Overview:

The University of Cincinnati is evaluating an Ohio juvenile justice improvement initiative. Similar to other states in the country, Ohio has introduced policies and practices to improve system performance and youth outcomes, with a particular focus on reducing the number of placements in state facilities in favor of community-based alternatives. This research will further the understanding about whether these reforms have led to changes in the number of youth in the system, community safety, and use of alternatives to incarceration, as well as costs.

This project is funded under the Assessing the Impact of Juvenile Justice Reforms Program, which supports research and evaluations to investigate whether certain juvenile justice policies and practices produce better outcomes for youth, improve public safety, and/or achieve a greater return on taxpayer investments.

Goals and Objectives:

The University of Cincinnati is using several analytic approaches to assess the impact of changes to juvenile placement policies and practices in Ohio on case and youth outcomes, community safety, and costs. The research team will study a random sample of cases that were processed through state institutional facilities, community correction facilities, and community diversion programming over an 8-year period (2008-2015) to:

• Identify and assess the impact of an initiative designed to reduce rates of institutional placement, focusing specifically on recidivism and receipt of treatment.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of community-based placements and treatments as alternatives to institutional placement.

Additionally, the research team will use publicly available data and agency records aggregated at the state and county-levels during the same time period to:

• Assess the impact of the initiative to reduce institutional placement in regards to community-level juvenile crime rates at state and local levels.
• Evaluate the cost benefit of these initiatives that reduce institutional placement in the juvenile justice system at the state and local levels.

Milestones:

The researchers are collecting and extracting data from existing agency records and other public sources. After the project completion in late 2018, OJJDP will post a final technical report.

Contact Information:

Benjamin Adams, Social Science Analyst
Benjamin.Adams@usdoj.gov | 202-616-3687

Christopher Sullivan, Associate Professor
sullivc6@ucmail.uc.edu | 513-556-3851
School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati