NCJ Number
183157
Date Published
January 1999
Length
174 pages
Annotation
This report describes the initiatives of the 36 jurisdictions selected under the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s first Open Solicitation Program, which aimed to identify and support outstanding programs to address criminal justice problems with local and innovative perspectives.
Abstract
Each program had to incorporate measurements of implementation progress and goal attainment. The grant program emphasized five requirements: innovation, implementation, monitoring, community collaboration, and measurement of results. Local problem definitions and program goals were diverse. The program aims included coordinating services, improving system responses, providing better treatment of substance abusers and other special populations, revising sentencing processes, reducing witness intimidation, providing services to at-risk youth, and many others. Police, courts, corrections agencies, prosecutors, schools, and local governments (including Alaskan Native and American Indian entities) often had primary leadership rolls. All initiatives described some form of collaboration among various agencies as instrumental to implementation of the innovative program. Program planning challenges differed among sites. Implementation challenges included practical and often political problems that required solutions before plans could be put into action. Nevertheless, most programs have made measurable progress in the early stages of implementation and have described methods of assessing the progress of implementation. Tables, profiles of each program site, and appended contact list