7. Support the Development of Innovative Approaches to Research and Evaluation

Overview

Effective public policy, laws, and intervention strategies to prevent and reduce juvenile crime and violence require a solid knowledge base. Building a knowledge base requires a thoughtfully developed, comprehensive portfolio of statistical systems, research programs, and evaluation capabilities. This combination is necessary for the following reasons:

The Nation's ability to address the problems of juvenile violence and delinquency has been hampered by an incomplete understanding of the nature and extent of these problems. Recent research has greatly increased knowledge about juvenile crime, its origins, factors that place youth at risk for involvement in criminal activity, and factors that protect youth from turning to violence and delinquency. Research is providing information on violence in some major cities and helping the cities develop a plan to solve this problem. Building on solid research into the causes and correlates of delinquency, we must continue to evaluate strategies and programs to determine what works to prevent juvenile delinquency and crime. Strong evaluation data are essential to create national, State, and community partnerships to effectively prevent and intervene in juvenile delinquency.

Techniques have become increasingly sophisticated for collecting, storing, managing, and analyzing large amounts of data on juvenile delinquency. This information contributes to our understanding of the problems of juvenile violence and delinquency, provides the basis for new research, and aids in evaluating the effectiveness of the programs and strategies contained in the Action Plan.

To enhance evaluation and research efforts, we need to improve three critical areas: national statistical information and systems on the nature and extent of juvenile delinquency and violence; longitudinal research to strengthen our understanding of the complex relationships between risk and protective factors; and rigorous evaluation of programs designed to address juvenile crime and delinquency. In each of these areas, we must develop data collection instruments that are sensitive to ethnicity, culture, and gender and that can better measure the complete context of youth development.

This section addresses each of these critical areas. It presents a clear description of the issues involved in juvenile justice system data collection and the challenges faced by researchers and evaluators. This section also looks ahead to future directions required by effective juvenile justice research, evaluation, and data collection and proposes a series of steps that the juvenile justice system can take to improve the outlook for effective research and evaluation.

Current Status and Limitations of Existing Knowledge

Statistical Information and Systems

Statistical information on juvenile justice comes both from the juvenile justice system and from data on delinquent behavior generated by other disciplines. Ideally, data collection systems should complement and enhance each other. For example, analysis of juvenile arrests should reveal information about causes of delinquency and juveniles' entry into detention, their processing in juvenile court, and their placement in the juvenile correctional system.

Much can be learned from nationwide statistics about juvenile arrest and victimization rates, the number of cases handled annually in juvenile courts, and the number and types of juveniles in custody. This information contributes to the development of national policy on a wide range of issues. However, enhanced analysis of State and local data and research findings can lead to even greater refinements in the approach to juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. State and local jurisdictions are the primary sources of juvenile justice policies and procedures, and improvements in national data are largely dependent on information generated from the State level. An example is data on the deinstitutionalization of status offenders and disproportionate minority confinement. As each State addresses these issues, a national data system tracks progress and gathers and disseminates information that can be helpful to other States and local jurisdictions.

In addition, each component of the juvenile justice system, from law enforcement to corrections, has its own data collection system that provides unique perspectives on the problems of juvenile delinquency and the operation of the juvenile justice system. Each perspective is important to understanding the entire picture of juvenile justice. However, in order to obtain a comprehensive portrait of delinquent behavior, we need a data collection system that tracks the offender from arrest through court proceedings to disposition, identifying successful techniques within programs.

If we clearly understand the goals of a national data collection system, we are better able to assess its effectiveness. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system annually collects national data on the number of reported crimes and arrests.1 UCR uses standardized definitions of crimes and provides information on crime at the State and local levels. Throughout its 60-year history, UCR has gained the cooperation of every State and nearly every local police department. Despite its high quality and comprehensiveness, UCR does not serve as an accurate indicator of the total number of juvenile crimes because it includes only reported crimes. Further, UCR includes incidents of criminal activities and arrests but not court data.

Although the UCR approach is logical from a law enforcement perspective, it does not work as well in other sectors of the juvenile justice system. The juvenile court data collection system, for example, counts case records but not arrests. In most jurisdictions, it is not possible to assess the number and types of cases that the juvenile court handles based on the number and type of juvenile offenses or arrests. The issue is complicated by differences among States in defining "juvenile." Depending on State law, the maximum age that an individual is considered a juvenile ranges from under 16 to under 18 and, for purposes of continuing juvenile court jurisdiction over alleged or adjudicated delinquents, can extend to age 25.

Juvenile court data are more disparate than UCR data. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funds the National Juvenile Court Data Archive (NJCDA) project, which collects automated data files from many States and localities and publishes reports from a number of others.2 NJCDA illustrates the promises and difficulties of State-level data collection. Although automated information systems provide accurate and complete pictures of juvenile court activities within each State, the level of data collection varies considerably among States. Some States have basic information systems that enable users to make simple comparisons but do not allow for indepth analysis. Other States have expansive systems that facilitate longitudinal analysis of court careers. Still others have no individual data collection. In order to obtain an accurate nationwide picture of the juvenile justice system, all States and localities need to collect standardized core data.

OJJDP's current data collection on juvenile custody reflects still another system of gathering national information. As with other systems, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The main source of custody data since 1974 has been the Children in Custody (CIC) census, that surveys all facilities that can hold juvenile offenders.3 This census collects information on the population of these facilities on a given day by age, race, and sex. As with other data sets, however, it cannot discern State and local policies that directly affect the numbers. Also, CIC cannot connect with other data sets (given differing definitions and units of measurement) to track offenders individually or generically through the juvenile justice system.

Since 1990, OJJDP has pursued another avenue for collecting custody statistics: the Juveniles Taken Into Custody (JTIC) program that provides the same population detail as CIC but in greater depth.4 Under this program, States supply individual data on juveniles in their custody. By tracking each juvenile through the entire custody experience, JTIC collects both admission and release information, providing length of stay measures for juveniles in custody at both the national and State levels. Unlike CIC, JTIC does not collect information on the conditions of confinement for these juveniles. As with CIC, its ability to link to other parts of the juvenile justice system is limited by the compatibility of individual data systems. Together with CIC, JTIC provides an expansive view of juvenile custody in the Nation.

The other main division in national juvenile delinquency data collection relates to information on delinquent behavior. Data on delinquent behavior are frequently gathered from surveys and self-reported data, or may be drawn from other sources that contribute to our knowledge of delinquency and delinquent behavior. For example, the Department of Labor's (DOL's) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth collects some reports of delinquent behavior and law enforcement contact.5 Other surveys supported by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education (ED) collect information on substance abuse and education and include questions about delinquent behavior. Research studies have tracked comprehensive self-report measures of delinquency, but these studies are limited in geographic distribution and time. Unfortunately, such disjointed analyses of the correlates of delinquency provide limited insights into delinquent behavior.

Longitudinal Research

The development of effective delinquency prevention strategies requires that we support research into the factors that place children at risk for delinquent behavior as well as those that protect children. While the body of research in the field is increasing, three trends have hampered its development and application:

These deficiencies must be remedied before we can fully identify and target prevention, intervention, and treatment programs that effectively reduce delinquency as well as make broader social policy decisions and foster systemic change.

Inadequate support for research and longitudinal studies. Historically, there has been a shortage of empirical research on the factors that put youth at risk for involvement in delinquent activity and the protective factors that help at-risk youth avoid delinquency. A recent comprehensive meta-analysis of 30 years of research on risk and protective factors represents a significant advance in this area.6 However, more empirical research is essential to developing a full range of programs that will be successful in preventing juvenile delinquency and reducing recidivism.

With the alarming growth in violence among youth gangs, gang-related research has attracted increased attention. Recent gang research has been valuable, but gaps remain in our understanding about why youth join and leave gangs and about the interrelationship between gang participation and other forms of delinquency and violence.7

Inadequate funding for replicating successful research projects. One important way to find solutions to juvenile delinquency is to replicate models of programs that work. Once the replication has been evaluated, the researcher understands whether and how a successful strategy drawn from research will be successful in other settings. The final step in the research process is dissemination and technical assistance to those who wish to establish successful programs.

Inadequate planning for research and limited dissemination of research findings. A 5-year plan for research would enable policymakers, practitioners, legislators, and researchers to determine what information is valuable and how limited funding can be used responsibly. This plan would include designing basic research questions, testing theories, and developing successful programs. The final step would be technology transfer and dissemination of the information to the field.

In addition to funding long-term research, research findings need to be translated into effective community strategies. Research findings can be used to develop better information about causes of crime and how to intervene successfully, information that needs to be both accessible and useful to communities. The involvement of nonprofit organizations, service providers, and practitioners in the juvenile justice system is critical to this process.

Evaluation of Programs

Evaluation research can contribute tremendously to the development of effective juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs. This potential can be fully realized with strong support for a program evaluation strategy that addresses the following critical needs:

Develop effective evaluation strategies and capabilities. The current state of evaluation research underscores the need for more sophisticated evaluation methodologies and data collection capabilities to address complex programs. Many prior evaluations of juvenile justice programs have suffered from weak research designs that have lacked sufficient rigor to clearly demonstrate program impacts.8 Additionally, many evaluations have focused more on process evaluation issues (exploring what activities were undertaken and why) than on impact evaluation issues (determining program outcomes and impacts).

Prevention programs in particular pose a number of challenges for evaluation. First, preventive efforts focus on reducing or eliminating certain behaviors or conditions in at-risk populations.9 Unlike typical program evaluations that measure what happened or what changed as a result of a program, prevention program evaluations must assess what did not happen; for example, a crime that would have been committed by a juvenile but did not occur. Moreover, it must show that the crime would have happened without the prevention program. Second, primary prevention efforts often target large population groups, such as entire schools or communities, rather than specific individuals. The results of these efforts on the full population can be difficult to measure, especially when multiple interrelated interventions are being conducted simultaneously. Increasingly sophisticated evaluation methods are needed to address these challenges.

Problems in conducting evaluations of prevention, intervention, and treatment programs are compounded by deficiencies in data collection systems nationwide. Impact evaluations of juvenile justice programs rely on an ability to track changes in a variety of community and individual data components related to juvenile offense rates, juvenile justice system processing rates, indicators of risk, and other outcomes. These data components are not always easily accessible, comprehensive, or easily linked to individual participants, and inconsistencies often exist among different data collection systems.

Evaluation challenges posed by prevention and intervention programs are particularly problematic for many local communities that do not have access to sophisticated evaluation tools or data collection systems. There is a great need to build local evaluation capacity both to conduct self-evaluations and to participate more meaningfully in national evaluation efforts.

Improve evaluation information. Although research on the prevention and control of juvenile delinquency and violence has increased substantially over the past 30 years, more knowledge is needed of what works, for whom, and under what conditions.10 A recent exhaustive review of evaluations of prevention and corrections programs and strategies identified several interventions that consistently demonstrate positive effects. It also revealed, however, that the uneven quality of evaluation research makes it difficult to determine program effectiveness for many program areas. Most evaluation research could be improved by stronger research design, longer term followup, and better documentation of program implementation.11 We are able, however, to offer communities an array of strategies and programs that have shown promise and some programs that have been carefully evaluated and found to be effective.12

Link evaluation to program development and practice. Too often, evaluations are not designed with the user audience in mind; and too often, they are not put to good use by communities that could benefit from their practical information. Consequently, important findings about what does and does not work often fail to reach front-line practitioners who could put this valuable information into action. Intervention efforts should consist of significant long-term investments to be most effective. To ensure the development and testing of new, high-quality, scientifically based prevention strategies, funding partnerships between service agencies and research institutes are needed, in addition to increased investment in well-planned, rigorous evaluations.

Target funds to long-term evaluation. Historically, agencies have tended to provide resources for the delivery of services rather than for an evaluation of the long-term effectiveness of these services. Where evaluations have been funded, often they have been added to programs as short-term efforts, resulting in weak evaluations based on limited data. In addition, the short-term nature of some federally funded programs has precluded long-term evaluations. Demonstrating the effectiveness of prevention programs (especially early interventions with children, families, and schools) requires collecting impact data over long periods of time -- sometimes 5, 10, or more years. Funding agencies and service providers need to build in evaluation at the front end of programs and sustain the evaluation over the full term of the program.

Future Directions in Juvenile Justice Statistics, Research, and Evaluation

Statistics

In 1990, as part of a comprehensive effort to define and address gaps in data and data quality, OJJDP funded the Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD) project to analyze the current state of data about juvenile victimization and delinquency and generate discussion about improvements. In the early phases, the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) conducted an inventory of all Federal data systems that focus on juvenile offending and delinquent behavior. From this inventory, NCJJ identified systems that support particular analyses, such as substance abuse, child victimization, health and poverty issues, and delinquent behavior.

With this comprehensive picture of existing data systems, OJJDP and NCJJ are working with other Federal and public- and private-sector experts to identify the most critical information needs on a particular topic and determine the most effective methodology for collecting those data. In addition, OJJDP will continue to update Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report.

Efforts to improve national statistics will involve the active participation of the following interagency collaborations:

Participants in these projects will identify and pursue opportunities to improve measures and statistics on juvenile victims and offenders. These opportunities may include sharing information or planning and cofunding collaborative initiatives. This collaboration will emphasize juvenile violence and delinquency, the populations involved, and the systems' responses.

The result of these efforts will be a plan that reflects the culmination of development activities by the year 2001. The 5-year plan will propose:

Research

Federal agencies have implemented several effective and promising research initiatives to promote knowledge of the patterns and trends in juvenile delinquency and violence. These include efforts to build understanding in the following areas:

Understanding the causes and correlates of violence. In 1986 the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency (Causes and Correlates), sponsored by OJJDP, began drawing data from three sources: (1) Denver Youth Survey, (2) Pittsburgh Youth Study, and (3) Rochester Youth Development Study. Causes and Correlates studied 4,000 youth over a 5-year period, allowing researchers to identify a pattern of causes and risk factors leading to delinquency, including data on drugs, guns, peers, school, and family. This longitudinal research with a shared measurement approach is a milestone in delinquency research. Interviews with 60,000 test subjects and caregivers confirmed the direct relation between youth involvement with drugs and delinquency.13

Causes and Correlates findings suggest that involvement in violent behavior begins early for many youth, often before the teenage years. By the mid-to-late teenage years, approximately 20 percent of males and 10 to 15 percent of females are involved in violent behavior.14 Not all youth involved in violence are involved at the same rate. One group of offenders, an estimated 14 to 19 percent, is responsible for approximately 75 percent of offenses. The encouraging news, however, is that 82 percent of juveniles who have nine or more protective factors are able to resist the pressure to become involved in delinquency. This research offers evidence of our ability to solve the problem of juvenile delinquency through prevention programming.15

HHS' Family and Youth Services Bureau recently conducted a national study of substance use, suicide, and other at-risk behaviors among juveniles with runaway, throwaway, and homeless experiences. Although the results of the study are not yet available, one study goal was to determine the prevalence of substance use, suicide attempts, and other problem behaviors (delinquent activity, victimization, and sexual activities) in this population.

In addition, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and OJJDP have supported several studies focusing on the cycle of violence that establish the relationship between experiences of childhood violence and adolescent delinquent behavior:

Understanding the role of drugs in delinquency. Since 1990, NIJ has collected quarterly data and recorded trends in drug use among a group of high-risk male juvenile arrestees or detainees in 12 U.S. cities. Ten of the sites also collect data from female juvenile arrestees and detainees. This Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program documented a dramatic rise from 1992 to 1993 in the use of marijuana among juvenile arrestees/detainees, underscoring the importance of providing intervention programs for youthful offenders. The program shows that many juveniles who use illegal drugs falter in school attendance and eventually enter the juvenile justice system.19

From the Causes and Correlates study, OJJDP has also found that the number of violent offenses increased after the onset of drug use. Drug use is closely related to violent crime and juvenile offending.20

Understanding youth gangs. The Family and Youth Services Bureau's Youth Gang Drug Prevention Program supports ongoing gang-related research projects, including:

The National Youth Gang Center, a key component of OJJDP's Comprehensive Response to America's Gang Problem initiative, maintains and expands critical knowledge about youth gangs and how communities can respond to them effectively. The center collects and analyzes gang-related data; analyzes anti-gang legislation; reviews current anti-gang literature; identifies promising gang prevention program strategies; and coordinates activities of the Gang Consortium, a coalition of representatives of Federal agencies. The center also supports a national baseline study of the locations and characteristics of violent gangs.

Understanding system response to juvenile sex offenders. Recognizing that juvenile sex offenders have become an increasingly visible and particularly problematic offender population, OJJDP has supported an initiative to describe and assess the ways in which the juvenile justice system and other related systems respond to juvenile sex offenders. This ongoing research initiative, conducted by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, includes a comprehensive literature review, an indepth assessment of system functioning at 8 sites, and multistate retrospective data tracking of a cohort of 450 juvenile sex offenders from the point of court referral through disposition and treatment.

Understanding the positive and resilient aspects of youth development. The first principle in designing youth development research should be to move away from the "deficit model" that focuses on discrete problem behaviors, such as teen pregnancy, to a more comprehensive approach that describes experiences of youth in high-risk situations, including their capacity for change, resourcefulness, and full potential. Research should describe youth in the context of peer group, family, neighborhood, and community rather than solely in the context of individual behavior. We also need to understand the adaptive and protective behaviors of youth in high-stress environments and pay greater attention to positive developmental outcomes. A research framework that considers the full context of youth development would:

When developing effective community strategies with measurable results, program designers should pay attention to the circumstances in which youth live and grow, addressing a broad spectrum of areas associated with a healthy community and healthy human development (for example, economic opportunity, safety, health, and education). Research in this area needs to include an understanding of the developmental needs of adolescents in relation to the environment.

The proposed model for inquiry would move beyond measuring individual actions and circumstances to include data that illustrate the importance of positive developmental outcomes among youth. Rather than using research activities to focus simply on individual problem behaviors and the categorical funding streams by which most current programs are supported, this model would focus on the interaction of risk factors and normal processes of human development, positive adaptation, and resilience among youth. Examples of areas for future research include the following:

Dissemination and implementation of research findings. OJJDP published the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (Comprehensive Strategy) in 1993 and the Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (Guide) in 1995. These documents are the foundation upon which the Action Plan rests. The Comprehensive Strategy and the Guide integrate more than 30 years of research into the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency and violence, risk and protective factors for delinquency, and the effectiveness of a wide variety of prevention programs and juvenile justice system graduated sanctions. These documents help to translate research into practical information that can be used at the community level.

Evaluation

Several effective and promising strategies have been implemented by Federal agencies over the past several years that have resulted in useful evaluations to drive successful program development. These include:

Making evaluation funding an integral part of program development. A number of recent delinquency prevention initiatives have made evaluation an integral part of the program. The Cities in Schools (CIS) program, for example, is a dropout prevention program implemented in 665 sites in 197 communities nationwide and funded by OJJDP in collaboration with ED, HHS, and the Departments of Commerce and Defense. The program's continued operation has been supported by preliminary evaluation results that indicate significant success in keeping at-risk students in school. Eighty percent of students who entered the program during the 1989-90 and 1990-91 school years were still in school in 1993, and 70 percent of students with high absenteeism prior to entering CIS improved their attendance.21

Other examples of recent and on-going demonstration projects with integrated evaluation components include:

The results of these evaluations are being used to enhance knowledge of what is effective and to guide ongoing program implementation and replication efforts.

In recent years, several agencies have strengthened their institutional evaluation capabilities and management evaluation systems. In addition, OJJDP has established an evaluation contract capable of planning and performing independent evaluations of a variety of OJJDP projects.

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) created the National Evaluation Data and Technical Assistance Center (NEDTAC) to serve as a program evaluation system and resource center to support the needs of CSAT staff and grantees and substance abuse treatment evaluators. NEDTAC provides a wide range of technical assistance and data base development services to support grantees in meeting evaluation requirements and utilizing evaluation data. Under its program evaluation system, NEDTAC also conducts special studies to inform policy decisions and program planning.

Using evaluability assessments and constructing logic models. Evaluability assessments have been gaining increasing popularity as a tool to help ensure that an evaluation will be both technically feasible and capable of answering research questions important to decisionmakers.22 Evaluability assessments address important issues related to a program's measurable goals and objectives, hypothesized causal links between activities and outcomes, and data collection capabilities. Addressing these issues before the evaluation begins strengthens the potential reliability of the evaluation.

Logic models are also useful tools to help program planners create program activities and expected outcomes. The principal purpose of the logic model is to present graphically the logical connections among conditions that contribute to the need for a program in a community, the activities aimed at addressing these conditions, and the outcomes and impacts expected to result from the activities.23 These models, which have been required of CSAP grantees in several programs and recently by OJJDP in its SafeFutures program, can also play a key role in conducting evaluability assessments of newly designed programs.

Enhancing local evaluation capacity. Enhancing local capacity is critical to conducting successful, sophisticated evaluations of complex prevention and intervention strategies. In recent years, a number of evaluation manuals have been developed and disseminated to local communities, including:

These manuals explain key evaluation concepts and list the steps necessary for communities to more easily evaluate their own programs. In addition to disseminating manuals, several agencies, including CSAT and CSAP, have provided community members with substantial training and technical assistance about conducting evaluations and collecting and assessing relevant program data.

Linking evaluation findings to program development and practice. OJJDP's recently published Guide is a current example of transferring evaluation findings to program development and practice.24 The Guide describes the community planning and organizational steps necessary to design and implement local prevention and graduated sanctions strategies and to link them to provide a complete continuum-of-care system. Findings from available research and evaluation are explained in easily understandable language to support prescribed steps in program implementation, management, and evaluation.

The development of performance standards is another tool used to link evaluation to practice. DOL has been developing performance indicators and standards for youth employment programs. If the objective of a program is youth employment, for example, standards (based on prior research and evaluation) might be set for the percentage of youth placed in jobs and the average wage earned. Performance standards such as these could help to keep programs accountable while providing objective measures for assessing program effectiveness.

Federal Action Steps

Build Local and Federal Evaluation Capabilities

OJJDP will expand the technical assistance and training role of the evaluation contractor under its umbrella evaluation contract. In addition to conducting evaluations of individual projects, the contractor will be responsible for helping to build local evaluation capacity and strengthening national and local partnerships to evaluate Federal initiatives.

OJJDP will continue to build local capacity in prevention program implementation and evaluation through the Title V Initiative. Local communities will receive training and technical assistance related to implementing risk-focused prevention strategies and assessing risk and resource data. OJJDP will provide local grantees with Delinquency Prevention Program Community Self-Evaluation Workbooks to assist them in building self-evaluation capacity.

This workbook will contain a series of forms and instructions to assist local communities to assess and evaluate youth violence reduction and delinquency prevention activities in three key areas: (1) documenting their prevention plans, resource allocation, organizational structure, and decisionmaking processes; (2) monitoring implementation of programs, activities, and services; and (3) tracking changes in the indicators of risk.

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act) mandates the allocation of 20 percent of every new Crime Act grant program to evaluation. NIJ and OJJDP will continue to include evaluation requirements in their grant solicitations and encourage applicants to initiate partnerships with researchers, evaluators, and management information systems specialists at the outset of their projects.

Develop a 5-Year Plan To Improve National Statistical Data

OJJDP has made a significant investment in improving national statistics on juvenile offenders and victims and the justice system's response to juvenile delinquency and violence. OJJDP's Statistics and Systems Development (SSD) program has examined more than 50 national data collection efforts, identifying many gaps in basic information and specific needs for improvement. The resulting report, Developing a National Juvenile Justice Statistical Program (1994), outlines both general strategies for filling critical information gaps and a detailed continuum of options for a comprehensive juvenile custody statistics program.

OJJDP is currently implementing recommendations for improving juvenile custody statistics, starting with an extensive redesign of the Children in Custody census. Other planning work focuses on juvenile probation and transfers of juveniles to criminal court.

In 1996, OJJDP will issue a 5-year plan, Juvenile Justice Statistics 2001, a blueprint for achieving long-term gains in our ability to monitor trends in juvenile delinquency, violence, and victimization.

Develop a 5-Year Violence and Delinquency Research Plan

To close the gaps in research on delinquency and crime, the Coordinating Council member agencies will continue to support many of the research efforts discussed earlier and will also introduce new studies of interest.

OJJDP will develop a 5-year research plan to organize and develop new knowledge on violence and delinquency and will confer with experts on the plan.

Implement Additional Long-Term Studies To Increase Understanding of the Causes and Correlates of Youth Crime and Violence

HHS, through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), will launch a new effort in adolescent health that is its largest and most comprehensive to date. Using longitudinal surveys of over 19,000 middle and high school students and their parents, researchers will collect data about adolescents' health status, health behaviors, family behavior, neighborhood, and community. The goal of the study is to better understand the complex forces (i.e., what they are and how they may be shaped) that promote good health in young people.

NIJ will continue research related to drug use and criminal activities, including the expansion of juvenile research protocols under its multi-year DUF program.

NIJ will also continue to fund the Project on Human Development in Chicago neighborhoods, which is a longitudinal study on child development and risk factors for violence.

OJJDP will conduct additional analyses using data collected under the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency. These analyses will be used to support further development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy.

OJJDP will continue to support studies on the incidence and characteristics of violence committed by or against juveniles in Los Angeles, CA, and Washington, DC, and will report on studies being completed in Milwaukee, WI, and South Carolina.

OJJDP will fund the Gangs, Groups, Individuals, and Violence Intervention study panel. This panel will assist in the implementation of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy by providing up-to-date information about prevention and intervention strategies that work effectively for specific types of individuals, at specific stages of development, and under specific conditions. This study should be completed in 1996.

OJJDP will also consider funding a longitudinal survey of youth to gather self-reported data concerning juvenile crime and violent acts. Other areas of future research interest include: assessment centers; child abuse and neglect and other related issues; youth and guns; developmental pathways of juvenile offenders; family influences, such as absent or teen fathers; and victims and witnesses of violence in the home.

Address Gaps in Youth Gang, Gun, and Drug Research

NIJ and OJJDP will address gaps in research about youth involvement with gangs, guns, drugs, and their interconnections.

OJJDP will examine the interrelationships among gangs, guns, drugs, and violence through research on causes and correlates of delinquency in Rochester, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; and Denver, CO.

OJJDP will continue its research on juvenile gang involvement, collecting information on gang members who commit murder. It will also conduct a national assessment of the scope and seriousness of gang violence.

NIJ will conduct a study about the nature and extent of gang migration to provide data to law enforcement, community members, and policymakers and to enhance the capability of the juvenile justice system to effectively address this problem. The results of gang-related research will be shared among Office of Justice Programs agencies through the Gangs Working Group and among Federal agencies through the National Gang Consortium.

OJJDP will supplement the baseline study on the presence of violent gangs with two studies designed to develop detailed information on various aspects of gangs such as the proportion of violent crime attributed to youth gangs. NIJ has funded several studies (Huff, Klein, and Maxson) that will supplement these efforts and further define the relationships among gang participation and other forms of delinquency and violence.

OJJDP's Field-Initiated Research program will support research ideas generated in the field. Priority research topics may include factors related to joining and leaving gangs, ethnographic studies on the dynamics of gang creation or enlistment, and prevention or intervention approaches aimed at diverting at-risk youth from becoming gang members.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is studying how the disruption of illegal weapons markets impacts juvenile violent crime rates and gun homicides.

NIJ is conducting several firearms studies, including a national survey of high school students, to examine firearm acquisition, ownership, and use as well as victimization experiences; a study on firearm prevalence in and around urban, suburban, and rural high schools; and a study that applies the principles of community oriented policing to the interruption of illicit youth gun markets in Boston, combining prevention strategies with policing strategies used against illegal drug traffickers.

OJJDP will evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive strategy to reduce juvenile gun violence in the Atlanta metropolitan region.

HHS will fund, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a research project to examine the risk factors for gun use and injury among young males in inner cities. The research will examine two aspects. First, it will compare young males whose violence and/or injuries involve guns, and those whose violence and/or injuries involve gangs whose violence does not involve guns. Second, it will determine the characteristics and processes of personal interactions where gun injuries occur compared to nongun injuries. The research will identify modifiable risk factors in the daily routines of youth in areas of concentrated violence, and will contribute to the development of a framework for process analysis of violent events.

NIJ will continue to fund research to measure the incidence of drug use among juveniles using three modes of drug-use detection: self-report, hair analysis, and urinalysis. NIJ will also continue to document the prevalence and use of drugs through 11 of its DUF sites. Also through its DUF program, NIJ will measure firearm access, possession, and use by 6,000 booked juvenile and adult arrestees in 11 sites.

Examine the Impact of Options for Processing Juvenile Offenders

OJJDP will support a study of the processes by which juveniles are transferred to criminal court and the comparative effectiveness of the criminal justice system's handling of serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders with juvenile justice system processing. This research is expected to provide legislatures and other policymakers with empirical information about juvenile transfer mechanisms, such as court processing, case dispositions, and outcomes. The comparative effectiveness of different processing options for protecting public safety and reducing subsequent recidivism is of particular interest.

Translate Research Findings Into Programs and Practices

DOJ will continue to support research and evaluation of programs and effective and promising approaches to youth violence. This knowledge will assist in program design and focus, resulting in more effective ways to prevent and stop juvenile offending, and will include:

NIJ will continue to support research to examine the relationship between early childhood abuse and neglect, subsequent violent criminal behavior, and intervention strategies that help prevent progression to this behavior.

NIJ will also fund research to explore the influence of peer groups in the development of career criminals.

OJJDP will convene a study group consisting of experts in the juvenile delinquency field to continue development and refinement of the Comprehensive Strategy.

BJA will continue to collect program and evaluation data and disseminate them through the What Works series. NIJ will also continue to evaluate and disseminate information through the Research in Brief series, evaluation bulletins, and other publications.

NIJ and OJJDP will develop additional mechanisms to disseminate research findings and data, such as conferences, meetings, clearinghouse services, research reports, and research briefings.

The Coordinating Council and its member agencies will support efforts to translate the findings of evaluation activities into effective programs and practices. OJJDP will continue to update and disseminate the Guide as additional evaluation findings are available.

NICHD will continue to support community-based studies to determine the factors influencing risk-taking behavior, including violence in various minority and ethnic adolescent populations. This knowledge will then be used to develop and test targeted intervention programs.

Integrate Evaluation Into Demonstration Projects

Coordinating Council member agencies will enhance the role of evaluation in Federal juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs by building Federal and local evaluation capacity.

OJJDP will support a national evaluation concurrent with the funding of six SafeFutures demonstration sites that will test OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy. The participating SafeFutures communities will be expected to demonstrate a strong capacity for data collection and analysis to support an evaluation component addressing both process and outcome measures. Partnerships between local and national evaluators will be encouraged.

OJJDP will also support the development of a long-term national evaluation strategy for the Title V Initiative to assess the impact of community-based, risk-focused prevention efforts. This strategy will aggregate data from individual communities participating in the Title V Initiative and will integrate preliminary findings from the current implementation evaluation.

The Executive Office for Weed and Seed and BJA will continue to support NIJ's evaluation of the Comprehensive Communities and Weed and Seed programs to assess strategies for crime and drug control. Other agencies will also begin or continue national evaluations of related prevention or intervention programs. For example, HHS will support a national evaluation of its new Family Preservation and Family Support Services program.

Suggestions for State and Local Action

Endnotes

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1994. Crime in the United States, 1993: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.

2. Butts, J.A., et al. 1995. Juvenile Court Statistics 1992. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

3. Ibid.

4. DeComo, R., et al. 1995 (May). Juveniles Taken Into Custody: Fiscal Year 1992. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

5. National Longitudinal Surveys Handbook 1995. Center for Human Resources Research, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.

6. Hawkins, J.D., and R.F. Catalano, Jr. 1993. Communities That Care. Risk-Focused Approach Using the Social Development Strategy: An Approach to Reducing Adolescent Problem Behaviors. Seattle, Wash.: Developmental Research and Programs, Inc.

7. Spergel, I. 1995 (June). The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

8. Howell, J.C., ed. 1995 (May). Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

9. Linney, J.A., and A. Wandersman. 1991. Prevention Plus III: Assessing Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Programs at the School and Community Level. Rockville, Md.: Office of Substance Abuse Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

10. Delinquency Prevention Works. 1995 (May). Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

11. Howell, ed. 1995.

12. 1994 Report to Congress: Title V Incentive Grants for Local Delinquency Prevention Programs. 1995 (March). Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

13. Huizinga, D., R. Loeber, and T. Thornberry. 1994. Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Widom, C.S. 1992 (October). The Cycle of Violence. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

17. Widom, C.S. 1995 (March). Victims of Child Sexual Abuse -- Later Criminal Consequences. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

18. Huizinga et al., 1994.

19. Drug Use Forecasting, 1993 Annual Report on Juvenile Arrestees/Detainees: Drugs and Crime in America's Cities. 1994 (November). Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

20. Thornberry, T.P., D. Huizinga, and R. Loeber. 1995. The prevention of serious delinquency and violence: Implications from the program of research on the causes and correlates of delinquency. In J.C. Howell et al., eds. Sourcebook on Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

21. Delinquency Prevention Works.

22. Rutman, L. 1980. Planning Useful Evaluations -- Evaluability Assessment. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.

23. Linney and Wandersman, 1991.

24. Howell, ed., 1995.

Contents | Foreword | Acknowledgments | Introduction | Summary
Figures | Objectives | Conclusion | Appendixes