NCJ Number
79326
Date Published
1981
Length
115 pages
Annotation
Findings and recommendations are presented from an evaluation of the Orleans Parish (Louisiana) Juvenile Restitution Project (JRP).
Abstract
The following goals were stipulated for the Orleans Parish JRP in the original grant application: (1) provide a comprehensive program of restitution alternatives for 140 adjudicated delinquents annually, (2) increase the confidence in the juvenile justice system of the victims of juvenile crime, (3) decrease the number of juvenile commitments to the Department of Corrections by 15 percent over 3 years, and (4) decrease recidivism by 25 percent among program participants as compared to similar youth not involved in the program. The evaluation examined process and procedural activities against processing goals, assessed victim satisfaction with the program, and examined program impact on participants through failure rates and arrests and convictions during and after program participation. Long-term recidivism rates could not be analyzed, because only five participants had completed the program at the time of the evaluation. The referral and acceptance of the number of participants specified in the goals was slightly exceeded over 20 months of program operation. During the period covered by the evaluation, 101 participants completed the program. Seventy-one percent of the victims of these participants were interviewed by phone, and over 90 percent had positive feelings about the project. The absence of constant variables precluded measuring any decrease in the number of commitments to the Department of Corrections. Although the program impact on the rearrests of participants is difficult if not impossible to measure, the average rearrests compared favorably with the average arrest history before program participation. Recommendations for improving the program are offered. Tabular data and supplementary material are appended.