Effective Program Services and Models Associated
with the
Five Graduated Sanction and Intervention Levels for Juvenile Justice

The “Effective Program Services and Models Associated with Five Graduated Sanction and Intervention Levels for Juvenile Justice” was developed as part of the “Improving Juvenile Sanctions: An Intensive Training and Technical Assistance Delivery Project.” This cooperative agreement was established in 2001 the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) to create or improve juvenile accountability based sanctions programming at all five sanctioning levels; immediate, intermediate, community confinement, secure confinement and aftercare. 

Graduated sanctions broadly refer to the continuum of disposition options that juvenile court judges and court staff have at their disposal for delinquency reduction. These sanctions have a dual role, protecting the public and children, and facilitating access to services for the juvenile offender. In the latter role, sanctions provide only the context for service delivery; it is the service programs themselves that are most likely to produce change in offenders by addressing the underlying family, school, peer group, and individual problems. Thus, for graduated sanctions to fulfill their promise of delinquency reduction, they must work to ensure that the right juveniles are connected to the right programs at the right time.

This web tool helps practitioners accomplish this. It divides graduated sanctions into five major levels and presents programs and intervention strategies that work within each of them. Handy links to detailed information and expert program contacts are also provided to enable users to access all of the information they need to connect juveniles and their families to the services they need when they need them.