FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

Why are graduated sanctions so important to the juvenile justice system?

Graduated sanctions have become the predominate conceptual framework for organizing interventions with juvenile offenders. The model first received widespread attention when it was included as a key component of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) Comprehensive Strategy for Serious Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (1993). Beginning in fiscal year 1998, OJJDP was appropriated $250 million for the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Program with the 2002 reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. This program, designed to assist states and local units of government promotes greater accountability in the juvenile justice system and helps communities become more effective in holding juvenile offenders accountable, reducing recidivism, and protecting students, school personnel, and the community from drug, gang and youth violence.

What is the continuum of graduated sanctions?

At the front end of the continuum is prevention - actions taken to stop juveniles from entering the juvenile justice system in the first place. Immediate sanctions are targeted toward less serious non-chronic offenders. Early interventions are designed to hold youth accountable for their actions by sanctioning illegal behavior and, if required, securing needed services. Typical immediate sanctions include restorative justice interventions. Immediate sanctions are frequently delivered in the context of diversion from formal court processing. Intermediate sanctions are appropriate for juveniles, who continue to offend following immediate interventions, youth who have committed more serious offenses, and some violent offenders who need supervision, structure, and monitoring, but not necessarily confinement. This type of sanction includes community-based corrections such as intensive supervision, day treatment, probation, electronic monitoring, and alternative schools. Secure care provides treatment and transition services while a youth is removed from home, usually in a state training school or a residential treatment facility. Transition services span the final phase of confinement and the first phase of reentry and include pre-release planning with the offender, family, community agencies, and the local team interacting with the court during this phase.  Reentry is a series of sanctions applied during the planned period of community supervision following release, leading to case closure/termination.

What is the target population of graduated sanctions?

The primary target population for graduated sanctions is youthful offenders who could be referred by law enforcement, schools or juvenile courts to:  1) community-managed alternatives, i.e. probation; 2) detention; and 3) secure confinement.

What specifically do graduated sanctions do in regard to reentry?

It encourages juvenile courts to become active in reentry at this deep end of the system.  A population of youth who tend to have relatively few services expended on them. They tend to lag far behind their peers in educational attainment, have more extensive histories of involvement with drugs and suffer from mental health disorders at far higher rates.  Juvenile courts are encouraged courts to become actively involved with court-based reentry programs. Reentry planning begins at the disposition hearing (exit upon entry) or at least at the time the youth enters an institutional setting so that active plans for success have been made by the time release to the community occurs. Key programming occurs in the community (i.e., housing, employment and substance abuse treatment). Many systems need to improve the sharing of information before and after placement, between institutions, where offenders are placed, and the agencies that provide services. Also, treatment and programming should be consistent between the institutional phase and the reintegration phase so that gains made while in placement are reinforced in the community.