“Overview
OJJDP envisions a nation where our children are healthy, educated, and free from violence. If they come into contact with the juvenile justice system, that contact should be rare, fair, and beneficial to them. OJJDP supports states and communities in their efforts to develop and implement effective and coordinated prevention and intervention programs and to improve the juvenile justice system so that it protects public safety, holds justice-involved youth appropriately accountable, and provides treatment and rehabilitative services tailored to the needs of youth and their families. This program will assist OJJDP in coordination and assessment of its juvenile justice reform programs…
Program-Specific Information
OJJDP is committed to promoting juvenile justice reform through the adoption of data-driven decision making; evidence-based programs and practices (see OJJDP’s Model Programs Guide); and a developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed approach to juvenile justice (see the National Research Council’s Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach). In recognition of a growing body of research on effective community-based approaches to juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, and the limited effect that secure confinement has on reducing juvenile offending and recidivism, OJJDP’s juvenile justice reform strategy (the Strategy) is focused on developing and implementing juvenile justice reforms that:
Enhance public safety.
Reduce reoffending and improve youth outcomes while holding youth appropriately accountable.
Improve outcomes for youth returning to their communities after out-of-home placement.
Reduce preadjudicatory detention and out-of-home placements and strengthen diversion and community-based alternatives.
Eliminate harmful disparities in the juvenile justice system.
Maximize cost savings and cost aversion.
Support the strategic reinvestment of these savings toward sustainable, systemic change.
The Strategy reflects OJJDP’s commitment to reducing children’s exposure to violence and the traumatic effects of violence by promoting recovery and the well-being of children, youth, and families who have been exposed to violence.
The successful applicant will assist OJJDP with coordination and assessment of OJJDP’s juvenile justice system reform programs by collecting and analyzing performance measurement data, models, and tools developed across the initiatives; coordinating meeting roundtables so that grantees and training and technical assistance providers can share information and learning; assessing program models to improve quality; and creating resource guides and other tools that highlight the initiatives and demonstrate reform possibilities for other states, territories, and tribes across the nation. Juvenile justice reform programs for assessment and coordination may include the following:
Systemwide Reform and Reinvestment Initiative.
Second Chance Act Statewide Reform Implementation.
Smart on Juvenile Justice: Enhancing Youth Access to Justice Initiative.
Second Chance Act Community Supervision.
Out-of-Home Placement.
Smart on Juvenile Justice: Technical Assistance To Better Understand and Address
Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System.
Smart on Juvenile Justice: Age of Criminal Responsibility Training and Technical Assistance.
Smart on Juvenile Justice: Juvenile Prosecution Curriculum Development, Training and Technical Assistance.”
Excerpted from OMB No. 1121-0329 OJJDP FY 2017 Juvenile Justice Systems Reform Promising Practices