afeFutures seeks to prevent and control youth crime and victimization through the creation of a continuum of care in communities.

The SafeFutures Program To Reduce Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Violence (SafeFutures) is a 5-year demonstration initiative supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). SafeFutures seeks to prevent and control youth crime and victimization through the creation of a continuum of care in communities. This continuum of care enables communities to respond to the needs of youth at critical stages in their development by providing them with appropriate prevention, intervention, and treatment services and imposing graduated sanctions on juvenile offenders. SafeFutures community-based program operations and evaluation activities began in late spring/summer 1996.¹ Six local government grantees—Boston, MA; Contra Costa County, CA; Fort Belknap Indian Community, MT; Imperial County, CA; Seattle, WA; and St. Louis, MO—were selected to represent urban, rural, and American Indian communities that demonstrated some prior experience with and a continuing commitment to reducing crime and victimization through comprehensive community assessments, strategic planning, and interagency collaboration.

In response to OJJDP’s interest in determining the success of site-specific efforts, each community commissioned a local evaluation, and OJJDP funded a national cross-site evaluation performed by The Urban Institute. (For a more detailed discussion of the national evaluation, see Rossman, Kopczynski, and Morley, 1999, and Rossman et al., 1998.)

This Summary is one in a series of reports based on data collected for the cross-site evaluation. It is based on information obtained through multiple visits by evaluators from The Urban Institute to each SafeFutures community during the first 3 years of the initiative, followup discussions with selected participants to clarify specific aspects of program implementation, and analyses of secondary documents.² Future reports will address selected aspects of the initiative, including specific components of the SafeFutures model (such as gang intervention efforts) and key elements of the service delivery system (such as systems reform and strategic planning).

This Summary focuses on the sites’ implementation of SafeFutures during the first 3 years of the initiative. The first major section describes the SafeFutures initiative, its goals, and its theoretical foundation. The first section also includes an overview of the demonstration sites and a discussion of each site’s management structure for SafeFutures. Subsequent major sections discuss each of the nine SafeFutures components. Each of these sections provides a brief description of the component and selected examples of local programs addressing that component. The examples were chosen to illustrate the variety of programs implemented and are not intended to serve as an exhaustive inventory of SafeFutures programming. Rather, examples reflect programming that appears promising, includes innovative features, or highlights such broad themes as interagency collaboration, systems reform, cultural competency, and/or advocacy.

To illustrate the potential pitfalls facing initiatives such as SafeFutures, the Summary includes some examples of programs that were discontinued or that encountered particular difficulties. The final section identifies lessons learned during SafeFutures’ first 3 years. It is important to acknowledge that sites are continuing to build on community strengths and respond to the challenges noted in this Summary. A full account of the sites’ continued progress and challenges will be documented in the final evaluation report.

Comprehensive Responses to Youth At Risk: Interim Findings From the SafeFutures Initiative

OJJDP Summary • November 2000