NCJ Number
79025
Date Published
1978
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The efforts of the National Inter-Agency Task Force on Juvenile Justice Program Collaboration to facilitate the development of community-based services for status offenders as alternatives to detention and correction institutions are described.
Abstract
The National Inter-Agency Task Force on Juvenile Justice Program Collaboration is composed of 16 national organizations with local affiliates that serve youth as an aspect of their programs. Collaborations were developed in five local target sites: Connecticut, Spartanburg, S.C., Pima County, Ariz., Oakland, Calif., and Spokane, Wash. Education and training programs were conducted in all the sites in order to build the capacities required to develop community services for status offenders. Collaborations in each of the five sites have not reached the stage of developing and operating programs aimed at creating alternatives to incarcerating status offenders. Some of the activities are counseling and job development, foster parent programs, tutoring programs, runaway programs, peer support groups, family counseling, and truancy and alcohol programs. Some of the problems encountered include official resistance to volunteer involvement in areas which have been the focus of professionals, the development of long-range funding, the development of widespread and sustained advocacy for improved treatment of status offenders and other troubled youth, and fragmented efforts that target narrow dimensions of the needs of youth.