DOI: 10.3886/icpsr36130
title: Assessing the Effectiveness of Four Juvenile Justice Interventions on Adult Criminal Justice and Child Welfare Outcomes, Ohio, 2004-2008
title: Building and Enhancing Criminal Justice Research - Practitioner Partnerships; Opportunity No. NIJ-2012-3083
title: Archival Version

description: These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
This study compared the adult criminal justice and child welfare system outcomes of four pathways through the juvenile justice system - Traditional Probation, Intensive Probation, Specialty Court Docket (Crossroads Program), and commitment to state youth correction services (Department of Youth Services). The study compared the effectiveness of a continuum of services and supervision in improving public safety, including re-arrest and re-incarceration, and in improving outcomes in engagement with child welfare as parents, including child welfare complaints and dispositions.
The core research question is: "what is the relative effectiveness of four different juvenile justice interventions on improving public safety and child welfare outcomes?" The study population is all youths (n=2581) who entered the juvenile court from 2004-2008. It then included 7-10 years of follow-up in the adult justice and child welfare systems for all youths. The four interventions are on a continuum of intensity of services and supervision with Traditional Probation having the fewest services followed by Intensive Probation, Crossroads, and Division of Youth Services commitment.
The study's deposits include 14 SPSS data files:

arrest_final.sav; 
CW_Custody_Adult_final.sav; 
CW_Custody_child_final.sav; 
CW_Intakes_Adult_final.sav; 
CW_Intakes_child_final.sav; 
CW_Placements_adult_final.sav; 
CW_Placements_child_final.sav; 
General_final.sav; 
Jail_final.sav; 
JC_charges_final.sav; 
JC_detention_final.sav; 
JC_disposition_final.sav; 
JC_Gal_final.sav; 
prison_final.sav;
description: The purpose of this study was to examine the adult criminal justice and child welfare outcomes of four types of juvenile justice interventions - Traditional Probation, Crossroads (specialty court docket), Intensive Probation, and commitment to the Department of Youth Services (state juvenile corrections) and to enhance the Practitioner-Researcher relationship between the Juvenile Court (SCJC) and Policy Research Associates (PRA). The specific goals of the study were twofold - to compare the effectiveness of a continuum of services and supervision in improving public safety, including re-arrest and re-incarceration, and in improving outcomes in engagement with child welfare as parents, including child welfare complaints and dispositions.
description: The study was a quasi-experimental outcome study with non-random assignment into four program samples. The full group of 2581 youths were the entire population for all youths who entered the Juvenile Court from 2004-2008 inclusively. There were three treatment groups - Crossroads, Intensive Probation, and Department of Youth Services (DYS). Traditional Probation served as the control group as that is the typical or minimum intervention for all youths who enter the court.
Once the study file was completed, the research team negotiated agreements with a number of local and state agencies to obtain administrative data for their research. Those electronic data requests were made to the Juvenile Court, Sheriff's Dept., Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Bureau of Crime Investigation (BCI), and the Children Services Board. Upon receipt of the data files, measures were taken to mask direct identifiers, ensure confidentiality and prevent disclosure of subject identity.
description: The variable descriptions are listed by each individual data file:

Arrest_final.sav : Arrest Dates and Types of Charges.; 
CW_Custody_Adult_final.sav / CW_Custody_child_final.sav : Legal Status, Beginning and End dates, and the Reason that legal status ended.; 
CW_Intakes_Adult_final.sav / CW_Intakes_child_final.sav : Age the intake was filed, Date the allegation complaint was received, Allegation type, Disposition date, Complaint disposition, Relationship to child (Adult_final only), Father's relationship to child (Child_final only), and Father's involvement in child's life (Child_final only).; 
CW_Placements_adult_final.sav / CW_Placements_child_final.sav : Placement Beginning and End dates, Placement type, and Reason for discharge (Adult_final only).; 
General_final.sav : Subject sex, Subject race, Full Sample Sequence, Ever been in Crossroads, Ever been in Intensive Probation, Ever been in DYS, Ever been in Regular Probation, Final Program Sample, Age at first filing, Age at first Probation, Any arrests before age 18, Any arrests after age 18, Any arrests lifelong, Number of arrests before age 18, Number of arrests after age 18, Number of total lifelong arrests, Number of Detention days before age 18, Any Prison days after age 18, Any Jail days after age 18, Number of Prison days after age 18, Number of Jail days after age 18, and Any BCI Charges after age 18.; 
Jail_final.sav : Date of admission, Release date, Offense date, Statue codes, Bail amount, Initial bail amount, and Description of offense.; 
JC_charges_final.sav : Number of charges for each subject, Date of charges, Charges (chapter of Ohio Revised Code), Charges (Section of Ohio Revised Code), Literal description of the charges, Plea code, Date of plea, Date of finding, and Type of case.; 
JC_detention_final.sav : Admission and Release dates.; 
JC_disposition_final.sav : Date of Disposition.; 
JC_Gal_final.sav : Date Gal or other was activated, and Type of case.; 
prison_final.sav : Date of admission, Date of release, Release type, and Most serious offense of conviction.;
description: Presence of Common Scales: 
					None
description: Response Rates: 
					Not Applicable
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS1: Dataset
description: record abstracts
description: All youths who entered the Summit County Juvenile Court (OH, United States) from 1/1/2004 through 12/31/2008, including 7-10 years of follow-up in the adult justice and child welfare systems for all youths.
				   		Smallest Geographic Unit: None
description: There was no random sampling involved in this study, it instead included the entire population of youths who entered the Juvenile Court (JC) from 2004-2008, which then was divided into sub-samples based on their program enrollment. The Juvenile Court and PRA teams worked with the court IT Director to identify all youths who were admitted to the JC from 1/1/2004 through 12/31/2008. The first step involved including all intakes for this period of time into the four programs to create a base sample. Within this group, were duplicate cases as some youths had multiple court intakes; intakes into multiple programs; cases involving adults due to the court's processing dependency, neglect, and abuse cases; and some cases with insufficient information to include them in the study. The data were paired down where necessary from the aforementioned circumstances.
The final sample (n=2581) is as follows:

1900 Traditional Probation,; 
194 Crossroads,; 
141 Intensive Probation, and; 
346 Department of Youth Services (DYS).;