Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Bureau of Justice Assistance Training and Technical Assistance
This resource provides technical assistance to practitioners in state, local, and tribal justice systems.
Gang Resistance and Education Program
The G.R.E.A.T. Program is a school-based, law enforcement officer-instructed classroom curriculum. With prevention as its primary objective, the program is intended as an immunization against delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership.
National Reentry Resource Center
Funded by the Second Chance Act of 2008, and launched by the Council of State Governments Justice Center in 2009, the National Reentry Resource Center provides education, training, and technical assistance to states, tribes, territories, local governments, service providers, non-profit organizations, and corrections institutions working on prisoner reentry.
Tribal Crime Data Collection Activities, 2015
This report describes BJS activities to collect and improve data on crime and justice in Indian country, as required by the Tribal Law and Order Act, 2010. The report summarizes BJS’s efforts in 2015 to:
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Field a survey on the capabilities and caseloads of tribal court systems
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Develop a survey of all state and local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices serving Indian country
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Study the handling of American Indian and Alaska Native juvenile and adult criminal cases in the federal justice system
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Enhance current funding programs to support tribal participation in regional and national criminal justice databases
The report also summarizes tribal eligibility for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant awards from 2008 to 2015 and presents Uniform Crime Reporting Program statistics on offenses reported by tribal law enforcement agencies from 2008 to 2013.
Resource: New BJA NTTAC Violent Crime Resource
This new website features violent crime training and technical assistance resources, including publications, national initiatives, trainings, technical assistance opportunities, and other materials identified by BJA’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC).
Resource: Tribal Access to Justice Innovation
This website helps tribal justice practitioners learn about emerging and promising justice-related programs in Indian Country. Visitors can learn what tribes are doing to address issues in their communities, access tribal program information, and collaborate and connect with tribal justice practitioners.
Resource: Drug Courts
This article (PDF, 2 pages) provides an overview of the varying types of drug courts. Criminal defendants and offenders, family members, criminal justice practitioners, and drug treatment professionals can use this information to understand the purpose and function of drug courts and to find related research and resources.
Resource: Mentoring as a Component of Reentry
This resource (PDF, 45 pages), developed by the National Reentry Resource Center, provides recommendations to help community-based organizations integrate adult mentoring into existing reentry programming. This resource can also help organizations build effective partnerships with correctional agencies, learn about promising practices in adult mentoring, such as peer mentoring, and increase effective data collection and evaluation through stronger collaboration between reentry programs and research partners.
Resource: Leveraging the Every Student Succeeds Act to Improve Educational Services in Juvenile Justice Facilities
This policy brief (PDF, 12 pages), developed by the American Youth Policy Forum, the National Reentry Resource Center, and the Council of State Governments Justice Center, provides information to state and local policymakers as well as education and juvenile justice leaders about how to use requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act to improve education and workforce outcomes for youth in long-term juvenile justice facilities.
American Red Cross and FEMA: Helping Children Cope with Disaster
This booklet was created to assist parents and caregivers in helping youth cope with disasters and emergencies. The guide also provides information on preparing family emergency plans and discussing these plans with youth.
Share with Youth: Don’t Fall for These Scams: Phishing and Vishing
This article explains two kinds of scams: phishing, occurring through fraudulent e-mails that ask the recipient to verify personal information, and vishing, in which a scammer may make contact over the phone to request this information. It also provides tips for what those who think they may be a victim of one of these scams can do.
Resource: Support for Families When a Suicide Attempt Hits Home
This resource provides information, tips, and useful links to families who have experienced a suicide attempt to assist in getting appropriate help and to foster resiliency.
Slideshow: 5 Collaborations to Ensure Trauma-Informed Care for Youth and Families
This slideshow highlights five types of professionals that runaway and homeless youth program managers can collaborate with to support youth who have experienced trauma.
Resource: Narrative Writing Exercises for Promoting Health Among Adolescents: Promises and Pitfalls
This resource describes a literature review that explores the potential mental health benefits and concerns of using narrative writing with youth and young adults.
Resource: Helping Youth Prevent Suicide Among Their LGBTQ Peers
This article highlights free resources educators and youth service providers can use to implement the Trevor Project’s Lifeguard Workshop, a program encouraging young people to be “lifeguards” for one another by having the knowledge to help in a crisis. Professionals can request a free, in-person workshop or use the resources highlighted in the article to create personalized trainings.
Resource: Integrating Medical and Mental Health Care for Teen Moms
This article describes the mental health challenges teen moms face and highlights a Denver-based program that integrates mental health screening and treatment into their existing medical care.
A Comparison of Four Restorative Conferencing Models
This Bulletin focuses on four restorative conferencing models: victim-offender mediation, community reparative boards, family group conferencing, and circle sentencing. It first describes each of the four restorative conferencing models, then compares and contrasts.
Behavioral Health Problems, Treatment, and Outcomes in Serious Youthful Offenders
This bulletin from OJJDP summarizes findings from analyses of data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed more than 1,300 serious youthful offenders for seven years after their court involvement. These analyses addressed the overlap of behavioral health problems and offending behavior (PDF, 16 pages), the care young people with disorders received while in juvenile justice settings, and the care received in the community upon their release. Implications for juvenile justice practice and policy and potential opportunities for system improvement are discussed.
Amber Alert: Best Practices
“AMBER Alert Best Practices,” published by the Department of Justice, discusses the most effective strategies that AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) partners have provided for recovering missing children. It explains the history of the system, the role each partner plays in child recovery and how to use the resources provided as best as possible.
Balanced and Restorative Justice for Juveniles: A Framework for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century
This document makes the case for a new mission for juvenile justice known as the "Balanced Approach," and advocates consideration of a new philosophical framework, "Restorative Justice," to guide broader policy development and reform in juvenile justice.
Alaska Native Tribal Courts Gain Right to Protect Women in Domestic Violence Cases
With the repeal of the “Alaska Exemption” from the 2013 Violence Against Women Act, Alaska Native communities will now be able to use their sovereign authority to protect women from domestic violence. This repeal was one of the recommendations in the recently released report, Ending Violence So Children Can Thrive (PDF, 258 pages) developed by the Advisory Committee of the Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence.
Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children Can Thrive
Commissioned as part of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Defending Childhood initiative, this report from the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence provides recommendations to address the impact of violence on tribal youth (PDF, 258 pages) through trauma-informed and culturally appropriate programs and services.
Aftercare Services
This Bulletin examines aftercare services that provide youth with comprehensive health, mental health, education, family, and vocational services upon their release from the juvenile justice system.
Best Practices to Address Community Gang Problems: OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model
The Comprehensive Gang Model developed by the OJJDP focuses on community prevention and intervention in balance with law enforcement suppression activities. The model involves five strategies for responding to gang-involved youth and their families. These include community mobilization, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression, organizational change and development. This brief discusses best practices for implementing the model.
Child and Youth Victimization Known to Police, School and Medical Authorities
This report from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines what types of violence children report and what professionals are aware of the reported violence. The report shows that 46 percent of victimized children were known to school, police, or medical authorities.