Much of the analysis of juvenile justice reform to date has focused on assessing particular programs and their impacts on subgroups of cases at a particular point in time. While this is instructive as to the effects of those initiatives, it is essential to evaluate the impact of policy across multiple levels and with multiple stakeholders in mind. Ohio has implemented a series of initiatives in its juvenile justice system designed to reduce reliance on state custody of youth in favor of local alternatives. In doing so, they have focused on multiple segments of the population of justice involved-youths throughout the state. The main vehicle for these shifts has been the state's Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) legislation and a series of initiatives that have followed from its inception. Other steps were followed and programming modifications were made during the study period as well. This research project focused on these initiatives as a case study of juvenile justice reform initiatives in order to provide insights about the impact of those recent reforms across multiple dimensions that were viewed as relevant to the discussion of juvenile justice reform. The data set analyzed at the individual level included the records of more than 5,000 youths sampled from cases processed from 2008 to 2015. First, presumed reductions in the number of youth committed to state residential correctional facilities in favor of community-based alternatives were analyzed. The relative effectiveness of residential facilities and community-based alternatives in terms of youth recidivism were then assessed with a subsample of 2,855 case records from randomly-selected counties. A third research objective focused on county-level trends and variation. Specifically, the longitudinal trends in key juvenile justice inputs and official juvenile crime rates across Ohio's 88 counties were formally modeled using data from public reports, data collection with counties, and official juvenile arrest data archived by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Elements of the previous analyses (especially comparative recidivism rates) and cost data collected from existing sources and public reports were used in a preliminary fashion to quantify the potential return on investment that accrued from Ohio's investment in these juvenile justice initiatives. This deposit contains two datasets: Individual Level Data and County Level Data. The Individual Level Data contains the following demographic data: age at admission, sex, and race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, and other).

In nearly every state and in the vast majority of juvenile justice agencies, risk assessments are incorporated into diversion, case management, supervision, and placement practices. Despite two decades of use within the juvenile justice system, little research regarding the methods of risk assessment development is discussed or translated to the field and practitioners. Many of the contemporary tools used today are implemented off-the-shelf, meaning that tools were developed with a specific set of methods, selecting and weighting items used in the prediction of a specified sample of youth. What is not known is how the various designs, methods, and circumstances of tool development impact the predictive performance when adopted by a jurisdiction. This study seeks to provide input into this dilemma. Demographic information in this study includes age, race, and sex.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. To assess "double transition" (the transition from confinement to community in addition to the transition from adolescence to adulthood), the study used nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to compare psychosocial maturity for three groups: approximately 162 adolescents placed in correctional confinement, 398 young adults who reported an arrest before age 18 but no juvenile correctional confinement, and 11,614 youths who reported no arrests before age 18. Three dimensions of psychosocial maturity (responsibility, temperance, and perspective) were assessed at Waves 1 (baseline) and Wave 3 (post-confinement) in models assessing the effects of confinement on the attainment (or non-attainment) of markers of successful transition to adulthood at Wave 4. Results were contextualized with data from the Survey of Youth in Residential Facilities and discussed with respect to the role of confinement in interrupting the development of psychosocial maturity in the transition to adulthood and for young adult attainment more generally. There are no data files available with this study. Only syntax files used by the researchers are provided.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. This is a quasi-experimental, observational study using administrative data to assess whether time in juvenile placement was associated with the acquisition of social-emotional skills and subsequent felony recidivism. Concurrent with a change in juvenile sentencing policy in Washington State a comprehensive risk and needs assessment tool (R-PACT) was piloted to investigate the impact that therapeutically oriented incarceration had on youth. This tool was made up of 12 domains of risk and needs, including a section on dynamic factors related to therapeutic skills. Youth were admitted into the study in two cohorts, a main study cohort and a replication study cohort.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. The goals of the study were to estimate the effect of juvenile versus criminal jurisdiction on recidivism and educational outcomes in Connecticut, and describe the relationships among education and juvenile justice outcomes from early to late adolescence. The study sample included all court-referred juveniles and adults in Connecticut between the years 2006 to 2012. The individual-level juvenile case records and educational variables for each year were acquired from the Connecticut Court Support Services Division (CSSD) and the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE). Data on court-involvement (CSSD) include juvenile referral history, detention data, service data, adult criminal history, and data on multiple risk assessments. Educational data (CSDE) include demographic information, student enrollment (i.e., number of days in attendance, graduation, dropout), statewide, standardized academic achievement test scores, disciplinary offense data, and special education data.

This study involved a survey of juvenile court judges, chief probation officers, prosecutors, and public defenders to measure their impressions of recent policy changes and the critical needs facing today's juvenile justice system. In addition the study garnered recommendations for improving the administration and effectiveness of this system. The study's primary objective was to provide policymakers, administrators, and practitioners with actionable information about how to improve the operations and effectiveness of the juvenile justice system, and to examine the role practitioners could play in constructing sound juvenile justice policy. A total of 534 juvenile court judges, chief probation officers, court administrators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys in 44 states and the District of Columbia participated in the Assessing the Policy Options (APO) national practitioner survey. The survey consisted of four major sections: demographics, critical needs, policies and practices, and practitioner recommendations. Critical needs facing the juvenile justice system were measured by asking respondents about the policy priority of 13 issues in their respective jurisdictions; topics ranged from staff training and development to effective juvenile defense counsel to information technology. Respondents were also asked to assess the effectiveness of 17 different policies and practices -- ranging from parental accountability laws to transfer and treatment -- in achieving 6 vital juvenile justice outcomes.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. The study was designed to begin to build a knowledge base to address the challenges of crossover youth in Maryland - those involved at some point in their lives in the dependency and delinquency systems. Employing a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, the research focused on the five most populous jurisdictions in the state, Baltimore City, and Anne Arundel, Montgomery, Prince George's, and Baltimore Counties. This collection includes 4 SPSS data files: CINA BCity_Archive_final_Corrected-ICPSR.sav (n=400; 64 variables) CY Stakeholder Survey_Archive_final_Corrected_Update2016-ICPSR.sav (n=164; 302 variables) Delinquency_Risk_Archive_final_Corrected_Update2016-ICPSR.sav (n=1,127; 62 variables) Needs_Archive_final-ICPSR.sav (n=700; 67 variables) Data from interviews with 26 officials in state and local agencies to collect information on policies and practices affecting crossover youth in Maryland are not available as part of this collection.

This collection includes data collected from a subsample of participants interviewed near the end of the thirteenth follow-up of the Northwestern Juvenile Project (NJP). NJP is a longitudinal assessment of alcohol, drug, and mental health service needs and outcomes of juvenile detainees. The thirteenth follow-up occurred approximately 16 years after the baseline interview. The subsample of participants received two additional modules that were added to the interview. These interview modules, the Juvenile Justice Experiences module and the Weapons-Related Injury module, retrospectively assessed behaviors and experiences during adolescence. The original NJP sample included 1,829 randomly selected youth recruited at intake to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) in Chicago, Illinois from 1995 to 1998. The sample was stratified by gender, race/ethnicity, age, and legal status (for a total of 13 strata) to obtain enough participants to examine key subgroups. Both additional modules were administered at follow-up thirteen to a subsample 389 participants. The Juvenile Justice Experiences module assessed experiences with corrections in the juvenile justice system. Items were drawn from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) which ask a series of questions covering an individual's emotion and mental states among youth who are in custody. NJP utilized a modified SYRP to assess juvenile justice experiences retrospectively among the sample. The Weapons-Related Injury module was created for the NJP, and assesses gunshot-related and stabbing-related victimization during adolescence.

This study was conducted to address the dropping rates in residential placements of adjudicated youth after the 1990s. Policymakers, advocates, and reseraches began to attirbute the decline to reform measures and proposed that this was the cause of the drop seen in historic national crime. In response, researchers set out to use state-level data on economic factors, crime rates, political ideology scores, and youth justice policies and practices to test the association between the youth justice policy environment and recent reductions in out-of-home placements for adjudicated youth. This data collection contains two files, a multivariate and bivariate analyses. In the multivariate file the aim was to assess the impact of the progressive policy characteristics on the dependent variable which is known as youth confinement. In the bivariate analyses file Wave 1-Wave 10 the aim was to assess the states as they are divided into 2 groups across all 16 dichotomized variables that comprised the progressive policy scale: those with more progressive youth justice environments and those with less progressive or punitive environments. Some examples of these dichotomized variables include purpose clause, courtroom shackling, and competency standard.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. This collection features secondary analyses of restricted-use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a nationally representative longitudinal study of a sample of U.S. adolescents who were in grades 7-12 in the 1994-95 school year, who were interviewed at three key developmental junctures from adolescence to young adulthood. Self-reported data were used for both maltreatment (measured at the latter two time points) and delinquent or criminal behaviors (measured at all three time points). Linear mixed-effects analyses were used to model growth curves of the frequency of violent and non-violent offending, from ages 13 to 30. Next, maltreatment frequency was tested as a predictor, and then potential protective factors (at peer, family, school, and neighborhood levels) were tested as moderators. Sex, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation were also tested as moderators of delinquent or criminal offense frequency, and as moderators of protective effects. The study collection includes 1 Stata (.do) syntax file (AddHealthOJJDPAnalysis_StataSyntax.do) that was used by the researcher in secondary analyses of restricted-use data. The restricted archival data from the Add Health survey series are not included as part of this release.