Report 2011-129 Recommendations

To increase the amount of information related to realignment and to allow stakeholders to identify the population of juvenile offenders sent directly to adult prison, Corrections should obtain complete offense dates from the courts, if possible.

To ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data the counties submit into the Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical System (JCPSS), Justice should follow its procedure to send annual summaries of the JCPSS data to the counties for review and to conduct occasional field audits of the counties' records.

To ensure that its Automated Criminal History System (criminal history system) contains complete and accurate data related to juvenile offenders, Justice should implement a process to ensure that staff enter data correctly into the system.

To ensure that its criminal history system contains complete and accurate data related to juvenile offenders, Justice should implement a procedure similar to the one it employs for the JCPSS to verify the accuracy of information the counties submit.

To ensure that it has the information necessary to meaningfully assess the outcomes of juvenile justice realignment, the Legislature should consider amending state law to require counties to collect and report countywide performance outcomes and expenditures related to juvenile justice as a condition of receiving block grant funds. In addition, the Legislature should require the board to collect and report these data in its annual reports, rather than outcomes and expenditures solely for the block grant.

The Legislature should consider revising state law to specify the intended goals of juvenile justice realignment. To assist the Legislature in this effort, the board should work with stakeholders to propose performance outcome goals to use to measure the success of realignment.

To offset potential disincentives and provide counties with a more consistent level of funding from year to year, the Legislature should consider amending the block grant funding formula. For example, the formula could be adjusted to use the average number of felony dispositions over the past several fiscal years instead of using only annual data.

To improve the usefulness of its reports so that they can be used to assess the outcomes of realignment, the board should work with counties and relevant stakeholders, such as the committee that established performance outcome measures for the block grant, to determine the data that counties should report. To minimize the potential for creating a state mandate, the board should take into consideration the information that counties already collect to satisfy requirements for other grants.

To improve the usefulness of its reports so that they can be used to assess the outcomes of realignment, if the Legislature chooses not to change the law as suggested, or if the counties are unable to report countywide statistics, the board should discontinue comparing outcomes for juveniles who receive block grant services to those who do not in its reports.

To maximize the usefulness of the information it makes available to stakeholders and to increase accountability, the board should create policies and procedures that include clear, comprehensive guidance to counties about all aspects of performance outcome and expenditure reporting. At a minimum, such guidance should include specifying how counties should define when a juvenile has received a service and whether certain services, such as training, should qualify as serving juveniles.

To maximize the usefulness of the information it makes available to stakeholders and to increase accountability, the board should publish performance outcome and expenditure data for each county on its Web site and in its annual reports.

To maximize the usefulness of the information it makes available to stakeholders and to increase accountability, the board should consider verifying the counties' data by conducting regular site visits on a rotating basis or by employing other procedures to verify data that counties submit.

To increase the amount of juvenile justice data the counties make available to the public, the board should work with counties on how best to report these data.

To assist the Legislature in its effort to revise state law to specify the intended goals of juvenile justice realignment, the board should work with stakeholders to propose performance outcome goals to use to measure the success of realignment.

To ensure that counties do not maintain excessive balances of unexpended block grant funds, the board should develop procedures to monitor counties' unspent funds and follow up with them if the balances become unreasonable.