This report, the third installment in a series devoted to revolutionizing detention programs and practices in America, has a clear message for jurisdictions: You can build a more objective, consistent, efficient and taxpayer-friendly admissions process. It also has a clear message for the hundreds of thousands of American children who are unfairly detained each year: Help is coming — and it starts here.
Most states have vague eligibility requirements that permit almost any child to be permitted to detention for almost any reason. In fact, on any given day, seven out of 10 youth in detention are charged with nonviolent acts of technical probations.
Before overhauling your admissions process, consider these five tips, courtesy of Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI) sites who’ve been there, done that: 1) involve key stakeholders; 2) collect current admissions data; 3) consider using consultants; 4) engage frontline staff; and 5) seek out success stories from other sites.
Some incentives for reforming admission practices and policies include: Boosting staff and system accountability, cutting costs, enhancing public safety and improving conditions of confinement.
In exceptional cases, Cook County officials can override their RAI’s final score, but they must secure a supervisor’s approval before exercising this option.
By automating their RAI, Multnomah County eliminated human error as a factor in calculating RAI score tallies and gave supervisors the ability to quickly and easily analyze aggregate RAI scores.
Experts recommend that sites keep track of two key outcomes — rates of rearrest and failures to appear in court — and use this data to frequently validate how well their screening tools are working.
Sites use RAIs during intake interviews to assign a risk status (low, medium or high) to each individual to determine who gets detained, who qualifies for detention alternatives and who can be released. For juveniles who enter the system, detention center staff continue to use RAIs to revise initial scores as case factors change.
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