriate behavior) reduced
recidivism and saved taxpayer dollars. In the case
of aggression replacement training, $11.66 was
saved for each $1 spent, and the rate of participants
committing another felony within 18 months
dropped by 24 percent.
In addition to Washington, other states—including
Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—have used
cost-benefit analysis to evaluate programs within
their juvenile justice systems. A few of these states,
including Pennsylvania, have borrowed elements of
Washington’s cost-benefit model to apply to their
own state’s data.
4

Juvenile Justice Guide Book for Legislators
Florida
In Florida, legislators were searching for ways to
reduce the amount of money spent housing juveniles
in detention facilities. According to Florida’s Office
of Program Policy Analysis and Government
Accountability (OPPAGA), 76 percent of juveniles
in state detention centers were in need of mental
health, substance abuse or psychiatric treatment,
and 42 percent of those in detention were charged
with misdemeanors or parole violations. OPPAGA
found that these treatments and problems could be
more effectively handled in diversion programs, and,
between 2005 and 2008, 2,033 juveniles successfully
completed such programs. To house these juveniles
in detention centers would have cost $50.8 million.
With the redirection program, however, the cost
was $14.4 million. By using these programs, Florida
gained a cost benefit of $36.4 million.
OPPAGA emphasized that, to realize benefits
through diversion programs, cost-benefit analysis
of evidence-based programs must be rigorous so
projections match the realities. Separate assessments
of program effectiveness must have been previously
conducted. In this example, the juveniles who
completed the diversion program were 46 percent
less likely to be convicted of a felony in the future
than those placed in detention facilities.
Pennsylvania
In 2008, the Prevention Research Center of Human
Development, with funding from Pennsylvania’s
Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD),
issued a report detailing their study of Pennsylvania’s
return on investment for seven juvenile programs
used throughout the state. The study found that
these programs saved Pennsylvania $317 million
in reduced criminal justice costs and salaries. The
benefits per $1 invested ranged from $1 to $25
depending upon the program. The “LifeSkills
Training” program, for example, benefitted $25.72
per $1 spent, saving Pennsylvanians $16.160 million
over the course of its operation.
The benefits per $1 invested
ranged from $1 to $25 depending
upon the program.
Report authors concluded that, given the significant
cost benefits realized by these programs, other
agencies should take a more active role in comparing,
assessing and using cost-effectiveness data.
Wisconsin
What Works, Wisconsin!, a study requested by the
Wisconsin Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission
to examine evidence-based programs with growing
delinquency prevention evidence, provides another
example of cost-benefit analysis. What Works,
Wisconsin! found that, in 2004, it cost $68,255 to
house a juvenile offender in a corrections facility
in Wisconsin for 12 months. The study analyzed
many potentially beneficial programs, including
Wraparound Milwaukee. This program coordinates
treatment and services for delinquent and nondelinquent
youth with mental health disorders,
with the goal of keeping youth in the community
and with their families when possible. Wraparound
Milwaukee allows families to select from an array
of services and provides “care coordination” to
ensure the best use of resources. Although rigorous
evidence-based studies have not been conducted
for Wraparound Milwaukee, it reported in 2000
that 650 youth were served in the community at
5

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Juvenile Justice Programs
a monthly cost of about $3,300 per participant;
traditional incarceration would have cost $5,000.
The findings in What Works, Wisconsin! claim that
the two biggest barriers to appropriately funding
effective evidence-based programs are a lack of
information available to policymakers and prohibitive
start-up costs. If these obstacles can be overcome, the
authors believe the benefits of using evidence-based
programs will be substantial.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is not the only cost
assessment tool used by the states. Costeffectiveness
analysis also compares the
relative costs and outcomes of two or more
courses of action, but is different from
cost-benefit analysis in that it does not turn
all results into monetary values. Due to this
limitation, cost-effectiveness analyses are
generally only used to compare programs
with similar goals.
Illinois’ use of a cost-effective assessment
helped the state save money and reduce
crime rates by implementing evidence-based
programs. The Redeploy Illinois initiative,
passed by the Illinois legislature in 2004, is
predicated on the belief that non-violent
youth offenders are less likely to be involved
in future delinquent behavior if they remain in
their home communities to receive treatment
instead of being sent to a detention facility.
The programs also are less expensive than
housing a juvenile in a detention center.
The annual cost of housing one juvenile in
a detention center was $70,827 in 2005.
The Redeploy Illinois initiative gives counties
financial support to provide comprehensive
services to delinquent youth in their home
communities who might otherwise be sent
to the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice
(IDJJ). In the first two years of implementation,
the Redeploy Illinois pilot sites, on average,
reduced their commitments to IDJJ by 44
percent. As of January 2010, Redeploy
Illinois has nine programs serving juveniles
in 20 counties. So far, for every $1 million
spent by Redeploy Illinois pilot sites, IDJJ
has had a cost avoidance of $3.55 million on
juvenile incarceration.
The success of Redeploy Illinois has prompted
its oversight board to recommend an increased
financial investment to expand services to the
entire state. The board also recommended
that a cost-benefit analysis of Redeploy Illinois
be conducted in addition to the program
assessments to help understand its true value.
As of January 2010, some of the program
assessments had begun.
6

Juvenile Justice Guide Book for Legislators
...the two biggest barriers to
appropriately funding effective
evidence-based programs are a
lack of information available to
policymakers and prohibitive
start-up costs.
Conclusion
Although cost-benefit analysis may
appear complicated, it is important to
remember that the goal is simply to
weigh the advantages and disadvantages
of one course of action over another.
For legislators interested in learning how
These include identifying programs with the best
results, enabling states and localities to spend
their limited resources effectively and allowing
lawmakers to make decisions based on a calculated,
supportable analysis.
Moving Forward
The success of these examples has increased national
interest in replicating cost-benefit analysis and similar
program assessments. To inform practitioners, Vera
initiated a project to centralize information on the
topic in the National Knowledge Bank for Cost-
Benefit Analysis in Criminal Justice (CBKB.org). The
website serves as a clearinghouse for resources and
research and is also a center for active practitioners.
It includes podcasts, videos and a cost-benefit toolkit
developed specifically to provide general education
and training on criminal justice cost-benefit analysis
to various audiences.
cost-benefit analysis can be applied in
their state, there are many developing
resources to turn to. With this
educational assistance, state leaders will
be better able to decide how to value
information derived from cost analyses.
For references and additional resources, please
see the References, Glossary & Resources section.
Another project designed to increase the accessibility
of cost-benefit analysis is the Results First Initiative.
WSIPP partnered with the Pew Charitable Trusts
and the MacArthur Foundation to develop a costbenefit
tool that can be applied to data collected
from programs in other states. The project will
include a software designed to help states identify
evidence-based policies that maximize the return on
investment for taxpayers.
7

7700 East First Place | Denver, CO 80230 | (303) 364-7700 | www.ncsl.org

Page 102 of 113

Advocacy Foundation Publishers
The e-Advocate Quarterly
Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. I 2015 The Fundamentals
I
The ComeUnity ReEngineering
Project Initiative
Q-1 2015
II The Adolescent Law Group Q-2 2015
III
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (PA)
Q-3 2015
IV The First Amendment Project Q-4 2015
Vol. II 2016 Strategic Development
V The Fourth Amendment Project Q-1 2016
VI
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (NJ)
Q-2 2016
VII Youth Court Q-3 2016
VIII
The Economic Consequences of
Legal Decision-Making
Q-4 2016
Vol. III 2017 Sustainability
IX The Sixth Amendment Project Q-1 2017
X
The Theological Foundations of
US Law & Government
Q-2 2017
XI The Eighth Amendment Project Q-3 2017
XII
The EB-5 Investor
Immigration Project*
Q-4 2017
Vol. IV 2018 Collaboration
XIII Strategic Planning Q-1 2018
XIV
The Juvenile Justice
Legislative Reform Initiative
Q-2 2018
XV
The Advocacy Foundation Coalition
for Drug-Free Communities
Q-3 2018
XVI
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (GA)
Q-4 2018
Page 103 of 113

Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. V 2019 Organizational Development
XVII The Board of Directors Q-1 2019
XVIII The Inner Circle Q-2 2019
XIX Staff & Management Q-3 2019
XX Succession Planning Q-4 2019
XXI The Budget* Bonus #1
XXII Data-Driven Resource Allocation* Bonus #2
Vol. VI 2020 Missions
XXIII Critical Thinking Q-1 2020
XXIV
The Advocacy Foundation
Endowments Initiative Project
Q-2 2020
XXV International Labor Relations Q-3 2020
XXVI Immigration Q-4 2020
Vol. VII 2021 Community Engagement
XXVII
The 21 st Century Charter Schools
Initiative
Q-1 2021
XXVIII The All-Sports Ministry @ ... Q-2 2021
XXIX Lobbying for Nonprofits Q-3 2021
XXX
Advocacy Foundation Missions -
Domestic
Q-4 2021
XXXI
Advocacy Foundation Missions -
International
Bonus
Vol. VIII 2022 ComeUnity ReEngineering
XXXII
The Creative & Fine Arts Ministry
@ The Foundation
Q-1 2022
XXXIII The Advisory Council & Committees Q-2 2022
XXXIV
The Theological Origins
of Contemporary Judicial Process
Q-3 2022
XXXV The Second Chance Ministry @ ... Q-4 2022
Vol. IX 2023 Legal Reformation
XXXVI The Fifth Amendment Project Q-1 2023
XXXVII
The Judicial Re-Engineering
Initiative
Q-2 2023
XXXVIII
The Inner-Cities Strategic
Revitalization Initiative
Q-3 2023
XXXVIX Habeas Corpus Q-4 2023
Page 104 of 113

Vol. X 2024 ComeUnity Development
XXXVX
The Inner-City Strategic
Revitalization Plan
Q-1 2024
XXXVXI The Mentoring Initiative Q-2 2024
XXXVXII The Violence Prevention Framework Q-3 2024
XXXVXIII The Fatherhood Initiative Q-4 2024
Vol. XI 2025 Public Interest
XXXVXIV Public Interest Law Q-1 2025
L Spiritual Resource Development Q-2 2025
LI
Nonprofit Confidentiality
In The Age of Big Data
Q-3 2025
LII Interpreting The Facts Q-4 2025
Vol. XII 2026 Poverty In America
LIII
American Poverty
In The New Millennium
Q-1 2026
LIV Outcome-Directed Thinking Q-2 2026
LV Transformational Social Leadership Q-3 2026
LVI The Cycle of Poverty Q-4 2026
Vol. XIII 2027 Raising Awareness
LVII ReEngineering Juvenile Justice Q-1 2027
LVIII Corporations Q-2 2027
LVIX The Prison Industrial Complex Q-3 2027
LX ... Q-4 2027
Page 105 of 113

The e-Advocate Journal
of Theological Jurisprudence
Vol. I - 2017
The Theological Origins of Contemporary Judicial Process
Scriptural Application to The Model Criminal Code
Scriptural Application for Tort Reform
Scriptural Application to Juvenile Justice Reformation
Vol. II - 2018
Scriptural Application for The Canons of Ethics
Scriptural Application to Contracts Reform
& The Uniform Commercial Code
Scriptural Application to The Law of Property
Scriptural Application to The Law of Evidence
Page 106 of 113

Legal Missions International
Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. I 2015
I
God‘s Will and The 21 st Century
Democratic Process
Q-1 2015
II
The Community
Engagement Strategy
Q-2 2015
III Foreign Policy Q-3 2015
IV
Public Interest Law
in The New Millennium
Q-4 2015
Vol. II 2016
V Ethiopia Q-1 2016
VI Zimbabwe Q-2 2016
VII Jamaica Q-3 2016
VIII Brazil Q-4 2016
Vol. III 2017
IX India Q-1 2017
X Suriname Q-2 2017
XI The Caribbean Q-3 2017
XII United States/ Estados Unidos Q-4 2017
Vol. IV 2018
XIII Cuba Q-1 2018
XIV Guinea Q-2 2018
XV Indonesia Q-3 2018
XVI Sri Lanka Q-4 2018
Vol. V 2019
XVII Russia Q-1 2019
XVIII Australia Q-2 2019
XIV South Korea Q-3 2019
XV Puerto Rico Q-4 2019
Page 107 of 113

Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. VI 2020
XVI Trinidad & Tobago Q-1 2020
XVII Egypt Q-2 2020
XVIII Sierra Leone Q-3 2020
XIX South Africa Q-4 2020
XX Israel Bonus
Vol. VII 2021
XXI Haiti Q-1 2021
XXII Peru Q-2 2021
XXIII Costa Rica Q-3 2021
XXIV China Q-4 2021
XXV Japan Bonus
Vol VIII 2022
XXVI Chile Q-1 2022
The e-Advocate Juvenile Justice Report
Vol. I – Juvenile Delinquency in The US
Vol. II. – The Prison Industrial Complex
Vol. III – Restorative/ Transformative Justice
Vol. IV – The Sixth Amendment Right to The Effective Assistance of Counsel
Vol. V – The Theological Foundations of Juvenile Justice
Vol. VI – Collaborating to Eradicate Juvenile Delinquency
Page 108 of 113

Genesis of the Problem
Family Structure
Societal Influences
Evidence-Based Programming
Strengthening Assets v. Eliminating Deficits
Introduction/Ideology/Key Values
Philosophy/Application & Practice
Expungement & Pardons
Pardons & Clemency
Examples/Best Practices
The e-Advocate Newsletter
2012 - Juvenile Delinquency in the US
2013 - Restorative Justice in the US
2014 - The Prison Industrial Complex
25% of the World's Inmates Are In the US
The Economics of Prison Enterprise
The Federal Bureau of Prisons
The After-Effects of Incarceration/Individual/Societal
The Fourth Amendment Project
The Sixth Amendment Project
The Eighth Amendment Project
The Adolescent Law Group
2015 - US Constitutional Issues In The New Millennium
2016 - The Theological Law Firm Academy
The Theological Foundations of US Law & Government
The Economic Consequences of Legal Decision-Making
The Juvenile Justice Legislative Reform Initiative
The EB-5 International Investors Initiative
The Board of Directors
The Inner Circle
Staff & Management
2017 - Organizational Development
Page 109 of 113

Succession Planning
Bonus #1 The Budget
Bonus #2 Data-Driven Resource Allocation
2018 - Sustainability
The Data-Driven Resource Allocation Process
The Quality Assurance Initiative
The Advocacy Foundation Endowments Initiative
The Community Engagement Strategy
2019 - Collaboration
Critical Thinking for Transformative Justice
International Labor Relations
Immigration
God's Will & The 21st Century Democratic Process
The Community Engagement Strategy
The 21st Century Charter Schools Initiative
The 501(c)(3) Acquisition Process
The Board of Directors
The Gladiator Mentality
Strategic Planning
Fundraising
501(c)(3) Reinstatements
2020 - Community Engagement
Extras
The NonProfit Advisors Group Newsletters
The Collaborative US/ International Newsletters
How You Think Is Everything
The Reciprocal Nature of Business Relationships
Accelerate Your Professional Development
The Competitive Nature of Grant Writing
Assessing The Risks
Page 110 of 113

About The Author
John C (Jack) Johnson III
Founder & CEO
Having become disillusioned with the inner-workings of the ―Cradle-to-Prison‖ pipeline, former practicing attorney Johnson set
out, in 2001, to try to help usher-in fundamental changes in the area of Juvenile and Transformative Justice.
Educated at Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Rutgers Law School, in Camden, New Jersey, Jack moved to
Atlanta, Georgia to pursue greater opportunities to provide Advocacy and Preventive Programmatic services for at-risk/ atpromise
young persons, their families, and Justice Professionals embedded in the Juvenile Justice process in order to help
facilitate its transcendence into the 21 st Century.
There, along with a small group of community and faith-based professionals, ―The Advocacy Foundation, Inc." was conceived
and implemented over roughly a thirteen year period, originally chartered as a Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Educational
Support Services organization consisting of Mentoring, Tutoring, Counseling, Character Development, Community Change
Management, Practitioner Re-Education & Training, and a host of related components.
The Foundation‘s Overarching Mission is “To help Individuals, Organizations, & Communities Achieve Their Full Potential”,
by implementing a wide array of evidence-based proactive multi-disciplinary "Restorative & Transformative Justice" programs &
projects currently throughout the northeast, southeast, and western international-waters regions, providing prevention and support
services to at-risk/ at-promise youth, to young adults, to their families, and to Social Service, Justice and Mental
Health professionals‖ everywhere. The Foundation has since relocated its headquarters to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and been
expanded to include a three-tier mission.
In addition to his work with the Foundation, Jack also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law & Business at National-Louis
University of Atlanta (where he taught Political Science, Business & Legal Ethics, Labor & Employment Relations, and Critical
Thinking courses to undergraduate and graduate level students). Jack has also served as Board President for a host of wellestablished
and up & coming nonprofit organizations throughout the region, including ―Visions Unlimited Community
Development Systems, Inc.‖, a multi-million dollar, award-winning, Violence Prevention and Gang Intervention Social Service
organization in Atlanta, as well as Vice-Chair of the Georgia/ Metropolitan Atlanta Violence Prevention Partnership, a state-wide
300 organizational member violence prevention group led by the Morehouse School of Medicine, Emory University and The
Atlanta-Based Martin Luther King Center.
Attorney Johnson‘s prior accomplishments include a wide-array of Professional Legal practice areas, including Private Firm,
Corporate and Government postings, just about all of which yielded significant professional awards & accolades, the history and
chronology of which are available for review online.
www.TheAdvocacyFoundation.org
Clayton County Youth Services Partnership, Inc. – Chair; Georgia Violence Prevention Partnership, Inc – Vice Chair; Fayette
County NAACP - Legal Redress Committee Chairman; Clayton County Fatherhood Initiative Partnership – Principal
Investigator; Morehouse School of Medicine School of Community Health Feasibility Study - Steering Committee; Atlanta
Violence Prevention Capacity Building Project – Project Partner; Clayton County Minister‘s Conference, President 2006-2007;
Liberty In Life Ministries, Inc. – Board Secretary; Young Adults Talk, Inc. – Board of Directors; ROYAL, Inc - Board of
Directors; Temple University Alumni Association; Rutgers Law School Alumni Association; Sertoma International; Our
Common Welfare Board of Directors – President)2003-2005; River‘s Edge Elementary School PTA (Co-President); Summerhill
Community Ministries; Outstanding Young Men of America; Employee of the Year; Academic All-American - Basketball;
Church Trustee.
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www.TheAdvocacyFoundation.org
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