Introduction

The 1988 amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93–415, 42 U.S.C. 5601 et seq.) required that States participating in the JJDP Act’s Part B Formula Grants program address the disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles in secure facilities. Specifically, this provision required State plans to assess the level of such confinement and implement strategies to reduce disproportionate minority representation where it is found to exist.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) created the Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) initiative in 1991 to help States comply with this State plan requirement of the Formula Grants program by testing various approaches for addressing disproportionate confinement. Through a competitive process, OJJDP selected five States—Arizona, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Oregon—to pilot the DMC initiative, which was carried out in two 18-month phases. During the first phase, the five States assessed the extent to which minority juveniles were disproportionately confined. During the second phase, the States designed and implemented corrective actions. OJJDP provided three types of assistance:

• Grants to fund the DMC assessment and interventions in both phases.

• Technical support for designing and developing the interventions, led by Portland State University’s William Feyerherm, Ph.D., and a team of academic experts.

• Technical assistance for implementing the interventions.

The DMC initiative also included a national evaluation, one objective of which was to document the lessons learned and key factors in successful State and local efforts. This Bulletin summarizes lessons learned from the national evaluation, drawing on findings from related research and current State DMC practices as reported in OJJDP policy and management reports.

Disproportionate Minority Confinement: Lessons Learned From Five States	OJJDP Bulletin • December 1998