Judicial Guide to the Structured Decision Making® Model in ... · Judicial Guide to the Structured Decision Making® ... and committed to the decision-making process are more likely

NOVEMBER 2015

Judicial Guide to the Structured Decision Making® Model in Juvenile Justice

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Table of Contents

Structuring Decisions for Better Juvenile Justice Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Engaging Leaders and Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Detention Assessment Instrument: Safer Communities and More Successful Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Risk Assessment for Targeting Resources and Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Using the Actuarial Risk Assessment to Help Youth Succeed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Helping, Not Harming: Making Disposition Decisions for Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Assessing Youth Strengths and Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Keeping Justice-Involved Youth in the Community: A Win-Win Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

The Graduated Response Approach: Three Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Keys of a Graduated Response Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Structuring Intake and Release Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

To Learn More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

NCCD promotes just and equitable social systems for individuals, families, and communities through research, public policy, and practice.

© 2015 by NCCD, All Rights Reserved

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Structuring Decisions for Better Juvenile Justice Outcomes

The Structured Decision Making® (SDM) model for juvenile justice, a group of standardized assessments developed by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), identifies the risk levels of system-involved young people and helps judges determine their best disposition options in court . These assessments also help courts place youth in the least restrictive environments needed to ensure public safety .

Working Together to Improve OutcomesNCCD works to improve outcomes for society’s most at-risk individuals, including youth involved in the juvenile justice system . NCCD has helped to highlight the importance of using data-driven assessments and shifting the ways in which systems engage with young people .

The table included here shows how the positive youth development model differs from the traditional juvenile justice approach .

The Structured Decision Making® ModelThe SDM model for juvenile justice is an evidence- and research-based system that identifies key points in the life of a juvenile justice case and uses structured assessments that are valid, reliable, equitable, and easy to use to achieve the goals of juvenile justice reform . The model includes several assessments .

Traditional Juvenile Justice Versus Positive Youth Development*

Traditional Juvenile Justice Positive Youth Development

Role of youth in community Target of change Agent of change

Role of youth in justice system Client Contributor

Mission of juvenile justice system Public safety Community wellness

Key strategy of juvenile justice Control youth behavior Connect youth with social and developmental resources

Target of juvenile services Youth problems and deficits Youth strengths and assets

Purpose of service delivery Supervision and control Attachment and engagement

*Butts, J ., Mayer, S ., & Ruth, G . (2005) . Focusing juvenile justice on positive youth development. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, Chapin Hall Center for Children .

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• Detention assessment instrument

Pre-Adjudication

• Actuarial risk assessment• Disposition matrix

Pre-Disposition, Post-Adjudication

• Strengths and needs assessment

• Graduated response approach

• Intake and release decisions

Post-Disposition

A detention assessment instrument identifies the likelihood of a youth committing a future offense during a specific and short period of time: before the adjudication hearing . This information helps determine whether a secure setting should be considered while a youth awaits an initial custody hearing .

• An actuarial risk assessment helps identify where to allocate resources and target interventions following adjudication . The risk assessment helps determine the disposition of a case and whether a youth can be safely diverted from the juvenile justice system .

• A disposition matrix is used to promote consistency and equity in dispositional recommendations according to the severity of the current offense and risk of future offending . This ensures that youth in similar situations will have similar and appropriate decisions at their case disposition .

• After a disposition has been identified, a strengths and needs assessment helps to

inform ongoing supervision and case planning decisions relevant to the care and well-being of juvenile justice system–involved youth .

• A graduated response approach uses research in adolescent brain development and behavior modification to guide probation officers and case managers on appropriate and available sanctions and rewards for youth currently being supervised in the community .

• An intake and release assessment helps staff decide how to group youth to ensure the protection of all detained youth .

For young people who come into contact with the juvenile justice system, their entire involvement should be intentionally planned to support overall system goals . The SDM model in juvenile justice represents a commitment to a juvenile justice system that works—for communities; for juvenile justice workers; and, most importantly, for the young people whose lives it touches .

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Engaging Leaders and Stakeholders

Agency leadership and stakeholder engagement are crucial to the successful development and implementation of a decision-making process that supports system reform .

Who?Agency leadership refers to agency staff members who are responsible for making policy and related decisions and are knowledgeable on policy, the implementation process, and overall system-reform goals .

Stakeholders are individuals or groups who are interested in or affected by the decisions being made . Stakeholders should represent a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and roles relevant to the decisions at hand . They should reflect diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, education, and other important characteristics . Examples of stakeholders in the juvenile justice system are judges, prosecutors, law enforcement, public defenders, community representatives, and independent court staff, among others .

What Are the Benefits?

Transparency in Decision Making

Engagement with leadership and stakeholder groups promotes transparency in decision making and reduces doubt and uncertainty—and ultimately loss of faith and trust—in the implementation process .

Reduced Bias in Decision Making

Engaging a diverse group of leadership and stakeholders creates a decision-making process that is less biased and centered in stakeholder consensus .

Enhanced Implementation Capacity

Leadership and stakeholders who are engaged in and committed to the decision-making process are more likely to build implementation capacity by proactively troubleshooting implementation issues, thus contributing to more successful system-reform activities .

Relationship Building and Collaboration

Relationship building and collaboration are expected to be natural by-products of leadership and stakeholder groups coming together and pooling their collective knowledge and diversity of perspectives to work toward system reform .

What’s Next?Keeping agency leaders and stakeholders involved in the assessment development and implementation processes is essential . Collaboration with leadership and stakeholders is part of the long-term, ongoing plan to achieve successful outcomes for youth, families, and the community .

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The Detention Assessment Instrument: Safer Communities and More Successful Youth

Agencies can safely reduce the use of detention and generally strengthen the juvenile justice system through the use of a valid detention assessment instrument (DAI) .

When detention is focused only on youth who are at high risk of committing a new offense before their court date, or of missing their court date, then juvenile justice resources can be allocated to where they are needed most .

What Is the DAI For?The DAI is part of a process of evaluating each arrested youth to determine if he or she is safely able to stay at home or in the community while awaiting a detention or adjudication hearing . The DAI produces one of three recommendations: release, release with conditions, or detain .

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The DAI weighs the nature of the current offense, the youth’s legal history and court status, and other pending adjudications . The DAI also considers mitigating and aggravating factors that reflect values around community safety and youth success .

How Does the DAI Work?The DAI is a structured tool that assigns points for each item on the tool . The total number of points corresponds to a final recommendation for that youth . After reaching the tool’s recommendation, a worker uses professional judgment to make a final decision for the youth .

The items on the DAI correspond with the statistical likelihood of committing a new offense before the court date or failing to appear . Items should be considered for inclusion, weighted, and tested on local and state data, existing research, and stakeholder engagement .

When the DAI is used with fidelity, detention decisions are more likely to be accurate (so that youth who pose an immediate threat to safety are detained, and those who do not can be released or released with conditions), reliable (consistent across workers, time, and geography), and equitable (achieves similar outcomes across different sub-groups) .

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Risk Assessment for Targeting Resources and Interventions

Use and PurposeRisk assessment is a decision-support process to help juvenile justice systems identify the system-involved youth on whom they should focus . It helps to answer “who?” questions based on identifying which youth are most likely, on a statistical basis, to later reenter the juvenile justice system .1

Risk assessment also helps answer the “who not?” question . Given all the youth who are referred to the system, which youth are unlikely to reenter the juvenile justice system? For these youth, interventions can actually increase their risk of reentry .

Allocate Resources for ImpactBecause risk assessment helps structure decision points around which youth to focus on, it allows juvenile justice systems to allocate resources to where they are most needed and to target interventions to

Risk assessment is a core practice to promote safer communities and more successful youth.

where they have the most potential to prevent future system reentry of youth . Risk assessment is a core practice to promote safer communities and more successful youth .

What It Is NotRisk assessment does not say much about “why?” questions . It does not suggest why some youth are more likely to get in trouble again or why some youth are more likely to reenter the juvenile justice system later . These are good research questions but not questions the risk assessment addresses .

In addition, risk assessment does not say much about “how?” questions . Risk assessment gives an indication of which youth to worry about but not which interventions are most appropriate or what kind of service plan should be adopted for a particular youth .

Once the risk assessment answers the “who?” question by identifying a young person’s likelihood of reentering the system, systems should develop individualized case plans . These case plans should be informed by the young person’s risk score; his/her strengths and ambitions; input from family members; and the available local resources, including but not

1 Reentry refers to a youth’s return to the juvenile justice system, such as at intake .

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limited to positive youth development approaches aimed at building stronger pro-social attachments and therapeutic interventions like multisystemic therapy, family functional therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy .

In developing plans, it is important to keep in mind that young people who pose a low risk should, on the whole, receive limited or court-ordered interventions . Out-of-home placement should be reserved for youth who score high risk and for whom no other viable community-based alternative is available .

MethodRisk assessments are most commonly actuarial tools, similar to those used to set car insurance rates . Using available data, rigorous statistical analysis, and predictive analytics approaches, the factors most associated with juvenile justice system reentry are identified . It is important that local data and practices are incorporated into the process . Youth with more risk factors score higher, and youth with fewer risk factors score lower . Thresholds then classify youth according to low, moderate, or high risk .

Risk assessment instruments must be evaluated against set criteria to ensure that they function appropriately .

These testing criteria are:

• Validity, to test for accuracy;

• Reliability, to test for consistency;

• Equity, to test for fairness; and

• Utility, to test for how useful the instrument is in practice .

Practice and ImpactRisk assessment works as a decision support—not to shape decisions a particular way but to ensure that decision makers are more likely to “get it right .” Research has demonstrated that decisions lead to better outcomes when they are structured . Individual decision makers still maintain discretion to use professional judgment and consider the uniqueness of each individual youth .

“Who is most likely to reenter the juvenile justice system?”

“Who meets our eligibility criteria for programmatic interventions?”

“To whom should we allocate our limited resources?”

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Using the Actuarial Risk Assessment to Help Youth Succeed

The Right Tool for the SituationImagine you are a parent whose child comes to you with cold symptoms . You must decide whether to let the cold run its course or intervene with a natural or medical therapy . One tool you may use to help determine your course of action is a thermometer . If your child has a high temperature, you may decide that the situation is more urgent, warranting a trip to the doctor for further diagnosis and treatment . On the other hand, if your child’s temperature is within a lower or normal range, you may choose to let the cold run its course and let your child recuperate at home .

Using the Risk Assessment in Juvenile JusticeIn a similar way, the risk assessment assists in making the best decision for each youth, based on his/her level of risk . The risk assessment helps juvenile justice systems identify the system-involved youth on whom they should focus . The tool helps to classify those youth who are most likely to be involved in future adjudications, allowing agencies to know how intensively to intervene, or what, if any, intervention is necessary—the same way a thermometer helps you decide how best to help a child who has come down with a cold .

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How Does the Risk Assessment Work?

To identify youth most likely to be involved in future offending, the risk assessment classifies youth into groups (e .g ., low, medium, or high risk) based on a set of characteristics, or risk factors, that have a statistical relationship with future adjudication . Youth with higher risk scores are at higher risk of re-adjudication, while youth classified as medium risk should have lower re-adjudication rates, and youth classified as low risk should have the lowest rates of re-adjudication .

Why Does the Risk Assessment Help?The risk assessment helps prevent future juvenile offending by allocating its juvenile justice resources to

where they can be most effective . It can guide positive interventions toward youth most likely to be re-adjudicated and helps avoid over-serving youth who are unlikely to ever be adjudicated again .

Research has demonstrated that structured decisions lead to better outcomes than those based on worker judgment alone . Individual decision makers still maintain discretion to use professional judgment and consider the uniqueness of each individual youth . Risk assessments are a core practice to promote safer communities and more successful youth .

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Helping, Not Harming: Making Disposition Decisions for Youth

A disposition matrix is a tool designed to structure decisions about the most appropriate level of supervision and custody for adjudicated youth at the time of case disposition . Through the use of disposition matrices, judicial and probation officers are able to make more informed decisions that enhance practices and policies for safer communities and more successful youth . This approach allows for the allocation of resources to where they will be most efficient and effective .

A disposition matrix organizes sanctions and programs by risk level and offense severity . It places youth along a continuum of disposition options, typically including secure out-of-home placements, placement alternative programs, probation, intensive services like multisystemic therapy, and other community options .

Disposition matrices leverage valid risk assessments .1 Research has shown that a valid risk assessment instrument accurately classifies people into groups based on a set of characteristics, or risk factors, in order to identify cases most likely to be involved in

A disposition matrix brings a greater degree of consistency, reliability, and equity to the assessment and decision- making process.

future offending . The classification levels then show differential reentry rates at the various risk levels . Youth classified as low risk are typically placed in community or diversion programs with minimal supervision or are diverted from the system entirely . For youth classified as moderate risk, more structured community programs while under probation supervision may be appropriate . Youth classified as high risk may receive intensive probation supervision with appropriate alternative-to-placement services or may be placed out of the home .

Informed Decision Making A disposition matrix brings a greater degree of consistency, reliability, and equity to the assessment and decision-making process . Once an agency has implemented an accurate and objective disposition matrix, decision makers have access to relevant youth information, disposition options, and corresponding disposition decision recommendations . This ensures that youth with similar characteristics will have similar and appropriate decisions made at their case dispositions .

1 For more information on validity, see the handout titled “Understanding Validity of Risk Assessment Instruments,” or this document: http://www .nccdglobal .org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/fire_study_results_graphs .pdf

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Research has shown that disposition matrices lead to a more efficient use of dispositional resources and improved outcomes (e .g ., lower reentry) by matching dispositions to the specific types of youth for which they were designed .

Data and Analysis The second and possibly less obvious purpose of a disposition matrix is to give agencies a platform from which to evaluate the practice of disposition in their jurisdiction by collecting accurate data on each youth, the disposition recommendation, and the actual disposition decision . This information allows for comparisons of trends over time, across units, and according to local goals and objectives .

ExampleIn the following example, the disposition matrix outlines the recommendations for each combination of risk and current offense . One simple analysis can compare how frequently each disposition type occurred for each risk level . A similar analysis could compare dispositions by offense type or by offense type and risk level .

The comparison between the disposition recommendation and actual disposition decision can help identify patterns in practice and reasons for these patterns . These data allow agencies to analyze youth classification distributions, examine outcomes by classification, understand dispositions and reoffending by risk, and see the relationship between disposition decision and reentry . This information is key to validating and revising the disposition matrix over time .

Disposition Low Medium High

Level 3 65% 31% 3%

Level 2 27% 47% 26%

Level 1 7% 23% 70%

Table 2: Disposition Analysis Risk Level

Offense High Medium Low

Violent Level 3 Level 2 or 3 Level 2

Serious Level 2 or 3 Level 2 Level 1 or 2

Minor Level 2 Level 1 or 2 Level 1

Table 1: Disposition Matrix Risk Level

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Assessing Youth Strengths and Needs

Benefits of Using the SNA The SNA blends factors from the risk/needs model and the positive youth development model for a more comprehensive assessment of the strengths and needs of juvenile justice–involved youth . The assessment includes items that bear a statistical relationship to recidivism as well as other items that are pertinent to an agency’s goals . The SNA enables juvenile justice professionals to effectively identify youth strengths and needs and, in turn, better target services to youth .

The strengths and needs assessment (SNA) is designed to help determine both the strengths and specific needs of young people . Once a youth’s disposition has been established, the SNA helps identify how to intervene and provide services to a particular youth by shaping the youth’s service plan . Together, the SNA and service plan support youth in making successful transitions from adolescence to early adulthood by encouraging them to develop useful skills and competencies and to build stronger relationships with pro-social peers, families, and communities .

The Best Way to Approach Strengths and Needs The SNA was developed using a combination of the two leading models of strengths and needs assessments in juvenile justice .

The “risk/needs” model assumes that recidivism is predictable, criminogenic needs should be assessed and targeted through intervention and treatment, and levels of service should correspond to a youth’s risk of recidivism (i .e ., higher-risk youth should receive higher-level interventions) .

The second model, called “positive youth development,” is a resilience-based intervention guided by the assumption that most children and youth manage to thrive and develop even in the presence of multiple environmental stresses (Butts, Mayer, & Ruth, 2005) as long as they are attached to a variety of social resources that facilitate healthy development .

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Keeping Justice-Involved Youth in the Community: A Win-Win Situation

Confining youth in secure out-of-home placements has destructive effects on young people, their families, and their communities . Instead of helping young people regain a positive path, confinement interrupts positive development, increases the risk of future recidivism, separates families, and costs communities money . There are better solutions that benefit everyone .

Why Doesn’t Confinement Work?Removing young people from the supports of their families and communities to place them in a facility has negative effects on growth and development . Brain science has shown that young people continue to mature until about age 25 . Confinement negatively affects the development of maturity, impulse control, and resilience—all of which are necessary for learning and making good decisions .

Confinement continues to hurt youth even after they are back in the community . Detained youth are less likely to complete high school and more likely to be incarcerated later in life . One recent study found that exposure to peers in group settings including probation, counseling, and confinement raised teens’ odds of being arrested as adults by a factor of 14 . Juvenile detention also affects young people’s future needs for education, housing, and jobs, as arrest records follow youth for decades .

What Works for Justice-Involved Youth?Alternatives to detention, especially community-based positive youth development approaches, offer better chances for success for young people and their

Young people who have been sentenced to juvenile prison were 37 times more likely to be arrested again as adults, compared with similar youth who were either not caught or not put into the system.

communities . In addition, programs consistent with evidence-based practices—like those that promote positive mentor and community connections—or therapeutic approaches in the community also increase the likelihood of positive outcomes . A 2013 study found that youth charged with a crime but not placed in detention were 20% more likely to graduate from high school and almost 20% less likely to be involved in the adult criminal justice system by age 25, compared to youth placed in detention .

Who Benefits?When young people succeed, we all benefit . Taxpayers and governments save money; communities are safer; families can remain intact; and young people have the chance to grow, succeed, and contribute .

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The Graduated Response Approach: Three Benefits

A graduated response approach (GRA) promotes positive behavior change, offers support to workers, and is critical for a safer community .

Benefits to YouthResearch clearly shows that probation alone does not have a positive impact on a youth’s likelihood of future offending . Youth who receive a disposition of probation alone are, on average, 14 times more likely to be rearrested than youth with similar characteristics who were not adjudicated .

Research also shows that youth in detention have an even higher likelihood of future offending compared to youth who are not adjudicated . Youth who receive a disposition of placement are 37 times more likely to be rearrested than non-adjudicated youth with similar characteristics .

To be successful, probation and detention should be used to facilitate development of pro-social skills and relationships . This is why a GRA focuses on protective factors and building new social assets for youth . By incentivizing youth to engage in pro-social activities that enable their growth and development, we help them engage in positive behaviors, build their connection with the community, desist from offending, and make a more successful transition to adulthood . A GRA is designed to help youth in the juvenile justice system become accountable, responsible, and competent members of society .

Benefits to Workers and Juvenile Justice AgenciesTraditionally, it has been the worker’s responsibility to fill many roles: resource provider, mentor, advocate, advisor, officer, compliance monitor, and violation enforcer . Workers can thus face a significant burden as they navigate tough decisions concerning compliance and non-compliance with court orders; the significance of probation violations; the frequency, appropriateness, and availability of incentives, rewards, and sanctions; and the purpose and appropriate use of detention .

A GRA allows workers and youth to work together to identify incentives, behaviors, and sanctions that are meaningful to the youth . It provides a framework for

2X

14X

37X

Brief Experience Probation Placement

Chance of Rearrest

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workers to reward good decision making and positive behavioral changes, as well as respond to problematic behaviors without unnecessarily detaining youth .

A GRA benefits juvenile justice agencies by maintaining a structure for data collection in the quality assurance process . Tracking youth progress, along with the rewards and sanctions applied, will provide information to the agency, the courts, and the community about the effectiveness of the GRA and supervision strategies .

Benefits to the CommunitySince its creation more than 100 years ago, the goal of juvenile probation has been to promote a safer community while supporting youth in their development and transition to adulthood .

Research shows that the juvenile brain is still developing and is hardwired to reward impulsivity, which can lead to poor decisions . Research also tells us that incentives and rewards are effective tools in helping to re-shape behaviors and decision making . An incentive- and reward-based approach to probation encourages positive development of the juvenile brain to make better decisions in the community .

Research indicates that to reduce future offending, support workers and juvenile justice agencies, and establish a safer community, it is necessary to have an approach to juvenile probation—such as a GRA—that is centered on positive youth development and incorporates meaningful incentives .

Source: Miller v . Alabama, 567 U .S . (2012); and Steinberg, L . (2014) . Age of opportunity: Lessons from the new science of adolescence. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt .

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Keys of a Graduated Response Approach

The purpose of a GRA is to help shape a youth’s behavior . The use of incentives/rewards helps increase desired behaviors, and the use of sanctions helps decrease undesirable behaviors .

A GRA addresses the needs of youth, system workers and stakeholders, and communities .

• For youth, it ensures that incentives and sanctions are derived from best practices and implemented consistently across workers .

• The approach helps workers focus case plans on the most important strengths and needs for each youth, and it allows integration with other tools and best practices implemented by the department .

• A GRA allows departments to conduct ongoing evaluation of its effectiveness through data collection .

• Finally, communities are safer when justice-involved youth learn and use strategies and skills taught through the GRA for long-term, sustainable success .

Characteristics of a Successful GRAIn order for any graduated response approach to be effective, the approach must be:

• Timely: Youth learn best when rewards or sanctions are provided immediately after the identified behavior occurs . Both the specific rewards or sanctions used and the process for implementing them need to be prompt and timely .

• Developmentally appropriate: A GRA considers many different factors (e .g ., age, developmental level, learning style, culture, and mental health issues) . The agreed-upon behaviors, rewards, and sanctions must address each individual youth’s unique needs and situation .

• Integrated: A GRA should complement and be integrated with other strategies and tools, such as the risk assessment, the strengths and needs assessment, effective practices for community supervision, and other services that are part of the overall supervision plan .

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• Individualized: Rewards and sanctions can only shape behavior if they are meaningful to the youth . Through a GRA, the supervising worker and the youth identify positive and negative behavior together and then respond in a way that is meaningful to the youth .

• Evolving: The approach needs to allow for increasing expectations of pro-social and other positive behaviors as they are learned and demonstrated . Similarly, if undesirable behaviors escalate, it may be necessary to adjust the sanctions proportionally .

• Equitable: Parameters must be fair and equitable to promote consistency across workers and across youth . More importantly, the approach must be developed to promote equity when applied to varying demographic groups and to eliminate the unintended consequences of implicit and structural bias .

Building on Strengths, Learning Over TimeResearch on social learning, youth development, and best practices shows that youth in the juvenile justice system are capable of learning new skills, exhibiting new behaviors, and establishing new pro-social relationships . For many youth, the link between their behavior and consequences, whether positive or negative, is not well-established . A GRA facilitates learning by teaching youth that they have control over both their behavior and its consequences .

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Structuring Intake and Release Decisions

PurposeThe intake and release process has three components: intake, case monitoring, and release and early release . The goal of structuring intake and release decisions is to prioritize safety while taking positive youth development and behavior into consideration . Structuring intake and release decisions helps to ensure the following .

1 . Youth, staff, and the community are safe .

2 . Youth needs are matched with appropriate programs .

3 . Youth are housed in the least restrictive manner possible .

4 . Youth are joined with the community as soon as possible .

Intake An intake decision typically is made to determine where the youth will be housed during his/her time in custody . Traditionally, this decision is made by using the youth’s current offense and some amount of the youth’s prior history .

NCCD approaches intake as the first of three decision points in the intake and release process . Because a youth’s current offense is used to determine the disposition recommendation, intake decisions regarding custody and housing levels should be informed by factors related to the youth’s safety, needs, and vulnerability .

The intake decision should be informed by the youth’s risk of violent behavior in order to determine security level and stratification and to ensure that the youth is housed in the least restrictive manner possible . Intake should also be informed by the youth’s identified

Key Consideration

As noted in other parts of this guide, secure placement has been shown to have serious, long-term negative consequences for young people . Thus, secure placement should only be considered as a last resort and only for young people who have committed the most serious and violent offenses . Additionally, youth should be housed in the least restrictive environment possible . Secure placement considerations should be determined by using a detention assessment or a valid risk assessment and a disposition matrix .

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release date . Release and early release decisions should consider the youth’s response to services and programs, progress in education, and available community connections .

Customized Intake and Release AssessmentsNCCD works with agencies to structure intake and release decisions by developing customized assessments for each of the three phases above . NCCD and the agency identify specific goals and decisions being made regarding intake, housing, and release . We work together to determine the best structure for these decisions and develop a customized assessment with information and data the agency already has . NCCD leverages research on best practices, positive youth development, adolescent brain development, and our national expertise on risk and needs to guide assessment development and to improve long-term outcomes for individuals, families, and communities .

needs in order to match the youth with services and appropriate programs . Finally, intake should include consideration of the youth’s likelihood of being victimized to ensure that the youth is housed in an environment where he/she will be safe .

Case Monitoring The youth’s progress must be monitored throughout his/her time in the facility . It is also important to reassess risk of violence, identified needs, and likelihood of victimization . Youth should receive services that target their most current identified needs and should have the opportunity, through their response to services and positive behavior, to move to a less-restrictive placement or a lower housing-level classification .

Release and Early Release Structuring decisions around release helps to ensure youth are prepared for a successful transition back into their community, sometimes earlier than their planned

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To Learn More

For more information, please contact Chris Scharenbroch, Associate Director of Research Analytics, at [email protected]; visit our website, www .nccdglobal .org; or call (800) 306-6223 .