NCJ Number
184830
Journal
Sheriff Volume: 52 Issue: 4 Dated: July-August 2000 Pages: 26-28
Date Published
2000
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This article describes the Orange County Sheriff's Office's (Orlando, Fla.) and the Department of Juvenile Justice's Project Impact, a joint venture intended to reduce violence by repeat juvenile offenders.
Abstract
This program was the first in the Nation to target hardcore juvenile criminals on probation, so as to ensure their compliance with court-ordered sanctions. The Sheriff's Office established the Juvenile Arrest and Monitor (JAM) unit to manage the project and develop strategies to reduce juvenile crime in the county. Currently, the JAM unit consists of 6 juvenile probation officers, 10 Orange County deputies, 2 corporals, and 2 sergeants. The JAM Unit enforces a policy of zero tolerance for any violation of probation conditions. During the past year, the unit conducted seven countywide curfew checks on juveniles assigned to community control. Since the project began, noncompliance rates for the targeted juveniles have decreased from 70 percent to between 10 and 20 percent. According to program staff, the program is working because the juvenile probationers know that there will be swift, immediate, and certain consequences if they do not comply with their probation conditions. The JAM unit also conducted seven truancy sweeps during 1999 that resulted in the arrests of 227 juveniles. These efforts are intended to reduce daytime residential burglaries and to keep kids from wandering the streets.