Last year, the Performance-based Standards (PbS) for Juvenile Correction and Detention Facilities program won the 2004 Innovations in American Government Award from the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University and the Council for Excellence in Government.  The 10-year-old Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) program provides juvenile justice agencies with standards regarding issues such as security and programming to improve operations at their correctional facilities. 

When OJJDP initiated the PbS project, it contracted with the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA), which was charged with the creation of the standards and helping to implement them in juvenile correctional facilities nationwide.  Since that time, the program has been successfully implemented in 32 states and the District of Columbia. 

Recently, The Corrections Connection Network News talked with Kim Godfrey, Deputy Director of CJCA, about the development of PbS and the program's recent award.  She discussed with CCNN the need for national standards in the juvenile justice field as well as what the Innovations in American Government Award means to CJCA.

Q: How were the standards developed?  What kind of research/data collection was involved?

Godfrey: In 1994 the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) of the Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice, released a report that documented dismal conditions in the facilities housing juvenile delinquents across the country. The Congressionally-mandated study found that in the nearly 1,000 facilities operating at that time, there were "substantial and widespread deficiencies" in living space, security, control of suicidal behavior and health care. The facilities were overcrowded, youths and staff were suffering high rates of injuries, suicidal behavior was frequent and health and mental health care was inadequate and sometimes unavailable. The report entitled: Conditions of Confinement Study (COC) 1994 also found that the conditions were no better in facilities that met correctional accreditation standards. Joining businesses and government in the movement toward performance measurement, OJJDP called for the development, field testing and implementation of national performance-based standards and a new way of doing business for juvenile corrections. The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA) was selected to direct the project, called Performance-based Standards for Youth Correction and Detention Facilities, now known as PbS.

OJJDP envisioned the development of national performance-based standards that set the highest goals and standards for how facilities provide safety, order, security, programming, justice, health/mental health and reintegration services. To address the shortcomings of existing correctional standards, OJJDP required each standard to be linked to outcome measures (numerical expressions of occurrences such as rates of injuries, percents of youths receiving mental health screening) to understand, monitor and mostly improve the quality of life within the facilities. OJJDP also required the creation of a project Advisory Board with members representing national organizations and relevant government entities. The breadth of the Advisory Board membership provided a solid basis for PbS' unique position as the only performance-based standards for youth facilities and nationally-recognized system of continuous improvement as a winner of the 2004 Innovations in American Government Award from the Ash Institute at Harvard University.

The development process, briefly, began with the Advisory Board members listed below who established the basic framework of six areas of operations the standards would cover: safety, order, security, health/mental health, programming and justice. 
* CJCA
* American Correctional Association (ACA)
* National Juvenile Detention Association (NJDA)
* National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NAJFCJ)
* National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC)
* The National GAINS Center for People with Co-Occurring Disorders in the Justice System
* American Bar Association, Juvenile Justice Center
* Youth Law Center (YLC) and
* Correctional Education Association (CEA). 

Next, smaller "working groups" of practitioners, experts and advisors refined and enhanced standards in each area and developed outcome measures and data elements that could be counted and would effectively indicate a facility's performance toward meeting the standards. All of the standards and outcome measures were reviewed by the field, pilot tested in facilities and implemented incrementally across the country, beginning in 18 facilities.  [They have since become] part of the operations of 141 facilities in 32 states. The standards have remained unchanged since first implemented in 1998 because they reflect the input of such a comprehensive group of practitioners, experts, national organizations and individual users.

A final key strategy to the standards' development is the continuous feedback loop CJCA developed with the field - directors, line staff and facility administrators. PbS is continually improving its data collection protocols, website, glossary, outcomes and processes to stay meaningful, effective and address the needs of the field.

Q: Can you discuss why there was a need in the juvenile justice field for national standards?

Godfrey: At the time PbS was launched, the national juvenile justice system was being declared "broken," delinquent youths were being labeled "super predators" needing the severity of criminal prosecution and adult prison. What happened within the walls and razor wire of the "kiddie prisons" was little known or cared about. The public perception of juvenile justice was often formed by the media coverage of a single horrendous crime committed by a youth. Juvenile justice leaders and youth workers were highly frustrated with the inability to demonstrate the positive things they do for incarcerated youths. The public was similarly frustrated with the inability to hold the facilities and government agencies accountable for operations and expenditures of tax dollars. The data available for juvenile corrections showed there were about 100,000 youths in residential placement annually in about 3,000 facilities and the COC study showed the facility conditions were deplorable.

The first step to improving the conditions of confinement was to collect information (data, not anecdotes) to find out what was going on, what was working and what needed to be improved. PbS asks facilities to collect data twice a year on about 100 outcome measures and reports back to sites in easy-to-read bar graph charts that vividly depict each individual facility's outcomes to enable a quick analysis of performance over time and in comparison to the field.  The outcomes reflect critical indicators such as injuries, suicidal behavior, assaults, time in isolation, average duration of isolation or confinement, percentages of youths receiving suicide and mental health screenings, changes in academic achievement from admission to release and percentages of youths completing educational, life skills and behavior management curriculum. PbS provides over-time comparisons to show prevention of future risks and comparison to the field average to provide a ballpark expectation of performance for the first time. Ultimately, with experience and further research, CJCA expects to establish benchmarks to guide all agencies and facilities.

Before PbS, the data did not exist; the mere counting of events usually was the first step of a pending legal action or investigation [into] an agency. Now, for the first time since juvenile institutions opened more than 100 years ago, data is available across the country on the conditions of youth correctional facilities and the services provided to the delinquents in custody. Moreover, the agencies responsible for the youths and facilities volunteer to collect the data and use it to improve operations and demonstrate accountability.

An example: On Dec. 13, 2000 in South Dakota, a federal court judge approved the settlement agreement (Christina A. v Bloomberg) giving the Department of Corrections one year to abolish the use of restraints as punishment, limit the use of isolation and increase mental health and education services for the youths - and demonstrate that the practices had changed in the juvenile training school in Plankinton. Under the watchful eye of the Youth Law Center, the agency implemented less punitive behavior management systems and presented to the court its PbS data demonstrating no incidences of restraints, reduced use of isolation and increased services delivered to the youths. In December 2001 the federal court judge found the state in substantial compliance and ended its involvement. On Jan. 14, 2003, South Dakota Gov. M. Michael Rounds signed Executive Order 2003-01 recognizing PbS as "an effective and efficient process of program evaluation designed to improve conditions of confinement" and ordered the corrections agency to maintain active participation in PbS in all juvenile facilities and to report PbS results at least annually to the state legislature.

Q: What do the standards address?   

Godfrey: A complete set of PbS goals, standards, outcome measures, expected practices and processes is available on CJCA's website, in the Resources Section, listed as "The Standards:" www.pbstandards.org

Q: How are the standards designed to help juvenile justice agencies improve their services and facilities? 

Godfrey: PbS is a tool for juvenile agencies to identify and monitor critical areas of performance and demonstrate effectiveness using national standards and performance outcome measures. The PbS system of continuous improvement provides facilities and agencies with a blueprint for safe, productive and successful management of youths in custody and a model for proactive learning through a cycle of activities:
* Data collection
* Analysis of results, including comparison to previous data collections, the rest of the participants and review of critical outcome measures
* Planning and implementing improvements, guided by the PbS expected practices and processes linked to each outcome measure, which are measured by the next collection of data as the cycle starts again.

PbS participants volunteer to join the program because they want to change and improve the quality of life for confined youths and demonstrate success with data. PbS provides performance information that shows staff and managers the impact of their efforts. PbS can provide indicators of problems, such as an increasing number of occurrences of suicidal behavior, and it can demonstrate successes, such as improved reading and math scores when youths leave.

Q: Where are the standards being used?

Godfrey: PbS is now in more than 140 facilities (some state facilities, some county-operated facilities and some with both) in the following 32 states and the District of Columbia: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Q: What does the Innovations in American Government award mean to CJCA?

Godfrey: The recognition by the Innovations Award is a tremendous confirmation of CJCA as the leader of youth corrections and youth services agencies across the country - in just 10 short years of existence as a non-profit organization. The Innovations Award is given to programs that creatively and effectively address some significant public-sector problem. CJCA [was] formed in 1994 to improve youth correctional services and practices and unite leaders to promote and lead advancements in juvenile justice. Because PbS started just months after CJCA incorporated, the two are a bit synonymous so the award means a great deal to our staff and our members.
 
It also is testimony to the vision set by CJCA's executive director, Ned Loughran, that PbS become a tool to help agency directors, facility managers and line staff improve the way they treat youths and staff and that would become a catalyst for positive, sustainable change in individual facilities as well as field-wide. And it recognizes our invaluable partners in making PbS a success: each agency director who opened his or her doors and books in the early years to let us in; the long-time and new participating directors, site coordinators and staff working with us to keep PbS improving; OJJDP administrators and our project monitor; our technology team of New Amsterdam Consulting and Abt Associates, the authors of the COC Study who worked from the beginning to make sure PbS addressed the conditions so in need of improvement.