State of New Jersey

Prevention and Early Intervention

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Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)

Through its grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission is the lead agency responsible for the replication of the national Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). The Initiative was created by the Annie E. Casey Foundation over ten years ago, and has as its overall goal to reduce the unnecessary and inappropriate use of detention while maintaining public safety and court appearance rates. In April 2004, New Jersey became an official replication site and is awarded $200,000 annually by the Foundation.

The Juvenile Justice Commission leads this Initiative in partnership with a State Steering Committee whose membership includes representation from the Attorney General's Office (including Police and Prosecutors), the Judiciary (including Administration, Judges and Probation), the Department of Children and Families, the Public Defenders Office, the Office of the Child Advocate, the Department of Education, County Administration Representatives, County Youth Services Commission Representatives, the New Jersey Juvenile Detention Association, the Governor's Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee and the Institute for Social Justice. In addition, each county operates its own local leadership through the JDAI County Steering Committees.

New Jersey's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative was initially piloted in five counties: Atlantic, Camden, Essex, Hudson and Monmouth. The Juvenile Justice Commission has documented the overall impact of JDAI as a statewide initiative by reporting annual trends in key indicators of detention utilization, including admissions, length of stay, and average daily population, the overrepresentation of minority youth in detention, and detention alternative program utilization.

The Juvenile Justice Commission and its partners are currently expanding the initiative to an additional five counties: Bergen, Burlington, Mercer, Ocean and Union.

The 2006 JDAI Annual Data Report highlights the following impacts of JDAI collectively in the five pilot counties:

On any given day in 2006, across JDAI sites there were 215 fewer youth in detention centers than in 2003 (the year prior to NJ's participation in JDAI), a decrease of -43%.
Youth of color account for 93% of this reduction, with 199 fewer youth of color in secure detention on any given day.
The average daily population of girls in detention decreased dramatically across JDAI sites between 2003 and 2006, dropping by –61.6%, with 31 fewer girls in detention on any given day.
Across JDAI sites, mean length of stay in detention decreased by -31.6%. On average, in 2006 youth remained in detention 10 days less than they did in 2003.
Disparity in length of stay has been reduced so that across JDAI sites, minority youth no longer remain in detention an average of twice as long as white youth. In 2003, minority youth remained in detention an average of 16.6 days longer than white youth; by 2006, this disparity had been reduced to 5.2 days.
Across JDAI sites, in 2006 over twelve hundred (1,236) fewer youth were admitted to detention facilities than in 2003. Importantly, the proportion of youth admitted for new delinquency charges has increased, thus much of the drop in admissions can be attributed to fewer youth admitted for violations/non-delinquency matters.
Across JDAI sites, the vast majority of youth are released from detention alternatives following successful completion. The proportion of youth discharged as the result of a new charge is very small, less than 10% across sites in 2006.

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