The overarching goal of an alternative to detention (ATD) program is to ensure that youth released to the community are adequately supervised instead of being detained. JJI set out to evaluate whether youth would have in fact been detained (that is, are we using the program as an alternative to detention?). Secondarily, we planned to evaluate whether the program ensured that the youth showed up for the scheduled court date and refrained from any new law violations while placed in the community. The research questions that JJI hoped to answer were as follows: 1. How many youth are served in an ATD? 2. How many of those youth would have gone to detention, without the ATD? 3. Are ATDs effective programs for ensuring youth get to their court date? 4. Do ATDs help youth avoid additional charges while the court date is pending? Number of youth served? Programs funded through Community-based Aid, including ATDs, are statutorily required to report data to the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (Nebraska Crime Commission or NCC) (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2404.02(4a)). This requirement is fulfilled when programs enter youth information into the Juvenile Case Management System (JCMS). However, many of these programs serve youth at various stages, some pre-adjudicated and others who have been adjudicated to probation. For an accurate count of youth served, programs must enter data on all youth served. The Office of Probation has indicated that they cannot share any information about youth who are on probation because it is a violation of confidentiality. However, the community-based aid statutes are clear regarding confidential records. Neb. Rev. Stat. §43-2404.02(c) specifically states that: ”Providing the commission access to records and information for, as well as the commission granting access to records and information from, the common data set is not a violation of confidentiality provisions under any law, rule, or regulation if done in good faith for purposes of evaluation. Records and documents, regardless of physical form, that are obtained or produced or presented to the commission for the common data set are not public records for purposes of sections 84-712 to 84-712.09. Furthermore, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2404.02 mandates that the Office of Probation shall share data with the Nebraska Crime Commission, “to ensure that the dataset permits evaluation of recidivism and other measures.” How many of those youth would have gone to detention, without the ATD? In the State of Nebraska, the Office of Juvenile Probation Administration screens youth using the Nebraska Juvenile Intake Screening Risk Assessment prior to making a recommendation on whether a youth should be detained. The data indicates that 26.2% of the youth participating in an ATD were the intended population and scored high enough to be detained, if not for an available ATD. However, once again, in 476 cases the data on RAI score not completed, so we are unable to assess whether youth served in our ATDs would have otherwise been detained. Are ATDs effective programs for ensuring youth get to their court date? JJI sought court data on court dates for the youth served through an alternative to detention from the Court Administrator. Unfortunately, when a youth fails to appear for court that is coded as continued, but the reason the case is continued is not captured. In the future, JJI will build fields to capture information related to court dates and ask programs to track whether the youth appeared in court as scheduled. Do ATDs help youth avoid additional charges while the court date is pending? From the 877 youth examined, only 91 or roughly 10%, had a new law violation between the youth’s date of enrollment in an ATD and the date of discharge. Unfortunately, while these appear to be very promising results, with so much data missing, the results are incomplete and not valid. Overall, the missing data compiled for this report led to an insufficient count of youth participating in ATDs and an inadequate evaluation into how alternatives to detention are being used in Nebraska
