Juvenile Detention Reform in New York City: Measuring Risk Through Research

Executive Summary

The January 2006 closure of New York City’s only alternative to juvenile detention brought the city close to a crisis: family court lost its only alternative pretrial supervision option and the population in local detention facilities was at its highest in three years. This situation also presented an opportunity for the city’s juvenile justice system to take stock of how and when it was using detention—equivalent to jail in the adult context—for youth facing
delinquency charges. The Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator in conjunction with a variety of agencies and entities involved with the juvenile justice system seized this occasion to explore new methods for responding to young people awaiting sentencing that would be more effective at producing positive outcomes for youth and enhancing public safety.

They embarked upon a two-phase reform process, with assistance from the Vera Institute of Justice. First, they conducted a research study and designed an empirically based risk-assessment instrument (RAI) measuring the likelihood that a youth would fail to appear in court or be rearrested during the pendency of his/her case. The tool would be used to help inform family court judges’ decisions about pretrial detention for juveniles. Second,
the group planned a variety of community-based alternatives to detention (ATDs) for young people who did not require secure confinement and could be supervised and better served in their own communities.

This report examines the development of both the RAI and the alternatives to detention and presents preliminary outcomes of the reforms. In examining city data, researchers found that certain pretrial factors, such as an open warrant for a previous delinquency
case or a previous arrest, significantly correlated with failure to appear in court or rearrest. However, other notable factors, such as charge type and charge severity, were found to not correlate with failure to appear in court and rearrest. Both types of findings informed the RAI’s composition.

Information from the Juvenile Justice Research Database—the database used to monitor and assess the RAI and ATD programs, once implemented—suggests that the reform effort is contributing to positive outcomes for youth and communities by a variety of measures.

> Family court judges frequently refer youth who score mid-risk on the RAI to ATD programs, reserving pretrial detention for youth who present the highest risk of failure to appear in court and/or rearrest.

> Detention use at arraignment (first court appearance) has dropped from 32 percent to 24 percent since citywide adoption of the RAI and ATDs—a 25 percent decrease. Far fewer low-risk youth (from 24 percent of a 2006 study sample to 9 percent in a post-implementation 2008 sample) are going into detention.

> Overall, there has been a 30 percent reduction in the rate of rearrest for youth during the time their cases are pending, from 26 percent to 18 percent, between 2006 and 2008.

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This report is from the Vera Institute of Justice. Tom