Prevent Girls from entering the formal juvenile justice system and divert them to community based programs.

The FY 2016 Reducing Reliance on Confinement and Improving Community-Based Responses for Girls at Risk of Entering the Juvenile Justice System will strengthen and expand the use of community-based and gender and culturally responsive programs for girls and promote the development of girls and their individual strengths.

This project will bring together state and local stakeholders to conduct a comprehensive assessment of girls’ involvement in the juvenile justice system for domestic battery or related charges and to analyze the current juvenile justice, child welfare and human services responses to these girls. Illinois stakeholders will develop a plan to 1) address trauma among girls in the Adolescent Domestic Battery (ADB) population; 2) formalize coordination among human services, child welfare, local justice systems and service providers; 3) improve the range and efficacy of community-based responses to girls at risk of arrest, detention and system involvement for ADB; and 4) measure the impact on the involvement of girls and their families in the juvenile justice, child welfare and / or criminal justice systems. This project will enable Illinois to build upon local knowledge generated through the Models for Change (MfC) Initiative and the Adolescent Domestic Battery Typologies Tool (ADBTT) projects, as well as provide guidance to other jurisdictions throughout the country on how to increase the use of diversion, decrease the use of detention, and match girls to gender-appropriate and trauma-informed interventions to effectively respond to violence in the home.

CA/NCF