Overview:

The Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice is conducting a data analysis project to identify and analyze state-level variations in juvenile justice policy changes and to test their association with changes in measures of juvenile crime, justice system processing, and confinement.

This project is funded under the OJJDP FY 2017 Field Initiated Research and Evaluation Program, Category 2: Small Studies and Analyses, which supports efforts to build knowledge and innovation in both policy and practice in areas of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention that have been understudied or merit closer attention.

Goals and Objectives:

Data collected through the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program and OJJDP's Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement demonstrate that there have been large declines in juvenile arrests and confinement in recent years. The goal of this study is to explore and test whether state-level juvenile justice policy changes were associated with these declines, as well as other justice system processing outcomes. To do this, the study will:

• Review publically available information to identify indicators of state-level juvenile justice policy changes.
• Explore whether there are measures for juvenile crime, justice system processing, and confinement for those states available from national data collection programs.
• Interview key state officials, agency directors, and juvenile justice leaders to better understand the context of policy changes and their possible effects on juvenile incarceration rates.
• Analyze the bivariate and multivariate relationships between all policy change indicators and justice measures.
• Compile and disseminate project findings.

Milestones:

The research team is identifying and compiling the policy, practice, and measurement information. The researchers expect to complete the analyses in 2019. OJJDP intends to post a final technical report when the project concludes.

Contact Information:

Jeffrey Butts, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
jbutts@jjay.cuny.edu | 212-237-8684
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

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