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Justice for Juveniles? How Funding Affects the Delinquency Outcomes for Juvenile Justice Reforms
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JUSTICE FOR JUVENILES? HOW FUNDING AFFECTS THE DELINQUENCY OUTCOMES FOR
JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORMS
A Thesis
submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
Master of Public Policy
, B.A.
Washington, DC
April 14, 2010
UMI Number: 1476407
All rights reserved
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UMI 1476407
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JUSTICE FOR JUVENILES? HOW FUNDING AFFECTS THE DELINQUENCY OUTCOMES FOR
JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORMS
Alayna Michelle Stone, B.A.
Thesis Advisor: Jonathan Jacobson, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
While consensus about what role the juvenile justice system should play in the
lives of young people has recently shifted from a punitive position focused on
punishment to a more moderate position focused on public safety in conjunction with
effective rehabilitation, little research has explored how state juvenile justice agencies
actually use their funding to support reform efforts. This study examines the effects of
fiscal policies on juvenile recidivism in seven state juvenile justice agencies from 1998-
2008. The results reveal that funding reforms do not have consistent statistically
significant effects on future arrest and commitment rates in states where funding reflects
a commitment to juvenile justice efforts that focus on rehabilitation. Changes in secure
expenditures has statistically significant effects on total crime rates only in the third year
after changes in expenditures, while a statistically significant relationship between
community expenditures and the total crime rate is not found after one year. Why these
findings are not significant are discussed as well as possible limitations that could have
resulted in the lack of significant effects.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
When the first juvenile justice system was created in 1899, its sole purpose