[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 199 (Friday, October 15, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56084-56105]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-26797]
[[Page 56083]]
_______________________________________________________________________
Part IV
Department of Justice
_______________________________________________________________________
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
_______________________________________________________________________
Proposed Comprehensive Plan for Fiscal Year 2000; Notice
Federal Register / Vol. 64, No. 199 / Friday, October 15, 1999 /
Notices
[[Page 56084]]
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
[OJP(OJJDP)-1252]
RIN No. 1121-ZB86
Proposed Comprehensive Plan for Fiscal Year 2000
AGENCY: Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, Justice.
ACTION: Notice of proposed program plan for fiscal year 2000.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is
publishing this notice of its Proposed Comprehensive Plan for fiscal
year (FY) 2000.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before November 29, 1999.
ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to Shay Bilchik, Administrator,
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 810 Seventh
Street, NW., Washington, DC 20531.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eileen M. Garry, Director, Information
Dissemination Unit, at 202-307-5911. [This is not a toll-free number.]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice. Pursuant to the provisions
of Section 204(b)(5)(A) of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5601 et seq. (JJDP
Act), the Administrator of OJJDP is publishing for public comment a
Proposed Comprehensive Plan describing the program activities that
OJJDP proposes to carry out during fiscal year (FY) 2000 under Parts C
and D of Title II of the JJDP Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5651-
5665a, 5667, 5667a. Taking into consideration comments received on this
Proposed Comprehensive Plan, the Administrator will develop and publish
OJJDP's Final Comprehensive Plan describing the particular program
activities that OJJDP intends to fund during FY 2000, using in whole or
in part funds appropriated under Parts C and D of Title II of the JJDP
Act.
OJJDP acknowledges that at this time its reauthorization
legislation is in conference and the Department of Justice's FY 2000
appropriation is not yet final. Depending on the outcome of these
legislative actions, the structure of OJJDP's programs may be altered.
If that occurs, OJJDP will make any necessary modifications to this
Proposed Program Plan when it is published in final form following the
public comment period. The programs described here represent OJJDP's
current thinking and initial priorities for this fiscal year. These
priorities also reflect feedback from OJJDP's ongoing outreach to the
field asking for their ideas on priority areas and the most promising
types of programs for those areas.
Notice of the official solicitation of grant or cooperative
agreement applications for competitive programs to be funded under the
Final Comprehensive Plan will be published at a later date in the
Federal Register. No proposals, concept papers, or other forms of
application should be submitted at this time.
Background
In developing its program plan for Parts C and D each year, OJJDP
must take into consideration the latest available data on juvenile
crime and victimization in the United States and view these statistics
in relation to those of recent years. To know where the Nation's
juveniles are headed, it is necessary to know where they are and where
they have been. OJJDP's Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National
Report (National Report) 1 uses the latest data available
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other sources to provide a
comprehensive picture of the nature of juvenile crime and violence
across the Nation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Copies of the National Report can be obtained by calling
OJJDP's Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638-8736 or by
visiting OJJDP's Web site at www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org and clicking on
``Publications.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the 1990's, juvenile crime and violence are
continuing a downward trend that began in 1994, bringing a halt to the
dramatic annual increases that had alarmed the Nation since 1988. The
National Report indicates that in 1997, homicides of juveniles, which
had peaked in 1993, fell to their lowest level in the decade (p. 16).
Despite well-publicized instances of shocking school violence, students
are safer at school than elsewhere, and school crime declined from 1993
through 1996 (p. 31). In 1997, homicides involving a juvenile
perpetrator were the lowest in the decade but still 21 percent above
the average of the 1980's (p. 53). Serious violence by juveniles
dropped 33 percent between 1993 and 1997, compared with a reduction of
25 percent in violence by adults in the same period (p. 62). On the
other hand, gang problems now affect more jurisdictions than ever
before--including rural and suburban areas (p. 77). Illicit drug use by
juveniles, which had declined during the 1980's, has increased since
1992 (p. 74), although the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse
reported that the percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds who reported using
illegal drugs in the preceding month dropped from 11.4 percent in 1997
to 9.9 percent in 1998. Looking at arrest data, while drug arrests
continued to increase for both juveniles and adults between 1993 and
1997, arrests for most serious violent offenses and property offenses
declined--with violent crime arrests down 6 percent for juveniles and
property crime arrests down 3 percent (p. 117). In 1997, the juvenile
violent crime arrest rate, which had increased 62 percent from 1988 to
1994, was at its lowest level in this decade: just 7 percent above the
1989 rate, but still 25 percent above the 1988 rate (p. 120).
Even in the area of violent behaviors that do not reach the
attention of the justice system, positive trends are seen. A recent
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) biennial survey of
16,000 9th through 12th graders found sharp decreases in certain
categories of violent activity by teenagers between 1991 and 1997. For
example, 18.3 percent of the students surveyed in 1997 reported having
carried a gun, knife, or club in the previous month, compared with 26.1
percent of those surveyed in 1991, and the percentage carrying such
weapons on school property decreased from 11.8 percent in 1993 to 8.5
percent in 1997. The frequency of fighting also declined, with 37
percent of the 1997 surveyed youth reporting involvement in a physical
fight in the previous year, compared with nearly 43 percent of those
surveyed in 1991.
This mixture of some reassuring and some still troubling statistics
serves as a reminder that while great progress has been made in
reducing juvenile delinquency, violence, and victimization, much more
needs to be done. Although it is impossible to definitively identify
the reasons for the downward trend in juvenile violence, factors cited
by the authors of the CDC study include community policing and an
expansion of violence prevention programs. As research and evaluation,
much of it supported by OJJDP funding, continue to provide information
about what works in the areas of prevention and intervention,
policymakers, practitioners, and citizens can make informed decisions
as to what programs and approaches will best serve to reinforce and
continue existing trends away from juvenile delinquency, violence, and
victimization.
In this Proposed Comprehensive Plan, OJJDP describes its priorities
for funding
[[Page 56085]]
activities authorized under Part C (National Programs) and Part D
(Gang-Free Schools and Communities; Community-Based Gang Intervention)
of Title II of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP)
Act. The activities authorized under Parts C and D constitute part, but
not all, of OJJDP's overall responsibilities, which are outlined
briefly below.
In 1974, the JJDP Act established OJJDP as the Federal agency
responsible for providing national leadership, coordination, and
resources to develop and implement effective methods to prevent and
reduce juvenile delinquency and improve the quality of juvenile justice
in the United States. OJJDP administers State Formula Grants under Part
B of Title II, State Challenge Grants under Part E of Title II, and
Community Prevention Grants under Title V of the JJDP Act to assist
States and territories to fund a range of delinquency prevention,
control, and juvenile justice system improvement activities. OJJDP
provides support activities for these and other programs under
statutory set-asides that are used to provide related research,
evaluation, statistics, demonstration, and training and technical
assistance services.
Under Part C of Title II of the JJDP Act, OJJDP funds Special
Emphasis programs and--through its National Institute for Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention--numerous research, evaluation,
statistics, demonstration, training and technical assistance, and
information dissemination activities. OJJDP funds school and community-
based gang prevention, intervention, and suppression programs under
Part D and mentoring programs under Part G of Title II of the JJDP Act.
OJJDP also coordinates Federal activities related to juvenile justice
and delinquency prevention through the Concentration of Federal Efforts
Program and serves as the staff agency for the Coordinating Council on
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; both of these activities
are authorized in Part A of Title II of the JJDP Act. Another OJJDP
responsibility under the JJDP Act is to administer the Title IV Missing
and Exploited Children's Program.
Other programs administered by OJJDP include the Drug Prevention
Program, the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws Program, the Safe Schools
Initiative, the Tribal Youth Program, the Safe Start: Children Exposed
to Violence Initiative, and the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block
Grants Program. OJJDP also administers programs under the Victims of
Child Abuse Act of 1990, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 13001 et seq.
OJJDP focuses its assistance funding and support activities on the
development and implementation of programs with the greatest potential
for reducing juvenile delinquency and improving the juvenile justice
system by establishing partnerships with State and local governments,
American Indian and Alaska Native jurisdictions, and public and private
agencies and organizations. OJJDP performs its role of national
leadership in juvenile justice and delinquency prevention through a
cycle of activities. These include collecting data and statistics to
determine the extent and nature of issues affecting juveniles, funding
research and studies that can lead to demonstrations funded by
discretionary grants, evaluating demonstration projects, sharing
lessons learned from the field with practitioners through a range of
information dissemination vehicles, providing seed money to States and
local governments through formula and block grants to implement
programs, projects, or reform efforts, and providing training and
technical assistance to assist States and local governments to
implement programs effectively and to maintain the integrity of model
programs as they are being replicated.
As noted previously, OJJDP is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs (OJP). This Department of Justice agency emphasizes the
importance of coordination among its components and with other Federal
agencies whenever possible in order to obtain maximum results from OJP
programs and initiatives. OJJDP's coordination efforts include joint
funding, interagency agreements, and partnerships to develop,
implement, and evaluate projects. This proposed plan reflects OJJDP's
coordination efforts. For a more complete picture of OJP program
activities that affect the field of juvenile justice, readers are
encouraged to review the Office of Justice Programs Fiscal Year 2000
Program Plan when it becomes available. (Readers should check the OJP
Web site at www.ojp.usdoj.gov periodically for an announcement of the
availability of the OJP Program Plan.)
Fiscal Year 2000 Program Planning Activities
The OJJDP program planning process for FY 2000 is being coordinated
with the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs (OJP),
and all OJP components. The program planning process involves the
following steps:
Internal review of existing programs by OJJDP staff.
Internal review of proposed programs by OJP bureaus and
Department of Justice components.
Review of information and data from OJJDP grantees and
contractors.
Review of information contained in State comprehensive
plans.
Review of comments from youth service providers, juvenile
justice practitioners, and researchers who provide input in proposed
new program areas.
Consideration of suggestions made by juvenile justice
policymakers concerning State and local needs.
Consideration of all comments received during the period
of public comment on this Proposed Comprehensive Plan.
Discretionary Grant Continuation Policy
OJJDP has listed on the following pages continuation projects
currently funded in whole or in part with Part C and Part D funds and
eligible for continuation funding in FY 2000, either within an existing
project period or through an extension for an additional project or
budget period. A grantee's eligibility for continued funding for an
additional budget period within an existing project period depends on
the grantee's compliance with funding eligibility requirements and
achievement of the prior year's objectives. The amount of award is
based on prior projections, demonstrated need, and fund availability.
The only projects described in this Proposed Program Plan are those
that would receive Part C or Part D FY 2000 continuation funding under
project period or discretionary continuation assistance awards and
program areas that OJJDP is considering for new awards under Part C or
Part D in FY 2000. This plan does not include descriptions of other
OJJDP programs, including mentoring programs under Part G of Title II
of the JJDP Act, the Drug Prevention Program, the Enforcing Underage
Drinking Laws Program, the Safe Schools Initiative, the Tribal Youth
Program, the Safe Start: Children Exposed to Violence Initiative, and
the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants Program. When
appropriate, OJJDP issues separate solicitations for applications for
funding for these or other programs that are not authorized under Parts
C and D. Readers interested in learning about all OJJDP funding
opportunities are encouraged to call OJJDP's Juvenile Justice
Clearinghouse at 800-638-8736 or visit OJJDP's Web
[[Page 56086]]
site at www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org and click on ``Grants & Funding.''
Consideration for continuation funding for an additional project
period for previously funded discretionary grant programs will be based
on several factors, including the following:
The extent to which the project responds to the applicable
requirements of the JJDP Act.
Responsiveness to OJJDP and Department of Justice FY 2000
program priorities.
Compliance with performance requirements of prior grant
years.
Compliance with fiscal and regulatory requirements.
Compliance with any special conditions of the award.
Availability of funds (based on appropriations and program
priority determinations).
In accordance with Section 262 (d)(1)(B) of the JJDP Act, as
amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5665a, the competitive process for the award of
Part C funds is not required if the Administrator makes a written
determination waiving the competitive process:
1. With respect to programs to be carried out in areas in which the
President declares under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and
Emergency Assistance Act codified at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5121 et seq. that a
major disaster or emergency exists, or
2. With respect to a particular program described in Part C that is
uniquely qualified.
Introduction to Fiscal Year 2000 Program Plan
In administering the discretionary grants program under Parts C and
D of Title II, OJJDP has identified four goals as the major elements of
a sound policy that ensures public safety and security while
establishing effective juvenile justice and delinquency prevention
programs. Achieving these goals, which are discussed below, is vital to
protecting the long-term safety of the public from juvenile delinquency
and violence.
OJJDP promotes delinquency prevention and early
intervention efforts that reduce the flow of juvenile offenders into
the juvenile justice system, the numbers of serious and violent
offenders, and the development of chronic delinquent careers. While
removing serious and violent juvenile offenders from the street serves
to protect the public, long-term solutions lie primarily in taking
aggressive steps to stop delinquency before it starts or becomes a
pattern of behavior.
OJJDP seeks to improve the juvenile justice system and the
response of the system to juvenile delinquents, status offenders, and
dependent, neglected, and abused children.
OJJDP supports efforts in the area of corrections,
detention, and community-based alternatives to preserve the public
safety in a manner that serves the appropriate development and best use
of secure detention and corrections options, while at the same time
fostering the use of community-based programs for juvenile offenders.
OJJDP seeks to support law enforcement, public safety, and
other justice agency efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency, intervene
in the development of chronic delinquent careers, and collaborate with
the juvenile justice system to meet the needs of dependent, neglected,
and abused children.
In 1993, OJJDP published its Comprehensive Strategy for Serious,
Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, which set forth a research-
based comprehensive approach for addressing the problems of juvenile
crime and victimization and for achieving its program goals. The
Comprehensive Strategy was developed to assist States and local
communities in preventing at-risk youth from becoming serious, violent,
and chronic juvenile offenders and in crafting a practical response to
those who do. Over the past few years, OJJDP has tested and refined the
prevention and graduated sanctions components of the Comprehensive
Strategy. In 1996, OJJDP began assisting three pilot sites to formulate
the Comprehensive Strategy plans at the local level. Lessons learned
from those sites are being used in eight States to implement a
strategic planning and implementation process through State
partnerships with up to six local jurisdictions that are developing and
implementing their own comprehensive strategies.2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ For more information about the Comprehensive Strategy,
readers can request a copy of OJJDP Fact Sheet No. 9883, An Update
on the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic
Juvenile Offenders, by calling the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at
800-638-9736. Additional information is available from the
Comprehensive Strategy program section of OJJDP's Web site at
www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/strategy/index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Proposed Plan also supports the Coordinating Council's 1996
National Juvenile Justice Action Plan, which grew out of the
Comprehensive Strategy. This Action Plan, which the Coordinating
Council is currently updating, provides eight objectives to reduce
juvenile violence and describes ways to meet these objectives.
Together, the Comprehensive Strategy and the Action Plan constitute a
sound strategy for translating innovation and research findings to
infrastructure.
Continuation Programs
OJJDP organizes its proposed programs under four broad categories
that reflect its program goals and the principles of the Comprehensive
Strategy. The following summaries briefly describe some of the types of
activities proposed for continuation funding in each category, subject
to the appropriations for Parts C and D for FY 2000.
Public Safety and Law Enforcement
Eight programs related to the important public policy issue of
proliferating youth gangs are a major focus of OJJDP's proposals in
this category. The programs range from demonstrations and replications
of models to technical assistance and from evaluation to data
collection and analysis. Funds would also be provided to a partnership
between youth and health services agencies to continue school-based
activities and efforts to address the effects on children of exposure
to domestic violence. Two programs deal with a problem of increasing
public concern, gun violence. An evaluation is looking at the effect of
transferring the responsibility for child protective investigations to
law enforcement agencies.
Delinquency Prevention and Intervention
OJJDP proposes to fund a range of programs that focus on reducing
risk factors and increasing protective factors in children's lives. The
types of programs include demonstrations, pilots, and replications of
model programs; outreach; studies and evaluations; and training and
technical assistance. Beginning with early programs such as prenatal
nurse home visitation, OJJDP's delinquency prevention and intervention
efforts feature arts programs for at-risk youth and for those in
detention and corrections facilities; programs that assess the role of
alcohol, illegal drugs, mental health problems, and learning disorders
in juvenile delinquency and programs that study effective interventions
for these risk factors. Funding is also proposed for programs to reduce
truancy and keep students from dropping out of school, conflict
resolution programs, programs that discourage violence and hatred, and
programs that provide opportunities for positive development and
promote public awareness of effective solutions to juvenile crime.
[[Page 56087]]
Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System
In this category, OJJDP proposes to support efforts to develop
comprehensive approaches to juvenile justice and delinquency
prevention, including programs designed to reform juvenile justice
systems in specific locations. Some programs attempt to increase
youth's accountability for their behavior and to prevent violence,
while others seek to improve the quality of youth's legal
representation and the equity and efficiency of the treatment of youth
(including girls and minorities) at all points within the juvenile
justice system, including points where the justice and mental health
systems intersect and the time when youth return to the community from
residential facilities. In addition, OJJDP would fund programs focusing
on providing the information base necessary for sound policymaking.
Examples include censuses and surveys of juveniles in facilities and on
probation, an accurate program directory for use in the censuses and
surveys, and a data analysis project.
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts
Three programs fall within this category: Safe Kids/Safe Streets:
Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and Neglect and Preventing
Delinquency, its national evaluation, and a research program focusing
specifically on the issue of child neglect.
Overarching
In addition to the activities in the four categories described
above, OJJDP supports programs in a broader, overarching category.
These are programs with significant elements common to more than one of
the other four categories. Among the overarching programs is a major
longitudinal study of the causes and correlates of delinquency, which
is also providing an opportunity for an examination of the
intergenerational transmission of antisocial behavior. School violence
is addressed by a university-based consortium and by a national
resource center. One initiative is assisting six communities in
implementing comprehensive programs to reduce youth violence and
delinquency. Another program is evaluating a demonstration program for
reducing truancy. Research-based guidance will be provided to States
and others to improve juvenile justice services for students with
disabilities. OJJDP proposes to continue a crime prevention center
whose tasks include investigating the reasons for the
overrepresentation of minorities in the Texas juvenile justice system.
Finally, national-level statistical support, training and technical
assistance programs, and a clearinghouse are included in the
overarching category, as are an OJJDP management evaluation contract
and telecommunications assistance.
Descriptions of the specific programs in each of the five
categories follow the discussion of new programs.
New Programs
As stated earlier, because this Proposed Plan is being published
before the FY 2000 appropriation is enacted, possible new programming
can be discussed only in the most general terms. If there should be
sufficient funding to support new programs in addition to those
proposed for continuation funding, OJJDP is considering 10 broad areas
in which new programs might be funded in FY 2000. The public is asked
to comment on these proposed areas, which are described briefly below.
1. Improving the Juvenile Sanctioning System
OJJDP is considering several efforts to improve the juvenile
sanctioning system. As a result of new State laws over the past decade,
juvenile correctional systems are increasingly being burdened with
older, more violent offenders, while still having responsibility to
serve less serious offenders. Areas of interest for possible new
programs concerning sanctions include screening and assessment, key
clinical issues, school-based probation services, educational needs of
juveniles in corrections and detention, training and technical
assistance for juvenile probation officers, improvements in and
alternatives to detention, and correctional treatment and transition
programs for juvenile offenders.
2. Developing and Studying Programs Addressing Female Offenders
OJJDP proposes to support demonstration projects to test promising
programs that target the unique needs of female offenders. Recent
research indicates that females have become increasingly involved in
more serious and violent delinquent behavior, but research on female
delinquency is often secondary to the study of males. Although male and
female delinquents experience many of the same problems (e.g., chaotic
home environments, poverty, substance abuse), female offenders have
unique needs (e.g., sexual abuse and teen pregnancy) that challenge the
ability of the justice system to provide appropriate treatment.
3. Monitoring and Understanding the ``Whys'' Behind Juvenile Crime
Trends
OJJDP is considering support for a rigorous study to better
understand juvenile crime trends. Numerous explanations have been
offered for the recent decline in the juvenile violent crime rate but
none with a solid empirical basis. A local-level inquiry would explore
a wide range of factors including policy, programmatic and community
initiatives, and other potential variables that may help explain
community trends. Both retrospective and prospective approaches are
contemplated for better understanding juvenile crime trends.
4. Developing Blueprint Programs Through Replication and Evaluation
Another effort under consideration involves building on the work
currently being done through the Blueprints for Violence Prevention
project at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV)
at the University of Colorado. In the course of identifying 10
effective ``blueprint'' programs, CSPV also found a number of highly
promising programs that fit some, but not all, of its criteria for
proven effectiveness. OJJDP is considering funding a new project that
would replicate some of these promising programs in communities that
demonstrate a capacity to implement and rigorously evaluate them, with
the goal of increasing the number of programs that communities can
confidently implement to reduce their levels of youth violence,
substance abuse, and delinquency through prevention, early
intervention, and treatment.
5. Replicating Effective Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Treatment
Program Models on Native American Tribal Lands and in Alaskan Native
Communities
In this program area, OJJDP would support an effort to assist
Native American tribes in adapting a selected group of program models
proven to be effective in communities outside Native American settings.
The process would draw on ethnographic and applied behavioral science
skills and techniques. The end products would include a replicable
process to facilitate future tribal adaption and a set of ``generic''
program models with potential permutations reflecting variations across
Native American cultures. Four tribes funded by OJJDP
[[Page 56088]]
from 1992 to 1995 demonstrated that Native American tribes and Alaskan
Native communities can benefit from assistance designed to accelerate
program development but that they require a significant level of
technical assistance rooted in understanding of Native American
culture, history, and tradition.
6. Developing and Evaluating Model Practices Regarding the Efficacy of
Delinquency and Dependency Courts
OJJDP is considering two efforts to assist the juvenile court
system in appropriately and efficiently handling cases involving
juvenile delinquency and dependency: one would evaluate the
effectiveness of model dependency courts that are being implemented
throughout the United States and one would develop a model juvenile
delinquency court, including effective risk and needs assessment, best
practices intake and probation services, and placement options. OJJDP
would determine best practices by a survey of courts.
7. Reducing Lead and Environmental Hazards
OJJDP is considering support for a coordinated, interagency
prevention, education, and intervention program to build local capacity
through training and technical assistance to solve the problem of lead
and other environmental hazards that affect children. Funding might
also be provided for a limited pilot demonstration. Children with
elevated levels of lead in their blood frequently suffer from physical,
neurobiological, and cognitive impairment, and possibly from later
behavioral problems, including aggression and delinquency.
8. Addressing the Problem of Juvenile Sex Offending
OJJDP is considering support for an effort to inventory the
research, evaluation, and treatment efforts currently under way and
completed in the area of juvenile sex offending, to assess these
efforts, to identify needs that might be supported in the future, and
to outline an action plan to address these issues. An additional
product would be an assessment of the feasibility of developing a
technical assistance and training program. OJJDP would also consider
support for the development of assessment instruments. Multiple efforts
in the areas of research, evaluation, and service programs for juvenile
sex offenders are under way, but no unified inventory exists to provide
an understanding of the status of knowledge or treatment opportunities
in this area, nor is there an understanding of how these activities
relate to each other or build upon an existing knowledge base.
9. Developing Prevention and Treatment Programs for Status Offenders
OJJDP is considering funding programs that would identify the
extent and nature of status offending, inventory best practices in
addressing this behavior from around the county, and support
demonstration and replication of effective programs for dealing with
these offenders. Juveniles who commit status offenses (truancy, running
away, curfew violations, incorrigibility, etc.) are very often taking
their first steps into the juvenile justice system. Prevention and
treatment at this early stage are less expensive and more effective
than efforts to change subsequent delinquent behavior.
10. Supporting Field Initiated Research and Evaluation Programs
OJJDP is considering support for field-initiated research and
evaluation projects that complement the new and current programs
outlined in this Proposed Program Plan. OJJDP would provide funding for
innovative and rigorous research that supports its mission in
significant and creative ways. Topics explored in past OJJDP-funded
field-initiated research include mental health issues in the juvenile
justice system; juvenile sex offending; gangs; evaluation of juvenile
justice programs for female juvenile offenders; juvenile justice system
operations, sanctions, and treatments; and Native American juvenile
justice and delinquency prevention.
Fiscal Year 2000 Programs
The programs that OJJDP proposes to fund in FY 2000 are listed
alphabetically and summarized within each of the five categories:
Overarching, Public Safety and Law Enforcement, Strengthening the
Juvenile Justice System, Delinquency Prevention and Intervention, and
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts.
With regard to implementation sites and other descriptive data and
information, program priorities within each category will be determined
based on grantee performance, application quality, fund availability,
and other factors.
As part of the appropriations process, Congress is likely to
identify a number of programs for funding consideration with regard to
the grantee(s), the amount of funds, or both. These programs will be
listed in the Final Program Plan. Congress is also likely to direct
OJJDP to examine certain programs, provide assistance to them if
warranted, and report to the Committees on Appropriations of both the
House and the Senate on its intention for each one. These programs will
also be listed in the Final Program Plan.
Fiscal Year 2000 Program Listing
Overarching
Center for Students with Disabilities in the Juvenile Justice System
Coalition for Juvenile Justice
Evaluation of the Truancy Reduction Program
Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence
Insular Area Support
Intergenerational Transmission of Antisocial Behavior Project
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development
National Resource Center for Safe Schools
National Training and Technical Assistance Center
OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract
OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice Resource
Center
Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency
SafeFutures: Partnerships To Reduce Youth Violence and Delinquency
Technical Assistance for State Legislatures
Telecommunications Assistance
Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center at Prairie View A&M University--
Enhancing Personal Training and Understanding Minority
Overrepresentation in the Juvenile Justice System
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for the SafeFutures and
Safe Kids/Safe Streets Initiatives
Public Safety and Law Enforcement
Child Development-Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)
Education on Gun Violence and Safety
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang
Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program
Evaluation of the Rural Gang Initiative
Evaluation of the Transfer of Responsibility for Child Protective
Investigations to Law Enforcement Agencies
Gang-Free Communities Initiative
Gang Prevention Through Targeted Outreach (Boys & Girls Clubs)
Juvenile Justice Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance
Program
[[Page 56089]]
National Youth Gang Center
Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence
Rural Gang Initiative Demonstration Sites
Technical Assistance to Gang-Free Schools and Communities Initiatives
Training and Technical Assistance for the Rural Gang Initiative
Delinquency Prevention and Intervention
Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future
America's Promise: Enhanced Collaboration
Arts and At-Risk Youth
Arts Programs for Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections
Assessing Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Disorders
Communities in Schools--Federal Interagency Partnership
The Congress of National Black Churches: National Anti-Drug Abuse/
Violence Campaign (NADVC)
A Demonstration Afterschool Program
Diffusion of State Risk-and Protective-Factor Focused Prevention
Hate Crime
Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
National Center for Conflict Resolution Education
Nurse Home Visitation
Partnerships for Preventing Violence
Proactive Youth Program
Professional Development in Effective Classroom and Conflict Management
Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development
Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and
Families
Training and Technical Assistance Program for the Arts Programs for
Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections Initiative
Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program
Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System
Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) Training Project
Building Blocks for Youth
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement
Circles of Care Program
Community Assessment Center
Comprehensive Children and Families Mental Health Training and
Technical Assistance
Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and
Chronic Juvenile Offenders
Development of Conduct Disorder in Girls
Evaluation of the Department of Labor's Education and Training for
Youthful Offenders Initiative
Evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program
Evaluation of Teen Courts
Helping Communities To Promote Youth Development
Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Demonstration and Technical
Assistance Program
Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center
The Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit
Juvenile Residential Facility Census
Linking Balanced and Restorative Justice and Adolescents (LIBRA)
National Juvenile Justice Data Analysis Project
National Juvenile Justice Program Directory
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97
Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Correction and Detention
Facilities
San Francisco Juvenile Justice Local Action Plan--Delancy Street
Initiative
Survey of Juvenile Probation
Technical Assistance to Native American Tribes and Alaskan Native
Communities
TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative
Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams
To Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts
National Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program
Research on Child Neglect
Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches to Reducing Abuse and
Neglect and Preventing Delinquency
Overarching
Center for Students With Disabilities in the Juvenile Justice System
During FY 1999, OJJDP undertook a joint initiative with the Office
of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, U.S. Department of
Education to establish a Center for Students with Disabilities in the
Juvenile Justice System. The Secretary of Education and the Attorney
General expect this project to have a significant impact on the
improvement of juvenile justice system services for students with
disabilities. Improvements in the areas of prevention, educational
services, and reintegration based on a combination of research,
training, and technical assistance will lead to improved results for
children and youth with disabilities. The Center for Students with
Disabilities in the Juvenile Justice System will provide guidance and
assistance to States, schools, justice programs, families, and
communities to design, implement, and evaluate comprehensive
educational programs, based on research-validated practices, for
students with disabilities who are within the juvenile justice system.
This program will be implemented by the University of Maryland
through an award by the U.S. Department of Education. No additional
applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Coalition for Juvenile Justice
This project supports the Coalition in its efforts to meet the
statutory mandates through the development of a technical assistance
capability that provides training, technical assistance, and
information to the State Juvenile Justice Advisory Groups. This would
be accomplished through a series of regional training and information
workshops and a national conference designed to address the needs of
the membership of the Coalition.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
Coalition for Juvenile Justice. No additional applications would be
solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program
In FY 1999, OJJDP awarded funds to eight sites around the country
to implement truancy reduction projects. These sites included Athens,
GA; Contra Costa, CA; Honolulu, HA; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; King
County, WA; Suffolk County, NY; and Tacoma, WA. Grantees represent a
diversity of models and geographic locations. OJJDP also selected the
Colorado Foundation for Families and Children (CFFC) to conduct the
national evaluation of the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program. As
part of the evaluation, CFFC will (1) determine how community
collaboration can impact truancy reduction and lead to systemic reform,
and (2) assist OJJDP in the development of a community collaborative
truancy reduction program model and identify the essential elements of
that model. To this end, CFFC is helping project sites to further
identify and document the nature of the truancy problem in their
communities, enhance the process of effective truancy reduction
planning and collaboration, and incorporate that process into the
implementation of the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program at each
site. In addition, CFFC is assisting sites in collecting information on
truant
[[Page 56090]]
youth and documenting services. The project is scheduled to last 3\1/2\
years.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Colorado
Foundation for Families and Children. No additional applications will
be solicited in FY 2000.
Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence
The Institute, with assistance from OJJDP, was founded in 1997 to
serve as a national resource to test the effectiveness of school
violence prevention methods and to develop more effective violence
prevention strategies. The Institute's goal is to determine what works
and what can be replicated to reduce violence in America's schools and
their immediate communities. The Institute works with a consortium of
seven universities whose key staff have expertise in adolescent
violence, criminology, law enforcement, substance abuse, juvenile
justice, gangs, public health, education, behavior disorders, social
skills development and prevention programs. The George Washington
University develops and tests violence prevention strategies in
collaboration with the following universities: Eastern Kentucky
University, Florida State University, Morehouse School of Medicine,
Syracuse University, University of Oregon, and University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, George
Washington University. No additional applications will be solicited in
FY 2000.
Insular Area Support
The purpose of this statutorily required program is to provide
support to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, 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. Sec. 5665(e).
Intergenerational Transmission of Antisocial Behavior Project
The purpose of this project is to expand on the Rochester Youth
Development Study by examining the development of antisocial behavior
and delinquency in the children of the original Rochester, NY, subjects
of OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of
Delinquency. By age 21, 40 percent of the original Rochester subjects
were parents. This provides a unique opportunity to examine and track
the development of delinquent behavior across three generations in a
particularly high-risk sample. Results of the study should provide
useful findings with policy implications for prevention programs. The
program is being funded under an FY 1998 interagency agreement between
OJJDP and the National Institute of Mental Health.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, SUNY
Research Foundation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse
A component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service
(NCJRS), the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC) collects,
synthesizes, and disseminates information on all aspects of juvenile
justice. OJJDP established the Clearinghouse in 1979 to serve the
juvenile justice community, legislators, the media, and the public. JJC
offers toll-free telephone access 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 database; and
administers several electronic information resources. NCJRS is
administered by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under a
competitively awarded contract to Aspen Systems Corporation.
This program will be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen
Systems Corporation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development Program
The Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development (SSD)
Program was competitively awarded in 1990 to the National Center for
Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) to improve national, State, and local
statistics on juveniles as victims and offenders. The SSD project has
traditionally consisted of three tracks of work: National Statistics,
Dissemination, and Systems Development. In FY 2000, NCJJ will continue
many activities under the first two tracks, including maintaining an
extensive library of data files, producing Easy Access software
packages and the Web-based OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, and
continuing to service requests for juvenile justice information. In FY
2000, additional funding from OJJDP will also enable NCJJ to enhance
activities under the Systems Development track of the project.
To meet the challenge of managing the cases of youth within their
jurisdiction effectively and efficiently, juvenile court administrators
and judges need ready access to information that will support the
operation, management, and decisionmaking of the full-service juvenile
court system. Knowledge and decisionmaking (which should be the
hallmark of every juvenile justice system) requires not just the
collection of data, but the collaboration of the community leaders who
will give meaning to the data. This is the focus of the forthcoming
book, Juvenile Justice With Eyes Open, which will be published in FY
2000 as part of the Statistics and Systems Development Project (Systems
Development Track). Also in FY 2000, NCJJ will use the principles
outlined in this publication to develop and field-test an approach that
local jurisdictions can employ to systematically identify and then
fulfill their local information needs. This includes training local
juvenile justice leaders in the rational decisionmaking model (RDM) as
a design tool for management information systems; developing data
specifications for an effective information system to meet operational,
management, and research needs; identifying data needs from collateral
service providers and data that would be of use to collaterals; and
modeling agreements and protocols with collateral service providers to
share case-level and/or aggregate data.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Center for Juvenile Justice. No additional applications would
be solicited in FY 2000.
National Resource Center for Safe Schools
Since 1984, OJJDP and the U.S. Department of Education have
provided joint funding to promote safe schools. This work has focused
national attention on cooperative solutions to problems that disrupt
the educational process. Because an estimated 3 million incidents of
crime occur in America's schools each year, it is clear that this
problem continues to plague many schools, threatening students' safety
and undermining the learning environment. With FY 1998 funding, the
U.S. Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program and
OJJDP established the National Resource Center for Safe Schools under a
3-year project period. This project expanded the scope and provision of
previous training and technical assistance to communities and school
districts across the country. The grantee is working to help schools
develop and put in place comprehensive safe school plans. It does this
through onsite training and consultation to schools and
[[Page 56091]]
communities, by creating and distributing resource materials and tools,
through Web-based information services, and by partnering with State-
level agencies to build State capacity to assist local education
agencies. Through the inclusion on the project's Advisory Committee of
representatives of Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and
Community Violence and other school-related training and technical
assistance providers, this project has developed training materials and
information resources based on the latest research findings on
effective programs and best practices.
The project will continue to be implemented by the current grantee,
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
National 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. NTTAC serves as a
national training and technical assistance clearinghouse, inventorying
and coordinating the integrated delivery of juvenile justice training
and technical assistance resources and establishing a database of these
resources.
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 and technical assistance providers, developed training/
technical assistance materials, and completed and disseminated the
first OJJDP Training and Technical Assistance Resource Catalog.
In FY 1997, NTTAC disseminated a second, updated 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 and technical assistance grantees and contractors.
In FY 1998, NTTAC finalized the jurisdictional team training and
technical assistance packages on critical needs in the juvenile justice
system, updated the resource catalog, facilitated the annual OJJDP
training and technical assistance grantee and contractor meeting,
continued to update the repository of training and technical assistance
materials and the electronic database of training and technical
assistance materials, and continued to respond to training and
technical assistance requests from the field.
In FY 1999, NTTAC was operated by OJJDP staff with the support of
the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, providing clearinghouse services
and maintenance of the 800 number. The Fourth Grantee-Contractor
meeting was conducted by OJJDP staff in Chicago and the training and
technical protocols developed in 1998 were discussed for final issue.
These are being finalized and will be disseminated in FY 2000. A
contract was awarded to Caliber Associates to continue implementation
of the Center.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Caliber
Associates. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
OJJDP Management Evaluation Contract
This contract was competitively awarded in FY 1999 to Caliber
Associates for a period of 3 years to provide OJJDP with an expert
resource to perform independent program evaluations and assist in
implementing evaluation activities. Evaluations may be conducted on
OJJDP-funded programs and on other programs designed to prevent and
treat juvenile delinquency. The time and cost of each evaluation
depends on program complexity, availability of data, and purpose of the
evaluation. 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 program will be implemented by the current contractor, Caliber
Associates. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
OJJDP Technical Assistance Support Contract--Juvenile Justice Resource
Center
This contract has been competitively awarded since the mid-1980's
when OJJDP identified the need for technical assistance support in
carrying out its mission. The Juvenile Justice Resource Center (JJRC)
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. With assistance from expert consultants, JJRC coordinates the
peer review process for OJJDP grant applications and grantee reports,
conducts research and prepares reports on current juvenile justice
issues, plans meetings and conferences, and provides administrative
support to various Federal councils and boards.
This contract will be implemented by the current contractor, Aspen
Systems Corporation. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000
Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency
Since 1986, this longitudinal study has addressed a variety of
issues related to juvenile violence and delinquency and has produced a
massive amount of information on the causes and correlates of
delinquent behavior. Three project sites participate: 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. The sites pursue both collaborative research
efforts and site-specific research. Results from the study have been
used extensively in the field of juvenile justice and contributed
significantly to the development of OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for
Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders and other program
initiatives.
This program will be implemented by the current grantees. No
additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Safe Futures: 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, MA; Contra Costa County,
CA; Fort Belknap, MT (tribal site); Imperial County, CA (rural site);
St. Louis, MO; and Seattle, WA, 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 by providing an
appropriate range of prevention, intervention, treatment, and sanctions
programs.
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
[[Page 56092]]
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. During the fourth year
of the project, specific attention will be given to care coordination
and program sustainability.
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 a cadre of 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.
SafeFutures activities will be carried out by the six current
grantees. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Technical Assistance for State Legislatures
Since FY 1995, OJJDP has awarded annual grants to the National
Conference of State Legislatures to provide relevant, timely
information on comprehensive approaches in juvenile justice to aid
State legislators in improving State juvenile justice systems. Nearly
every State has enacted, or is considering, statutory changes affecting
the juvenile justice system. This project has helped policymakers
understand the ramifications and nuances of juvenile justice reform.
The grant has improved capacity for the delivery of information
services to legislatures. The project also supports increased
communication between State legislators and State and local leaders who
influence decisionmaking regarding juvenile justice issues.
The project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Conference on State Legislatures. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
Telecommunications Assistance
OJJDP uses information technology and distance training to
facilitate access to information and training for juvenile justice
professionals. This cost-effective medium enhances OJJDP's ability to
share with the field salient elements of the most effective or
promising approaches to various juvenile justice issues. In FY 1995,
OJJDP awarded a competitive grant to Eastern Kentucky University (EKU)
to produce live satellite teleconferences. To date, EKU has produced 21
telecasts. In FY 1999, OJJDP continued the cooperative agreement with
EKU to provide program support and technical assistance for a variety
of information technologies and to explore linkages with key
constituent groups to advance mutual information goals and objectives.
During the past year, EKU has experimented with cybercasting ``live''
satellite videoconferences on the Internet.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, Eastern
Kentucky University. No additional applications would be solicited in
FY 2000.
Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center at Prairie View A&M University--
Enhancing Personal Training and Understanding Minority
Overrepresentation in the Juvenile Justice System
This 3-year project was initially funded in FY 1998. The purpose of
the program was to create the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center at
Prairie View A&M University (the Center) and to have the Center
undertake three initial tasks. These tasks included the development of
a master's degree in Forensic Psychology, the development of a training
institute for the coordinators of 13 community youth development
projects, and a study to investigate the factors contributing to the
disproportionate representation of minority youth in the Texas juvenile
justice system.
The master's degree in Forensic Psychology includes a minimum of 30
semester hours, exclusive of thesis. The development of the curriculum
and an instrument to test its effectiveness will occur in the first 2
years of the grant. The courses for the master's degree will be taught
in the second and third years with the testing of the effectiveness of
the curriculum being completed by the end of the third year. The
objectives of this curriculum development are to increase the
understanding, knowledge, and skills of in-service professionals
regarding juvenile behaviors; to increase the number of qualified
professionals working with juvenile offenders; and to decrease the
number of juveniles who become repeat offenders.
The training institute at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) will
focus training on the coordinators of the Texas Department of
Protective and Regulatory Services Community Youth Development Project.
The 12 counties in Texas with the highest number of juvenile arrests
were selected to design comprehensive approaches to support families
and enhance the positive development of youth. PVAMU is offering the
project coordinators program management and evaluation skills courses.
Each year for 3 years an intensive 2-week course will be offered to the
coordinators on managing and monitoring service delivery and basic
research and evaluation skills development.
Funding in FY 2000 will allow PVAMU to implement and test the
curriculum that has been developed in the first 2 years, hold a third
2-week seminar that develops skills in managing and monitoring services
and basic research and evaluation skills of the youth development
coordinators, and continue support for the study of the
overrepresentation of minorities in the Waller County Juvenile Court.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the Texas
Juvenile Crime Prevention Center at Prairie View A&M University). No
additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Training and Technical Assistance Coordination for the SafeFutures and
Safe Kids/Safe Streets Initiatives
OJJDP would continue funding for long-term training and technical
assistance to the SafeFutures and Safe Kids/Safe Streets initiatives.
This coordination effort builds local capacity for implementing and
sustaining effective continuum-of-care and systems chance approaches in
six SafeFutures and five Safe Kids/Safe Streets sites. Project
activities include assessment, identification, and coordination of the
implementation of training and technical assistance needs at each of
the sites and the administration of cross-site training.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, Patricia
Donahue. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Public Safety and Law Enforcement
Child Development--Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP)
The Child Development--Community-Oriented Policing (CD-CP) program
is an innovative partnership between the New Haven Department of Police
Services and the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of
Medicine that addresses the psychological burdens on children,
families, and the broader community as children witness increasing
levels of community violence. In FY 1993, OJJDP provided support to
document Yale'New Haven's child-centered, community-oriented policing
model. The model consists of interrelated training of police officers,
consultation, and teaming mental health
[[Page 56093]]
clinicians with law enforcement in intervening onsite with children and
families who witness violence. OJJDP, with first-year support from the
Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Assistance, funded a 3-
year replication of the model in Buffalo, NY; Charlotte, NC; Nashville,
TN; and Portland, OR. Other OJP components joined OJJDP in funding an
expansion of CD-CP in FY 1998. This expansion moved the project into
school-based activities and the area of addressing exposure to violence
in domestic settings and would continue to do so in FY 2000.
This project would be continued by the current grantee, the Yale
University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the New Haven
Department of Police Services. No additional applications would be
solicited in FY 2000.
Education on Gun Violence and Safety
OJJDP proposes to continue partnering with the Bureau of Justice
Assistance to support Education on Gun Violence and Safety. This
project seeks to educate gunowners and parents about how to safely use
and store guns and how to protect children from gun violence. Through a
coordinated communications, education, grassroots, and media campaign,
the project will reach gunowners and other caring adults with important
information on preventing youth's illegal access to and unlawful use of
guns. In FY 2000, based upon critical communications research with
gunowners, the communications campaign will disseminate appropriate
educational materials.
The program will be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Crime Prevention Council and the Ad Council. No additional
applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang
Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program
OJJDP will continue funding this evaluation in FY 2000. Under a
competitive cooperative agreement awarded in FY 1995, the evaluation
grantee assisted the five program sites (Bloomington, IL; Mesa, AZ;
Riverside, CA; San Antonio, TX; and Tucson, AZ) in establishing
realistic and measurable objectives, documenting program
implementation, and measuring the impact of this comprehensive
approach. It has also provided interim feedback to the program
implementors and trained the local site interviewers. The grantee will
continue to gather and analyze data required to evaluate the program,
monitor and oversee the quality control of data, provide assistance for
completion of interviews, and provide ongoing feedback to project
sites.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. No
additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program
This project began with a competitive award in FY 1997 to document
and evaluate the process of community mobilization, planning, and
collaboration needed to develop a comprehensive, collaborative approach
to reducing gun violence involving juveniles. The Partnerships to
Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence Program is being implemented in three
sites: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oakland, California: and Syracuse, New
York. The grantee, COSMOS Corporation, would complete data collection
for the impact portion of this evaluation and submit a final report in
the next year. In addition to working with the three Partnership sites,
COSMOS Corporation completed work in FY 1998 on the Promising
Strategies To Reduce Gun Violence Report. COSMOS would develop a
training and technical assistance protocol based on its experience with
the Partnership sites and the gun violence report. This training and
technical assistance package would be used with additional communities
across the country that are focused on reducing gun violence through a
collaborative planning process.
This evaluation and training development would be implemented by
the current grantee, COSMOS Corporation. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Rural Gang Initiative
This initiative is a continuation of ongoing efforts to test
OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model. In FY 1999, four rural sites began
conducting comprehensive assessments of their local gang problem and
engaging in program design to implement the Comprehensive Gang Model.
These sites are Elk City, OK; Glenn County, CA; Mt. Vernon, IL; and
Longview, WA.. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) is
conducting case studies to document and analyze the 1-year community
assessment and program planning efforts in the four sites. These case
studies will contribute to the development of a model approach to
assessment of community gang problems in rural areas. NCCD will also be
developing an outcome evaluation design for sites that are funded to
implement the model in subsequent years. FY 2000 funding would support
the first year of the outcome evaluation.
The current grantee is the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency. A decision regarding the funding mechanism to support an
outcome evaluation would be made in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Transfer of Responsibility for Child Protective
Investigations to Law Enforcement Agencies
In response to concerns about the increasing demands on public
child welfare agencies, the safety of children, and the effectiveness
of law enforcement and social service agencies to deliver critical
services, the State of Florida has passed legislation that allows for
the transfer of the entire responsibility for child protective
investigations to a law enforcement agency. Currently, three counties
in Florida are in various stages of implementing this transfer of
responsibility. This new project for FY 2000 will compare the outcomes
in the three counties where responsibility is being transferred to the
Sheriff's Office with three comparison counties in the State of
Florida. The project will primarily be concerned with whether children
are safer, whether perpetrators of severe child abuse are more likely
to face criminal sanctions, and whether there are impacts on other
parts of the child welfare system. Also, a thorough process evaluation
will be conducted to describe and compare the implementation process
across the three counties.
This project will be conducted by the School of Social Work at the
University of Pennsylvania. No additional applications will be
solicited in FY 2000.
Gang-Free Communities Initiative
In FY 2000, OJJDP will continue to explore the possibility of
supporting up to 15 communities in assessing the youth gang problem and
replicating the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model. Although funding levels
for these projects have not yet been determined, these communities will
most likely receive ``challenge'' grants or ``seed'' money to establish
these programs and to conduct a self-evaluation of their efforts.
Technical assistance and support will be provided to these communities
through OJJDP's National Youth Gang Center.
A separate program announcement for this initiative is tentatively
planned in FY 2000.
[[Page 56094]]
Gang Prevention Through Targeted Outreach (Boys & Girls Clubs)
The purpose of this program is to enable local Boys & Girls Clubs
to prevent youth from entering gangs, intervene with gang members in
the early stages of gang involvement, and divert youth from gang
activities into more constructive programs. This program reflects the
ongoing collaboration between OJJDP and the Boys & Girls Clubs to
reduce problems of juvenile delinquency and violence. The Boys & Girls
Clubs of America provides training and technical assistance to local
gang prevention and intervention sites, including some at SafeFutures
and OJJDP Comprehensive Gang sites, and other clubs and organizations
through regional trainings and national conferences. In FY 1999, the
Boys & Girls Clubs added as many as 30 new gang prevention sites, 5 new
gang intervention sites, and at least 2 ``Targeted Reintegration''
sites where clubs work to provide services to youth returning to the
community from juvenile correctional facilities to prevent them from
returning to gangs and violence. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America will
also hold a Delinquency and Gang Prevention Symposium in March 2000. A
national evaluation of this program is being implemented by Public/
Private Ventures.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, the Boys
& Girls Clubs of America. No additional applications would be solicited
in FY 2000.
Juvenile Justice Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance
Program
Over the past decade, alarming reports of youth violence have
appeared with increasing frequency in publications and the news media.
Law enforcement agencies across the Nation are responding to this sense
of national emergency by changing many of their policies and practices
to cope with juvenile crime and victimization.
The Juvenile Justice Law Enforcement Training and Technical
Assistance Program examines adolescent violence in the United States
both as a social phenomenon and a policy issue. The program covers the
range of youth violence issues from crime statistics to new
legislation. The program also sets forth comprehensive analysis of key
areas of youth violence policy and practice: youth firearm possession
and use, school violence and safety, youth-oriented community policing,
gang and drug involvement, serious habitual offenders,
multidisciplinary communitywide youth violence reduction strategies,
police management of youth programs, tribal juvenile crime, and Chief
Executive Officer responses to delinquency and violence.
Throughout the program, the core issues of youth violence are
examined through an appropriate set of responses to youth violence that
are consistent with effective police practice and a positive future for
America's youth. In addition, key leaders from law enforcement,
prosecution services, the courts, corrections, probation, and other
juvenile justice agencies are offered information, materials, solutions
to management issues, and technical assistance in the prevention and
control of youth crime.
FY 1998 and 1999 funds supported the continuation of eight State,
local, and tribal program workshops: The Chief Executive Officer Youth
Violence Forum (CEO Forum); Managing Juvenile Operations (MJO); Gang,
Gun, and Drug Policy; School Administrators for Effective Operations
Leading to Improved Children and Youth Services (SAFE POLICY); Youth-
Oriented Community Policing; Tribal Justice Training and Technical
Assistance; the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program
(SHOCAP); and the Youth Violence Reduction Comprehensive Action
Program.
This program will be implemented by the current grantee, the
International Association of Chiefs of Police under a cooperative
agreement with OJJDP. No additional applications will be solicited in
FY 2000.
National Youth Gang Center
The proliferation of gang problems over the past two decades led
OJJDP to develop a comprehensive, coordinated response to America's
gang problem. This response involved five program components, one of
which was implementation and operation of the National Youth Gang
Center (NYGC). Competitively funded with FY 1994 funds to expand and
maintain the body of critical knowledge about youth gangs and effective
responses to them, NYGC provides support services to the National Youth
Gang Consortium, composed of Federal agencies with responsibilities in
this area. NYGC is also providing technical assistance for the Rural
Gang Initiative planning and assessment phase. OJJDP proposes to extend
the NYGC project an additional year and provide FY 2000 funds to NYGC
to (1) conduct more indepth analyses of the National Youth Gang Survey
results that track changes in gang membership and gang-related crime,
(2) produce timely information on the nature and scope of the youth
gang problem, and (3) continue efforts to foster integration of gang-
related items into other relevant surveys and national data collection
efforts.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, the
Institute for Intergovernmental Research. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence
OJJDP will award continuation grants to each of three competitively
selected communities that initially received funds in FY 1997 to
increase the effectiveness of existing youth gun violence reduction
strategies by enhancing and coordinating prevention, intervention, and
suppression strategies and strengthening linkages among community
residents, law enforcement, and the juvenile justice system. Baton
Rouge, LA; Oakland, CA; and Syracuse, NY, were selected to receive 3-
year awards. The goals of this initiative are to reduce juveniles'
illegal access to guns and address the reasons they carry and use guns
in violent exchanges. A national evaluation currently under way will
document the process of community mobilization, planning, and
collaboration needed to develop a comprehensive, collaborative approach
to reducing juvenile gun violence.
The Partnerships To Reduce Juvenile Gun Violence program will be
carried out by the three current grantees, Baton Rouge, LA; Oakland,
CA; and Syracuse, NY. No additional applications will be solicited in
FY 2000.
Rural Gang Initiative Demonstration Sites
In FY 1999, OJJDP supported four rural communities (Elk City, OK;
Glenn County, CA; Longview, WA; and Mount Vernon, IL) to conduct a
comprehensive assessment of the local youth gang problem in these
communities. Each site has collected relevant data from multiple
sources, including police, schools, courts, and community residents,
and has gathered various types of data, including gang crime data, data
on the presence of risk factors for gang membership, community
demographics, and community surveys and focus groups. Once data
collection is complete, the communities will use these data in a
comprehensive program planning process to adapt and implement the OJJDP
Comprehensive Gang Model. In FY 2000, OJJDP will consider supporting
these communities in the implementation of the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang
Model. An
[[Page 56095]]
independent evaluation of this effort will also be conducted, along
with technical assistance through the National Youth Gang Center.
This initiative would be implemented by the four current grantees:
Elk City, OK; Glenn County, CA; Longview, WA; and Mount Vernon, IL. No
additional applications will be solicited for this initiative in FY
2000.
Technical Assistance to Gang-Free Schools and Communities Initiatives
In FY 1999, OJJDP began planning for a potential school-centered
gang initiative and a multisite replication of the OJJDP Comprehensive
Gang Model. In FY 2000, OJJDP will consider supporting the National
Youth Gang Center with funds to provide technical assistance during the
developmental stages of this initiative and during the implementation
of these efforts in selected communities across the country. The
National Youth Gang Center is currently providing technical assistance
on OJJDP's model to communities involved in OJJDP's Rural Gang
Initiative and to other OJJDP grantees.
OJJDP will consider a supplemental award to the National Youth Gang
Center to provide the technical assistance. No new applications will be
solicited in FY 2000.
Training and Technical Assistance for the Rural Gang Initiative
In FY 1998, OJJDP provided supplemental funding support to the
National Youth Gang Center to provide training and technical assistance
to demonstration sites under OJJDP's Rural Gang Initiative. In FY 2000,
training and technical assistance would continue to be provided to
those sites chosen to implement the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang model.
Training and technical assistance would focus on adapting the OJJDP
model to rural jurisdictions and on implementing the model in a
theoretically sound manner. Assistance would be delivered through
onsite visits, conferences, meetings, and other means such as telephone
and electronic media.
This initiative would be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Youth Gang Center. No additional applications would be
solicited in FY 2000.
Delinquency Prevention and Intervention
Advertising Campaign--Investing in Youth for a Safer Future
OJJDP would continue its support, which began in FY 1997, of the
National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) advertising campaign Investing
in Youth for A Safer Future through the transfer of funds to the Bureau
of Justice Assistance (BJA) under an intra-agency agreement. OJJDP and
BJA are working with the NCPC Media Unit to produce, disseminate, and
support effective public service advertising and related media to
inform the public of effective solutions to juvenile crime and to
motivate young people and adults to get involved and support these
solutions. The featured solutions include effective prevention programs
and intervention strategies.
The program would be administered by the Bureau of Justice
Assistance through its existing grant to the National Crime Prevention
Council. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
America's Promise: Enhanced Collaboration
The Presidents' Summit for America's Future held in April 1997 in
Philadelphia represented the first-ever call to action by all living
Presidents on a social initiative to encourage concerned citizens,
communities, and the business, nonprofit, and government sectors to
work together to improve the lives of children in the United States.
The goals of America's Promise, the 501.c.3 established by General
Colin Powell in response to this summit, state that young people should
have access to five fundamental resources that are necessary to
maximize their potential: (1) An ongoing relationship with a caring
adult (mentor, tutor, coach); (2) safe places and structured activities
during nonschool hours to learn and grow; (3) a healthy start; (4)
marketable skills through effective education; and (5) an opportunity
to give back through community service. Hundreds of communities and
organizations have made commitments to reaching these goals. OJJDP has
been supporting those commitments through its various programs and
initiatives over the past 2 years but now proposes to commit funding
support to America's Promise, to enhance the program's focus on
volunteerism, and to support further coordination and expansion of
existing community resources, service programs, and initiatives that
address the needs of the Nation's children and youth.
The program will be implemented by America's Promise. No additional
applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Arts and At-Risk Youth
OJJDP is considering continuation funding for an afterschool and
summer arts program that combines the arts with job training and
conflict resolution skills. This project includes summer jobs or paid
internships to enable youth to put into practice the job and conflict
resolution skills they are learning. By combining the arts with
practical life experiences, at-risk youth gain valuable insights into
their own abilities and the possibilities that await them in the world
of work if they continue to attend school, study, and graduate. The
goal of this program is to prevent and reduce the incidence of juvenile
delinquency, crime, and other problem behaviors (e.g., substance abuse,
teen pregnancy, truancy, and dropping out of school) in at-risk youth
14 to 17 years old by providing a multicomponent arts program that
includes life skills training, the link between art and employment, and
practical experiences in the workforce. In FY 1999, in collaboration
with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools
Program of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for
the Arts, and the U.S. Department of Labor, OJJDP awarded grants to
three competitively selected communities (Chicago, IL; Philadelphia,
PA; and Tulsa, OK) to develop and implement this pilot demonstration
program in the arts. The grantees are receiving training and technical
assistance support through a provider selected by the National
Endowment for the Arts and OJJDP
This program would be implemented by the current grantees, Chicago,
Philadelphia, and Tulsa. No additional applications would be solicited
in FY 2000.
Arts Programs for Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections
OJJDP would provide continuation support for arts programs for
youth in juvenile detention centers and corrections facilities. This
initiative is designed to increase opportunities to establish visual,
performing, media, and literacy artist-in-residence programs in
juvenile detention centers and corrections facilities. The corrections
and detention sites are encouraging the development of these programs
by convening interested arts organizations and juvenile justice
agencies to provide training in arts program development to three
competitively selected demonstration sites (Gainesville, TX; Riviera
Beach, FL; and Rochester, NY) and three competitively selected
enhancement sites (Bronx, NY; Seattle, WA; and Whittier, CA). The
demonstration sites will develop and implement new arts-based programs
for adjudicated youth, and the
[[Page 56096]]
enhancement sites will demonstrate practices that have achieved
sustainable programs. In addition to being required to provide juvenile
offenders in detention and corrections facilities with arts
programming, sites also are required to develop collaborative arts
programs for youth returning to their communities. The grantees are
receiving training and technical assistance support through a provider
selected by the National Endowment for the Arts and OJJDP
This program would be implemented by the six current grantees. No
additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Assessing Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Disorders Among Juvenile
Detainees
This project would supplement an ongoing National Institute of
Mental Health longitudinal study assessing alcohol, drug, and mental
health disorders among juveniles in detention in Cook County, Illinois.
The project has three primary goals: (1) to determine how alcohol,
drug, and mental disorders develop over time among juvenile detainees;
(2) to investigate whether juvenile detainees receive needed
psychiatric services after their cases reach disposition (and they are
back in the community or serving sentences); and (3) to study the
development of dangerous and risky behaviors related to violence,
substance use, and HIV/AIDS. The study is investigating how violence,
drug use, and HIV/AIDS risk behaviors develop over time, what the
antecedents of these behaviors are, and how these behaviors are
interrelated. This project is unique because the sample is so large: it
includes 1,833 youth from Chicago who were arrested and interviewed
between 1996 and 1998. The sample is stratified by gender, race
(African American, non-Hispanic white, Hispanic), and age (10-13, 14-
17). Initial interviews have been completed, and extensive archival
data (arrest and incarceration history, health and mental health
treatment, etc.) collected on each subject. The investigators have been
tracking the subjects, and are now beginning to reinterview the
adolescents. Because of their extensive and thorough tracking
procedures, the investigators will be able to reinterview subjects
regardless of whether they are back in the community, incarcerated, or
have left the immediate area. The large sample size will provide
sufficient statistical power to study rarer disorders (especially
comorbidity), patterns of drug use, and risky, life-threatening
behaviors. OJJDP funding for this project began in FY 1998.
The project would be implemented by the current grantee,
Northwestern University. No additional applications will be solicited
in FY 2000.
Communities In Schools, Inc.--Federal Interagency Partnership
This program would continue an ongoing national school dropout
prevention model developed and implemented by Communities In Schools,
Inc. (CIS). CIS, Inc., provides training and technical assistance in
adapting and implementing the CIS model in States and local
communities. The model brings social, employment, mental health, drug
prevention, entrepreneurship, and other resources to high-risk youth
and their families in the school setting. Where they exist, CIS State
organizations assume primary responsibility for local program
replication during the Federal Interagency Partnership. The Partnership
is based on enhancing (1) CIS, Inc., training and technical assistance
capabilities; (2) CIS capability to introduce selected initiatives for
youth at the local level; (3) the information dissemination capability
of CIS; and (4) the capability of CIS to network with Federal agencies
on behalf of State and local CIS programs. With OJJDP's support, CIS,
Inc. would place a special focus within the CIS Network on family
strengthening initiatives that benefit both youth and their families.
The program would be implemented by the current grantee,
Communities In Schools, Inc. No additional applications would be
solicited in FY 2000.
The Congress of National Black Churches: National Anti-Drug Abuse/
Violence Campaign (NADVC)
The Congress of National Black Churches (CNBC) addresses the
problems of juvenile drug abuse, violence, and hate crime through its
national public awareness and mobilization strategy. The strategy
coordinates black religious leadership, in cooperation with the U.S.
Department of Justice and other Federal agencies and organizations, to
mobilize community residents to combat juvenile drug abuse and drug-
related violence. The CNBC National Anti-Drug Abuse/Violence Campaign
(NADVC) is a partner in the Education Development Center's (EDC's)
Juvenile Hate Crime Initiative. NADVC's training and technical
assistance have helped sites leverage funds from public and private
sources. The NADVC model for the development of prevention programs is
easily tailored to a local community's assessment of its drug,
delinquency, violence, and hate crime problems.
The program would be implemented by the current grantee, the
Congress of National Black Churches. No additional applications would
be solicited in FY 2000.
A Demonstration Afterschool Program
The Demonstration Afterschool Program was funded in FY 1998 as a
pilot afterschool program to reduce juvenile delinquency and increase
school retention. This program, known as Estrella, offers the basic
building blocks that are critical for preventing juvenile delinquency
and provides youth with a chance to succeed academically and physically
in an environment that is conducive to learning. Through a curriculum
of hands-on science and reading projects and supervised recreation,
Estrella is providing a constructive alternative to afternoons of
unsupervised free time. Elementary students are the target population
for this effort. New Mexico Mathematics, Engineering, Science
Achievement (NM MESA) provides the academic component of the program,
and middle and high school students act as mentors to the elementary
students in a highly interactive learning environment. The Regents of
the University of New Mexico's Institute for Social Research designed
this program and is evaluating it, using both qualitative and
quantitative methods. This project is at two sites, Loma Linda and
Desert Trail Schools in the Gadsden Independent School District, in Don
Ana County, New Mexico, and serves approximately 50 middle school
students and 100 elementary school students from the six Gadsden High
School feeder schools.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Regents of the University of New Mexico. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Diffusion of State Risk- and Protective-Factor-Focused Prevention
Since FY 1997, OJJDP has provided funds to the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, through an interagency agreement, to support this 5-year
study of the public health approach to prevention, focusing on risk and
protective factors for substance abuse at the State and community
levels. The study is identifying factors that influence the adoption of
the public health approach and assessing the association between this
approach and the levels of risk and protective factors and substance
abuse among adolescents. The study will also examine State substance
abuse data gathered from 1988 through 2001 and use interviews
[[Page 56097]]
to describe the process of implementing the epidemiological risk- and
protective-factor approach in Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Maine,
Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the Social
Development Research Group at the University of Washington School of
Social Work. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Hate Crime
Under an OJJDP grant competitively awarded in FY 1993, the
Education Development Center (EDC) developed Healing the Hate: A
National Bias Crime Prevention Curriculum for Middle Schools, a
multipurpose curriculum for hate crime prevention in middle schools and
other educational settings. In FY 1996, through an interagency
agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, OJJDP expanded this
grant to provide training and technical assistance to youth, educators,
juvenile justice and law enforcement professionals, representatives of
local public/private community agencies and organizations, and the
faith community. In FY 1999, EDC provided training and technical
assistance to new sites and further disseminated a training manual
through education and juvenile justice networks. In the training area,
EDC conducted a regional, multidisciplinary training for practitioners.
This training presented current knowledge and best practices in the
areas of hate crime prevention and response. EDC also conducted two
trainings designed according to a train-the-trainers model, to create a
cadre of trainers across the Nation to teach the importance of
innovative, effective hate crime prevention and response strategies.
Finally, EDC conducted hate crime prevention training sessions for
policymakers at 15 national/State trainings targeted to reach juvenile
justice, criminal justice, education, youth-serving programs, and
youth. EDC also developed a hate crime prevention World Wide Web site
(www.edc.org/hatecrime/html). During FY 1999, EDC produced a Spanish
language version of Healing the Hate: A National Bias Crime Prevention
Curriculum for Middle Schools. In addition, EDC established
partnerships with other national organizations involved in hate crime
prevention to maximize services, provide outreach opportunities, avoid
duplication of efforts, and promote interdependent relationships in
which referrals, information, and training are routinely exchanged.
With continuation funding in FY 2000, EDC would continue to conduct
hate crime prevention training sessions for policymakers at four
national/State trainings targeted to reach juvenile justice, criminal
justice, education, youth-serving programs and youth; develop a civil
rights and hate crime prevention guide for youth in English and Spanish
for hate crime response and prevention; and develop a training/resource
guide to assist juvenile justice, criminal justice educators, and other
professionals who may or may not attend the OJJDP policymaker training.
EDC would produce an English and Spanish version of the National Center
for Hate Crime Prevention brochure and continue to build partnerships
with other national organizations involved in hate crime prevention.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, Education
Development Center. No additional applications would be solicited in FY
2000.
Multisite, Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
OJJDP will transfer funds under an interagency agreement with the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to support this research,
funded principally by NIMH. In 1992, NIMH began a study of the long-
term efficacy of stimulant medication and intensive behavioral and
educational treatment for children with attention deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD). Although ADHD is classified as a childhood disorder,
up to 70 percent of afflicted children continue to experience symptoms
in adolescence and adulthood. The study will continue through 2000 and
will follow the original families and a comparison group. OJJDP's
participation, which began in FY 1998, will allow for investigation
into the subjects' delinquent behavior and contact with the legal
system, including arrests and court referrals.
OJJDP will support this study through an interagency agreement with
the National Institute of Mental Health. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
National Center for Conflict Resolution Education
Funded under a competitively awarded cooperative agreement in FY
1995, the National Center for Conflict Resolution Education works to
integrate conflict resolution education (CRE) programming into all
levels of education in schools, juvenile facilities, and youth-serving
organizations. In FY 1998, OJJDP entered into a partnership with the
U.S. Department of Education to expand and enhance this project. The
grantee provides training and technical assistance through onsite
training and consultation for teams from schools, communities, and
juvenile facilities; by providing resource materials including Conflict
Resolution Education: A Guide to Implementing Programs in Schools,
Youth-Serving Organizations, and Community and Juvenile Justice
Settings and an enhanced, interactive CD-ROM that teaches conflict
resolution skills through the presentation of real-life situations that
confront young people; and by partnering with State-level agencies to
establish State training institutes and otherwise build local capacity
to implement successful CRE programs for youth. The Center also
facilitates peer-to-peer mentoring.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Illinois State Bar Association--Illinois LEARN. No additional
applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Nurse Home Visitation
In FY 2000, OJJDP would continue the integration of Prenatal and
Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation into five Operation Weed and Seed
sites (Clearwater, FL; Fresno, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Oakland, CA; and
Oklahoma City, OK) and one combined Weed and Seed/Safe Futures site
(St. Louis, MO). Operation Weed and Seed is a national initiative to
make communities safe through law enforcement activities and to rebuild
crime-ridden communities across the country through social services and
economic redevelopment. SafeFutures is an OJJDP initiative to assist in
implementing comprehensive community programs designed to reduce youth
violence, delinquency, and victimization through the creation of a
continuum of care in communities. The integration of the Prenatal and
Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation Program is co-funded by OJJDP,
OJP's Executive Office for Weed and Seed, and the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
Several rigorous studies of the Prenatal and Early Childhood Nurse
Home Visitation Program model indicate that it reduces the risks for
early antisocial behavior and prevents problems associated with youth
crime and delinquency, such as child abuse, maternal substance abuse,
and maternal criminal involvement. A 15-year followup of the original
Nurse Home Visitation program found that adolescents whose mothers
received home visitation services over a decade earlier were less
likely to have run away, been arrested, and been convicted of a crime
than those whose mothers
[[Page 56098]]
had not received a nurse home visitor. They also had lower levels of
cigarette and alcohol use.
The current program being implemented in the six sites targets low
income, first-time mothers and their infants to accomplish three goals:
(1) Improve pregnancy outcomes by helping women alter their health-
related behaviors, including use of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs;
improve their nutrition; and reduce risk factors for premature
delivery; (2) improve child health and development by helping parents
provide more responsible and competent care for their children; and (3)
improve families' economic self-sufficiency by helping parents develop
a vision for their own future, plan future pregnancies, continue their
education, and find work.
The project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
University of Colorado Health Services Center. No additional
applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Partnerships for Preventing Violence
This program will continue for a second year in a multiple funding
agreement among OJJDP, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services to provide support for distance
training using satellite videoconferencing as the medium. The project,
funded under a 3-year grant, consists of a series of six live,
interactive satellite training broadcasts that focus on violence
prevention programs and strategies that have proven promising or
effective. The training is targeted to school and community violence
prevention personnel, health care providers, law enforcement officials,
and other service providers representing a variety of community-based
and youth-serving organizations. To date, three events have been held
with a fourth planned by October 15, 1999.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, Harvard
University School of Public Health. No additional applications will be
solicited in FY 2000.
Proactive Youth Program
In FY 1998, OJJDP funded the New Mexico Proactive Youth Program.
The New Mexico Police Activities League (PAL) has implemented a
statewide prevention project consisting of recreational, educational,
and cultural activities for at-risk youth and their families. The goal
of this effort is to reduce negative behavior and promote healthy
behavioral patterns among New Mexico's youth by providing activities
that unite youth with law enforcement officers, educators, and other
positive adult role models. PAL programs and activities are open to all
youth between the ages of 5 and 18 and their families. Special outreach
efforts are made to target at-risk youth, including children from
persistently low-income families, children with incarcerated family
members, Native American youth living on reservations, and juveniles
involved in gang activities. Local PAL programs have been initiated in
the following New Mexico communities: Bloomfield, Cochiti, Gallup, Las
Cruces, Lordsburg, Roswell, Santa Fe, and Tohatchi. During FY 2000,
additional programs will be developed in Clovis, Grants, and Silver
City and in Dona Ana County. This program is being evaluated by the
Regents of the University of New Mexico's Institute for Social
Research. The research design includes a process and outcome evaluation
that will document and assess the implementation, effectiveness, and
impact of this program.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Regents of the University of New Mexico. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Professional Development in Effective Classroom and Conflict Management
This North Carolina pilot initiative was designed to improve
classroom management and to assist in the creation of safe learning
environments. Funds will be awarded in FY 2000 to the current grantee,
the Center for the Study of School Violence, to complete the initial
phase of its pilot in partnership with the University of North Carolina
and the North Carolina State Board of Education. The purpose of the
pilot program is to increase the ability of teachers and administrators
to model and use sound conflict resolution practices by integrating
skills training into preservice curriculums at North Carolina schools
of education and by working with the North Carolina State Board of
Education to change curriculum requirements to include conflict
resolution skills training in the context of effective classroom
management.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the Center
for the Study of School Violence. No additional applications will be
solicited in FY 2000.
Risk Reduction Via Promotion of Youth Development
This program, also known as Early Alliance, is a large-scale
prevention study involving hundreds of African American and Caucasian
children in several elementary schools in lower socioeconomic
neighborhoods of Columbia, SC. This project is designed to promote
coping-competence and reduce risk for conduct problems, aggression,
substance use, delinquency and violence, and school failure beginning
in early elementary school. Children are being followed longitudinally
throughout the 5 years of the project. The program is funded through an
interagency agreement with the National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH), whose grantee is the University of South Carolina. Funding has
also been provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
This program will be implemented under the interagency agreement
with the National Institute of Mental Health by the current grantee,
the University of South Carolina. No additional applications will be
solicited in FY 2000.
Strengthening Services for Chemically Involved Children, Youth, and
Families
The U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS)
provide services to children affected by parental substance use or
abuse. OJJDP administers this training and technical assistance
program, which began in FY 1998, with funds transferred to OJJDP by
HHS's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
through a cooperative agreement with the Child Welfare League of
America (CWLA), a nonprofit organization. CWLA recognizes that children
and youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are among
the most at risk for developing an alcohol or other drug problem (AOD).
Typically these children have more risk factors than other children and
fewer protective factors. This is especially true of youth in
residential placement who have often witnessed or committed violent
acts, have been physically or psychologically abused, have experienced
failure and truancy in school, and have mental health and substance
abuse problems.
Staff members in the residential child care system often have
little or no substance abuse training. CWLA's 1997 AOD survey
documented that less than 25 percent of State child welfare agencies
provide training to group residential staffs on recognizing and dealing
with AOD problems. What further complicates this matter is that
partnerships between AOD programs and child welfare facilities rarely
exist, creating a lack of coordinated services for children of
substance abusers and/or
[[Page 56099]]
for substance abusing youth in residential care.
As a 2-year project, CWLA proposes to identify five residential
child welfare sites, one in each of the CWLA's five regions, to
demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating AOD prevention/treatment
strategies into existing child welfare and juvenile justice programs
and services, in order to educate staff and improve outcomes for
adolescents participating in the programs. CWLA would also provide
technical assistance to other member agencies replicating the various
program models identified through their evaluations of the programs.
This jointly funded project would be implemented by CWLA. No
additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Training and Technical Assistance Program for the Arts Programs for
Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections Initiative
OJJDP is collaborating with the National Endowment for the Arts in
providing the technical assistance program for the Arts Programs for
Juvenile Offenders in Detention and Corrections Initiative. Grady
Hillman has been awarded a grant to provide technical assistance in the
area of art-based programming for juvenile offenders to support program
development and implementation; provide ongoing technical assistance,
and publish a document on the implementation of arts programming in
juvenile corrections and detention. The technical assistance will be
for the purpose of ensuring focused, professional technical support for
program development and implementation, including program design,
artist selection and training, and interaction between the arts
organizations and the juvenile justice system. The technical assistance
materials that will be developed through this national initiative will
provide a blueprint for communities that seek to undertake similar
programs. The nature of the Arts Programs for Juvenile Offenders in
Detention and Corrections affords a unique opportunity to develop new
programs and enhance existing programs while creating documentation
instrumentations for the juvenile justice system. The sites provided
technical assistance are Bronx, NY; Gainesville, TX; Riviera Beach, FL;
Rochester, NY; Seattle, WA; and Whittier, California.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, Grady
Hillman. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program
In FY 1998, OJJDP, the Executive Office for Weed and Seed within
the Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Department of Education
jointly engaged in a grant program to address truancy. This program
specifically outlines four major comprehensive components: (1) System
reform and accountability, (2) a service continuum to address the needs
of children and adolescents who are truant, (3) data collection and
evaluation, and (4) a community education and awareness program from
kindergarten through grade 12 that addresses the need to prevent
truancy and to intervene with youth who are truant. The goals of this
program are to develop and implement or expand and strengthen
comprehensive truancy programs that pool education, justice system, law
enforcement, social services and community resources; identify truant
youth; cooperatively design and implement comprehensive, systemwide
programs to meet the needs of truants; and design and maintain systems
for tracking truant youth. OJJDP has awarded funds for this program to
eight sites: three non-Weed-and-Seed sites received up to $100,000 each
(Honolulu, HI; Jacksonville, FL; and King County, WA), and five Weed
and Seed sites received up to $50,000 each (Athens, GA; Houston, TX;
Martinez, CA; Tacoma, WA; and Yaphank, NY). All sites are currently
involved in a 6-month planning phase.
It is anticipated that during the next 2 years, this program would
focus on the development of implementation and evaluation plans that
link youth and adolescents who are truant with community-based services
and programs, as well as on a full implementation of the community's
comprehensive systemwide plan to prevent and intervene with the problem
of truancy. This program would be evaluated by the Colorado Foundation
for Families and Children who would conduct a process evaluation that
would identify factors contributing or impeding the successful
implementation of a truancy program.
Truancy activities would be carried out by the current grantees. No
additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Strengthening the Juvenile Justice System
Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) Training Project
The BARJ project's goal is to control juvenile delinquency through
increased use of restitution, community service, and other innovative
programs as part of a jurisdictionwide juvenile justice change from
traditional retributive or rehabilitative system models to balanced and
restorative justice orientation and procedures. The specific steps for
achieving this goal involve preparation of materials and training of
personnel interested in restorative justice and the ``balanced
approach.'' The steps also include providing onsite technical
assistance to selected State and local jurisdictions committed to
implementing the balanced approach. Materials development in FY 2000
will include documents containing information on restorative justice
programs, practices, and policy directions. The materials will be
useful for training juvenile justice system practitioners and managers
on the BARJ model and for onsite technical assistance. The training and
technical assistance will be delivered at regional and national
roundtables, juvenile justice conferences, and specialized workshops.
``Training of trainers'' programs will also be offered. There will be
some concentration of BARJ technical assistance at the State level and
on advancing judges' and prosecutors' leadership in the area of
restorative justice. Further, there will be an effort to involve
corporations and foundations in supporting BARJ and initial exploration
of introducing BARJ in higher education.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, Florida
Atlantic University. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Building Blocks for Youth
The goals of this initiative are to protect minority youth in the
justice system and promote rational and effective juvenile justice
policies. These goals are accomplished by the following components: (1)
Conducting research on issues such as the impact on minority youth of
new State laws and the implications of privatization of juvenile
facilities by profit-making corporations; (2) undertaking an analysis
of decisionmaking in the justice system and development of model
decisionmaking criteria that reduce or eliminate disproportionate
impact of the system on minority youth; (3) building a constituency for
change at the national, State, and local levels; and (4) developing
communication strategies for dissemination of information. A fifth
component, direct advocacy for minority youth, is funded by sources
other than OJJDP. Funding by OJJDP began in FY 1998. Youth Law Center
has undertaken tasks to move this
[[Page 56100]]
initiative forward and will require additional time and funding to
complete the initial identified goals.
This continuation will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Youth Law Center. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement
In FY 1997, the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP)
replaced the biennial Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention,
Correctional, and Shelter Facilities, known as the Children in Custody
census. CJRP collects detailed information on the population of
juveniles who are in juvenile residential placement facilities as a
result of contact with the juvenile justice system. New methods
developed for CJRP are expected to produce more accurate, timely, and
useful data on the juvenile population, with less reporting burden for
facility respondents. The CJRP was conducted for the second time in
October 1999. Data collection efforts will continue into 2000. OJJDP
anticipates delivery of the final data file by the end of FY 2000.
This program would be implemented through an existing interagency
agreement with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
Circles of Care Program
In FY 1998, the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) initiated
a program entitled ``Circles of Care'' to build the capacity of
selected Native American Tribes to develop a continuum of care for
Native American youth at risk of mental health, substance abuse, and
delinquency problems. As part of multiyear joint efforts with CMHS,
OJJDP entered into a 3-year interagency agreement to provide funding
support to the Circles of Care Program. OJJDP transferred funds in FY's
1998 and 1999 to CMHS to support the funding of one of nine sites. The
Circles of Care Program is designed to facilitate the planning and
development of a continuum of care.
The currently funded projects will continue in FY 2000 through an
interagency agreement with the Center for Mental Health Services. No
additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Community Assessment Center
The Community Assessment Center (CAC) program is a multicomponent
demonstration initiative designed to test the efficacy of the CAC
concept. CAC's 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, and a technical assistance component.
Based on a limited competition among the four sites, in FY 1998,
OJJDP provided additional funding for 12 months to one of the initial
planning sites (Lee County Sheriff's Office in Lee County, FL) and to
one of the initial enhancement sites (Jefferson Center for Mental
Health in Jefferson County, CO). The two other sites (Human Service
Associates, Inc. (HSA) in Orlando, FL, and the Denver Juvenile Court in
Denver, CO) received increased funding from Juvenile Accountability
Incentive Block Grant funds to develop a fully operational CAC,
including all four CAC conceptual elements. Increased funding was also
provided to the national evaluator, the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency.
During year 2, the Lee County Sheriff's Office worked to design and
implement a comprehensive management information system that will serve
as the backbone of the future assessment center. The Jefferson Center
for Mental Health further enhanced its assessment center by conducting
an intensive review of existing assessment tools and enhancing the case
management process. In addition, both Denver and Orlando (HSA) began
developing fully operational CAC's.
In FY 2000, OJJDP will provide additional funding to support the
full implementation of OJJDP's CAC concept to the current grantees in
Denver and Orlando. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Comprehensive Children and Families Mental Health Training and
Technical Assistance
Under an FY 1999 interagency agreement, OJJDP transferred funds to
the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) to support the new
contract for training and technical assistance for the CMHS-funded
Comprehensive Mental Health sites. These funds will be used to enhance
the involvement of the juvenile justice system in the systems of care
that are being developed in each of the CMHS-funded sites. Funds will
again be transferred to CMHS in FY 2000 to support the training and
technical assistance and to meet the terms of the 3-year interagency
agreement.
OJJDP will support this initiative through an interagency agreement
with the Center for Mental Health Services. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Development of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and
Chronic Juvenile Offenders
OJJDP has been providing support for development of its
Comprehensive Strategy for several years. This project will complete
ongoing strategic planning efforts in two States, Oregon and Wisconsin,
and provide implementation support in six States that have completed
the strategic planning process. OJJDP will also explore the addition of
two or more Comprehensive Strategy States in FY 2000. As in the
original eight States, up to six local jurisdictions would be
identified to receive Comprehensive Strategy planning training and
technical assistance. OJJDP will continue to provide technical
assistance to further assist States and local jurisdictions, through
training and technical assistance, in developing and implementing the
Comprehensive Strategy. Further development and update of the Guide for
Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and
Chronic Juvenile Offenders will be completed in FY 2000.
This project will be implemented by the current grantees, the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency and Developmental Research
and Programs, Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Development of Conduct Disorder in Girls
The purpose of this project is to examine the development of
conduct disorder in a sample of 2,500 inner-city girls who are ages 6
to 8 at the beginning of the study. The study will follow the girls
annually for 5 years and will provide information that is critical to
the understanding of the etiology, comorbidity, and prognosis of
conduct disorder in girls. This project is important because
delinquency in girls has been steadily increasing over the past decade
and a better understanding of the developmental processes in girls will
help in identifying effective means of prevention and provide direction
for juvenile justice responses to delinquent girls. The program is
being funded under an FY 1999 interagency agreement between OJJDP and
the National Institute of Mental Health.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
University of
[[Page 56101]]
Pittsburgh. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Department of Labor's Education and Training for
Youthful Offenders Initiative
This evaluation will document the activities undertaken by two
States awarded grants under the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL's)
Education and Training for Youthful Offenders Initiative. Each DOL
grantee will provide comprehensive school-to-work education and
training within a juvenile correctional facility and followup and job
placement services as youth return to the community. It is intended
that the comprehensive services developed under these grants will serve
as models for other juvenile correctional facilities across the
country.
The OJJDP-sponsored evaluation of these projects will be conducted
in two phases. During Phase I, a process evaluation will be conducted
at each site to document the extent to which educational, job training,
and aftercare services were enhanced with DOL funding. Also, the
feasibility of conducting an impact evaluation at each site will be
determined during Phase I. Phase II will entail conducting an impact
evaluation at one or both sites. For those sites where a rigorous
impact evaluation can be conducted, the effects of the program on job-
related skills, employment, earnings, academic performance, and
recidivism will be measured.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program
In FY 1995, OJJDP competitively awarded a grant to the National
Council on Crime and Delinquency to perform a process evaluation and
design an outcome evaluation of the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare
Demonstration and Technical Assistance Program. In FY 1998, the project
was supplemented and extended for an additional 2 years to continue the
outcome evaluation, which seeks to determine the extent of the
differences between the Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Program
(IAP) participants and the ``regular'' parolees, the supervision and
services provided to both groups, and the cost-effectiveness of IAP.
Data collection is being accomplished using several methods including
searching State police records to measure recidivism and analyzing
State agency and juvenile court data to estimate costs.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Evaluation of Teen Courts
This project, which OJJDP began in FY 1997, is measuring the effect
of handling young, relatively nonserious law violators in teen courts
rather than in traditional juvenile or family courts. Researchers are
collecting data on several dimensions of program outcomes, including
postprogram recidivism and changes in teens' perceptions of justice and
their ability to make more mature judgments. Analyses of these
dimensions will be used to compare youth handled in at least three
separate teen court programs with those processed by the traditional
juvenile justice system. In addition, the study will conduct a process
evaluation of the teen court programs, exploring legal, administrative,
and case processing factors that affect the ability of the programs to
achieve their goals.
This evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Urban Institute. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
Helping Communities To Promote Youth Development
OJJDP would continue to provide support to the Institute of
Medicine/National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences for a
review and synthesis of existing evidence regarding the effectiveness
of community-level interventions and service programs designed to
promote positive youth development. The strengths and limitations of
measurement and methodologies used to evaluate these interventions will
be assessed, as well as policy and programmatic implications of this
research. In addition to a final report that will synthesize the work
of the committee, brief summary ``fact sheets'' will be widely
disseminated to policymakers, local decisionmakers, program
administrators, service providers, researchers, community organizers,
and other key stakeholders.
OJJDP would implement this program through an interagency agreement
with the National Academy of Sciences. No additional applications would
be solicited in FY 2000.
Intensive Community-Based Aftercare Dissemination and Technical
Assistance Program
This initiative supports implementation, training and technical
assistance, and an independent evaluation of an intensive community-
based aftercare model in three competitively selected demonstration
sites. The overall goal of the intensive aftercare model is to identify
and assist high-risk juvenile offenders to make a gradual transition
from secure confinement back into the community. The Intensive
Aftercare Program (IAP) model has three distinct, yet overlapping
segments: (1) prerelease and preparatory planning activities during
incarceration, (2) structured transitioning involving the participation
of institutional and aftercare staffs both prior to and following
community reentry, and (3) long-term reintegrative activities to ensure
adequate service delivery and the required level of social control. The
three sites would complete 5 years of program development and
implementation in FY 2000. Followup data collection would continue into
FY 2000 to capture information on youth who transitioned back into the
community. In late FY 1999, Johns Hopkins University, the current
grantee, would shift its focus from primarily providing training and
technical assistance to grantees to developing a comprehensive
dissemination, training, and technical assistance effort to State
juvenile justice systems throughout the United States.
The IAP project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
Johns Hopkins University. No additional applications would be solicited
in FY 1999.
Juvenile Defender Training, Technical Assistance, and Resource Center
In FY 1999, OJJDP competitively funded the American Bar Association
(ABA) to develop and implement the Juvenile Defender Training,
Technical Assistance, and Resource Center (Juvenile Defender Center) to
support training and technical assistance and to serve as a
clearinghouse and resource center for juvenile defenders in this
country. Recognizing that a lack of training, technical assistance, and
resources for juvenile defenders weakens the juvenile justice system
and results in a lack of due process for juvenile offenders, OJJDP
provided seed money in FY 1999 to fund the initial planning and
implementation of a Juvenile Defender Center. The grantee is expected
to develop a partnership with other agencies and organizations that
[[Page 56102]]
will provide or help develop financial resources to assist in
sustaining a permanent Center. The Center will be designed to provide
both general and specialized training and technical assistance to
juvenile defenders in the United States. The design will also
incorporate a resource center for purposes such as serving as a
repository for the most recent litigation on key issues, a collection
of sample briefs, and information on expert witnesses.
This project will be carried out by the current grantee, the
American Bar Association. No additional applications will be solicited
in FY 2000.
Juvenile Justice Prosecution Unit
This American Prosecutors Research Institute project's goal is to
increase and improve prosecutor involvement in juvenile justice. The
project will pursue continuing needs assessment by a working group of
experienced prosecutors regarding district attorney requirements in the
juvenile area. The project will design and present specialized training
events for elected and appointed district attorneys and for juvenile
unit chiefs. The training will deal with prosecutor leadership roles in
the juvenile justice system and with the clarification or resolution of
important juvenile justice issues. Such issues are expected to include
juvenile policy, code revisions, resource allocation, charging,
transfer to criminal courts, alternative juvenile programs,
confinement, record confidentiality, and collaboration with other
agencies. Training will also address certain evolving juvenile justice
areas, such as community prosecution, community justice, restorative
justice, community assessment centers, and mental health concerns,
among others. In addition, the project will continue to develop
training and reference materials pertaining to significant juvenile
justice topics.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
American Prosecutors Research Institute. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Juvenile Residential Facility Census
As part of a long-term relationship with the Bureau of the Census,
OJJDP proposes to continue to fund the development and testing of a new
census of juvenile residential facilities. This census would focus on
those facilities that are authorized to hold juveniles based on contact
with the juvenile justice system. From interviews with facility
administrators and staff at 20 locations, project staff have produced a
detailed report discussing how best to capture information on
education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, health
services, conditions of custody, staffing, and facility capacity.
Project staff have also drafted and tested a questionnaire based on the
interview results. The census was tested in October 1998. Census Bureau
staff will prepare a report on the results of this test and make
specific recommendations concerning changes and census implementation.
In 2000, OJJDP and Census will work together to finalize the census
format and data collection methods. The census will be administered for
the first time in October 2000.
This project would be conducted through an interagency agreement
with the Bureau of the Census, Governments Division and Statistical
Research Division. No additional applications would be solicited in FY
2000.
Linking Balanced and Restorative Justice and Adolescents (LIBRA)
This project addresses effective interventions with the at-risk and
delinquent youthful population of Vermont, combined with Vermont's
determination to raise, support, teach, and nurture youth in their
communities. As a rural state, Vermont faces many of the same issues
plaguing larger, urban States, including underage drinking, drug abuse,
education failure, and mental health issues. The goal of this program
is to continue development of a comprehensive, integrated, balanced,
and restorative system of justice for youthful offenders that holds
them accountable for their actions to victims, protects the community,
builds offender skills and competencies, and offers opportunities for
positive connections to community members. OJJDP funding for the
program began in FY 1998. Based on the Balanced and Restorative Justice
(BARJ) philosophy of reparation, rather than retribution, the LIBRA
project has created a network of Juvenile Reparative Boards, which hold
youth immediately accountable for their actions and provide direct
services to youth, parents, victims, and community members. The project
will also continue to pilot Community Justice Centers, which
demonstrate that the community is the core of the justice process and
recognize youth as a vital part of the community. Also, a curriculum of
Competency Training Classes for youthful offenders and youth at risk of
delinquency will be maintained and will focus on conflict resolution,
social skills, problem solving, and decisionmaking.
This program will be implemented by the current grantee, the
Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. No additional
applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
National Juvenile Justice Data Analysis Project
In 1998, OJJDP established the National Juvenile Justice Data
Analysis Project (NJJDAP) to serve the critical information needs of
the juvenile justice community and OJJDP. The NJJDAP produces analyses
and disseminates statistical information to the public and to State and
local policymakers. The project serves as a principal resource to
accentuate and enhance OJJDP's ability to provide quality information
to the field of juvenile justice. The project uses many national data
sources to examine issues critical to the juvenile justice system. The
data sources used are not limited to criminal justice or juvenile
justice data. In 1999, the NJJDAP has produced analyses based on the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), operated by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. The NLSY is a national self-report survey of youth
that includes several measures of juvenile offending. Also, the NJJDAP
has produced analyses of the Census of Juveniles in Residential
Placement.
The project will be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Center for Juvenile Justice. No additional applications will
be solicited in FY 2000.
National Juvenile Justice Program Directory
To conduct its statistical functions, OJJDP must maintain a current
and accurate list of all entities surveyed either in the various
censuses or in surveys. This list currently consists of a complete list
of juvenile residential facilities and a list of juvenile probation
offices. As OJJDP expands its statistical work, it will need to expand
this listing as well. The list needs to contain contact information for
the various facilities or agencies and appropriate information for
sampling. During 2000, the Census Bureau would continue to maintain the
currently available portions of the directory and would explore
expansions needed to monitor other areas of juvenile justice such as
nonresidential correctional programs and juvenile court staff.
This project would be conducted through an interagency agreement
with the Bureau of the Census, Governments Division. No additional
applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97
OJJDP proposes continuing to support the third round of data
collection, begun
[[Page 56103]]
in FY 1997, by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY97)
through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS). The NLSY97 is studying school-to-work transition in a nationally
representative sample of 8,700 youth ages 12 to 16 years old. BLS is
also collecting data on the involvement of these youth in antisocial
and other behavior that may affect their transition to productive work
careers. The survey provides information about risk and protective
factors related to the initiation, persistence, and desistance of
delinquent and criminal behavior and provides an opportunity to
determine the generalizability of findings from OJJDP's Program of
Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency and other
longitudinal studies to a nationally representative population of
youth.
The program would be implemented by the BLS under an interagency
agreement. No additional applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Correction and Detention
Facilities
Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Correction and Detention
Facilities Program, which began with a competitive OJJDP cooperative
agreement awarded to the Council of Juvenile Correctional
Administrators (CJCA) in FY 1995, has developed a performance
management system for the management of juvenile correctional
facilities. The system provides tools for monitoring and improving
outcomes in six critical facility functions: providing security,
safety, order, health care, educational, and mental health programming
within a context that protects individual rights. Currently, 32
facilities, including 2 State systems, have begun the implementation
process, which consists of the data collection and analysis of baseline
data; the development of an initial facility improvement plan, which
may include financial support to make improvements; and reassessment
and revision of the facility improvement plan. During FY 2000, the
program itself is undergoing refinements to improve management of the
process for the facilities. In addition, approximately 15 new sites
will begin the process, using streamlined data collection and new
diagnostic tools. In addition to working with the participating
facilities during this funding period, the project will finalize the
implementation model; revise instruments, as needed; and develop
criteria for determining full implementation, including the testing of
community release measures. Where appropriate, the project will
establish performance benchmarks and develop analytical reports
regarding facility and system change that has occurred in the test
sites.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, the
Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators. No additional
applications would be solicited in FY 2000.
San Francisco Juvenile Justice Local Action Plan--Delancy Street
Initiative
In FY 1998, OJJDP provided funding to the City and County of San
Francisco, CA, to support the implementation of a comprehensive effort
to reform the city's juvenile justice system. San Francisco's
Comprehensive Juvenile Justice Local Action Plan, facilitated by the
Delancy Street Foundation CIRCLE (Coalition to Revitalize Communities,
Lives and Environments), represents the culmination of a unique,
collaborative needs assessment of the existing juvenile justice system.
Based on this assessment, San Francisco identified six of the most
critical gaps in the juvenile justice system and proposed programs to
fill those gaps: Community Assessment and Referral Center, Early Risk
and Resiliency, Safe Haven, Safe Corridor, the Life Learning Academy,
and the Life Learning Residential Center for Girls. These six programs
originated from the needs assessment and are a product of teams
composed of representatives from San Francisco and its diverse
communities.
In FY 1999, OJJDP provided funding to enhance services offered at
the Life Learning Residential Center (Academy), an intensive life-
changing, day treatment program designed to turn around the lives of
youth with multiple problems that include multigenerational poverty,
gang involvement, drug abuse, disciplinary problems, and school
dropouts and failure. The Academy aims to strengthen a youth's bond
with his family and extended family and the community, while providing
complete ``life learning'' instruction and education. Funding will also
be used for program replication throughout the country.
This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the City
and County of San Francisco, in FY 2000. No additional applications
will be solicited in FY 2000.
Survey of Juvenile Probation
OJJDP proposes to continue to support the development of a survey
of juvenile probation offices. This survey will lead directly to
national estimates of the numbers of juveniles on probation at a given
time. OJJDP began this effort in 1996 with assessments of current
knowledge of probation and the need for information on this aspect of
juvenile justice. The development efforts have so far included site
visits to three State probation departments and local probation
departments in those States. An additional seven States will be visited
in the coming year. Based on this information, the Center for Survey
Methods Research (CSMR) at the Bureau of the Census will develop a
survey methodology and a survey questionnaire. The plans for this
survey have expanded by necessity to include efforts (already under way
under a separate agreement with the Bureau of the Census) to list and
categorize juvenile probation offices nationally. Working with OJJDP,
the Census Bureau will develop a list of probation offices and several
categorizations of these offices to facilitate the development of a
sampling scheme. In the coming year, OJJDP and the Census Bureau will
continue working on the specifications for this list and continue
efforts to develop the list. Also, working with the Governments
Division of the Bureau of the Census, OJJDP will take the necessary
preliminary steps needed to implement the survey. OJJDP anticipates the
first Survey of Juvenile Probation will take place in calendar year
2002.
This project would be conducted through an interagency agreement
with the Bureau of the Census. No additional applications would be
solicited in FY 2000.
Technical Assistance to Native American Tribes and Alaskan Native
Communities
The Technical Assistance to Native American Tribes and Alaskan
Native Communities Program is designed to equip tribal governments with
the necessary information and tools to enhance or develop
comprehensive, systemwide approaches to reduce juvenile delinquency,
violence, and victimization and increase the safety of their
communities. In FY 1997, OJJDP awarded a 3-year cooperative agreement
to the American Indian Development Associates (AIDA) to provide
training and technical assistance to Indian nations seeking to improve
juvenile justice services to children, youth, and families.
Throughout FY's 1998 and 1999, AIDA continued to provide technical
assistance to Indian nations and developed information materials for
Indian juvenile justice practitioners, administrators, and
policymakers. Topic areas covered Indian youth gangs; personnel
competency building, such as
[[Page 56104]]
conducting effective preadjudication investigations and preparing
reports; developing protocols to implement State Children's Code
provisions that affect Native American children; establishing
sustainable, comprehensive community-based planning processes that
focus on the needs of tribal youth; and developing and implementing
culturally relevant policies, programs, and practices. The technical
assistance and materials also addressed the overlapping roles and
jurisdiction of Federal, State, and tribal justice systems,
particularly in understanding the laws and public policies applicable
to or effective in Indian communities.
In FY 2000, OJJDP would continue to promote and provide technical
assistance to tribes seeking to develop and enhance their juvenile
justice systems. AIDA would provide training and technical assistance
in the following emphasis areas: developing a community-based secondary
prevention program; developing a tribal justice probation system;
developing multidisciplinary approaches to youth gang violence
prevention; establishing risk assessment and classification systems;
developing comprehensive strategies to handle offenders; expanding
referral and service delivery systems; developing cooperative
interagency and intergovernmental relationships; and developing
technology to improve systems and increased access to juvenile justice
information.
This program would be implemented by the current grantee, the
American Indian Development Associates. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative
In FY 1998, OJJDP, in partnership with the U.S. Department of
Labor's (DOL's) Employment and Training Administration, provided
funding support to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to demonstrate and
evaluate the TeenSupreme Career Preparation Initiative. This initiative
provides employment training and other related services to at-risk
youth through local Boys & Girls Clubs with TeenSupreme Centers. In FY
1998, DOL funds supported program staffing in the existing 41
TeenSupreme Centers, and in 1999, the number of sites was expanded to
45. These 45 clubs are provided funding support to hire an employment
specialist to work with the youth. Boys & Girls Clubs of America
provides intensive training and technical assistance to each site and
administrative and staffing support to the program from the national
office. OJJDP funds support the evaluation component of the program,
which is being implemented by an independent evaluator.
This jointly funded Department of Labor and OJJDP initiative will
be implemented by the current grantee, the Boys & Girls Clubs of
America. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 1999.
Training and Technical Support for State and Local Jurisdictional Teams
To Focus on Juvenile Corrections and Detention Overcrowding
Through systemic change within local juvenile detention systems or
statewide juvenile corrections systems, this project seeks to reduce
overcrowding in facilities where juveniles are held. Competitively
awarded in FY 1994 to the National Juvenile Detention Association
(NJDA), in partnership with the San Francisco Youth Law Center, the
project provides training and technical assistance materials for use by
State and local jurisdictional teams. NJDA selected three jurisdictions
(Camden, NJ; Oklahoma City, OK; and the Rhode Island Juvenile
Corrections System) for onsite development, implementation, and testing
of procedures to reduce crowding. All three original sites have
completed their work. The grantee is exploring additional sites for
comprehensive training and technical assistance in FY 2000. NJDA would
also be initiating its Jurisdictional Team Training Course in FY 2000
at three sites that are experiencing overcrowding in their juvenile
facilities.
This project would be implemented by the current grantee, the
National Juvenile Detention Association. No additional applications
would be solicited in FY 2000.
Child Abuse and Neglect and Dependency Courts
National Evaluation of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program
OJJDP will continue funding the grant competitively awarded in FY
1997 to Westat, Inc., Rockville, MD, for a national evaluation to
document and explicate the process of community mobilization, planning,
and collaboration that has taken place before and during the Safe Kids/
Safe Streets awards; to inform program staff of performance levels on
an ongoing basis; and to determine the effectiveness of the implemented
programs in achieving the goals of the Safe Kids/Safe Streets program.
The initial 18-month grant began a process evaluation and an assessment
of the feasibility of an impact evaluation. Westat will continue the
process evaluation, which will now focus on tracking the implementation
efforts at each of the sites; continue developing the national impact
evaluation; and continue working with local evaluators to develop their
capacity to evaluate programs. Also, Westat will add a fifth site to
the evaluation.
This evaluation will be implemented by the current grantee, Westat,
Inc. No additional applications will be solicited in FY 2000.
Research on Child Neglect
In FY 2000, OJJDP will join several other Federal agencies,
including the Office of Justice Program's National Institute of
Justice, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Department of Health
and Human Services' National Institutes of Health and Administration on
Children, Youth, and Families (the Neglect Consortium), in funding
research projects that will enhance understanding of the etiology,
extent, services, treatment, management, and prevention of child
neglect. This multiagency effort addresses the lack of research
focusing specifically on the issue of child neglect. Child neglect may
relate to profound health consequences, place children at higher risk
for a variety of diseases and conditions, and interfere with normal
social, cognitive, and affective development. Thus, child neglect is a
serious public health, justice, social services, and education problem,
not only compromising the immediate health of the Nation's children,
but also threatening their growth and intellectual development, their
long-term physical and mental health outcomes, their propensity for
prosocial behavior, their future parenting practices, and their
economic productivity.
The research studies funded by this initiative can focus on a range
of issues, including, but not limited to, the following: the
antecedents of neglect; the consequences of neglect; the processes and
mediators accounting for or influencing the effects of neglect; and
treatment, preventive intervention, and service delivery.
This program will be implemented through an interagency agreement
with the National Institutes of Health. No additional applications will
be solicited in FY 2000.
Safe Kids/Safe Streets: Community Approaches To Reducing Abuse and
Neglect and Preventing Delinquency
This 5\1/2\ year demonstration program is designed to foster
coordinated
[[Page 56105]]
community responses to child abuse and neglect. Several components of
the Office of Justice Programs joined in FY 1996 to develop this
coordinated program response to break the cycle of early childhood
victimization and later criminality and to reduce child abuse and
neglect and resulting child fatalities. OJJDP awarded competitive
cooperative agreements in FY 1997 to five sites (Chittenden County, VT;
Huntsville, AL; Kansas City, MO; the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa
Indians, MI; and Toledo, OH). Funds were provided by OJJDP, the
Executive Office for Weed and Seed, and the Violence Against Women
Office.
In FY 2000, continuation awards will be made to each of the current
demonstration sites. No additional applications will be solicited in FY
2000.
The programs described above will further OJJDP's goals and help to
consolidate and continue the gains made in the past few years in
combating juvenile delinquency and victimization. OJJDP welcomes
comments on this Proposed Program Plan.
Dated: October 8, 1999.
Shay Bilchik,
Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
[FR Doc. 99-26797 Filed 10-14-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-18-P