Indiana Begins Journey Toward JDAI Statewide Expansion

Indi­ana launched its statewide expan­sion dur­ing a ​“kick­off meet­ing” on August 12, 2011, attend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from five coun­ties, the state’s JDAI steer­ing com­mit­tee, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, and the W. Hay­wood Burns Institute. 

About 65 atten­dees heard open­ing remarks from Indi­ana Supreme Court Jus­tice Steven David; Judge Mary Harp­er, a mem­ber of the board of trustees of the Indi­ana Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Insti­tute; and Michael Dempsey, direc­tor of the Divi­sion of Youth Ser­vices from the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Correction. 

David, Harp­er, and Dempsey – each rep­re­sent­ing one of the three agen­cies lead­ing the expan­sion – wel­comed key stake­hold­ers from state agen­cies. They also wel­comed offi­cials from John­son, Lake, Porter, and Tippeca­noe coun­ties, the first four coun­ties to join their sis­ter site, Mar­i­on Coun­ty (Indi­anapo­lis), as JDAI expan­sion communities.

“The Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive is a col­lab­o­ra­tion of stake­hold­ers who care about improv­ing the lives of our chil­dren,” said David. ​“JDAI is chang­ing the land­scape of how we have tra­di­tion­al­ly approached deten­tion and replac­ing the old with what are the best prac­tices for the deci­sion-mak­ers, the child, and the community.” 

Mar­i­on Coun­ty’s suc­cess set an exam­ple that stim­u­lat­ed this statewide expan­sion. The coun­ty has reduced its deten­tion pop­u­la­tion by near­ly 50 per­cent, with­out sac­ri­fic­ing pub­lic safe­ty, since it became a local JDAI site in 2006. 

The kick­off meet­ing capped a process that began in 2009 when Indi­ana began to explore statewide expan­sion. Soon after­ward, John­son, Lake, Porter, and Tippeca­noe coun­ties were iden­ti­fied as ini­tial expan­sion sites.

Fol­low­ing the open­ing remarks, stake­hold­ers from those coun­ties attend­ed a series of work­shops. The top­ics includ­ed: inte­grat­ing scale work with local work; defin­ing the roles of state and local coor­di­na­tors; and devel­op­ing a risk-assess­ment instrument. 

John­son, Lake, Porter, and Tippeca­noe will fin­ish addi­tion­al required train­ings – risk-assess­ment instru­ment design and data uti­liza­tion – in 2012. Mod­el-site vis­its are also planned. A sec­ond cohort of coun­ties – Clark, Elkhart, and Howard – con­tin­ues to build their local col­lab­o­ra­tives. Each vis­it­ed Marion

Coun­ty in May and June 2011 to learn about that county’s expe­ri­ence and will con­tin­ue the orga­ni­za­tion, edu­ca­tion, and immer­sion process dur­ing the rest of the year.