Overarching Programs

SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency

OJJDP is awarding grants of up to $1.4 million annually to each of six communities for a 5-year project period that began in FY 1995, to assist in implementing comprehensive community programs designed to reduce youth violence and delinquency. Boston, Massachusetts; Contra Costa County, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Imperial County, California (rural site); and Fort Belknap, Montana (tribal site) were competitively selected to receive awards under the SafeFutures program on the basis of their substantial planning and progress in community assessment and strategic planning to address delinquency.

SafeFutures seeks to prevent and control youth crime and victimization through the creation of a continuum of care in communities. This continuum enables communities to be responsive to the needs of youth at critical stages of their development through providing an appropriate range of prevention, intervention, treatment, and sanctions programs.

The goals of SafeFutures are:

To prevent and control juvenile violence and delinquency in targeted communities by reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors for delinquency, providing a continuum of services for juveniles at risk of delinquency, including appropriate immediate interventions for juvenile offenders, and developing a full range of graduated sanctions designed to hold delinquent youth accountable to the victim and the community, ensure community safety, and provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services;

To develop a more efficient, effective, and timely service delivery system for at-risk and delinquent juveniles and their families that is capable of responding to their needs at any point of entry into the juvenile justice system;

To build the community's capacity to institutionalize and sustain the continuum by expanding and diversifying sources of funding; and

To determine the success of program implementation and the outcomes achieved, including whether a comprehensive program involving community-based efforts and program resources concentrated on providing a continuum of care has succeeded in preventing or reducing juvenile violence and delinquency.

Each of the six sites will continue to provide a set of services that builds on community strengths and existing services and fills in gaps within their existing continuum. These services include family strengthening; after school activities; mentoring; treatment alternatives for juvenile female offenders; mental health services; day treatment; graduated sanctions for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders; and gang prevention, intervention, and suppression.

A national evaluation is being conducted by the Urban Institute to determine the success of the initiative and track lessons learned at each of the six sites. OJJDP has also committed training and technical assistance (TTA) resources to SafeFutures through a full-time TTA coordinator for SafeFutures and a host of partner organizations committed to assisting SafeFutures sites. The TTA coordinator also assists the communities in brokering and leveraging additional TTA resources. In addition, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided interagency support of $100,000 for training and technical assistance targeted to violence and delinquency prevention in public housing areas of SafeFutures sites. Thus, operations, evaluation, and TTA have been organized together to form a joint team at the national level to support local site efforts.

SafeFutures activities will be carried out by the six current grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Evaluation of SafeFutures

The Urban Institute received a competitive 3-year cooperative agreement award with FY 1995 funds to conduct Phase I of the national evaluation of the SafeFutures program. OJJDP would consider two years of additional funding for Phase II. The evaluation addresses the program implementation process and measures performance outcomes across the six sites. The process evaluation focuses primarily on the development and implementation of a strategic plan designed to establish a continuum of care and integrated services for young people in high-risk communities. The evaluation will identify obstacles and key factors contributing to the successful implementation of the SafeFutures program. The evaluator is responsible for developing a cross-site report documenting the process of program implementation for use by other funding agencies or communities that want to develop and implement a comprehensive community-based strategy to address serious, violent, and chronic delinquency.

In FY 1996, the Urban Institute developed a logic model that links program activities and outputs to desired intermediate and long-term outcomes. Their evaluator also held a cross-site cluster meeting and conducted site visits at each of the six SafeFutures sites.

In FY 1997, in addition to continuing its onsite monitoring, the Urban Institute, in collaboration with the OJJDP SafeFutures program management team, developed the national evaluation plan and introduced it to the sites at the cluster meeting on information technology held in Oakland, CA, in September 1997.

In FY 1998, the Urban Institute will continue the process evaluation and will conduct interviews with key stakeholders, service providers, and youth in order to assess the extent to which a community and its policy board have mobilized to implement a continuum of care and develop an integrated system of services over the course of SafeFutures program implementation. The research team will also complete the development of performance measures to be used by all sites to monitor the outcomes for targeted populations within and across sites. They will compile and process the results of the performance outcomes from the sites and provide feedback to both the sites and to OJJDP. Beginning in FY 1998, the national evaluator will design and conduct sample surveys of youth in the community to assist in monitoring community-level changes in the prevalence and incidence of certain risk factors, as well as developmental and community assets on levels of delinquency and violence in the targeted community. In addition, longitudinal samples of youth and their families will be followed over time to observe the extent to which multiple needs are identified and responded to over the course of the SafeFutures program interventions.

The evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, the Urban Institute. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

Three project sites participate in the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency (Causes and Correlates): The University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University at Albany, State University of New York. Results from this longitudinal study have been used extensively in the field of juvenile justice and have contributed significantly to the development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders and other OJJDP program initiatives.

OJJDP began funding this program in 1986 and has invested approximately $10.3 million to date. Currently, OJJDP is supporting site data analyses under 3-year project period grants awarded to each site in FY 1996. The Causes and Correlates program has addressed a variety of issues related to juvenile violence and delinquency. These include developing and testing causal models for chronic violent offending and examining interrelationships among gang involvement, drug selling, and gun ownership/use. To date, the program has produced a massive amount of information on the causes and correlates of delinquent behavior.

Although there is great commonality across the Causes and Correlates project sites, each has unique design features. Additionally, each project has disseminated the results of its research through a broad range of publications, reports, and presentations.

With FY 1996 funding, each site of the Causes and Correlates program was provided funds to further analyze the longitudinal data. Among the numerous analyses conducted were risk factors for teenage fatherhood, patterns of illegal gun carrying among young urban males, and factors associated with early sexual activity among urban adolescents. Two publications were developed as part of the newly launched Youth Development Series of OJJDP Bulletins.

In FY 1997, the sites continued both their collaborative research efforts and site-specific research. The cross site analysis was on the early onset and co-occurrence of persistent serious offending. Site specific analyses were produced on victimization, over time changes in delinquency and drug use, impact of family changes on adolescent development, and neighborhood, individual, and social risk factors for serious juvenile offending.

In FY 1998, at least one major cross site analysis will be undertaken, as well as three site specific analyses per study site.

This program will be implemented by the current grantees: Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder; Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh; and Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center, University at Albany, State University of New York. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract

OJJDP's Management Evaluation Contract was competitively awarded in 1995 for a period of three years. Its purpose is to provide OJJDP with an expert resource capable of performing independent program evaluations and assisting the office in implementing evaluation activities. The management evaluation contract currently provides the following types of assistance to OJJDP:

Assists OJJDP staff in the determination of evaluation needs of programs, program areas, or projects to assist the agency in determining when to invest its evaluation resources;

Develops evaluation designs that OJJDP can use in defining requirements for a grant or contract to implement the evaluation;

Provides technical assistance with regard to evaluation techniques to other jurisdictions involved in the evaluation of programs to prevent and treat juvenile delinquency;

Responds to the needs of OJJDP by providing evaluations based on available data or data that can be readily developed to support OJJDP decisionmaking under whatever schedule is required by the decisionmaking process. Evaluations under this contract are program evaluations, that is, evaluations of either individual grants or contracts or groups of grants or contracts that are designed to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the program;

Conduct a full-scale evaluation research project; and

Provide training to OJJDP program managers and other staff on evaluation-related topics such as the different kinds of evaluation data and their uses, planning for program or project information collection and evaluation, and the role of evaluation in the agency planning process.

Under this contract, evaluations may be conducted on OJJDP-funded action programs, including demonstrations, tests, training, and technical assistance and other programs, not funded by OJJDP, designed to prevent and treat juvenile delinquency. Evaluations are carried out in accordance with work plans prepared by the contractor and approved by OJJDP. Because the evaluations vary in terms of program complexity, availability of data, and purpose of the evaluation, the time and cost of each varies. Each evaluation is defined by OJJDP and costs, method, and time are determined through negotiations between OJJDP and the contractor. Because the purpose of many evaluations is to inform management decisions, the completion of an evaluation and submission of a report may be required in a specific and, often, short time period.

This contract will be implemented by the current contractor, Caliber Associates. A new competitive contract solicitation will be issued during FY 1998, and a new contract awarded in FY 1999.

Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development

The Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD) program was competitively awarded in FY 1990 to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) to improve national, state, and local statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders. Over the last seven years, through continuation funding, the project has focused on three major tasks: (1) assessing how current information needs are being met with existing data collection efforts and recommending options for improving national level statistics; (2) analyzing data and disseminating information gathered from existing federal statistical series and national studies; and (3) providing training and technical assistance for local agencies in developing or enhancing management information systems.

Under the second task, OJJDP released the seminal analysis Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report in September 1995, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1996 Update on Violence in March 1996, and Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1997 Update on Violence in October 1997. A training curriculum, Improving Information for Rational Decisionmaking in Juvenile Justice, was drafted for pilot testing, and future documents will be produced based on this effort.

In FY 1998, NCJJ will: (1) complete a long-term plan for improving national statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders, including constructing core data elements for a national reporting program for juveniles waived or transferred to criminal court; (2) update the Compendium of Federal Statistical Programs on juvenile victims and offenders and work with the OJP Crime Statistics Working Group and other federal interagency statistics working groups; (3) provide technical support to OJJDP in enhancing the availability and accessibility of statistics on the OJJDP Web site; (4) make recommendations to fill information gaps in the areas of juvenile probation, juvenile court, and law enforcement responses to juvenile delinquency, violent delinquency, and child abuse and neglect; and (5) produce a second edition of Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report.

This project will be implemented by the current grantee, NCJJ. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1998.

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) is replacing the biennial Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities, known as the Children in Custody census. This newly designed census will collect detailed information on the population of juveniles who are in juvenile residential placement facilities as a result of contact with the juvenile justice system. Over the past three years, OJJDP and the Bureau of the Census, with the assistance of a Technical Advisory Board, have developed the CJRP to more accurately represent the numbers of juveniles in residential placement and to describe the reasons for their placement. A new method of data collection, tested in FY 1996, involves gathering data in a roster-type format, often by electronic means. The new methods are expected to result in more accurate, timely, and useful data on the juvenile population, with less reporting burden for facility respondents.

In FY 1997, OJJDP funded initial implementation of the CJRP, including form preparation, mailout, and processing of census forms. In October 1997, the first census using the revised methodology was conducted.

OJJDP proposes to continue funding this project in FY 1998 to clean the data files, allowing the production of new data products based on the 1997 census.

This program would be implemented through an existing interagency agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and Technical Assistance Center

The National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) was established in FY 1995 under a competitive 3-year project period award to Community Research Associates. NTTAC serves as a national training and technical assistance clearinghouse, inventorying and coordinating the integrated delivery of juvenile justice training/technical assistance resources and establishing a data base of these resources.

In FY 1995, work involved organization and staffing of the Center, orientation for OJJDP training/technical assistance providers regarding their role in the Center's activities, and initial data base development.

NTTAC's funding in FY 1996 provided services in the form of coordinated technical assistance support for OJJDP's SafeFutures and gang program initiatives, continued promotion of collaboration between OJJDP training/technical assistance providers, developed training/technical assistance materials, and completed and disseminated the first OJJDP Training and Technical Assistance Resource Catalog. In addition, NTTAC assisted state and local jurisdictions and other OJJDP grantees with specialized training, including the development of training-of-trainers programs. NTTAC continued to evolve as a central source for information pertaining to the availability of OJJDP-supported training/technical assistance programs and resources.

In FY 1997, NTTAC completed the first draft of the jurisdictional team training/technical assistance packages for gender-specific services and juvenile correctional services; provided training/technical assistance in support of OJJDP's SafeFutures and Gangs programs; updated and disseminated the second Training and Technical Assistance Resource Catalog; created a Web site for the Center and a listserve for the Children, Youth and Affinity Group; held three focus groups on needs assessments; and coordinated and provided 38 instances of technical assistance in conjunction with OJJDP's training/technical assistance grantees and contractors.

In FY 1998, NTTAC plans to finalize, field test, and coordinate delivery of the jurisdictional team training/technical assistance packages on critical needs in the juvenile justice system, update the resource catalog, facilitate the annual OJJDP training/TA grantee and contractor meeting, continue to update the repository of training/TA materials and the electronic data base of training/TA materials, and continue to respond to training/TA requests from the field.

The current grantee, Community Research Associates, will complete its work in FY 1998. A new competitive solicitation would be issued in FY 1998 for a new project period.

Technical Assistance for State Legislatures

Since FY 1995, OJJDP has awarded annual grants to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to provide relevant and timely information on comprehensive approaches in juvenile justice that are geared to the legislative environment. The purpose of this project is to aid state legislators in improving state juvenile justice systems when crafting legislative responses to youth violence. State legislatures have a unique role and responsibility in establishing state policy and approaches and appropriating funds for juvenile justice. Nearly every state has enacted, or is considering, statutory changes affecting the juvenile justice system. Historically, state legislatures have lacked the information needed to comprehensively address juvenile justice issues. Experience with this project indicates that policy makers find it has helped them understand the ramifications and nuances of juvenile justice reform.

Since OJJDP began funding this project, NCSL has conducted three invitational Legislator's Leadership Forums; sponsored sessions on juvenile justice reform at the NCSL annual meetings; expanded clearinghouse and juvenile justice enactment reporting; and produced and distributed a publication, Legislator's Guide to Comprehensive Juvenile Justice. The invitational meetings were attended by more than 100 legislators and additional legislative staff from 34 states selected as key decisionmakers on juvenile justice reform. Meeting sessions and information services reached at least 500 legislators or legislative staff in all states. In addition, project publications were distributed to more than 2,000 legislative members, staff, and agencies to provide for further broad distribution of information central to comprehensive strategies in juvenile justice to a state legislative audience throughout the states.

The grant has improved capacity for the delivery of information services to legislatures, with the number of information requests handled for legislators and staff having increased to about 500 per year. It is expected that the Children and Families and Criminal Justice programs will respond to another 500 information requests in FY 1998.

In FY 1998, NCSL would further identify, analyze, and disseminate information to assist state legislatures to make more informed decisions about legislation affecting the juvenile justice system. A complementary task involves supporting increased communication between state legislators and state and local leaders who influence decisionmaking regarding juvenile justice issues. NCSL would provide intensive technical assistance to four states, continue outreach activities, and maintain its clearinghouse function. Additionally, NCSL would assist in the production of a live satellite videoconference directed primarily to state legislators.

The project would be implemented by the current grantee, NCSL. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Telecommunications Assistance

Developments in information technology and distance training have expanded and enhanced OJJDP's capacity to disseminate information and provide training and technical assistance. The advantages of these technologies include increased access to information and training for professionals in the juvenile justice system, reduced travel costs to conferences, and reduced time attending meetings away from one's home or office. OJJDP uses this cost-effective medium to share with the field the salient elements of the most effective or promising approaches to various juvenile justice issues. The field has responded positively to these live satellite teleconferences and has come to expect them at regular intervals.

OJJDP selected Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) through a competitive program announcement in FY 1992 to conduct a feasibility study on using this technology in its programming. In FY 1995, EKU was awarded a competitive grant to undertake production of live satellite videoconferences. Since the inception of this grant in FY 1995, EKU has produced 13 live satellite teleconferences, with an average of 360 downlink sites participating in each. The project produced four teleconferences in FY 1995 (Juvenile Boot Camps, Reducing Youth Gun Violence, Youth Out of the Education Mainstream, and Conflict Resolution for Youth), four in FY 1996 (Community Collaboration, Effective Programs for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, Youth-Oriented Community Policing, Leadership Challenges for Juvenile Detentions and Corrections), and five in FY 1997 (Has the Juvenile Court Outlived Its Usefulness?, Youth Gangs in America, Preventing Drug Abuse Among Youth, Mentoring for Youth, and Treating Drug-Involved Youth).

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to continue the cooperative agreement with EKU in order to provide program support and technical assistance for a variety of information technologies, including audioconferences, fiber optics, and satellite teleconferences, producing four to five additional live national satellite teleconferences. The grantee would also continue to provide technical assistance to other grantees interested in using this technology and explore linkages with key constituent groups to advance mutual information goals and objectives.

This project would be implemented by the current grantee, EKU. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract -- Juvenile Justice Resource Center

This contract provides technical assistance and support to OJJDP, its grantees, and the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the areas of program development, evaluation, training, and research. OJJDP proposes to extend the current contract in FY 1998 until a new contract can be competitively awarded. Applications have been solicited, and the new contract is expected to be awarded shortly.

This contract would be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen Systems Corporation, until a new contract is awarded.

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

A component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC) is OJJDP's central source for the collection, synthesis, and dissemination of information on all aspects of juvenile justice, including research and evaluation findings; state and local juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs and plans; availability of resources; training and educational programs; and statistics. JJC serves the entire juvenile justice community, including researchers, law enforcement officials, judges, prosecutors, probation and corrections staff, youth-service personnel, legislators, the media, and the public.

Among its many support services, JJC offers toll-free telephone access (1-800/638-8736) to information; prepares specialized responses to information requests; produces, warehouses, and distributes OJJDP publications; exhibits at national conferences; maintains a comprehensive juvenile justice library and data base; and administers several electronic information resources. Recognizing the critical need to inform juvenile justice practitioners and policy makers on promising program approaches, JJC continually develops and recommends new products and strategies to communicate more effectively the research findings and program activities of OJJDP and the field. The entire NCJRS, of which the OJJDP-funded JJC is a part, is administered by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under a competitively awarded contract to Aspen Systems Corporation.

This program would continue to be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen Systems Corporation, until the new contract is awarded. NIJ will issue a new competitive solicitation in the near future, and a new contract will be awarded during FY 1998.

Insular Area Support

The purpose of this program is to provide support to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Palau), and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Funds are available to address the special needs and problems of juvenile delinquency in these insular areas, as specified by Section 261(e) of the JJDP Act of 1974, as amended [42 U.S.C. § 5665(e)].

Community Assessment Centers (CACs)

The Community Assessment Center (CAC) program is a multicomponent, demonstration initiative to test the efficacy of the Community Assessment Center concept. CACs provide a 24-hour centralized point of intake and assessment for juveniles who have or are likely to come into contact with the juvenile justice system. The main purpose of a CAC is to facilitate earlier and more efficient prevention and intervention service delivery at the "front end" of the juvenile justice system. In FY 1997, OJJDP funded two planning grants and two enhancement grants to existing assessment centers for a 1-year project period, a CAC evaluation project, and a technical assistance component.

The planning grants were awarded to the Denver Juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado, and to the Lee County Sheriff's Office in Fort Myers, Florida, to support a 1-year intensive planning process for the development and implementation of a CAC in each community. In Denver, community leaders are assessing the feasibility of a CAC and building on existing infrastructure developed with support from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment's Juvenile Justice Integrated Treatment Network program. In Fort Myers, community leaders are completing an initial planning process and are planning to open their CAC in 1998. Planning in this site will continue after implementation and will focus on enhancing the CAC in Fort Myers to become more consistent with the CAC concept and on developing linkages with the community's Comprehensive Strategy initiative.

The enhancement component of the CAC program is designed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of existing assessment centers by supporting various and specific program enhancements and to provide support to existing assessment centers in an effort to create consistency with OJJDP's CAC concept.

Also in FY 1997, two communities received 1-year awards to help existing assessment centers provide enhanced services and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CAC concept overall. Jefferson Center for Mental Health in Jefferson County, Colorado, and Human Service Associates, Inc., in Orlando, Florida, were competitively selected to receive awards under the CAC program on the basis of their demonstrated commitment to specifically implement an enhancement that makes the existing CAC more consistent with the CAC concept. The Jefferson Center for Mental Health is developing an improved "single point of entry" and an improved management information system and other enhancements consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept. Human Services Associates, Inc. is creating an intensive integrated case management system for high-risk youth referred to the CAC, an enhancement also consistent with the OJJDP CAC concept.

In FY 1998, OJJDP proposes to provide an additional year's funding to support the full and continued implementation of selected CAC enhancements and additional support to the sites awarded planning grants in FY 1997. This funding would enable these sites to begin implementing the CAC's planned for with OJJDP funding support or to enhance existing operations.

The CAC initiative evaluation component, being conducted by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the technical assistance component, being delivered by the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association, were funded in FY 1997 for a 2-year project period and will not require additional funds in FY 1998.

These programs would be implemented by the current grantees, Jefferson Center for Mental Health, Human Service Associates, Inc., Denver Juvenile Court, and Lee County Sheriff's Office. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 1998.

Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for SafeFutures Initiative

OJJDP proposes to provide funding for long-term training and technical assistance (TTA) for the remaining three years of the SafeFutures initiative. The purpose of this TTA effort would be to build local capacity for implementing and sustaining effective continuum of care and systems change approaches to preventing and controlling juvenile violence and delinquency in the six SafeFutures communities. Project activities would include assessment, identification, and coordination of the implementation of TTA needs at each SafeFutures site and administration of cross-site training.

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