OJJDP Is Simplifying Title II Work to Focus on DMC Reduction, Not Process [jjie.org]

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is taking a new approach to Title II (the portion of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act authorizing states to innovate efforts to improve juvenile justice systems and ensure the fair treatment of youth) that will facilitate better communication and increase trust between OJJDP and the states. This will give OJJDP more time to focus on compliance and programming assistance, and it will allow states to redirect resources toward reducing disproportionate minority contact (DMC), while at the same time maintaining public safety, holding youth accountable for their conduct and empowering them to live crime-free.

In the 16 years since the last reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), OJJDP has distributed roughly $800 million of Title II formula grant funds to the states to address juvenile delinquency and support improvements to the juvenile justice system. The funds also help states address the so-called “core protections” (deinstitutionalization of status offenders, separation of juveniles from adult inmates, and removal of juveniles from adult jails and lockups), as well as system efforts designed to reduce DMC with the juvenile justice system. While states continue to see good results in the deinstitutionalization of status offenders, sight and sound separation, and adult jail removal, the disproportionate involvement of minority youth in the justice system remains largely unchanged.

As jurisdictions grapple with the disproportionate minority contact issue, OJJDP has likewise been reflecting on its practices, and we’ve identified a real opportunity for improvement. In 2002, when the reauthorization of the Act changed disproportionate minority “confinement” to disproportionate minority “contact,” OJJDP responded by identifying nine points in the system where disproportionality might occur.  States were then required to collect and submit data on these nine contact points as part of their request for Title II funds, regardless of how difficult to collect or inaccessible the data proved to be.

[For more on this story by Caren Harp, go to https://jjie.org/2018/06/29/oj...duction-not-process/]