OJJDP has long recognized the importance of developing programs that prevent delinquency or that intervene immediately and effectively when delinquent or status offense behavior first occurs. Effective prevention and early intervention programs will reduce the flow of juveniles into the juvenile justice system, the numbers of serious and violent offenders, and the development of chronic delinquent careers. Although removing serious and violent juvenile offenders from the street protects the public, long-term solutions lie primarily in taking aggressive steps to stop delinquency before it starts or becomes a pattern of behavior. Several OJJDP programs are providing research findings that will help the juvenile justice system develop such interventions. One of these is the OJJDP Causes and Correlates longitudinal study, which has been following a sample of inner-city youth since 1986; others include two study groups that examined serious and violent offenders and very young offenders.

OJJDP also supports prevention programs that help keep children safe at school and away from drugs, initiatives that provide one-on-one mentoring, and early intervention programs (including a program that addresses school truancy). Programs that provide youth with positive opportunities are also important, and OJJDP�s National Youth Network is one example of such programs.

Coordinating programs is essential. OJJDP works closely with other Federal agencies on programs to meet the needs of girls and parents. OJJDP also is coordinating agencies� efforts to identify critical next steps in combating juvenile violence and delinquency.

These and the other activities highlighted in this chapter provide valuable information for the juvenile justice system. This information helps the system prevent delinquency before it starts or intervene before it becomes a serious problem.

Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

Since 1986, OJJDP has sponsored three major longitudinal studies—collectively known as the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency—that are examining how juveniles develop within the context of family, school, peers, and community. Researchers are studying samples of inner-city youth in Denver, CO; Pittsburgh, PA; and Rochester, NY. On average, 90 percent of the juveniles in the original sample populations have remained in the studies. Findings from this research project are providing valuable information about what causes a juvenile to commit delinquent acts. Many of the findings reinforce earlier beliefs and knowledge about the roots of delinquency and violence—for example, that childhood maltreatment is associated with later behavioral problems and that less serious problem behaviors precede more serious delinquency.

Some of the newest findings from the research indicate that multiple family transitions (such as those caused by separation or divorce) are a risk factor for delinquency. Researchers found a consistent relationship between the number of transitions and the level of delinquency and drug use among youth in the three sample cities. Researchers also found that a male youth�s early involvement in drug use and delinquency is highly correlated with becoming a teen father. Even when researchers controlled for other variables, they found that a number of problem behaviors—early sexual activity (before age 16), gang membership, chronic involvement in violent behavior, and chronic drug use—substantially increased a boy�s likelihood of becoming a teen father. Researchers also found that becoming a father does not cause a young male to become more responsible and law abiding. Although some hypothesize that fatherhood might encourage young males to become more mature and assume the tasks of helping to establish and support a family, researchers found that fathering a child was associated with an even greater increase in delinquent behavior. Teenage fathers were more likely to have court petitions alleging delinquency, to drink alcohol frequently, to deal in drugs, or to drop out of school. These findings from the Causes and Correlates research are described in greater detail in three OJJDP Bulletins: Co-occurrence of Delinquency and Other Problem Behaviors, Family Disruption and Delinquency, and Teenage Fatherhood and Delinquent Behavior. The Bulletins are available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. Topics for upcoming OJJDP reports from these studies include characteristics and predictions of offending at a very young age, consequences of delinquency, and long-term effects of involvement in the juvenile justice system. For more information on the Causes and Correlates program and a complete listing of all publications resulting from this research, visit the OJJDP Web site�s Causes and Correlates dedicated site (www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ccd/index.html).

Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

The Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Council) identifies and develops policies, objectives, and priorities for Federal programs and activities pertaining to juvenile delinquency, juvenile victimization, and missing and exploited children. The Attorney General is chairperson and the OJJDP Administrator is vice chairperson of the Council, which is supported by OJJDP. The Council comprises ex officio members from nine Federal agencies and nine practitioner members appointed by the President, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House.

During FY 2000, the Council focused on updating its 1996 juvenile justice action plan, developing resources to meet the needs of parents and at-risk girls, and addressing the issue of juveniles and the death penalty. The Council also met to discuss youth employment.

The Council developed and published Combating Violence and Delinquency: The National Juvenile Justice Action Plan (Action Plan) in 1996. The Action Plan encourages communities to develop partnerships with State and Federal agencies to address and reduce the impact of juvenile violence and delinquency. The Council�s member agencies began updating the Action Plan in FY 2000 by summarizing their major accomplishments since 1996 in juvenile justice-related programs, research, and training and technical assistance. The Council also plans to produce and collaboratively publish, through OJJDP, a series of eight stand-alone Bulletins—one for each of the Action Plan�s original objectives—to encourage replication of successful delinquency prevention programs at the State and local levels.

After reviewing Federal agencies� existing programs to help parents, the Council developed additional informational resources for parents. Although impressed with the depth and breadth of available information, especially in the area of model programs for family strengthening and support, the Council concluded that the Federal Government could do a better job of organizing information and providing support for parents. As a result, in FY 2000, the Council developed a national parenting Web site, which was launched in June and has already received more than 134,000 hits. The Web site is discussed in greater detail in the section on OJJDP Web Sites.

The Council also began focusing on the Federal Government�s efforts to meet the needs of girls who are at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system or who are already involved in the system. The Council created a Federal Interagency Working Group on Gender Issues, which is cataloging, coordinating, and expanding gender-specific programming across Federal agencies. This working group met twice in FY 2000 and will continue to meet in FY 2001.

In FY 2000, the Council supported the development and publication of a Bulletin discussing the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Juveniles and the Death Penalty examines the history of capital punishment and U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to its use with juveniles. It also includes profiles of individuals sentenced to death for crimes they committed as juveniles and explores the international movement toward abolishing the sanction.

An OJJDP Fact Sheet on the Council�s activities and responsibilities, Coordinating Council Promotes Federal Collaboration, is available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. The Bulletin Juveniles and the Death Penalty also is available from the Clearinghouse.

Drug-Free Communities Support Program

In its third year of funding, the Drug-Free Communities Support Program (DFCSP) provides grants to 307 community coalitions in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to strengthen their efforts to prevent and reduce young people�s illegal use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. In FY 2000, OJJDP awarded nearly $9 million in new grants to 94 sites, including Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; and Washington, DC. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which oversees the program, and OJJDP, which awards and administers the grants, selected the new sites from 228 applications through a competitive review process. In the program�s first year (FY 1998), ONDCP and OJJDP awarded grants to 93 sites. An additional 124 sites received grants in FY 1999.

The coalitions, which must have worked together on substance abuse reduction initiatives for a minimum of 6 months prior to receiving a grant, are made up of youth; parents; business and media representatives; school officials; youth service organizations; law enforcement; civic, volunteer, and fraternal groups; healthcare professionals; religious organizations; State, local, or tribal governmental agencies with expertise in the field of substance abuse; and other organizations involved in reducing substance abuse. Effective project activities funded under this program have included teen courts, alcohol and drug abstinence pledge programs, charter schools, counseling services, peer mentoring programs, prevention and outreach activities, skills-building programs, celebrity dinners, cultural awareness initiatives, art clubs, town hall meetings, and service projects.

Awards of up to $100,000 are made to coalitions for use over a 1-year period. The coalitions, which have developed long-range plans to reduce substance abuse, are required to match grant awards with funding from non-Federal sources. Although the awards are for 1 year, grantees may apply for continuation awards based on performance and availability of funds. The program enables the coalitions to enhance their collaborative and coordination efforts. The coalitions also encourage citizen participation in substance abuse reduction efforts and disseminate information about effective programs.

The six regional Centers for Application of Prevention Technologies, through funding from OJJDP and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services� Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, also provide technical assistance to grantees. In addition, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America of Alexandria, VA, provides critical support to these grassroots organizations.

In 1999, Caliber Associates of Fairfax, VA, received an award to conduct process and outcome evaluations of the community-based coalition projects. The evaluation is reviewing the implementation of programs at more than 100 sites, with a more indepth look at 12 sites to measure the impact and outcome of program activities.

Some early findings from the evaluation indicate that DFCSP coalitions serve urban, suburban, rural, and tribal areas. Coalitions are concentrated in urban and suburban areas (40 percent) and areas that encompass urban, suburban, and rural communities (34 percent). A large proportion (42 percent) of coalitions target the entire community, approximately one-fourth target youth, and almost one-third target a specific age group (elementary, middle, or high school). The strategies and activities that coalitions plan to use reflect the range of services and activities frequently employed in substance abuse prevention and treatment. Forty-six percent will engage in data-driven planning and decisionmaking with other agencies, 37 percent will continue to mobilize and form partnerships, 55 percent will provide training and educational services, and 56 percent plan to improve their information-sharing techniques. Evaluators continue to track the implementation of these programs. Final evaluation results are expected in 2003.

Juvenile Mentoring Program

The Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) supports one-to-one mentoring programs for youth at risk of failing or dropping out of school or becoming involved in delinquent activities, including drug use and gang crime. OJJDP recently awarded more than $5.6 million in FY 2000 grants for programs in 20 States and Puerto Rico. The 26 new sites were competitively selected from a pool of 534 applicants. Awards ranged from $190,000 to $210,000.

Each site participating in JUMP is required to coordinate its activities with local schools. Some of the newly funded programs emphasize tutoring and academics; others focus on vocational counseling and job skills. Many of the programs recruit law enforcement officers as mentors. In other programs, volunteer mentors include college students, senior citizens, military personnel, business leaders, clergy, doctors, lawyers, teachers, tribal leaders, and government employees. The programs target youth from first grade through high school. Ten of the new programs focus on minority youth, two focus on girls, and five specifically target youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system. The newly funded programs represent a balanced cross-section of America�s rural, urban, suburban, and tribal communities.

To help strengthen the quality of JUMP, OJJDP funds the National Mentoring Center at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory of Portland, OR. The Center is a collaborative effort with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBS) and Public/Private Ventures, both of Philadelphia, PA. The Center provides training and technical assistance to JUMP and other mentoring programs, produces publications and newsletters, and offers an online lending library of mentoring resources. Information about the Center is available through its Web site (www.nwrel.org/mentoring). OJJDP also has provided $4.4 million to BBBS to strengthen its local affiliates by implementing a comprehensive and multifaceted effort to double the number of mentors for at-risk youth.

OJJDP is funding an ongoing evaluation of JUMP. Conducted by Information Technology International (ITI) of Potomac, MD, the evaluation will continue through 2001. Evaluators began collecting data from the initial 41 JUMP projects in 1997 and provided a report to Congress based on this preliminary data in 1998. Researchers continue to collect data for both process and outcome evaluations and have prepared a draft interim report of their findings. The researchers also plan to conduct several new activities, including helping local projects conduct their own evaluations to make the projects more sustainable after Federal funding ends and examining the long-term impact of mentoring on youth served by JUMP.

National Youth Network

The National Youth Network (NYN), established in 1997, consists of young people (ages 14 to 24) representing key national and local nonprofit, community-based, school, and juvenile justice organizations. NYN is a cooperative partnership among OJJDP, the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), and 18 youth-serving organizations. NYN brings together youth and adults from these organizations to promote youth leadership development and increase opportunity for youth around the country to participate in public policy discussions and programmatic decisions on issues that affect them. Network members and adults participate in annual meetings to develop a work plan that is implemented by youth-led task forces. With the support and resources of OJJDP staff, NYN members assist communities and organizations in training young people to produce youth forums and town hall meetings.

During FY 2000, Network members made presentations to a variety of youth audiences, Members of Congress, members of national organizations, and attendees at State and local conferences. Their presentations addressed a number of issues facing youth, including gun violence, underage drinking, and violence prevention.

OJJDP and NYN, in collaboration with NCPC, also produced and distributed several Youth in Action (YIA) Bulletins and Fact Sheets in FY 2000. These publications, written by and for youth, provide information about activities that young people have planned and implemented to prevent crime and make their communities safer and healthier. Publications produced in FY 2000 discuss how youth can work with the media, assess the performance of their youth programs, develop mediation programs to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts, create crime-fighting publications, and raise awareness and educate the public about youth violence prevention efforts. (For a list of YIA Bulletins and Fact Sheets, see Youth in Action Publications.)

Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative is an unprecedented collaborative effort by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Justice that began in 1999. Grants totaling $242 million have been distributed to 77 communities across the country to help make their schools safe and drug free and to promote healthy child development. Awards range from (up to) $3 million per year for urban school districts, $2 million for suburban school districts, and $1 million for rural school districts and tribal schools. The initiative helps students develop the skills they need to promote positive mental health, engage in prosocial behavior, and avoid violent behavior and drug use. Another goal of the initiative is to help grantees create an infrastructure that will institutionalize and sustain the services developed to ensure that schools provide students a safe, disciplined, and drug-free environment. Each grantee is implementing an SS/HS comprehensive, integrated plan that addresses the following six elements: school safety; prevention and early intervention efforts to respond to violence, alcohol use, and drug use; school and community mental health preventive and treatment intervention services; early childhood and psychosocial and emotional development services; educational reform; and safe school policies. This initiative is helping communities link and integrate existing and new services and activities into a comprehensive approach to violence prevention and healthy development that reflects an overall vision for the community.

OJJDP, through a cooperative agreement with the Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle, NC, is collaborating with ED and HHS to conduct a national evaluation of this program. The National Mental Health Association of Alexandria, VA, through a cooperative agreement funded by OJJDP, ED, and HHS, has established the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Action Center to provide training and technical assistance to SS/HS sites. Information about the Center is available on its Web site (http://sshs.samhsa.gov).

Study of Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children

In 1999, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), with financial support from OJJDP, began a study to determine the extent to which entertainment products that are age-restricted because of their violent content—including movies, video and computer games, and music recordings—are marketed and made available to youth. The study report, which was published on September 11, 2000, concluded that even though entertainment industry representatives acknowledge that such products warrant parental caution, the industry promotes the products in venues where children make up a substantial percentage of the audience and designs its advertisements to attract children and teenagers. The report recommended that the industry establish or expand codes that prohibit targeting marketing efforts on children and impose sanctions for violations. The report also recommended that the industry improve self-regulatory system compliance at the retail level and work to increase parental awareness of product ratings and cautionary labels.

OJJDP is working with the FTC to develop materials to help parents better control their children�s access to media products inappropriate for their age. The materials will explain the various rating systems; explain how materials are marketed to children, especially in locations not monitored by parents; and suggest actions parents can take to reassert their control over the types of media products to which their children are exposed.

Truancy Reduction Activities

The goal of the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program is to encourage communities to develop comprehensive approaches that involve schools, parents, the justice system, law enforcement, and social service agencies in identifying and tracking truant youth. The truancy program is a collaborative effort of OJJDP, the Department of Education�s Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, and the Department of Justice�s Weed and Seed program, which supports communitywide efforts to �weed out� violent crime, gang activity, drug trafficking, and drug use and �seed in� social programs.

In 1998, OJJDP solicited applications from communities that were engaged in integrated, communitywide plans to reduce truancy. Applicants were required to outline a comprehensive program that included four major components: a continuum of services to support truant youth and their families; system reform and accountability; data collection (from schools, agencies, and courts) and evaluation; and a community education and awareness program that addresses the need to prevent truancy and intervene with truant youth.

Communities in several sites—Contra Costa County, CA; Honolulu, HI; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; King County, WA; Suffolk County, NY; and Tacoma, WA—are implementing programs that link truant youth with community-based services and programs. The sites are diverse in their geographic location, ethnic and socioeconomic makeup, and community-based leadership; therefore, the contexts in which their projects exist differ. All the sites have a large number of minority students and families and a significant number of students and families living in poverty. Examples of site accomplishments in 2000 include a successful Faith-Based Truancy Prevention Conference in Jacksonville and a poster contest in Suffolk County. The project in King County designed and implemented a popular truancy reduction media campaign using advertisements on the sides of public transportation buses.

OJJDP also is funding an evaluation of the truancy demonstration program. The evaluation, which is being conducted by the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children of Denver, CO, is documenting the implementation process and examining challenges faced by grantees, planned interventions, and student and family outcomes. One of the goals of the evaluation is to identify key components of projects that work to reduce truancy and other behaviors that are risk factors for delinquency. These findings will help to provide other communities with guidance as they develop their own truancy reduction efforts.

The first year of the truancy program evaluation (1999) has yielded a strong base of information that will help direct future program activities. Evaluators are providing the sites with support and training to implement their programs and to gather information needed for the evaluation. Support has been provided for sites in developing and maintaining collaborative groups that direct the projects. Several sites have been very successful in building collaborative relationships and accessing data. In 2000, sites received training on using culturally appropriate practices and ensuring family involvement in truancy reduction efforts.

Very Young Offenders Study Group

OJJDP�s Study Group on Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders found that most chronic juvenile offenders begin their criminal careers prior to age 12 and some begin as early as age 10. Based on this finding, OJJDP assembled in FY 2000 a Study Group on Very Young Offenders. The distinguished panel of 39 researchers examined what is known about the prevalence and frequency of very young offending�typically defined as delinquency by children younger than 13�and focused on identifying whether young offending predicts future delinquent or criminal careers, how very young offenders are handled by various systems, and what the best methods are to prevent very young offending and persistent offending.

The Study Group on Very Young Offenders found that action can be taken to identify risk and protective factors relevant to preventing child delinquency and its escalation to chronic criminal behavior. Child delinquency risk factors, like risk factors for older juvenile offenders, exist within the individual child, the family, the peer group, the school, and the neighborhood. For very young offenders, the most important risk factors are likely to be individual (e.g., birth complications, hyperactivity, impulsivity) and familial (e.g., parental substance abuse or lack of child-rearing skills). The Study Group also found that protective factors such as prosocial behavior during the preschool years and good cognitive performance can buffer or offset the impact of risk factors. Ultimately, children with many risk factors and few protective factors are at highest risk of becoming serious, violent, and chronic offenders. The Study Group urged an emphasis on primary prevention and early intervention efforts, highlighting several well-evaluated primary prevention programs geared toward conflict resolution and violence prevention that focus on enhancing children�s problem-solving and interaction skills. OJJDP will publish the Study Group�s findings in 2001.