Grant Details

The Second Chance Act of 2007 (Pub. L. 110-199) provides a comprehensive response to the increasing number of incarcerated adults and juveniles who are released from prison, jail, and juvenile residential facilities and are returning to their communities. The FY 2013 Second Chance Act Juvenile Reentry Program helps ensure that the transition the youth make from secure confinement facilities to the community is successful and promotes public safety. A secure confinement facility may include a juvenile detention center, juvenile correctional facility, or staff-secure facility. Eligible juveniles must have been confined under juvenile court jurisdiction. The goal of Section 101 of the Second Chance Act is to support eligible applicants who will develop and implement comprehensive and collaborative strategies to increase public safety and reduce recidivism and address the challenges that reentry poses. Within the context of this initiative, BJA and OJJDP do not envision reentry to be a specific program, but rather a process that begins when the juvenile is first incarcerated (pre-release) and ends with his or her successful community reintegration (post-release), evidenced by lack of recidivism. The objectives of this process are to provide the juvenile with appropriate evidence-based services—including addressing individual criminogenic needs—based on a juvenile reentry plan that relies on a risk/needs assessment that reflects the risk of recidivism for that juvenile, in both a pre- and post-release setting.

Approved uses for award funds include the following:

1. Use Evidence-Based Assessment Instruments for Reentry Planning. The research literature provides strong evidence that offender populations should be assessed to determine their risk and needs factors and supervision levels and services so that they can receive appropriate interventions. Use of reliable, validated, and normed assessment instruments for a specific population increase the chances that individuals will be matched with the appropriate type of treatment and reentry services.
2. Target Risk Factors that Affect Recidivism. While juvenile offenders reentering the community have a variety of treatment and behavioral needs, special focus should be given to address the dynamic risk factors most closely associated with reoffending behavior. Examples include a history of anti-social behavior, having delinquent peers, gang involvement, and problems with substance abuse. OJJDP urges applicants to use the results of needs and risk assessments to identify the most urgent needs to address.
3. Provide Sustained Case Planning/Management in the Community. Reentry services should begin when the individual is first incarcerated and continue when the individual is released into the community. Since most offenders are at the greatest risk of rearrest the first few months after release, services should be most intensive at the time of release to the community. OJJDP urges applicants to use consistent and sustained pre- and post-release case management and supervision that responds to the offender’s transition from incarceration to the community for at least 6 months.
4. Support a Comprehensive Range of Services for Offenders. Based on an individual offender’s risk/needs assessment, OJJDP encourages applicants to make available a comprehensive range of programs targeted to the needs of individual offenders, including treatment services that employ age appropriate cognitive, behavioral, and social learning techniques; educational, literacy, vocational, and job placement services; mentoring services; substance abuse treatment (including alcohol abuse); housing; mental and physical health care services; and programs that encourage safe, healthy, and responsible family and parent-child relationships that enhance family reunification, as appropriate.