Four main "structured decisionmaking" tools improve juvenile justice programming in a graduated sanctions framework: risk assessment, needs/strengths assessment, a disposition matrix for linking offenders with a continuum of sanctions and programs, and a protocol for evaluating programs against the most effective evaluated programs. After briefly describing the first three tools, this bulletin features the fourth one, i.e., the protocol for evaluating programs against the most effective evaluated programs. Analyses of more than 600 studies of the effects of programs on delinquency were conducted at the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies. These analyses have provided the foundation for evaluating juvenile justice system programs against "best practices." Based on this work, this bulletin describes a protocol for evaluating juvenile justice system programs. The Vanderbilt study identified the following major features linked to the effectiveness of juvenile delinquency programs: the nature and mix of program services provided to the juveniles, the amount of service the program provides to each juvenile, and the characteristics of the juvenile served by the program. Using these guidelines, the Juvenile Sanctions Center has designed a prototype instrument, the Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEP), which itemizes the characteristics of effective programs. This instrument consists of a rating scheme that assigns points to specific program characteristics according to their relationship to recidivism outcomes in the available research. Different ratings and point allocations are defined for various programs, classified according to the primary service they provide. The SPEP measures only a few key characteristics related to the delinquency-reduction potential of the average program of a given type. 1 table and 15 references