For the third consecutive year, the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders remained at the heart of OJJDP's program plan and guided its efforts in FY 1998. In addition to the activities highlighted in chapters 1 and 2, OJJDP developed and funded a number of other programs to help States, local governments, and communities adopt the Comprehensive Strategy's research-based approach to addressing the problems of juvenile crime and victimization.

More and more communities are coming to understand that a long-term, consistent commitment is required to reduce juvenile delinquency, violence, and victimization and to ensure public safety. It is encouraging that, in recent years, many communities have begun to make the commitment needed to make a comprehensive strategy for achieving these goals a reality.

OJJDP built on this positive momentum by continuing to focus on programs and strategies that work. Many of these programs require a concerted effort by Federal, State, and local governments, in partnership with private organizations and community agencies, to ensure that available resources are used in a way that maximizes their impact; decreases juvenile crime, violence, and victimization; and increases community safety. Leading by example, OJJDP coordinated its programs with other Office of Justice Programs components and Federal agencies whenever possible to concentrate Federal resources and to achieve maximum results from programs and initiatives. This coordination, which is evidenced in many of the programs described in this chapter, includes joint funding, interagency agreements, and partnerships to develop, implement, and evaluate projects.

In determining which programs to fund in FY 1998, OJJDP designed its programming around four major themes: preventing and intervening in delinquency, strengthening the juvenile justice system, ensuring public safety and enhancing law enforcement, and addressing child abuse and neglect. A category of programs known as "overarching programs" completes OJJDP's program plan and includes programs that have significant elements common to more than one of the other four themes. Taken together, these programs form a continuum that supports the objectives of the Comprehensive Strategy. This chapter briefly discusses each of these themes and provides examples of the programs funded under them.

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OJJDP Annual Report 1998	October 1999