Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) Resources

The following documents are published by the Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). View resources by publication date or by series type:

• JDAI Newsletters - The latest news and developments for the JDAI initiative.
• JDAI Pathways - Practical information for understanding and implementing juvenile detention reform, based on the innovative policies and practices developed by jurisdictions participating in JDAI.
• JDAI Practice Guides - Guides for juvenile justice reformers on topics of importance to the field.
• JDAI Issue Briefs - Short pieces with data charts help to detail the lessons and results achieved through JDAI.
  
  

Featured JDAI Publications

Resources below are listed by publication date.

JDAI News Spring 2013

This issue of JDAI News outlines the Foundation's new strategy to reform the deep-end of the juvenile justice system, working with sites in Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio. It also highlights impressive gains made by JDAI sites in reducing the use of detention. In addition to a host of JDAI site updates, photographer Richard Ross is interviewed i this issue about his efforts documenting the lives of incarcerated youth. more >>

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A Guide to Juvenile Detention Reform: Bernalillo County Mental Health Clinic Case Study

Determining how to provide effective mental health treatment for youth involved in the juvenile justice system – and ensuring that it continues after they exit detention – is one of the most complex challenges facing this system. This report examines how one jurisdiction, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, has taken extraordinary steps to address this challenge by ensuring Medicaid eligibility for detained youth and establishing a licensed, free-standing community mental health clinic adjacent to it detention facility. The report also provides an overview of how the county became an active site in Casey’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and details how their new mental health clinic is being operated and financed, and the lessons emerging from their innovative approach. more >>

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A Guide to Juvenile Justice Reform: Making Detention Reform Work for Girls

Serving as a practical, how-to guide for jurisdictions involved in Casey’s Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative and others, this report follows up on previous JDAI reports documenting the scope and nature of the different challenges and needs facing girls in the detention system. This guide offers clear and specific instructions for JDAI leaders on how to put that information into practice. After reviewing the characteristics and disparities in the system’s treatment of girls, the guide describes organizational steps necessary to create gender work groups, develop work plans, conduct gender-focused data analysis and put the information gained to practical use. Appendices provide a variety of tools and templates to support the work. more >>

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Infographic: Youth Incarceration in the United States

This infographic provides information on youth incarceration in the United States, visualizing the national and state drop in youth confinement, racial disparities within the juvenile justice system and the type of offenses committed by youth. In addition, the piece highlights five responses communities can take to support better services for these youth. To access a printer-friendly version of this infographic, click on "View Multimedia." more >>

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KIDS COUNT Data Snapshot: Youth Incarceration in the United States

In this KIDS COUNT data snapshot, the Casey Foundation finds that the rate of young people locked up because they were in trouble with the law dropped more than 40 percent over a 15-year period, with no decrease in public safety. The snapshot indicates that the number of young people in correctional facilities on a single day fell to 70,792 in 2010, from a high of 107,637 in 1995. The publication also recommends ways to continue reducing reliance on incarceration and improve the odds for young people involved in the juvenile justice system. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative 2011 Results Report Summary

This summary provides information on the progress of sites in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) and the impact of efforts on detention utilization, commitments of youth to state custody and public safety. JDAI sites continue to report significant gains in curbing the unnecessary use of detention, while reducing commitments, improving public safety and securing millions of dollars from public and private sources to support detention reform. more >>

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JDAI News Spring 2012

This issue examines the foundation’s ambitious expansion of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) to include the "deep-end" of the juvenile justice system, and describes how JDAI sites will participate in this new endeavor. Distributed at the 19th JDAI Inter-Site Conference, this edition features updates on corrections reform in California and New York; an overview of the 2010 JDAI Results Report; and an interview with Michael Rohan, director of Probation and Court Services in Cook County, Illinois. Also included are JDAI site updates from across the country. Please note: This edition of JDAI News is in a PDF format with clickable links to help you navigate the document and find valuable resources more easily. more >>

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JDAI News Winter 2012

This issue of JDAI News looks at how Texas and Louisiana reduced their youth corrections populations and includes an interview with Thomas Brooks, the chief juvenile probation officer of Harris County, Texas. JDAI site updates focus on Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon, South Dakota, and Missouri. Also included are JDAI Newsmakers, JDAI in the News, and Juvenile Justice Updates. more >>

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JDAI News Summer 2011

This issue of JDAI News looks at how Missouri is taking JDAI to scale and includes an interview with Judge Darrell Missey, co-chair of the team responsible for replicating JDAI across the state. JDAI site updates focus on Ohio, New Jersey, Washington, Arizona, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Santa Cruz County, California. Also included are JDAI Newsmakers, JDAI in the News, and Juvenile Justice Updates. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Reform: A Guide for County Officials

This guidebook captures alternative practices to juvenile detention that counties can implement in their respective communities. more >>

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The Missouri Model: Reinventing the Practice of Rehabilitating Youthful Offenders

The state of Missouri’s approach to juvenile detention is designed to help troubled teens make lasting behavioral changes so that they can successfully transition back to their communities. This report explores the success of the model and builds the case for juvenile detention reform. more >>

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JDAI Newsletter October 2010

This issue of JDAI News distributed at the 2010 JDAI Inter-Site Conference examines the statewide expansion of JDAI in Missouri. In his column "From the Foundation," Casey's Bart Lubow describes how the foundation will move beyond detention reform into the dispositional end of the system. The foundation announces OJJDP investments in JDAI expansion. Updates are included for the following JDAI Sites: Ventura County, California; Harris County, Texas; Louisiana; Clark County, Nevada; Dallas County, Texas; New Jersey; Santa Cruz, California; Multnomah, Oregon; St. Louis County, Minnesota; Ohio; South Dakota; Adams County, Washington; and Orange County, California. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Results Report, 2009

The first-ever JDAI results report to paint an initiative-wide portrait shows sites achieving significant gains in curbing the use of detention and tens of millions of public and private dollars being invested in support of those efforts. Improved data collection and reporting from JDAI’s 34 grantees enabled the initiative to synthesize detention statistics submitted in September 2009 from the 102 local sites. The report measures the impact of JDAI reforms at those sites in areas such as detention utilization, commitments and placements, and public safety. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Reform in Ohio: Fact Sheet

This fact sheet describes the juvenile detention reform efforts in Ohio. more >>

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Digital Stories: Reforming the Juvenile Justice System

Casey's digital stories capture the families and children whose lives are touched by the Foundation's work. This photo slideshow on juvenile justice shows compelling photos of youth navigating a largely adult prison system. more >>

Youth Violence Myths and Realities: A Tale of Three Cities - The Different Story of Delinquent Youth as Told by the Media and by Juvenile Justice System Professionals and the Youth Themselves

This report examines the youth perspective on violence, life circumstance, and the response of the justice system to a supposed growth of violence among troubled youth. The report was also part of testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on February 11, 2009. more >>

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Two Decades of JDAI: From Demonstration Project to National Standard

This report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation documents the progress of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative’s (JDAI) efforts in reforming juvenile detention practices throughout the nation. Also highlighted in the report are the ways in which JDAI has contributed to the broader juvenile justice reform movement. more >>

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Using Media Advocacy to Promote Detention Reform

The fourth in a series of practice guides offers juvenile justice reformers the tools to effectively communicate with the media and the public to promote detention reform. The new media guide provides the tools for developing a well-timed and proactive media strategy, including tips and techniques for building relationships and pitching stories to reporters; strategies for developing compelling messages; instruction on how to approach an interview for radio, television, and print; and, how to respond to the media in the context of a crisis. more >>

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Detention Reform: An Effective Approach to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice

By prioritizing the reduction of racial and ethnic disparities as a core detention reform strategy, Casey’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative has reduced the odds of detention typically faced by African-American and Latino teens. This Detention Reform Brief details JDAI’s efforts at reducing the over-representation of minorities in detention. more >>

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15. Pathways to Juvenile Justice Reform: Detention Reform in Rural Areas

This report details a variety of special techniques, tactics, and strategies that can help rural areas accomplish detention reform effectively. It includes profiles of two promising rural detention reform efforts (in Illinois and Oregon); and a summary of key lessons. more >>

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Kids Count Essay 2008 Summary

This summary version of the 2008 KIDS COUNT essay, A Road Map for Juvenile Justice, presents the six pervasive challenges raised in the essay that face our nation’s juvenile justice systems today. It highlights key facts and data, and offers promising solutions for approaches that have been proven to improve outcomes for youth, families, taxpayers, and communities. more >>

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KIDS COUNT 2008 Essay: A Roadmap for Juvenile Justice Reform

This 2008 KIDS COUNT essay, A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform, looks at the six pervasive challenges that face our nation’s juvenile justice systems today. It presents facts and data, and offers promising solutions for approaches that have been proven to improve outcomes for youth, families, taxpayers, and communities. more >>

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State-Level Detention Reform: A Practice Guide for State Advisory Groups

This is a “how-to” leadership guide designed for a highly-specialized and specific audience: State juvenile justice advisory group members (or “SAG” members) who advise and guide the implementation of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) in the states, territories and District of Columbia. This guide highlights examples of leadership and the work of SAG members in key states that have been front-runners in advancing the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) via SAG leadership. more >>

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Detention Reform: An Effective Public Safety Strategy

This 4-page issue brief describes how Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) helps juvenile justice officials reduce crime while reserving scarce public safety resources for more effective ways to supervise young people. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Reform: Guide for County Officials

Using Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative's (JDAI) model sites as examples, a new educational tool published by the National Association of Counties provides compelling arguments why county officials should undertake detention reform. The 12-page guide introduces readers to the concepts of detention reform, provides data analyses and cost comparisons, and illustrates outcomes achieved in JDAI sites across the nation. more >>

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14. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Beyond Detention -- System Transformation Through Juvenile Detention Reform

This report is book #14 in the Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) Pathways series on juvenile detention reform. It documents the ways in which detention reforms in general – and JDAI’s comprehensive reform model in particular -- stimulate and support a broad array of other juvenile justice system improvements. more >>

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Detention Reform: A Cost-Saving Approach

This 4-page issue brief describes how Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) helps helps communities reduce wasteful spending detaining non-violent youth, and frees up these funds for more effective public safety solutions. more >>

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The Dangers of Detention: The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities

This policy brief reviews the existing literature on the efficacy of detention and looks at the consequences of detention on young people, their families, and communities. more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 23, Winter 2006

This issue highlights the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Reform Initiative (JDAI) and how detention systems are failing to meet the needs of girls.  more >>

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Detention Facility Self-Assessment: A Practice Guide to Juvenile Detention Reform

Because reducing overcrowding in detention can immediately improve conditions, Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative sites establish “self-inspection” teams of local volunteers to monitor conditions of confinement. These self-inspection teams are trained in a rigorous methodology that carefully examines all aspects of facility policies, practices and programs. This practice guide provides instructions on conducting a secure detention facility self-inspection as well as comprehensive detention standards and an assessment instrument. more >>

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A Practice Guide to Juvenile Detention Reform: Juvenile Detention Risk Assessment

Detention risk screening is a fundamental strategy used to evaluate youth and determine the need for secure, locked confinement. The risk instruments developed at Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative sites have been effective in curbing subjective or inappropriate decisions as well as controlling the total admissions to secure detention. This is a practical guide for juvenile justice decision-makers and includes specific recommendations on how to design, test, and implement detention risk-screening instruments. more >>

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No Turning Back: Promising Approaches to Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities Affecting Youth of Color in the Justice System

This report by the Building Blocks for Youth Initiative features two of Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative sites and their efforts at targeting and reducing racial disparities in the juvenile justice system. The publication demonstrates that by reducing detention, jurisdictions were also able to reduce disproportionate minority confinement. more >>

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13. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform—Detention Reform and Girls: Challenges and Solutions

This report examines the complex personal and social backdrop for girls in the delinquency system and looks at how girls are tracked at various key points in the juvenile justice process. By mapping how girls end up in the system, this report provides recommendations for gender-responsive detention reform.    more >>

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Reentry: Helping Former Prisoners Return to Communities

This guide offers Making Connections site teams and local partners a way to think about and reduce the negative impact of incarceration on their communities. It presents an overview of the issue, describes challenges that sites are likely to face when tackling this work, describes promising approaches, and offers resources for finding further information. Part of the TARC Resource Guide series. more >>

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Unlocking the Future -- Detention Reform in the Juvenile Justice System: 2003 Annual Report

This report demonstrates that juvenile court jurisdictions throughout the United States needlessly sweep into locked detention many young people with mental health, substance abuse and family problems—most of whom are 15 years or younger, nonviolent, and disproportionately youth of color. more >>

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AdvoCasey: Spring 2003, Volume 5, Number 1

This issue is devoted to juvenile justice. It decries the trend toward "fad justice" for teens, and explores four crucial choices facing the juvenile justice field. Also included are updates on the continuing progress of the juvenile detention reform movement, the success of Missouri's "small is beautiful" approach to youth corrections, and California's juvenile jail building boom. more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 9, Winter 2002

This issue focuses on the Foundation’s juvenile justice, family economic success, and immigration work.  more >>

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Barriers and Promising Approaches to Workforce and Youth Development for Young Offenders

This toolkit was created to address three objectives: identify barriers to success in juvenile justice -- both for the system and for the young people in it; survey innovative state and local policy initiatives; and showcase exemplary employment and development programs for court-involved youth. more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, 11, Summer 2002

This issue focuses on making work count for low-income families, racial disparities in juvenile detention, and the role of cultural competency in connecting workers to jobs.  more >>

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9. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Special Detention Cases- Strategies for Handling Difficult Populations

This report discusses warrant cases, probation violators, and post-adjudication detention. It provides strategies and solutions used in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and other jurisdictions to reduce unnecessary detention in these special cases.  more >>

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Less Cost, More Safety: Guiding Lights for Reform in Juvenile Justice

Over the past several years, our nation’s political leaders have responded aggressively to the perceived juvenile justice crisis. As a result of this reform, states have enacted sweeping new laws—erecting new correctional facilities and shifting more accused youth to adult criminal courts. This report examines the cross-cutting challenges and opportunities that have arisen due to such juvenile justice reform.    more >>

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8. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Reducing Racial Disparities in Juvenile Detention

This report examines the overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system, as well as reviews attempts by various sites in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) to reduce the number of minority youth being detained.    more >>

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11. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Promoting and Sustaining Detention Reforms

This report explores how the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) has promoted and sustained detention reform across the nation. It covers how leaders gathered support, how stakeholders clarified their agenda, and how sites used communications strategies to gain support. The report also addresses site strategies for reform, simple steps toward reform, and arguments for the cost-effectiveness of reform.  more >>

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Soundbites and Cellblocks: Analysis of the Juvenile Justice Media Debate & A Case Study of California’s Proposition 21

This document examines the messages, sound bites, and quotes from advocates on both sides of the juvenile justice policy debate. Also included is an examination of California’s Proposition 21 and other issues in juvenile justice.  more >>

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12. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Replicating Detention Reform - Lessons from the Florida Detention Initiative

This report describes Florida’s efforts to replicate Broward County’s reforms statewide. It identifies reasons why the Broward Dentention Initiative was successful in its reform and how attempts to go to scale were stymied by a changing political environment. It discusses outcomes and lessons from the resulting state-wide Florida Detention Initiative. more >>

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(Video) These Are Our Kids: Transforming Juvenile Detention in Three American Cities

This video by Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative documents the power and effectiveness of juvenile detention reforms in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon, and Santa Cruz County, California. more >>

Juvenile Jailhouse Rocked

A report on the Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, this story documents the successful efforts of three urban counties -- Cook, Multnomah, and Sacramento -- to reduce the unnecessary and inappropriate use of secure juvenile detention without compromising public safety. more >>

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AdvoCasey: Fall 1999/Winter 2000, Volume 1, Number 3

The Fall 1999/Winter 2000 issue of AdvoCasey focuses on troubled neighborhood families. Discussions are covered about why children end up in foster care. It also describes the JDAI approach to pretrial detention. more >>

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3. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Controlling the Front Gates - Effective Admissions Policies and Practices

This report reviews core principles central to the design and implementation of new admissions practices in the juvenile justice system. It presents discussions of the essential elements of a structured, objective approach, relying on the experiences of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI).  more >>

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7. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: By The Numbers—The Role of Data and Information in Detention Reform

This report distinguishes between gathering and using data for planning and assessment and developing information systems that support daily operations. It focuses on how smaller interim steps can provide significant benefits quickly and relatively inexpensively. It summarizes lessons from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and describes how others can get started.  more >>

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1. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Planning for Juvenile Detention Reforms - A Structured Approach

This planning approach is designed to help jurisdictions gain an accurate understanding of their own detention policies, practices, and problems. Its structured planning model has been tested and refined at various sites over a five-year period, and it makes reference to a variety of solutions to juvenile detention problems.  more >>

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Overview: Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform, The JDAI Story

Th is publication provides an overview of Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), a multi-million dollar, five year, five-site experiment aimed to streamline and rationalize local juvenile detention systems.  more >>

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4. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Consider the Alternatives - Planning and Implementing Detention Alternatives

This report examines the experiences of and lessons learned by the Casey Foundation's Juvenile Justice Alternatives Initiative sites regarding the development of effective alternatives to secure detention. This report details how each site expanded or enhanced its program repertoire as part of its detentions system reform efforts.  more >>

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6. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Improving Conditions of Confinement in Secure Juvenile Detention Centers

This report presents a discussion of what was learned from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) about improving and maintaining safe, humane institutions. Attention is given to the impact of inadequate conditions. It also offers guiding principles, based on JDAI, for improving institutional conditions, developing and conducting an assessment, improving practices, and maintaining ongoing assessment.  more >>

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2. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Collaboration and Leadership in Juvenile Detention Reform

This report addresses the governance and leadership prerequisites for implementing detention reform strategies effectively. It discusses collaboration principles that emerged from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), examines key issues in building and sustaining collaboration and collaborative structures, and covers possible leadership dilemmas. It also contains some lessons learned by the JDAI sites.  more >>

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5. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform: Reducing Unnecessary Delay - Innovations in Case Processing- Innovations in Case Processing

This report describes how the lengths of stay of detained juveniles were reduced by changing case processing procedures. It includes a detailed discussion of specific points in processing a delinquency case where unnecessary delay may occur and examples of how sites in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative reduced delay in each instance.  more >>

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Special Education Advocacy Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): For Children in the Juvenile Delinquency System

This publication is intended for defense attorneys who represent children in delinquency matters and in status offenses. The advocacy described in this manual revolves around the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law incorporated into state law in all fifty states and in the District of Columbia. The authors of this manual present case examples, strategies, and theories of how to use IDEA with the expectation that it will be useful in juvenile delinquency cases throughout the nation. more >>

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Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative: A Successful Approach to Comprehensive Reform

This 12-page brochure, complete with full-page black-and-white photographs, highlights the goals and the accomplishments of the Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative since its launch in 1992. more >>

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