North Carolina's Youth Offender Reentry Program

The Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program supports states, local governments, and tribal governments in partnership with interested persons (including Federal corrections and supervision agencies), service providers, and nonprofit organizations to provide comprehensive reentry services for moderate to high-risk youthful offenders before, during, and after release from confinement.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety program has three goals: (1) expand the program to two disparate counties, a rural county with sparse resources and a well-resourced urban county, both located where Communities in Schools of North Carolina (CISNC) has strong existing infrastructure; (2) adapt the program as necessary to meet the needs of youth ages 16 and 17, who will fall under juvenile jurisdiction for the first time in North Carolina effective December 1, 2019; and (3) undertake a rigorous program evaluation of the CISNC system of enhanced reentry support. The independent program evaluation will incorporate (1) a mixed-methods process study, (2) an implementation fidelity assessment, (3) collection of OJJDP performance measures, and (4) an outcome evaluation using a quasi-experimental design examining outcomes at 2 years following program completion for matched groups of youth, comparing those who have received the enhanced reentry support services to those receiving the usual reentry support services. CA/NCF