Since 1992, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has demonstrated that jurisdictions can safely reduce the use of secure detention while strengthening their juvenile justice systems and protecting public safety. With reform efforts in more than 75 jurisdictions in 19 states and the District of Columbia, JDAI is now operational in those places responsible for almost 75% of the country’s detained youth population.

A new JDAI report, "Beyond Detention: System Transformation through Juvenile Detention Reform," shows that reducing the use of pretrial juvenile detention, the jailing of youth not yet found delinquent, resulted in system-wide juvenile justice improvements. In three model sites—which include Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), Multnomah County, Oregon, (Portland), and Santa Cruz, California—that have followed key detention reform strategies, communities reduced racial disparities, sent fewer youth to state youth prisons, increased the involvement of families and youth in their rehabilitation, and improved the juvenile justice systems’ ability to make appropriate decisions about where youth should be supervised to protect public safety and receive services.

“Beyond Detention: System Transformation through Juvenile Detention Reform” is the 14th monograph in the series, “Pathway’s to Juvenile Detention Reform,” published by the Annie. E. Casey Foundation, and is available on the JDAI Help Desk website at http://www.jdaihelpdesk.org