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Client Selection Process
Client screening involves gathering background information from probation reports, psychological evaluations, police reports, school reports, and other pertinent documents. Interviews are conducted with youth, family members, and professionals (e.g., teachers) to determine the types of services required. After evaluating a potential client, DDAP staff present a comprehensive community service plan at the youth's detention hearing and ask the judge to release the youth to DDAP custody.
DDAP designs and implements an individualized community service plan for each youth, addressing a range of personal and social needs such as having positive relationships with others. DDAP staff monitor not only the offender but also the quality and level of services provided by the various social service agencies in San Francisco. Because youth services in San Francisco historically have been fragmented by ethnicity, race, and community, the program seeks to represent and address the needs of youth from the various communities within San Francisco in the most culturally appropriate manner. DDAP offers a more unified approach as a neutral site within the city that is staffed by representatives from CJCJ and other community-based service agencies (e.g., Horizons Unlimited, Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, and the Vietnamese Youth Development Center). The major goals of the DDAP program are to reduce the number of youth in court-ordered detention and provide youth with culturally relevant community-based services and with supervision. DDAP provides an intensive level of community-based monitoring and advocacy not available within the traditional juvenile justice system. Specific DDAP objectives include the following:
In 1997, the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco conducted an outcome evaluation of the DDAP program. The methods of the study employed chi-square statistical analysis. Data were collected from printouts obtained from the San Francisco Department of Juvenile Probation in order to compare a group of DDAP youth with a group of youth who remained within the juvenile court system. Systematic sampling techniques were used to select the comparison group, while the DDAP group was made up of DDAP referrals. The department's printouts showed selected sociodemographic and legal variables (such as the number of prior referrals) for all youth who spent 3 or more days in detention during 1994. Originally, only DDAP referrals during 1994 were to be used (n=189); however, to have a larger sample, additional names were drawn from DDAP referrals during the second half of 1993. Ultimately, 271 DDAP referrals were selected for the DDAP group in the study, and 271 were selected for the comparison group in the study (total n=542). Each printout contained information on referral data, age, race/ethnicity, sex, prior referrals (including the charges), prior risk scores, prior placements, subsequent referrals (including the charges), subsequent placements, and subsequent petitions.
Additional information obtained for the DDAP sample originated from intake forms completed for each DDAP youth. The answers on the forms provided information on the youth's neighborhood, school enrollment status (e.g., the highest grade completed and the number of times expelled or suspended), living arrangements (e.g., whether the youth was living with his or her parents), drug use, and poverty indicators (e.g., living in public housing and receiving welfare assistance).
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DDAP clients are identified primarily through referrals from the city's public defender's office, the probation department, community agencies, and parents. Admission to DDAP is restricted to youth currently held, or likely to be held, in secure detention. Youth selected are those deemed at "high risk" for engaging in subsequent delinquent activity. Selection is based on a risk assessment instrument developed by NCCD that provides a score to help determine the youth's danger to others or to himself or herself and the likelihood that the youth will abscond (Wiebush et al., 1995). The target population is youth whose risk assessment scores indicate that they would ordi-narily be detained. This method of selection has been termed the "deep-end" approach (Miller, 1998). This distinction in DDAP's selection process is important, because by focusing on detained youth, the program ensures that it remains a true diversion alternative rather than evolving into a net-widening program. Youth are screened by DDAP staff to determine if they are likely to be detained and whether they present a threat to the community.
Because DDAP deals only with youth who are awaiting adjudication or final disposition, the youth's appropriateness for the program is based on DDAP's judgment of whether they are likely to attend their court hearings and whether they can live in the community, under supervision, without unreasonable risk to the community. This practice is similar, in principle, to what occurs in the adult system when an individual is released on bail pending a court hearing (e.g., arraignments and trial).