Publications on Juvenile Justice

This report presents interim findings of the Urban Institute's evaluation of the Gang Reduction Program (GRP), a $10 million, multi-year, federal initiative to reduce gang crime in Los Angeles, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; North Miami Beach, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia. The evaluation found substantial variation in collaboration levels among partners in each site, but each site achieved significant implementation successes. The effects of GRP in each site were mixed, and only one site, Los Angeles, showed a significant reduction in crime levels. By late 2007, however, three sites had undertaken significant steps towards sustaining GRP beyond the federal funding period.

In this Washington Examiner commentary, John Roman explains why automatically putting juvenile offenders in adult detention is a mistake: it can turn the teenagers into hardened criminals and sends the message that society has written them off.

To assess the Reclaiming Futures initiative's impact on agency relationships, social network questions were included in a series of expert informant surveys conducted bi-annually in each Reclaiming Futures community. Network analysis is a tool for investigating the complexity and strength of relationships and social interaction among individuals, groups, organizations, or states. The network analysis of Reclaiming Futures examined patterns of interaction among key agencies in eight communities working to implement system reform strategies and to improve services for drug-involved youthful offenders. Using measures such as network density, cohesion, and proximity, the analysis suggests that overall network strength increased in Reclaiming Futures communities.

Most publicly funded adolescent substance abuse treatment is provided and managed by the juvenile justice system, and juvenile courts and allied agencies are often the first responders to teen drug problems. But is this the right approach?

New crime statistics from the FBI show violent crime increased in 2005 and 2006, and an Urban Institute analysis offers evidence that the concurrent explosion in iPod use may have triggered the spike.