Models for Change Publications (New Jersey)

Juvenile Justice Guide Book for Legislators

04/11/2012 02:20 PM

Dec 5, 2011 | National Conference of State Legislators | PUBLICATIONS

Under a partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, NCSL has published a juvenile justice guidebook addressing the most important juvenile justice policy issues of the day. This juvenile justice primer highlights significant research, program approaches and gives examples of state legislation.

Preventing and addressing juvenile crime and delinquency remain perennial issues in state legislatures today. Juvenile justice policies require balancing the interests of rehabilitation, accountability and public safety, while also preserving the rights of juveniles. State lawmakers now more than ever are challenged with making informed choices on ways to cut costs and reduce crime and still meet the needs of youth who commit delinquent acts.

The introduction to the guidebook can be downloaded via the link above. Below are PDFs containing different sections from the guidebook. Check back soon to download the full guidebook.

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Adding Up Models for Change: Initial Findings from the Models for Change Database

02/21/2012 03:53 PM

Dec 9, 2011 | Patrick Griffin, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation | PUBLICATIONS

Models for Change was deliberately designed to be wide-ranging—to support state and local reformers in a variety of settings, working in variety of issue areas, and taking a variety of approaches. By funding reform efforts that acknowledged and reflected the complex variations in the nation’s juvenile justice systems, Models for Change sought to generate a broad and flexible range of system reform models. But this strategy makes it challenging even to document the activities of the initiative’s network of partners, let alone to track and quantify all that they have accomplished.

In 2009, the Foundation engaged a management consulting firm, Bennett Midland LLC, to design a new kind of management tool for Models for Change: a database that could serve as a comprehensive inventory of the initiative’s investments and activities, a record of progress for grants initiative-wide, and a source for analytical data to inform ongoing management decisions as the initiative progresses.This management tool would combine and relate data on the characteristics of all Models for Change grants and grantees with detailed information on the varieties of reform work the grants supported and the concrete changes they helped produce. In effect, it would classify, sort, and aggregate Models for Change—the whole array of its investments, activities and accomplishments—so that the Foundation and its partners could better assess and understand the ways it has contributed to juvenile justice systems reform.

The Models for Change Database that resulted is an experimental prototype, with the usual bugs and inconsistencies. It is also a work in progress, with information from multiple sources continually being entered and edited, cleaned and analyzed. But it has now been in use long enough, and is sufficiently populated with data, to yield some useful preliminary insights into Models for Change.

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Knowledge Brief: Harnessing the Capacity for Change

12/01/2011 01:42 PM

Dec 1, 2011 | Models for Change Research Initiative | PUBLICATIONS

Organizational change requires more than good ideas. Organizations must also have thecapacity and resources necessary to reach the desired goals. In this project, the researchers interviewed and surveyed organizations involved in Models for Change to assess their capacity to implement and sustain change. They sought to understand what resources contribute to having capacity, how capacity is used, and the ways in which different dimensions of capacity work together. From the study they identified five major dimension sof capacity—finances, human resources, technology, stakeholder commitment, and collaboration—and developed a model of how these dimensions interact, build on oneanother, and ultimately contribute to change. The more concrete capacities such as finances, human resources, and technology, the researchers found, can predict an organization’s ability to collaborate with others to effect change.

This brief is one in a series describing new knowledge and innovations emerging from Models for Change, a multi-state juvenile justice initiative. Models for Change is accelerating movement toward a more effective, fair, and developmentally sound juvenile justice system by creating replicable models that protect community safety, use resources wisely, and improve outcomes for youths. The briefs are intended to inform professionals in juvenile justice and related fields, and to contribute to a new national wave of juvenile justice reform.

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Juvenile Diversion Guidebook

10/19/2011 04:40 PM

Mar 1, 2011 | Models for Change Juvenile Diversion Workgroup | PUBLICATIONS

Programs that divert youth from involvement in the juvenile justice system have become more frequent in response to the growing recognition that such involvement often is not necessary to achieve society’s goals. The concept of diversion was first adopted by the adult criminal justice system, and in the 1960s, became a topic of discussion in the juvenile justice system. In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recommended exploring alternatives for addressing the needs of troubled youth outside of the justice system. In 1976, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Special Emphasis Branch provided $10 million in funding for the development of diversion programs. These efforts were driven by the belief that diversion programs might yield many benefits, such as: 1) decreased rates of recidivism; 2) less crowded detention facilities; 3) allowing youth the option to choose an alternative to processing; 4) providing more appropriate treatments at the community level; 5) reducing the stigma associated with formal juvenile justice system involvement; and 6) increasing family participation.

While diversion has been discussed and practiced for nearly four decades, there is little consistency in terms of what actually constitutes a diversion program or process. However, there is a common goal among diversion programs—to minimize a youth’s involvement in the juvenile justice system—but the means and processes to achieve this goal differ in a number of ways, including:

The segment of the youth population the program targets;
Who makes the decision as to which youth can or cannot be diverted;
The processing point in the system at which youth are diverted;
How charges against the youth are handled;
Consequences the youth faces for unsuccessful program completion;
Benefits the youth receives for successful program completion; and
What community-based services are provided, if any

Likewise, some jurisdictions have diversion programs that are governed by more formal rules and better defined service outcomes than others. Therefore, while diversion continues to emerge as an important practice in the juvenile justice field, these inconsistencies in what constitutes “diversion” call for clarification. This Guidebook was created to offer juvenile justice practitioners a roadmap for addressing these inconsistencies.

It is important for readers to recognize that this Guidebook does not consider all types of diversion programs in juvenile justice. Specifically, it does not consider:

Diversion efforts after formal adjudication or in juvenile corrections
Diversion from pre-trial detention

The focus of this document is on diversion programs designed to reduce the likelihood that youth will encounter formal processing prior to formal adjudication. Thus, detention diversion was excluded because it is different from other pretrial diversion situations that prevent youth from formal processing or adjudication. Diversion from detention only diverts youth from being placed in secure custody while still being formally processed. Therefore, diversion programs considered here range from the point of police contact, to pre- and post-petition, and up to the time just prior to formal adjudication.

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2010 Overview of Models for Change: Systems Reform in Juvenile Justice

04/06/2011 08:20 AM

Nov 16, 2010 | Models for Change | PUBLICATIONS

Provides an overview of the Models for Change initiative including: Background/Perspective, Framework, Grantmaking Strategy, Advancing the Models, Frequently Asked Questions, National Resource Bank and Action Networks.

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Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice

12/08/2010 10:25 AM

Dec 3, 2010 | Mark W. Lipsey, James C. Howell, Marion R. Kelly, Gabrielle Chapman, Darin Carver | PUBLICATIONS

Interventions for juvenile offenders should alter their behavior in ways that reduce their delinquency and improve their chances to prosper as productive citizens. Juvenile justice systems make use of many programs intended to accomplish these purposes, but the effectiveness of those programs is often difficult to determine and largely unknown. An increasing body of research evidence identifies effective programs and provides tools for matching those programs to the treatment needs and recidivism risks of the offenders served. That research is now sufficient to guide juvenile justice systems toward evidence-based practice models that offer the prospect of better outcomes and improved cost effectiveness. However, this research evidence and the tools it supports have not yet been well integrated into most juvenile justice systems. In part, this lag is due to the inherent difficulty of organizational change, but another factor is the piecemeal nature of the relevant research such that no coherent picture has emerged of how it can be integrated into juvenile justice practice in a way that is practical on an ongoing routine basis.

This paper introduces a framework for major juvenile justice system reform that integrates evidence-based programs and structured decision-making tools with a forward-looking, sustainable administrative model. Central to this framework are programs organized around services that address criminogenic risk factors and enhance adaptive functioning for the treated offenders. Such programs need not be restricted to the brand name model programs that appear on various lists of evidence-based practices. Meta-analysis of more than 500 controlled studies conducted by Dr. Mark Lipsey has identified the key characteristics associated with positive effects on recidivism for many of the types of programs already widely used in juvenile justice systems. A new tool based on those research findings defines concrete best practice guidelines that can be used routinely within a juvenile justice system to identify effective programs and improve those with the potential to be effective. Completing the repertoire for evidence-based practice are empirically validated needs and risk assessment instruments that provide an objective basis for appropriately allocating those programs to offenders.

To optimize positive outcomes for youth and the community in a cost effective manner, effective programs must be matched to offenders’ criminogenic needs and risks. The scaffolding for that process is the OJJDP Comprehensive Strategy. The key objectives of this administrative model are (a) developing and sustaining an appropriate array of effective evidence-based programs, and (b) implementing and sustaining structured decision making about juveniles’ program placements and supervision levels based upon objective assessments of risk and needs. Such a system is forward-looking by constructing case management plans focused on improving future behavior while holding juveniles accountable for the delinquent behavior that brought them into the juvenile justice system. And, such a system is performance-oriented by organizing around evidence-based practices aimed at optimizing positive system outcomes in a cost-effective manner. The framework for evidence-based practice described in this paper offers juvenile justice systems a practical way to use research about effective juvenile justice interventions to attain improved outcomes for the youth in their care and the communities they serve.

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Juvenile Justice Bill Tracking Database

09/02/2009 12:50 PM

Sep 1, 2009 | Sarah Hammond | PUBLICATIONS

Juvenile Justice Database

Under the National Conference of State Legislature's partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, a Juvenile Justice Bill Tracking Database was developed to bring you up-to-date juvenile justice measures that have been introduced in the 50 states and in the District of Columbia.

In the Interest of P.M.P.

07/08/2009 09:58 AM

Apr 17, 2009 | RUTGERS URBAN LEGAL CLINIC, RUTGERS SCHOOL OF LAW—NEWARK, NATIONAL JUVENILE DEFENDER CENTER, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NEW JERSEY, CHILDREN’S JUSTICE CENTER, RUTGERS SCHOOL OF LAW—CAMDEN, NORTHEAST JUVENILE DEFENDER CENTER | PUBLICATIONS

This amicus brief, filed by the Rutgers Urban Legal Clinic, the National Juvenile Defender Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Rutgers School of Law's Children's Justice Center and the Northeast Juvenile Defender Center in the New Jersey Supreme Court case In the Interest of P.M.P., argues that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches, at the latest, when a delinquency petition or complaint is filed. The brief argues that advances in the study of adolescent brain development support the adoption of additional procedural safeguards for juveniles. The brief further states that case law, statutes and rules from New Jersey and other jurisdictions, as well as national practice standards, support the attachment of the right to counsel when a delinquency petition or complaint is filed. The amici argue that New Jersey's participation in the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network uniquely situates it as a state that can implement further procedural protections for juvenile defendants. In P.M.P., a twenty-year old defendant was interrogated, in the absence of counsel, in relation to allegations of delinquent conduct committed when he was a juvenile.

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Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2007-2008

02/23/2009 03:39 PM

Dec 1, 2008 | National Juvenile Justice Network | PUBLICATIONS

Provides an extensive sampling of juvenile justice reforms across the country from 2007-2008. The booklet is organized by topic area and includes a state index of reforms.

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Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2006-2007

02/11/2009 09:35 AM

Nov 1, 2007 | National Juvenile Justice Network | PUBLICATIONS

Provides an extensive sampling of juvenile justice reforms across the country from 2006-2007. The booklet is organized by topic area and includes a state index of reforms.

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