Study Method
The executive director of the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA) helped to solicit collaboration from juvenile facilities by announcing the study at the Council’s 1998 annual conference. The directors of the Illinois Department of Corrections, Juvenile Division, and the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission provided access to the St. Charles Reception Center in Illinois and the New Jersey Training School for Boys. The study provided training, technical assistance, assessment materials, and funding for reimbursement of staff time. Local staff agreed to collect assessments for 100 randomly selected male youth in Illinois and 200 in New Jersey.Altogether, 320 youth were asked to participate; of these, all but 5 agreed. Twelve assessments were not included for technical and logistical reasons. Seven parents withdrew their child’s data. Data were available, then, for 296 youth (94 in Illinois and 202 in New Jersey), reflecting a response rate of more than 92 percent for youth approached in both sites.4
For all youth who agreed to participate, the data collector briefly demonstrated the operation of the computer program and made sure the youth was comfortable proceeding independently after the first module, which gathers demographic data. The data collectors remained available at a distance (to ensure privacy) throughout the assessment.
Background information (age, race/ethnicity, school grade, admission date, number of prior offenses, and current offense) was abstracted from reception center files in each location. Because a youth could have more than one current offense, up to four current offenses were provided from justice records for each youth.
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