Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/ojjdp/page/2/)
The Trump administration removed the “Girls at Risk” page from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention website, the Sunlight Foundation reported on Oct. 4. It included information about the work of the OJJDP-funded National Girls Initiative (NGI), which has been led in cooperation with OJJDP by the organization I direct, National Crittenton.
Just over two years ago, I was preparing to attend my first FACJJ (Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice) meeting in Washington, D.C., enthusiastic to be working side-by-side with proven professionals in juvenile justice, individuals throughout the country who had voluntarily adjusted their personal and professional lives to better the lives of the youth we serve.
Juvenile justice studies could be weakened by the transfer of the five research managers in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) into the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), said Jeffrey Butts, director of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center.
The W. Haywood Burns Institute (BI) strongly rejects the disturbing and dangerous new policy direction of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) that insinuates that public safety is threatened by efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities (RED).
Seven documents juvenile justice agencies used to track disproportionate arrests of minority youth and compliance with other rules were among the two dozen federal guidance documents the Justice Department recently disavowed, sparking questions and concern across the field. Those documents were part of the batch of two dozen that Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled back last week.
Standing before a room packed with youth, juvenile justice advocates, system practitioners, law enforcement officials and judges last week, Caren Harp, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), made an announcement: OJJDP would be “simplifying” the implementation and compliance of the core protections of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).
By the time she was posing for pictures on the stage of a Hyatt Regency Washington ballroom just blocks from the Capitol with two teenagers with oversized black hoodies that had the words “We Are Not Gang Members” emblazoned on them, the Trump appointee to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention had done a lot of explaining.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is taking a new approach to Title II (the portion of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act authorizing states to innovate efforts to improve juvenile justice systems and ensure the fair treatment of youth) that will facilitate better communication and increase trust between OJJDP and the states. This will give OJJDP more time to focus on compliance and programming assistance, and it will allow states to redirect resources toward reducing disproportionate minority contact (DMC), while at the same time maintaining public safety, holding youth accountable for their conduct and empowering them to live crime-free.
A session at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ annual conference, held here this week, was billed as a chance for attendees to ask questions of Caren Harp, the new head of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
It isn’t often that a district attorney’s race draws as much national attention as the one in Philadelphia did last fall. While much of the country was bemoaning the new national rhetoric that indicated a sharp departure from America’s centrist values on crime and punishment, Philadelphia was singing a different tune.