Evaluation of the Cook County Juvenile Sheriff's Work Alternative Program

• NCJ Number: 184261
• Author(s): Susan Plant; Shelby Lunning; Joel Ehrlich; Peter Quigley
• Date Published: August 1999
• Length: 143 pages
• Grant Number(s): 95-DB-VX-0017; 96-DB-MU-0017; 97-DB-MU-0017; 98-DB-MU-0017
• Sponsoring Agency: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
• Corporate Author: Children's Research Ctr
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services; Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The Juvenile Sheriff's Work Alternative Program (JSWAP), first implemented in August 1995 and operated by the Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff's Department of Community Supervision and Intervention, is evaluated in terms of its effectiveness as a sentencing alternative for juvenile offenders.

Abstract

The JSWAP was specifically designed to relieve crowding at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) and to provide a means for juvenile offenders to repay their debt to society through community service. The evaluation of the program documented and assessed the implementation process, identified program modifications for improvement, and suggested guideposts for implementing similar programs in other communities. The evaluation covered the 1995-1998 period and was based on data from Cook County agencies, individual-level data obtained from an offender tracking database designed specifically for the evaluation, and qualitative data from field observations. More than 3,000 juveniles had been referred to JSWAP, resulting in more than 20,000 days of work by JSWAP participants. The number and percentage of adjudicated dispositions to JTDC declined from 722 (11.8 percent) in 1995 to 237 (4.1 percent) in 1997. The percentage of orders including community service declined from 24.5 percent in 1995 to 19.8 percent in 1997. The population of JTDC dropped from a quarterly high of 744 in the first quarter of 1996 to 613 for the same quarter in 1998. As of October 1998, about 60 percent of JSWAP referrals successfully completed the program and the rate of completion increased over the evaluation period. The average time to successfully complete JSWAP was about 70 days. No significant differences on recidivism, however, were found between JSWAP participants and a non-JSWAP comparison group. Nonetheless, it was determined JSWAP was a less expensive alternative to detention and was beneficial to Cook County. Recommendations to improve JSWAP are offered. JSWAP-related forms are appended. References, tables, and figures