The NCCD worked with administrators in 14 States to assess how many training school youths required long-term confinement and how many would be better served in community-based programs. Training school incarceration rates ranged from a low of 75 per 100,000 in New Hampshire to a high of 156 per 100,000 in Rhode Island. The average age of training school youths varied between 15.1 years in Arkansas to 17.4 years in Delaware, and most youth were male. The racial composition varied widely from State to State. Most youths were committed to training schools for violent or property offenses. The NCCD worked with each jurisdiction to develop an objective risk assessment instrument that would help juvenile justice policymakers determine the level of security required for juvenile offenders. Application of this instrument showed that a significant number of training school youth did not need long-term residential care and that training school beds could be reduced by 31 percent across the 14 States studied. The NCCD also determined that significant cost savings could be realized by providing appropriate community-based services instead of committing youths to training schools. 14 references, 2 tables, and 3 figures