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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Children, Youth, and Families Education and Research Network
CYFERnet is a national network of Land Grant university faculty and county Extension educators working to support community-based educational programs for children, youth, parents and families. It provides program, evaluation and technology assistance for children, youth and family community-based programs and is funded as a joint project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's NIFA and the Cooperative Extension System
Supporting the Success of Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings
On February 25, 2015, OCR and the Choice Program at UMBC partnered to host a symposium on supporting the education of young people in juvenile justice settings. At the event, young people who have had brushes with the law shared how the Choice Program is helping them to turn their lives around.
Report: Sexual Victimization in Prisons, Jails, and Juvenile Correctional Facilities
This report (PDF, 97 pages) presents the findings of the Review Panel on Prison Rape. The Panel gathered information on the practices of selected correctional institutions that had either a low or a high prevalence of inmate sexual victimization and made recommendations that aim to help eliminate sexual victimization in prisons, jails, and juvenile correctional facilities.
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.
Changing Lives: Prevention and Intervention to Reduce Serious Offending
This bulletin provides a review of effective early childhood, juvenile, and early adulthood programs that mitigate risk factors for delinquency and have demonstrated measurable impacts on offending (PDF, 8 pages). These programs are grouped by family, school, peers, and community, individual, and employment.
Comprehensive Responses to Youth At Risk: Interim Findings From the SafeFutures Initiative
The SafeFutures initiative joins what we have learned from research about risk and protective factors with what we now know from experience about promising approaches to preventing and controlling delinquency, resulting in a continuum of care that responds to the needs of youth at critical stages in their development. This Summary describes the lessons learned over the initial 3 years of the initiative's implementation in three pilot sites.
Children’s Exposure to Violence and the Intersection Between Delinquency and Victimization
This bulletin, from the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, presents findings from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence about the relationship between delinquency and victimization among children and youth. The bulletin highlights the implications of these findings for practitioners in the adolescent development and intervention fields.
Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act establishes the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Council) as an independent body within the executive branch of the federal government. The Council's primary functions are to coordinate federal juvenile delinquency prevention programs, federal programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied juveniles, and federal programs related to missing and exploited children.
Disproportionate Minority Contact
This site provides information and resources focused on the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system
Developmental Sequences of Girls’ Delinquent Behavior
As part of the Girls Study Group series, which was established to guide the development, testing, and implementation of strategies to prevent and intervene in girls’ delinquency, this bulletin synthesizes the methods, findings, and implications from a collaborative analysis of data that the Denver Youth Survey and the Fast Track Project collected on the developmental patterns of girls’ offending from childhood through adolescence.
Criminal Career Patterns
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Criminal Career Patterns" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin describes criminal career patterns in adolescence and adulthood.
Desktop Guide to Quality Practice for Working With Youth in Confinement
This web-based guide offers facility leadership and staff who work with confined youth information on principles, concepts, and practices in use in custody facilities.
Curriculum for Training Educators of Youth in Confinement
To help teachers address issues surrounding youth in confinement, the National Juvenile Detention Association's Center for Research and Professional Development (CRPD) has developed a National Training Curriculum for Educators of Youth in Confinement Facilities (Educator's Curriculum). Topics addressed include behavioral development, mental health, and assessment.
Employment and Training for Court-Involved Youth
This Report represents a compendium of the opinions and concerns of the Task Force members about current conditions that affect court-involved youth and identifies the most promising strategies for connecting court-involved youth to the labor market.
Explanations for Offending
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Explanation for Offending" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin examines various developmental, biological, social, and psychological explanations for offending.
Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice Issues 2013 Report
This report makes recommendations to the President, Congress, and OJJDP on four areas of major concern to the juvenile justice community: evidence-based youth justice practices, youth engagement, youth justice and schools, and youth justice and disproportionate minority contact. These recommendations were formed through research and reviews by FACJJ’s expert subcommittees and through feedback from state advisory groups, state juvenile justice specialists, and state disproportionate minority contact coordinators.
From the Courthouse to the Schoolhouse: Making Successful Transitions
This bulletin describes effective approaches to reintegrating youth from juvenile justice system settings into the education mainstream and provides information about promising programs, practices, and resources.