Juvenile Accountability Block Grants Program: 2006-2007 Report to Congress

Publisher Marketing: I am pleased to present the Juvenile Accountability Block Grants (JABG) Program Report to Congress for fiscal years 2006 and 2007. During my time as Administrator, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and its partners at the State and local levels have instituted many improvements to the program; one of our most important achievements was the introduction and implementation of a system to measure the performance of local accountability efforts. In 2003, OJJDP introduced a series of JABG performance measures to better determine how well local accountability-based programs were meeting their goals. OJJDP disseminated a set of quantitative performance indicators to the States and directed them to collect data from their local subgrantees and to report annually on the outputs and outcomes of their efforts to hold juvenile offenders accountable for their offenses and to improve local juvenile justice systems. This Report presents the results and analysis from the third and fourth rounds of performance measurement data collected from the States and territories and analyzed by OJJDP. OJJDP is encouraged by what the performance data reveal. States and local governments have embraced the performance measurement initiative, with more States submitting performance measurement data for these reporting cycles than for the first two cycles. The data show that grantees are using their JABG funds to make a difference in the specific outcomes that OJJDP and the Office of Justice Programs deem important. More communities are using evidence-based practices, accountability programming, and interagency communications in juvenile justice systems across the Nation. While the amount of JABG funds allocated to recipients tends to be modest, these funds play a critical role in helping programs and agencies maintain existing services.