21 September 2009
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – For the first time, Missouri’s courts have a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the tools they use to meet the supervision and program needs of juvenile offenders. Although the state’s courts for nearly a decade have recognized the importance of using standardized assessment and classification techniques to identify the needs of juvenile offenders, the lack of a standardized definition of recidivism prevented Missouri’s courts from being able to evaluate systematically the actual impact of the programs they use. A report recently released by the Supreme Court of Missouri’s state courts administrator’s office, however, now provides a standardized definition of recidivism as well as the first analysis of re-offense rates for Missouri’s juvenile offenders and the factors that influence those rates.
“The standardized definition of recidivism should help juvenile courts by providing an objective measure to evaluate the effectiveness of evidence-based programs selected because of their relevance to problems that truly contribute to recidivism,” said Anne Janku, Ph.D., research manager of the Office of State Courts Administrator’s division of court programs and research. “This is exactly the type of information required to make meaningful decisions at the case management and administrative levels.”
The publication of the recently released “Juvenile Offender Recidivism: 2008 Statewide Juvenile Court Report” makes Missouri one of only a few states currently publishing this type of information on an annual basis. The definition of “juvenile offender recidivism” included in the report, which was informed by a survey of all 45 juvenile officers in Missouri, includes “any youth, referred to the juvenile office for a legally sufficient law violation during a calendar year, who receives one or more legally sufficient law violation(s) to the juvenile or adult court within one year of the initial referral disposition date.”
Among the report’s conclusions, drawn after analyzing a group of juvenile offenders from calendar 2007 to calendar 2008, are that the factors that statistically had the greatest effect on whether a juvenile would re-offend are whether the juvenile:
- Had one or more prior referrals to the juvenile system, especially if the referrals were for assault;
- Had a history of placement outside the home;
- Was between the ages of 13 and 15 when first referred to the juvenile system;
- Had a moderate or severe substance-abuse problem; and
- Had below-average or failing academic performance.
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Contact: Beth S. Riggert
Communications Counsel
Supreme Court of Missouri
(573) 864-1966