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Abstract
The SafeFutures Program to Reduce Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Violence was a five-year six-site demonstration supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. SafeFutures sought to prevent and control juvenile crime and victimization through the creation of a continuum of prevention, intervention, and treatment services designed to meet the needs of at-risk and delinquent youth. The At-Risk and Delinquent Girls component of SafeFutures was intended to provide services to meet the unique emotional and developmental needs of young women.
This report examines the programs targeted to at-risk girls in each site. The report first sets the context for these programs by reviewing the risk factors for female delinquency, the history of government funding, and the literature evaluating girls programs. The report also includes a brief overview of some promising national programs. The report then specifically focuses on the efforts of the six SafeFutures sites in developing and maintaining programs targeted to at-risk and delinquent girls. The latter half of the report contains profiles of the specific programs targeted to at-risk and delinquent girls that each SafeFutures site operated, as well as a discussion of key cross-site issues, and implications for policy and practice.
PREFACE
The SafeFutures Program to Reduce Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Violence: An Overview
THE ROOTS OF SAFEFUTURES
The SafeFutures initiative was the result of federal interest in linking research findings about youth risk and protective factors with state-of-the-art knowledge about promising approaches to juvenile delinquency prevention and control. The initiative embraced many of the key principles emphasized by practitioners and researchers (see, for example, Connell et al. 1995). A core SafeFutures feature was its emphasis on using comprehensive community strategies to combat the segmentation and fragmentation of social, health, educational, and criminal justice services that often result in missed opportunities to help at-risk youth and families before their problems escalated to monumental proportions (Burt et al. 1992; Morrill and Gerry 1990). Comprehensive community initiatives oriented to systems reform provide public and private entities with both opportunities and challenges to implement more effective policies and practices (e.g., pooling resources, sharing information). Under SafeFutures, community collaboratives were encouraged to tailor prevention, intervention, treatment, and graduated sanction strategies to meet local needs, priorities, and capacities.
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Goals of the SafeFutures Program to Reduce Crime and Victimization
At the outset, OJJDP articulated the goals of the local SafeFutures demonstrations (OJJDP 1995; 1997) as follows:
Prevent and control of juvenile violence and delinquency through
1) reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors for delinquency.
2) providing a continuum of services for youth at risk of delinquency, as well as for juvenile offenders.
3) developing a full range of graduated sanctions designed to hold delinquent youth accountable to victims and the community, ensure community safety, and provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services.
Implement enhanced service delivery system for at-risk youth and their families that is multidisciplinary and offers comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, coordinated child and family services oriented to promoting healthy youth development and reducing delinquency and victimization. The objective was to build community capacity to respond in an efficient, effective, and timely fashion to individual/family needs at any point of entry into the continuum of care.
Institutionalize each community's capacity to sustain its continuum of care, by engaging the support of key leaders in government and community-based organizations, implementing strategic planning, and expanding and diversifying funding sources.
Incorporate accountability mechanisms that determine the success of SafeFutures' implementation and the outcomes achieved, including whether a comprehensive strategy involving community-based efforts and program resources concentrated on providing a continuum of care succeeded in preventing and reducing juvenile violence and delinquency.
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