Evaluation of the OJJDP FY2010 Second Chance Act Juvenile Offender Reentry Demonstration Projects, 5 United States cities, 2010

In response to growing concerns about recidivism and the welfare of youth who return to communities from incarceration, the federal government passed the Second Chance Act (SCA) in 2008 to authorize funding to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of juvenile reentry programs (H.R. 1593, 110th Cong. 2007). Since then, more than 100 juvenile SCA awards have been made to grantees across the U.S. to improve reentry programming and outcomes for youth returning home after placement in juvenile correctional institutions (State Government Justice Center, 2017). The purpose of this evaluation was to evaluate five FY2010 juvenile SCA grantees who were funded to implement comprehensive reentry programs for high-risk youth, and to provide policymakers, practitioners, and funders with empirical evidence about the degree to which the SCA program effectively reduced recidivism and improved reintegration outcomes for youth offenders, and to inform future comprehensive juvenile reentry efforts. Specific goals of this study included: identifying strong sites for an impact evaluation; assessing the extent to which the sites successfully implemented a comprehensive and integrated model of juvenile reentry for a high-risk, high-needs population; assessing program operations and adherence to reentry principles; evaluating the impact of the SCA programs; determining the cost effectiveness of the SCA programs, and their cost-benefit in terms of crime prevented; and disseminating evaluation findings to practitioner and researcher audiences.