Back to a Future-Palm Beach County''s Juvenile Reentry Project

The Second Chance Act provides a comprehensive response to the increasing number of incarcerated adults and juveniles who are released from prison, jail, and juvenile residential facilities and are returning to their communities. The FY 2013 Second Chance Act Juvenile Reentry Program helps ensure that the transition the youth make from secure confinement facilities to the community is successful and promotes public safety. A secure confinement facility may include a juvenile detention center, juvenile correctional facility, or staff-secure facility. Eligible juveniles must have been confined under juvenile court jurisdiction. CATEGORY 2: Implementation Projects must include specific strategies for implementing the ten Mandatory Requirements of a Comprehensive Reentry Program.

Palm Beach County's Reentry Task Force has identified youth, ages 18 and younger, who are returning from moderate/high/maximum risk juvenile residential placements to hot spot communities, as the target population for Back To A Future, the county's juvenile re-entry project. The re-entry process for juveniles returning to the community includes the delivery of a variety of evidence-based, cognitive, behavioral and social learning techniques in both pre- and post-release settings to ensure a successful transition from residential facilities to the community. This process is facilitated through comprehensive and sustained case management, a network of multidisciplinary Reentry Transition Teams, and the Re-entry Court. The process begins with a practical, scientific, and evidence-based risk assessment used by the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and the R-PACT to identify needs that affect recidivism. The strong partnership between DJJ, the Criminal Justice Commission, the Reentry Task Force, the School District, community-nonprofit providers and Vita Nova, Inc. is the key to the success of this comprehensive re-entry strategy, which has incorporated the Ten Requirements of a Comprehensive Reentry Program and the Fundamental Principles of Evidence-Based Correctional Practices. The overall goal of this project is to reduce recidivism by 50% over a 5-year period. It will be measured through an outcome evaluation provided by the planning research partner, the University of Miami.

CA/NCF