Graduated Sanctions Principles

1. The juvenile court judge should be the leader of the core team sustaining  leadership throughout the planning and implementation phase.
2. The core team should be balanced between systems and community representatives and public and private service provides.
3. The planning publication Graduated Sanctions for Juvenile Offenders: A Program Model and Planning Guide, should be the primary reference source.
4. Jurisdictions should develop a continuum of graduated sanction responses at all levels of graduated sanctions.
   a. A comprehensive strategy would continue treatment and rehabilitation with reasonable, fair, humane and appropriate sanctions and offer a continuum of care consisting of diverse programs.
   b. The core team should formulate its own action plan based on locally identified needs and service gaps.
   c. The plan should include practical, cost-efficient approaches to implementation.
   d. Programs should reflect an understanding, based on research results, that well-structured and well-implemented community based programs are at least as effective, and much less costly, than residential placement or secure care.
   e. Programs need to target for change the known predictions of crime (i.e. criminogenic needs) when intervening with youth. The ability to do this is inherent in a graduated sanctions system that uses structured risk and needs assessment tools to guide case decision making and case planning.
5. A system must have a wide range of potential sanctions and interventions in order to effectively link various types of offenders with the most appropriate program.
   a. The programmatic interventions that comprise the continuum should, to the extent possible, be based on evidence about what does and does not work.   
   b. Promising and proven programs for immediate and intermediate sanctions, including those focused on special needs populations should be identified.
   c. Existing programs and services at the immediate and intermediate sanctioning levels should be documented.
   d. Create special intervention programs, often in conjunction with other public agencies, for special needs groups such as status offenders or youth with mental health needs.
   e. Develop intermediate sanction programs, such as intensive supervision, day treatment, and wrap around services to serve senior offenders and high risk youth, and specialized programs to serve unique sub-populations such as juvenile sex offenders or female offenders.
6. Jurisdictions should initiate or improve structured decision making to assure fairness and objectivity and to link delinquent youth to appropriate programs and services in a graduated sanctions continuum.
   a. All youth need to be held accountable for each offense and a system response is required that is certain, quick and consistent.
   b. Sanctions should be escalated in response to repeat offending.
   c. The systems response to each offender should be equally concerned with accountability, risk control, and the youth’s need for services.
   d. Assessments and decision making can be substantially improved in terms of consistency and appropriateness through the use of objective assessment tools.
   e. Assessment results should drive decisions at the individual case level and at the agency level. All assessment decisions must have four key properties: validity, reliability, equity and utility. 
   f. The level of resources devoted to a case should be driven by assessment results and directly related to the public’s need for protection and the youth’s need for service intervention.
   g. Equal diversion options including culturally competent and gender specific programs for special needs populations.
   h. Equitable treatment and proportionality in determining sanctions should be emphasized.
   i. Reduction in minority overrepresentation should occur at the front end of the juvenile justice system, particularly in secure detention.
   i. Jurisdictions should make a commitment to keep as many youth as possible in community-based programs and minimize the number of youth placed in secure state operated correctional facilities.
   j.  Jurisdictions should create a multiple immediate sanctioning mechanism for dealing with diverted youth (e.g. institution, teen courts, specialized diversion programs, victim-offender mediation.
   k. Involvement in programming to address any underlying needs that may contribute to offending behavior should be required.
7. Establishment of mechanisms for clearer and more consistent communication between collaborating agencies across traditional policy and practice boundaries should be documented.
8. Improvement should be considered of the jurisdictional management information system (MIS) to capture data and provide management reports that allow for improved decision making and resource allocation. Data should justify the continuation, expansion, modification or elimination of existing graduated sanctions programs and initiation of new ones, where indicated.
9. The graduated sanctions continuum should become self-perpetuating. To achieve that end, jurisdictions should encourage their staff to utilize cross training and mentoring to new staff.
10. Each jurisdiction should do an impact evaluation, which should demonstrate the effect of graduated sanctions on the overall juvenile crime rate and a reduction in detention rates and a corresponding increase in diversion rates for special needs offenders, including minority youth, female offenders, and youth with mental health and learning problems.