Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk Juveniles: An Assessment

• NCJ Number: 144018
• Author(s): D M Altschuler; T L Armstrong
• Date Published: September 1994
• Length: 32 pages
• Grant Number(s): 87-JS-CX-K094
• Agencies: OJJDP
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)

Annotation

This report is concerned with community-based aftercare for juvenile offenders, the parole phase of juvenile corrections after juvenile offenders have been released from secure confinement and may be at high risk for reoffending.

Abstract

When juvenile offenders are released, they enter an already overburdened juvenile aftercare system that has historically been assigned low priority in the competition for scarce resources. Released youth display alarmingly high recidivism rates, recent changes in commitment policies have exacerbated the serious crowding problem already present in many juvenile correctional facilities, and institutionalization has become prohibitively expensive. Responding to these concerns, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention designed a project to focus on assessing, developing, and testing intensive community-based aftercare program models for the release of serious juvenile offenders from secure confinement. The project had four stages: (1) assess programs in operation or under development; (2) develop program models and related policies and procedures; (3) transfer the model design, including policies and procedures, into a training and technical assistance package; and (4) implement and test the model in selected jurisdictions. Findings from the first stage of the project are presented that focus on the target population, assessment and classification, goals and objectives, program evaluation, theory-driven interventions and derived principles, program elements, staffing, and service areas. Mail and telephone survey procedures used to assess intensive aftercare for high-risk juveniles are described, as well as site visits. A conceptual framework is presented that can be used to identify and assess promising intensive community- based aftercare supervision programs. Additional information on the model project is appended. References and figures