NJJEC Bulletin November 2013

The NJJEC Bulletin

NJJEC is a project of the 

Justice Research and 

Statistics Association 

funded by the Office of 

Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention

(OJJDP). NJJEC’s purpose is 

to improve the evaluation 

capacity of states, localities, 

and tribes and facilitate the 

use of evidence-based 

programs and practices in 

juvenile justice. The NJJEC 

Bulletin is disseminated 

directly to subscribers and 

posted on the NJJEC 

website, and provides 

information related to 

juvenile justice evaluation 

that is of interest to state, 

local, and tribal juvenile 

justice professionals. 

We welcome your 

participation! If you would

like to submit an article, 

suggest a news item for the 

Bulletin, or ask a question 

about evaluation, e-mail 

njjec@jrsa.org. For more 

information about the 

resources available through 

the National Juvenile Justice 

Evaluation Center, visit the 

NJJEC website. 

What’s Going On at 

NJJEC? 

Registration is available for 

our upcoming webinar, 

Drilling Down: An Analytical 

Look at EBP Resources. The 

webinar is sponsored by

OJJDP’s National Training 

and Technical Assistance 

Center (NTTAC) and will take 

place on Thursday, February 

6 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. EST. 

This webinar will review 

some of the most popular 

resources on evidence-based 

programs and practices, 

including CrimeSolutions.gov 

and the Model Programs 

Guide. The material was 

developed in response to 

questions we have received 

about these resources; 

specifically, how they can 

best be used to assist the dayto-day work of youth service 

providers, what the 

information and ratings 

mean, and what factors 

program managers and staff 

should consider in 

determining the best fit for 

their local situations. 

The purpose of the webinar is 

to enable and encourage 

practitioners to be informed 

consumers of research and 

these resources. As always, 

you can access archived 

NJJEC webinars on the NJJEC 

Trainings page and the OJJDP 

NTTAC website. 

Do you have a suggestion for 

a new webinar topic or 

resource? Email 

njjec@jrsa.org! 

Upcoming Events of 

Interest

2014 National Mentoring 

Summit 

January 30-31

In collaboration with the 

Corporation for National 

Community Service, the 

Harvard School of Public 

Health, the United Way and 

the Office of Juvenile Justice 

and Delinquency Prevention, 

the National Mentoring 

Partnership will host the 2013 

National Mentoring Summit 

January 30 through 31 in 

Arlington, Virginia. The 

Summit will focus on best 

practices and research. 

Check the conference website

for more information and to 

register!
NJJEC Bulletin Page 2

ACJS 51st Annual Meeting

February 18-22

Pre-registration is open for the 51st Academy 

of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Annual 

Meeting. The conference will be held 

February 18 through 22 in Philadelphia, 

Pennsylvania. 

Featured Resources:

Children’s Exposure to Violence 

Exposure to violence increases the 

likelihood of substance abuse, poor school 

performance, psychological trauma, and 

delinquency in children and youth. 

Understanding the prevalence, causes, and 

effects of exposure to violence is an 

important component of service provision in 

child welfare and juvenile justice. There are 

a variety of resources available to the field, 

including current intervention efforts, 

research projects and publications, and 

resource centers. 

Federal Initiatives. Attorney General Eric 

Holder launched the Defending Childhood 

Initiative in 2010 to support research and 

intervention in the area of childhood 

victimization. The Defending Childhood 

Initiative website provides an overview of

the work of the Attorney General’s Task 

Force on Children Exposed to Violence, as 

well as research publications in a number of 

important areas, including bullying, sexual 

exploitation, and domestic abuse and 

neglect. 

Local Community Projects. The Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

(OJJDP) began the Safe Start program in 

1999 to support research and practice in 

response to childhood victimization. Safe 

Start programs have been implemented in 

over 30 sites nationwide since 2000. In 

addition to providing community services, 

one of Safe Start’s goals is to conduct highquality research on the implementation and 

outcomes of the initiative. A summary of 

the evaluation results for the first 11 Safe 

Start communities is available in the online 

report Communities Working Together to 

Help Children Exposed to Violence: Findings 

from Phase I of the Safe Start Initiative. The 

Safe Start website also provides links to 

evidence-based programs addressing 

children’s exposure to violence, via the 

Office of Justice Programs’ 

CrimeSolutions.gov website. 

Survey Data. The Office of Juvenile Justice 

and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), in 

conjunction with the Centers for Disease 

Control (CDC), collected data for the 

National Survey of Children’s Exposure to 

Violence (NatSCEV) in 2008. The 

nationwide survey examined violent 

incidents either experienced or witnessed 

by youth, as well as delinquent behavior. 

OJJDP published a research study using the 

NatSCEV data, Children’s Exposure to 

Violence and the Intersection between 

Delinquency and Victimization, in October 

of 2013. The report examines the 

relationship between delinquent acts and 

the extent of victimization separately by 

gender, and examines implications related 

to mental health and the age at which 

intervention might be most effective for 

girls and boys. 

Resource Center. The Crimes Against 

Children Research Center (CCRC) at the 

University of New Hampshire provides 

publicly available research on an array of 

topics related to child victimization, 

including bullying, domestic violence, 

sexual abuse, polyvictimization, and 
NJJEC Bulletin Page 3

privacy. The project’s website includes a page 

of additional research-oriented resources 

specifically for youth service providers. 

Evaluation Feature:

Risk Assessment and Evaluation

Many jurisdictions make use of risk and needs 

assessment tools to determine appropriate 

services and supervision for youth. These tools 

provide an objective, evidence-based method 

to determine the youth’s level of risk for 

reoffending, as well as the best way to promote 

positive outcomes. We discussed screening 

and assessment resources in the September 

2012 edition of the NJJEC Bulletin, including 

some of the ways to determine which tools 

should be used and in what ways. 

It is critically important that programs using 

screening and assessment tools adequately 

implement them and collect data on the 

instrument’s efficacy—particularly programs 

that are preparing for or will eventually need 

to be evaluated. Because risk assessment tools 

are the basis for intervention and service 

delivery plans, it is important to know if they 

are being used correctly, and if the guidance 

they offer for service delivery actually improves 

outcomes for youth. 

Program managers and staff must ensure that 

the tool is administered in the same way and 

in the same setting for each youth being 

screened—for example, as a face-to-face 

interview during an initial meeting between a 

youth and juvenile probation officer, or as a 

pen-and-paper survey administered in a 

classroom setting. If a risk assessment tool is 

not implemented uniformly for all youth (in 

some cases, across program sites) it will be 

impossible to determine the relationship 

between the risk assessment instrument’s use 

and the program’s results. 

The National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN), 

a coalition of organizations supporting 

juvenile justice reform, released a bulletin 

entitled Doing It Right: Risk Assessment in 

Juvenile Justice, which summarizes a more 

extensive Models for Change report entitled 

Risk Assessment in Juvenile Justice: A 

Guidebook for Implementation. 

The NJJN Doing it Right summary provides a 

brief plain-language explanation of the 

important components of incorporating risk 

assessment into daily practice and service 

provision. Sections of the report include a 

definition of risk assessment, the advantages 

of using a risk assessment, how to select an

appropriate instrument, the importance of 

implementation, and the necessity of 

collecting and analyzing data on any risk 

assessment tools utilized in service delivery. 

State Spotlight:

New York 

The Center for Court Innovation conducted a 

preliminary evaluation of New York State’s 

pilot Adolescent Diversion Program (ADP). 

The program was launched by Chief Judge 

Jonathan Lippman in 2012. The purpose of 

the program is to provide an alternative 

approach to dealing with 16 and 17 year-old 

offenders who are currently classified as 

adults in New York’s criminal justice system. 

The ADP provides diversion from prosecution 

for eligible offenders, supports 

developmentally appropriate service 

provision to these offenders, and removes any 

official criminal record for those individuals 

who complete the requirements of their 

diversion program plan. 
`

The program was implemented in nine 

counties including New York City. The 

Center for Court Innovation’s evaluation, 

which was funded by the New York 

Community Trust, examined cases initiated 

from January to June 2012. 

All nine counties used a screening/risk 

assessment tool to determine program 

eligibility, appropriate services, and 

monitoring requirements, though only Nassau 

County used this screening tool universally 

(i.e., every 16-17 year-old youth screened). 

Services varied extensively by county, and 

many counties required participation in 

programming prior to case disposition.

More extensive analyses were conducted in 

six of the nine counties where the ADP was 

implemented. The authors examined the 

impact of ADP participation on criminal 

penalties and recidivism (re-arrests) for six of 

the nine counties using matched comparison 

cases. There was no evidence that ADP 

affected the likelihood of conviction for a 

misdemeanor or felony. 

Only two counties showed differences in the 

likelihood of a guilty plea—in one county, 

ADP participation increased the likelihood of 

a guilty plea while in another, it decreased the 

likelihood of a guilty plea. ADP cases were 

less likely to be sentenced to jail in two of the 

six counties. There were no significant 

differences in the likelihood of re-arrest six 

months from arraignment or the time to first 

re-arrest. However, ADP participants were 

less likely to be rearrested on felony charges 

and violent felony charges than those who 

did not participate in ADP. 

Findings also indicated that ADP was the 

most effective for high-risk youth—that is, 

high-risk ADP youth were less likely to be rearrested than high-risk comparison cases. In 

contrast, low-risk ADP cases were more likely 

to be re-arrested than low-risk comparison 

cases. This finding supports the riskresponsivity principle in juvenile justice: 

more intensive services should be provided 

for youth exhibiting higher risk. It also 

shows that system involvement can result in 

negative outcomes for low-risk youth.

The full report is available online.

Source: Rempel, M., Hynynen Lambsen, S., Cadoret, 

C.R., & Franklin, A.W. (January 2013). The Adolescent 

Diversion Program: A First Year Evaluation of 

Alternatives to Conventional Case Processing for 

Defendants Ages 16 and 17 in New York. 

NJJEC Bulletin Page 4

NJJEC Bulletin is the newsletter of the National Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center. It provides information on NJJEC 

project activities, evaluation-related activities of OJJDP grantees, and upcoming trainings and conferences of interest.

To access NJJEC project information and resources: http://www.jrsa.org/njjec/

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To unsubscribe: e-mail njjec@jrsa.org

NJJEC is a Project of the Justice Research and Statistics Association. 

Notice of Federal Funding and Federal Disclaimer: This document was prepared under Grant Number 2010-JF-FX-0063 from the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or 

opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the 

U.S. Department of Justice.