First Convening of Deep End Local Pilot Sites Held

Reduc­ing the num­ber of youth in cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tions and out-of-home place­ments is key to reform­ing the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem. The Foun­da­tion has select­ed six local sites – Bernalil­lo Coun­ty, N.M.; Jef­fer­son Parish, La.; Lucas Coun­ty, Ohio; Mar­i­on Coun­ty, Ind.; the city of St. Louis, Mo.; and Washoe Coun­ty, N.V. – to pilot strate­gies to safe­ly reduce com­mit­ments and oth­er out-of-home place­ments fol­low­ing delin­quen­cy adju­di­ca­tion. The first con­ven­ing of the pilot sites was held in late June, 2013 in Chicago.

Del­e­ga­tions made up of judges, agency admin­is­tra­tors, non-prof­it rep­re­sen­ta­tives, pros­e­cu­tors, law enforce­ment, pro­ba­tion offi­cers and front­line staff and super­vi­sors from all six sites attend­ed the inter-site meeting.

In his wel­come to the del­e­ga­tions, Bart Lubow, direc­tor of the Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group, reflect­ed on the first con­ven­ing of ear­ly JDAI sites some 20 years ago. ​“That first small gath­er­ing of JDAI sites laid the ground­work for what is now 200 JDAI sites in 39 states across the coun­try,” he said. ​“This group of six pilot sites will be build­ing on the reforms start­ed by JDAI.”

The agen­da pro­vid­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for dia­logue on devel­op­ing strate­gies for mov­ing from assess­ment to action, using data to iden­ti­fy reform oppor­tu­ni­ties and pro­mot­ing behav­ior change through effec­tive case plan­ning. Christi­na Ball, deputy chief pro­ba­tion offi­cer, Mar­i­on Coun­ty, Ind., said that ​“the inter-site con­fer­ence allowed our del­e­ga­tion the oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk specif­i­cal­ly about what we want­ed to accom­plish with this work and reach con­sen­sus on the spe­cif­ic core ele­ments. More impor­tant­ly, how­ev­er, it pro­vid­ed us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have open dis­cus­sions on broad­er top­ics like the pur­pose of probation.”