Proposed Comprehensive Plan for Fiscal Year 1998

SUMMARY: The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is

publishing this notice of its Proposed Comprehensive Plan for fiscal

year (FY) 1998.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before March 23, 1998.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to Shay Bilchik, Administrator,

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Room 8413, 810

Seventh Street, NW., Washington, DC 20531.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eileen M. Garry, Acting Director,

Information Dissemination Unit, 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. 5601 et seq. (JJDP Act),

the Administrator of OJJDP is publishing for public comment a Proposed

Comprehensive Plan describing the program activities that OJJDP

proposes to carry out during FY 1998. The Proposed Comprehensive Plan

includes activities authorized in Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP

Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. 5651-5665a, 5667, 5667a. Taking into

consideration comments received on this Proposed Comprehensive Plan,

the Administrator will develop and publish a Final Comprehensive Plan

describing the particular program activities that OJJDP intends to fund

during FY 1998, using in whole or in part funds appropriated under

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

Notice of the official solicitation of grant or cooperative

agreement applications under the Final Comprehensive Plan will be

published at a later date in the Federal Register. No proposals,

concept papers, or other forms of application should be submitted at

this time.

Overview

After a decade of steady increases in juvenile crime and violence,

the trend is being reversed. The United States has experienced a

downturn in juvenile violent crime arrests for 2 straight years (3

years for murder arrests). Figures released in 1997 show that juvenile

arrests for murder declined 14 percent 2 years in a row--and 3 percent

the year before that. From 1995 to 1996, juvenile arrests for robbery

declined 8 percent; for the previous year, they decreased 1 percent.

The overall Violent Crime Index arrests of juveniles declined 6 percent

in 1996, following a 3-percent drop in 1995.

The decreases in juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests must be kept

in perspective, however. Even with the 2-year decline, the 1996 number

was 60 percent above the 1987 level. In comparison, adult Violent Crime

Index offense arrests rose 24 percent over the same period.

In the area of drug use violations, juveniles were involved in 14

percent of all drug arrests in 1996 (compared with 13 percent in 1995).

However, arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations increased 6

percent from 1995 to 1996, a smaller increase than the previous year's

18 percent. In addition, between 1992 and 1996, juvenile arrests for

drug abuse violations increased 120 percent, compared with a 138-

percent increase between 1991 and 1995.

Thus, in the second half of the 1990's, juvenile violent crime and

drug use are still significantly higher than in the late 1980's but

beginning to show signs of trending downward. The juvenile justice

system needs to build on the positive momentum of these recent

decreases by continuing to focus on programs and strategies that work.

This requires a concerted effort on the part of Federal, State, and

local government, in partnership with private organizations and

community agencies, to ensure that available resources are used in a

way that maximizes their impact; decreases juvenile crime, violence,

and victimization; and increases community safety.

Federal leadership in responding to the problems confronting the

Nation's juvenile justice system 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 numerous 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 also 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.

In the FY 1998 Appropriations Act, Congress provided funding for

two new OJJDP programs. These are not funded under Parts C and D of

Title II of the JJDP Act, which are the focus of this Proposed Program

Plan. However, mention of these new programs here, along with an

additional program that OJJDP will administer, may help to alert those

who work in the juvenile justice field to the existence of these new

programs. Recognizing that, ``while crime is on the decline in certain

parts of America, a dangerous precursor to crime, teenage drug use, is

on the rise and may soon reach a 20-year high,'' Congress provided $5

million in funds for the development, demonstration, and testing of

programs designed ``to reduce drug use among juveniles'' and ``to

increase the perception among children and youth that drug use is

risky, harmful, and unattractive.'' Funding for the drug prevention

program is discretionary, and the Appropriations Act directs OJJDP to

submit a program plan for the drug prevention program by February 1,

1998. Twenty-five million dollars in funds were also provided for an

underage drinking program. Much of the funding for the underage

drinking program will be made available to the States and the District

of Columbia through formula grants of $360,000 each (total $18.36

million), with $5 million in discretionary funding, and $1.64 million

for training and technical assistance to support the program. OJJDP

will also administer the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants

program authorized in the FY 1998 Appropriations Act. Of the $250

million available under this new block grant program, 3 percent is

available for research, evaluation, and demonstration activities

related to the program and 2 percent is available for related training

and technical assistance activities.

[[Page 6339]]

Further information on these programs will be provided to the field in

the near future.

Cognizant of the trends in juvenile crime and violence and of its

responsibilities and mission, OJJDP has developed a Proposed Program

Plan for FY 1998 for activities authorized under Parts C and D of Title

II of the JJDP Act, as described below.

Fiscal Year 1998 Program Planning Activities

The OJJDP program planning process for FY 1998 is being 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 involves 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 provide OJJDP with

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 and Part D funds and

eligible for continuation funding in FY 1998, 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 this Proposed Program Plan are those

that are receiving Part C or Part D FY 1998 continuation funding and

programs that OJJDP is considering for new awards in FY 1998.

Consideration for continuation funding for an additional project

period for previously funded discretionary grant programs will be 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 1998

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 shall not be 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

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 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-

based 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

[[Page 6340]]

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. Activities to support this goal include

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 strengthening

its juvenile detention and corrections capacity and intensifying

efforts to use juvenile detention and correctional facilities in

appropriate circumstances and under conditions that maximize public

safety, while at the same time 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 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.

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 and 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 three broad goals, OJJDP divides its programs

into four broad categories: public safety and law enforcement;

strengthening the juvenile justice system; delinquency prevention and

intervention; and child abuse, neglect, and dependency courts. A fifth

category, overarching programs, contains programs that have significant

elements common to more than one category. Following the introductory

section below, the programs that OJJDP proposes to fund in FY 1998 are

listed and summarized within these five categories.

Introduction to Fiscal Year 1998 Program Plan

An effective juvenile justice system must implement a sound

comprehensive strategy and must identify and support programs that work

to further the objectives of the strategy. These objectives include

holding the juvenile offender accountable; enabling the juvenile to

become a capable, productive, and responsible citizen; and ensuring the

safety of the community.

For juveniles who come to the attention of police, juvenile courts,

or social service agencies, a strong juvenile justice system must

assess the danger they pose, determine what can help put them back on

the right track, deliver appropriate treatment, and stay with them when

they return to the community. When necessary, a strong juvenile justice

system also must appropriately identify those serious, violent, and

chronic juveniles offenders who are beyond its reach and ensure their

criminal prosecution and incapacitation.

Research has shown that what works to reduce juvenile crime and

violence includes prevention programs that start with the earliest

stages of life: good prenatal care, home visitation for newborns at

risk of abuse and neglect, steps to strengthen parenting skills, and

initiatives to prepare children for school. These programs can build

the foundation for law-abiding lives for children and interrupt the

cycle of violence that can turn abused or neglected children into

delinquents.

Prevention programs work for older children, too: opportunities for

youth after school and on weekends, such as Boys and Girls Clubs and

mentoring programs, reduce juvenile alcohol and drug use, improve

school performance, and prevent youth from getting involved in crime

and violent behavior.

Another focal point for juvenile justice efforts is the community.

Without healthy communities, young people cannot thrive. The key

leaders in the community, including representatives from the juvenile

justice, health and mental health, schools, law enforcement, social

services, and other systems, as well as leaders from the private

sector, must be jointly engaged in the planning, development, and

operation of the juvenile justice system. Attempts to improve the

juvenile justice system must be part of a broad, comprehensive,

communitywide effort--both at the leadership and grassroots level--to

eliminate factors that place juveniles at risk of delinquency and

victimization, enhance factors that protect them from engaging in

delinquent behavior, and use the full range of resources and programs

within the community to meet the varying needs of juveniles. It is also

important to provide increased public access to the system to ensure an

appropriate role for victims, a greater understanding of how the system

operates, and a higher level of system accountability to the public.

The recent decreases in all measures of juvenile violence known to

law enforcement (number of arrests, arrest rates, and the percentage of

violent crimes cleared by juvenile arrests) should encourage

legislators, juvenile justice policymakers and practitioners, and all

concerned citizens to support ongoing efforts to address juvenile crime

and violence through a comprehensive approach.

Three documents published during the past 5 years provide the

framework

[[Page 6341]]

for a comprehensive approach to an improved, more effective juvenile

justice system. OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent,

and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (1993) and Guide for Implementing the

Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile

Offenders (1995) were followed in 1996 by the Coordinating Council on

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Combating Violence and

Delinquency: The National Juvenile Justice Action Plan. The first of

these publications defined the elements of the comprehensive strategy.

The second provided States and communities with a more detailed

explanation of what would constitute the elements of a comprehensive

strategy, including strategic and programmatic information on risk and

protective factor-based prevention and a system of graduated sanctions.

The third prioritized Federal, State, and local activities and

resources under eight critical objectives that are central to reducing

and preventing juvenile violence, delinquency, and victimization.

The OJJDP FY 1998 Proposed Program Plan is rooted in the principles

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

Like the OJJDP Program Plans for FY's 1996 and 1997, the FY 1998

Proposed 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 to juvenile offending, and preventing the onset of delinquency.

The Proposed Program Plan, therefore, 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 1998 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. In a departure from past

practice, OJJDP is presenting for public comment more proposed programs

than it expects to be able to fund with the resources available. It is

OJJDP's intent to stimulate discussion of the best use of its FY 1998

discretionary funding and to seek guidance from the field as to which

programs, among the many described here, would most effectively advance

the goals of promoting delinquency prevention and early intervention,

improving the juvenile justice system, and preserving the public

safety.

OJJDP is considering providing funding for a wide variety of new

programs, including technical assistance to promote teen court

programs, training and technical assistance coordination for the

SafeFutures initiative, and training and technical assistance for the

Blueprints for Violence Prevention project and for a school safety

program. New proposals also involve OJJDP collaboration with other

agencies to address problems such as truancy, develop arts programs

directed toward at-risk youth and youth held in juvenile detention

centers, support the planning and development of systems of care for

Native American and Alaskan Native youth with mental health and

substance abuse needs, develop and implement a teambuilding project

designed to facilitate coordination and foster innovative solutions to

problems facing juvenile courts, and support demonstration projects

designed to intervene early with students with learning disabilities to

prevent delinquency and also to prevent recidivism by those students in

correctional settings. In addition, OJJDP is considering providing

funding for initial planning and implementation of a Juvenile Defender

Center, coordination of youth-related volunteer services, support for

programs designed to build infrastructure for programming for female

juvenile offenders and teen mothers, and support for additional work in

the area of disproportionate minority confinement in secure juvenile

facilities and other institutions. Some of the proposed new program

areas for FY 1998 are specific while others are more general, as can be

seen in the program descriptions that appear later in the Program Plan.

In addition, OJJDP has identified for FY 1998 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.

New evaluation initiatives that may be undertaken include the

Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile

Offenders; the Boys and Girls Clubs of America's TeenSupreme Career

Preparation Initiative; analysis and interpretation of juvenile

justice-related data from nontraditional sources; evaluation capacity

building in States; and field-initiated research and evaluation.

Combined with new OJJDP programs and programs being continued in FY

1998, these new demonstration and evaluation programs would 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 1998 programs are at

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

focusing on new areas of programming such as the Juvenile Defender

Center and the role of the arts for juveniles in detention centers and

for at-risk youth, 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 supporting programs

that reduce the likelihood of juvenile involvement in hate crimes,

reduce juvenile gun violence, promote positive approaches to conflict

resolution, and explore the mental health needs of juveniles. Together,

these and other activities provide a comprehensive 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 is considering development of a rural

gang prevention and intervention program and 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, activities related to the identification of 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

builds on OJJDP's youth-focused community policing, mentoring, and

conflict resolution initiatives and programming, including the work of

the Congress of National Black Churches in supporting local churches to

address the prevention of drug abuse, youth violence, and hate crime.

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

SafeKids/Safe Streets demonstration program, currently being

implemented in

[[Page 6342]]

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, particularly in

relation to juvenile violence and its impact.

As described below, 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. An

additional OJJDP goal is to help practitioners and policymakers

translate this information into action through its training and

technical assistance providers as part of its mission to provide

meaningful assistance for the replication of successful and promising

strategies and programs.

OJJDP will continue to fund longitudinal research on the causes and

correlates of delinquency. Even more important, however, OJJDP will

regularly share the findings from this research with the field through

OJJDP's publications, Home Page on the World Wide Web, and JuvJust (an

electronic newsletter); utilize state-of-the-art technology to provide

the field with an interactive CD-ROM on promising and effective

programs 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.

Some examples of these publication topics include youth action to

prevent delinquency; family strengthening; juvenile substance abuse

(prevention, intervention, and testing); balanced and restorative

justice; developmental pathways in delinquent behavior, gang migration,

capacity building for substance abuse treatment, youth gangs,

restitution programs, school safety, and conditions of confinement.

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. In

the past few years, the combined efforts of these varied groups have

brought about the beginnings of change in the prevalence of juvenile

crime, violence, and victimization. Now is the time to strengthen old

partnerships and forge new ones to develop support for a long-term,

comprehensive approach to a more effective juvenile justice system.

Fiscal Year 1998 Programs

The following are brief summaries of each of the new and

continuation programs scheduled to receive funding in FY 1998. As

indicated above, the program categories are public safety and law

enforcement; strengthening the juvenile justice system; delinquency

prevention and intervention; and child abuse and neglect and dependency

courts. 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 OJJDP programs have been identified for funding

consideration by Congress with regard to the grantee(s), the amount of

funds, or both. These programs, which are listed below, are not

included in the program descriptions that follow.

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

Teens, Crime, and the Community

Parents Anonymous, Inc.

Juvenile Offender Transition Program

Suffolk University Center for Juvenile Justice

Center for Crimes and Violence Against Children

Crow Creek Alcohol and Drug Program

Metro Denver Gang Coalition

In addition, OJJDP has been directed to examine each of the

following proposals, provide grants if warranted, and report to the

Committees on Appropriations of both the House and the Senate on its

intention for each proposal:

Coalition for Juvenile Justice

The Hamilton Fish National Institute on School/Community Violence

Low Country Children's Center

Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services

Grassroots Drug Prevention Program

Dona Ana Camp

Center for Prevention of Juvenile Crime and Delinquency at Prairie View

University

Project O.A.S.I.S.

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

Consortium on Children, Families, and Law

New Mexico Prevention Project

No Hope in Dope Program

Study of the Link Between Child Abuse and Criminal Behavior in Alaska

Gainesville Juvenile Assessment Center

Lincoln Council on Alcohol and Drugs

Hill Renaissance Partnership

National Training and Information Center

Culinary Arts Training Program for At-Risk Youth

Women of Vision Program for Youthful Female Offenders

Violence Institute of New Jersey

Delancy Street Foundation

Law-Related Education

Fiscal Year 1998 Program Listing

Overarching

SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

Evaluation of SafeFutures

Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract

Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and

Technical Assistance Center

Technical Assistance for State Legislatures

Telecommunications Assistance

OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice Resource

Center

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

[[Page 6343]]

Insular Area Support

Community Assessment Centers (CAC's)

Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures

Initiative

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)

National Youth Gang Center

Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention

Safe Start--Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)

Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program

Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence

Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention,

and Suppression Technical Assistance and Training

Rural Youth Gang Problems--Adapting OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach

Delinquency Prevention and Intervention

Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution

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

Training and Technical Assistance for Family Strengthening Programs

Hate Crime

Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and

Families

Diffusion of State Risk-and Protective-Factor Focused Prevention

Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD

Evaluation of the Juvenile Mentoring Program

Truancy Reduction

Arts and At-Risk Youth

Community Volunteer Coordinator Program

Learning Disabilities Among Juveniles At Risk of Delinquency or in the

Juvenile Justice System

Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future

Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System

Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders

Balanced and Restorative Justice Project (BARJ)

Training and Technical Assistance Program To Promote Gender-Specific

Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders

Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies

Replication and Extension of Fagan Transfer Study

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 the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program

Training and Technical Assistance for National Innovations To Reduce

Disproportionate Minority Confinement (The Deborah Ann Wysinger

Memorial Program)

Juvenile Probation Survey Research

Training for Juvenile Corrections and Detention Management Staff

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

Juvenile Sex Offender Typology

Interagency Programs on Mental Health and Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Residential Facility Census

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97

National Academy of Sciences Study of Juvenile Justice

TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative

Technical Assistance to Native Americans

Training and Technical Assistance To Promote Teen Court Programs

Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures

Initiative

School Safety

Disproportionate Minority Confinement

Arts Programs in Juvenile Detention Centers

``Circles of Care''--A Program To Develop Strategies To Serve Native

American Youth With Mental Health and Substance Abuse Needs

Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center

Gender-Specific Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders

Evaluation Capacity Building

Field-Initiated Research

Field-Initiated Evaluation

Analysis of Juvenile Justice Data

Evaluation of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders

Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Training and Technical Assistance

Teambuilding Project for Courts

Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts

Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and

Neglect and Preventing Delinquency

National Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program

Secondary Analysis of Childhood Victimization

Evaluation of Nurse Home Visitation in Weed and Seed Sites

Overarching

SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

OJJDP is awarding grants of up to $1.4 million annually to each of

six communities for a 5-year project period that began in FY 1995, to

assist in implementing comprehensive community programs designed to

reduce youth violence and delinquency. Boston, Massachusetts; Contra

Costa County, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri;

Imperial County, California (rural site); and Fort Belknap, Montana

(tribal site) were competitively selected to receive 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

[[Page 6344]]

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; after school 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 a full-time

TTA coordinator for SafeFutures and a host of partner organizations

committed to assisting SafeFutures sites. The TTA coordinator 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

grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Evaluation of SafeFutures

In FY 1995, OJJDP funded six communities under the SafeFutures:

Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency program. The

program sites are Boston, Massachusetts; Contra Costa County,

California; Fort Belknap Indian Community, Harlem, Montana; Imperial

County, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri. The

SafeFutures Program provides support for a comprehensive prevention,

intervention, and treatment program to meet the needs of at-risk

juveniles and their families. In total, up to $8.4 million is being

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 Phase I of the national

evaluation of the SafeFutures program. OJJDP would consider 2 years of

additional funding for Phase II. The evaluation addresses the program

implementation process and measures performance outcomes across the six

sites. The process evaluation focuses primarily on the development and

implementation of a strategic plan designed to establish a continuum of

care and integrated services for young people in high-risk communities.

The evaluation will identify obstacles and key factors contributing to

the successful implementation of the SafeFutures program. The evaluator

is responsible for developing a cross-site report documenting the

process of program implementation for use by other funding agencies or

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 that links

program activities and outputs to desired intermediate and long-term

outcomes. Their evaluator also held a cross-site cluster meeting and

conducted site visits at each of the six SafeFutures sites.

In FY 1997, in addition to continuing its onsite monitoring, the

Urban Institute, in collaboration with the OJJDP SafeFutures program

management team, developed the national evaluation plan and introduced

it to the sites at the cluster meeting on information technology held

in Oakland, CA, in September 1997.

In FY 1998, the Urban Institute will continue the process

evaluation and will conduct interviews with key stakeholders, service

providers, and youth in order to assess the extent to which a community

and its policy board have mobilized to implement a continuum of care

and develop an integrated system of services over the course of

SafeFutures program implementation. The research team will also

complete the development of performance measures to be used by all

sites to monitor the outcomes for targeted populations within and

across sites. They will compile and process the results of the

performance outcomes from the sites and provide feedback to both the

sites and to OJJDP. Beginning in FY 1998, the national evaluator will

design and conduct sample surveys of youth in the community to assist

in monitoring community-level changes in the prevalence and incidence

of certain risk factors as well as developmental and community assets

on levels of delinquency and violence in the targeted community. In

addition, longitudinal samples of youth and their families will be

followed over time to observe the extent to which multiple needs are

identified and responded to over the course of the SafeFutures program

interventions.

The evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, the

Urban Institute. No additional applications will be solicited in FY

1998.

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 (Causes and Correlates): The

University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh, and

the University at Albany, State University of New York. Results from

this longitudinal study have been used extensively in the field of

juvenile justice and have contributed significantly to the development

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

Juvenile Offenders and other OJJDP program initiatives.

OJJDP began funding this program in 1986 and has invested

approximately $10.3 million to date. Currently, OJJDP is supporting

site data analyses under three-year project period grants awarded to

each site in FY 1996. The Causes and Correlates program has addressed a

variety of issues related to 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 Causes and

Correlates project sites, each has unique design features.

Additionally, each project has

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disseminated the results of its research through a broad range of

publications, reports, and presentations.

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

program was provided funds to further analyze the longitudinal data.

Among the numerous analyses conducted were risk factors for teenage

fatherhood, patterns of illegal gun carrying among young urban males,

and factors associated with early sexual activity among urban

adolescents. Two publications were developed as part of the newly

launched Youth Development Series of OJJDP Bulletins.

In FY 1997, the sites continued both their collaborative research

efforts and site-specific research. The cross site analysis was on the

early onset and co-occurrence of persistent serious offending. Site

specific analyses were produced on victimization, over time changes in

delinquency and drug use, impact of family changes on adolescent

development, and neighborhood, individual, and social risk factors for

serious juvenile offending.

In FY 1998, at least one major cross site analysis will be

undertaken as well as three site specific analyses per study site.

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, University at Albany, State

University of New York. No additional applications will be solicited in

FY 1998.

OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract

OJJDP's Management Evaluation Contract was competitively awarded in

1995 for a period of 3 years. Its purpose is to provide OJJDP with an

expert resource capable of performing independent program evaluations

and assisting the Office in implementing evaluation activities. The

management evaluation contract currently provides the following types

of assistance to OJJDP: (1) Assists OJJDP staff in the determination of

evaluation needs of programs, program areas, or projects to assist the

agency in determining when to invest its evaluation resources; (2)

develops evaluation designs that OJJDP can use in defining requirements

for a grant or contract to implement the evaluation; (3) provides

technical assistance with regard to evaluation techniques to other

jurisdictions involved in the evaluation of programs to prevent and

treat juvenile delinquency; (4) responds to the needs of OJJDP by

providing evaluations based on available data or data that can be

readily developed to support OJJDP decisionmaking under whatever

schedule is required by the decisionmaking process. Evaluations under

this contract are program evaluations, that is, evaluations of either

individual grants or con tracts or groups of grants or contracts that

are designed to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the

program; (5) conduct a full-scale evaluation research project; and (6)

provide training to OJJDP program managers and other staff on

evaluation-related topics such as the different kinds of evaluation

data and their uses, planning for program or project information

collection and evaluation, and the role of evaluation in the agency

planning process.

Under this contract, evaluations may be conducted on OJJDP-funded

action programs, including demonstrations, tests, training, and

technical assistance programs and other programs, not funded by OJJDP,

designed to prevent and treat juvenile delinquency. Evaluations are

carried out in accordance with work plans prepared by the contractor

and approved by OJJDP. Because the evaluations vary in terms of program

complexity, availability of data, and purpose of the evaluation, the

time and cost of each varies. Each evaluation is defined by OJJDP and

costs, method, and time are determined through negotiations between

OJJDP and the contractor. Because the purpose of many evaluations is to

inform management decisions, the completion of an evaluation and

submission of a report may be required in a specific and, often, short

time period.

This contract will be implemented by the current contractor,

Caliber Associates. A new competitive contract solicitation will be

issued during FY 1998, and a new contract awarded in FY 1999.

Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development

The Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD)

program was competitively awarded in FY 1990 to the National Center for

Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) to improve national, State, and local

statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders. Over the last seven

years, through continuation funding, the project has focused on three

major tasks: (1) assessing 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; and (3) providing training and technical

assistance for local agencies in developing or enhancing management

information systems.

Under the second task, OJJDP released the seminal analysis Juvenile

Offenders and Victims: A National Report in September 1995, Juvenile

Offenders and Victims: 1996 Update on Violence in March 1996, and

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1997 Update on Violence in October

1997. A training curriculum, Improving Information for Rational

Decisionmaking in Juvenile Justice, was drafted for pilot testing, and

future documents will be produced based on this effort.

In FY 1998, NCJJ will: (1) 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; (2) update the

Compendium of Federal Statistical Programs on juvenile victims and

offenders and work with the Office of Justice Programs' Crime

Statistics Working Group and other Federal interagency statistics

working groups; (3) provide technical support to OJJDP in enhancing the

availability and accessibility of statistics on the OJJDP web site; (4)

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; and (5)

produce a second edition of Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National

Report.

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

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) is

replacing 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 the CJRP to

more accurately represent the numbers of juveniles in residential

placement and to describe the reasons for their placement. A new method

of data collection, tested in FY 1996, involves gathering data in a

roster-

[[Page 6346]]

type format, often by electronic means. The new methods are expected to

result in more accurate, timely, and useful data on the juvenile

population, with less reporting burden for facility respondents.

In FY 1997, OJJDP funded initial implementation of the CJRP,

including form preparation, mailout, and processing of census forms. In

October 1997, the first census using the revised methodology was

conducted.

OJJDP proposes to continue funding this project in FY 1998 to clean

the data files, allowing the production of new data products based on

the 1997 census.

This program would be implemented through an existing interagency

agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications

would be solicited in FY 1998.

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 established in FY 1995

under a competitive 3-year project period award to Community Research

Associates. NTTAC serves as a national training and technical

assistance clearinghouse, inventorying and coordinating the integrated

delivery of juvenile justice training/technical assistance resources

and establishing a data base of these resources.

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

orientation for OJJDP training/technical assistance providers regarding

their role in the Center's activities, and initial data base

development.

NTTAC's funding in FY 1996 provided services in the form of

coordinated technical assistance support for OJJDP's SafeFutures and

gang program initiatives, continued promotion of collaboration between

OJJDP training/technical assistance providers, developed training/

technical assistance materials, and completed and disseminated the

first 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/technical assistance programs and resources.

In FY 1997, NTTAC completed the first draft of the jurisdictional

team training/technical assistance packages for gender-specific

services and juvenile correctional services; provided training/

technical assistance in support of OJJDP's SafeFutures and Gangs

programs; updated and disseminated the second Training and Technical

Assistance Resource Catalog; created a Web site for the Center and a

ListServe for the Children, Youth and Affinity Group; held three focus

groups on needs assessments; and coordinated and provided 38 instances

of technical assistance in conjunction with OJJDP's training/technical

assistance grantees and contractors.

In FY 1998, NTTAC plans to finalize, field test, and coordinate

delivery of the jurisdictional team training/technical assistance

packages on critical needs in the juvenile justice system, update the

resource catalog, facilitate the annual OJJDP training/TA grantee and

contractor meeting, continue to update the repository of training/TA

materials and the electronic data base of training/TA materials, and

continue to respond to training/TA requests from the field.

The current grantee, Community Research Associates, will complete

its work in FY 1998. A new competitive solicitation would be issued in

FY 1998 for a new project period.

Technical Assistance for State Legislatures

Since FY 1995, OJJDP has awarded annual grants to the National

Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to provide relevant and timely

information on comprehensive approaches in juvenile justice that are

geared to the legislative environment. The purpose of this project is

to aid State legislators in improving State juvenile justice systems

when crafting legislative responses to youth violence. State

legislatures have a unique role and responsibility in establishing

State policy and approaches and appropriating funds for juvenile

justice. Nearly every State has enacted, or is considering, statutory

changes affecting the juvenile justice system. Historically, State

legislatures have lacked the information needed to comprehensively

address juvenile justice issues. Experience with this project indicates

that policymakers find it has helped them understand the ramifications

and nuances of juvenile justice reform.

Since OJJDP began funding this project, NCSL has conducted three

invitational Legislator's Leadership Forums; sponsored sessions on

juvenile justice reform at the NCSL annual meetings; expanded

clearinghouse and juvenile justice enactment reporting; and produced

and distributed a publication, Legislator's Guide to Comprehensive

Juvenile Justice. The invitational meetings were attended by more than

100 legislators and additional legislative staff from 34 States

selected as key decisionmakers on juvenile justice reform. Meeting

sessions and information services reached at least 500 legislators or

legislative staff in all States. In addition, project publications were

distributed to more than 2,000 legislative members, staff, and agencies

to provide for further broad distribution of information central to

comprehensive strategies in juvenile justice to a State legislative

audience throughout the States.

The grant has improved capacity for the delivery of information

services to legislatures, with the number of information requests

handled for legislators and staff having increased to about 500 per

year. It is expected that the Children and Families and Criminal

Justice programs will respond to another 500 information requests in FY

1998.

In FY 1998, NCSL would 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 would provide

intensive technical assistance to four States, continue outreach

activities, and maintain its clearinghouse function. Additionally, NCSL

would assist in the production of a live satellite videoconference

directed primarily to State legislators.

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

additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

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. The advantages of these

technologies include increased access to information and training for

professionals in the juvenile justice system, reduced travel costs to

conferences, and reduced time attending meetings away from one's home

or office. OJJDP uses this cost-effective medium to share with the

field the salient elements of the most effective or promising

approaches to various juvenile justice issues. The field has responded

positively to these live satellite teleconferences and has come to

expect them at regular intervals.

[[Page 6347]]

OJJDP selected Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) through a

competitive program announcement in FY 1992 to conduct a feasibility

study on using this technology in its programming. In FY 1995, EKU was

awarded a competitive grant to undertake production of live satellite

videoconferences. Since the inception of this grant in FY 1995, EKU has

produced 13 live satellite teleconferences, with an average of 360

downlink sites participating in each. The project produced four

teleconferences in FY 1995 (Juvenile Boot Camps, Reducing Youth Gun

Violence, Youth Out of the Education Mainstream, and Conflict

Resolution for Youth), four in FY 1996 (Community Collaboration,

Effective Programs for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile

Offenders, Youth-Oriented Community Policing, Leadership Challenges for

Juvenile Detentions and Corrections), and five in FY 1997 (Has the

Juvenile Court Outlived Its Usefulness?, Youth Gangs in America,

Preventing Drug Abuse Among Youth, Mentoring for Youth, and Treating

Drug-Involved Youth).

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue the cooperative agreement

with EKU in order to provide program support and technical assistance

for a variety of information technologies, including audioconferences,

fiber optics, and satellite teleconferences, producing four to five

additional live national satellite teleconferences. The grantee would

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 would be implemented by the current grantee, EKU. No

additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice

Resource Center

This contract 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. OJJDP proposes to extend the current contract

in FY 1998 until a new contract can be competitively awarded.

Applications have been solicited, and the new contract is expected to

be awarded shortly.

This contract would be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen

Systems Corporation, until a new contract is awarded.

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

A component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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

source for the collection, synthesis, and dissemination of information

on all aspects of juvenile justice, including 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 serves the entire juvenile justice

community, including researchers, law enforcement officials, judges,

prosecutors, probation and corrections staff, youth-service personnel,

legislators, the media, and the public.

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

access to information; prepares specialized responses to information

requests; produces, warehouses, and distributes OJJDP publications;

exhibits at national conferences; maintains a comprehensive juvenile

justice library and data base; and administers several electronic

information resources. Recognizing the critical need to inform juvenile

justice practitioners and policymakers on 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 (NIJ) under a competitively awarded contract to Aspen

Systems Corporation.

This program would continue to be implemented by the current

contractor, Aspen Systems Corporation, until the new contract is

awarded. NIJ will issue a new competitive solicitation in the near

future, and a new contract will be awarded during FY 1998.

Insular Area Support

The purpose of this program is to provide 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 of 1974, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 5665(e).

Community Assessment Centers (CAC's)

The Community Assessment Center (CAC) program is a multicomponent

demonstration initiative designed to test the efficacy of the Community

Assessment Center concept. CAC's provide a 24-hour centralized point of

intake and assessment for juveniles who have or are likely to come into

contact with the juvenile justice system. The main purpose of a CAC is

to facilitate earlier and more efficient prevention and intervention

service delivery at the ``front end'' of the juvenile justice system.

In FY 1997, OJJDP funded two planning grants and two enhancement grants

to existing assessment centers for a 1-year project period, a CAC

evaluation project, and a technical assistance component.

The planning grants were awarded to the Denver Juvenile Court in

Denver, Colorado, and to the Lee County Sheriff's Office in Fort Myers,

Florida, to support a 1-year intensive planning process for the

development and implementation of a CAC in each community. In Denver,

community leaders are assessing the feasibility of a CAC and building

on existing infrastructure developed with support from the Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment's Juvenile Justice Integrated Treatment

Network program. In Fort Myers, community leaders are completing an

initial planning process and are planning to open their CAC in 1998.

Planning in this site will continue after implementation and will focus

on enhancing the CAC in Fort Myers to become more consistent with the

CAC concept and on developing linkages with the community's

Comprehensive Strategy initiative.

The enhancement component of the CAC program is designed to

increase the effectiveness and efficiency of existing assessment

centers by supporting various and specific program enhancements and to

provide support to existing assessment centers in an effort to create

consistency with OJJDP's CAC concept.

Also in FY 1997, two communities received 1-year awards to help

existing assessment centers provide enhanced services and to

demonstrate the effectiveness of the CAC concept overall. Jefferson

Center for Mental Health in Jefferson County, Colorado, and Human

Service Associates, Inc., in Orlando, Florida, were competitively

selected to receive awards under the CAC program on the basis of their

demonstrated commitment to specifically implement an enhancement that

makes the existing CAC more consistent with the CAC concept. The

Jefferson Center for Mental Health is developing an improved ``single

point of entry'' and an improved management information system and

other enhancements consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept. Human

Services

[[Page 6348]]

Associates, Inc., is creating an intensive integrated case management

system for high-risk youth referred to the CAC, an enhancement also

consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide an additional year's funding

to support the full and continued implementation of selected CAC

enhancements and additional support to the sites awarded planning

grants in FY 1997. This funding would enable these sites to begin

implementing the CAC's planned for with OJJDP funding support or to

enhance existing operations.

The CAC initiative evaluation component, being conducted by the

National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the technical assistance

component, being delivered by the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse

Association, were funded in FY 1997 for a 2-year project period and

will not require additional funds in FY 1998.

These programs would be implemented by the current grantees,

Jefferson Center for Mental Health, Human Service Associates, Inc.,

Denver Juvenile Court, and Lee County Sheriff's Office. No additional

applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures

Initiative

OJJDP proposes to provide funding for long-term training and

technical assistance (TA) for the remaining 3 years of the SafeFutures

initiative. The purpose of this TA effort would be to build local

capacity for implementing and sustaining effective continuum of care

and systems change approaches to preventing and controlling juvenile

violence and delinquency in the six SafeFutures communities. Project

activities would include assessment, identification, and coordination

of the implementation of training and TA needs at each SafeFutures site

and administration of cross-site training.

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 began full-scale

implementation of the program model and began serving gang-involved

youth in the targeted areas. In each site, a multidisciplinary team has

been established to coordinate the services that project youth receive.

Teams are made up of various community institution representatives,

including police, probation, outreach or street workers, court

representatives, service providers, and others. The services provided

through this team--or recommended by them--include social interventions

such as outreach, case management, counseling, substance abuse

treatment, anger management, life skills, cultural awareness,

controlled recreation activities, access to educational, social, and

economic opportunities such as GED attainment, school reintegration,

vocational training, and job development and placement. Also included

in the service mix is accountability or social control. This is

provided through traditional suppression from law enforcement and

probation, and also accountability through the schools, community-based

agencies, parents, families, and community members. The team meets

regularly to go over progress with each youth, so that each team member

is aware of prevailing risks and positive developments and can use this

information to be supportive of the youth when contacted in the field

by providing additional services, modifying ``treatment plans,'' or

invoking accountability measures ranging from values clarification and

general motivational support to arrest and prosecution. In addition to

core team members, other agencies also support the programs, such as

the faith community, local Boys and Girls Clubs, and alternative and

mainstream schools.

In some sites, prevention components have been established to work

hand-in-hand with the intervention and suppression program. For

example, in one site a mentoring program has been established for youth

who are younger siblings of gang members targeted in the intervention

components.

The demonstration sites also participated in training and technical

assistance activities, including cluster conferences sponsored by OJJDP

and site-specific consultations on issues such as information sharing

and outreach activities.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide a fourth year of funding to

the demonstration sites to target up to 200 youth prone to gang

violence in each site through continuing implementation of the program

model and work with the independent evaluator of this demonstration

program.

This project would be implemented by the current demonstration

sites. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang

Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program

The University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration,

received a competitive cooperative agreement award in FY 1995. 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; Riverside,

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

realistic and measurable objectives, documenting program

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

strategies. It has also provided interim feedback to the program

implementors.

In FY 1997, following two years of program development and

evaluation design, the grantee trained the local site interviewers;

gathered and tracked data from police, prosecutor, probation, school,

and social service agencies; collected individual gang member

interviews from both the program and comparison areas; provided onsite

technical assistance to the local sites; consulted with local

evaluators on development and implementation of local site parent/

community resident surveys; and coordinated ongoing efforts with local

researchers.

In FY 1998, the grantee will continue to gather and analyze data

required to evaluate the program; monitor and oversee the quality

control of data; provide assistance for completion of interviews; and

provide ongoing feedback to project sites.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the

University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

[[Page 6349]]

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 more constructive programs. In FY 1997, Boys and Girls Clubs of

America provided 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 to some of those in the OJJDP SafeFutures sites. A national

evaluation of this program, through Public/Private Ventures, was also

started in FY 1997 under this award.

In FY 1998, Boys and Girls Clubs of America would provide training

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

intervention sites, and 6 SafeFutures sites.

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

and Girls Clubs of America. No additional applications would be

solicited in FY 1998.

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 (NYC). The NYGC was competitively awarded in FY 1995 for a

3-year project period. The NYGC was created to expand and maintain the

body of critical knowledge about youth gangs and effective responses to

them.

In FY 1997, NYGC continued to assist state and local jurisdictions

to collect, analyze and exchange information on gang-related

demographics, legislation, literature, research and promising program

strategies. It also supported the work of the National Gang Consortium,

a group of federal agencies, gang program representatives and

researchers. A major activity was a survey of all federal agencies and

the presentation of data on their programs, planning cycles and other

resources. It continued to promote the collection and analysis of gang

related data and published the results of its first National Youth Gang

Survey of 2,000 law enforcement agencies.

OJJDP proposes to extend the project an additional year and provide

FY 1998 funds to NYGC to conduct more indepth analyses of the first and

second National Youth Gang Survey results that track changes in the

nature and scope of the youth gang problem. NYGC, through its Focus

Group on Data Collection and Analysis, will also continue its efforts

to foster integration of gang-related items into other relevant surveys

and national data collection efforts.

Fiscal year 1998 funds would support an additional year of funding

to the current grantee, the Institute for Intergovernmental Research.

No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program

COSMOS Corporation received a competitive award in FY 1997. This 3-

year project period award supports OJJDP's Evaluation of the

Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program. The program 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 in four sites.

The sites are Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oakland, California; Shreveport,

Louisiana; and Syracuse, New York.

In FY 1997, the grantee conducted onsite technical assistance

workshops with partner organizations and assisted the sites in planning

and developing local Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence.

In FY 1998, the grantee will develop data collection protocols,

conduct a process evaluation, and continue to provide onsite technical

assistance to the sites. In addition to the four sites listed above,

the grantee will also identify additional promising/effective programs

underway in communities across the country and evaluate a select number

of these programs. With an expanded base of youth gun violence

programs, there is greater opportunity to identify sites that are

employing similar strategies with different targeted populations.

This evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, COSMOS

Corporation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

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. In addition, the Chicago Project serves to

demonstrate 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. The project began

in January 1995 with joint funding from OJJDP and the Centers for

Disease Control and prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury

Prevention and Control (NCIPC), the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and

the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The project currently

provides technical assistance to a variety of community-based and

citywide organizations involved in violence prevention planning. The

majority of the technical assistance supports community level efforts

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 further refined the violence

prevention strategy developed in the Austin community, began

implementation of the strategy, and continued to provide technical

assistance to the Logan Square and Grand Boulevard communities as they

developed their violence prevention strategies.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue funding the project, which

would complete the strategic planning process with Logan Square and

Grand Boulevard and continue to work with Austin in implementing its

strategy.

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention would be implemented by

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

Health. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Safe Start--Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)

The Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP) program,

an innovative partnership between the New Haven Department of Police

Services and the Child Study Center at

[[Page 6350]]

the Yale University School of Medicine, addresses the psychological

burdens on children, families, and the broader community of increasing

levels of community violence. In FY 1993, OJJDP provided support to

document Yale--New Haven's child-centered, community-oriented policing

model. The program model consists of interrelated training and

consultation, including a child development fellowship for police

supervisors; police fellowship for clinicians; seminars on child

development, human functioning, and policing strategies; a 15-hour

training course in child development for all new police officers;

weekly collaborative meetings and case conferences that support

institutional changes in police practices; and establishment of

protocols for referral and consultation to ensure that children receive

the services they need.

In FY 1994, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, using community

policing funds, joined with OJJDP to support the first year of a 3-year

training and technical assistance grant to replicate the CD-CP program

nationwide. In each of FY's 1995, 1996, and 1997, OJJDP provided grants

of $300,000 to the Yale Child Study Center to replicate the model

through training of law enforcement and mental health providers in

Buffalo, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and

Portland, Oregon.

The CD-CP program has provided a wide range of coordinated police

and clinical responses in the four replication sites, including round-

the-clock availability of consultation with a clinical professional and

a police supervisor to patrol officers who assist children exposed to

violence; weekly case conferences with police officers, educators, and

child study center staff; open police stations located in neighborhoods

and accessible to residents for police and related services; community

liaison and coordination of community response; crisis response;

clinical referral; interagency collaboration; home-based followup; and

officer support and neighborhood foot patrols. In the CD-CP program's

last 4 years of operation in the New Haven site, more than 450 children

have been referred to the consultation service by officers in the

field. It is anticipated that these results can be obtained in the

replication sites.

In FY 1997, through a partnership between OJJDP, Violence Against

Women Grants Office, and Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), $700,000

($300,000 from OJJDP, $300,000 from the Violence Against Women Grants

Office, and $100,000 from OVC) was allocated to CD-CP to expand the

program under a new Safe Start Initiative designed to support the

following activities:

Development of a training and technical assistance center

in New Haven consisting of a team of expert practitioners who provide

training for law enforcement, prosecutors, mental health professionals,

school personnel, and probation and parole officers to better respond

to the needs of children exposed to community violence including but

not limited to family violence, gang violence, and abuse or neglect.

Plan for expansion of program sites from the original

four. Future sites, the total number of which are yet to be determined,

will be selected competitively based upon each site's capacity to

establish a core police/mental health provider team concerned with

child victimization.

Further research, data collection, analysis, and

evaluation of CD-CP in the program sites.

The development of a casebook for practitioners, which

will detail intervention strategies and various aspects of the CD-CP

collaborative process.

In order to continue this work in FY 1998, this project will be

continued 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 1998.

Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Program

Juvenile crime and victimization present major challenges to law

enforcement and other practitioners who are responsible for prevention,

intervention, and enforcement efforts. Violent crime committed by

juveniles, juvenile involvement in gangs and drugs, and decreasing

fiscal resources are a few of the challenges facing juvenile justice

practitioners today.

OJJDP is committed to helping Federal, State, local, and tribal

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.

In FY 1997, a 3-year contract period was awarded to John Jay

College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) for the Law Enforcement Training

and Technical Assistance program. Since the program's inception in

March 1997, John Jay has trained approximately 700 State, local, and

tribal workshop participants and provided requested onsite technical

assistance to 16 communities.

Fiscal year 1998 funds will support the continuation of seven

regional training workshops: the Chief Executive Officer Youth Violence

Forum; Managing Juvenile Operations (MJO); Gang, Gun, and Drug Policy;

School Administrators for Effective Operations Leading to Improved

Children and Youth Services (SAFE Policy); Youth Oriented-Community

Policing; Tribal Justice Training and Technical Assistance; and the

Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). A

minimum of 10 of these regional trainings are planned in FY 1998, with

onsite technical assistance provided, upon request. Participants in the

workshops will have access to followup technical assistance that will

enable them to devise, implement, modify, and evaluate community

partnerships and programs in their localities. Online, computer-

assisted training will also be available on OJJDP's Web page, along

with workshop information.

This project will be implemented by the current contractor, John

Jay College of Criminal Justice. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1998.

Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence

OJJDP will award continuation grants of up to $200,000 to each of

four competitively selected communities that initially received funds

in FY 1997 to help them increase the effectiveness of existing youth

gun violence reduction strategies by enhancing and coordinating

prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies and strengthening

linkages between community residents, law enforcement, and the juvenile

justice system. Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oakland, California;

Shreveport, Louisiana; and Syracuse, New York, were competitively

selected to receive 3-year awards.

The goals of this initiative are to reduce juveniles' illegal

access to guns and address the reasons they carry and use guns in

violence exchanges. Each of the sites is required to address five

objectives: (1) Reduce illegal gun availability to juveniles; (2)

reduce the incidence of juveniles' illegally carrying guns; (3) reduce

juvenile gun-related

[[Page 6351]]

crimes; (4) increase youth awareness of the personal and legal

consequences of gun violence; and (5) increase participation of

community residents and organizations in public safety efforts.

To accomplish the goals and objectives, each site will complete the

development of a comprehensive plan and incorporate the following seven

strategies in the target area:

(1) Positive opportunity strategies for young people, such as

mentoring, job readiness, and afterschool programs.

(2) An educational strategy in which students learn how to resolve

conflicts without violence, resist peer pressure to possess or carry

guns, and distinguish between real violence and television violence.

(3) A public information strategy that uses radio, local

television, and print outlets to broadly communicate to young people

the dangers and consequences of gun violence and present information on

positive youth activities taking place in the community.

(4) A law enforcement/community communication strategy that expands

neighborhood communication; community policing, such as a program that

notifies neighborhood residents when particular incidents or concerns

have been addressed; and community supervision to educate at-risk and

court-involved juveniles on the legal consequences of their involvement

in gun violence.

(5) A grassroots community involvement and mobilization strategy

that engages neighborhood residents, including youth, in improving the

community.

(6) A suppression strategy that reduces juvenile access to illegal

guns and illegal gun trafficking in communities by developing special

gun units, using community allies to report illegal gun trade,

targeting gang members and illegal gun possession cases for

prosecution, and increasing sanctions.

(7) A juvenile justice system strategy that applies appropriate

treatment interventions to respond to the needs of juvenile offenders

who enter the system on gun-related charges. Interventions may include

specialized gun courts, family counseling, victim impact awareness

classes, drug treatment, probation, or intensive community supervision,

including aftercare. The approach should focus on addressing the

reasons juveniles had access to, carried, and used guns illegally.

A national evaluation is being conducted by COSMOS Corporation to

document and understand the process of community mobilization,

planning, and collaboration needed to develop a comprehensive,

collaborative approach to reducing juvenile gun violence.

The Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence program will be

carried out by the four current grantees. No additional applications

will be solicited in FY 1998.

Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention,

and Suppression Technical Assistance and Training

Since 1995, OJJDP has provided funding to five communities to

implement and test a comprehensive program model for gang prevention,

intervention and suppression, known as the Spergel model. In 1997, the

sites were awarded continuation funding for the third year of a 3-year

project period grant to continue program implementation. OJJDP is

proposing to provide a fourth year of funding for this program.

To support the ongoing implementation and a potential fourth year

of operations (being proposed elsewhere in this Program Plan), OJJDP

proposes to provide funding to the University of Chicago for enhanced

technical assistance and training services. This award would be made to

the University's Gang Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance

(GRETA) program, through the School of Social Service Administration.

Technical assistance and training to be provided through this award may

include technical assistance and training to law enforcement,

probation, and parole on their role in the model; technical assistance

to community and grassroots organizations on their role in the model;

and technical assistance on team development, information sharing,

information systems, and data collection and on issues of

sustainability and organizational and systems change to better deal

with the community's youth gang problem. Other training and technical

assistance services to be provided may include the development of

relevant materials for onsite use, such as a manual on the model being

implemented (in response to the national evaluation advisory board's

recommendations), a manual on youth outreach and a ``lessons learned''

publication or other materials, including audiovisual and electronic

media. Training and technical assistance services provided under this

project would be limited to OJJDP's comprehensive gang demonstration

sites in Mesa and Tucson, Arizona; Riverside, California; Bloomington,

Illinois; and San Antonio, Texas.

This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the

University of Chicago. No additional applications would be solicited in

FY 1998.

Rural Youth Gang Problems--Adapting OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach

In 1996, OJJDP's National Youth Gang Center completed its first

annual nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies regarding gang

problems experienced in their jurisdictions. This survey represents the

largest number of small law enforcement agencies in rural counties ever

surveyed. Among the findings of this survey is that half of the 2,007

gang survey respondents reporting youth gang problems in 1995 serve

populations under 25,000, confirming that youth gangs are not just a

problem for large cities and metropolitan counties. Youth gangs are

emerging in new localities, especially smaller and rural communities.

Many of the agencies in smaller and rural communities had no personnel

assigned to deal with youth gangs or gang units.

OJJDP's Comprehensive Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention,

and Suppression (Spergel Model) is currently being implemented and

tested in multiple jurisdictions. The communities implementing the

model are mainly suburban and urban in nature, with areas of dense

population within the community.

In light of the rural gang problems exposed by the nationwide gang

survey, OJJDP is considering funding a new initiative to assist rural

communities in implementing the fully adaptable Comprehensive Approach

in a way that is appropriate to rural community needs, through a

comprehensive and systematic problem assessment and program design

process. Upon completion of the problem assessment using law

enforcement-based gang incident, census, and other data, communities

would engage in a process of adapting and applying the Comprehensive

Approach in a way that responds to the gang problems identified.

OJJDP is considering awarding funds to rural communities to

implement a rural youth gang program and also awarding funds for

related evaluation and technical assistance services.

Delinquency Prevention and Intervention

Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution

In FY 1995, OJJDP funded the Illinois Institute for Dispute

Resolution (IIDR) to implement the Youth-Centered Conflict Resolution

(YCCR) program under a competitively awarded 3-year

[[Page 6352]]

cooperative agreement. The purpose of this program, which began in

October 1995, is to integrate conflict resolution education (CRE)

programming into all levels of education in the Nation's schools,

juvenile facilities, and youth-serving organizations.

During the first 2 years, IIDR provided training and technical

assistance through a number of mechanisms. In year one, activities

included participation in the development of a satellite teleconference

on CRE, a presentation on the YCCR program at the National Institute

for Dispute Resolution annual conference, and three regional training

conferences for teams from schools, communities, and juvenile

facilities. IIDR also completed the project's first major resource

document, Conflict Resolution Education: A Guide to Implementing

Programs in Schools, Youth-Serving Organizations, and Community and

Juvenile Justice Settings. Second-year activities included followup

training and intensive technical assistance including onsite work with

the Washington, DC, school system. In the second project year, with

additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, IIDR

developed a pilot curriculum and conducted a series of 10 training

sessions to assist arts program staff and administrators in infusing

conflict resolution skills and principles into art programs for at-risk

youth.

Activities planned for FY 1998 include three national training

conferences, onsite technical assistance to SafeFutures, Weed and Seed,

and other sites, increased followup support, and a survey of gang

intervention programs to identify those that use conflict resolution

techniques as part of their efforts.

Also, IIDR will expand the level of support that project staff

provide to schools, communities, and youth-serving organizations,

including training provided in partnership with national organizations

such as Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the National Juvenile

Detention Association. Efforts will also be undertaken to facilitate

peer-to-peer mentoring among youth education and youth-serving

organizations. Special emphasis will be placed on disseminating

information about effective conflict resolution programs and

implementation issues through print and electronic media. Project staff

will also work with staff in State departments of education and offices

of State Attorneys General to promote replication of local conflict

resolution programs and to partner with State agencies to establish

``training of trainers'' institutes or programs to build local capacity

to implement successful CRE programs for youth.

OJJDP is exploring the possibility of a partnership with the U.S.

Department of Education to expand this project. The project will be

implemented by the current grantee, IIDR. No additional applications

will be solicited in FY 1998.

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

(CIS), Inc. 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 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.

In FY 1997, the CIS--Federal Interagency Partnership: (1) Performed

extensive research and compilation of conference materials and other

resources outlining trends and activities related to family

strengthening and parent participation initiatives; (2) produced a

quarterly issue of Facts You Can Use; (3) formed a committee

responsible for developing a description of the Family Service Center

site strategy; (4) formulated a plan for providing training and

technical assistance to SafeFutures sites; (5) advanced activities

under the Youth Entrepreneurship Program by implementing the second

phase of the minigrant process and by providing technical assistance;

(6) developed a violence prevention resource directory and offered

training on violence prevention; (7) provided program-level liaison and

coordination to facilitate access by State and local CIS organizations

to Federal agency products; and (8) added new features to the CIS web

site to increase local and State program access to Federal resources.

OJJDP proposes to continue funding this project in FY 1998 for

activities including: (1) Provide continuing training and technical

assistance on family strengthening and parent participation initiatives

for the primary benefit of CIS State and local programs; (2) develop a

report on known family strengthening activities occurring within the

CIS network of local programs, highlighting best practices; (3) make

available to the CIS network resources and materials developed by other

organizations that deal with family-focused issues; (4) offer

multitrack trainings to SafeFutures sites and, as appropriate, provide

technical assistance on the CIS process; and (5) produce and distribute

the CIS Facts You Can Use technical bulletin quarterly.

The program would be implemented by the current grantee,

Communities In Schools, Inc. No additional applications would be

solicited in FY 1998.

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

Violence Campaign (NADVC)

OJJDP proposes to award continuation funding to the Congress of

National Black Churches (CNBC) for its national public awareness and

mobilization strategy to address the problems of juvenile drug abuse,

violence, and hate crime in targeted communities. The goal of the CNBC

national strategy is to summon, focus, and coordinate the leadership of

the black religious community, in cooperation with the Department of

Justice and other Federal agencies and organizations, to mobilize

groups of community residents to combat juvenile drug abuse and drug-

related violence.

The CNBC National Anti-Drug Abuse/Violence Campaign (NADVC) is a

partner in the Education Development Center's (EDC) Juvenile Hate Crime

Initiative. NADVC has used EDC's hate crime curriculum to focus on

prevention through the networks and resources in the faith community to

address the impact and roles of juveniles and youth in engaging in and

preventing hate crimes. Two regional conferences were held during the

past year in Columbus, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee.

Approximately 80 participants, representing more than 20 burned

churches from black and white congregations, attended.

In FY 1997, the program expanded through NADVC's Regional Hate

Crime Prevention Initiative, the Campaign's model for anti-drug/

violence strategies, and NADVC's faith community network.

[[Page 6353]]

NADVC has assisted in the development of programs in 87 sites, whose

activities vary depending on their stage of development. The smallest

of these alliances consists of 6 congregations and the largest has 134.

The NADVC program involves approximately 2,220 clergy and affects 1.5

million youth and the adults who influence their lives. NADVC also

provides technical support to four statewide religious coalitions.

NADVC's technical assistance, consultations, and training have

helped sites to leverage more than $15 million in funds from

corporations, foundations, and Federal, State, and local government.

CNBC receives frequent requests for its NADVC model for the development

of prevention programs in the faith community. The model is easily

tailored to the local community's assessment of its drug, delinquency,

violence, and hate crime problems.

NADVC has contributed to many agency conferences, workshops, and

advisory committees on the issues of violence, substance abuse

prevention, policing, and high-risk youth services. The Campaign has

also produced a National Training and Site Development Guide and a

video to assist sites in implementing the NADVC model.

NADVC would continue to expand to new sites in FY 1998, seek new

partnerships, and enhance efforts to address hate crime and family

violence intervention issues.

The program would be implemented by the current grantee, the

Congress of National Black Churches. No additional applications would

be solicited in FY 1998.

Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development

The Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development program, also

known as Early Alliance, is a large-scale prevention study involving

hundreds of children and several elementary schools located in lower

socioeconomic neighborhoods of Columbia, South Carolina. This program

is funded through an interagency agreement with the National Institute

of Mental Health (NIMH). NIMH's grantee is the University of South

Carolina. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the

National Institute on Drug Abuse have also provided funding for the

program.

This large-scale project is designed to promote coping-competence

and reduce risk for conduct problems, aggression, substance use,

delinquency and violence, and school failure beginning in early

elementary school. The project also seeks to alter home and school

climates to reduce risk for adverse outcomes and to promote positive

youth development. Interventions include a classroom program, a

schoolwide conflict management program, peer social skills training,

and home-based family programming. The sample includes African American

and Caucasian children attending schools located in lower income

neighborhoods. There is a sample of high-risk children (showing early

aggressive behavior at school entry), and a second sample consisting of

lower risk children (residing in socioeconomically disadvantaged

neighborhoods). The interventions begin in first grade, and children

are being followed longitudinally throughout the 5 years of the

project.

Funded initially in FY 1997 through a fund transfer to NIMH under

an interagency agreement, support will be continued for an additional 4

years. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Training and Technical Assistance for Family Strengthening Programs

Prevention, early intervention, and effective crisis intervention

are critical elements in a community's family support system. In many

communities, one or more of these elements may be missing or programs

may not be coordinated. In addition, technical assistance and training

are often not available to community organizations and agencies

providing family strengthening services. In response to these needs,

OJJDP awarded a 3-year competitive cooperative agreement in FY 1995 to

the University of Utah's Department of Health Education (DHE) to

provide training and technical assistance to communities interested in

establishing or enhancing a continuum of family strengthening efforts.

In the first program year, the grantee completed initial drafts of

a literature review and summaries of exemplary programs; conducted a

national search for, rated, and selected family strengthening models;

planned 2 regional training conferences to showcase the selected

exemplary and promising family strengthening programs; convened the

first conference for 250 attendees in Salt Lake City, Utah; and

developed an application process for sites to receive followup training

on specific program models.

In the second program year, DHE completed a second draft of the

literature review and model program summaries; convened a second

regional conference in Washington, D.C.; conducted program-specific

workshops; produced user and training-of-trainers guides; and

distributed videos of several family strengthening workshops.

In the third program year, DHE will coordinate technical assistance

and training of agencies that are in the process of implementing the

identified model programs. In addition, the grantee will establish a

minigrant supplement program to provide stipends to a minimum of 10

sites to ensure program implementation. DHE will also update and

publish its literature review and develop program-specific bulletins to

be distributed by OJJDP and also made available on the OJJDP Web site.

The grantee's technical assistance delivery system and the overall

impact of the project will also be assessed.

This program will be implemented in FY 1998 by the current grantee,

the University of Utah's DHE. No additional applications will be

solicited in FY 1998.

Hate Crime

In FY 1998, OJJDP would provide continuation funding to the

Education Development Center (EDC) to expand their hate crime

prevention efforts. EDC has produced and published a multipurpose

curriculum, entitled Healing the Hate, for hate crime prevention in

middle schools and other classroom settings. The curriculum has been

disseminated to 20,000 law enforcement, juvenile justice professionals,

and educators throughout the country.

Because of increased racial, ethnic, and religious tensions and

hate crimes in various regions of the country, OJJDP expanded this

grant to allow EDC to provide training and technical assistance to

youth, educators, juvenile justice and law enforcement professionals

and representatives of local public/private community agencies and

organizations and the faith community. The recipients of this training/

technical assistance obtained the knowledge and skills necessary to

establish prejudice reduction and violence prevention programs to

decrease bias crimes by youth in their communities. During the past

year, EDC conducted training/technical assistance at three sites in

different regions of the country (Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago,

Illinois; and Miami, Florida). Dissemination of products was achieved

through national educational, advocacy, and justice networks and at 15

other national conferences. In FY 1997, additional Hate Crimes project

activities were funded through an interagency agreement with the U.S.

Department of Education.

[[Page 6354]]

In FY 1998, EDC would provide expanded training/technical

assistance to new sites and further disseminate the products through

the education and juvenile justice networks. In addition, EDC would

develop a plan for providing onsite, short-term technical assistance to

practitioners who are experiencing specific hate crime problems, are

interested in assessing the extent of these problems in their locales,

or are developing, implementing, or modifying hate crime prevention

strategies. EDC would also develop a plan to assist State juvenile

justice agencies to formulate hate crime prevention components for

their juvenile delinquency prevention plans.

Guides to the development of hate crime prevention strategies for

selected audiences (juvenile justice agencies, schools, communities)

and hate crime prevention articles and bulletins would be produced and

disseminated. The grantee would research, analyze, and synthesize

information on emerging issues such as the juvenile justice system's

handling of hate crime offenders, alternative dispositions for youth

who commit hate crimes, and approaches to prevention of gender-related

hate crimes and those that target other specific populations, such as

immigrants.

The project would be implemented, in partnership with the U.S.

Department of Education, by the current grantee, Education Development

Center. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and

Families

The abuse of alcohol and other drugs (AOD) is inextricably linked

with both personal and economic adversity and crime in society. Alcohol

and drug abuse exact a devastating toll, especially on the most

vulnerable--young children and adolescents. Recognizing that the U.S.

Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services are both servicing the same pool of children affected by

parental substance use/abuse, the two Departments have initiated a

joint program.

OJJDP will administer this training and technical assistance

program, with FY 1997 funds transferred to OJJDP by the Substance Abuse

and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) through a

cooperative agreement to the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). To

achieve maximum effectiveness in aiding chemically involved families,

child welfare professionals must be able to address entrenched family

problems caused by alcohol and other drug abuse, while simultaneously

delivering services that protect and promote the health and well-being

of children. These professionals need information, resource materials,

and training to increase their knowledge of the link between chemical

dependency and a host of related conditions that negatively affect

child and family well-being.

CWLA, a nonprofit organization, will carry out the required

activities of this interagency agreement by assisting child welfare

personnel to provide appropriate intervention services for AOD-impacted

children and their caregivers. Through collaboration between the CWLA

program, policy specialists in chemical dependency, child protective

services, family support services, foster care, kinship care, and a

cadre of other agencies, CWLA will produce a state-of-the-art

comprehensive assessment tool and decisionmaking guidelines that

frontline child welfare workers and supervisors can use in determining:

(1) How alcohol and drugs are impacting child safety and family

functioning and (2) the most appropriate intervention options for each

child victim.

CWLA will also conduct training for trainers to facilitate

effective use of this guide by child welfare workers.

CWLA's assessment instrument and decision-making guidelines for

chemically-involved children and families will direct the vital first

steps for child welfare professionals toward achieving increased safety

to AOD-involved children and families. This instrument will not only

outline a culturally competent, strengths-based substance abuse

assessment tool, but also suggest new approaches to engaging families

and addressing their needs. The casework, placement, and permanency

planning options outlined in the guidelines will advance participatory

decisionmaking models that result in family strengthening. Case plans

that emphasize flexible options, encourage parents as partners in

decisionmaking, involve extended family in caregiving, can promote the

best interest of children and families.

Training and technical assistance to child welfare professionals

supported by this agreement will help to develop innovative and

effective approaches to meeting the needs of children in the child

welfare system whose parents are AOD abusers. The activities funded by

this agreement will focus on developing, expanding, or enhancing

initiatives that raise public awareness and educate child welfare

workers and policymakers on the most appropriate services for children

of substance abusing parents to prevent these children and youth from

becoming AOD abusers.

OJJDP funds would enable CWLA to produce a guidebook for top-level

officials that describes current practices, models of innovation, and

the policy choices faced in linking child welfare service agencies and

their substance abuse counterparts. Also under consideration is

increasing the number of sites in which CWLA would conduct training-of-

trainer sessions from the four sites and 100 workers approved under the

cooperative agreement, to eight sites and 200 workers.

This jointly funded project would be implemented by CWLA. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Diffusion of State Risk- and Protective-Factor Focused Prevention

OJJDP is providing funds to the National Institute on Drug Abuse

(NIDA), through an interagency agreement, to support this 5-year

evaluation program. Fiscal year 1997 funds were used to begin this

diffusion study of the natural history of the adoption, implementation,

and effects of the public health approach to prevention, focusing on

risk and protective factors for substance abuse at the State and

community levels. The study seeks to identify phases and factors that

influence the adoption of the public health approach and assess the

association between the use of this approach for community prevention

planning and the levels of risk and protective factors and substance

abuse among adolescents.

The study will also examine State substance abuse data gathered

from 1988 through 2001 and use key informant interviews conducted in

1997, 1999, and 2001 to identify and describe the process of

implementing the epidemiological risk- and protective-factor approach

in seven collaborating States: Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Maine,

Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

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

Development Research Group at the University of Washington, School of

Social Work. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD

OJJDP would provide funds under an interagency agreement with the

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to fund this study. OJJDP's

participation in this NIMH-sponsored research is designed to enhance

and expand the project to include analysis of justice

[[Page 6355]]

system contact on the part of the subjects. The study began in 1992,

studying the long-term efficacy of stimulant medication and intensive

behavioral and educational treatment for children with attention

deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Originally funded for 5 years,

this new round of funding would continue the six study sites for

another 5 years, to 2003. Given this continuation, many of the children

involved in the study will reach the age at which children normally

begin antisocial behavior. To date, no extensive study has examined the

relationship between delinquency and ADHD.

This expanded study, principally funded by NIMH, will follow the

original study families and include a comparison group. With OJJDP

support, the project sites are beginning to look at the subjects'

delinquent behavior and legal system contact. This second funding cycle

will include studies of substance use and antisocial behavior.

OJJDP would support this study through an interagency agreement

with the National Institute of Mental Health. No additional

applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Evaluation of the Juvenile Mentoring Program

The overall goals of the Part G Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP)

are the reduction of delinquency, gang participation, violence, and

substance abuse and related behavior and the enhancement of educational

opportunity, academic achievement, investments in school, and

contribution to one's community. Translating these impact goals to

outcome goals, the evaluation grantee will assess and measure the

relative probability that JUMP mentees will reflect reductions in

delinquency, gang participation, and associated negative behaviors and

show improvements in school attendance, school completion, and academic

performance.

The evaluation objectives include assessing and measuring the

extent to which the quality of the mentor-mentee relationship generates

attitudes, values, and intermediary behavior that increase the

probability of the positive outcomes cited as goals. A second objective

includes assessing and measuring the attributes of mentor

characteristics and behaviors that contribute most to the attainment of

mentee results. Other objectives include ensuring that the evaluation

instrument is optimally designed, worded, and configured; providing

ongoing assistance to JUMP program grantees; implementing quality

assurance for raw data received from JUMP grantees and assuring proper

entry into the management information data base; preparing appropriate

data analysis for each JUMP grantee; generating analyses of site-

specific findings; and preparing an aggregate analysis of

implementation results and outcome data from all sites with special

focus on attributable program effects and implications for replication.

This evaluation is being conducted by Information Technology

International under a two-year grant that was competitively awarded in

FY 1997. The primary focus of the initial award is the original 41 JUMP

program sites. OJJDP anticipates extending the project period in FY

1998 for an additional 2 years in order to expand the ongoing

evaluation to the 52 JUMP grants awarded to new sites in FY 1997. No

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Truancy Reduction

Truancy often leads to dropping out of school, delinquency, and

drug abuse. For many youth, truancy may be a first step to a lifetime

of unemployment, crime, and incarceration.

OJJDP is considering engaging in a joint funding effort with the

U.S. Department of Education to award competitive discretionary funds

for jurisdictions to address the problem of truancy. OJJDP would be

looking for school districts, under the leadership of their

superintendents, to apply jointly with law enforcement or other

juvenile justice system agencies to develop and implement a

collaborative program designed to reduce truancy in their

jurisdictions.

Arts and At-Risk Youth

The need for afterschool programs for youth at risk of delinquency

is well-known. The opportunity to join an afterschool arts program that

helps students develop their talents and abilities has been shown to

help youth stay in school; receive higher grades; develop self-esteem;

and resist peer pressure to engage in negative behaviors, such as

substance and alcohol use, and other delinquent acts. Unfortunately,

juveniles who are at greatest risk of delinquency are the ones who

often have the least opportunity to join such programs because they are

not available in their schools, neighborhoods, or communities. These

youth have limited experiences both in the world of work and in job

training skills. In addition, lack of conflict resolution skills makes

it difficult for youth to retain jobs once they are employed because

they are not well equipped to handle conflicts that may arise.

OJJDP is considering funding an afterschool and summer arts program

that combines the arts with job training and conflict resolution

skills. This project would include summer jobs or paid internships for

youth so that they would be able to put into practice the job and

conflict resolution skills they are learning. By combining the arts

with practical life experiences, at-risk youth are able to gain

valuable insights into their own abilities and the possibilities that

await them in the world of work if they continue to attend school,

study, and graduate.

OJJDP intends to explore the possibility of collaboration with the

National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Labor for

this 2-year pilot project. OJJDP would award a competitive grant to

develop a strategy based on research, provide technical assistance,

implement an impact evaluation, and create reports on the strengths and

weaknesses of the pilot program.

Community Volunteer Coordinator Program

OJJDP is considering funding the establishment of ``volunteer

coordinators'' in a limited number of ongoing community-based

initiative sites for the purpose of expanding the quality,

sustainability, and number of safe and positive activities for young

people during nonschool hours. Building on the work of the

``Presidents' Summit for America's Future,'' OJJDP would seek

partnerships with other Federal agencies to provide grants to

identified collaboratives that can demonstrate a clearly articulated

plan for increasing volunteerism and representation from schools, law

enforcement, city or county government, youth groups, and community-

based organizations. The grants would support the hiring of an

individual in the community who would be responsible for inventorying

programs; planning; and recruiting, connecting, and training volunteers

to participate in a range of programs that provide youth services

(mentoring, tutoring, neighborhood restoration, counseling,

recreational activities, mediation services, media outreach, and other

forms of community service for youth).

Learning Disabilities Among Juveniles At-Risk of Delinquency or in the

Juvenile Justice System

Some researchers have concluded that children who have difficulties

in school often become frustrated because of constant failure. Studies

have shown

[[Page 6356]]

that youth who have a learning disability (LD) are very likely to

become truant or drop out of school rather than face the ridicule of

their peers. The relationship between an LD and juvenile delinquency is

complex.

A learning disability is a neurological condition that impedes a

person's ability to store, process, or produce information. Learning

disabilities can affect the ability to read, write, speak, or compute

math and can impair socialization skills. Individuals with LD's are

generally of average or above average intelligence, but the disability

creates a gap between ability and performance.

School failure associated with learning disabilities is an

important risk factor for juvenile delinquency. Whatever the presenting

problem (e.g., abuse or neglect, truancy, or delinquency), a large

percentage of children who come before the court have some specific

learning disability that may have contributed, either directly or

indirectly, to the behavior that led to their presence in court. A

child with an LD is much more likely to come into contact with the

juvenile justice system than one without an LD. The prevalence of LD in

a population of juvenile delinquents is extremely high: approximately

35 percent of all children in the juvenile justice system have an

identified LD.

To better address the needs of these youth, greater attention needs

to be paid at a much younger age to the nature of learning

disabilities, their impact on learning and the processing of

information in and out of the classroom setting, and their relationship

to dropping out and delinquency. Parents, schools, and the juvenile

courts need to be more aware of this hidden handicap. These children

could be helped if their disabilities were properly diagnosed and

treated. Professionals who directly interact with the learning disabled

need to share knowledge on how to identify and treat learning

disabilities with juvenile justice system practitioners in order to

reduce the number of system-involved juveniles who are learning

disabled and to retain them in the education mainstream.

To address these critical issues, OJJDP is considering a joint

initiative with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special

Education and Rehabilitation Services. This initiative would include a

planning component to develop a systemwide protocol to link appropriate

agencies and professionals in the fields of education, juvenile and

family courts, law enforcement, social services, juvenile justice

system, and other systems that interact with LD youth.

The goals of this initiative would be: (1) To prevent the

development of delinquency through early intervention, appropriate

education, and other community-based services for students with an LD,

and (2) to prevent recidivism by assuring that students with an LD in

the juvenile justice system receive appropriate, specially designed

instructional and social development skills and services that address

their individual needs and that practitioners receive training on

working with this population of offender.

Competitive grants would be awarded to support a planning and

demonstration project that provides a systemwide protocol to address

the issues surrounding learning disabilities and the link to

delinquency both in schools and in the juvenile justice system that

includes schools, education, juvenile and family courts, law

enforcement, social services, juvenile justice system, and other

directly or indirectly related fields. If this initiative is funded,

OJJDP would also consider funding an evaluation of the demonstration

project.

Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future

OJJDP proposes to continue its support of the National Crime

Prevention Council's (NCPC's) ad campaign, ``Investing in Youth for A

Safer Future,'' through the transfer of funds to the Bureau of Justice

Assistance (BJA) under an Intra-agency Agreement. OJJDP and BJA are

working with the NCPC Media Unit to produce, disseminate, and support

effective public service advertising and related media that are

designed to inform the public of effective solutions to juvenile crime

and to motivate young people and adults to get involved and support

these solutions. The featured solutions include effective prevention

programs and intervention strategies.

The program would be administered by BJA through its existing grant

to NCPC. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System

Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders

In FY 1995, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD)

and Developmental Research and Programs, Inc. (DRP), completed Phases I

and II of a collaborative effort to support the development and

implementation of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent,

and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. This effort involved assessing existing

and previously researched programs in order to identify effective and

promising programs that can be used in implementing the Comprehensive

Strategy. A series of reports were combined into the Guide for

Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The effort also included convening the

forum ``Guaranteeing Safe Passage: A National Forum on Youth

Violence,'' holding two regional training seminars for key leaders on

implementing the Comprehensive Strategy, and disseminating the Guide at

national conferences.

In FY 1996, Phase II work included two regional training seminars;

the delivery of intensive training and technical assistance to three

pilot sites--Lee County, Florida; Ducal County, Florida; and San Diego

County, California; and the delivery of technical assistance to five

States and selected local jurisdictions implementing the Comprehensive

Strategy.

In FY 1997, the project continued its targeted dissemination of

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

Juvenile Offenders at several national conferences and additional

regional training seminars and continued providing the five States with

intensive training for implementing the Comprehensive Strategy,

providing individualized technical assistance to individual

jurisdictions interested in implementing the Comprehensive Strategy,

and continuing developmental work on Comprehensive Strategy training

materials.

In FY 1998, this project will continue the implementation efforts

and expand to up to two additional States. In each of the new States,

up to six jurisdictions will be identified to receive Comprehensive

Strategy implementation training and technical assistance.

This project will be implemented by the current grantees, NCCD and

DRP. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Balanced and Restorative Justice Project (BARJ)

Based on research showing that properly structured restitution

programs can reduce recidivism, OJJDP has supported development and

improvement of juvenile restitution programs since 1977. The BARJ

project sprang from OJJDP's RESTTA (Restitution, Education, Specialized

Training, and Technical Assistance)

[[Page 6357]]

Project. In FY 1992, Florida Atlantic University (FAU) was awarded a

competitive grant to enhance the development of restitution programs as

part of systemwide juvenile justice improvement using balanced approach

concepts and restorative justice principles. In subsequent years, the

project developed a BARJ program model. The model was initially

described in a 1994 OJJDP Program Summary entitled Balanced and

Restorative Justice, which became a reference source for BARJ training.

The BARJ project currently provides intensive training, technical

assistance, and guideline materials to three selected sites that over

recent years have been implementing major systemic change in accordance

with the BARJ model. The three sites are Allegheny County,

Pennsylvania; Dakota County, Minnesota; and West Palm Beach County,

Florida. In addition, the BARJ Project has continuously offered

technical assistance and training to other jurisdictions nationwide.

Project staff have also provided training at regional roundtables and

at professional conferences dealing with juvenile justice system

improvement. In 1997, the project published another reference document

entitled Balanced and Restorative Justice for Juveniles: A Framework

for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century. The project also compiled a

BARJ Implementation Guide.

In FY 1998, the BARJ Project will produce additional reference and

training materials and will offer further training and technical

assistance.

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

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Training and Technical Assistance Program To Promote Gender-Specific

Programming for Female Juvenile Offenders

The 1992 Amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention Act addressed, for the first time, the issue of gender-

specific services. The Amendments require States participating in the

JJDP Act's Part B 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, OJJDP's Gender-Specific Services program focused on

providing training and technical assistance directly to States 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

available for juvenile female offenders under direct grants,

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

service component in the OJJDP-funded comprehensive 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 preparing 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.

In FY 1997, the training curriculum for policymakers, advocacy

organizations, and community leaders was developed and pilot-tested at

three sites, and a final draft of the monograph was completed.

In FY 1998, GPA will develop a needs assessment for State Advisory

Groups, develop a technical assistance package, and develop and test a

curriculum for practitioners based on the monograph findings.

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

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court Studies

In FY 1995, OJJDP competitively awarded two extensive studies of

the increasing juvenile transfer phenomenon. Most States have passed

new legislation either permitting or requiring the transfer of alleged

juvenile offenders to criminal court under certain circumstances.

However, 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 policies and improve judicial and

prosecutorial waiver and transfer decisions. Preliminary findings from

these two studies (along with other efforts started over the past 2

years) have provided a wealth of information. The study undertaken in

Florida has extensively examined the records of juveniles transferred

to adult court along with similar juveniles who were not transferred,

including case attribute information. Through this data collection, the

research is bringing to light the differences in case handling and how

these differences affect the outcome of the specific case. The

differences in dispositions will naturally be a concern for many

interested in the subject.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to increase the understanding of the

transfer issues by expanding the Florida study to include a greater

number of cases and to include some basic recidivism measures. The

Florida study has relied mainly on paper records for the case

information. Such records require considerable time and effort to

review. As such, the number of cases included in the first phase of

this study was relatively small. Expansion of this study would allow

the researchers to examine a greater number of cases in the a wider

range of jurisdictions in Florida resulting in a greater understanding

of the issue based on how the dynamics of jurisdictions may differ.

Also, by expanding the tracking of the case subjects to include arrests

and court cases following transfer to adult court, the researchers

would provide insight on the recidivism that follows transfer of

jurisdiction.

This project would be carried out by the current grantee, the

Juvenile Justice Advisory Board of the State of Florida. No new

applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Replication and Extension of Fagan Transfer Study

The ``Comparative Impact of Juvenile Versus Criminal Court

Sanctions on Recidivism Among Adolescent Felony Offenders: A

Replication and Extension'' project will continue in FY 1998, building

on the past work of Dr. Jeffrey Fagan. In FY 1997, OJJDP awarded a two-

year project period grant to Columbia University to build on Dr.

Fagan's seminal study of 1986 transfers

[[Page 6358]]

in New York and New Jersey. The earlier study was the first of its kind

to compare four contiguous counties with similar 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 research project will be able to

answer questions about how case processing decisions have changed in

the last decade. The new study will compare case attribute information

and 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 research conducted under OJJDP's Juvenile

Transfers to Criminal Court Studies program in sharing data collection

instruments and in planning appropriate joint analyses.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Columbia

University. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit

OJJDP has historically supported prosecutor training through the

National District Attorneys Association (NDAA). This training has

increased the involvement and leadership of elected and appointed

prosecutors in juvenile justice systems issues, programs, and services.

To continue that progress, OJJDP funded a 3-year project period grant

in FY 1996 to the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), the

research and technical assistance affiliate of NDAA, to promote

prosecutor training. Under this award, APRI established a Juvenile

Justice Prosecution Unit (JJPU). The JJPU holds workshops on juvenile-

related policy, leadership, and management for chief prosecutors and

juvenile unit chiefs and also provides prosecutors with background

information on juvenile justice issues, programs, training, and

technical assistance.

The project solicits planning and other advisory input from

prosecutors familiar with juvenile justice system and prosecutor 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 FY

1997, for example, APRI held two executive seminars for 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. APRI

has also produced materials focused on juvenile prosecution-related

issues for the benefit of prosecutors nationally.

In FY 1998, APRI will present additional workshops and seminars and

will develop new reference materials for prosecutors. Documents

expected to be developed include a compendium of juvenile justice

programs conducted by prosecutors offices, technical assistance

packages related to significant juvenile justice programs and issues of

interest to prosecutors, and newsletters updating developments in the

juvenile prosecution field.

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

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Due Process Advocacy Program Development

In FY 1993, OJJDP competitively funded the American Bar Association

(ABA) to determine the status of juvenile defense services in the

United States, develop a report, and then develop training and

technical assistance. The ABA-- along with its partners, the Youth Law

Center of San Francisco, California, and the Juvenile Law Center of

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--conducted an extensive survey of public

defender offices, court-appointed systems, law school clinics, and the

literature. These data were then analyzed and a report, entitled A Call

for Justice, was developed and published in December 1995.

The ABA has also developed and delivered specialized training to

juvenile defenders in several jurisdictions, such as the State of

Maryland, the State of Tennessee, Baltimore County, Maryland, and

several other States and localities, to assist in increasing the

capacity of juvenile defenders to provide more effective defense

services. In October 1997, the ABA and its partners organized and

implemented the first Juvenile Defender Summit at Northwestern

University in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit brought together public

defenders, court-appointed lawyers, law school clinic directors,

juvenile offender services representatives, and others for a 2\1/2\-day

meeting to examine the issues related to juvenile defense services and

recommend strategies for improving these services. A report is

forthcoming on the Summit and the recommendations that emerged from the

seven working groups.

OJJDP is proposing to fund a Juvenile Defender Training, Technical

Assistance, and Resource Center in FY 1998 (discussed under New

Programs). However, the Center will not be funded until later in FY

1998 and probably will not be operational until early FY 1999. To

ensure that training and technical assistance continue in the interim

and into 1999 and to provide for the transition to the new Juvenile

Defender Center, OJJDP proposes to continue the Due Process Advocacy

grant for an additional year.

This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the

American Bar Association. No new applications would be solicited in FY

1998.

Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) Evaluation

In FY 1997, OJJDP funded an impact evaluation of the Quantum

Opportunities Program (QOP)through an interagency fund transfer to the

U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). QOP was designed by the Ford Foundation

and Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America as a career

enrichment program using a model providing basic education. Personal

and cultural development, community service, and mentoring. The purpose

of the OJJDP funding for the evaluation 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

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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.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue this evaluation enhancement

to the DOL-funded evaluation to 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. Attention would 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 would be implemented through an interagency agreement

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

solicited in FY 1998.

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 ensure adequate service delivery and the required level

of social control.

In FY 1995, the Johns Hopkins University received a competitively

awarded 3-year grant to test its intensive community-based aftercare

model in four demonstration sites: Denver (Metro area), Colorado; Clark

County (Las Vegas), Nevada; Camden and Newark, New Jersey; and Norfolk,

Virginia.

The Johns Hopkins University has contracted 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 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 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 identifying juveniles appropriate for the program.

Training and technical assistance in this model have also been made

available to other States and OJJDP grantees on a limited basis.

This effort is the first attempt to implement an intensive,

integrated approach to aftercare with the necessary transition and

reentry components. One more year of program operation and data

collection would provide the information and data needed for analysis

of the effectiveness of the IAP model. The National Council on Crime

and Delinquency is performing an evaluation under a separate grant.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide a fourth year of funding to

the Johns Hopkins University to 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. In addition, the grantee would work with

three other States (Arkansas, New York, and Washington) that plan to

implement the IAP model with State funds.

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

Johns Hopkins University. No additional applications would be solicited

in FY 1998.

Evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program

In FY 1995, OJJDP competitively awarded a 3-year grant to the

National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) to perform a process

evaluation and design an outcome evaluation of the Intensive Community-

Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical Assistance program. In FY

1997, the project was extended an additional year to begin the outcome

evaluation.

The purpose of the outcome evaluation is to answer the following

key research questions: (1) To what extent is the nature of supervision

and services provided Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program (IAP)

youth different from that given to ``regular'' parolees? (2) To what

extent does IAP have an impact on the subsequent delinquent or criminal

involvement of program participants? (3) To what extent does the IAP

have an impact on the specific areas of youth functioning that it

targets for intervention? These intermediate outcomes include, for

example, reduction of substance abuse, improved family functioning,

improved peer relationships, improved self-concept, and reduced

delinquent or criminal behavior. (4) To what extent is IAP cost-

effective?

To obtain the answers to these questions, NCCD is (1) Using a true

experimental design that will involve random assignment of IAP-eligible

youth to either the experimental or control conditions; (2) using a

series of measures to compare differences between the two groups in

terms of services delivered, pre/post changes in selected areas of

youth functioning, and the extent and nature of recidivism; and (3)

estimating the per-participant costs for the IAP and control groups.

Data collection is being accomplished using several methods,

including use of a series of forms developed to capture data on youth

and program characteristics and a battery of standardized testing

instruments administered before and after institutional commitment and

IAP to measure the changes in youth functioning. The grantee is also

conducting searches of State agency and State police records to measure

recidivism and analyzing State agency and juvenile court data to

estimate costs.

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

additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

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Training and Technical Assistance for National Innovations To Reduce

Disproportionate Minority Confinement (the Deborah Ann Wysinger

Memorial Program)

National data and studies have shown that minority children are

overrepresented in secure juvenile and criminal justice facilities

across the country. Since the 1988 reauthorization of the JJDP Act,

State Formula Grants program plans have addressed the disproportionate

confinement of minority juveniles. This is accomplished by gathering

and analyzing data to determine whether minority juveniles are

disproportionately confined and, if so, designing strategies to address

this issue. A competitive Special Emphasis discretionary grant program

was developed in FY 1991 to demonstrate model approaches to addressing

disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) in five State pilot sites

(Arizona, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Oregon). Funds were also

awarded to a national contractor to provide technical assistance to

assist both the pilot sites and other States, evaluate their efforts,

and share relevant information.

In FY's 1994 and 1995, OJJDP made additional Special Emphasis

discretionary funds available to nonpilot States that had completed

data gathering and assessment in order to provide initial funding for

innovative projects designed to address DMC.

These efforts to address DMC have yielded an important lesson: that

systemic, broad-based interventions are necessary to address the issue.

In recognition of the continued need to improve the ability of States

and local jurisdictions to address DMC, OJJDP issued a competitive

solicitation in FY 1997 for innovative proposals to implement a 3-year

national training, technical assistance, and information dissemination

initiative focused on the disproportionate confinement of minority

youth.

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

a 3-year contract to implement the DMC training program to Cygnus

Corporation, Inc. Project objectives for the first year were: (1) To

disseminate to States, localities, OJJDP staff, and key OJJDP grantees

a review and synthesis of the existing knowledge base and research on

DMC that includes State and local practices designed to address DMC;

(2) to develop a training curriculum for policymakers, decisio

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