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I often work with juvenile justice programs and their staff, advising them on research and evaluation issues. I recently learned that people need to be reminded that using pre-/post-outcome comparisons to judge the effectiveness of a program can be misleading.
In a recent meeting I attended, a program director was defending the effectiveness of his agency's intervention approach. He described what he believed were solid measures of impact by first describing the rate of offending among his program's clients prior to intake (in terms of average arrests per year). 
Then, he told us how that number was cut in half during the first year after a youth completed the program. According to him, this meant that the program had been proven effective.
For emphasis, he added, “With such good before-and-after data, we don't need any more evidence to know that we’re effective.”
Eeek, I thought to myself. 
He clearly didn't realize that his assertion of effectiveness was risky and possibly flawed.
Many people believe that agencies can assess their effectiveness entirely with pre/post comparisons of youth outcomes, such as recidivism or drug use before and after treatment.
Apparently, they do not know about the statistical bias present in that sort of comparison.

[The following position statement was released by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) in response to the A&E television network's decision to air "Beyond 'Scared Straight,'" a reality TV show about teens being yelled at and shamed by adult prison inmates in an attempt to scare them "straight." Be sure to check out CJJ's fact sheet, Scared Straight: Don't Believe the Hype, and Laura Nissen's editorial, "Beyond 'Scared Straight' – Moving to Programs that Actually Work." --Ed.]
 
Washington, D.C. – The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ), a national association of Governor-appointed state advisory groups on juvenile justice and allies, questions the value of the A&E series, “Beyond Scared Straight,” scheduled to begin airing on Thursday, January 13, 2011. The planned series highlights an intervention that purports to turn children and youth away from delinquent and criminal behavior. In fact, such approaches, explains CJJ, are shown to have the opposite of the desired effect and to increase delinquency.
 
“Started years ago with good intentions, ‘Scared Straight’ approaches have now been well-evaluated and shown to have a damaging rather than positive impact,” according to David Schmidt, CJJ National Chair and President of New Mexico Council on Crime and Delinquency. “Research makes it clear that youth exposed to adult inmates, particularly in prison or jail settings, are at heightened risk of emotional harm and anxiety and receive harmful messages that lead to increased potential for them to commit delinquent offenses.[1] Intentionally exposing youth to these risks, even for a short period of time in a controlled environment, is profoundly counterproductive.” 

You may remember Olivia from our our national Reclaiming Futures video, made several years ago: she'd just graduated from juvenile drug court in King County, WA, where she benefited from the Reclaiming Futures initiative in Seattle-King County. She also  had a great mentor in Hazel Cameron, who directs The 4C Coalition in Seattle, which provides mentors to youth in the juvenile justice system. 
How's Olivia doing these days? Take a look at the video above, in which Olivia, now 22, gives a speech to a packed room at the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) in Baltimore, MD, on December 14, 2010.
Olivia's story is just under 20 minutes long, but it seems to fly by -- she tells her story with poise, humility, humor, and gratitude. Check it out! 
Update January 12, 2011 - I forgot to mention it, but this post is just in time for National Mentoring Month!
 

You can now apply to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) for a grant under the Second Chance Act to "establish programs to train individuals in prisons, jails, or juvenile residential facilities for technology-based jobs and careers during the three-year period before their release." (It's not just for juveniles - it's for adults, too.) 
Webinar: The National Reentry Resource Center will hold a webinar for interesed applicants January 19, 2011 at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST. >>Register here.
Deadline to Apply: March 3, 2011.

In 2010, we posted tons of useful links for professionals, policymakers, and advocates connected with the juvenile justice system and adolescent substance abuse treatment.
Rather than warehouse them all on the blog, we're wheeling some of them out on display again. Maybe you overlooked some of them last year, or never got a chance to download that nifty tool kit -- now's your chance. Here's 20 of them, listed below in random order:

1. The Partnership at Drugfree.org's Treatment E-Book for parents. (Follow link, go to first bullet.)
2. How to Get Teens to Engage in Treatment - a proven toolkit from NIATx that increases retention by on orienting teens to treatment. (Follow link, scroll to third bullet down.)
3. What works in juvenile justice? Check out this international literature review, compiled for an Australian Member of Parliament. (Follow link and scroll to third bullet.)

What were our top three stories for 2010? You can pick from stories on juvenile justice reform ... juvenile drug courts ... adolescent substance abuse treatment ... positive youth development ... family engagement ... or the juvenile justice system in general? 
What was most useful to you? What was the most intriguing?  What did you pass on to your colleagues? 
You can pick from any story we published here on the blog in 2010.  But just to make it easy, I've listed 20 stories below that I'd expect to  be on everyone's top-stories list.  If you don't find your favorite below -- and I had to leave out a heck of a lot of good stuff -- feel free to vote for it anyway. 
(By the way, they stories below are not listed in any particular order.)

Anyone concerned about sharing information about juveniles in the justice system -- and if you're a probation officer, evaluator, policy maker, or program developer, you should be -- will want to get hold of this new tool kit from the Models for Change initiative.
Authored by the Child Welfare League of America and the Juvenile Law Center and underwritten by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the tool kit articulates the "principles that govern information and data sharing including legal, constitutional and ethical concerns; and the use of aggregate data to best inform practice."
But what kind of information-sharing are we talking about? All kinds: you'll find the kit is covers information-sharing for three different purposes:

[The following is reprinted with permission from the November 2010 newsletter from the Campaign for Youth Justice, where it appeared under a different title. --Ed.]
At the Campaign for Youth Justice, we are asked regularly why we take a campaign approach to ending the practice of prosecuting youth in adult courts and thought we'd start a series of conversations in our newsletter to discuss all the various aspects of a "campaign." 

How do you get started on a campaign?  Here are five steps to "get started":
 

1. Find others:  Identify and talk to other people who may be interested in the issue of youth in adult criminal court. Start with your family, your block, your neighborhood, your place of worship or community center. Not sure how to make that first contact? Check out this organizing guide.

• Should Teen Girls Be Arrested for Prostitution? The median age for girls entering prostitution in the United States is 12 to 14; they often come from histories of abuse and are frequently coerced into prostituting themselves. Several states have moved to decriminalize the offense.  What do you think?  Leave a comment. (Hat tip to the Campaign for Youth Justice.)
• New York Times: Close More Juvenile Prisons. After reforms have left 10 of New York state's 25 juvenile prisons half-empty, the Times called for Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo to shut more down for being wasteful and ineffective.