Crisis Intervention Program

In 2006, Mobile, Alabama has experienced an increase in gang activity, charges for concealed weapons, drug trafficking and female aggressive behavior. A contributing factor has been Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) which caused displacement of thousands of families in three states ' Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. In order to cope with the increase in juvenile offenses, more treatment beds and aftercare programs are needed. Since 1992, the Mobile County Juvenile Court in cooperation with a local non-profit agency began developing and operating very successful community-based treatment programs for court ordered youth ages 13 ' 17. A consortium of community-based agencies is involved in assisting youth in returning to the community. Recent independent studies have shown that the continuum of care model developed by Mobile County has been very effective in reducing recidivism. This program seeks to expand by 80 youth over nineteen months those programs which offer residential, day treatment and aftercare programs that provide a year of supervised care to young people and their families. The goal of these programs is to improve the re-integrative outcomes for youth as they return to their neighborhoods. Success is tracked through quarterly reports provided to the Mobile County Commission. Performance measures include the goals of 75% of juvenile offenders completing the program, 80% of juvenile offenders that complete the program demonstrating desired changes in programmatic target behaviors,
serving 75% of families of juvenile offenders in the program and having 65% of juvenile offenders not re-offend within one year of completion of total program.

NCA/NCF