Best Practices
The tools below are intended to help interested members of the public learn more about juvenile justice programs that have been implemented successfully in jurisdictions across the country. Check back often for updates as we learn of new and exciting programs and tools!
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Model Programs Guide is designed to aid practitioners, lawmakers, and community leaders in implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention programs that reduce recidivism while promoting public safety.
Know of a juvenile justice program in Texas or elsewhere that you think JJI should highlight? Email us at acorrea@criminaljusticecoalition.org to let us know.
The Center for Court Innovation (CCI), a non-profit think-tank based out of New York, helps criminal justice agencies and courts aid victims, reduce crime, and put public trust back into our justice system nationwide. Among their great ideas, CCI advocates for (1) youth courts that compel young people who have engaged in wrongdoing to repay the community, (2) youthful offender domestic violence courts that address relationship abuse among teenagers, and (3) juvenile drug courts that work with young people arrested for drug offenses and other low-level delinquency charges. Read more about CCI’s juvenile court innovations. Also look through their suggestions on juvenile re-entry courts.
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) compiled a reference list of publications to provide resources on best and promising practices in juvenile justice, including prevention and intervention, detention, probation, mental health, juvenile court, and juvenile justice education. This document is a useful resource which can help practitioners and lawmakers decide which programs best fit their communities.
The Special Needs Diversionary Program (SNDP) provides mental health services in conjunction with probation to youth offenders with identified mental health disorders. National estimates put the number of youth in the juvenile justice system with diagnosable mental health disorders at 50 to 75 percent. With specialized treatment and an extra pair of eyes on each case, SNDP teams are designed to prevent youth from committing further crimes, or moving further into the juvenile justice system. The program pairs a local mental health professional with a probation officer to provide a range of services to the offender and their family.
To qualify for the program a juvenile must have previously documented mental health diagnosis, and the family must be willing to take part in the program. The team's caseload is kept relatively low (12-15), and qualifying juveniles are visited an average of four times per week -- twice a week in their home, on average, and twice outside the home or on the phone. A range of mental health and probation services are provided under the program, including skills training, anger management, group therapy, and medication maintenance. On average youth spend about 4 1/2 months in an SNDP. In 2007, 2 percent of those enrolled were committed to TYC prior to completing the program.
The SNDP was initially funded by an annual allotment of $2 million per year, designated by the 77th legislature. The funding was renewed for the 2008-2009 biennium at a rate of $1.9 million per budget year to maintain the 19 existing programs in the state. Additional Medicaid funding was used for those enrolled in an SNDP to offset costs to the state. Still, per person enrolled, an SNDP cost less than any public residential treatment or TYC.
Few of the SNDP treatment teams carry as many cases as they are designated under the model. Increased funding for the programs may be in order, to compensate for changes in the federal reimbursements since the program's initial implementation in 2001.
The Phoenix Academy is a residential high school program that provides chemical dependency counseling and academic support to troubled teenagers as they work toward high school graduation. Some students get their diploma from Phoenix Academy, while others return to their home high school to graduate. Parents take part in family therapy and education, which is a key component of the program’s success.
Phoenix Academy is the first therapeutic-community program of its kind to be recognized as evidence-based, by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and has also been named a model program by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Research indicates that the program is effective in reducing drug and alcohol abuse in adolescents, as well as the anxiety symptoms and physical problems that may accompany substance abuse.
The Phoenix Academy is a program of Phoenix House, a nationally recognized substance abuse treatment provider. In addition to operating two residential Academies in Austin and Dallas, Phoenix House also offers adolescent out-patient treatment and prevention and referral programs in and around Dallas, Austin, and the Houston/Galveston Bay area.