NCJ Number
202569
Date Published
September 2001
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This report describes the progress of the Arizona Juvenile Justice System in implementing the recommendations of the independent audit of the system conducted by the Deloitte Consulting firm in the late 1990's.
Abstract
The overall finding of the audit was that the "Arizona Juvenile Justice System is one of the best in the Nation." There were four core recommendations for improvement, however. These pertained to the needs for more involvement of families, more collective ownership through the use of outcome and performance measures, more collaboration, and more joint technology support. Beginning in 1998, even before the release of the final audit report, the Juvenile Justice Services Division (JJSD), established an agenda for addressing the recommendations. The JJSD established a 5-year Strategic Plan that was consistent with the State Supreme Court's Justice 2002 Strategic Plan, which incorporated the primary recommendations of the Deloitte audit. Four key strategic areas targeted by Justice 2002 matched up well with the four core recommendations of the audit. Regarding family-involvement recommendations, a number of specific goals and objectives related to family involvement, early intervention efforts, and more accountability were written into the 5-year Strategic Plan. Among the actions taken have been new requirements for probation officers to make every effort to involve families in their work, funding for family counseling, a requirement that treatment providers include a family component in treatment, home-based family counseling, and interagency projects to improve family involvement. Other measures in the 5-year Strategic Plan focused on collective ownership through the use of outcomes and performance measures. Efforts in this regard have included the use of baseline outcome data to develop specific performance expectations for the juvenile courts related to such key indicators as probation officer supervision (contacts), school contacts, community service hours, fees collected, and overall successful completion of probation; the establishment of performance outcomes for selected juvenile treatment providers; the creation of an Operational Review Unit; and outcomes for providers serving Drug Court youth in two counties. Regarding the recommendation for more collaboration, the JJSD has sought out and accepted opportunities for collaboration, which have included a partnership with the Department of Education, the creation of a statewide network of Citizen Advisory Boards, and interagency collaborative projects. Regarding the recommendation for improved joint technology support, the JJSD has embarked upon several strategies aimed at maximizing the availability of the Juvenile Online Tracking System information to others, while cooperating and collaborating with others to move Arizona toward a more seamless system of automated information. Appended JJSD Strategic Plan 1998-2002