When Well-Intended Alternatives Fail: Avoiding the ... - JDAI Helpdesk

When Alternatives Fail
Avoiding the Unintended Consequences:
the do’s and don’ts
JDAI Presentation, Indianapolis, 2008
Judy Cox
Scott Macdonald
Mike Rohan
Tim Roche

There are potential pitfalls in the
three areas of program
management
• Program Design- programs must be carefully
designed to ensure that they target the real, not
just perceived needs.
• Program Implementation- a well designed
program is worthless if not implemented as
designed.
• Program Maintenance-programs must be
monitored continuously to avoid mission drift
and net-widening.

Do
Don’t
Program
Design
• study the contributors to
detention with a high
degree of specificity. This
includes understanding the
processing points and
corresponding decision
points that contribute to
detention.
• identify contributors to
detention with accuracy
through a triangulation of
methods and data sources.
Example: use three data
sources, such as: aggregate
data on warrants by type;
followed by an examination of
efforts to avert warrants prior
to their issuance; followed by
interviews with youth
returning from warrants.
• adopt an alternative simply
because it has worked
elsewhere or seems to have
face value.
• rely on perceptions or only
one data source, or you may
be building a one legged
table.

Do
Don’t
• use data to decide where
program interventions will
have the greatest impact.
Program
Design
• create appropriate criteria
and desired outcomes at
various pre and post
adjudication points in the
court process to ensure
maximization of
alternatives to detention.
Example:
In a pre-adjudication program,
services should strictly support the
outcomes of court appearances
and provide the least restrictive
support necessary to reduce reoffense
risk, whereas postdisposition
programs may provide
community based alternative
responses to probation violations
or court dispositions by addressing
problem areas through services.
• allow perceived social needs
to become a basis for
program failure.
Example:
Terminating an alternative to
detention because a client did
not go to counseling.

Do
Don’t
Program
Design
• clearly identify target
population. Once the true
factors that contribute to
detention are understood,
include solutions in the
program design.
Example:
Substance abuse relapse is
addressed at an Evening
Reporting Center through an
evidence based adolescent
substance abuse treatment
curriculum.
• consider involving
community partners who
have knowledge of the
community and a history of
working with at-risk
adolescents in the design
and contracts.
• develop programs that mix
populations of risk and need
in to one approach that can
not be individualized.
• overlook the value of nonprofits
either by not
including them as partners in
service delivery or by
awarding contracts without a
true partnership where work
is conducted as a team.

Do
Don’t
Program
Design
• have a well developed plan
on how to handle program
failures that provide
responses other than
detention.
• differentiate between
program rule violations,
technical probation
violations and new law
violations.
• use detention as a
consequence for every type
of failure within and
alternative program, from
rule infractions to new law
violations.
• create levels of intensity of
supervision within an
alternative program and a
continuum of sanctions and
responses to program
infractions.

Do
Don’t
Program
Implementation
• clearly Identify roles of
all staff. Make sure staff
understand the values
and goals of the
program.
• make sure that contract
staff and program staff
understand who the
target population is and
be sure to match the
level of service to the
appropriate client.
• use structured screening
and assessment tools to
make sure that risk level
of client matches the
program intervention.
• apply services that are not
necessary. This is a
common pitfall in which
net-widening occurs. It can
result in low risk offenders
escalating deeper in to the
system, as well as the
denial of higher risk
offenders being accepted
into the appropriate
alternative programs.

Do
Don’t
Program
Implementation
• choose the right
staff, who share the
values of the
program and who
are invested in the
success of clients.
• employ contract staff
and program staff
who understand and
relate to families and
youth and who can
deliver culturally,
family centered and
strength-based
services.
• choose staff or
contract with a service
provider who does not
have experience
working with the
target population. All
Staff should relate to
the clients and families
and should be
naturally generous in
offering assistance and
advocacy.