Comprehensive Program Plan for Fiscal Year 1997 and Availability of Discretionary Program Announcements and Application Kit

SUMMARY: The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is

publishing its Final Program Plan for fiscal year 1997 and announces

the availability of the Fiscal Year 1997 Discretionary Program

Announcements and Application Kit.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eileen M. Garry, Special Assistant to

the Administrator, at 202-307-5911. [This is not a toll-free number.]

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is a component of the Office of Justice

Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice. Pursuant to the provisions

of Section 204 (b)(5)(A) of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5601 et seq. (JJDP

Act), on March 13, 1997, the Administrator of OJJDP published for

public comment a Proposed Comprehensive Plan describing the program

activities that OJJDP proposed to carry out during fiscal year (FY)

1997. The Proposed Comprehensive Plan included activities authorized in

Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP Act, codified at 42 U.S.C.

Sec. 5651-5665a, 5667, 5667a. The public was invited to comment on the

Proposed Plan by April 28, 1997. The Administrator analyzed the public

comments received, and that analysis is provided below. Taking these

comments into consideration, the Administrator developed this Final

Comprehensive Plan describing the particular program activities that

OJJDP intends to fund during FY 1997, using in whole or in part funds

appropriated under Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP Act.

The Fiscal Year 1997 Discretionary Program Announcements and

Application Kit is now available. To order an OJJDP Application Kit,

please call the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, toll free, (800) 638-

8736 or visit the OJJDP Home Page, Grants and Funding section,

www.ncjrs.org/ojjdp/html/grants.html.

Overview

This is a critical time for juvenile justice, a time of both

opportunity and challenge. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice

announced a reduction in overall juvenile violent crime (3 percent) and

a significant drop in juvenile homicide arrests (14 percent) between

1994 and 1995, the first downturns we have seen in 9 years. A National

Center for Juvenile Justice analysis of the 1995 Uniform Crime Report

data reveals that this decrease in overall juvenile crime arrests was

driven by decreased arrests of juveniles 14 and under, an encouraging

sign. While these younger juveniles were responsible for 30 percent of

juvenile violent crime arrests in 1995, they accounted for more than

half of the reported decline in juvenile violent crime arrests. All of

the 2 percent decline in property arrests is attributable to these

younger juveniles.

In order to ensure that these positive trends continue, we must

continue to focus our efforts on establishing a continuum of

prevention, early intervention, and graduated sanctions programs;

strengthening the juvenile justice system; and building stronger, safer

communities. These efforts are needed because we are still confronted

with unacceptably high rates of juvenile crime. Juveniles still account

for 18 percent of all arrests, some 2.7 million in 1995. Even with the

1995 decline in juvenile violent crime arrests noted above, the number

is still 12 percent greater than the 1991 level and 67 percent above

the 1986 level. Juveniles were involved in 32 percent of all robbery

arrests, 23 percent of weapon arrests, and 15 percent of murder and

aggravated assault arrests in 1995.

In the troubling area of drug use, juveniles were involved in 13

percent of all drug arrests in 1995, and the number of juvenile drug

arrests has increased 138 percent since 1991. According to the 22d

national survey in the Monitoring the Future study, illicit drug use

among schoolchildren rose again in 1996. Since 1991, the proportion of

students using any illicit drug in the 12 months prior to the survey

has increased steadily. For 8th graders alone, the proportion has more

than doubled (from 11 percent to 24 percent) since 1991. Since 1992,

the proportion among 10th graders has nearly doubled (from 20 percent

to 38 percent), and among 12th graders, it has risen by about half

(from 27 percent to 40 percent).

Federal leadership in responding to the problems confronting

juvenile justice is vested in OJJDP. Established in 1974 by the JJDP

Act, OJJDP is the Federal agency responsible for providing a

comprehensive, coordinated approach to preventing and controlling

juvenile crime and improving the juvenile justice system. OJJDP

administers State Formula Grants, State Challenge Grants, and the Title

V Community Prevention Grants programs in States and territories; funds

gang and mentoring programs under Parts D and G of the JJDP Act; funds

more than 100 projects through its Special Emphasis Discretionary Grant

Program and its National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention; and coordinates Federal activities related to juvenile

justice and delinquency prevention.

OJJDP serves as the staff agency for the Coordinating Council on

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, coordinates the

Concentration of Federal Efforts Program, and administers both the

Title IV Missing and Exploited Children's Program and programs under

the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990, as amended, 42 U.S.C.

Sec. 13001 et seq.

Fiscal Year 1997 Program Planning Activities

The OJJDP program planning process for FY 1997 was coordinated with

the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and

the four other OJP program bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance

(BJA), the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the National Institute

of Justice (NIJ), and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). The

program planning process involved the following steps:

Internal review of existing programs by OJJDP staff.

Internal review of proposed programs by OJP bureaus and

Department of Justice components.

Review of information and data from OJJDP grantees and

contractors.

Review of information contained in State comprehensive

plans.

Review of comments made by youth service providers,

juvenile justice practitioners, and researchers, to receive input in

proposed new program areas.

Consideration of suggestions made by juvenile justice

policymakers concerning State and local needs.

Consideration of all comments received during the period

of public comment on the Proposed Comprehensive Plan.

Discretionary Program Activities

Discretionary Grant Continuation Policy

OJJDP has listed on the following pages continuation projects

currently funded in whole or in part with Part C

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and Part D funds and eligible for continuation funding in FY 1997,

either within an existing project period or through an extension for an

additional project period. A grantee's eligibility for continued

funding for an additional budget period within an existing project

period depends on the grantee's compliance with funding eligibility

requirements and achievement of the prior year's objectives. The amount

of award is based on prior projections, demonstrated need, and fund

availability.

The only projects described in the Proposed Program Plan were those

being considered for FY 1997 continuation funding and programs OJJDP

was proposing for new awards in FY 1997.

Consideration for continuation funding for an additional budget or

project period for previously funded discretionary grant programs was

based upon several factors, including the following:

The extent to which the project responds to the applicable

requirements of the JJDP Act.

Responsiveness to OJJDP and Department of Justice FY 1997

program priorities.

Compliance with performance requirements of prior grant

years.

Compliance with fiscal and regulatory requirements.

Compliance with any special conditions of the award.

Availability of funds (based on appropriations and program

priority determinations).

In accordance with Section 262 (d)(1)(B) of the JJDP Act, as

amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5665a, the competitive process for the award of

Part C funds is not required if the Administrator makes a written

determination waiving the competitive process:

1. With respect to programs to be carried out in areas in which the

President declares under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and

Emergency Assistance Act codified at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5121 et seq. that a

major disaster or emergency exists, or

2. With respect to a particular program described in Part C that is

uniquely qualified.

Program Goals

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)

seeks to focus its assistance on the development and implementation of

programs with the greatest potential for reducing juvenile delinquency

and improving the juvenile justice system by establishing partnerships

with State and local governments, Native American and Native Alaskan

jurisdictions, and public and private agencies and organizations. To

that end, OJJDP has set three goals that constitute the major elements

of a sound policy that assures public safety and security while

establishing effective juvenile justice and delinquency prevention

programs:

To promote delinquency prevention and early intervention

efforts that reduce the flow of juvenile offenders into the juvenile

justice system, the numbers of serious and violent offenders, and the

development of chronic delinquent careers. While removing serious and

violent juvenile offenders from the street serves to protect the

public, long-term solutions lie primarily in taking aggressive steps to

stop delinquency before it starts or becomes a pattern of behavior.

To improve the juvenile justice system and the response of

the system to juvenile delinquents, status offenders, and dependent,

neglected, and abused children.

To preserve the public safety in a manner that serves the

appropriate development and best use of secure detention and

corrections options, while at the same time fostering the use of

community-based programs for juvenile offenders.

Underlying each of the three goals is the overarching premise that

their achievement is vital to protecting the long-term safety of the

public from increased juvenile delinquency and violence. The following

discussion addresses these three broad goals.

Delinquency Prevention and Early Intervention

A primary goal of OJJDP is to identify and promote programs that

prevent or reduce the occurrence of juvenile offenses, both criminal

and noncriminal, and to intervene immediately and effectively when

delinquent or status offense conduct first occurs. A sound policy for

juvenile delinquency prevention seeks to strengthen the most powerful

contributing factor to socially acceptable behavior--a productive place

for young people in a law-abiding society. Delinquency prevention

programs can operate on a broad scale, providing for positive youth

development, or can target juveniles identified as being at high risk

for delinquency with programs designed to reduce future juvenile

offending. OJJDP prevention programs take a risk and protective factor-

focused delinquency prevention approach based on public health and

social development models.

Early interventions are designed to provide services to juveniles

whose noncriminal misbehavior indicates that they are on a delinquent

pathway or to first-time nonviolent delinquent offenders or nonserious

repeat offenders who do not respond to initial system intervention.

These interventions are generally nonpunitive but serve to hold a

juvenile accountable while providing services tailored to the

individual needs of the juvenile and the juvenile's family. They are

designed to both deter future misconduct and reduce the negative or

enhance the positive factors present in a child's life.

Improvement of the Juvenile Justice System

A second goal of OJJDP is to promote improvements in the juvenile

justice system and facilitate the most effective allocation of system

resources. This goal is necessary for holding juveniles who commit

crimes accountable for their conduct, particularly serious and violent

offenders who sometimes slip through the cracks of the system or are

inappropriately diverted. This includes assisting law enforcement

officers in their efforts to prevent and control delinquency and the

victimization of children through community policing programs and

coordination and collaboration with other system components and with

child caring systems. Meeting this goal involves helping juvenile and

family courts, and the prosecutors and public defenders who practice in

those courts, to provide a system of justice that maintains due process

protections. It requires trying innovative programs and carefully

evaluating those programs to determine what works and what does not

work. It includes a commitment to involving crime victims in the

juvenile justice system and ensuring that their rights are considered.

In this regard, OJJDP will continue to work closely with the Office

for Victims of Crime to further cooperative programming, including the

provision of services to juveniles who are crime victims or the

provision of victims services that improve the operation of the

juvenile justice system. Improving the juvenile justice system also

calls for building an appropriate juvenile detention and corrections

capacity and for intensified efforts to use juvenile detention and

correctional facilities only when necessary and under conditions that

maximize public safety, while providing effective rehabilitation

services. It requires encouraging States to carefully consider the use

of expanded transfer authority that sends the most serious, violent,

and intractable juvenile offenders to the criminal justice system,

while

[[Page 35252]]

preserving individualized justice. It necessitates conducting research

and gathering statistical information in order to understand how the

juvenile justice system works in serving children and families. And

finally, the system can only be improved if information and knowledge

are communicated, understood, and applied for the purpose of juvenile

justice system improvement.

Corrections, Detention, and Community-Based Alternatives

A third OJJDP goal is to maintain the public safety through a

balanced use of secure detention and corrections and community-based

alternatives. This involves identifying and promoting effective

community-based programs and services for juveniles who have formal

contact with the juvenile justice system and emphasizing options that

maintain the safety of the public, are appropriately restrictive, and

promote and preserve positive ties with the child's family, school, and

community. Communities cannot afford to place responsibility for

juvenile delinquency entirely on publicly operated juvenile justice

system programs. A sound policy for combating juvenile delinquency and

reducing the threat of youth violence makes maximum use of a full range

of public and private programs and services, most of which operate in

the juvenile's home community, including those provided by the health

and mental health, child welfare, social service, and educational

systems.

Coordination of the development of community-based programs and

services with the development and use of a secure detention and

correctional system capability for those juveniles who require a secure

option is cost effective, will protect the public, reduce facility

crowding, and result in better services for both institutionalized

juveniles and those who can be served while remaining in their

community environment.

In pursuing these broad goals, OJJDP divides its programs into six

key categories: public safety and law enforcement; strengthening the

juvenile justice system; delinquency prevention and intervention; child

abuse, neglect, and dependency courts; and missing and exploited

children. A sixth category, overarching programs, contains programs

that have significant elements common to more than one category.

Summary of Public Comments on the Proposed Comprehensive Plan for

Fiscal Year 1997

OJJDP published its proposed Comprehensive Plan for FY 1997 in the

Federal Register (Vol. 62, No. 49) on March 13, 1997, for a 45-day

public comment period. OJJDP received 14 letters commenting on the

proposed plan. All comments have been considered in the development of

OJJDP's Final Comprehensive Plan for FY 1997.

The majority of the letters provided positive comments about the

overall plan or specific programs. The following is a summary of the

substantive comments received and OJJDP's responses to the comments.

Unless otherwise indicated, each comment was made by a single

respondent.

Comment: Three respondents praised the overall plan, including its

breadth and coverage of important concepts in prevention and early

intervention and its broad viewpoint and scope of activities. One of

the three urged OJJDP to continue to support community alternatives,

at-risk youth identification, multifaceted interventions, strong

educational components, and evaluation and followup.

Response: OJJDP appreciates the support expressed by these

respondents and their recognition of the importance of prevention and

early intervention programs.

Comment: Three respondents made helpful suggestions on the proposed

Evaluation of Teen Courts. One writer recommended that the OJJDP

proposal include ``evaluations of how well youth courts are

implemented, analyses of populations they serve, relationships between

communities and offenders, and impacts of youth courts upon

recidivism.'' This individual also suggested analyses of whether teen

courts strengthened attachments between juveniles and teachers or

police officers and, noting the uneven quality of data maintained by

local law enforcement agencies, suggested that the recidivism analysis

should be carried out in communities that keep good juvenile arrest

records. The writer also expressed concern about the ethical

ramifications of the use of experimental designs for the evaluation and

suggested that OJJDP should not require an experimental design.

A second respondent offered several specific suggestions,

recommending that the evaluation begin with an inventory of as many

teen courts in operation as possible. Comments about the process

evaluation touched on the context in which teen courts operate, the

referral of offenders, selection of cases, operation of the court

hearing, completion of sentences, and final disposition. The writer

identified a need to focus on both nonoffending youth and offenders and

a need for information on sentences and community involvement.

The final respondent on the teen court evaluation suggested that

OJJDP require applicants to ``demonstrate experience in basic

development of a teen court program with demonstrated success in

evaluating their own teen court program.''

Response: These comments have considerable merit. In the

description of this program in the Final Plan, OJJDP has added an

inventory of teen courts and teen court models as part of the first

phase of the evaluation. The other suggestions will be incorporated

into the solicitation. In regard to the ethical concerns about the use

of experimental designs, the description of the teen court evaluation

does not require an experimental design. Also, it should be noted that

concern over denying treatment to individuals assigned to control

groups is something that evaluators face constantly, and there are a

variety of ways to overcome this problem. In addition, capacity issues

often make the concern moot.

Comment: One writer expressed concern that libraries are not

mentioned as possible collaborators in the proposed plan. The same

respondent suggested that library programs, such as the Enoch Pratt

Library's training and mentoring program for at-risk youth in

Baltimore, should be included in the proposed study of the juvenile

justice system by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Response: The list of collaborators in the closing paragraph of the

introduction is illustrative, not all-inclusive, and libraries can be

considered to be implicitly included in the reference to ``local

agencies.'' OJJDP agrees with the respondent that libraries can play an

important role in providing prevention programs for at-risk young

people. However, in view of varied local needs, priorities, resources,

and existing planning and service delivery systems, OJJDP does not see

a need to go beyond providing general guidance on the range of

participants. Therefore, the closing paragraph of the introduction

remains unchanged from the proposed plan.

In regard to the NAS study, nothing in the description of the study

in the proposed plan specifically precludes examination of a library-

based program for at-risk youth.

Comment: One respondent indicated concern that ``little or no

attention'' is directed to female juvenile offenders in the proposed

plan.

Response: OJJDP is well aware of the importance of this segment of

the juvenile population and their special needs. The proposed plan

included

[[Page 35253]]

continuation of the Training and Technical Assistance Program To

Promote Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders.

Greene, Peters and Associates, which was awarded a 3-year competitive

grant in FY 1996, will provide a comprehensive framework for addressing

the complex needs of female adolescents at risk for delinquent

behavior. In addition, the proposed plan described a project that will

allow the Cook County Board of Commissioners to use Federal, State, and

local resources to implement a pilot program for female offenders.

Finally, in response to the writer's concerns about the lack of

programming for females, OJJDP can also point to the six sites in

OJJDP's ongoing SafeFutures initiative, which includes components

designed to establish services for at-risk and delinquent girls, and to

the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency.

This OJJDP-funded research program is providing invaluable information

about delinquent behavior, including gender-related data, through a

longitudinal study of 4,000 adolescents in three cities. In addition,

funding for gender-specific programming for female juvenile offenders

is also available through OJJDP's Formula Grants, Challenge, and Title

V (Community Prevention) funding, which is distributed to the States.

Gender-specific programming for female juvenile offenders is one of 10

specific Challenge Activities funded under Part E of the JJDP Act.

Comment: One letter included comments from officials of two

components of a local organization. One writer wrote approvingly of

Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Programs; School-Based [Gang]

Prevention and Intervention Programs; Youth-Centered Conflict

Resolution; Teens, Crime, and the Community; Law-Related Education;

Teen Courts; and Youth Entrepreneurship (a component of the Communities

In Schools-Federal Interagency Partnership). The other writer, who

coordinated a Mediation Center that had received funding from OJJDP,

recommended that funding support to existing programs be continued so

that ``work begun will be work continued.''

Response: OJJDP appreciates the first writer's expression of

support for these programs, which are all included in the final plan.

In regard to the comment about continuation funding, many of the

programs described in the plan are ones that are being continued. The

question of continued funding for existing programs is one that is

always decided on a case-by-case basis and involves many

considerations, including availability of funds and congressional and

Administration/Department of Justice program priorities. OJJDP is well

aware of the importance of the outstanding work that the Mediation

Center has done under its 1-year grant from OJJDP. However, the

discretionary funding available under Parts C and D is limited. In many

cases, grants such as the one awarded to the Mediation Center are

intended to generate and stimulate specific types of activity with the

expectation that, once inaugurated, successful programs will be able to

secure funding from other sources, such as State, county, or local

governments and private fund sources.

Comment: One respondent addressed the need for comprehensive

visitation, mediation, and conflict resolution services for children of

divorced or troubled families.

Response: Three of the programs in the proposed plan are related to

these areas of interest. Training and Technical Assistance for Family

Strengthening Programs provides training and technical assistance to

family services agencies and administrators to enable them to improve

or establish effective family strengthening programs nationwide. In the

Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution program, the Illinois Institute for

Dispute Resolution is developing, in concert with other conflict

resolution organizations, a national strategy for broad-based education

and training in the use of conflict resolution skills. OJJDP is

providing funds to support the national Parents Anonymous (PA)

organization's comprehensive, neighborhood-based, shared leadership

model to serve the needs of minority and ethnic families in low-income,

high-crime areas of 11 States. Through PA, parents observe, practice,

and learn skills in parenting, communication, conflict resolution, and

other related life skills.

Comment: Two writers expressed support for the work of Communities

In Schools (CIS).

Response: OJJDP appreciates these positive comments, which reflect

the strengths of the CIS program. The FY 1997 funding for the

Communities In Schools-Federal Interagency Partnership will help CIS

continue to meet the challenge of working with young people who are

either at risk of dropping out of school or have returned to complete

their education after leaving the school environment.

Comment: One respondent raised the issue of the need for remedial

action early in childhood for specific, verified incidences of abuse

and neglect to forestall later delinquency and violence. Calling for

action at ages far lower than 10 or 11, the writer noted that physical

and sexual abuse and neglect in early childhood are often predictors of

later delinquency and violence and that remedial programs for young

victims would be a powerful crime prevention tool.

The positive news released in 1996 must not lead to a relaxation of

efforts to lower unacceptably high rates of juvenile violence and

delinquency. Instead, this partial success should lead the Nation to

intensify its commitment to reducing juvenile crime and to sustain the

1995 decline in arrest rates. This commitment must focus on

strengthening the ability of communities to provide for their immediate

safety through law enforcement and correctional strategies, to develop

and implement both prevention and intervention programs, and to provide

those services that will enable children to grow up as healthy and

productive citizens in nurturing homes, safe schools, and peaceful,

caring communities. To be effective, however, this commitment must be

rooted in a comprehensive approach to the problems of juvenile

delinquency, violence, and victimization.

Over the past 4 years, OJJDP has developed a framework for an

improved, more effective juvenile justice system. The foundation was

laid in 1993 with the publication of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for

Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The Comprehensive

Strategy uses statistics, research, and program evaluations as the

basis for a set of sound principles for establishing a continuum of

care for the Nation's children. The Comprehensive Strategy emphasizes

the importance of local planning teams that assess the influences or

factors putting youth at risk for delinquency, determine available

resources, and put prevention programs in place to either reduce those

risk factors or provide protective factors that buffer juveniles from

the impact of risk factors. The Comprehensive Strategy also stresses

the importance of early intervention for juveniles whose behavior puts

them on one or more pathways to delinquency and a system of graduated

sanctions that can ensure immediate and appropriate accountability and

treatment for juvenile offenders.

In 1995, OJJDP published its Guide for Implementing the

Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile

Offenders, a resource to help States, cities, and communities implement

the Comprehensive Strategy. Early in 1996, the Coordinating Council on

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

[[Page 35254]]

Prevention, of which OJJDP is a member, published Combating Violence

and Delinquency: The National Juvenile Justice Action Plan. The Action

Plan prioritizes Federal activities and resources under eight critical

objectives that must be addressed to effectively combat delinquency and

violence. Research and the findings of numerous commissions support the

choice of these objectives as central to reducing and preventing

juvenile violence, delinquency, and victimization. The objectives are

to (1) provide immediate intervention and appropriate sanctions and

treatment for delinquent juveniles; (2) prosecute certain serious,

violent, and chronic juvenile offenders in criminal court; (3) reduce

youth involvement with guns, drugs, and gangs; (4) provide

opportunities for children and youth; (5) break the cycle of violence

by addressing youth victimization, abuse, and neglect; (6) strengthen

and mobilize communities; (7) support the development of innovative

approaches to research and evaluation; and (8) implement an aggressive

public outreach campaign on effective strategies to combat juvenile

violence.

The OJJDP FY 1997 Program Plan is rooted in the principles of the

Comprehensive Strategy and the objectives of the Action Plan. Just as

in 1996, the Program Plan supports a balanced approach to aggressively

addressing juvenile delinquency and violence through establishing

graduated sanctions, improving the juvenile justice system's ability to

respond, and preventing the onset of delinquency. The Program Plan also

recognizes the need to ensure public safety and support children's

development into healthy, productive citizens through a range of

prevention, early intervention, and graduated sanctions programs.

Proposed new program areas were identified for FY 1997 through a

process of engaging OJJDP staff, other Federal agencies, and juvenile

justice practitioners in an examination of existing programs, research

findings, and the needs of the field. OJJDP's national conference,

``Juvenile Justice at the Crossroads,'' held in December 1996 was

particularly helpful in developing proposed program priorities for FY

1997. The new program areas selected for FY 1997 following public

review and comment are school-based gang intervention and prevention,

juvenile sex offenders, mental health, and cost-benefit analyses. The

program called Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile

Justice, described in the Proposed Program Plan as a potential

competitive program, has been changed in the Final Plan to a program of

OJJDP support for several ongoing programs funded by other Federal

agencies. The program description, which can be found under the Public

Safety and Law Enforcement category, provides a more complete

explanation of this change. In addition, OJJDP has identified for FY

1997 funding a range of research and evaluation projects designed to

expand knowledge about juvenile offenders; the effectiveness of

prevention, intervention, and treatment programs; and the operation of

the juvenile justice system. Specific evaluation initiatives will be

undertaken related to Boys and Girls Clubs of America's gang outreach

efforts, teen courts, the President's Crime Prevention Council's drug

and alcohol use prevention program, and gun violence reduction. The

Evaluation of Youth Gun Violence Reduction Programs, described in the

Proposed Plan as a potential competitive program, will be funded

through an existing evaluation grantee. A more complete explanation of

this change can be found in the program description, which appears

under the Public Safety and Law Enforcement Category. Combined with

OJJDP programs being continued in FY 1997, these new demonstration and

evaluation programs form a continuum of programming that supports the

objectives of the Action Plan and mirrors the foundation and framework

of the Comprehensive Strategy.

OJJDP's continuation activities and the new FY 1997 programs are at

the heart of OJJDP's categorical funding efforts. For example, while

focusing on the development of assessment centers as a new area of

programming, continuing to offer training seminars in the Comprehensive

Strategy, and looking to the SafeFutures program to implement a

continuum of care system, OJJDP will be exploring how to better address

juvenile sex offenders and the mental health needs of juvenile

offenders. Combined, these activities provide a holistic approach to

prevention and early intervention programs while enhancing the juvenile

justice system's capacity to provide immediate and appropriate

accountability and treatment for juvenile offenders, including those

with special treatment needs.

OJJDP's Part D Gang Program will continue to support a range of

comprehensive prevention, intervention, and suppression activities at

the local level, evaluate those activities, and inform communities

about the nature and extent of gang activities and effective and

innovative programs through OJJDP's National Youth Gang Center.

Similarly, our new activities related to school-based gang programs and

the evaluation of the Boys and Girls Clubs gang outreach effort, along

with an evaluation of selected youth gun violence reduction programs,

will complement existing law enforcement and prosecutorial training

programs by supporting and informing grassroots community

organizations' efforts to address juvenile gangs and juvenile access

to, carriage of, and use of guns. This programming will build upon

OJJDP's youth-focused community policing, mentoring, and conflict

resolution initiatives and programming in the area of drug abuse

prevention, including funding to the Race Against Drugs program, the

Congress of National Black Churches, and the National Center for

Neighborhood Enterprise for schools, local church, and neighborhood-

based drug abuse prevention programs.

In support of the need to break the cycle of violence, OJJDP's

SafeKids/Safe Streets demonstration program, currently being

implemented in partnership with other OJP offices and bureaus, will

improve linkages between the dependency and criminal court systems,

child welfare and social service providers, and family strengthening

programs and will complement ongoing support of Court Appointed Special

Advocates, Child Advocacy Centers, and prosecutor and judicial training

in the dependency field, funded under the Victims of Child Abuse Act of

1990, as amended.

The Plan's research and evaluation programming will support many of

the above activities by filling in critical gaps in knowledge about the

level and seriousness of juvenile crime and victimization, its causes

and correlates, and effective programs in preventing delinquency and

violence. At the same time, OJJDP's research efforts will also be

geared toward efforts that monitor and evaluate the ways juveniles are

treated by the juvenile and criminal justice systems and the trends in

this response, particularly as they relate to juvenile violence and its

impact.

OJJDP is also utilizing its national perspective to disseminate

information to those at the grassroots level-practitioners,

policymakers, community leaders, and service providers who are directly

responsible for planning and implementing policies and programs that

impact juvenile crime and violence.

OJJDP will continue to fund longitudinal research on the causes and

correlates of delinquency, the findings of which are shared regularly

with the field through OJJDP publications; utilize state-of-the-art

technology to provide the field with an interactive CD-ROM on promising

and effective programs

[[Page 35255]]

designed to prevent delinquency and reduce recidivism; air national

satellite teleconferences on key topics of relevance to practitioners;

and publish new reports and documents on timely topics such as truants

and dropouts, mentoring, home visitation and parent training, youth-

related community policing strategies, youth gang homicides and drug

trafficking, conflict resolution, collaborative partnerships, sharing

of information pursuant to the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy

Act, confidentiality of juvenile court records, innovative sentencing

options, and strategies to reduce youth gun violence.

The various contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, and

interagency fund transfers described in the Program Plan form a

continuum of activity designed to address youth violence, delinquency,

and victimization. In isolation, this programming can do little.

However, the emphasis of OJJDP's programming is on collaboration. It is

through collaboration that Federal, State, and local agencies; Native

American tribes; national organizations; private philanthropies; the

corporate and business sector; health, mental health, and social

service agencies; schools; youth; families; and clergy can come

together to form partnerships and leverage additional resources,

identify needs and priorities, and implement innovative strategies.

Together, as the promising statistics published last year demonstrate,

we have made-and we can continue to make-a difference.

Fiscal Year 1997 Programs

The following are brief summaries of each of the new and

continuation programs scheduled to receive funding in FY 1997. As

indicated above, the program categories are public safety and law

enforcement; strengthening the juvenile justice system; delinquency

prevention and intervention; child abuse, neglect, and dependency

courts; and missing and exploited children. However, because many

programs have significant elements of more than one of these program

categories, or generally support all of OJJDP's programs, they are

listed in an initial program category called Overarching Programs. The

specific program priorities within each category are subject to change

with regard to their priority status, sites for implementation, and

other descriptive data and information based on grantee performance,

application quality, fund availability, and other factors.

A number of programs contained in this document have been

identified for funding by Congress with regard to the grantee(s), the

amount of funds, or both. Such programs are indicated by an asterisk

(*). The 1997 Appropriations Act Conference Report for the Departments

of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies

Programs identified 12 programs for OJJDP to examine and fund if

warranted. Four of these programs (Coalition for Juvenile Justice;

KidsPeace-The National Center for Kids in Crisis, North America; Law-

Related Education; and Parents Anonymous, Inc.) are included in the

Plan for continuation funding. The remaining eight are receiving

careful consideration for funding in FY 1997. They are:

Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education

Restorative Justice Challenge Grants

Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior

Consortium on Children, Families, and the Law

Kansas Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center

Project O.A.S.I.S.

Savannah Youth Foundation

Teen Night Out

Fiscal Year 1997 Program Listing

Overarching

SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

Evaluation of SafeFutures

Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

Study Group on the Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offender

National Academy of Sciences Study of Juvenile Justice

The Hamilton Fish National Institute on School/Community Violence *

OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract

Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

Cost-Benefit Analyses of Juvenile Justice Programs

Juvenile Justice Data Resources

National Juvenile Court Data Archive*

National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and

Technical Assistance Center

Technical Assistance for State Legislatures

OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract-Juvenile Justice Resource

Center

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

Telecommunications Assistance

Coalition for Juvenile Justice*

Insular Area Support*

Public Safety and Law Enforcement

Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention,

and Suppression Program

Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang

Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program

Targeted Outreach With a Gang Prevention and Intervention Component

(Boys and Girls Clubs)

The Developmental Dynamics of Gang Membership and Delinquency

National Youth Gang Center

Evaluation of Youth Gun Violence Reduction Programs

The Chicago Project for Violence Reduction

Child-Centered Community-Oriented Policing

Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program

Violence Studies

Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System

Development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders

Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offender Treatment Program

Juvenile Restitution: A Balanced Approach

Training and Technical Assistance Program to Promote Gender-Specific

Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders

Cook County Juvenile Female Offenders Project

Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies

Replication and Expansion of Fagan Transfer Study

Technical Assistance to Juvenile Courts*

Juvenile Court Judges Training*

The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit

Due Process Advocacy Program Development

Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) Evaluation

Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical

Assistance Program

Evaluation of Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and

Technical Assistance Program

Interventions To Reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement in Secure

Detention and Correctional Facilities (The Deborah Ann Wysinger

Memorial Program)

State Justice Statistics Program for Statistical Analysis Centers

Juvenile Probation Survey Research

Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Detention and Correctional

Facilities

Technical Assistance to Juvenile Corrections and Detention (The James

E. Gould Memorial Program)

Training for Juvenile Corrections and Detention Management Staff

[[Page 35256]]

Training for Line Staff in Juvenile Detention and Corrections

Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams

To Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding

National Program Directory

A Comprehensive Juvenile Sex Offender Typology

KidsPeace-The National Centers for Kids in Crisis, North America*

The Bethesda Day Treatment Program

Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice

Delinquency Prevention and Intervention

Training In Risk-Focused Prevention Strategies

Youth Substance Use Prevention Programs (The President's Crime

Prevention Council)

Survey of School-Based Gang Prevention and Intervention Programs

Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution

Teens, Crime, and the Community: Teens in Action in the 90s*

Law-Related Education*

Communities In Schools-Federal Interagency Partnership

The Congress of National Black Churches: National Anti-Drug Abuse/

Violence Campaign (NADVC)

Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development

Community Anti-Drug Abuse Technical Assistance Voucher Project

Training and Technical Assistance for Family Strengthening Programs

Training and Technical Assistance To Promote Teen Court Programs

Evaluation of Teen Courts

Henry Ford Health System

Angel Gate Academy*

Suffolk County PAL (Police Athletic League)*

Do the Write Thing

Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts

Permanent Families for Abused and Neglected Children*

Parents Anonymous, Inc.*

Missing and Exploited Children

Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center*

Overarching

SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)

will award grants of up to $1.4 million to each of six communities,

initially funded with FY 1995 funds, to assist with comprehensive

community programs designed to reduce youth violence and delinquency.

Boston, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Contra

Costa County, California; Imperial County, California; and Fort

Belknap, Montana (Native American site) were selected competitively to

receive 5-year awards under the SafeFutures program on the basis of

their substantial planning and progress in community assessment and

strategic planning to address delinquency.

SafeFutures seeks to prevent and control youth crime and

victimization through the creation of a continuum of care in

communities. This continuum enables communities to be responsive to the

needs of youth at critical stages of their development through

providing an appropriate range of prevention, intervention, treatment,

and sanctions programs.

The goals of SafeFutures are (1) to prevent and control juvenile

violence and delinquency in targeted communities by reducing risk

factors and increasing protective factors for delinquency; providing a

continuum of services for juveniles at risk of delinquency, including

appropriate immediate interventions for juvenile offenders; and

developing a full range of graduated sanctions designed to hold

delinquent youth accountable to the victim and the community, ensure

community safety, and provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation

services; (2) to develop a more efficient, effective, and timely

service delivery system for at-risk and delinquent juveniles and their

families that is capable of responding to their needs at any point of

entry into the juvenile justice system; (3) to build the community's

capacity to institutionalize and sustain the continuum by expanding and

diversifying sources of funding; and (4) to determine the success of

program implementation and the outcomes achieved, including whether a

comprehensive program involving community-based efforts and program

resources concentrated on providing a continuum of care has succeeded

in preventing or reducing juvenile violence and delinquency.

Each of the six sites will continue to provide a set of services

that builds on community strengths and existing services and fills in

gaps within their existing continuum. These services include family

strengthening; afterschool activities; mentoring; treatment

alternatives for juvenile female offenders; mental health services; day

treatment; graduated sanctions for serious, violent, and chronic

juvenile offenders; and gang prevention, intervention, and suppression.

A national evaluation is being conducted by The Urban Institute to

determine the success of the initiative and track lessons learned at

each of the six sites. OJJDP has also committed a cadre of training and

technical assistance (TTA) resources to SafeFutures through OJJDP's

National Training and Technical Assistance Center, which has brought

together more than 40 TTA providers and dedicated a full-time TTA

coordinator for SafeFutures. The Center also assists the communities in

brokering and leveraging additional TTA resources. In addition, the

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided

interagency support of $100,000 for training and technical assistance

targeted to violence and delinquency prevention in public housing areas

of SafeFutures sites. Thus, operations, evaluation, and TTA have been

organized together to form a joint team at the national level to

support local site efforts.

SafeFutures activities will be carried out by the six current

SafeFutures grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in

FY 1997.

Evaluation of SafeFutures

With FY 1995 funds, OJJDP funded six communities under the

SafeFutures: Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

Program. The program sites are: Contra Costa County, California; Fort

Belknap Indian Community, Harlem, Montana; Boston, Massachusetts; St.

Louis, Missouri; Seattle, Washington; and Imperial County, California.

The SafeFutures Program provides support for a comprehensive

prevention, intervention, and treatment program to meet the needs of

at-risk juveniles and their families.

Up to approximately $8.4 million will be made available for annual

awards over a 5-year project period to support the efforts of these

jurisdictions to enhance existing partnerships, integrate juvenile

justice and social services, and provide a continuum of care that is

designed to reduce the number of serious, violent, and chronic juvenile

offenders.

The Urban Institute received a competitive 3-year cooperative

agreement award with FY 1995 funds to conduct a national evaluation of

the SafeFutures program. The evaluation will consist of both process

and impact components for each funded site. The evaluation process

includes an examination of planning procedures and the extent to which

each site's implementation plan is consistent with the principles of a

continuum of care

[[Page 35257]]

model. The evaluation will identify the obstacles and key factors

contributing to the successful implementation of the SafeFutures

program. The evaluator is responsible for developing a cross-site

monograph documenting the process of program implementation for use by

other communities that want to develop and implement a comprehensive

community-based strategy to address serious, violent, and chronic

delinquency.

In FY 1996, The Urban Institute developed a logic model, held a

cross-site cluster meeting, and conducted site visits at each of the

six SafeFutures sites. The Urban Institute is working closely with

local evaluators to develop individual project logic models. In FY

1997, the grantee will submit an evaluation plan and design and begin

implementation.

A FY 1997 supplemental award will be made to the current grantee,

The Urban Institute, to complete second year funding. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

Three project sites participate in the Program of Research on the

Causes and Correlates of Delinquency: The University of Colorado at

Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh, and the State University of New

York at Albany. Results from this 10-year longitudinal study have been

used extensively in the field of juvenile justice and have contributed

to the development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious,

Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders and other program initiatives.

OJJDP began funding this program in 1986 and has invested

approximately $10.3 million to date. The program has addressed many

issues of juvenile violence and delinquency. These include developing

and testing causal models for chronic violent offending and examining

interrelationships among gang involvement, drug selling, and gun

ownership/use. To date, the program has produced a massive amount of

information on the causes and correlates of delinquent behavior.

Although there is great commonality across the project sites, each

has unique design features. Additionally, each project has disseminated

the results of its research through a variety of publications, reports,

and presentations.

With FY 1996 funding, each site of the Causes and Correlates

Program was provided additional funds to further analyze the

longitudinal data. New publications were developed, and both the role

of mental health in delinquency and pathways to delinquency were the

subject of further analyses.

In FY 1997, the sites will continue their collaborative research

efforts. Site-specific research will also continue. Additionally, the

grantees will work on developing a cross-site data access capability to

provide quick access to data from all three sites.

This program will be implemented by the current grantees-Institute

of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder; Western

Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh; and

Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center, State University of New

York at Albany. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1997.

Study Group on the Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offender

In FY 1995, OJJDP funded the Study Group on the Serious, Violent,

and Chronic Juvenile Offender to answer questions about these

offenders. The objective of the Study Group is to develop a report that

will include critical areas of interest including prevention,

intervention, gangs, and other topics. The report will include programs

that appear to be effective in responding to the violent juvenile

offender. The report is expected to be completed in June 1997. Fiscal

year 1997 funding will be provided for the Study Group to develop

research papers on cost-benefit analysis and other topics that support

the research on serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders. The

Study Group, as an adjunct to their report, will also undertake the

development of a 5-year research plan for OJJDP's Research and Program

Development Division. The plan will include short-term and long-term

research goals and objectives.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the

University of Pittsburgh. No additional applications will be solicited

in FY 1997.

National Academy of Sciences Study of Juvenile Justice

The unprecedented increase in the rates of violent crime arrests of

youth between the ages of 12 and 17 through the mid 1990's, combined

with the projected growth of this population over the next decade,

portends an unwelcome increase in future violence by adolescents.

Public anxiety over the growing seriousness of juvenile violence has

led many States away from rehabilitation and toward deterrence and

punishment as the primary thrust of their juvenile justice efforts.

In FY 1997, OJJDP will support a 24-month study by the National

Academy of Sciences to examine research on the functioning of the

juvenile justice system over the past 10 years in the area of

delinquency prevention and control. The purpose of this extensive

review will be to provide a scientifically sound basis for planning a

multidisciplinary, multiagency agenda for research that not only

informs policymakers and practitioners about the nature and extent of

juvenile delinquency and violence but also identifies the most

effective strategies for preventing and reducing youth crime and

violence.

Issues of interest to the study include (1) an assessment of the

status of research into youth violence, methodological approaches to

evaluate the effectiveness of youth violence prevention efforts and the

efficacy of Federal, State, and local efforts to control youth

violence; (2) a review of research literature and data on juvenile

court practices during this period, including the experience with

Federal requirements regarding status offenders, detention practices,

and the impact of diversion strategies and waivers to criminal court

for certain offenders and offenses; (3) a review of research literature

and data on clients in the juvenile justice system including concerns

regarding disproportionate minority representation and gender bias; (4)

an assessment of available evaluation literature on system programs and

prevention strategies and programs, gaps in the research and

recommendations to strengthen it; and (5) the relationship between the

research on the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency and

normal adolescent growth and development.

A project report, synthesizing materials gathered from discussions

and papers presented at workshops and panel meetings, will provide an

overview of the critical issues confronting the juvenile justice field,

gaps in current knowledge base, and future directions for research and

program development.

The program will be implemented by the National Academy of

Sciences. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

The Hamilton Fish National Institute on School/Community Violence*

This consortium of eight universities will study violence in

schools and the relationship of violence in schools to violence in the

community. The consortium includes the George Washington University

(Washington, D.C.), Morehouse School of Medicine (Georgia), the

University of Oregon, the University of Kentucky, Florida State

University, the University of Wisconsin,

[[Page 35258]]

Syracuse University (New York), and the University of Kansas. The

Institute is a research, development, and service organization

committed to assisting State and local policymakers, criminal justice

officials, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students to

reduce the present levels of violence in and around schools.

Each of the universities will establish a local community/schools/

university partnership committed to a long-term reduction in violence.

Each school, surrounding community, and a partner university will work

to diagnose specific problems of violence that occur in and around the

selected schools. After problem identification, the consortium and the

local community and schools will design and implement interventions to

address identified violence problems.

This program will be implemented by the George Washington

University. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract

The purpose of this contract, competitively awarded in FY 1995 to

Caliber Associates, is to provide an expert resource capable of

performing independent, management-oriented evaluations of selected

juvenile delinquency programs. These evaluations are designed to

determine the effectiveness and efficiency of either individual

projects or groups of projects. The contractor also assists OJJDP in

determining how to make the best use of limited evaluation resources

and how best to design and implement evaluations.

In FY 1996, contract activities included continued evaluation of

three OJJDP-funded boot camps; continued support for the evaluation of

Title V delinquency prevention programs at the local level; assistance

in preparing OJJDP's 1995 Title V Program Report to Congress;

assistance to OJJDP program development working groups; assistance in

the creation of an ``evaluation partnership for juvenile justice''

designed to improve the number and quality of evaluations conducted by

Formula Grants Program grantees, other Federal agencies, private

foundations that fund evaluations, and State and local governments; and

conducting other short-or long-term evaluations as required.

Evaluation activities under consideration for FY 1997 include (1)

OJJDP's Pathways to Success program; (2) two law enforcement training

seminars, Managing Juvenile Operations and SAFE POLICY; (3) continued

impact evaluations of three OJJDP-funded boot camps; (4) continued

evaluation of Title V programs; (5) assistance to the OJJDP evaluation

working group; (6) support to OJJDP Formula Grants Program grantees;

and (7) evaluating OJJDP's implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy

for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The contract will

be implemented by the current contractor, Caliber Associates. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development

The Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD)

program was competitively awarded to the National Center for Juvenile

Justice (NCJJ) to improve national, State, and local statistics on

juveniles as victims and offenders. The project has focused on three

major functions: (1) assessing of how current information needs are

being met with existing data collection efforts and recommending

options for improving national level statistics; (2) analyzing data and

disseminating information gathered from existing Federal statistical

series and national studies. (Based on this work, OJJDP released the

first Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report in September

1995 and released Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1996 Update on

Violence in March 1996); and (3) providing of training and technical

assistance for local agencies in developing or enhancing management

information systems. A training curriculum, Improving Information for

Rational Decision Making in Juvenile Justice, was drafted for pilot

testing.

In this final phase of the SSD project, NCJJ will complete a long-

term plan for improving national statistics on juveniles as victims and

offenders, including constructing core data elements for a national

reporting program for juveniles waived or transferred to criminal

court; an implementation plan for integrating data collection on

juveniles by juvenile justice, mental health, and child welfare

agencies; and a report on standardized measures and instruments for

self-reported delinquency surveys. The project will also make

recommendations to fill information gaps in the areas of juvenile

probation, juvenile court and law enforcement responses to juvenile

delinquency, violent delinquency, and child abuse and neglect. In

addition, the SSD Project will provide an update of Juvenile Offenders

and Victims: A National Report and work with the Office of Justice

Programs' Crime Statistics Working Group and other Federal interagency

statistics working groups. The project will be implemented by the

current grantee, NCJJ. No additional applications will be solicited in

FY 1997.

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement will replace the

biennial Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional,

and Shelter Facilities, known as the Children in Custody census. This

newly designed census will collect detailed information on the

population of juveniles who are in juvenile residential placement

facilities as a result of contact with the juvenile justice system.

Over the past 3 years, OJJDP and the Bureau of the Census, with the

assistance of a Technical Advisory Board, have developed a census

designed to more accurately represent the numbers of juveniles in

residential placement and describe the reasons for their placement. The

new method of data collection, tested in FY 1996, involved gathering

data in a roster-type booklet format or by electronic means. The new

methods are expected to result in more accurate and useful data on the

juvenile population, with less reporting burden for facility

respondents.

In FY 1997, OJJDP will fund the initial implementation of this

census, including form preparation, mailout, and processing of the

census forms. Some followup will also be done under this agreement.

This program will be implemented through an interagency agreement with

the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications will be solicited

in FY 1997.

Cost-Benefit Analyses of Juvenile Justice Programs

Finite resources require that hard choices be made among competing

programs. Juvenile justice practitioners are increasingly being asked

to justify their activities in terms of cost and effectiveness. Should

programs be continued, expanded, or discontinued? Cost-benefit analyses

are an important tool for policymakers and juvenile justice program

administrators. They can provide useful, quantifiable, and integrated

information. Accordingly, OJJDP will support studies designed to

determine monetary program benefits of multiple but similar kinds of

programs, of single programs, and across different programs.

A competitive solicitation for up to two studies will be issued in

FY 1997 to support cost-benefit analyses.

[[Page 35259]]

Juvenile Justice Data Resources

OJJDP has entered into an agreement with the Inter-University

Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University

of Michigan to make OJJDP data sets routinely available to researchers.

Under this agreement, ICPSR assures the technical integrity of data and

develops a universal data format. The codebooks, along with the data,

provide clear guidance for additional analyses. Once prepared, ICPSR

provides access to these data sets to member institutions and the

public. Among the data sets previously processed and available through

ICPSR are the Children in Custody series; various data sets from the

Juvenile Court Statistics series; the Conditions of Confinement Study;

the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and

Thrownaway Children (NISMART); and data from the Delinquency in a Birth

Cohort II study.

This program will be implemented under an interagency agreement

with ICPSR. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

National Juvenile Court Data Archive*

The National Juvenile Court Data Archive collects, processes,

analyzes, and disseminates automated data and published reports from

the Nation's juvenile courts. The Archive's reports examine referrals,

offenses, intake, and dispositions in addition to providing information

on specialized topics such as minorities in juvenile courts and

specific offense categories. The Archive also provides assistance to

jurisdictions in analyzing their juvenile court data.

In FY 1996, the Archive enhanced the collection, reporting, and

analysis of detailed data on detention, dispositions, risk factors, and

treatment data using offender-based data sets from a sample of juvenile

courts. In support of OJJDP's National Forum on Female Offenders, the

Archive prepared a special statistics summary, Female Offenders in the

Juvenile Justice System.

In addition to preparing traditional reports, NCJJ prepared a

software package, Easy Access to Juvenile Court Statistics 1990-1994,

that allows users to quickly answer questions regarding a wide range of

case characteristics supported with national estimates. The software is

distributed free on diskette and is also available through OJJDP's

homepage on the World Wide Web.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCJJ. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and

Technical Assistance Center

The National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training

and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) was competitively funded in FY

1995 for a 3-year project period to develop a national training and

technical assistance clearinghouse, inventory and coordinate integrated

delivery of juvenile justice training/technical assistance (TA)

resources, and establish a data base of these resources.

In FY 1995, initial work involved organization and staffing of the

Center, orientation for OJJDP training/TA providers regarding their

role in the Center's activities, and initial data base development. In

FY 1996, NTTAC provided coordinated TA support for the OJJDP

SafeFutures and gang program initiatives, continued to promote

collaboration among OJJDP training/TA providers, developed training/TA

materials, and completed the OJJDP Training and Technical Assistance

Resource Catalog. In addition, NTTAC assisted State and local

jurisdictions and other OJJDP grantees with specialized training,

including the development of training-of-trainers programs. NTTAC

continued to evolve as a central source for information pertaining to

the availability of OJJDP-supported training/TA programs and resources.

In FY 1997, in cooperation with OJJDP training/TA grantees and

contractors, NTTAC will complete jurisdictional team training/TA

packages for gender-specific services and juvenile correctional

services, field test the packages, and coordinate delivery upon

request. NTTAC will also update the Training and Technical Assistance

Resource Catalog, the repository of training/TA materials, and the

electronically maintained data base of training/TA materials. Another

task for 1997 will be to develop one additional jurisdictional team

training/TA package.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Community

Research Associates. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1997.

Technical Assistance for State Legislatures

State legislatures are being pressed to respond to public fear of

juvenile crime and a loss of confidence in the capacity of the juvenile

justice system to respond effectively. Nearly every State has already

implemented, or is considering, statutory changes affecting the

juvenile justice system. State legislatures have historically lacked

the information needed to properly address juvenile justice issues. In

FY 1995, OJJDP awarded a 2-year grant to the National Conference of

State Legislatures (NCSL) to provide relevant, timely information on

comprehensive approaches in juvenile justice that are geared to the

legislative environment. In FY 1995 and FY 1996, NCSL convened

Leadership Forums for selected legislators, organized focus groups, and

established an information clearinghouse function. In FY 1997, OJJDP

will award continuation funding to the NCSL to further identify,

analyze, and disseminate information to assist State legislatures to

make more informed decisions about legislation affecting the juvenile

justice system. A complementary task involves supporting increased

communication between State legislators and State and local leaders who

influence decisionmaking regarding juvenile justice issues. NCSL will

provide intensive technical assistance to four States, continue

outreach activities, and maintain its clearinghouse function.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCSL. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract-Juvenile Justice Resource

Center

This 3-year contract, competitively awarded in FY 1994, provides

technical assistance and support to OJJDP, its grantees, and the

Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in

the areas of program development, evaluation, training, and research.

This program support contract will be extended in FY 1997. The contract

will be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen Systems

Corporation. A new competitive contract solicitation will be issued

during FY 1997, and a new contract awarded in FY 1998.

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

A component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service

(NCJRS), the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC) is OJJDP's central

resource for collecting, maintaining, producing, and sharing

information on all aspects of juvenile justice. Types of information

managed by JJC include research and evaluation findings, State and

local juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs and plans,

availability of resources, training and educational programs, and

statistics. JJC reaches the entire juvenile justice community and

[[Page 35260]]

other interested persons, serving researchers, law enforcement

officials, judges, prosecutors, probation and corrections staff, youth-

service personnel, legislators, the media, and the public.

Among its support services, JJC offers toll-free telephone and

online access to information; prepares specialized responses to

information requests; produces, warehouses, and distributes OJJDP

publications; exhibits at national conferences; and maintains a

comprehensive juvenile justice library and data base. Because of the

critical need to inform juvenile justice practitioners and policymakers

of promising program approaches, JJC continually develops and

recommends new products and strategies to communicate more effectively

the research findings and program activities of OJJDP and the field.

The entire NCJRS, of which the OJJDP-funded JJC is a part, is

administered by the National Institute of Justice under a

competitively-awarded contract.

The contract will be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen

Systems Corporation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1997.

Telecommunications Assistance

Developments in information technology and distance training have

expanded and enhanced OJJDP's capacity to disseminate information and

provide training and technical assistance. These technologies have the

advantages of increased access to information and training for

professionals in the juvenile justice system, reduced travel costs to

conferences, and reduced time attending meetings requiring one or more

nights away from one's home or office. Additionally, the successful use

of live satellite teleconferences by OJJDP during the past 2 years has

generated an enthusiastic response from the field.

During 1996, OJJDP's grantee, Eastern Kentucky University (EKU)

produced five live satellite teleconferences on the following topics:

juvenile boot camps, conflict resolution for youth, reducing youth gun

violence, youth out of the education mainstream, and the future of the

juvenile court.

In FY 1997, OJJDP will continue the competitively awarded

cooperative agreement to EKU in order to provide program support and

technical assistance for a variety of information technologies,

including audiographics, fiber optics, and satellite teleconferences,

producing five additional live national satellite teleconferences. The

grantee will also continue to provide technical assistance to other

grantees interested in using this technology and explore linkages with

key constituent groups to advance mutual information goals and

objectives.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, EKU. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Coalition for Juvenile Justice*

The Coalition for Juvenile Justice supports and facilitates the

purposes and functions of each State's Juvenile Justice State Advisory

Group (SAG). Coalition members, acting as a statutorily authorized,

duly chartered Federal advisory committee, review Federal policies and

practices regarding juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and

prepare and submit an annual report and recommendations to the

President, Congress, and the Administrator of OJJDP. The Coalition also

serves as an information center for the SAG's and conducts an annual

conference to provide training for SAG members.

The program will be implemented by the current grantee, the

Coalition for Juvenile Justice. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

Insular Area Support*

The purpose of this program is to provide supplemental financial

support to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Trust

Territory of the Pacific Islands (Palau), and the Commonwealth of the

Northern Mariana Islands. Funds are available to address the special

needs and problems of juvenile delinquency in these insular areas, as

specified by Section 261(e) of the JJDP Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C.

Sec. 5665(e).

Public Safety and Law Enforcement

Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention,

and Suppression Program

This program supports the implementation of a comprehensive gang

program model in five jurisdictions. The program was competitively

awarded with FY 1994 funds under a 3-year project period. The

demonstration sites implementing the model, which was developed by the

University of Chicago with OJJDP funding support, are Bloomington,

Illinois; Mesa, Arizona; Riverside, California; San Antonio, Texas; and

Tucson, Arizona. Implementation of the comprehensive gang program model

requires the mobilization of the community to address gang-related

violence by making available and coordinating social interventions,

providing social/academic/vocational and other opportunities, and

supporting gang suppression through law enforcement, probation, and

other community control mechanisms.

During the past year, the demonstration sites completed initial

gang violence problem assessments to identify the full nature and

extent of the gang problem in the community and its causes. The

assessment process has helped communities to understand causes of gang

violence in their community; identify key points for prevention,

intervention, and suppression; and identify benchmarks by which program

success may be measured. The demonstration sites also participated in

training and technical assistance activities, including cluster

conferences sponsored by OJJDP and visits to a program in Chicago where

the model has been implemented and demonstrated positive initial

results through a 4-year evaluation. In addition, the demonstration

sites began strategy implementation and service provision and made

progress in community mobilization, either through existing planning

structures or by creating new structures.

In FY 1997, demonstration sites will receive third-year funding to

continue implementation of the model program and build upon the

sustained mobilization, planning, and assessment processes.

Additionally, the demonstration sites will continue to target youth

prone to gang violence through continuing implementation of the program

model and work with the independent evaluator of this demonstration

program. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang

Prevention, Intervention and Suppression Program

The University of Chicago, School of Social Services

Administration, received a competitive cooperative agreement award in

FY 1994. This 4-year project period award supports the evaluation of

OJJDP's Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention,

Intervention, and Suppression Program. The evaluation grantee assisted

the five program sites (Bloomington, Illinois; Mesa, Arizona; Tucson,

Arizona; Riverside, California; and San Antonio, Texas) in establishing

realistic and measurable objectives, documenting program

implementation, and measuring the impact of a variety of gang program

strategies. It has also

[[Page 35261]]

provided interim feedback to the program implementors.

In FY 1996, the grantee designed and implemented organizational

surveys and youth interviews; developed and implemented program

tracking and worker questionnaires and interviews; gathered and tracked

aggregate level offense/offender client data from police, prosecutor,

probation, school, and social service program sources; developed and

implemented uniform individual level criminal justice data collection

efforts; consulted with local evaluators on development and

implementation of local site parent/community resident surveys; and

coordinated ongoing efforts with local researchers conducting special

surveys of gang youth in the program.

In FY 1997, the grantee will continue to gather data required to

evaluate the program and provide ongoing feedback to project sites.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the

University of Chicago, School of Social Services Administration. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Targeted Outreach With a Gang Prevention and Intervention Component

(Boys and Girls Clubs)

This program is designed to enable local Boys and Girls Clubs to

prevent youth from entering gangs, intervene with gang members in the

early stages of gang involvement, and divert youth from gang activities

into constructive activities and programs. In FY 1996, Boys and Girls

Clubs of America provided ongoing training and technical assistance to

30 existing gang prevention and 4 intervention sites and expanded the

gang prevention and intervention program to 23 additional Boys and

Girls Clubs, including clubs located in OJJDP's SafeFutures program

sites.

In FY 1997, Boys and Girls Clubs of America will provide training

and technical assistance to 20 new gang prevention sites, 3 new

intervention sites, and the 6 SafeFutures sites and initiate a national

evaluation of the Targeted Outreach: Gang Prevention and Intervention

Program.

This program will be implemented by the current grantee, the Boys

and Girls Clubs of America. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

The Developmental Dynamics of Gang Membership and Delinquency

The Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) is a longitudinal

gang prevention study conducted in collaboration with Seattle Public

Schools. Initially funded under a competitive field-initiated research

program, the analysis of gangs in the SSDP data set has examined

juveniles ages 10-18 to identify risk and protective factors for gang

membership. Analysis details predictors of gang membership, age of

initiation, length, desistance from gang membership, and consequences,

measured at age 18, of gang membership during early and mid-

adolescence.

In FY 1996, the research study revealed the extent of gang

membership in the SSDP sample, the types and proportion of crime

committed in the sample that are committed by gang members, the extent

of gang crime increases, when youth join gangs or already delinquent

youth join gangs, the length of time youth stay active members, the

childhood predictors of joining a gang in adolescence, and the

developmental risk factors that best predict joining a gang.

In FY 1997, the SSDP will obtain official criminal records for a

sample group, ages 18-21 years, and integrate them into the

longitudinal data set from the SSDP. Additional data analysis will

examine (1) the individual, peer, family, school, and neighborhood

predictors of early initiation into gangs; (2) the predictors of

sustained gang involvement; and (3) the effects of criminal justice

system involvement on gang membership.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the

University of Washington. No additional applications will be solicited

in FY 1997.

National Youth Gang Center

The proliferation of gang problems in large inner cities, smaller

cities, suburbs, and even rural areas over the past two decades led to

the development by OJJDP of a comprehensive, coordinated response to

America's gang problem. This response involved five program components,

one of which was the implementation and operation of the National Youth

Gang Center (NYGC). The NYGC was competitively funded with FY 1994

funds for a 3-year project period. NYGC was created to expand and

maintain the body of critical knowledge about youth gangs and effective

responses to them. NYGC assisted State and local jurisdictions in the

collection, analysis, and exchange of information on gang-related

demographics, legislation, research, and promising program strategies.

The Center also coordinated activities of the OJJDP Gang

Consortium-a group of Federal agencies, gang program representatives,

and service providers. Under the sponsorship of OJJDP, the National

Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and members of

the Regional Information Sharing Systems Program, the NYGC coordinated

a National Youth Gang Symposium in June 1996, with over 700

participants in attendance. Results of the first NYGC National Youth

Gang Survey were compiled and analyzed in FY 1996 and will be published

in FY 1997.

Other major NYGC tasks in FY 1996 included analysis of gang

legislation and coordination of the OJJDP Youth Gang Consortium. The

Consortium is developing information that will provide an overview of

Federal agencies, including the development of a matrix to include

information on planning cycles, contacts, and gang-related programs.

In FY 1997, NYGC will prepare the matrix of the program planning

cycle, information resources, contacts, and programs of the Consortium

members and promote collaboration so State and local youth-serving

agencies will be able to coordinate resources available from Federal

agencies. Also, NYGC will hold additional focus group meetings to

review the results of the first National Youth Gang Survey and to plan

the format of followup surveys.

Fiscal year 1997 funds will support third-year funding of the NYGC

cooperative agreement to the current grantee, the Institute for

Intergovernmental Research. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

Evaluation of Youth Gun Violence Reduction Programs

In response to the problem of juvenile gun violence, OJJDP and the

International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) have identified

promising programs designed to reduce gun violence by youth. Currently,

numerous communities have implemented or are in the process of

implementing youth gun violence reduction programs. However, not enough

is known about the effectiveness of such programs.

In the Proposed Program Plan for FY 1997, OJJDP proposed to

evaluate a select number of promising youth gun violence reduction

programs currently under way in communities across the country, as

identified by IACP. After careful consideration, OJJDP decided not to

issue a separate solicitation for this evaluation but to combine this

work with research that is currently being undertaken under the

Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Gun Violence, a grant that was

recently awarded to the

[[Page 35262]]

COSMOS Corporation. The Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Gun

Violence will document and evaluate the process of community

mobilization, planning, and collaboration needed to develop a

comprehensive, collaborative approach to reducing gun violence

involving juveniles. The evaluation of the IACP sites is a natural

addition to the COSMOS project. With an expanded base of youth gun

violence projects, there is greater opportunity to identify sites that

are employing similar strategies with different targeted populations.

Combining the two projects will result in certain economies in terms of

staffing and other project costs.

OJJDP will, therefore, incorporate the program summarized in the

Proposed Program Plan and referred to as the Evaluation of Youth Gun

Violence Reduction Programs into the Evaluation of the Partnerships To

Reduce Youth Gun Violence. The current grantee, the COSMOS Corporation,

will implement the evaluation. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention's primary goal is the

development of a citywide, accelerated, long-term effort to reduce

violence in Chicago. Secondly, the Chicago Project demonstrates a

comprehensive, citywide violence prevention model. Overall project

objectives include reductions in homicide, physical injury, disability

and emotional harm from assault, domestic abuse, sexual abuse and rape,

and child abuse and neglect.

The Chicago Project is a partnership among the Chicago Department

of Public Health, the Illinois Council for the Prevention of Violence,

the University of Illinois, and Chicago communities. It began in

January 1995 as a public health initiative with OJJDP funding. The

project currently provides technical assistance to a variety of

community-based and citywide organizations involved in violence

prevention planning. The majority of technical assistance supports

community level work and agencies working to directly support the

community plan.

In FY 1996, technical assistance was provided to the central

planning group for the Austin community-based coalition, leadership and

staff of the Westside Health Authority in the Austin community, and to

other selected groups involved in the Austin plan for the development

of their components (e.g., to Northwest Austin Council for the

development of the afterschool and drug treatment components of the

Austin plan). These groups are members of the violence consortium in

Austin.

In FY 1997, the Chicago Project will further refine the violence

prevention strategy developed in the Austin community and begin

implementation of the strategy and continue to provide technical

assistance to the Logan Square and Grand Boulevard communities as they

develop their violence prevention strategies.

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention will be implemented by

the current grantee, the University of Illinois, School of Public

Health. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Child-Centered Community-Oriented Policing

In FY 1993, OJJDP provided support to the New Haven, Connecticut,

Police Department and the Yale University Child Development Center to

document a child-centered community-oriented policing model being

implemented in New Haven, Connecticut. The basic elements of the model

are a 10-week training course in child development for all new police

officers and child development fellowships for all community-based

district commanders who direct neighborhood police teams. The

fellowships provide 4 to 6 hours of training each week over a 3-month

period at Yale's Child Study Center. The program also includes (1) a

24-hour consultation from a clinical professional and a police

supervisor to patrol officers who assist children who have been exposed

to violence; (2) weekly case conferences with police officers,

educators, and child study center staff; and (3) open police stations

located in neighborhoods and accessible to residents for police and

related services, community liaison, and neighborhood foot patrols.

In FY 1994, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) community policing

funds helped OJJDP to support the first year of a 3-year training and

technical assistance grant to replicate the program nationwide. These

funds supported the development of criteria for a request for

proposals, protocols for consultation, training-for-trainers sessions

for New Haven police and clinical faculty, and the development of a

multimodel strategy for data collection and program evaluation. Fiscal

year 1995 OJJDP funds supported initiation of program replication

efforts in Buffalo, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville,

Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon. Fiscal year 1996 funds supported the

implementation of the five-phase replication protocol in the four

selected sites. Fiscal year 1997 continuation funding from OJJDP will

further support replication, site data collection and analysis

activities, and development of a detailed casebook about the model and

program.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the Yale

University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the New Haven

Department of Police Services. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program

Juvenile crime and victimization present major challenges to

practitioners who are responsible for prevention, intervention, and

enforcement efforts. Increasing rates of violent crime committed by

juveniles, rising juvenile involvement in gangs and drugs, and

decreasing fiscal resources are just some of the challenges facing

juvenile justice practitioners today.

OJJDP is committed to helping State and local agencies,

organizations, and individuals face these challenges through a

comprehensive program of training and technical assistance that is

designed to enhance the juvenile justice system's ability to respond to

juvenile crime and delinquency. This assistance targets many audiences,

including law enforcement representatives, social service workers,

school staff and administrators, prosecutors, judges, corrections and

probation personnel, and key community and agency leaders.

Fiscal year 1997 funds will support the continuation of OJJDP's

Chief Executive Officer Youth Violence Forum; the Managing Juvenile

Operations (MJO) workshop; the Gang, Gun, and Drug POLICY workshop; the

School Administrators for Effective Police, Prosecution, Probation

Operations Leading to Improved Children and Youth Services (SAFE

POLICY) workshop; the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action

Program (SHOCAP); the Youth Oriented-Community Policing workshop; and

the Tribal Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance workshop.

In FY 1997, through a competitive selection process, OJJDP awarded

a 3-year contract to implement the Law Enforcement Training and

Technical Assistance Program. The contractor is the John Jay College of

Criminal Justice, teamed with the COSMOS Corporation. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

[[Page 35263]]

Violence Studies

The 1992 Amendments to the JJDP Act directed OJJDP to fund 2-year

studies on violence in three urban and one rural jurisdiction. Building

on the results of OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and

Correlates of Delinquency, these studies were to examine the incidence

of violence committed by or against juveniles in urban and rural areas

of the United States. In FY 1994, OJJDP initiated a University of

Wisconsin study of homicides by and of youth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In that same year, under a grant to the University of South Carolina,

OJJDP funded a cross-site study in rural areas in South Carolina,

Georgia, and Florida. In FY 1995, in Los Angeles, California, and

Washington, D.C., the University of Southern California and the

Institute for Law and Justice initiated additional violence studies.

These four studies are providing valuable information regarding

community violence patterns, with a particular focus on homicide and

firearm use involving juveniles. Their results will assist the juvenile

justice system by identifying strategic law enforcement responses to

juvenile violence and by identifying diversion, prevention, and control

programs that ameliorate juvenile violence.

In FY 1996, the University of Wisconsin and the University of South

Carolina analyzed their data and made their project findings. The

Institute for Law and Justice collected and analyzed aggregate data

from various juvenile justice providers and from a series of interviews

with agency staff serving adjudicated juveniles. The University of

Southern California received funds to identify violence prevention

programs, conduct a household survey, and interview adolescents and

their caregivers in Los Angeles County.

In FY 1997, OJJDP will provide limited funding to the University of

Southern California to complete its study. The program will be

implemented by the current grantee, the University of Southern

California. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System

Development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency and Developmental

Research and Programs, Inc., have completed Phases I and II of a

collaborative effort to support development and implementation of

OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic

Juvenile Offenders. Phase I involved assessing existing and previously

researched programs in order to identify effective and promising

programs that can be used in implementing the Comprehensive Strategy.

In Phase II, a series of reports were combined into a Guide for

Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Phase II also included convening a forum,

``Guaranteeing Safe Passage: A National Forum on Youth Violence,'' and

holding two regional training seminars for key leaders on implementing

the Comprehensive Strategy.

In FY 1996, Phase III of the project was funded to provide:

targeted dissemination of information on the Comprehensive Strategy at

national conferences; intensive training for selected States to

implement the Comprehensive Strategy in up to six local jurisdictions;

the six SafeFutures sites; technical assistance to a limited number of

individual jurisdictions interested in implementing the Comprehensive

Strategy; and continued development of Comprehensive Strategy

implementation resources.

In FY 1997, the grantees will continue to target dissemination of

the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile

Offenders and hold regional training seminars in the Southeast and

Midwest; provide training and technical assistance to additional state

and local jurisdictions interested in implementing the Comprehensive

Strategy; and provide intensive training and technical assistance in 5

competitively-selected Comprehensive Strategy States-Florida, Iowa,

Maryland, Rhode Island, and Texas.

The program will be implemented by the current grantees, the

National Council on Crime and Delinquency and Developmental Research

and Programs, Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1997.

Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offender Treatment Program

The Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offender Treatment

Program is designed to assist local jurisdictions in the development

and implementation of a comprehensive strategy for the intervention,

treatment, and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. The program was

initially funded in 1993 under the Accountability-Based Community (ABC)

Intervention program. Under the ABC initiative, Allegheny County,

Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., were competitively funded to plan

and implement a comprehensive graduated sanctions plan.

In FY 1994, under a second competitive announcement, OJJDP awarded

funds under the Serious, Violent, and Chronic Offender Treatment

Program to three additional jurisdictions (Boston, Massachusetts;

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; and Richmond, Virginia) to develop and

implement a comprehensive graduated sanctions plan.

Each jurisdiction's graduated sanctions plan included the following

basic elements: (1) assess the existing continuum of secure and

nonsecure intervention, treatment, and rehabilitation services in each

jurisdiction; (2) define the juvenile offender population; (3) develop

and implement a program strategy; (4) develop and implement an

evaluation; (5) integrate private nonprofit, community-based

organizations into the provision of offender services; (6) incorporate

an aftercare program as an integral component of all residential

placements; (7) develop a resource plan to enlist the financial and

technical support of other Federal, State, and local agencies, private

foundations, or other funding sources; and (8) develop a victim

assistance component using local organizations.

In FY 1996, each of the three FY 1994 grantees received awards to

continue implementation activities. Boston and Richmond will complete

operations during FY 1997. Jefferson Parish will receive a final 6-

month award in FY 1997.

No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Juvenile Restitution: A Balanced Approach

OJJDP will continue support of the juvenile restitution training

and technical assistance program in FY 1997. The project design is

based on practitioner recommendations regarding juvenile justice

program needs and the best methods for integrating and

institutionalizing restitution and community service as key components

of juvenile justice system dispositions. In FY 1992, a practitioner

working group helped map out a plan for optimum development of the

components of restitution programs. Plan components included community

service, victim reparation, victim-offender mediation, offender

employment and supervision, employment development, and other program

elements designed to establish

[[Page 35264]]

restitution as a key element in improving the juvenile justice system.

This project is guided by balanced and restorative justice (BARJ)

principles, which include the need to provide a balance of (1)

community protection, (2) offender competency development, and (3)

offender accountability to individual victims and communities. The

project helps juvenile justice agencies to introduce these elements in

programs for sanctioning and controlling juvenile offenders.

In FY 1995, the project assisted three local jurisdictions

(Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; Dakota County, Minnesota; and West

Palm Beach County, Florida) to implement the ``balanced approach,''

participated in presenting a series of regional roundtables for States

interested in adopting the BARJ model, and provided ad hoc technical

assistance. In FY 1996, the project continued training, technical

assistance, and development of guideline materials, including a

Balanced and Restorative Justice Project Resource Guide and a

Curriculum Guide on the BARJ model.

In FY 1997, the project will provide training-of-trainers programs

on the BARJ model based on the Curriculum Guide and the Resource Guide.

The grantee will also continue to offer technical assistance to the

increasing number of State and local jurisdictions interested in

pursuing balanced and restorative justice.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Florida

Atlantic University. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1997.

Training and Technical Assistance Program To Promote Gender-Specific

Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders

The 1992 Amendments to the JJDP Act addressed, for the first time,

the issue of gender-specific services. The Amendments require States

participating in OJJDP's State Formula Grants Program to conduct an

analysis of gender-specific services for the prevention and treatment

of juvenile delinquency, including the types of services available, the

need for such services, and a plan for providing needed gender-specific

services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency.

In FY 1995, the OJJDP Gender-Specific Services Program focused on

providing training and technical assistance directly to States and on

providing and promoting the establishment of gender-specific programs

at the State level. Training and technical assistance were provided to

a broad spectrum of policymakers and service providers regarding

services for juvenile female offenders through direct grants,

sponsorship of national conferences, and inclusion of a gender-specific

service component in OJJDP's SafeFutures program.

In FY 1996, building upon these past efforts, OJJDP awarded a 3-

year competitive grant to Greene, Peters and Associates (GPA) to

provide a comprehensive framework for assisting policymakers, service

providers, educators, parents, and the general public in addressing the

complex needs of female adolescents who are at risk for delinquent

behavior. The project's objectives are to develop and test a training

curriculum for policymakers, advocacy organizations, and community-

based youth-serving organizations that conveys the need for effective

gender-specific programming for juvenile females and the elements of

such programs; to develop, test, and deliver a technical assistance

package on the development of gender-specific programs; to inventory

female-specific programs, identifying those program models designed to

build upon the gender-specific needs of girls, and prepare a monograph

suitable for national dissemination; to design and test a curriculum

for line staff delivering services to juvenile females; to design and

implement a public education initiative on the need for gender-specific

programming for girls; and to design and conduct training for trainers.

Because the grant was awarded at the end of FY 1996, work on the

project is in its initial stages.

The program will be implemented by the current grantee, GPA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Cook County Juvenile Female Offenders Project

In FY 1995, OJJDP awarded a competitive grant to enable Cook County

to plan programs for juvenile female offenders in the Cook County

Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. A Steering Committee formed to

oversee the project included community and government agency

representatives working together to effectuate change in the way

juvenile female offenders are handled. To coordinate efforts, the

committee organized a task force of 30 government and community-based

agencies to promote gender equity and fairness.

The Steering Committee, with the assistance of task force members,

accomplished several key objectives during their planning effort. They

(1) developed a gender-specific needs and strengths assessment

instrument and a risk assessment instrument for juvenile female

offenders through a consulting contract with the National Council on

Crime and Delinquency; (2) provided training in implementing gender-

appropriate programming to more than 300 management and line staff

representing more than 100 local public and private agencies; (3)

compiled a directory of gender-specific services available in Cook

County; (4) assessed the strengths and interactions, and the areas for

improvement of interaction, among the five custodial agencies involved

in legal responsibilities for juvenile female offenders in Cook County

(the Chicago Police Department, Cook County Juvenile Temporary

Detention Center, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services,

Illinois Department of Corrections--Juvenile Division, and Cook County

Juvenile Probation); and (5) designed a pilot program that includes a

community-based continuum of care with a unique case management system.

In FY 1997, the project will join Federal, State, and local

resources to implement the pilot program. Under the program, each

juvenile female offender will have a case manager who will follow her

throughout her involvement in the juvenile justice system. The case

manager will advocate for services to meet the juvenile's needs in a

timely and consistent manner.

This program will be implemented by the current grantee, the Cook

County Board of Commissioners. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies

States are increasingly enacting juvenile code revisions broadening

judicial waiver authority, providing prosecutor direct file authority,

and mandating transfer of older, more violent juveniles to criminal

court. Many States are also developing innovative procedures, such as

blending traditional features of juvenile and criminal justice

sentencing practices, through statutes that categorize juvenile

offenders into different classes according to the seriousness of the

offense, designating juvenile or criminal court for each class, or

providing judges with discretion to make these judgments at sentencing.

Studies of the impact of criminal court prosecution of juveniles have

yielded mixed conclusions. Solid research on the intended and

unintended consequences of transfer of juveniles to criminal court will

enable policymakers and legislatures to develop statutory provisions

and

[[Page 35265]]

policies and improve judicial and prosecutorial waiver and transfer

decisions.

To address the shortage of recent research results, OJJDP

competitively funded two juvenile waiver and transfer research projects

in FY 1995. The first, awarded to the National Center for Juvenile

Justice, compares juvenile and criminal court handling of juveniles in

four States that authorize judicial waiver of serious and violent

juvenile offenders and mandate criminal court handling for specified

categories of juvenile offenders. The second study, awarded to the

Florida Juvenile Justice Advisory Board, evaluates Florida's system of

blending the option of criminal and juvenile justice system sentencing

for serious and violent juvenile offenders. Additional funding was

provided in FY 1996 to enable the projects to collect case specific

information on sentence completion and recidivism data in order to

provide a more definitive assessment of the impact of criminal versus

juvenile justice system handling of serious and violent offender cases.

In FY 1997, OJJDP will provide limited continuation funding in

jurisdictions that were part of one or both of these studies and

provide promising opportunities for longitudinal study. The projects

will be implemented by the current grantees, the National Center for

Juvenile Justice and the Florida Juvenile Justice Advisory Board. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Replication and Extension of Fagan Transfer Study

OJJDP will award a grant to Columbia University to conduct a study,

``The Comparative Impact of Juvenile Versus Criminal Court Sanctions on

Recidivism Among Adolescent Felony Offenders: A Replication and

Extension.'' This study will be a replication and expansion of an

original study and will be conducted by the Principal Investigator, Dr.

Jeffrey Fagan. His 1986 New York/New Jersey study was the first

transfer study comparing four contiguous counties matched on social,

economic, and criminogenic factors and offender cohorts with

essentially identical offense profiles. It was also the first such

study to go beyond comparing sentences to studying the deterrent

effects of the sanction and court jurisdiction on recidivism rates in

juvenile versus criminal court.

The replication and extension is the only research project that can

answer questions about how case processing decisions have changed in

the last decade. The new study will compare case dispositional outcomes

in 1981-82 with those cases processed in 1993-94, a time period

following sustained growth in the rates of youth violence. In addition,

a study component under the direction of Dr. Barry Feld will explore

whether there are factors being considered by prosecutors, judges and

defense attorneys that explain the variation in sentences/dispositions

and recidivism between groups of offenders handled in different

systems. This component will provide an analysis of the organizational,

contextual, or systemic factors involved in the decision processes

affecting both jurisdiction and punishment. The study will also conduct

interviews with selected offenders processed in different systems to

gain a perspective on the impact of criminal versus juvenile system

handling of such cases on further experiences with the justice system.

The project will also collaborate with the other OJJDP Juvenile

Transfers to Criminal Court Studies in sharing data collection

instruments and in planning joint analyses where appropriate.

This program will be implemented by Columbia University. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Technical Assistance to Juvenile Courts*

The National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ), the research arm

of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, provides

technical assistance under this grant for juvenile court practitioners.

The focus of the technical assistance is on court administration and

management, program development, and special legal issues. During FY

1996, NCJJ responded to more than 850 requests for technical

assistance. In addition, NCJJ staff completed the Research Report State

Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime.

In FY 1997, NCJJ will develop an online technical assistance

capability to improve program monitoring and evaluation. In addition, a

desktop guide for juvenile probation administrators will be completed.

The program will be implemented by the current grantee, NCJJ. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Juvenile Court Judges Training*

The primary focus of this project in FY 1997 will be to continue

and refine the training and technical assistance program offered by the

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ). The

objectives of the training are to supplement law school curriculums by

providing basic training to new juvenile court judges and to provide

experienced judges with state-of-the-art training on developments in

juvenile and family case law and effective dispositional options.

Emphasis is also placed on alcohol and substance abuse, child abuse and

neglect, gangs and violence, cultural diversity, disproportionate

incarceration of minority youth, and intermediate sanctions. Training

is also provided to other court personnel, including juvenile probation

officers, aftercare workers, and child protection and community

treatment providers. In FY 1996, some 12,775 judges and court personnel

received training through 74 different programs. In addition, more than

800 training-related technical assistance requests were completed.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCJFCJ. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit

OJJDP has historically supported prosecutor training activities

through the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA). To continue

that work, OJJDP awarded a 3-year project period grant in FY 1995 to

the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), the research and

technical affiliate of NDAA, to establish a Juvenile Justice

Prosecution Unit (JJPU). JJPU holds workshops on juvenile justice-

related policy, leadership, and management for chief prosecutors and

unit chiefs. JJPU also provides prosecutors with background information

on juvenile justice issues and programs, training, and technical

assistance.

The project is based on planning and input by prosecutors familiar

with juvenile justice needs. It draws on the expertise of working

groups of elected or appointed prosecutors and juvenile unit chiefs to

support project staff in providing technical assistance, juvenile

justice-related research, program information, and training to

practitioners nationwide. In 1995, APRI collected information from

prosecutors and sponsored a National Invitational Symposium on Juvenile

Justice. The Symposium provided a forum for prosecutors to exchange

ideas on programs, issues, legislation, and practices in juvenile

justice. In 1996, APRI conducted three workshops for elected and

appointed prosecutors and juvenile unit chiefs to help improve

prosecutor involvement in the prosecution and prevention of juvenile

delinquency. In 1997, APRI will conduct a second National Symposium,

[[Page 35266]]

present additional workshops, and develop new reference materials for

prosecutors.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, APRI. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Due Process Advocacy Program Development

In FY 1993, OJJDP funded the American Bar Association (ABA), in

partnership with the Juvenile Law Center (JLC) of Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, and the Youth Law Center (YLC) of San Francisco,

California, to develop strategies to improve due process and the

quality of legal representation in the juvenile justice system. The

goals of the program are to increase juvenile offenders' access to

legal services and to improve the quality of preadjudication,

adjudication, and dispositional advocacy for juvenile offenders. The

strategies that have been developed are being made available to State

and local defender organizations, State and local bar associations, and

other relevant organizations so that they can develop approaches to

increase the availability and quality of counsel for juveniles.

In FY 1994 and FY 1995, the ABA, JLC, and YLC conducted an

assessment of the current state of the art with regard to legal

services, training, and education. This survey included a review of

literature, case law, and State statutes and a survey of public

defenders, court-appointed lawyers, law school clinical programs, and

judges. As a result of this survey work, the ABA developed and

published a report entitled A Call for Justice: An Assessment of Access

to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings.

The report has been widely distributed to State and local bar

associations, Chairs of State Juvenile Justice Advisory Groups,

participants in the ABA survey, the National Association of Child

Advocates, and others.

In FY 1996, training was initiated, beginning with the States of

Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia. The structure and scope of the

training are tailored to fit the needs of each State.

In FY 1997, a training manual will be completed, covering key

issues such as detention, transfer or waiver, and dispositional

advocacy. The curriculum in the manual will build on existing quality

training curriculums and inform defender organizations and others about

the best training curriculums available. The training manual will be

designed to fill gaps in existing training programs. The ABA and its

partners will also continue to develop networks with public defenders

offices, children's law centers, and others through the HANDSNET system

and mailings that provide program updates. In addition, the ABA and its

partners will provide or arrange for onsite technical assistance to

additional jurisdictions that are actively pursuing the goals of this

initiative.

This program will be implemented by the current grantee, ABA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) Evaluation

OJJDP will fund an impact evaluation of the Quantum Opportunities

Program, which the U.S. Department of Labor, in partnership with the

Ford Foundation, is currently replicating in seven sites across the

United States. The purpose of the funding is to determine whether QOP

reduces the likelihood that inner-city youth at educational risk will

enter the criminal justice system, including the juvenile justice

system. The QOP impact evaluation is designed to measure the impact of

QOP participation on such outcomes as high school graduation and

enrollment in postsecondary education and training. Other student

outcomes to be examined include academic achievement in high school,

misbehavior in school, self-esteem and sense of control over one's

life, educational and career goals, and personal decisions such as

teenage parenthood, substance abuse, and criminal activity. Data on

criminal activity is being collected from individual student

interviews.

This evaluation enhancement to the Department of Labor-funded

evaluation will provide for the collection of analogous data from the

juvenile justice system, thus allowing estimates of the impact of the

QOP program on the likelihood of program youth becoming involved in the

criminal justice system. Initial attention will be focused on

identifying the appropriate governmental agencies responsible for the

data, dealing with confidentiality requirements, determining the

feasibility of collecting such information, preparing data collection

protocols for each site, and preparing a report outlining the data

collection design for implementation.

This program will be implemented through an interagency agreement

with the U.S. Department of Labor. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1997.

Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical

Assistance Program

This initiative is designed to support implementation, training and

technical assistance, and an independent evaluation of an intensive

community-based aftercare model in four jurisdictions that were

competitively selected to participate in this demonstration program.

The overall goal of the intensive aftercare model is to identify and

assist high-risk juvenile offenders to make a gradual transition from

secure confinement back into the community. The Intensive Aftercare

Program (IAP) model can be viewed as having three distinct, yet

overlapping segments: (1) Prerelease and preparatory planning

activities during incarceration; (2) structured transitioning involving

the participation of institutional and aftercare staffs both prior to

and following community reentry; and (3) long-term reintegrative

activities to insure adequate service delivery and the required level

of social control.

In FY 1994, The Johns Hopkins University received a multiyear grant

to test their intensive community-based aftercare model in four

demonstration sites: Denver (Metro), Colorado; Clark County (Las

Vegas), Nevada; Camden and Newark, New Jersey; and Norfolk, Virginia.

Each of the four sites received funding in FY 1996 to support program

implementation. The Johns Hopkins University contracts with California

State University at Sacramento to assist in the implementation process

by providing training and technical assistance and by making OJJDP

funds available through contracts to each of the four demonstration

sites. Each of the sites has developed risk assessment instruments for

use in selecting high-risk youth who need this type of intensive

aftercare, hired and trained staff in the intensive aftercare model,

identified existing and needed community support (intervention)

services, and identified and collected data necessary for the

independent evaluation of the intensive community-based aftercare

program. In accordance with a strong experimental research design, each

of the sites uses a system of random assignment of clients to the

program. The Johns Hopkins University and California State University

at Sacramento have provided continuing training and technical

assistance to both administrators/managers and line staff at the

intensive community-based aftercare sites. Staff have been fully

trained in the theoretical underpinnings of the IAP model and in its

practical applications, such as techniques for

[[Page 35267]]

identifying juveniles appropriate for the program. Training and

technical assistance in this model have also been available to other

States and OJJDP grantees on a limited basis.

In FY 1997, the sites will continue to implement and test the

aftercare model. An independent contractor is performing an evaluation

under a separate grant. The Johns Hopkins University will provide

ongoing training and technical assistance to the four selected sites

and also provide aftercare technical assistance services to

jurisdictions participating in the OJJDP/Department of the Interior

Youth Environmental Service (YES) initiative, OJJDP's six SafeFutures

program sites, and other programs, including the New York State

Division for Youth's Youth Leadership Academy in Albany, New York.

The IAP project will be implemented by the current grantee, The

Johns Hopkins University. No additional applications will be solicited

in FY 1997.

Evaluation of Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and

Technical Assistance Program

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) received a 3-

year competitive FY 1994 grant to conduct a process evaluation and

design an impact evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare

Demonstration and Technical Assistance Program at sites in Colorado,

New Jersey, Nevada, and Virginia. NCCD's initial award funded the

design and implementation of the process evaluation, the design of an

impact evaluation, and start-up data collection. A report on the

process evaluation was submitted in the spring of 1996. Fiscal year

1996 funding enabled NCCD to begin the impact evaluation. Because of

the excellent progress made during the first two years on the process

evaluation, OJJDP extended this program for three additional years to

allow sufficient time for completion of the impact evaluation.

NCCD will use a true experimental design to answer the following

research questions: (1) Is the nature of supervision and services

provided to Intensive Community-Based Aftercare (IAP) youth different

from that given to ``regular'' parolees? (2) Does IAP have an impact on

the subsequent delinquent or criminal involvement of program

participants? (3) Does IAP have an impact on specific intermediate

outcomes such as reduction of substance abuse, improved peer

relationships, improved self-concept, and reduced delinquent or

criminal behavior? and (4) Is IAP cost-effective?

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCCD. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Interventions To Reduce Disproportionate Minority Confinement in Secure

Detention and Correctional Facilities (The Deborah Ann Wysinger

Memorial Program)

In FY 1995, under a national discretionary grant initiative, OJJDP

funded eight programs designed to enable States to identify strategies

to eliminate the overrepresentation of minority juveniles in secure

detention or correctional facilities, adult jails and lockups, and

other secure institutional facilities. One of the eight awards was made

to The Academy, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, which conducted an evaluation

of the Franklin County (Ohio) Juvenile Court's efforts to reduce

minority overrepresentation.

The evaluation focuses on three areas: (1) Staff issues such as

working conditions, morale, and attitudes toward peers, supervisors,

administrative staff, and jurists; (2) treatment issues related to

reducing minority overrepresentation; and (3) broader implications for

research, particularly studies supported by Federal agencies.

This project is an outgrowth of the research begun in the Franklin

County Juvenile Court. The Academy is concluding the evaluation of a

broad range of policy modifications undertaken by this court to address

minority overrepresentation at intake and in its confinement

facilities. In this project, the research will shift the focus from

juvenile court to a study of similar circumstances surrounding police

policies and decisions to refer some juveniles to the courts, release

others to their parents, and/or divert still others to community-based

programs.

This program will be implemented by The Academy, Inc. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

State Justice Statistics Program for Statistical Analysis Centers

Through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of Justice

Statistics (BJS), OJJDP will contribute funds to the BJS State Justice

Statistics Program for Statistical Analysis Centers (SAC). The

supplemental funding will be offered to State SAC's to encourage them

to undertake studies of juvenile transfers to criminal court for

prosecution and youth gang involvement in criminal activity.

Studies of juvenile transfers to criminal court for prosecution

include those studies that monitor the flow of cases involving

juveniles (by reason of age and/or offense and prior history) into the

criminal court and may focus on statewide or high-volume local

processes, outcomes, and impact of the decision to try the case in

criminal court. Preference will be given to those studies that provide

appropriate comparative samples with juveniles retained in the juvenile

justice system (or which have the capability to generate trends) and

those studies that can and are willing to collect data currently being

captured by OJJDP's studies of Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court.

The second topic area to be supported is youth gang involvement in

violence, drug sales, and weapons use and system response. This area

will support studies that monitor trends in such behavior (violent

crime, drug markets, and weapons use and sales) by youth gangs; its

concentration and migration among different neighborhoods; and the law

enforcement, criminal, and juvenile justice system response to such

behavior. Of particular interest will be studies that demonstrate the

utility of Geographic-Based Information Systems (GIS) to monitor trends

in behavior and system response spatially.

No applications will be solicited by OJJDP in FY 1997. To acquire a

copy of the BJS solicitation, contact Paul White, State Justice

Statistics (SJS) Program Manager, at 202-307-0771. The deadline for the

first cycle of applications to BJS is June 30, 1997.

Juvenile Probation Survey Research

Juvenile probation is one of the most critical areas of the

juvenile justice system. However, there is currently very little

information available on juveniles on probation. We do not know how

many juveniles are on probation, their demographic characteristics,

their offenses, or the conditions of their probation, including length,

residential confinement, electronic monitoring, restitution, etc. In FY

1996, this project conducted survey research and developed a

questionnaire to collect this important information. Because States

operate their juvenile probation systems in very different manners, the

project also examined how these differences affected the information

collected.

Also in FY 1996, OJJDP held a national meeting to assess the needs

and scope of future survey work to be undertaken. The meeting included

probation officers, national experts in juvenile probation, and experts

in the field of survey development.

In FY 1997, the project will develop an interview protocol for

exploratory interviews, conduct interviews in 20

[[Page 35268]]

probation offices around the country, develop an initial data

collection instrument, and provide a plan for testing.

OJJDP will provide second-year funding to complete this research

through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Detention and Correctional

Facilities

There is a need to increase the accountability of detention and

correctional agencies, facilities, and staff in performing their basic

functions. The development of performance-based standards has emerged

as a primary strategy for improving conditions of confinement. This

program supports the development and implementation of performance-

based standards for juvenile detention and corrections. The performance

measures and standards being developed will address both services and

the quality of life for confined juveniles. They will reflect the

consensus of a broadly representative group of national organizations

on the mission, goals, and objectives of juvenile detention and

corrections. OJJDP plans to promote nationwide adoption and

implementation of the measures and standards through a future training

and technical assistance program.

In FY 1995, OJJDP awarded a competitive 18-month cooperative

agreement to the Council of Juvenile Corrections Administrators (CJCA)

to develop national performance-based standards for juvenile detention

and correctional facilities. A National Consortium of major

professional and advocacy organizations provided technical advice and

support in all aspects of the development and implementation of the

standards. The project focused on standards in the areas of: safety;

security; order; programming, treatment, and education; health; and

justice.

During FY 1996, project working groups completed the drafting of

performance criteria and measures and assessment tools for monitoring

performance in all substantive areas. In addition, all materials were

field tested and revised as needed. A plan for implementation was also

completed.

In FY 1997, a complete set of performance-based standards and a

measurement system will be completed, along with plans for an 18-month

period of intensive demonstration and testing of the performance-based

standards and their impact on juvenile corrections and detention

programming.

The program will be implemented in FY 1997 by the current grantee,

CJCA. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Technical Assistance to Juvenile Corrections and Detention (The James

E. Gould Memorial Program)

The primary purpose of the Technical Assistance to Juvenile

Corrections and Detention project is to provide specialized technical

assistance to juvenile corrections, detention, and community

residential service providers. The grantee, the American Correctional

Association (ACA), also plans and convenes an annual Juvenile

Corrections and Detention Forum. The Forum provides an opportunity for

juvenile corrections and detention leaders to meet and discuss issues,

problems, and solutions to emerging corrections and detention problems.

The ACA also provides workshops and conferences on current and emerging

national issues in the field of juvenile corrections and detention,

writes and solicits articles for professional publications, conducts

surveys, and offers technical assistance through document

dissemination. OJJDP awarded a FY 1995 competitive grant to the ACA to

provide these services over a 3-year project period.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, ACA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Training for Juvenile Corrections and Detention Management Staff

In FY 1997, OJJDP will continue its support for the development and

implementation of a comprehensive training program for juvenile

corrections and detention management staff through a new interagency

agreement with the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). Initiated

in 1991, the program is designed to offer a core curriculum for

juvenile corrections and detention administrators and midlevel

management personnel in such areas as leadership development,

management, training of trainers, legal issues, cultural diversity, the

role of the victim in juvenile corrections, juvenile programming for

special needs offenders, and management of the violent or disruptive

offender. In FY 1996, NIC conducted 8 training seminars, 5 workshops,

and 1 video conference and made 10 technical assistance awards,

reaching 3,302 participants.

In FY 1997, it is anticipated that the project will provide 8

seminars, 2 workshops at national conferences, and 1 national video

conference to reach a total of 6,000 practitioners. The training will

be conducted at the NIC Academy and regionally. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Training for Line Staff in Juvenile Detention and Corrections

In FY 1994, the National Juvenile Detention Association (NJDA) was

awarded a competitive 3-year project period grant to establish a

training program to meet the needs of the more than 38,000 line staff

of juvenile detention and corrections facilities. In FY 1996, NJDA

developed and pilot tested the 40-hour Corrections Careworker

Curriculum, developed the 24-hour Train-the-Trainer for the Corrections

Careworker Curriculum, conducted 42 separate trainings for 2,700

participants, developed 2 new lesson plans in safety and conflict

resolution, and provided technical assistance to 37 agencies.

In FY 1997, the third year of funding, NJDA will continue to offer

training to practitioners, including the new Corrections Careworker

Curriculum for juvenile corrections line staff. Additionally, NJDA will

deliver selected training programs for juvenile detention and

corrections line staff on current issues.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, NJDA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams

To Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding

The Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Correctional

Facilities Research Report (1994), completed by Abt Associates under an

OJJDP grant, identified overcrowding as the most urgent problem facing

juvenile corrections and detention facilities. Overcrowding in juvenile

facilities is a function of decisions and policies made at the State

and local levels. The trend toward increased use of detention and

commitment to State facilities, which has been seen in many

jurisdictions, has been reversed when key decisionmakers, such as the

chief judge, chief of police, director of the local detention facility,

head of the State juvenile correctional agency, and others who affect

the flow of juveniles through the system, agree to make decisions

collaboratively and modify existing practices and policies. In some

instances, modification has occurred in response to court orders.

Compliance

[[Page 35269]]

with court orders can be improved with the support of enhanced

interagency communication and planning among those agencies affecting

the flow of juveniles through the system.

In addressing the problem of overcrowded facilities, OJJDP

considered the recommendations of the Conditions of Confinement study

regarding overcrowding, the data on overrepresentation of minority

youth in confinement, and other information that suggests crowding in

juvenile facilities is a national problem. Policymakers can address

this issue by increasing capacity, where necessary, or by taking other

steps to control crowding.

This project, competitively awarded to the National Juvenile

Detention Association (NJDA) (in partnership with the San Francisco

Youth Law Center) in FY 1994 for a 3-year project period, provides

training and technical assistance materials for use by State and local

jurisdictional teams. In FY 1995, the project collected information on

strategies to control crowding and prepared training and technical

assistance materials. Based on the demonstrated need for assistance and

related criteria, NJDA selected three jurisdictions in FY 1996 (Camden,

New Jersey; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Rhode Island Juvenile

Corrections System) for onsite development, implementation, and testing

of procedures to reduce crowding. In FY 1997, the third year of

funding, the project will continue to provide training and technical

assistance to these sites, complete the development of technical

assistance materials, and assess the procedures used to control

overcrowding.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, NJDA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

National Program Directory

In FY 1995, OJJDP initiated the development of a National Program

Directory, a national list of all juvenile justice offices, facilities,

and programs in the United States, through the Bureau of the Census.

The Census Bureau developed a directory format for juvenile detention

and correctional facilities, which contains the addresses and phone

numbers of localities, names and titles of directors, and important

classification information, classifies facilities by the agency or firm

that operates them, and lists the functions of the facility. This

structure was developed specifically to provide OJJDP with the ability

to conduct surveys and censuses of juvenile custody facilities. The

effort placed into developing this structure also translated to other

areas, such as a list of juvenile probation offices.

Beyond developing the computer structure, this project developed,

in FY 1996, the actual sampling frame or address list. The development

of complete frames for any segment of the juvenile justice system

required many different approaches. The Census Bureau used contacts

with professional organizations to compile a preliminary list of

juvenile facilities, courts, probation offices, and programs. The

Census Bureau will seek contacts in each State for further

clarification of the lists, following up until a complete list of all

programs of interest has been compiled.

This program will be continued in FY 1997 through an existing

interagency agreement with the Census Bureau. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

A Comprehensive Juvenile Sex Offender Typology

The criminal justice system has struggled to address issues related

to juvenile sex offenders' dangerousness, the most appropriate level of

placement restrictiveness, the potential for rehabilitation, assessment

requirements, and intervention needs. Efforts to address these issues

effectively have been hampered by the lack of an empirically-based

system for classifying this heterogeneous population into meaningful

subgroups. OJJDP, in collaboration with other Federal agencies, will

support a competitive research project to generate an empirically

validated typology of the juvenile sex offender that will provide both

the scientific basis for understanding differences between groups of

juvenile sex offenders and direction to guide judicial decisionmaking.

KidsPeace-The National Centers for Kids in Crisis, North America*

The purpose of this program is to provide children in crisis,

specifically seriously disturbed children and adolescents, with

Individual Foster Care (IFC) in a therapeutic family setting. Fiscal

year 1996 accomplishments include opening up family training sessions

to New Jersey foster parents and implementing outreach efforts that

resulted in several hundred calls from individuals interested in

working as foster parents. At present, five families are licensed and

approved. Another 10 families are in various stages of the 10-week

training and approval process. In the near future, a local television

station will broadcast a show featuring the services being offered

through this newly established program in Union, New Jersey.

KidsPeace will expand the program in FY 1997 to additional sites

providing social, emotional, and educational growth and development in

the children served; initial out-of-home placement, community

reintegration from more restrictive residential programs, or an

alternative to failed foster family placements; and intensive family

treatment with professional training, supervision, and ongoing support

to enhance families' abilities to meet the needs of their IFC children.

The program also involves and challenges the family of origin to become

active participants in their child's treatment program (whenever deemed

appropriate by the courts). In FY 1997, KidsPeace will develop an

outcome-based research component to better define the types of children

who are best served in the IFC program, improve the services being

offered, and track the progress of children following discharge from

care.

The program will be implemented by the current grantee, KidsPeace-

The National Centers for Kids in Crisis, North America. No additional

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

The Bethesda Day Treatment Program

Bethesda Day Treatment is a program of the Bethesda Family Services

Foundation. OJJDP began funding the program in FY 1993 to establish a

program in Philadelphia for serious juvenile offenders. The program was

expanded in FY 1995 to replicate the Bethesda model in 10 national

jurisdictions. Since the original grant was made, the Foundation has

established programs in 17 localities. There are programs currently

operating in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, New Mexico, New York,

Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

The Bethesda Day Treatment Program consists of comprehensive

community-based activities designed to safely reduce overcrowding in

secure facilities, provide treatment prior to adjudication, continue

treatment after adjudication or after release from secure treatment,

and provide a continuum of care.

Replication sites receive technical assistance in the development

of six distinct units of program service: day treatment services, a

prep-school, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, foster care, family

systems counseling, and parenting. Accepting juveniles between ages 10

and 17, the program uses 18 different treatment modalities, intensively

penetrating the home, the school, the job site, and the peer group

[[Page 35270]]

in order to interrupt antisocial behavior patterns.

The site replication aspect of this program will be continued in FY

1997 with a continuation award to enable the Bethesda Family Services

Foundation to complete technical assistance delivery to selected sites.

No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice

In October 1996, OJJDP convened a Mental Health/Juvenile Justice

Working Group to discuss the mental health needs of juveniles and to

suggest funding priorities for OJJDP. The Mental Health/Juvenile

Justice Initiative addresses four of the eight ideas generated by the

working group. These areas include: (1) Assessing screening instruments

and screening procedures to identify multi-needs children, adjudicative

competency, and other mental health issues; (2) examining the

effectiveness of organizational structure and how organizations deal

with providing mental health services on both a short-term and long-

term basis; (3) examining the relationship between mental health and

violence and co-occurring disorders; and (4) looking at best practices

such as the use of common funding streams.

In the Proposed Program Plan, OJJDP expressed interest in providing

support in one or more of these areas in FY 1997 and requested input

from the field on suggested priorities, activities, and program

support. The program was identified as a potential competitive program.

Since the proposed plan was released, OJJDP has reassessed this program

and determined that with the minimal resources available it would be

more cost effective to support several ongoing programs funded by other

Federal agencies. Consequently, OJJDP will not be issuing a competitive

solicitation for a mental health program in FY 1997. Instead, it will

transfer funds to three other agencies to support the enhancement of

juvenile justice components or research on at-risk youth in the mental

health area.

OJJDP will transfer funds to the Center for Mental Health Services

(CMHS), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to support

technical assistance to the 22 existing CMHS Service Sites and sites

that will be awarded in FY 1997. These funds will be used to strengthen

the capacity of the existing Service Sites to provide technical

assistance on mental health services for juveniles in the juvenile

justice system and to include them in the continuum of care that is

being created in the sites.

OJJDP will also provide funding to CMHS to support the ongoing

development of Guidelines for Psychiatric Systems of Care for

Adolescents in the Juvenile Justice System. These guidelines, which are

being prepared by the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, will

reflect the experiences of the 22 CMHS Service Sites and document the

best principles for systems of care for youth with serious emotional

disturbances involved in the juvenile justice system. Early

identification protocols, models of diversion, and outcomes that

reflect increases in early identification and reduced recidivism will

be highlighted.

OJJDP will also transfer funds to the National Institute of

Corrections (NIC), which, along with the Substance Abuse and Mental

Health Administration, supports a program to provide technical

assistance with regard to dually diagnosed juvenile offenders. NIC will

supplement the existing technical assistance provider, the GAINS

Center, to enable it to devote technical assistance resources to the

support of programs for dually diagnosed youth in the juvenile justice

system. Currently, the focus of the grant is on the provision of

technical assistance to the adult system.

Additionally, OJJDP will transfer funds to the National Institute

of Mental Health to partially support additional costs associated with

the conduct of an expanded and extended followup study of various

treatment modalities for attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD)

in children. The expanded followup will assess substance abuse, use,

and related factors necessary for evaluating changes in ADHD children's

risk for subsequent substance use and abuse attributable to their

randomly assigned treatment conditions. In addition, the multimodal

treatment study of children with ADHD affords the opportunity to assess

the experience of study participants with the legal system, e.g.,

contacts with the juvenile justice system, acts of delinquency, court

referrals, and other criminal and/or precriminal activities.

Funding will be provided to the existing grantees, and no new

applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Delinquency Prevention and Intervention

Training in Risk-Focused Prevention Strategies

OJJDP will provide additional training in FY 1997 to communities

interested in developing a risk and protective factor-focused

delinquency prevention strategy. This training supports OJJDP's Title V

Community Prevention Grants Program and the Comprehensive Strategy for

Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders by providing the

knowledge and skills necessary for State, local, and private agency

officials and citizens to identify and address risk factors that lead

to violent and delinquent behavior in children. In FY's 1994-1996, this

training was offered to all States, territories, and the District of

Columbia that received discretionary grants from OJJDP to implement the

Title V program.

After initiating this training program in FY 1994, OJJDP awarded a

competitive contract with FY 1995 funds and continued the contract in

1996 to perform ongoing tasks and provide prevention training in the

following areas: (1) orientation on risk-and resiliency-focused

prevention theories and strategies for local community leaders; (2)

identification, assessment, and addressing of risk factors; (3)

development and provision of training of trainers in selected States to

provide a statewide capacity to train communities in risk-focused

prevention; and (4) provision of technical assistance to States and

localities for needs identified through implementation of the Title V

program.

These services will be provided in FY 1997 through third-year

funding of the contract awarded to Developmental Research and Programs,

Inc. A new competitive solicitation may be issued late in FY 1997 for

award in FY 1998.

Youth Substance Use Prevention Programs (President's Crime Prevention

Council)

Due to the urgency of the problem of drug use among juveniles and

the importance of having Federal agencies undertake collaborative

efforts to make the most efficient and effective use of resources,

OJJDP joined with the President's Crime Prevention Council (PCPC) and

early this year issued a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the

Youth Substance Use Prevention Program and the evaluation of that

program. The program will assist community-based, youth-led, and

grassroots organizations that sponsor activities designed to combat

youth drug and alcohol use and provide an evaluation of the funded

programs. Up to $1 million is being made available from PCPC funds.

OJJDP will administer the program under an interagency agreement with

PCPC.

OJJDP also issued a separate, competitive solicitation to evaluate

the

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Youth Substance Use Prevention Program. The substance use prevention

evaluation strategy used by the selected grantee must be theory driven

and based on sound research principles. Both a process and an outcome

evaluation will be performed. The outcome evaluation will determine

whether youth-led prevention programs are effective. The process

evaluation will define the critical elements of implementing a

successful youth-led prevention program.

The deadlines for applications for the Youth Substance Use

Prevention Program and for its evaluation have passed, and the

selection process for both awards is now under way.

Survey of School-Based Gang Prevention and Intervention Programs

This program will assess school-based gang prevention and

intervention programs to identify promising or successful models for

national demonstration and evaluation or replication and dissemination.

For example, one type of program of interest is a youth gang unit in

the school. The school youth gang unit serves as the first line of

defense against the problem of gangs. Some units address gang crimes

and school rule violations citywide. Another program of interest would

be entrepreneurial skills programs for youth to prevent them from

staying in gangs. Examples of this type of program are found in schools

that develop stores or gardens and train young people in marketable

skills, giving them high school or college credit for successfully

participating in the training.

OJJDP will issue a competitive solicitation for this initiative in

FY 1997.

Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution

Increasing levels of juvenile violence have become a national

concern. Violence in and around school campuses and conflict among

juveniles in both schools and neighborhoods are problems for school

administrators, teachers, parents, community leaders, and the public.

Although experts may debate the merits and impact of the varied

contributing factors, they would agree that most school curriculums do

not provide for the systematic teaching of problem-and conflict-

resolving skills.

To address this issue, OJJDP awarded a competitive cooperative

agreement in FY 1995 for a 3-year project period to the Illinois

Institute for Dispute Resolution (IIDR) to develop, in concert with

other established conflict resolution (CR) organizations, a national

strategy for broad-based education and training in the use of conflict

resolution skills. In support of this task, IIDR conducted three

regional conferences based on a joint publication developed by the

Departments of Justice and Education. IIDR also provided technical

assistance and disseminated information about CR programs to

individuals, organizations, and communities.

In FY 1997, the project will conduct additional training sessions

as part of, or in conjunction with, established meetings or conferences

of national educational, justice, and youth-serving organizations. IIDR

will also develop a training manual and provide training in CR

education to administrators; school staff; and youth, parents, and

staff associated with arts-based programs for at-risk youth. The arts

component is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The project will be implemented by the current grantee, IIDR. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Teens, Crime, and the Community: Teens in Action in the 90s*

This continuation program is conducted by the National Crime

Prevention Council (NCPC) in partnership with the National Institute

for Citizen Education in the Law (NICEL). Teens in Action in the 90s is

a special application of the Teens, Crime, and Community (TCC) program

that operates on the premise that teens, who are disproportionately the

victims of crimes, can contribute to improving their schools and

communities through a broad array of activities.

During FY 1996, the TCC Program expanded through five regional

expansion centers located in New England, the Mid-Atlantic States, the

Mid-South, the Deep South, and the Pacific Northwest Coast. These TCC

projects utilized Boys and Girls Clubs of America and their affiliates

to become partners in TCC efforts in these regions.

More than 5,000 teachers, social service providers, juvenile

justice professionals, law enforcement officers, and other community

leaders participated in intensive training to help sites implement the

TCC curriculum in their communities. More than 1,000 individuals

benefited from technical assistance, materials, and consultation

regarding TCC in areas of program implementation, fund development, and

networking opportunities. In addition, NCPC and NICEL initiated the

implementation of the National Teens, Crime, and the Community Program

in the six SafeFutures sites. In FY 1997, TCC will be implemented in

additional sites throughout the country.

The program will be implemented by the current grantee, NCPC. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997.

Law-Related Education (LRE)*

The national Law-Related Education (LRE) Program, Youth for

Justice, includes 5 coordinated LRE projects and programs operating in

48 States and 4 non-State jurisdictions. Youth for Justice provides

training and technical assistance to State and local school

jurisdictions that are designed to achieve the institutionalization of

quality LRE programs for at-risk juveniles. The major components of the

program are coordination and management, training and technical

assistance, assistance to local program sites, public information, and

program development and assessment. In 1996, the Youth for Justice

program continued to provide materials, training, and technical

assistance to its national network of statewide LRE centers and

sponsored youth summits in more than 40 States. The focus of the

program during FY 1997 will be to continue linking LRE to violence

reduction efforts and to involve program participants in finding

solutions to juvenile violence. Planned activities for FY 1997 include

a national teleconference and dissemination of information about

special applications of LRE developed for high-risk segments of the

population (middle school students and teen parents). Youth for Justice

will also produce and disseminate a technical assistance compendium of

LRE research and best practices.

This program will be implemented by the current grantees, the

American Bar Association, the Center for Civic Education, the

Constitutional Rights Foundation, the National Institute for Citizen

Education in the Law, and Phi Alpha Delta. No additional applications

will be solicited in FY 1997.

Communities in Schools--Federal Interagency Partnership

This program is a continuation of a national school dropout

prevention model developed and implemented by Communities In Schools,

Inc. (CIS). CIS, Inc., provides training and technical assistance to

CIS programs in States and local communities, enabling them to adapt

and implement the CIS model. The model brings social, employment,

mental health, drug prevention, entrepreneurship, and other resources

to high-risk youth and their families in the school setting. Where CIS

State organizations are established, they assume primary responsibility

for local

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program replication during the Federal Interagency Partnership.

The Federal Interagency Partnership program is based on the

following strategies: (1) To enhance CIS, Inc., training and technical

assistance capabilities; (2) to enhance the organization's capability

to introduce selected initiatives to CIS youth at the local level; (3)

to enhance the CIS, Inc., information dissemination network capability;

and (4) to enhance the CIS, Inc., capability to network with Federal

agencies on behalf of State and local CIS programs.

Fiscal year 1996 accomplishments under the Federal Interagency

Partnership include the following: (1) Continued support and expansion

of the CIS Youth Entrepreneurial Project, including 16 student-run

entrepreneurship programs; (2) expansion of a consulting program

consisting of a pool of CIS State and local program directors and other

experts to support programs that include community collaboration,

strategic planning, and working with at-risk youth; (3) production and

distribution of two issues of Facts You Can Use: Seeds of Help, a

technical publication concentrating on functional areas of importance

to local CIS programs and the sponsors of the Federal Interagency

Partnership; and (4) a 3-day training session featuring presentations

from Federal agencies on the financial and programmatic resources

available through their Departments.

Fiscal year 1997 activities under consideration include: (1)

Provide continuing training and technical assistance on family

strengthening and parent participation initiatives that will expand and

enhance CIS family service activities; (2) offer and provide training

and technical assistance, as requested, to the six SafeFutures sites;

(3) work with groups identified by the U.S. Department of Commerce to

continue to support the development of a CIS program serving a Native

American community in Rapid City, South Dakota; (4)support the

continued expansion of the CIS Youth Entrepreneurship initiative; (5)

update and produce the publication CIS: A History of Partnership and

produce and distribute the CIS Facts You Can Use technical bulletin

quarterly; (6) continue to identify violence prevention and gang

prevention programs appropriate for use by the CIS network; and (7)

continue to incorporate evaluated family strengthening programs in the

Facts You Can Use technical bulletin and the Federal Products Showcase.

The Federal Interagency Partnership program is jointly funded by

OJJDP and the Department of Commerce under an OJJDP grant. The program

will be implemented by the current grantee, Communities In Schools,

Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1997

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