How Does the Juvenile Justice System Measure Up? Applying Performance Measures in Five Jurisdictions.

Source: (2006) Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

This report describes a performance measures system which reports to the public on how well a juvenile justice system is performing and operating and whether it is achieving its goals. The Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission proposed a new statewide juvenile justice system outcome measures based on the data being collected. The initiative included the system outcome measures, means of data collection, and outcome report formats. South Carolina developed its statewide juvenile justice report card which demonstrates a “new way of doing business” predicated on the principles of balanced and restorative justice and agency accountability. The Deschutes County Department of Juvenile Community Justice presented an outcome-based report card to its community. An update on selected benchmarks is published and disseminated in the Bend Bulletin every 3 months. The Alleghany County (Pennsylvania) Juvenile Probation Department has used outcome-based performance measures for years. In addition, it produced its first system-wide report card in 2003. Like most juvenile court service agencies, Marquette County’s (Michigan) Juvenile Division had no previous outcome-based performance measures. However, in 2005 the division developed and implemented a strategy for measuring outcomes and produced a performance-based report card, and in 2006 published its first report card. In this report, the case is made for measuring and reporting juvenile justice system performance measures. The performance measures in this report are predicated on the goals and objectives inherent in the balanced and restorative justice mission. The projects described were designed to develop, implement, test, and demonstrate a viable performance measures strategy for the juvenile justice system.