NCJ Number
209591
Date Published
January 2003
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This report presents two case studies of different evaluation strategies used in Washington and Pennsylvania to evaluate the effectiveness of juvenile justice programming.
Abstract
Evaluation of juvenile justice programming is critically important for a variety of reasons, including assuring that State funded programming is effective and for identifying areas in need of improvements. The Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center (JJEC) project, a joint project of the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), focuses on developing and enhancing the juvenile justice evaluation capacity of States. In an effort to assist State administrators who are considering their own evaluation strategies, this report describes the evaluation strategies employed in Washington and in Pennsylvania to evaluate OJJDP-funded programs and initiatives. While each State should develop its own unique evaluation strategy that best responds to the needs of the community, these case studies provide ideas and information on two evaluation practices. The key distinction between the evaluation strategies employed in each State is that the Governor’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee in Washington State requires that every program, no matter how small, be evaluated by an outside evaluator while the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) employs a planning process to strategically identify the programs that merit formal evaluation. Each case study describes the evaluation strategy and policies and discusses the lessons learned through using each strategy. The report also identifies the critical factors that the two strategies share, including the presence of experienced and managerial-level juvenile justice specialists and the commitment to adequately fund research and evaluation goals.