NIJ Evaluation: Teen Courts

The National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs has released an evaluation detailing the effectiveness on teen courts on reducing recidivism for youth. Teen courts—also known as peer courts or youth courts—are a way to offer an alternative to traditional court processing.

Youth participate on a volunteer basis and can opt-out at any time, but will be sent back to a traditional court if they choose to do so. In different models of this type of intervention, youth may hold a variety of roles and adults may sometimes participate. The goal of the intervention is for the youth on trial to take responsibility for and be held accountable to their actions.

Regardless of the type of model being used, teen courts have been found to be ineffective at reducing recidivism. After aggregating the results of 11 studies, a meta-analysis found that none of the studies showed that teen courts had a statistically-significant effect on juvenile recidivism rates. Treatment and control groups were also used.

To read more about this analysis of teen courts, you can visit the OJP’s website here.

RED Conference: Session 1

The Nebraska Juvenile Justice Association is co-sponsoring a series of webinars about Racial and Ethnic Disparity (RED), which are presented by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative group in Omaha. Tomorrow, July 22, the first session will be presented on.

Session 1: Reducing Racial Disparities in Juvenile Detention with Effective and Innovative Alternatives to Detention, presented by Opal West from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, will be streamed Wednesday, July 22, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM CDT.

This conference is free to people who work with young people and families in the juvenile justice system. To attend the conference and view the webinar, you can download the app at this link.

JCMS Update: July 2020

A series of new updates to the Juvenile Case Management System have taken effect as of July 17, 2020. All program types are effected for two updates to have an age confirmation pop-up, and a section in the intake screen for interpreters (Referral Services do not have an interpreter section). To view the training videos for these updates, visit the Programs Home page.

In addition, the following program types received other updates that are described in the videos linked on their pages: ATD, Diversion, Family Support, Mental Health, Promotion/Prevention, School-based, and Truancy.

New videos are linked at the top of the “Training Videos” section of the page. As a reminder, you may need to clear your browser’s cache in JCMS in order to see the updates.

Along with the new JCMS updates, the user guides and JCMS definitions for every program type have been updated. These guides and definition handbooks are linked on every program type’s page. Please be sure to review these updated versions.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Report Release: Crisis Response Programs, FY 2015-2020

The Juvenile Justice Institute is pleased to announce the release of our latest report examining Community-based Aid-funded crisis response programs. Crisis response programs allow communities to react to crises when and where they happen, whether they occur at schools, the home, or public spaces. These programs work closely with law enforcement to help prevent youth from being detained, keep youth within their home communities, and prevent future crises by establishing systems of support for the youth and their families.

This report examines a variety of factors about crisis response programs and their efficacy. In it, the JJI examines how crisis response teams operate, how they work with law enforcement, how effective they are at keeping youth out of detention/hospitals, what sort of crises they respond to, and more.

This report, along with all of our other past reports, is available on our Reports page after this link.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, you are always welcome to contact us. We’re happy to hear from you!

NIJ Evaluation: Crisis Response and Prevention

The National Institute of Justice has taken a close look at crisis response programs within schools. These crisis response programs differ from the ones funded by Community-based Aid grants in that they are within schools, rather than the broader community.

These programs are organized into tiers. The first tier involves teaching student leaders how to use practical, nonviolent communication and intervention skills. These students also communicate with school staff to discuss observations they have made about bullying and harassment.

The second tier identifies students who may need emotional or behavioral support. After a student is identified, they are assessed and linked to services in the third tier. These tiers are intended to help prevent an emotional crisis from happening in the school.

The fourth tier involves responding to a crisis as it happens in the school. A licensed, certified social worker (or workers) intervene with a student who is having a crisis. They use culturally-sensitive, school-informed protocol to assist the student. After the crisis is responded to, tier five involves connecting that student to aftercare to prevent a relapse.

This intervention proves promising, according to the NIJ. While the program did result in a significantly lower frequency of office referrals and suspensions, it does not appear to have affected the frequency of bullying, juvenile justice referrals, or emotional/behavioral health incidents.

To learn more about this intervention, please visit the NIJ website to see their evaluation in more detail.

New OJJDP Resources: Juvenile Statistics

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has released three new books focusing on statistics for juveniles in the United States. These books are freely available to the public. The JJI has also provided permanent links to these books on our Resources page so they can be more easily accessed in the future.

Juvenile Court Statistics 2018 - This resource describes delinquency cases and status offense cases between 2005 and 2018 from all over the US. The report details the types of cases heard in juvenile courts and frequency of delinquent actions.

Juvenile Arrests, 2018 - In this report, the author examines juvenile arrest rates and details from 2018, and compares this data to previous years. There is a downward trend in juvenile arrest rates since the mid-90s. This report also breaks down arrest rates by demographics.

Juveniles in Residential Placement, 2017 - This report examines the number and demographics of youth in residential placement. The author also examines the differences between public and private facilities, demographic information, and compares rates between states and over time.

NIJ Evaluation: Expressive Writing

The National Institute of Justice has released an evaluation focusing on programs using expressive writing as a means of intervention. This intervention is also known as written emotional disclosure, and it is designed to help youth express themselves emotionally and process their emotions to adapt to stressful situations. The target population of this intervention was youth aged 10 to 18.

Youth are encouraged to write about a particular topic during sessions taking about 15 to 20 minutes. They are told to write about a particular topic, including a stressful or challenging event in their life, an ongoing issue in their lives, their relationships with family and/or friends, and so on. All writing is kept confidential, and youth are reassured that they do not need to worry about spelling or grammar.

The NIJ’s evaluation found evidence suggesting that expressive writing is effective with regards to multiple juvenile problem/at-risk behaviors, internalizing behavior, school participation, and somatic complaints.

To read more about expressive writing, please visit the NIJ’s website after this link.

Report Release: Nebraska's CBA-Funded Mental Health Programs

The Juvenile Justice Institute is pleased to announce the release of our latest brief looking at CBA-funded mental health programs in the state of Nebraska.

To create this brief, the JJI surveyed mental health practitioners from CBA-funded programs to collect information about the barriers youth and their families may face while trying to get mental health services.

We also used data from the Juvenile Case Management System to obtain information about the types of mental health symptoms youth in CBA-funded programs may have, and then compare that data to previous studies.

You can read this brief, and all of our previous publications, on our Reports page after this link.

We welcome your feedback and would love to hear your thoughts! Please feel free to contact us at any time with any questions or comments you have.

Report Release: System Improvement Evaluation, FY 2019-2020

The Juvenile Justice Institute is pleased to announce that our report evaluating CBA-funded system improvement programs is now publicly available. In this report, we examine whether or not counties directing funds to SI programs lead to stronger community planning teams with broader representation, ultimately leading to better outcomes for youth.

The report is available, along with all of our previous publications, on our Reports page after this link.

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

Free Webinar: Youth Drug Use in Nebraska

The Nebraska Juvenile Justice Association is hosting a free webinar discussing drug trends among youth in Nebraska. Officer Jermaine Galloway—also known as the Tall Cop—will teach participants how to recognize individuals who are using drugs or alcohol, along with:

• Popular drug items

• Over the counter drug use

• New vape trends

• Marijuana concentrates

• Products found in recent community scans

• And more!

The webinar will be held electronically on June 3, 2020, from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM central time. To learn more about attending the webinar, please click here. The NJJA also recommends downloading the app to attend the webinar, since it offers more ways to participate than the in-browser application.