Services for Status Offenders - Issues Raised by Private Provision of Publicly Financed Services (From Neither Angels nor Thieves Studies in Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders, P 899-937, Joel F Handler and Julie Zatz, ed. - See NCJ-84933)

• NCJ Number: 84957
• Author(s): W Pollak
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 39 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; National Academies Press
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available on microfiche as NCJ-84933

Annotation

Issues raised by private provision of publicly financed services include the responsiveness and quality of private providers, the management and financing methods used by the public sector, and the tenor of the public/private relationship in which the public sector pays and manages and the private sector produces.

Abstract

The first section of this paper describes the environment of juvenile justice and child welfare systems through which status offenders flow and in which services for them are financed and provided. This description, which is based on current arrangements in Cook County, Ill., provides background for the issues addressed in the following sections of the paper. It aids both in framing the general character of the relationship between the public sector and private providers examined in the second section, as well as in identifying dimensions of public sector financing and management. These dimensions and their influence on availability, appropriateness, quality, and cost of privately produced services are examined in the third section of the paper. The paper does not attempt to reach conclusions, since the information provided is based largely on interviews with participants in the system. Rather, it uncovers significant dimensions of public financial and management arrangements and speculates about how choices along those dimensions may affect provider performance. Eleven references are listed. (Author summary modified)