NCJ Number
76886
Date Published
1980
Length
55 pages
Annotation
Findings and recommendations are summarized for 22 evaluation reports written by local and State level criminal justice planning agency personnel in Florida in 1980.
Abstract
Types of reports included narrative monitoring reports, process evaluations, and impact assessments. An evaluation of five juvenile delinquency prevention and diversion programs in Dade County, Fla. revealed that the programs enhanced youth development but produced little demonstrated reduction in juvenile delinquency. Findings implied that these programs should address youth's developmental needs rather than delinquency. Such programs should assist youth in achieving a sense of competence and usefulness, permit voluntary membership, and foster a sense of belonging. An evaluation of a Miami, Fla., ex-offender service project providing both temporary shelter and efforts to promote ex-offender employment indicated that the program should emphasize housing, counseling, and employment placement and should deemphasize vocational and educational placement activities. Other evaluations concerned a career criminal program in Jacksonville, outcomes of a work furlough and victim restitution program in Jacksonville, a program in Hillsborough County to assign individual law enforcement officers to specific junior high schools to promote the prevention of juvenile delinquency, and a Palm Beach program to provide sentencing alternatives other than incarceration for certain offenders following an assessment of their needs. Other evaluations focused on the Escambia County Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime program designed to reduce drug abuse and drug-related crime, the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in Gainesville, and the Brevard County crime prevention program. State-level evaluations examined the nonsecure detention program for youths, the counseling and social services program of the Florida Department of Corrections, and the State supreme court's justice data center.