Services for Status Offenders Under the LEAA, OJJDP, and Runaway Youth Programs (From Neither Angels nor Thieves - Studies in Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders, P 561-597, 1982, Joel F Handler and Julie Zatz, ed. - See NCJ-84933)

• NCJ Number: 84947
• Author(s): S A Kornegay; J L Wolfle
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 37 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

The service for status offenders under the LEAA, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and Runaway Youth Programs provided legitimization as well as funds for State and local initiatives in the deinstitutionalization of status offenders.

Abstract

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 created two new programs that focused on status offenders or included them within their purview. The act created the OJJDP within LEAA to provide direction and technical and financial assistance to States in juvenile delinquency matters. Included in the congressional direction of that program were the goals of deinstitutionalizating status offenders and dependent and neglected children and separating juveniles from adults in detention and correctional facilities. To receive formula grant funds from OJJDP, States had to make a commitment to and then show progress toward meeting those goals. The second new program created by this act was a grant program for runaway centers to be administered by the then Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In reality, however, OJJDP was able to assert only minimal authority over LEAA's discretionary grant awards, and the monitoring practices have been ineffective, consisting primarily of requiring written reports from State planning agencies and individual grantees and contractors. When it began in 1975, the runaway youth program was the one Federal program created solely to serve the status offender population. The focus of the program, however, has expanded to include other youth who cannot be considered runaways or who are unlikely to have had contact with the juvenile justice system. Twenty-nine references are listed.