New Resources Added to Prevention Program Literature Reviews
Links
Publications
New Resources Added to Immediate Sanctions Program Literature Reviews
New Resources Added to Intermediate Sanctions Program Literature Reviews Links
New Resources Added to Residential Program Literature Reviews
New Resources Added to Reentry Program Literature Reviews
Glossary
Adjudication: Judicial determination (judgment) that a juvenile is responsible for the delinquency or status offense that is charged in a petition or other charging document.
Aftercare services: Reintegrative services that prepare juveniles in residential placement for reentry into the community by establishing the necessary collaborative arrangements with the community to ensure the delivery of prescribed services and supervision.
Alternatives to detention: Alternative services provided to a juvenile offender in the community to avoid placement in a detention facility.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA): A method for analyzing the differences in the means of two or more groups. It allows researchers to determine if the difference between a control group and a treatment group are attributed to the independent variable or treatment.
Antisocial behavior: A pervasive pattern of behavior that displays disregard for and violation of the rights of others, societal mores, or the law (such as deceitfulness, irritability, consistent irresponsibility, lack of remorse, failure to conform to social norms).
Arrest: Hold time in legal custody, either at the scene of a crime or as a result of investigations. Arrest also can be the result of a complaint filed by a third party, an outstanding warrant, or a revocation of probation or parole.
Assessment: Evaluation or appraisal of a candidate's suitability for placement in a specific treatment modality/setting and the relationship to custody and supervision. In mental health, an assessment refers to comprehensive information required for the diagnosis of a mental health disorder. An assessment differs from a screening, which is used to determine if an assessment is needed. (Also see definition of Screening.)
Average daily population (ADP): Is calculated by dividing the total number of days all placed youth spent in a program/facility by the number of days in a specified period (e.g. sum of all days in the program/facility for all youth placed during the year/number of days in the year).
Best practice: Strategies and programs demonstrated through research and evaluation to be effective at preventing or intervening in juvenile delinquency. Best practice models include program models that have been shown, through rigorous evaluation and replication, to achieve target outcomes. Model programs can come from many valid sources (e.g., OJJDP's Model Programs Guide, Blueprints for Violence Prevention, SAMHSA's National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices, OJP’s CrimeSolutions.gov, and State model program resources).
Bivariate analysis: An analysis of the relationship between two variables, such as correlations and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Case rate: Number of cases disposed per 1,000 juveniles in the population. The population base used to calculate the case rate varies. For example, the population base for the male case rate is the total number of male youth age 10 or older who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts.
Chi-square test: A statistical test used to compare differences between observed, categorical data and expected data (based on a specific hypothesis) to determine if any difference that occurred is the same as would occur by chance.
Child abuse: Acts that cause physical and/or emotional injury to the child (not necessarily resulting in a court finding). Types of child abuse include physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse.
Child neglect: Acts that include abandonment, expulsion from the home, failure to seek remedial health care or delay in seeking care, inadequate supervision, disregard for hazards in the home, or inadequate food, clothing, or shelter (not necessarily resulting in a court finding).
Children exposed to violence (CEV): It involves being a direct victim of or a witness to violence, crime, abuse, or other violent incidents in the home, school, or community. Exposure may also include being exposed to the aftermath of a violent incident or event.
Civil rights violation: The violation of a right or rights belonging to a person by reason of citizenship including especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution and subsequent acts of Congress including the right to legal, social, and economic equality.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy/treatment (CBT): A problem-focused approach designed to help people identify and change the dysfunctional beliefs, thoughts, and patterns of behavior that contribute to their problems. Its underlying principle is that thoughts affect emotions, which then influence behaviors. CBT combines two very effective kinds of psychotherapy—cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy. Cognitive therapy concentrates on thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs. Behavioral therapy concentrates on specific actions and environments that either change or maintain behaviors.
Community: A group of individuals sharing one or more characteristics such as geographic location (e.g., a neighborhood), culture, age, or a particular risk factor. In the Guide to Community Preventive Services, for the purposes of evaluating whether interventions make communities healthier, we have chosen to apply the broadest possible use of “community.”
Community assessment center (CAC): An integrated case management system that provides youth with a single 24-hour centralized point of intake and assessment to ensure the provision of appropriate and unduplicated treatment services. CACs use a collaborative approach that leads to more integrated and effective cross-system services for juveniles and their families. CACs are designed to positively influence the lives of youth and divert them from a path of serious, violent, and chronic delinquency.
Commitment: A court order giving guardianship of a juvenile to the state department of juvenile justice or corrections. The facility in which a juvenile may be placed may be publicly or privately operated and may range from a secure correctional placement to a non-secure or staff-secure facility, group home, foster care, or day treatment setting.
Comparison (or control) group : a group of individual whose characteristics are similar to those of a treatment group. Comparison group individuals may not receive any services, or they may receive a different set of services, treatment, or activities as the treatment group. Comparison groups are used in quasi-experimental designs where random assignment is not possible or practical. In experimental designs, individuals are placed into control groups and treatment groups through random assignment.
Continuum of care : This includes a system of service providers and first responders working together to provide a smooth transition of services for children and families. The complete range of programs and services is referred to as the continuum of care, usually following a model from identification and referral to assessment, intervention, and treatment.
Coping skills: The ability to regulate the emotional consequences of stressful or potentially stressful events.
Correctional facility: Any public or private residential facility with construction fixtures or staffing models designed to physically restrict the movements and activities of juveniles or other individuals that is used for the placement, after adjudication and disposition, of any juvenile who has been adjudicated as having committed an offense, or of any other individual convicted of a criminal offense.
Correlation: A statistical term that measures the degree of the relationship between two variables. A correlation has two components, magnitude and direction. Magnitude is a measure of strength and ranges from 0, no correlation, to 1, perfect correlation. Direction determines whether a correlation is positive or negative.
Cost-benefit analysis: A type of economic evaluation that measures both costs and benefits (i.e., negative and positive consequences) associated with an intervention in dollar terms.
Court referral: A complaint or petition filed with the juvenile court.
Cultural competency: The ability of service agencies to understand the world view of clients of different cultures and adapt practices to ensure their effectiveness.
Delinquency: An act committed by a juvenile that would be criminal if committed by an adult. The juvenile court has jurisdiction over delinquent acts. Delinquent acts include crimes against persons, crimes against property, drug offenses, and crimes against public order.
Dependent variable: A variable whose outcome is influenced or changed by some other variable, usually the independent variable or the treatment. It is the “effect” or outcome variable in a cause and effect relationship.
Detention: Usually refers to the placement of a youth in a secure facility under court authority at some point between the time of referral to court intake and case disposition. Detention prior to case disposition is known as pre-dispositional detention. At times there is a need for detention after sentencing, known as post-dispositional detention. The reasons for post-dispositional detention generally include awaiting placement, short-term sentencing to detention, or being a danger to self or others.
Detention facility: A secure pre-dispositional/post-dispositional public or private facility (local or regional) with construction fixtures or staffing models designed to physically restrict the movements and activities of juveniles or other individuals that is used for the placement, after adjudication and disposition, of any juvenile who has been adjudicated as having committed an offense, or of any other individual convicted of a criminal offense. There are generally three types of detention centers: local, regional, and State. Local facilities are owned and operated by one local political jurisdiction. Regional facilities are owned and operated jointly by more than one local political jurisdiction. These facilities are eligible to receive youth from each member jurisdiction. State facilities are owned and operated by a State agency. These facilities are eligible to receive youth from designated (or all) localities within the State.
Disposition: Sanction ordered or treatment plan decided upon or initiated in a particular case by a juvenile court. The range of options available to a court typically includes commitment to an institution; placement in a group or foster home or other residential facility; probation (either regular or intensive supervision); referral to an outside agency, day treatment, or mental health program; or imposition of a fine, community service, or restitution.
Diversion: A mechanism designed to hold youth accountable for their actions by sanctioning behavior and in some cases securing services, but at the same time generally avoiding formal court processing in the juvenile justice system.
Experimental design (or randomized controlled trial [RCT]): A research design in which participants are randomly assigned to an intervention/treatment group or a control group. Many social scientists believe studies using random assignment lead to the highest confidence that observed effects are the result of the program and not another variable.
External validity: The degree to which study results generalize to populations and contexts beyond the particular ones included in the studies themselves.
Family functioning: Interactions with family members that involve physical, emotional, and psychological activities.
Fidelity: The degree to which a program’s core services, components, and procedures are implemented as originally designed. Programs replicated with a high degree of fidelity are more likely to achieve consistent results.
Formal processing: Cases that appear on the official court calendar in response to the filing of a petition, complaint, or other legal instrument requesting the court to adjudicate a youth as a delinquent, status offender, or dependent child or to waive jurisdiction and transfer a youth to criminal court for processing as a criminal offender.
Gang (youth gang): A youth gang is commonly thought of as a self-formed association of peers having the following characteristics: three or more members, generally ages 12 to 24; a gang name and some sense of identity, generally indicated by symbols such as clothing style, graffiti, and hand signs; some degree of permanence and organization; and an elevated level of involvement in delinquent or criminal activity.
Gender-specific services: Services designed to promote healthy attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles, and foster social competence in girls. Key program elements generally address issues in the context of relationships to peers, family, school, and community.
Goals: Broad statements (i.e., written in general terms) that convey a program's overall intent to change, reduce, or eliminate the problem described. Goals identify the program's intended short- and long-term results.
Graduated sanctions: A graduated sanctions system is a set of integrated intervention strategies designed to operate in unison to enhance accountability, ensure public safety, and reduce recidivism by preventing future delinquent behavior. The term graduated sanctions implies that the penalties for delinquent activity should move from limited interventions to more restrictive (i.e., graduated) penalties according to the severity and nature of the crime. In other words, youth who commit serious and violent offenses should receive more restrictive sentences than youth who commit less serious offenses.
Independent variable: A variable that changes or influences another variable, usually the dependent variable. This is often the treatment in experimental designs or quasi-experimental designs and precedes the outcome variable in time. It is the “cause” in a cause and effect relationship.
Intake decision: The decision made by juvenile court intake that results in a case being handled informally at the intake level or petitioned and scheduled for an adjudicatory or waiver hearing.
Intensive supervision programs (ISPs): A community-based, nonresidential alternative that provide a high degree of control over offenders to ensure public safety, without the additional costs associated with confinement. ISPs have small caseloads, strict conditions of compliance, and high levels of contact and intervention by the probation officer or caseworker.
Intent-to-treat analysis: An analysis based on the initial treatment intent, not the treatment eventually administered. An intent-to-treat design ensures that all study participants are followed until the conclusion of the study, irrespective of whether the participant is still receiving or complying with the treatment.
Internal validity: The degree to which observed changes can be attributed to the program. The validity of a study depends on both the research design and the measurement of the program activities and outcomes. Threats to internal validity may affect the extent to which observed effects may be attributed to a program or intervention, and can include attrition, maturation, instrumentation, regression toward the mean, selection bias, contamination, and history, as well as other factors.
Intervention: Programs or services that are intended to disrupt the delinquency process and prevent a youth from penetrating further into the juvenile justice system.
Juvenile: Youth at or below the upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction, which varies depending on the State (e.g., the age is 15 in some States, and 17 in others).
Juvenile holdover program: Holdover programs are staffed by community volunteers or paid staff and administered by law enforcement, juvenile court, probation, or a nonprofit organization. Less restrictive than formal detention, they can be located in a nonsecure or combination secure/nonsecure setting. If a community’s detention and shelter care facilities are too small or too crowded to house the program, it can be located in an emergency shelter, probation office, hospital, hotel/motel, or other setting. In more remote areas, staff can be on call. Some areas house the program in a community assessment center.
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act: Congress enacted the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) (P. L. No. 93-415, 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq.) in 1974 and reauthorized the majority of its provisions in 2002. The JJDPA mandates that States comply with four core protections to participate in the JJDPA's Formula Grants program. This landmark legislation established OJJDP to support local and State efforts to prevent delinquency and improve the juvenile justice system.
Memorandum of understanding (MOU): An interagency agreement designed to enable all parties to facilitate the conduct of certain efforts of mutual interest. For example, a MOU may be signed between a police department and a school system that specifies the types of information to be shared, states the terms of the agreement, and includes the signatures of all parties to the agreement.
Mental health disorder: Any clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome characterized by the presence of distressing symptoms, impairment of functioning, or significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or loss of freedom. The concept does not include deviant behavior, disturbances that are essentially conflicts between the individual and society, or expected and culturally sanctioned responses to particular events.
Meta-analysis: The systematic quantitative analysis of multiple studies that address a set of related research hypotheses in order to draw general conclusions, develop support for hypotheses, and/or produce an estimate of overall program effects.
Multilevel models (or hierarchical models): A statistical method that allows researchers to estimate separately the variance between subjects within the same setting, and the variance between settings. For example, when evaluating a school-based program it is important to know the variation of students within the same school as well as the variation of students between different schools. This ensures that when programs are evaluated, the effects are not attributed to the program when there could be underlying differences between schools or between the students in those schools.
Multivariate analysis: Research strategy and analytic technique that involves the investigation of more than two variables at the same time or within the same statistical analysis. For example, in a multiple regression analysis, the effects of two or more independent variables are assessed in terms of their impact on the dependent variable.
Needs assessment: Systematic process to acquire an accurate, thorough picture of a youth's strengths and areas of vulnerability. The process is utilized to identify and prioritize treatment goals, develop a treatment plan, determine the appropriate level of supervision, and allocate funds and resources for services.
Neglect: Acts that include abandonment, expulsion from the home, failure to seek remedial health care or delay in seeking care, inadequate supervision, disregard for hazards in the home, or inadequate food, clothing, or shelter.
Nonexperimental: Refers to a research design in which participants are not assigned to treatment and control/comparison groups (randomly or otherwise). Such designs do not allow researchers to establish causal relationships between a program or treatment and its intended outcomes. Non-experimental designs are sometimes used when ethics or circumstances limit the ability to use a different design or because the intent of the research is not to establish a causal relationship. Examples of non-experimental designs include case studies, ethnographic research, or historical analysis.
Nonpetitioned (informally handled) cases: Cases that duly authorized court personnel screen for adjustment without the filing of a formal petition. Such personnel include judges, referees, probation officers, other officers of the court, and/or an agency statutorily designated to conduct petition screening for the juvenile court.
Objectives: Are derived from the program goals and explain how the program goals will be accomplished. Objectives are well-defined, specific, quantifiable statements of the program's desired results and they should include the target level of accomplishment, thereby further defining goals and providing the means to measure program performance.
Parole: A conditional release from imprisonment that entitles the person to serve the remainder of the sentence outside the correctional institution as long as the terms of the release are not violated.
Performance measures/performance indicators: Particular values used to measure program outputs or outcomes. They represent the data/information that will be collected at the program level to measure the specific outputs and outcomes a program is designed to achieve. Therefore, they must be developed for each program objective. There are two types of performance indicators:
Output indicators measure the products of a program's implementation or activities. They are generally measured in terms of the volume of work accomplished, such as number of service s or products delivered, staff hired, systems developed, sessions conducted, materials developed, and policies, procedures, and/or legislation created. Examples include number of juveniles served, number of hours of service provided to participants, number of staff trained, number of detention beds added, number of materials distributed, number of reports written, and number of site visits conducted. They may also be referred to as process measures.
Outcome indicators measure the benefits or changes for individuals, the juvenile justice system, or the community as a result of the program. Outcomes may be related to behavior, attitudes, skills, knowledge, values, conditions, or other attributes. Examples are changes in the academic performance of program participants, changes in the recidivism rate of program participants, changes in client satisfaction level, changes in the conditions of confinement in detention, and changes in the county-level juvenile crime rate. There are two levels of outcomes:
• Short-term outcomes are the first benefits or changes that participants or the system experience and are the ones most closely related to and influenced by the program's outputs. They should occur during the program or by the program's end. For direct service programs, they generally include changes in recipients' awareness, knowledge, and attitudes. For programs designed to change the juvenile justice system, they include changes to the juvenile justice system that occur during or by the end of the program.
• Long-term outcomes are the ultimate outcomes desired for participants, recipients, the juvenile justice system, or the community. They are changes in practice, policy, decision-making, or behavior that result from participants' or service recipients' new awareness, knowledge, attitudes, or skills or changes in the juvenile justice system. They generally occur within 6 months to 1 year after the program ends. They should relate back to the program's goals (e.g., reducing delinquency).
Permanency plan: A proposal by the juvenile justice system and other youth-serving agencies to establish a permanent placement for youth in foster care. The goal of the permanency plan is to expeditiously secure a safe, permanent placement for every maltreated child, either by making it possible for children to return to their own families or by finding safe adoptive homes for them.
Petition: A document filed in juvenile court alleging that a juvenile is a delinquent and asking that the court assume jurisdiction over the juvenile or asking that an alleged delinquent be waived to criminal court for prosecution as an adult.
Petitioned (formally handled) cases: Cases that appear on the official court calendar in response to the filing of a petition or other legal instrument requesting the court to adjudicate the youth delinquent, or waive the youth to criminal court for processing as an adult.
Post-disposition: The period following the imposition of a sanction ordered or treatment plan decided upon or initiated in a particular case by a juvenile court.
Pre-disposition: The period after the filing of a charge and prior to a sanction ordered or treatment plan decided upon or initiated in a particular case by a juvenile court.
Prevalence: Refers to the total number of people with a disease or condition in a given population at a specific time and is often used as an estimate of how common a condition is within a population.
Prevention: Efforts that support youth who are "at-risk" of becoming involved in delinquent behavior and help prevent a juvenile from entering the juvenile justice system as a delinquent. Prevention includes arbitration, diversionary or mediation programs, and community service work or other treatment available subsequent to a child committing a delinquent act.
Probation: Cases in which youth are placed on informal/voluntary or formal/court-ordered supervision. A violation occurs when a youth violates the terms of the probation.
Problem-solving skills: The ability to recognize a problem and identify a practicable solution (e.g., alternative solution thinking, consequential thinking).
Protective factors: They include those aspects of the individual and his or her environment that buffer or moderate the effect of risk of a developing problem.
Quasi-experimental design: A research design that resembles an experimental design, but instead participants are not randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Quasi-experimental designs are generally viewed as weaker than experimental designs because threats to validity cannot be as thoroughly minimized. This reduces the level of confidence that observed effects may be attributed to the program and not other variables.
Relative Rate Index (RRI): The RRI measures the level of disproportionate minority contact in a system by comparing the percentage of minority youth at each stage of the juvenile justice system to the percentage of minorities at the previous stage.
Reliability : The repeatability and accuracy of measurement or the degree to which an instrument measures the same thing each time it is used under the same condition with the same subjects.
Reoffend: A measure of recidivism that counts the number of youth who were rearrested or seen at juvenile court (intake) for a new delinquent offense. While there is no commonly accepted measure of recidivism, it is generally measured at one of four access points in the juvenile justice process: arrest, intake, adjudication, or incarceration.
Research design: The plan for how a study’s information is gathered that includes identifying the data collection method(s), the instrumentation used, the administration of those instruments, and the methods to organize and analyze the data. The quality of the research design impacts whether a causal relationship between program treatment and outcome may be established.
Residential placement: Cases in which youth are placed in a residential correctional or treatment facility, or cases in which youth are otherwise removed from their homes and housed out of home. Residential placements can include secure confinement, residential treatment facilities, nonsecure confinement, group homes, foster care, shelter care, etc.
Resilience: The qualities and factors that may help an individual withstand many negative effects of adversity. These factors include self-esteem, healthy attachment and relationships, autonomy, environmental factors, and other factors that balance exposure to negative or traumatic events.
Restitution: In its traditional sense, restitution has been defined as “a monetary payment by the offender to the victim for the harm reasonably resulting from the offense.”
Reunification: The return of a child who was placed in out of home care (i.e., foster care) by the State to the birth parents or to the original custodian from whom the child was taken.
Risk factors: Conditions in the individual or environment that can predict an increased likelihood of developing a problem.
Running away: Leaving the custody and home of parents or guardians without permission and failing to return within a reasonable length of time.
Rural area: An area located outside a metropolitan statistical area as designated by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Secure corrections: Correctional facilities to which youths who have been adjudicated delinquent are committed for periods generally ranging from a few months to several years. Secure correctional facilities are more likely to provide an array of treatment interventions designed to effect behavioral change.
Service: Activities identified by a program through formal consultation with program staff designed to provide accountability, public safety, competency enhancement, reparation to victims and/or therapeutic treatment. Examples include: community service, restitution, counseling sessions, probation visits, and course curriculum.
Self-control: The ability to pause and evaluate a situation and the consequences that may result from one's behavior (i.e., exercise restraint) rather than rely on instinct or impulse.
Sexual abuse: The involvement of a child in sexual activity to provide sexual gratification or financial benefit to the perpetrator, including contact for sexual purposes, prostitution, pornography, or other sexually exploitative activity (not necessarily resulting in a court finding).
Sexual misconduct: A comprehensive term used to identify various types of sexual violation, including sexual abuse, rape or sexual assault, sexual harassment, or other inappropriate sexual contact.
Screening: A process designed to determine if informal or formal processing is warranted. In the mental health setting, screening refers to an initial look at a juvenile's mental health needs. This is contrasted with an assessment to diagnose a mental health disorder, which would occur after screening. (Also see definition of Assessment.)
Self-esteem: Perceiving oneself as worthy of esteem or respect.
Shelter care: A detention alternative that offers residential care for youths who need short-term placement (i.e., for 1 to 30 days) outside the home. Shelter care is used for juveniles who require more intensive supervision than that provided by nonresidential options and for youths who must be detained because no parent or family member is available. Facilities are staff secure or nonsecure. Staff monitor youths 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and provide a full schedule of structured educational and recreational activities.
Social competence: The ability to achieve personal goals in social interaction while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships with others over time and across situations.
Specialized foster care: An adult-mediated treatment model that recruits and trains families to offer placement and treatment for youth with a history of chronic and severe delinquency. Usually, youths are closely supervised at home, in the community, and at school. Foster care parents provide one-on-one mentoring and consistent discipline for rule violations.
State Advisory Group (SAG): A group of individuals including professionals in juvenile justice and related fields who serve as volunteers to monitor and supervise the funding and programming of Formula Grants made to the States by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. SAGs must be composed of 15 to 33 members appointed by the governor. One-fifth of the members must be younger than 24 years old when appointed. Three members must have been or must be currently under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system. In addition, a majority of the members (including the chairperson) must not be full-time government employees.
Status offender: A juvenile charged with, or adjudicated for, conduct that would not, under the law of the jurisdiction in which the offense was committed, be a crime if committed by an adult. Status offenses include truancy, curfew violations, incorrigibility, running away, and underage possession and/or consumption of alcohol or tobacco.
Substance use and abuse: Use and abuse of substances including, but not limited to, illegal drugs (e.g., heroin), prescription and nonprescription drugs, and alcohol. Sometimes referred to as alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and abuse.
Supervision (youth supervision): Mechanisms for managing or overseeing the performance or activities of a person or group. In the context of juvenile justice, examples of supervision include probation, youth supervision orders, youth training centers, and parole orders.
System change: Strategies that alter the basic procedures, policies, and rules that define how local or State-level juvenile justice systems operate. These strategies create wide-ranging and long-lasting modifications in policies, procedures, or laws.
Systematic review: A process by which the research evidence from multiple studies on a particular topic is reviewed and assessed using systematic methods to reduce bias in selection and inclusion of studies. A systematic review is generally viewed as more thorough than a non-systematic literature review, but does not necessarily involve the quantitative statistical techniques of a meta-analysis.
Targeted behavior: Any behavior-related problems (e.g., aggression, substance abuse) that a program is designed to modify through appropriate interventions.
Time-series analysis: An analytic technique that uses a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive, uniform time intervals, to identify trends and other characteristics of the data. For example, a time series analysis may be used to study a city’s crime rate over time and predict future crime trends.
Treatment: It may come in many forms, but all methods have the goal of improving a situation, relieving symptoms, managing crisis, or dealing with an issue through communication with and attention given to the individual experiencing the issue. Treatment usually involves a developmentally appropriate intervention or therapy.
Treatment group : The subjects or program participants of the set of services, treatment, or activities being studied or tested.
Utilization rate: Used to examine the usage of a specific facility relative to its stated capacity. The utilization rate for a residential facility is calculated by summing the length of stay of all juveniles placed in the facility during the time period and dividing that figure by facility capacity (i.e., the number of beds multiplied by the number of days in a specified time period). If the facility is overcrowded, the utilization rate will be over 100 percent.
Valid court order: An order given by a juvenile court judge to a juvenile who was brought before the court and made subject to an order; and who received, before the issuance of such order, the full due process rights guaranteed to such juvenile by the Constitution of the United States.
Validity: The truthfulness of the study’s measurement or the degree to which an instrument measures what is supposed to be measured.
Variance: A statistical measure of how far a set of data points are dispersed from the mean or average for a population or a sample. It is the average deviation of outcomes from the mean of outcomes for a group. It is used as a step in determining the effect of an intervention or treatment on a population.
Waived to criminal court: Cases transferred to criminal court as the result of a judicial waiver hearing in juvenile court.
Youth advocacy: Activities focused on improving services for and protecting the rights of youth affected by the juvenile justice system.