SIXTEEN HARD QUESTIONS FOR EVERY
COMMUNITY
SEEKING TO REDUCE JUVENILE CRIME
Does your state transfer many youth to stand trial in adult criminal courts who
are not chronic or violent offenders - despite the overwhelming evidence that
such transfers actually increase future offending?
Is your state locking up more and more juvenile offenders in adult jails and
prisons - significantly heightening their risks for suicide, sexual assaults and
physical beatings and exposing them to daily contact with career criminals?
Does your state spend the bulk of its juvenile justice resources to incarcerate
youthful offenders - despite the high costs at juvenile correctional facilities
and even higher recidivism rates?
What percentage of youth incarcerated in your state's juvenile corrections
facilities are non-violent offenders without a record of chronic delinquency?
Does your local juvenile justice agency offer the one type of intervention proven to
dramatically reduce recidivism among chronic adolescent offenders intensive,
family-focused counseling delivered by trained therapists using clear treatment protocols
to identify and address the factors propelling a young person toward crime?
Do your state and local juvenile justice agencies provide close supervision and
effective counseling/support services for youth returning to the community following
incarceration - the youth population most likely to commit serious crimes?
Does your community provide constructive responses to less serious offenses by
youth - recruiting local volunteers and engaging community-based organizations to
employ Arestorative justice strategies like youth aid panels, family-group conferencing,
drug courts, and teen courts that hold young people accountable while connecting them to
positive resources in the community?
Has your local juvenile justice agency developed a flexible menu of
Aintermediate sanctions to ensure appropriate, predictable, and proportionate responses
when youth break the law repeatedly - day treatment programs, evening reporting
centers, weekend detention, evening curfews, community service projects, etc.?
Is your local juvenile probation agency overwhelmed with cases - with
probation officers required to supervise far more than the maximum caseload (30:1)
recommended by juvenile justice experts?
Do your state and local juvenile justice agencies carefully measure results
of their programs in terms of recidivism and cost-effectiveness
- and do they direct scarce funding to strategies and programs that work?
Does your local juvenile justice system treat minority youth more harshly than
white youth and violate the rights of youth by confining juvenile offenders in
overcrowded or otherwise substandard conditions or by failing to fully inform youth before
allowing them to waive their rights to legal representation and against
self-incrimination?
Does your state/locality deliver high-quality prevention programs for all or
most high-risk infants and toddlers and their families - strategies
proven to sharply reduce future offending?
Are your local schools wasting prevention dollars on programs and strategies
that have never demonstrated success in reducing delinquent and/or substance abuse
behaviors, rather than targeting these dollars to strategies with strong evidence
of effectiveness?
Does your community provide coordinated, high-quality services for troubled
youth at extreme risk for delinquency - or do child welfare, mental health,
special education, and juvenile justice bureaucracies work separately (or at cross
purposes) even when they are dealing with the same troubled young people?
Are high-quality after-school programs and other positive youth development
opportunities available for all or most teens in your community - particularly
teens in less advantaged neighborhoods where crime is prevalent and positive adult
supervision can be scarce?
Has your community mobilized its leadership to analyze and address the local
youth crime challenge - collecting data on critical risk factors (gang
involvement, gun availability, substance abuse, domestic violence, and others) and
developing and implementing comprehensive plans to reduce juvenile crime rates?