Chapter 1
Highlighting Major Accomplishments

FY 2002 brought challenges, accomplishments, and new directions at OJJDP. Accomplishments included improving dissemination efforts, reaching out to the faith-based community, and sponsoring several major conferences. In addition, a new Administrator was named to head OJJDP.

During this time, the Office also continued to focus its efforts on programs that help prevent, intervene in, and treat delinquent behavior by funding activities that provide youth with skills and values that will enable them to achieve their potential. The Office also worked extensively on child victimization issues, public safety and law enforcement, youth gang initiatives, and tribal youth programs.

OJJDP continued to provide critical statistical information to the field during FY 2002, including data about juvenile crime rates. The Office is especially pleased that the steady decline in juvenile crime arrests is continuing, according to data reported annually by local law enforcement agencies nationwide to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The most recent data show that the juvenile arrest rate for violent crime in 2001 was 44 percent below its peak in 1994, reaching its lowest level since 1983, while the rate for murder dropped 70 percent from its peak in 1993. In 2001, law enforcement agencies in the United States made an estimated 2.3 million arrests of persons under age 18, down 4 percent from 2000.

This chapter highlights OJJDP's major accomplishments in FY 2002. These accomplishments, together with the other activities discussed elsewhere in this Report, illustrate OJJDP's ongoing commitment to helping the nation address its many juvenile justice issues.

New Administrator

J. Robert Flores was sworn in as Administrator of OJJDP on April 17, 2002. Mr. Flores, who has experience in both the public and private sectors, served in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1989 to 1997. Before joining DOJ, he was an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan. More recently, Mr. Flores was Vice President and Senior Counsel for the National Law Center for Children and Families. Mr. Flores also was a congressional appointee to the Commission on Online Child Protection.

During his tenure as Administrator, Mr. Flores hopes to expand the role of faith-based organizations and community groups in delinquency prevention efforts; increase OJJDP's collaboration with other agencies; continue to address the disproportionate representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system; and look for innovative ways to assist. American Indian and Alaska Native communities in their efforts to address juvenile justice issues and reduce delinquency.

An OJJDP satellite videoconference on December 6, 2002, featured a discussion with Mr. Flores. Topics included OJJDP research findings and initiatives; program priorities, including child prostitution, disproportionate minority confinement, tribal youth programs, and truancy; and resources available through OJJDP. Information about the videoconference is available on OJJDP's Web site.

Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative

Helping ensure that serious and violent juvenile offenders safely and successfully return to their communities after leaving correctional institutions was a major focus of OJP and OJJDP in FY 2002. The Office was one of many federal partners participating in the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, an innovative program that awarded more than $100 million in funding to 68 programs that target serious, high-risk juvenile and adult offenders returning from commitment in a state training school, a juvenile or adult correctional facility, or, where necessary, a residential treatment facility. The goals of the initiative, discussed in chapter 4, are to reduce recidivism; enhance public safety; equip returning offenders with the ability to become productive, law-abiding citizens; and leverage existing community resources by fostering linkages and accessing currently provided services.

New Approach to Sharing Information

Although sharing pertinent information with juvenile justice practitioners, policymakers, and the public remains a priority at OJJDP, the Office began updating and streamlining its dissemination efforts in FY 2002. Changes include targeting mailings of publications and program solicitations to more specifically defined audiences and encouraging readers to download documents from the Office's Web site rather than ordering paper copies. This new approach to information dissemination, which has helped reduce paper clutter for OJJDP's constituents and has brought considerable savings in postage and print costs to taxpayers, is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 9.

A major new dissemination activity in FY 2002 was the introduction of OJJDP News @ a Glance. This popular bimonthly newsletter provides up-to-date notices of agency activities, recent publications, funding opportunities, and upcoming events.

Program Solicitations and Peer Reviews

As part of OJJDP's efforts to streamline its publications process, the Office instituted a new approach to promoting the program solicitations that announce availability of funding opportunities. Rather than printing bulk copies of the solicitations, OJJDP used online contacts, such as listservs and Webmasters, to promote the availability of program announcements. One result was lower print and mail costs, as most organizations downloaded the solicitations from the OJJDP Web site. In addition, because of increased exposure through online promotion, the number of applicants rose.

During FY 2002, OJJDP issued 8 program solicitations and received more than 1,400 applications in response. To ensure that only programs of the highest quality are funded, OJJDP conducts an intense peer review of all eligible applications for competitive discretionary funding. Peer reviewers include practitioners, researchers, and academicians from the public and private sectors. OJJDP convened 80 peer review panels to evaluate applications for the 8 programs competitively funded.

Outreach to Faith-Based Groups

OJJDP made a concerted effort in FY 2002 to reach out to faith-based groups, which historically have not been a part of its activities. The Office expanded its electronic and print mail lists to include more faith-based organizations, thus making these organizations more aware of opportunities for funding. In November 2001, OJJDP published a Fact Sheet about faith-based programs. Public/Private Ventures' Evaluation of Faith-Based Programs describes a research and demonstration effort to involve faith-based institutions as the anchoring organizations within local partnerships designed to address the developmental needs of high-risk juveniles.

OJJDP also encouraged existing grantees to recognize the role that faith-based organizations can play in community prevention efforts. The National Youth Gang Symposium featured a workshop on faith-based approaches to gangs. The National Mentoring Center sponsored a workshop to show mentoring programs how they might collaborate with faith-based organizations. Faith- and community-based initiatives were also the topic of a meeting of the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Several faith-based organizations also were selected to participate in OJJDP grant programs. For example, 12 percent of OJJDP's Juvenile Mentoring Program grants were awarded to faith-based organizations. Faith-based groups also participate in several of the community coalitions funded through the Drug-Free Communities Support Program and the Title V Community Prevention Grants Program. All of the above programs are discussed later in this Report.

Major Conferences

OJJDP also sponsored and participated in several major conferences during FY 2002:

• The third National Youth Gang Symposium, held in June 2002 in Orlando, FL, drew 1,200 participants. The event offered an array of activities and information focusing on innovative and viable gang-related programs and strategies. The conference and other OJJDP gang initiatives are described in Chapter 5.
  
  
• OJJDP also participated in the first National Youth Summit held in June 2002 in Washington, DC. The summit, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in collaboration with several other federal agencies, brought together a diverse group of young people and adults to promote positive youth development.
  U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft addressed the summit.
  
  
• In August 2002, more than 2,000 professionals involved in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting crimes against children gathered in Dallas, TX, for the 14th Annual Crimes Against Children Conference, sponsored by OJJDP and presented by the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center and the Dallas Police Department. Attendees included law enforcement and child protective services workers, attorneys, child advocates, and others who work directly with cases involving crimes against children. For more information about the conference, see Chapter 2.
  
  
• The first White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children was held October 2, 2002, in Washington, DC. OJJDP and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children joined the White House in sponsoring the conference. President Bush presented the keynote address, and OJJDP released a major new series of Bulletins summarizing findings from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2). The conference and NISMART findings are discussed in Chapter 2.

Youth Court Achievements

OJJDP had several major accomplishments involving youth courts during FY 2002. OJJDP and the National Youth Court Center (NYCC), which the Office funds, designated September as the first National Youth Court Month. As part of the observance, NYCC disseminated an online action kit to help communities promote youth courts. Earlier in the year, OJJDP's youth court program was recognized at the United Nations' Special Session on Children. An OJJDP-funded youth court training package received a prestigious national award from the Association of Educational Publishers. Finally, the NYCC Web site received the 2002 "CivicMind" award. OJJDP's youth court activities are discussed on Chapter 3.