This paper reports findings from the Evaluation of Teen Courts Project, which studied teen courts in Alaska, Arizona, Maryland, and Missouri. Researchers measured pre-court attitudes and post-court (6-month) recidivism among more than 500 juveniles referred to teen court for nonviolent offenses. The study compared recidivism outcomes for teen…

Follow-up data are often a neglected part of the evaluation of community programs. Yet, they should be an essential part of the information input to the process of judging effectiveness and whether or not the program should continue. This paper presents follow-up data on a juvenile diversion program which has been operating in a small Western…

Diversion projects in California (Los Angeles and Orange Counties) were monitored using client tracking, a simple and basic evaluation procedure. Client tracking was used to provide information about three points in the diversion process: referral to the project, service delivery, and the outcome of the diversion services. The data provided an…

Evaluates an Illinois statewide program to remove status offenders from detention. Found substantially fewer youths were referred to detention but more youths than expected were classified as detainable and subjected to court and agency processing. Suggest this may be due to organizational self-interest and the weakness of community structure.…

Some evaluations have concluded that diversion programs for juvenile offenders (programs intended as community-based alternatives to formal justice dispositions) reduce recidivism only among youths with the least serious offense histories. To investigate the relationship of offense history to program effectiveness, three diversion programs were…