Evaluation of FY2010 Juvenile SCA

The purpose of this research is to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the FY 2010 OJJDP Second Chance Act projects. The research team proposes a mixed-method evaluation strategy that includes evaluability assessments (EA) of the five sites participating in the evaluation, process and fidelity evaluations of each of the five sites, and a two-tiered impact evaluation of the sites as appropriate. It is expected that the EAs will identify the strongest sites for more rigorous evaluation and the top 2-3 sites will be included in the more intensive "top tier" impact evaluation. The second tier sites will be evaluated using mostly administrative data and any comparison groups that can be identified. For the top tier sites, the impact evaluation will use the most rigorous evaluation design that can be supported by each site. Random assignment will be used but if that is not possible, they will use quasi-experimental contemporaneous comparison groups. If random assignment is possible, the researchers propose that sample enrollment will span a period of 15 months with youth interviews 30 days before release, 6 month post-release outcomes obtained via youth interviews, and 12 month outcomes obtained through administrative data. In addition to the process and impact evaluations, the study will include cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses for each of the sites. ca/ncf