Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education Act

Administrator— The term Administrator means the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Community— The term community means a unit of local government or an Indian tribe, or part of such a unit or tribe, as determined by such a unit or tribe for the purpose of applying for a grant under this Act.

Designated geographic area— The term designated geographic area means a 5-digit postal ZIP Code assigned to a geographic area by the United States Postal Service.

Intervention— The term intervention means the provision of programs and services that are supported by research, are evidence-based or promising practices, and are provided to youth who are involved in, or who are identified by evidence-based risk assessment methods as being at high risk of continued involvement in, juvenile delinquency or criminal street gangs, as a result of indications that demonstrate involvement with problems such as truancy, substance abuse, mental health treatment needs, or siblings who have had involvement with juvenile or criminal justice systems.

Juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity prevention— The term juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity prevention means the provision of programs and resources to children and families who have not yet had substantial contact with criminal justice or juvenile justice systems, that—

Promising— The term promising, when used with respect to a practice relating to juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity prevention and intervention, means a practice (including a service, program, activity, intervention, technology, or strategy) that, based on statistical analyses or a theory of change, the Administrator has determined—

State— The term State means each of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and any other territories or possessions of the United States.

Theory of change— The term theory of change means a program planning strategy approved by the Administrator that outlines the types of interventions and outcomes essential to achieving a set of program goals.

Youth— The term youth means—

Youth gang crime has taken a toll on a number of urban communities, and senseless acts of gang-related violence have imposed economic, social, and human costs.

Drug- and alcohol-dependent youth, and youth dually diagnosed with addiction and mental health disorders, are more likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system than youth without such risk factors, absent appropriate prevention and intervention services.

Children of color are over-represented relative to the general population at every stage of the juvenile justice system. Black youth are 17 percent of the United States population, but represent 38 percent of youth in secure placement juvenile facilities, and 58 percent of youth incarcerated in adult prisons.

Research funded by the Department of Justice indicates that gang-membership is short-lived among adolescents. With very few youth remaining gang-involved throughout their adolescent years, ongoing opportunities for intervention exist.

Criminal justice costs have become burdensome in many States and cities, requiring reductions in vital educational, social, welfare, mental health, and related services.

Direct expenditures for each of the major criminal justice functions, police, corrections, and judicial services, have increased steadily over the last 25 years. In fiscal year 2009, Federal, State, and local governments spent an estimated $258,000,000,000 for police protection, corrections, and judicial and legal services, nearly a 207 percent increase since 1982.

In 2009, State governments spent $5.7 billion dollars to incarcerate youth. The average annual cost to incarcerate one youth is $88,000.

Coordinated efforts of stakeholders in the juvenile justice system in a local community, together with other organizations and community members concerned with the safety and welfare of children, have a strong record of demonstrated success in reducing the impact of youth and gang-related crime and violence, as demonstrated in Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Richmond, Virginia, Los Angeles, California, and other communities.

Investment in prevention and intervention programs for children and youth, including quality early childhood programs, comprehensive evidence-based school, after school, and summer school programs, mentoring programs, mental health and treatment programs, evidence-based job training programs, and alternative intervention programs, has been shown to lead to decreased youth arrests, decreased delinquency, lower recidivism, and greater financial savings from an educational, economic, social, and criminal justice perspective.

Quality early childhood education programs have been demonstrated to help children start school ready to learn and to reduce delinquency and criminal street gang activity risks.

Evidence-based mentoring programs have been shown to prevent youth drug abuse and violence.

Evidence-based school-based comprehensive instructional programs that pair youth with responsible adult mentors have been shown to have a strong impact upon delinquency prevention.

After-school programs that connect children to caring adults and that provide constructive activities during the peak hours of juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., have been shown to reduce delinquency and the attendant costs imposed on the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

States with higher levels of educational attainment have been shown to have crime rates lower than the national average. Researchers have found that a 5-percent increase in male high school graduation rates would produce an annual savings of almost $5,000,000,000 in crime-related expenses.

Therapeutic programs that engage and motivate high-risk youth and their families to change behaviors that often result in criminal activity have been shown to significantly reduce recidivism among juvenile offenders, and significantly reduce the attendant costs of crime and delinquency imposed upon the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

Comprehensive programs that target kids who are already serious juvenile offenders by addressing the multiple factors in peer, school, neighborhood, and family environments known to be related to delinquency can reduce recidivism among juvenile offenders and save the public significant economic costs.

There are many alternatives to incarceration of youth that have been proven to be more effective in reducing crime and violence at the National, State, local, and tribal levels, and the failure to provide for such effective alternatives is a pervasive problem that leads to increased youth, and later adult, crime and violence.

Savings achieved through early intervention and prevention are significant, especially when noncriminal justice social, educational, mental health, and economic outcomes are considered.

The prevention of child abuse and neglect can help stop a cycle of violence and save up to $5.00 for every $1.00 invested in preventing such abuse and neglect.

Targeting interventions at special youth risk groups and focusing upon relatively low-cost interventions increases the probability of fiscal benefit.

Evidence-based intervention treatment facilities have been shown to reduce youth delinquency and to be cost-effective.

States, including Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania, have seen a reduction in juvenile incarceration due to a reallocation of criminal justice funds towards prevention programs.

The rise in homicides in several cities in recent years followed declines in Federal funding provided for law enforcement, educational, health and mental health, social services, and other support to localities for youth, their families, and other community-oriented programs and approaches.